Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has had a blessed and Merry Christmas! It has been a beautiful, white Christmas here with a nice snowfall yesterday and continued flurries today and into the night. Picture perfect and peaceful.

Remember this is just day one of the twelve days of Christmas — my goal is to get people to observe the whole 12 days of Christmas with lights, music and general “Christmasyness.” Will you join me in celebrating the next 11?

C.S. Lewis and the Influence of Books

In the Wall Street Journal, Michael Flaherty critiques Joy Behar's ignorant understanding of C.S. Lewis. Beside defending Jack against the unfortunate suggestion that he is only an author of children's books, the piece is worth reading for some excellent observations on books and stories in general.

Lewis would likely have appreciated making Mrs. Palin's reading list. But he probably would have appreciated the questions about it even more. For Lewis, one of the best ways to know a person was to know what they read. He was convinced that books defined us and shaped our character. He realized that books did more than prepare people for interesting conversations with journalists—they prepare us to respond to the crises we encounter in our own lives.

I keep thinking of John Henry Cardinal Newman right now.

Returning, Finishing

Well, I think I may have been away from my blog longer just now than at any other time in its almost nine year history. With all the projects swirling around finishing at seminary and trying to line up my next steps, I found I just did not have the inspiration to write anything here. Now, with my time at seminary wrapped up (assuming all the exams went OK, of course), I hope to return to regular blogging.

I have missed posting on here. The interesting thing about blogging is that it provides a creative outlet that is neither as long or involved as writing a column nor as short and quickly forgotten as a Facebook status update. I have a number of ideas of things I want to get to posting here again, so watch out… I am back.

15 Authors

An interesting little meme is floating around Facebook:

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included, of course) who've influenced you and whose work has stayed with you. List the first fifteen (or so) you can recall, though we all want to list twice that. Tag a few literate friends, including me. Take it as an opportunity for self knowledge and self sharing. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.) Or simply reply to this note.

Let's give this a go, in no particular order:

1. William Shakespeare
2. T.S. Eliot
3. Thomas Aquinas
4. Karl Barth
5. John Donne
6. Henry Hazlitt
7. Michael Williams
8. Michael Pollan
9. David Hume
10. John Hick
11. Geoffrey Chaucer
12. Dante
13. C.S. Lewis
14. N.T. Wright
15. Henri Nouwen
16. Christopher Marlowe
17. Boethius

There's a nice little grouping of significant authors in my life.

Doubt and Faith

Paul Tillich once said,

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.

Generally, I think our modern conception of faith suggests it is either something built on entirely warranted belief or is entirely unwarranted. Tillich here offers a middle way that is more in accord with Scripture. Being human involves uncertainties and doubts arising whenever we deal with something of great import. If we take the Bible seriously, then, inevitably, some doubts will exist.

That is why we pursue theology. As St. Anselm said, theology is “faith seeking understanding.”

Flash-free Video on the Mac

Gruber does a good job of noting how you can continue to see a lot of the video placed on the web even after ditching Flash entirely. Many sites have already implemented HTML5 video to support the iPad, etc. — might as well make use of it.

Christians and Creation Care

Reading for class, I ran across a blog post from Dr. Vinoth Ramachandra arguing for more concern about “global warming” amongst Christians. He writes,

Interestingly, many atheists seem to care more about global warming than many so-called “Biblical Christians”. I suggest that the latter need to re-read their Bibles and the former need to re-think their worldview. If Nature is all that is, and human beings are as significant as slime moulds where nature is concerned, why care about what happens to future human beings? If Homo Sapiens ends up destroying itself, the earth will simply throw up new life forms that will survive at higher temperatures. In other words, the question I am posing is whether either “deep ecology” or the militant atheism that insists on telling us that humans are nothing more than accidental products of an evolutionary process – can these worldviews coherently sustain our fundamental moral intuitions in the face of global warming and climate change?

He seems to presume that those who disagree with the IPCC don't care about the environment and climate change. He is arguing against a straw man. Many of us who disagree with the IPCC-related materials do care very much about the environment, we just tend to think scientific data and Biblical commands led us to other conclusions than pushing for the adoption of policies such as the Kyoto Protocol that would likely hurt millions of people around the globe.

(I'm not saying there aren't a lot of Christians, especially those with a “the World is Not My Home” dispensational framework, who think it is perfectly fine to pollute the earth with mindless abandon. But, the range of disagreement is far more nuanced than that.)

Buy Partisan

If you follow Woot, you know the minds behind it come up with a humorous story to go with each day's deal. Today's is a must read for every political junkie.

Some People Do Not Understand "Journalism"

When a blogger found one of her posts had been taken without permission and used in a print magazine, she was (rightly) upset and contacted the editor of the magazine. The blogger, Monica Gaudio, eventually asked for an internet and print apology from the magazine, along with a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism. This is the response Cooks Source offered to the author it had apparently stolen the content from:

“Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn't “lift” your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”

Just because something is easily accessible does not invalidate the protections of copyright law, nor should it.

HT: Gruber

What a Night

A fascinating night politically. My only major disappointment was the loss of Carly Fiorina. I am quite shocked at Ike Skelton's loss.