An Answer to my Original Quest: Why do we have to know this?

So, now that I have taken reprieve from my reading at St John's, I want to give an answer to students who ask, Why do we have to know this?" My answer is: 1) knowing the western canon gets you on the inside loop of the conversation that has transcended time.... when great minds allude to other great thinkers, readers have immediate connection and insight: 2) it stretches one's brain cells into new paths of thinking.......the texts are difficult... but it provides a great mental workout 3) one gains a greater understanding of western thought....

But the time spent at St John's has crystalized the need for the church to become readers of the Great Books. The church can only minister to the United States in a limited way if she doesn't understand the plumb line of western thinking.

Highlights Of Summer 2009

After wading through all those philosophers, finding someone to sublet this apartment was a gift. Somehow being at home in Wakarusa, while not all that financially profitable--- the cool weather not being that conducive to a swimming program--- has a way of getting me 'centered'. In retrospect these were the highlights.

1. Meeting Nancy Pearcy and Total Truth --
D'inesh Sousa--- What's so Great about Christianity
Great Books for Small Group Discussion


2. Maintaining Contacts with OLD friends and Groups: All of it was wonderful

overnighter with High School Friends
Time with RBI friends
MCCh small Group
NMC Single Friends
NMC Small Group
NMC Ladies Bible Study Group

3. Jim Cymbala Missionary Church Conference- Bethel College

His greatest Quote:
"I don't know what I am doing" was not a confession of confusion but being surprised at the ways he is being prompted and led moment by moment, day by day.

4. Hanging with Nieces and Nephews and family
Justin's wedding, swimming and deck parties

5. Discussion with Dave Engbrecht on the Pragmatism of the Midwest

6. Welcoming President Barack Obama into my back yard.

7. Regular opportunity to swim for muscle tone and boosting metabolis: this really is a huge deal possibly should be at the top

An Infant Baptism

This morning I experienced an infant baptism at the Evangelical Presbyterian (EP)Church in Annapolis. The pastor's explanatory remarks were helpful as I wondered how contemporary EPers deal with their 400 yr history and tradition of infant baptism. I've been aware that while contemporary Anabaptists take credit for spawning the entire notion of believer's baptism, over the years, the practice has become widely accepted into many mainstream fellowships across the denominational spectrum as the Christian church continues to mature over the centuries

In reality, the baptism was a baby confirmation. Recognizing that baptism doesn't save the child's soul, Pastor O'Neil likenend it to a symbol or a sign of what is yet to come. Furthermore, he suggested it was like a courtship and an engagement period of a promise that has been made while a marriage has not yet been realized. In this morning's ceremony, parents were given a serious reminder and solemn charge and promised to bring up and train their son in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and having done so, could expect that one day God would 'invade' this child's life and bring him to Himself. It was a 2 party contract: as much about parental training as the Grace of God saving the baby's soul.

Whatever notions we hold about salvation --- being on the Calvinistic end-- it 'being all about the grace of God' or man's effort in 'working out our salvation', this morning the balance felt healthy. Man's effort and cooperation is needed in partnership with the grace of God.

Isn't it kind of ironic? Today many Anabaptists dedicate their babies soon after birth and dedicated believers within the 'high church' traditions have moderated their beliefs surrounding infant babptism.

What Goes Around Comes Around...... On Socrates

So, what's new about Post-modernity? In his discussion with Meno, Socrates attempts to show his disciple that even though Meno has given many speeches in Athens and Thessalonia about virtue, he really doesn't know what it is, nor does he know how people achieve virtue. In their logical examination of ideas, (a dialectic) Socrates leads Meno down a rabbit trail of questions with the intent of leaving him "know" that what he thought he knew he doesn't know. And Socrates admits that he is unsure if he [Socrates] knows of one virtuous person in the city. Sure enough, Socrates has rightfully earned the earmark prescribed to him for 25oo years.

"The unexamined life is not worth living. "

Objection. I didn't say that but as we finished the 3rd quarter of the book this, "Is the over-examined life worth living?' Everyone laughed. But I was serious. If in the end we find out that the more we learn, the more we find out we know nothing, where does Socrates leave us? Does he offer anything to fill the vacuum? I will continue to push the question next week because I think it totally relevant to where we live today.

Even today, the Socratic Seminar, which is the primary mode of teaching and learning here at St. John's is used across the country today in public high schools. Questions are raised, responses are given, only by sharing logical rationalle of those conclusions, which give rise to other questions, which are pondered over, examined by all in order to lead us to the right question for our personal lives. whew. The shared inquiry method. whew. It is a valuable tool of learning but has its limits.


As I walked outside those heavy, wooden doors fastened to the very old library, I pondered over a discussion I had within it. Nearly graduated graduate students asked me, the newcomer,
" So how are you enjoying school?" To which I replied, "So far very much, however, I think in 4 semesters I will be ready for answers instead of a constant stream of wondering questions. To which she replied, "Oh you will get used to it. It is the way I like it. It is the most comfortable. "

Postmodernity is the name of the age we live in. It is all around us. The notion that there are no answers. Human beings live in a sea of flux and since answers change with every era, one needs to get used to living without, and no longer search for objective truth. So we may as well not offer up 'Jesus is the answer', because everyone knows there are only constant questions.

In my very first orientation of seminar on January 5, I asked the tutors if 'answers' or some semblence of conclusion, or we might say today 'take - aways' were ever the desired outcome of the seminar. To which they replied, Well, possibly not, hopefully, you will come to the right question which is right for you and your wisdom that is needed.' Don't misunderstand, staff and faculty here are great, the St Johns community is a small intimate family that I sense is not attempting to be politically correct, nor hostile to the influence of Judeo-Christianity in the west, everyone speaks very respectfully of it since it is infiltrated throughout and dominates the literature. Nonetheless, the overarching narrative of Christian worldview is not sought after here.



I read the end of the book and 'by Zeus', Socrates redeems himself when he says, that virtue must come from the 'divine'... outside of oneself.

Coming soon in a curriculum near you. Recommended reading. Author Plato and his Meno.

And that other 'strange' character.........The Lord.

I have a suggestion for your next Bible study. Go through the O.T. and pick out and list all the situations where the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob seems out of character with the positive attributes we give to Him: insecure, fickle, temperamental, without mercy, quick to damn, showing partiality to men, easy to influence, and sometimes clueless. Within the wide gamut of theological persuasions secretly held, these are the dominant issues that are raised for discussion. They are significant barriers for many to come to faith. Why would anyone put their faith and trust in this kind of a God? Just today, Betsy, a Bible study leader at St. Johns, shared that, in fact, a well-known ( at least in this area) Christian apologist lost the debate hands down with a skeptic opponent on this very issue. The Quirkiness of God. A title of a new book. So what about us? Can we give an answer? I am so grateful for a large group of Christians in this area. I hope to discuss it with them when I get a chance.

But I would love to hear any of your thoughts.

First Impressions: Quaint, Qute, and ArQuaic

It has most everything a big school has but it is little. A little bookstore, a little health center, a little library, little dorms, little houses that hold offices, and a little hall ( like the Victorian halls used for the Jane Austen balls ) for formal ceremonies--- all held together by winding brick-paved sidewalks and big, old trees. The incoming Graduate Institute students (GI's) met around those tables and dug right into Plato. Bright, articulate students thinking through Socrates' motives on discussing Virtues with his friend Meno. Then we discussed our thoughts about the activity we just went through. 1.5 hours of non-stop, intense exhausting thinking-- listening to everyone's thought process and formulating and articulating a response. Later, a different group dug into Genesis 1-11 for 2 hours. No notetaking allowed. No lecture. Just texts, students and a tutor who guides the dialogue. The school campus is old, but the ideas are even older. Where in our society does this kind of sustained, thoughtful discussion.... where real listening ...occur? I look forward to the discipline and training. More later.

Rationale for the "Great Books"

Using my mind's eye, I probably need to address the unspoken wonderings and hidden questions that (at least some) of you are entertaining. For those of you who are secretly harboring questions about the wisdom and spirituality of investing this much in time, energy and money into such an endeavor as sitting around and reading and discussing archaic and boring books, let me attempt to put some of your secret questions to rest.


1. Buiding Depth in Understanding Western Culture. Back in the day, I first heard a Mennonite preacher say it very well. He preaches with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. His job was to use the eternal truths of Scripture to illuminate the present culture with its characters, conflict, drama and outcomes. I suspect that if one only reads "The Wakarusa Tribune" our understanding would be quite shallow. And should we add a reading of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times as well as a number of other publications, blogospheres, and "infosmears" ..our understanding would broaden and deepen. But tracing the development of society down through the past 3-4 millenia takes us to a new dimension. I anticipate an understanding of 'where my fellow Americans are coming' from a bit more clearly, and more importantly, I deeply desire the capacity to connect confidently and intelligently with most any American I meet. I am eager to gather around the book of Romans with non-believers and to understand where they are coming from. As well, potentially, students of history have a greater reference point in the bank of ideas: ideas that are not worth hanging onto, letting go of or fighting for. I would hope for that as well.

2. Better Understanding of God. This one is easy. The God that created me is also the God of History. He was involved in the affairs of man for all of time past. While students around the table at St. John's will probably be not so inclined, I will most likely read the texts,not through the criticisms of gender, class, race or sexism,.....( how boring).... but through the eyes of faith. I simply am curious about what God was up to with the Greeks, the Romans, before, during and after the birth of Christ, and with the early church fathers,and down through the ages of the Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightment, and Modernity. On this blog, if I am not too dense, I hope to chart/trace "God sightings" Maybe after all this,I will deeply get it. How does postmodernity represent the greatest cut and deepest shift away from Christian worldview issues? My obligation to you.... my readers..is to shed some light on the difficulty of evangelizing in postmodern America today.. moral relativism is an incredible challenge for the American church. If I can strengthen even one person outside of myself to confidently stake out and make the claims of Christ, then my endeavors will have been successful. So admittedly, in this round I am not studying the Scriptures so much as 'the newspaper' in the other hand. Make sure you know that I know... the difference between myself and many (I hope not all )of those sitting around the table at St.Johns see the Bible quite differently. For them, it is just another text that has profoundly shaped and influenced the West... which stands in stark contrast with the Eastern hemisphere. For me the Bible is God breathed- the eternal 'logos' the Holy Spirit uses to penetrate the human heart and shake up society. I would hope that my picture of God would simply be ENLARGED and that this process will lift me (and perhaps you)out and beyond all matters that are puny and petty.

3. "SO WHAT?" A third reason I need to do this is to answer the question "why do I need to know this? for all former students and any future students I may have. If reading classic literature is a futile endeavor then I can lay it down and let it go and move on to other endeavors. I need to find this out.

Responses anyone? Is it fair to suggest that our sphere of influence for Christ is directly contingent upon our understanding of culture? What about the early disciples and Paul? Who understood the Greek and Roman culture best? Was it effective? Or unnecessary? Explain.