What I'm Reading...Frank Schaeffer

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, Frank Schaeffer's memoir of life growing up in a family of fundamentalist "stars" describes a wild ride through the tumultuous world of cultural and religious change in the second half of the twentieth century. Schaeffer's parents were Francis and Edith Schaeffer, heroes to many evangelicals, who themselves lived out the stormy history of conservative American Christianity in the 20th century--from fundamentalism to schismatic fundamentalism, to a more culturally-aware and accepting evangelicalism, to political activism.

Schaeffer as a writer is, by turns, affecting, irritating, stimulating, and arrogant and distasteful. I found the memoirs of his childhood the more engaging and enlightening parts of the book, as he reveals his enormous respect and admiration for his gifted parents, while at the same time shamelessly exposing their foibles, blind spots, and eccentricities. The Schaeffer family must surely have been a "crazy-making" clan, especially when you consider how the "Work" (with a capital "w") grew in the midst of the turbulent, mind-blowing '60s and '70s. Franky grew up for the most part on his own through all of this and had to figure it out with little serious parental guidance.

The result of his well-earned insights is mixed bag. I've always considered the younger Schaeffer to be something of a smart aleck--mean-spirited and full of himself and his own opinions. To his credit, he owns up to that, especially when he traces the downward spiral of his adult life and career from evangelical wunderkind to failed filmmaker stealing from his local grocery. But that doesn't stop him from being brutally blunt in his frequent assessments and attacks on others. And he still has the annoying adolescent tendency to throw sexual comments around merely for shock value. Though I share his disdain for what evangelical Christianity has become in America, at times his vitriol comes across like a tantrum or bad dialogue from one of his "B" movies.

However, Frank Schaeffer does demonstrate that he has a genuinely wistful side, able to look at self and experience and an assortment of people in his life with more generous eyes. Descriptions of his mother, Edith Schaeffer, for example, are nuanced and complex, and the picture he paints of her as an elderly dancer is as lovely and heartbreaking as life gets.

Recommended, but watch out for the occasional craziness.

Understanding Science and the Bible

Today I want to recommend some videos on the internet that deal with the subject of how science and Bible relate. These are found on Gordon J. Glover's blog, BEYOND THE FIRMAMENT.

In three video slide presentations (found here), Glover deals with:

1. What is Science? What is the Bible?—Understanding the differences between these two ways of knowing lays an important foundation for maintaining a proper, intelligent perspective on both science and biblical religion.
2. What "Science" does the Bible teach?—Tracing the history of astronomy, Glover shows that the Bible tells its story in terms of the Ancient Near East model of cosmology, and that its point is not to teach this model as unchanging scientific truth, but to communicate God's timeless theological message to its first readers in terms of a worldview they would understand.
3. How should Christians relate to the natural sciences?—Modern science is at odds with the teachings of the Bible. Of course it is, since the Bible tells its story in terms of a 6000-year old cosmology! But it does so for certain theological purposes, not scientific ones. The key for a proper Christian view is to learn to distinguish between the timeless truths of Scripture and the time-bound models of language and science God used to deliver those truths to humankind.

Highly recommended.

Valentine's Treat

As a special treat for Valentine's Day, Gail and I traveled up the road to Goshen for a concert at LVD's Concert Hall in the Old Bag Factory. On stage was our favorite folk singer, Bill Staines.

We've been following Bill for 30 years now, since we lived in Vermont and spent our TV-less early marriage listening to the radio together each evening. I particularly remember one show he did on a New York public radio station, guitar in hand. When he played "Roseville Fair," my heart melted, and I knew I had found a muse for life.

If you like storytelling, gentle love songs, winsome melodies, dry and insightful wit, and a wise seer who can share well-earned lessons about life, I'd urge you to give Bill a listen.

Clemens' Mindset

In the bottom of the sixth inning in the 2004 NLCS, Roger Clemens faced Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen with runners on base. To anyone viewing the game, it was obvious that the Cardinals' batters, at first blown away by Clemens' fastball, had caught up with it after a couple times through the lineup. Yet the Rocket continued to challenge the hitters, thinking he could put them away by sheer force of will with the high hard one. Didn't work. In that fateful sixth, Pujols doubled in a run, and Rolen hit a two-run homer that proved to be the game winner for the Cards, sending them to the World Series.

I had a chance to talk with Scott Rolen later that year, and the one question I had for him was, "What made Clemens think he could throw a fast ball by you at that point in the game, in that situation?" Rolen's answer was basically, "That's just Roger." What made Clemens great, and what sometimes cost him, was his enormous hubris. No matter the circumstance, no matter the odds, he always believed he had one good fastball in him that no one could catch up with.

Apparently, Roger hasn't learned his lesson. All this bluster and clenched-jaw determination that we've been seeing from him lately is getting blasted all around the Congressional and media ballpark. He's been tipping his pitches, and when good hitters know it's coming, they generally hit it hard. The Rocket's back is against the wall and despite his grit he is getting hammered and it seems very likely the game is lost.

Hope springs...

On the day when Roger Clemens died (metaphorically) and baseball lost its last semblance of credibility in the minds of many, I'm heartened by the return of pitchers and catchers to HoHoKam Park in Mesa, AZ, there to start tuning up for the 100-year anniversary of the Cubs winning the World Series.

A good friend of man actually died yesterday at age 83, and they placed a Cubs cap on his casket as part of the mourning rituals. This year, it's for you, Jack. I'm still believing, and if you have any pull with Providence where you are, put in a good word for the boys, will you?

And to you...yes, you--if you have an ounce of humanity in your blood, don't let the misguided "Rockets" of the world cause you to lose your childlike delight in what is still the greatest game.

What I'm Reading...N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright's revolutionary book on eschatology and the church's mission, SURPRISED BY HOPE, is now available. You can follow an excellent discussion about this book at Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog.

Wright sets the stage like this: "This book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope as 'going to heaven,' of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated....But if the Christian hope is for God's new creation, for 'new heavens and new earth,' and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other. I find that to many--not least, many Christians--all this comes as a surprise: both that the Christian hope is surprisingly different from what they had assumed and that this hope offers a coherent and energizing basis for work in today's world" (p.5).

PERFECT NO MORE

Tom Brady spent a lot of time in this rare position Sunday night. The NY Giants' defense looked like the '85 Bears as they shut down one of the most potent offenses in the history of the NFL.

Even so, Brady led the Patriots to a touchdown in the fourth quarter that would have won the game, were it not for the theatricsof Giants QB Eli Manning and his receivers. On one key third down, Manning somehow escaped the Pats' rush and fired a pass to David Tyree, who made a circus catch in heavy traffic to keep the drive going that led to the eventual winning touchdown.