Late Night Haiku XXIX
LXXXI. My head is spinning,
I can't seem to hold it still,
Thoughts rush by.
LXXXII.Flushing, rushing by,
A stream runs in parallel,
Unconcerned with me.
LXXXIII. A great joy in mix,
The current tugs unknowing,
A twig floats away.
The Importance of Right Theology
As someone who aspires to the title of theologian (though has in no way earned the right to it), I certainly believe theology is important. Clearly when we are talking about God, there can be few things more important than understanding him and his will as well as possible. But, the greatest gift from God is not teaching of doctrine or something along those lines, but love (1 Cor. 13.13).
What does that mean for us in general? We as Christians put too much emphasis on right doctrine as if it could save us. We are functionally working as those saved by doctrine alone — the specific doctrine a given person favors is of little consequence. The other day, my wise professor Dr. Jay Sklar was relating to us a story about another faculty member at Covenant who was in Scotland. That person observed that when Christians are only a two in a hundred statistically, suddenly our little dogmatic skirmishes seem less important and simply finding someone else with whom one shares the Apostle's Creed seems enough.
In many ways, it is.
That is not to say all the minutiae is unimportant, many things within the realm of Christian dogmatics are utterly important. But not as important as the core truth of the Gospel: that the one, sole creator God of the universe was incarnate among us, died for us and restored us into a body of which he is the head. That's the heart of our story. It is not the end of our story, but the beginning which convicts us and leaves us with no choice but to make every theological confrontation within the bounds of historic Christianity one of brotherly or sisterly love.
If only we lived this principle, if only the world would truly “know we are Christians by our love,” then we would be doing the will of God. Let us not mistake doctrinal purity as our mediator with God; our ancient predecessors learned the dangers of misplaced mediation after they failed to head the prophet Jeremiah's warning, “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD’” (Jer. 7.4 ESV).
What does God truly desire of us? Micah tells us (v. 6.8)
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
I would rather serve all day alongside a Christian full of love for God and for those around him, but with messed up doctrine, than an hour with a Christian of great doctrinal strength and a condescension for all those with less perfectly constructed theological constructs.
Palm's Got It
I plan to publish a piece on the Palm Pre soon, but for now, my title will suffice. Assuming the device lives up to the hype around it today — and early tests from Engadget give me hope — I think somebody actually figured out how to make a true iPhone competitor (something that has been sorely lacking). And, I couldn't be happier that this somebody is Palm.
It'll be exciting to see how Palm webOS shapes up. Of course, I sort of wish they'd kept the old Palm OS name. Maybe they should have called it Palm OS X.
Uncle Jay Explains 2008
This is worth a listen (and a laugh).
Let's Try Unconscious Mutterings Again
From Unconscious Mutterings:
I say … and you think … ?
- Confirmation :: Class
- Verse :: Shakespeare
- Authorize :: Starship Autodestruct
- Blog :: More
- Thirty :: A few years from now
- Heir :: Apparent
- What are you doing? :: Answering a meme.
- Complaint :: No word from A.G.
- Leave :: A message after the tone.
- Tune :: The Star's Song by Erin Bode
Keep on Rolling Forward
Well, I've survived day 1 of 10 in the accelerated Hebrew course. That feels good. So far it is living up to the predicted time frame for study, but not exceeding it. That's good. It means I may keep my sanity after all.
In the mean time, my AT&T article over at OFB continues to plow away. It's showing up in more and more places, which is exciting. It's certainly the biggest piece I've written in half a decade and it is aimed squarely at becoming the most read OFB article ever. Count me as excited. I'm working on a follow up, trying to gather new material in what little spare time I have right now. Fun, fun, fun!
Abandon All Hope...
Tomorrow I begin a two week intensive Hebrew term. Somehow in two weeks, students are suppose to become masters of the Hebrew weak verb. I'm not entirely sold on this idea, but it is a required part of my degree, so come tomorrow I'll be trying to plow back through new parts of Hebrew… and thinking about Dante.
What a Day
Well, my article I mentioned last night drew quite a crowd. Slashdot, Gizmodo, DSL Reports and numerous others — including the AHN newswire — picked up the story. Gizmodo more recently has mysteriously pulled the story, but Slashdot is still in full gear, and the article looks like it should easily pass 10,000 reads on OFB before morning.
My SAFARI CMS withstood the Slashdotting quite well. How exciting!
AT&T's 3G Upgrades Degrade 2G Phone Signals
I thought everyone might be interested in my new piece for OFB on 3G network upgrades that AT&T is doing. The upgrades are causing moderate to severe problems on perfectly functional 2G handsets. The problem impacts everything from the basic, venerable Nokia candybar, with its legendary receiving power, to the original iPhone that was only discontinued seven months ago. Take a gander at the story right here.
A Good Start
The bug I caught a few weeks ago still has me moving slowly, but the New Year is off to a good start for me, I think. My parents, my uncle and I had a nice little party with a nice meal accompanied by a nice, friendly Wii competition.
Happy New Year, everybody!
