{"id":20897,"date":"2025-07-09T22:19:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T02:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20897"},"modified":"2025-07-09T22:19:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T02:19:55","slug":"very-like-a-straight-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20897","title":{"rendered":"Very like a straight line"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo credit: Wolfgang Hasselmann wolfgang_hasselmann<\/a>. Unsplash license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Had a nice day today,<\/strong> but it stretched long, which is why I\u2019m posting late. The board of the Georg Sverdrup Society<\/a>, whose journal I edit, met in Mankato, Minnesota. And then we were treated to a tour of the archives and museum of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, on the campus of Bethany Lutheran College<\/a> in that same town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s probably a lesson in the fact that our different church bodies are the offspring of two opposing sides in 19th<\/sup> Century controversies among Norwegian Lutherans in the U.S., and yet we find ourselves today, if not allies, at least amiable rivals. The ELS is a legacy group out of the old Norwegian Synod, the most conservative and rigidly orthodox of the Norwegian immigrant church bodies. My group, the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, comes from what was then the liberal, free-wheeling, revivalist Lutheran Free Church. Our spiritual forefathers were bitter enemies who anathematized one another in fiery sermons and editorials. Now we find much to unite us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That observation is, I suppose, the wrong way to introduce my topic tonight. Because I want to talk about objective truth. Eternal verities that must not be compromised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday I described my delight at the new, sharp sight I\u2019m enjoying in my left eye since my cataract surgery, less than a week ago as I write. My drive to Mankato today was along one of my favorite scenic routes in my state, Highway 169 along the Minnesota River valley, through Le Sueur, St. Peter, and Mankato. The skies were clear and colors were bright, and I felt ten years younger than I had a week ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as I mentioned, I do now have minor retina damage that slightly warps everything I see through that eye. Straight lines no longer look straight to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lesson modern thought would have me learn from this experience is that I should abandon the whole idea of straight lines. Since I can\u2019t see them anymore, obviously they don\u2019t exist for me. We all live in our own reality, and my reality no longer includes straight lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I say phooey. I can remember straight lines. I can listen to the testimony of reliable people who talk to me about them. I can study geometry if I care to, and learn all about parallels and right angles and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like that bloody elephant in the famous secular parable. One blind man touches its flank and thinks an elephant is very like a wall. Another touches the trunk, and decides an elephant is very like a snake. And so on. Moderns take all this to mean that elephants don\u2019t exist as such, but are something different for each person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the actual point of the parable is that they\u2019re all wrong. What those blind men need to do is to get together and pool their information. After some frank consultation, they\u2019ll probably be able to construct a pretty reasonable description of a whole elephant. If not, they can ask somebody who can see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Had a nice day today, but it stretched long, which is why I\u2019m posting late. The board of the Georg Sverdrup Society, whose journal I edit, met in Mankato, Minnesota. And then we were treated to a tour of the archives and museum of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, on the campus of Bethany Lutheran College … Continue reading Very like a straight line<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[5623,5625,5626,2779,5624,4785],"class_list":["post-20897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-bethany-lutheran-college","tag-elephants","tag-objective-truth","tag-the-association-of-free-lutheran-congregations","tag-the-evangelical-lutheran-synod","tag-the-georg-sverdrup-society"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20897"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20900,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20897\/revisions\/20900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}