In case you haven’t been reading this blog, dear friend, and you have just been blessed to find it (the.best.day.in.your.life!), here’s a brief summary of what we’ve been talking about.
The Mother Tongue That Slays Lesser Tongues
Alex Rose writes about the strength of the English language and problems when people reject their language heritage in favor of this growing, global tongue. “Indeed, English is a veritable cabinet of wonders, a palimpsest of criss-crossing lexical histories, no less than a modern linguistic juggernaut,” he writes, noting a book by Robert McCrum called Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language
The second half of Rose’s article talks about the fears some have of losing knowledge and culture when small languages are lost. Languages reveal how men can think and organize the world around them. Some times the obscure words reveal an intimate relationship with a part of nature English speakers do not have. Rose notes, “The Kayapo people, for instance, have developed 85 different words for ‘bee,’ each specifying minute differences in flight patterns, mating rituals, habitat, nest structures, and quality of wax.”
On this part, I want to criticize materialists or naturalists for rejecting divine revelation as a source of real knowledge. If the world is all we have and we are the only ones who can glean anything from it, then I preserving cultures, languages, and everything else makes some sense. The article quotes Noam Chomsky on this: “by studying the properties of natural languages, their structure, organization, and use, we may hope to learn something about human nature; something significant, if it is true that human cognitive capacity is the truly distinctive and most remarkable characteristic of the species.” I can see that, if mankind is but one of many species. If we are just a remarkably unique animals, top of our food chain as it were, then we should seek out linguistic info like this in order to understand ourselves as much as possible.
But we are men, male and female, created in the image of God Almighty, who made heaven and earth for his glory and our enjoyment. The Kayapo people may have a cool thing going in naming bees, but the Bible will reveal far more about humanity than their language ever will.
Believing in Yourself Will Earn You Alone
Following the attacks on New York and Washington D.C. and the failed attack that ended in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, many Americans darkened the doors of our churches, some for the first time in years. Now, as far as I am aware, church attendance has returned to pre-September 11 levels. Maybe it returned to those levels in 2002, I’m not sure.
This morning, I heard a good message from an Army general about the state of the world today, specifically related to radical Islam, and what Christians can do about it, if anything. He briefly mentioned that he wished more Americans would go to church in light of the Barna survey stating 84% of us claim to be Christians. But I suggest that many have gone to American churches and found no reason to return. What they found was self-referential moralism and messages on God helping those who help themselves or on love without morality being the path to true peace. Hope from the Creator of the world and Redeemer of the forgiven they did not find. They can get the self-help on their own.
A self-referential faith will not offer lasting hope. It will not understand how men can do evil things, and when faced with rage, addiction, adultery, and greed, it will offer only platitudes or rejection. It will not believe in the supernatural enemy we face, the Morgoth/Sauron-type character who stalks the earth looking for those who will believe his lies, those who will look inward and blame others for their pain or disappointment.
I fear this is the message many churches communicate in and out of the pulpit, even churches in which there are many genuine believers. They have missed the life-transforming gospel by focusing on their own efforts to better themselves and the world (thus the affection many have for political success). In doing so, they will tell non-believers that God will not accept them until they clean themselves up. They say they don’t care how broken or sinful they are, they had better present themselves as clean in church or God won’t accept them. Of course, God the Father, who knows everything from begin to end, will not reject the sick or the broken, the abusive or the abused. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins when we repent of them, even when we repeatedly repent of them.
I wish it were true that 84% of Americans were genuine believers, but I’m afraid they claim that label out of mere cultural comfort, and if these are the ones going to 60-70% of American churches, I don’t worry that many people stopped after the fear of the attacks diminished. Perhaps there were a couple rescuers inside those frames meant at one time to reflect the glory of a greater kingdom, but maybe they had left too, tired of finding people who were unwilling to be saved.
The gospel is what our churches are meant to preach. It is not merely a pass for the bad stuff we do or a term for our 12 step self-help guide; it is divine liberation from the crushing bonds of sin and a new life of service on the Lord’s estate. The Lord asks us to believe who he claims to be in the Bible and live accordingly, grieving past failure, embracing future grace.
Jerry Molnar on Surviving the Trade Tower Attack
Connection Point, April 2010 Edition from CBMC on Vimeo.
What are you expecting today? Are you expecting God to move? This month, CBMC President Lee Truax introduces us to Jerry Molnar of New York, NY. Jerry was a businessman who cared for nothing but money before the Lord transformed him. In the 80s, he took an office high in the towers at the World Trade Center. His dramatic testimony is something to see and share with others.
Darkness Will Not Be Driven Out with Book Burning
Mr. Woodlief lifts up the truth in the Koran burning argument, which has received too much press. He says:
I think a Christian ought not burn a Quran, not because it will incite violence, . . . [but] simply because destruction and negation are the purview of the devil, not God. The kingdom of Heaven is not advanced by destroying the false but by embracing the true. Darkness is never erased; it is enlightened.
Remember
Copyright Getty Images.
Sometimes I forget people actually see this stuff…
Yesterday, in my post on the Zombie course at the University of Baltimore, I referenced Prof. Brendan Riley, who taught a similar course even earlier at Columbia College, Chicago.
Prof. Riley was kind enough to drop in and participate in our comments, and he did so in a highly courteous and reasonable manner. I won’t say he won me over to his point of view, but I’ll declare freely that he didn’t turn out to be the sort of fellow I would have expected him to be.
His blog, which is extremely interesting (in my view) is here.
Break: Til Deg
Just before lunch, I heard a guy talking 9-11 conspiracies–there were no planes found at wreckage sites in the Pentagon or in Pennsylvania; if we would just open our eyes, we would see that our own government officials are lying to us. Gasp, that’s depressing. Don’t you think if our government people were willing to do all of that, they would also be willing to knock off the people trying to expose them? It’s all so insane.
But I don’t want to think about that any more. I need a break. Oh, look. Sissel has a new album coming out in November. She is just the cutest thing.
I wish I could link to a song from this, but I’ll settle for this video from years ago with a beautiful Norwegian song. Continue reading Break: Til Deg
Not undead, just brain dead
Personal note: Blogging from me will probably be light for the rest of the month. My publisher’s publicist has booked me for a “virtual book tour,” in which I’ll do guest blog posts and interviews for what looks like a daunting number of web sites.
My plan is to throw myself into this thing and work the (Charles) Dickens out of it. A virtual book tour would appear to be tailor made for my personality, so if I can’t shine at this I’ll be a man pretty much with nothing to say for himself.
While I’m thinking of it, buy my book.
It’s been in the news lately—The University of Baltimore is offering a credit course on zombies in literature.
Blumberg’s course is not without precedent. Brendan Riley, an English professor at Columbia College in Chicago, introduced a course called “Zombies in Popular Media” in 2006, a few years into the nation’s zombie revival. He believes he was the first to offer an entire course on zombies, a perennial entry on lists of oddest college courses.
“It was kind of a fight to get it as a recognized course at the school,” Riley said. “Because, at first, it appears to be kind of a frivolous topic.”
I suppose if I object to this, I’ll be identifying myself as not only a dinosaur, but a fossilized dinosaur.
But I do object, and I’m pretty sure I’d have objected back when I was in college. Continue reading Not undead, just brain dead
Things Chefs Won't Tell You
Yahoo News passes on 25 things chefs never tell you, like the fact most of them want to have their own cooking show or “Vegetarian is open to interpretation.”
About 15% of chefs said their vegetarian dishes might not be completely vegetarian. Beware if you’re one of those super-picky vegan types: One chef reported seeing a cook pour lamb’s blood into a vegan’s primavera.
What the?