Work in the Spirit

Back in 1992, I purchased and read Work in the Spirit, by Miroslav Volf, my theology prof at the time. Volf was a humble and kind professor, but he possessed an impressive intellect and a memorable discipline for study. I remember a conversation he had with a student who had "only" read one of the textbooks once. "Any book worth reading once," Professor Volf said, "is worth reading twice." So in that spirit, and in light of the recent change in my employment status, I recently picked Work in the Spirit back up and reread it.

Back in '92, my impression of the book was that it was solid, though not inspiring. On a second rereading, I think the book is both better and, in a few places, a bit worse than I remember it.

Some parts of it are really pretty interesting.

"After Western civilization has climbed up the ladder of the Protestant work ethic to a state in which incessant work has become one of its main features, it has pushed this ladder aside but continued to work even more frantically. Work thrives today more on the insatiable hunger for self-realization than on the Protest work ethic." (p. 129)

"God did not create human beings simply to be servants but above all to be God's children and friends. As much as they need to do God's will, so also they need to enjoy God's presence. In order to be truly who they are, they need periodic moments of time in which God's commands and their tasks will disappear from the forefront of their consciousness and in which God will be there for them and they will be there for God -- to adore the God of loving holiness and to thank and pray to the God of holy love." (p. 137)

"The dynamic character of human needs is a specifically human phenomenon. It is grounded in the permanent self-transcendence of human beings. What human beings need is always beyond the boundary of what they actually have and are, so they live in an endless spiral in which today's desires glide into tomorrow's needs. Depending on the culture, the movement of the spiral might be slower or faster. The upward-moving spiral itself seems inherent to the human condition." (p. 150)

That last point, about the "permanent self-transcendence of human beings", with the result that the sphere of what humans think they need is constantly growing, was new to me. I wasn't unaware that human beings are in that state – after all, I am one – I just hadn't heard it described as "permanent self-transcendence". In other words, I've only ever heard that particular trait described in negative terms. The fact that at least some aspects of that trait might be a good thing was an intriguing idea.

In addition, I admire his attempt to reframe Christian reflection on work in light of "new creation". It's sometimes claimed that theology can't progress in, say, the same way that the hard sciences can: but I think the newfound emphasis (in, oh, say, the last century or so) on the eschatological dimension of Christianity is a genuine advance. It's also one that hasn't quite worked its way through all the various fields and spheres which theology touches, and Volf's book is a valuable contribution to the effort to do so.

At the same time, there are specific areas of the book which I think are a bit weak. Most of them are details which don't touch the main thesis of the book, but some of them are fairly central. As one example, Volf's critique of Luther's concept of vocatio (pp. 106-110) didn't quite work for me: all it seemed to show was that Luther's formulations needed a bit of tweaking and redirecting, not complete reworking. Somewhat more central, I'm not sure that his attempt to understand all work charismatically has sufficient Biblical warrant. Paul seems to restrict the charisms to work that occurs within the sphere of the Church. Even the charisms of, say, evangelism or healing, which are directed outwards, are still the appropriate work of the Church. And practically, I think that you weaken the idea of charisms by extending it to the entire sphere of work: and specifically, you weaken it more than you strengthen the idea of work by applying it to charisms. At Zango, I used to say repeatedly, "If everything is a high priority, then nothing is." And as a purely practical matter, if everything is charismatic, then nothing is. I have great admiration for Volf's attempt to understand work pneumatalogically and in light of the new creation (here he reminds me of Richard Hays' The Moral Vision of the New Testament), but I think that trying to understand it charismatically, i.e., through that specific manifestation of the Spirit's work, overly weakens the idea of charisms.

I should be clear that I'm not dismissing Volf's work. His central idea of human work as a cooperation with God, and as "building blocks" for the new creation, is a fascinating one, and it makes me think critically about my own contributions (or lack thereof) to the eschaton. It's definitely a worthwhile read. But there are parts that I would probably have constructed somewhat differently.

Fireworks in Yachats

Galena, Caedmon and I are spending the fourth of July with Galena's parents in Yachats, Oregon. They've got a house set back only slightly from the beach, and we had a front-row seat (as it were) to the fireworks display they do every year out on the point. A few pictures: Warming up: Getting going: The ocean under the fireworks: More.

Merkury Wireless Digital Photo Frame

For my father-in-law's 60^th birthday, my wife and I wanted to get him a digital photo frame, but because we wanted to be able to update the pictures remotely, in real time, we wanted a wireless frame as well. Our preference would have been one of the Momento frames, but because we'd procrastinated, ordering from Amazon would have taken too long, so we stopped by the local Fry's instead. Fry's had at least three dozen different frames to choose from, but only one supported wireless, a 15" frame from Merkury Innovations, for a little less than $300. So that's the one we picked.

We unpacked it today and set it up, and I've got mixed reviews.

The picture quality in the LCD is certainly reasonable, though it's not what I'd call wonderful. Once nice feature is that you can get photos onto the frame in a variety of ways. It supports five different kinds of memory cards (SD, MMC, MS, XD, CF), USB to your PC, wireless to your PC (it appears as a Windows Media Output Device through Windows Media Player), and wireless to either Flickr or Picasa. We tested all of these modes, and after some troubleshooting managed to get them all to actually work. The frame will play both video and audio files. You can control the delay between pictures in the slide show, the transition effect between each picture, and how photos that don't quite fit the proportions of the frame should be displayed.

The flaws in the device aren't fatal, but they are annoying. We didn't run into any show-stoppers, but some quirks in how the frame is implemented cost us an hour or two of troubleshooting.

The frame's WiFi is implemented in a dirt-cheap fashion, through a USB wifi card (included) that you plug into the frame through a host USB connector at the top. This has the unpleasant side-effect of ruining the frame's aesthetics, as the USB card then sticks out several inches above the frame itself.

I also ran into a number of problems trying to get the frame to connect either to my father-in-law's wi-fi network, or to my laptop. It turns out that (a) the frame can only deal with talking to or being one USB device at a time (you can't have it plugged into your PC and have the wifi USB card active simultaneously), and (b) you have to connect the memory card or USB wifi card to the frame before you turn the frame on. To Merkury's credit, both of these caveats are mentioned in the documentation, but both limitations are still a little odd these days. I believe that if you have to read the documentation for a consumer product, something has gone wrong. After downloading a bunch of pictures from my laptop to a card in the device, I also had to reboot the frame before it would see the new pictures. Apparently it scans the cards at startup, and never again.

Being able to access photo feeds through, say, Picasa is pretty cool, and it does work: but it would be nice if the frame supported generic RSS feeds as well, instead of just Picasa or Flickr. So far as I can tell, the frame loads Picasa's RSS once, and then doesn't touch it again until you manually tell the frame to refresh: it would be nice to have the frame reflect changes in a Picasa album in something like real time. In addition, if the frame loses power, it doesn't automatically reconnect to the RSS feed: you have to tell it to do so, and then wait while it does: about a five minute process. It would also be nice if Merkury had a website (like Momento supposedly does) which would allow you to combine RSS feeds from multiple locations, and control the pictures through that site. It would be much easier than navigating through the Picasa RSS feeds on the frame itself.

This leads me to my next point: as you'd have to imagine, the UI on Merkury's frame is pretty clunky: you control it through a tiny little remote that you'd better make sure to never lose. You can navigate through picture folders, etc., but even though the pictures are stacked in rows and columns, you can only navigate left and right from a given picture, not up to the one above it or down to the one below it, and you also can't move from page to page, except by moving right, right, right, right… to the last picture on the page, and then click "right" one more time to move to the next picture/page. Uggh. Ideally, you should also have a UI to control the frame from your local computer, perhaps implemented as an admin web site on the frame itself (kind of like how all routers these days come with web-based admin tools).

Merkury's website is hopeless. It doesn't even have this product listed, and doesn't have, say, firmware updates or anything else that would be helpful. The documentation that comes with the frame is acceptable, but it's written in the techno-Japanese English that we're all familiar with; a typical example looks something like this (all the misplaced commas, etc. are in the original):

On Computer, in the submenu of Library ,click "Add to Library",a window of "Add to Library" will display ,click "Advanced Option", then click "Add" to add picture/music/video files to Windows Media Player ,after adding the desired files ,click "Ok".

On the whole, it works. On the whole, Merkury has more work to do.

Ubuntu still isn't ready

I've been playing with Ubuntu for the last several months, on several different machines, using versions ranging from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon. On the whole, I'm pleasantly surprised: Ubuntu is a reasonable OS, and as a Linux neophyte I've been able to get more done than I would have expected.

That said, despite all the hoopla about Ubuntu finally being a Linux desktop for the masses, I have to say that it's still not there. I don't blame the many people paid and unpaid who've worked hard on making Ubuntu a good OS: they've set themselves a very difficult task. But there are half a dozen areas where I've run into problems with Ubuntu that simply would never show up with, say, Vista or XP (or OS/X). Some examples:

• Some months ago, on my Ubuntu desktop, I walked through some instructions I found somewhere (I can't remember where), and managed to install FireFox 3.0 Beta 2. Now that 3.0 has been released, whatever version I try to install, I can only get Beta 2 to launch. I'm sure there's a workaround: but of course, that's not the point. This doesn't happen with Vista.
• On my laptop (an older Dell Precision M60), the Broadcom 4309 wireless card worked seemlessly with Gutsy Gibbon, but when I upgraded to Hardy Heron, it suddenly stopped working. I've been trying to troubleshoot the issue on and off for several weeks now, and I've gotten closer to fixing it, but it's still not working: after many hours of troubleshooting, the laptop now recognizes my home wireless network, but won't pick up an IP address from it or connect to the Internet. I'm sure there's a workaround, but of course, that's not the point.
• In the process of troubleshooting my wireless networking problems, several times my wired networking just stopped working. I have no idea why. Rebooting has (so far) managed to reconnect me.
• In Vista or XP, there are typically at most two utilities for any given task: one for command-line, and one for the GUI. With Linux, there are so many utilities, written by various third-parties, which do almost the same thing, that it's difficult and confusing for a newbie to know which one to use, and to understand how they interact.
• Astonishingly (to someone like myself), Ubuntu doesn't come with the ability to play DVD's. If you try, you get a completely useless error message. Several hours of troubleshooting later, I was able to figure out what I needed to install, but it was by no means straightforward.

I could go on, but I'll let this suffice for now. I do think that Ubuntu constitutes an important milestone for the Linux community: it's a promising release. But it's still hasn't met even Microsoft's "ease of use" milestones, let alone Apple's.

I should add one last comment. Many experienced Linux users will read this and think, "Well of course he's having problems. It's clear he doesn't know what he's doing." And they will have a very good point: but will have missed mine entirely.

Wallace Falls

We took another quick hike up to Wallace Falls today, with my nieces Ashley and Brianna. A few shots: More.

The Presbyterian General Assembly Vote to Ordain Gays and Lesbians

The Presbyterian General Assembly has been meeting this last week, dealing with a variety of hard issues. The most divisive is one that has come up repeatedly, the ordination of gays and lesbians. The traditional Presbyterian stance is that those actively engaged in homosexual conduct may not be ordained, and is outlined in paragraph G-6.0105b of the Book of Order:

Those called to office in the church are to lead a life of obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

At this most recent General Assembly, the body voted to replace the paragraph above with this one:

Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate's sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.

In other words, the GA has voted to modify the constitution to allow gays and lesbians to be ordained. It's very important to note that (a) this doesn't go into effect until a majority of the individual presbyteries vote to accept it, and (b) similar proposals were voted down by these same presbyteries in 1997 and 2000. That means we're not going to (officially) see openly gay or lesbian ministers in Presbyterian pulpits anytime in the next couple of years, though it certainly moves the debate further down the road. There's worthwhile discussion of the topic here, here and here.

As a (not always very good) Presbyterian, I suppose it's time that I stake out my own position on this issue.

It would certainly be easier for me to support the ordination of gays and lesbians, or gay marriage, than to resist it. It's absolutely the direction that Western society is heading, and any attempt to assert a moral vision that isn't supported by the "plausibility structures" of our society creates tremendous cognitive dissonance. The assumption of every TV sit-com, every radio broadcast from NPR, nearly every newspaper article or editorial, is that society is "progressing" towards a more open view of love and marriage, and that anyone who dissents from this progress is hide-bound, racist, sexist, and eventually doomed to the trash heap of history. It's exceedingly difficult to go against the stream on this issue: virtually nothing in our culture will support you if you try to do so.

But as G. K. Chesterton once noted, "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." And in this case, I believe that it is the church's duty to play the role of "alternative plausibility structure", to explain the Biblical witness in a coherent and plausible way to a world which, frankly, doesn't want to hear it.

I've read all the arguments for and against ordaining gays and lesbians many times, and I agree that it's a complicated issue. But we should all be clear that it's not complicated because the passages in question are all that difficult to understand. The arguments that have been advanced for more inclusive readings of, say, Romans 1:24-27 or 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 simply don't hold water. If it wasn't for theologians with an agenda, really, the various exegetical or hermeneutical questions about these passages would never even have been raised: the passages are very straightforward. More than that, it's a persistent and sometimes annoying fact that the Bible (a) consistently holds to monogamy as the divine standard for the relations between the sexes, (b) fairly consistently condemns any departure from that standard, and (c) very specifically and consistently calls out homosexual activity as one of the worst ways to depart from that standard. This is different from parallel issues such as "women in ministry" or "slavery", where the Biblical witness was mixed to begin with. The Bible frequently praises strong women in leadership positions, and recognizes the evils inherent in slavery. The Bible never has a positive word to say about homosexuality in any shape or form (and thus establishes a strong counterpoint to the laissez-faire attitude which the first century Greco-Roman world took to the issue of homosexual relations).

The issue is complicated for a different reason: not because the exegesis of the passages in question is terribly difficult, or even that much in question. It's complicated because there are many ways of understanding the nature of Biblical authority, and many of these different ways are legitimate. It's not enough to say, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." On many issues, the Bible says lots of things, and points in a whole variety of directions. The New Testament in various places prohibits men from having long hair – but in numerous other places makes it clear that these externals don't matter. It excludes women from leadership while simultaneously praising women in leadership positions. Paul prohibits women from speaking in church, but praises those who publically exercise the gift of prophecy in church. Paul says it's fine to eat meat offered to idols, while Revelation 2:12-26 explicitly prohibits the practice. Paul uses Abraham as an example of salvation by faith alone; James uses Abraham as an example of why faith must be supplemented by works. In Bible college and seminary, I often found myself wishing that the Bible looked and felt more like Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology: it would make things a lot simpler.

But the fact is, the Bible doesn't look and feel that way, and nearly all the time now, I'm very glad that it doesn't. It makes for a much more interesting and flexible read, though it does complicate the question, "How should Biblical authority apply to the Church?" In other words, if the Bible says lots of things that point in lots of different directions, how do we then use the Bible to pick out a path for ourselves? And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how to do this. (Though the best approach I've seen outlined comes from Richard Hays' book The Moral Vision of the New Testament: recommended.)

I can therefore understand why reasonable and faithful Christians would disagree about the nature of the Bible's authority, especially when the Bible itself seems to point in multiple directions. But on some topics, such as homosexuality, the Bible has has a consistent and uniform witness, throughout the Old and New Testaments alike. When this is the case, any understanding of Biblical authority which takes the word "authority" seriously must also take that uniform witness seriously. And in these instances, the Church departs from that Biblical vision at its peril.

In other words, I believe that the real issue for the Presbyterian Church is, "Do we wish to remain a church whose standards and norms are informed and shaped by Scripture?" At some level, I can understand the perspective of those who wish to answer that question in the negative. Reading the Bible is complicated and messy, and doing what it says is harder and messier yet. And the Bible constrains and pinches us in all sorts of uncomfortable ways, particularly when, perhaps even for good reasons, we wish to take a different approach. But without the Bible as our center, without a fairly traditional understanding of the authority of Scripture over the church, I don't see any particular reason for the Presbyterian church, or any other church, to exist; and the chances of it doing so are somewhat diminished.

As Wolfhart Pannenberg wrote:

Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

Because biblical authority is the key issue, this is why I also feel that the question is an important and a central one. I have little difficulty belonging to a church which has a different understanding of, say, church governance than I do, or which feels differently about alcohol, or which emphasizes human free will more than I feel is appropriate. Those are clearly secondary issues: they're not central to the church's identity or mission. But it is exceedingly central to ask (and clearly answer), "Is the Church in some minimal respect under the authority of the Bible?" This is not a question a Reformed church can easily open for debate.

Whatever view of Biblical authority we hold, if the Bible does not constrain us on this issue, where the Bible clearly speaks with one, unanimous voice, it will never constrain us on any other; and if it never constrains us, it has no authority. There are many ways to understand and accept Biblical authority, but none which can survive departing from the Bible when all of the relevant texts point in exactly the opposite direction.

For myself, I have no other choice than to belong to a church which accepts Biblical authority and chooses to live under that authority as best as it can. I can understand those who wish to take a different route: but so long as I believe myself to be following the road of traditional, orthodox Christianity, I will have to respectfully take my leave from any church which chooses to travel otherwise.

N. T. Wright meets Steven Colbert

I'm a bit late on this, as I don't watch TV and just happened to run across it: but it's fairly entertaining to watch N. T. Wright (a very thoughtful and astonishingly orthodox contemporary theologian) try to explain the difference between heaven and the resurrection to Stephen Colbert. It's not the sort of thing you see every day.