In a recent post or two, I offered some caution about our use of technology in the U.S.
I still believe that we often use our techie toys to distract ourselves from hearing God's voice (and sometimes the internal voices of our need for God). For that reason, as Ash Wednesday--and thus Lent-- approach, I encourage the silencing of TV, cell phones, video games, iPods, and/or email for at least an hour/day and an entire day/week.
Nonetheless, I just spent the weekend with some entirely creative and intelligent grad students from U.C. Berkeley and Stanford who are using technology to serve developing nations: helping facilitate better polling, the discovery of clean water, and the dissemination of critical information critical. I want then to counterpoint my earlier concerns about technology with a plea that we, as a highly technological nation, use our expertise to bless others, especially to help them attain basic services that can truly be the difference between life and death.
Is there some redemption to be found in microchips, videocams, and SMS? I think so. And that's definitely good news.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Probability and God
I’ve been thinking about the probability of belief in God. Not for any random reason (as it were), but because of a class I taught last night on science and faith with special reference to Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion.
Dawkins makes the claim that God is “almost certainly” does not exist—that God’s existence is improbable. Naturally I don’t agree, and I’m tempted to say that scientific discoveries like the Anthropic Principle offer reasons that it’s likely God exists. And yet at the same time, I don’t want to fall prey to proving God’s existence through its probability. On the other hand, I’m convinced that we can see the fingerprints of God (older theologians, talked about God’s footprints) through the amazing intricacy and complexity of creation.
So what do you think? Is probability a good ground for belief or not?
Dawkins makes the claim that God is “almost certainly” does not exist—that God’s existence is improbable. Naturally I don’t agree, and I’m tempted to say that scientific discoveries like the Anthropic Principle offer reasons that it’s likely God exists. And yet at the same time, I don’t want to fall prey to proving God’s existence through its probability. On the other hand, I’m convinced that we can see the fingerprints of God (older theologians, talked about God’s footprints) through the amazing intricacy and complexity of creation.
So what do you think? Is probability a good ground for belief or not?
Sunday, January 14, 2007
The Wisdom of Pascal
I'm in the midst of working on a class where I use my book to interact with Richard Dawkins, and somehow I'm compelled to remember the insights of Blaise Pascal, the 17th century scientist who saw so poignantly the limitations of the growing scientific revolution. He knew that the profound insights of science can leave human beings desiccated of meaning and purpose. Science, and its servant reason, are good, but faith needs both habits or religious practices and most of all, God’s movement through the Holy Spirit, "There are three ways to believe: reason, habit, inspiration. Christianity, which alone has reason, does not admit as its true children those who believe without inspiration. It is not that it excludes reason and habit, quite the contrary, but we must open our mind to the proofs, confirm ourselves in it through habit, while offering ourselves through humiliations to inspiration, which alone can produce the real and salutary effect. Lest the Cross of Christ be made of none effect."
If we are to be fruitful in bringing together science and theology, let's not presume that science can prove theological truths. Instead we will do well to head Pascal’s words.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
One More Thought: The New Atheists' Logical Error
Sometimes errors in argumentation are exceedingly simple. This is the case for Dawkins (and from what I'm told, Sam Harris).
It goes like this: The fact that some religious believers have childish and irrational belief does not prove that all believers do, nor does it prove that belief ispo facto is an unreasonable, or unreasoned, delusion.
It goes like this: The fact that some religious believers have childish and irrational belief does not prove that all believers do, nor does it prove that belief ispo facto is an unreasonable, or unreasoned, delusion.
A Note from MacWorld
I just returned from MacWorld, which was really cool. Amazing products to surround my iPods (a device I love) and programs to enhance my MacBook.
While there in SF's Mascone Center, I beheld something almost religious and certainly pseudo-salvific: several dozen people at a time were gazing on the glory of the new iPhone as it slowly twirled within a glass-enclosed pedestal.
I wondered whether technology, or its parent, science, can actually provide the salvation they promise. Richard Dawkins certainly believes so, and actually argues that religion has never actually delivered the goods.
But it doesn't take much to see that Dawkins appears to have succumbed to better marketing in presenting his case for a kinder, gentler science. The harsh realities of what we often call a "Darwinian," survival-of-the-fittest world have been softened in his latest installment. Instead so often we see science and technology proffering exactly the type of "self-delusion" and "wishful thinking" he deplores. We are led to believe that a technological or scientific insight will provide salvation. Sometimes they do provide healing, to be sure. But other times it takes just a few moments to perceive that they will appear as dated in a few years as 8-track tapes and floppy disks appear today.
And then we rush to the next product.
While there in SF's Mascone Center, I beheld something almost religious and certainly pseudo-salvific: several dozen people at a time were gazing on the glory of the new iPhone as it slowly twirled within a glass-enclosed pedestal.
I wondered whether technology, or its parent, science, can actually provide the salvation they promise. Richard Dawkins certainly believes so, and actually argues that religion has never actually delivered the goods.
But it doesn't take much to see that Dawkins appears to have succumbed to better marketing in presenting his case for a kinder, gentler science. The harsh realities of what we often call a "Darwinian," survival-of-the-fittest world have been softened in his latest installment. Instead so often we see science and technology proffering exactly the type of "self-delusion" and "wishful thinking" he deplores. We are led to believe that a technological or scientific insight will provide salvation. Sometimes they do provide healing, to be sure. But other times it takes just a few moments to perceive that they will appear as dated in a few years as 8-track tapes and floppy disks appear today.
And then we rush to the next product.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
The Rationality of Dawkins's Optimistic Atheism
I’m preparing for a class I’m teaching on Richard Dawkins’s new bestseller “The God Delusion” in which this Oxford professor of evolution argues stridently that Darwin’s theory undermines the rationality of belief in God.
He seeks to demonstrate that a scientifically-informed atheism affirms life. In other word, it’s positive:
“As many atheists have said better than me, the knowledge that we have only one life should make it all the more positive. The atheist view is correspondingly life-affirming and life-enhancing, while at the same time never being tainted with self-delusion [read here: like a religious view], wishful thinking, or the whingering self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something.”
Does that work? In this entry, I’ll just set these words in contrast with another of his works, “River Out of Eden” where he reflects on the bus crash of some Catholic schoolchildren.
"If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies like the crashing of a bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
As the unhappy poet A. E. Housman put it:
For Nature, heartless, witless Nature
Will neither know nor care.
DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."
He seeks to demonstrate that a scientifically-informed atheism affirms life. In other word, it’s positive:
“As many atheists have said better than me, the knowledge that we have only one life should make it all the more positive. The atheist view is correspondingly life-affirming and life-enhancing, while at the same time never being tainted with self-delusion [read here: like a religious view], wishful thinking, or the whingering self-pity of those who feel that life owes them something.”
Does that work? In this entry, I’ll just set these words in contrast with another of his works, “River Out of Eden” where he reflects on the bus crash of some Catholic schoolchildren.
"If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies like the crashing of a bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
As the unhappy poet A. E. Housman put it:
For Nature, heartless, witless Nature
Will neither know nor care.
DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Kierkegaard, Technology, and the Stars
An unusually gifted storyteller, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, illustrates the fight between affluence and its accompanying technology against the ability to “view the stars.” Most philosophers can’t produce really winning parables like this, one that still resonates almost two hundred years after he told it. But Kierkegaard can, and that’s why he’s worth quoting at length.
"When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the lanterns lighted, aye, then he is safe, he fears no difficulty, he carries his light with him and it is not dark close around him; but precisely because he has the lanterns lighted, and has a strong light close to him, precisely for this reason he cannot see the stars, for his lights obscure the starts, which the poor peasant driving without the lights can see gloriously in the dark but starry night. So those deceived ones live in the temporal existence: either, occupied with the necessities of life, they are too busy to avail themselves of the view, or in the prosperity and good days they have—as it were lanterns lighted and close about them—everything is so satisfactory, so pleasant, so comfortable, but the view is lacking, the prospect, the view of the stars."
We, or at least I, have become a person of brilliant, halogen lanterns, which too often obscure my view of the stars. I find myself in a thicket of technological devices multiplying around me, entertaining me, connecting me. And yet I wonder: What cricket sounds have I missed when I take a walk with and iPod strapped to me? Has my vision for the crow or the owl become diminished by the hours I stare into a computer screen? Underneath the neon lights, have I lost my view of the stars?
"When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the lanterns lighted, aye, then he is safe, he fears no difficulty, he carries his light with him and it is not dark close around him; but precisely because he has the lanterns lighted, and has a strong light close to him, precisely for this reason he cannot see the stars, for his lights obscure the starts, which the poor peasant driving without the lights can see gloriously in the dark but starry night. So those deceived ones live in the temporal existence: either, occupied with the necessities of life, they are too busy to avail themselves of the view, or in the prosperity and good days they have—as it were lanterns lighted and close about them—everything is so satisfactory, so pleasant, so comfortable, but the view is lacking, the prospect, the view of the stars."
We, or at least I, have become a person of brilliant, halogen lanterns, which too often obscure my view of the stars. I find myself in a thicket of technological devices multiplying around me, entertaining me, connecting me. And yet I wonder: What cricket sounds have I missed when I take a walk with and iPod strapped to me? Has my vision for the crow or the owl become diminished by the hours I stare into a computer screen? Underneath the neon lights, have I lost my view of the stars?
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Michelangelo, the David, and God's Chipping Away
The story goes like this. An admirer asked Michelangelo how he sculpted the famous statue of David that now sits in the Accademia Gallery in Florence. How did he craft this masterpiece of form and beauty? Michelangelo’s offered this strikingly simple description: He first fixed his attention on the slab of raw marble. He studied it and then “chipped away all that wasn’t David.”
A precision of vision. He worked undistracted by all the extra material, peering through the unformed shape into what the figure it could become. Michelangelo knew David—his age, how he was positioned, the shape of his torso, and that beautiful curved left arm just below his chin. Through the amorphous mass of rock, a clear form sparkled in his imagination. The marble would only need chipping away. And so, gradually, tap by tap, David—or the Pièta, or Moses—emerged. The glory of Michelangelo’s sculpting was that he could see through the raw material, through all the chipping away, to its ultimate destiny. He created these beautiful forms through what he removed, through what he negated. Put simply, he created through what I've called the Power of No.
We, on the other hand, are often not good at chipping away. We don’t tap away and reduce to craft what’s essence and crucial, but we add. Why? We live surrounded by a culture of almost countless possibilities. Paralyzed by choice, we can’t decide what to cut out. To commit means to say No to the overwhelming majority of these alluring possibilities. The options mock the hint of limits, and setting boundaries comes across as mere suggestions. Think of the World Wide Web with its four billion sites. Or the dozen or so types of Crest toothpaste. Remember when there were just the three channels of network TV. Now cable tenders hundreds of alternatives. Consider that it used to be coffee, black or with some combo of milk and sugar. Now you can order a two-percent decaf grande mocha, with or without “whipped.”
Our inability to choose has made us a nation of schedule obesity. Our bodies are overfull. And so too our schedules. They’re bursting with more than enough good things. We suffer from schedule obesity and goal obesity. Too many goals, too little time. It’s time for a steady diet of No.
It’s a struggle, and I know it. To maintain a healthy diet of No challenges me daily. I can be dazzled by all the glittering models for success that our culture parades before me. I intend to live for what really matters for me, but I fail. And so I want to move beyond good intentions to realizing all I can be. I want to succeed at what’s really important because, when I’m doing things with excellence, I find happiness. And I figure my Creator knows what that can look like, that God, the supreme Artist, sees our lives as works of art. And this is true artistry since we’re not simply blocks of marble for God to sculpt. Vincent Van Gogh once wrote his brother, Theo, about God’s amazing skill. “Christ… is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh; he makes human beings instead of statues.” You might even say that God’s chipping away becomes part of the healing of lives.
The Michelangelo story leads to some questions about sculpting our lives. Are our lives simply blocks of unchiseled marble? Is the “you”—and all you’re created to be—hidden in a formless life? Are you letting God, the Creator and Re-creator, transform your life, craft and mold you?
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The Nature of True Success
I think about success frequently. I mean, I want to live an excellent life and therefore succeed at what's really important. And here's what I've found: Success is being on the right path. (Actually I learned that from Earl Palmer. the pastor during my college years.) Success isn't fame, fortune, and position (although those may be nice). Instead, success is being on the path that aligns with how God has created us. That's where true happiness and hope are found.
I just spent a week with poor farmers in Honduras, working alongside a team that provided a loan so that these folks could ultimiately pay back the loan, own their land, and, in the process, farm more effectively. Ultimately the goal is that they could break the cycle of poverty where they only make enough to pay the farmer who owns the land that they farm. During the week, I wondered what success meant to them. I know there are fewer options for their life. It’s not a choice between studying at Princeton or Berkeley. It’s not, “What kind of job do I want?” but it’s “I’m thankful that I found work.” Nevertheless, I’m convinced that being on the right path is still the way to success for them too--loving their family, working as a community, living in faith, hope, and love. It even made me wonder why we get so easily distracted by the shiny objects of fame, fortune, and position.
I just spent a week with poor farmers in Honduras, working alongside a team that provided a loan so that these folks could ultimiately pay back the loan, own their land, and, in the process, farm more effectively. Ultimately the goal is that they could break the cycle of poverty where they only make enough to pay the farmer who owns the land that they farm. During the week, I wondered what success meant to them. I know there are fewer options for their life. It’s not a choice between studying at Princeton or Berkeley. It’s not, “What kind of job do I want?” but it’s “I’m thankful that I found work.” Nevertheless, I’m convinced that being on the right path is still the way to success for them too--loving their family, working as a community, living in faith, hope, and love. It even made me wonder why we get so easily distracted by the shiny objects of fame, fortune, and position.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Today Show, Take Two
This year I was asked again to perform the yearly, live wedding for The Today Show. I got the call a week before and the confirmation four days prior to the event. It was a bit of a whirlwind tour, but oh, so fun. This year I was able to go with my wife, Laura—which was fabulous—and that leads me to the first of my two observations.
Laura and I attended the reception (at the Boat House in Central Park). The band (whose name I can’t recall) was amazing—a soul-infused funk machine. We couldn’t help but dance like fiends. Appropriate fiends, I’m sure. But I think the sight of a pastor, fully in love with his wife, grooving to a slamming rhythm was a little atypical. At one point during the reception, another guest came up to us and exclaimed, “I’ve just had a religious experience. Whatever church you’re a part of, I want to be there!” That was a great compliment—that somehow we embodied a joy and celebration of life, the kind that Jesus so often proclaimed. After all, he was frequently accused of being too much of a party animal. So that’s good. But it’s also sad that that kind of celebrating stands out as something unusual for Christians. Are we really so dour all the time in the eyes of the world?
Number two was a conversation directly after the wedding with Ann Curry who came up to Laura and me, under the scaffolding, on the way into the studio. After offering some praise for the wedding message, and especially its realism that could really help couples, this TV celebrity continued by telling us that the reason for going into media was to make a difference, to report stories that would be what I would call redemptive. The moment was powerful. I also realized that she wanted a blessing, wanted me, as a “man of the cloth,” to affirm that media people can do good in this world. And so they can. And so, in a way, I did by affirming that I appreciated her vision and would pray for her.
Laura and I attended the reception (at the Boat House in Central Park). The band (whose name I can’t recall) was amazing—a soul-infused funk machine. We couldn’t help but dance like fiends. Appropriate fiends, I’m sure. But I think the sight of a pastor, fully in love with his wife, grooving to a slamming rhythm was a little atypical. At one point during the reception, another guest came up to us and exclaimed, “I’ve just had a religious experience. Whatever church you’re a part of, I want to be there!” That was a great compliment—that somehow we embodied a joy and celebration of life, the kind that Jesus so often proclaimed. After all, he was frequently accused of being too much of a party animal. So that’s good. But it’s also sad that that kind of celebrating stands out as something unusual for Christians. Are we really so dour all the time in the eyes of the world?
Number two was a conversation directly after the wedding with Ann Curry who came up to Laura and me, under the scaffolding, on the way into the studio. After offering some praise for the wedding message, and especially its realism that could really help couples, this TV celebrity continued by telling us that the reason for going into media was to make a difference, to report stories that would be what I would call redemptive. The moment was powerful. I also realized that she wanted a blessing, wanted me, as a “man of the cloth,” to affirm that media people can do good in this world. And so they can. And so, in a way, I did by affirming that I appreciated her vision and would pray for her.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Katie Couric's Last Wedding
On September 16th last year, I performed a wedding on the Today Show. One year later I decided to reflect on the experience...
The introduction by Al Roker defined the moment as unusual. “The wedding will be presided over by the Reverend Greg Cootsona….” Until then, I had tried to ease my jangling nerves that it was just another nuptial in my pastoral life.
You see I wasn’t immediately convinced about performing a Today Show wedding. A friend and producer on the show (whose wedding I had performed in New York City) called, with “an unusual opportunity.” Not sensing Amway in my future, and bolstered by her assessment that I “would be perfect,” I pondered. And balked. But eventually, I accepted the assignment.
Two nights before my introduction by Al Roker, a driver met me at BWI’s baggage claim with a sign and (surprise!) bearing my name. This doesn’t happen often on my way to nuptials in Chico (although I could get used to it). Two days and two cars later, at the 5:15am call for the show (2:15 California time), a stretch limo transported me. As I entered the car, the driver phoned the show saying, “The Reverend is in the car.”
Now out of the car and walking toward the stage in front of the Cheasapeake Bay, I patted the tube of Recapit Cement safely in my pocket. The pressure of such a large audience squeezed out a strange neurosis: that the recently applied veneer on my front tooth covering a discoloration (itself a wedding honorarium from my dentist) would pop out in medias homily. I’m just not sure how I would have applied the bond in front of the TV audience, but such thoughts never occur to the neurotic.
Following the introduction, I walking on the runner set on smooshy grass and recalled the previous day and worries of an impending rainstorm (as a hurricane brewed to the south with Matt Lauer sent to the scene). That day of rehearsals, I had expected diffidence and attitude from the crew. Instead it was also fun and encouragement. On the stage for Trisha Yearwood’s concert following the wedding, I spied a gorgeous drum set (their petrified wood shells unearthed from the depths of Lake Michigan), and asked if I could take it for a ride. The crew encouraged me. After a brief solo, the soundman offered his assessment: “You might have missed your calling.” Perhaps not totally encouraging the day before the Big Event. Speaking of the sound man, the show’s attention to detail astounded me: The multiple camera men, sound techs, and general assistants making everything work flawlessly. That was change for me—I’m happy in church when the mic’s on. (Why can’t we have several professionals making sure the church’s sound works and the lights are on like The Today Show? That’s right. Congregations don’t gross half a billion dollars a year.)
The night before, I was eating pizza and drinking Cokes with the mostly 20something under-producers, pages, or whatever they were, and we discussed my former church, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian (which was in the midst of a scandal so it was pretty interesting). We sat out on the back porch of the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club (in Stevensville, Maryland, by the by), talking about life, about a homosexual brother, about faith, about the show the next day. Behind their words I saw the same ambitious eyes of youth that want to make a mark on the world and maybe to glimpse a bit of fame themselves.
Transported in the stretch limo, I arrived on the wedding set (that’s on odd combination of words) at 5:30 am. (Did I mention that that’s 2:30am California time?) As I walked in along a wooden ramp, I glimpsed some bright lights above the clubhouse. Katie Couric was already working with lights on and cameras rolling. Knowing that she had trained down from Manhattan the night before, it struck me as imminently tiring and a high price for fame.
But no one at the event would have ever know she was tired. Wearing her flip-flops on the set, cracking jokes with the wedding guests on commercial breaks. It was pretty charming. I finally met her for a brief moment, at the reception. Every moment she was mobbed by people, with barely a moment to herself. The price of fame, I suppose. And I asked her, “Could I do the fan-thing and take picture with you?” She was pulled away. And then a moment later, turned back to me, “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?” It was a moment of humanity. (And she hadn’t yet received my gift, a t-shirt from the church.) So I was sold.
Oh yes, how about the wedding? Once it started, the cameras disappeared. (Like a friend a produced prepped me: “Just imagine they’re video cams—you’ve seen those before.” Amazingly it worked.) Mark and Sarah were the most focused couple I’ve ever married. They had spent so many hours in front of the camera that they actually looked me in the eye as I talked of passion and commitment in the improvisations of marriage and jazz. Mark, this big, studly guy cried as he vowed his love, and Sarah serenely wiped his tears. (People, I’m told, were also crying from Times Square.)
Afterward, as I rode in the longest of four limos back to airport, I saw the moment fading fast. So I asked the driver to stop at a gas station and bought a San Pellegrino. I looked out from the convenience store and thought, “A stretch for me—that’s pretty cool.” With no more tricks up the sleeve, I begrudgingly headed toward the airport, and soon was in the United gates. I’d never waved goodbye to a limo before. Slowly I was slipping back into obscurity. Off to the plans for that weekend: Monterey Jazz Festival (the last one we attended with her mother before the latter suffered an acute stroke)—in my mind, a pretty sweet consolation prize.
My brother, during a brief sojourn with an Episcopalian church group, edited their newspaper, which he called “The Highly Parishable.” In that spirit: those three minutes and forty-five seconds of fame (and the days surrounding it) were certainly parishable fruit. One realization was, given the seven million or so who would view that day, I would preach to more in those minutes than I probably throughout my lifetime. But the fruit had been picked and was half eaten. My shelf had a few days more: two radio interviews on the Monday I returned. At one point a few weeks later, I was visiting a member in the hospital and someone in the next bed blurted out, “Weren’t you the guy on The Today Show?” It finally got to this: “I saw a little bit of your head in the picture of the wedding in US Magazine.”
Sarah and Mark have thankfully kept in touch as they entered post-TV life. Several months later would reveal that this was Katie’s last Today Show wedding. (Luckily, I grabbed a picture with her at the reception.) I’m doing hospital visitation, numerous church committee meetings, teaching and preaching, and yes, the occasional wedding without, of course, an introduction by Al Roker.
The introduction by Al Roker defined the moment as unusual. “The wedding will be presided over by the Reverend Greg Cootsona….” Until then, I had tried to ease my jangling nerves that it was just another nuptial in my pastoral life.
You see I wasn’t immediately convinced about performing a Today Show wedding. A friend and producer on the show (whose wedding I had performed in New York City) called, with “an unusual opportunity.” Not sensing Amway in my future, and bolstered by her assessment that I “would be perfect,” I pondered. And balked. But eventually, I accepted the assignment.
Two nights before my introduction by Al Roker, a driver met me at BWI’s baggage claim with a sign and (surprise!) bearing my name. This doesn’t happen often on my way to nuptials in Chico (although I could get used to it). Two days and two cars later, at the 5:15am call for the show (2:15 California time), a stretch limo transported me. As I entered the car, the driver phoned the show saying, “The Reverend is in the car.”
Now out of the car and walking toward the stage in front of the Cheasapeake Bay, I patted the tube of Recapit Cement safely in my pocket. The pressure of such a large audience squeezed out a strange neurosis: that the recently applied veneer on my front tooth covering a discoloration (itself a wedding honorarium from my dentist) would pop out in medias homily. I’m just not sure how I would have applied the bond in front of the TV audience, but such thoughts never occur to the neurotic.
Following the introduction, I walking on the runner set on smooshy grass and recalled the previous day and worries of an impending rainstorm (as a hurricane brewed to the south with Matt Lauer sent to the scene). That day of rehearsals, I had expected diffidence and attitude from the crew. Instead it was also fun and encouragement. On the stage for Trisha Yearwood’s concert following the wedding, I spied a gorgeous drum set (their petrified wood shells unearthed from the depths of Lake Michigan), and asked if I could take it for a ride. The crew encouraged me. After a brief solo, the soundman offered his assessment: “You might have missed your calling.” Perhaps not totally encouraging the day before the Big Event. Speaking of the sound man, the show’s attention to detail astounded me: The multiple camera men, sound techs, and general assistants making everything work flawlessly. That was change for me—I’m happy in church when the mic’s on. (Why can’t we have several professionals making sure the church’s sound works and the lights are on like The Today Show? That’s right. Congregations don’t gross half a billion dollars a year.)
The night before, I was eating pizza and drinking Cokes with the mostly 20something under-producers, pages, or whatever they were, and we discussed my former church, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian (which was in the midst of a scandal so it was pretty interesting). We sat out on the back porch of the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club (in Stevensville, Maryland, by the by), talking about life, about a homosexual brother, about faith, about the show the next day. Behind their words I saw the same ambitious eyes of youth that want to make a mark on the world and maybe to glimpse a bit of fame themselves.
Transported in the stretch limo, I arrived on the wedding set (that’s on odd combination of words) at 5:30 am. (Did I mention that that’s 2:30am California time?) As I walked in along a wooden ramp, I glimpsed some bright lights above the clubhouse. Katie Couric was already working with lights on and cameras rolling. Knowing that she had trained down from Manhattan the night before, it struck me as imminently tiring and a high price for fame.
But no one at the event would have ever know she was tired. Wearing her flip-flops on the set, cracking jokes with the wedding guests on commercial breaks. It was pretty charming. I finally met her for a brief moment, at the reception. Every moment she was mobbed by people, with barely a moment to herself. The price of fame, I suppose. And I asked her, “Could I do the fan-thing and take picture with you?” She was pulled away. And then a moment later, turned back to me, “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?” It was a moment of humanity. (And she hadn’t yet received my gift, a t-shirt from the church.) So I was sold.
Oh yes, how about the wedding? Once it started, the cameras disappeared. (Like a friend a produced prepped me: “Just imagine they’re video cams—you’ve seen those before.” Amazingly it worked.) Mark and Sarah were the most focused couple I’ve ever married. They had spent so many hours in front of the camera that they actually looked me in the eye as I talked of passion and commitment in the improvisations of marriage and jazz. Mark, this big, studly guy cried as he vowed his love, and Sarah serenely wiped his tears. (People, I’m told, were also crying from Times Square.)
Afterward, as I rode in the longest of four limos back to airport, I saw the moment fading fast. So I asked the driver to stop at a gas station and bought a San Pellegrino. I looked out from the convenience store and thought, “A stretch for me—that’s pretty cool.” With no more tricks up the sleeve, I begrudgingly headed toward the airport, and soon was in the United gates. I’d never waved goodbye to a limo before. Slowly I was slipping back into obscurity. Off to the plans for that weekend: Monterey Jazz Festival (the last one we attended with her mother before the latter suffered an acute stroke)—in my mind, a pretty sweet consolation prize.
My brother, during a brief sojourn with an Episcopalian church group, edited their newspaper, which he called “The Highly Parishable.” In that spirit: those three minutes and forty-five seconds of fame (and the days surrounding it) were certainly parishable fruit. One realization was, given the seven million or so who would view that day, I would preach to more in those minutes than I probably throughout my lifetime. But the fruit had been picked and was half eaten. My shelf had a few days more: two radio interviews on the Monday I returned. At one point a few weeks later, I was visiting a member in the hospital and someone in the next bed blurted out, “Weren’t you the guy on The Today Show?” It finally got to this: “I saw a little bit of your head in the picture of the wedding in US Magazine.”
Sarah and Mark have thankfully kept in touch as they entered post-TV life. Several months later would reveal that this was Katie’s last Today Show wedding. (Luckily, I grabbed a picture with her at the reception.) I’m doing hospital visitation, numerous church committee meetings, teaching and preaching, and yes, the occasional wedding without, of course, an introduction by Al Roker.
Memories of a Bleak Week in Manhattan
Here are a few notes I took on September 12, 2001. The only changes here are to make some of the fragments into full sentences and to clarify references that would be obscure to non-New Yorkers.
A group of families meeting in the Pierre Hotel to discuss 900-1000 employees missing, with nametags, “Scott Behrens looking for Jane Cananda…” A 30-year old woman found herself late for work to World Trade Center #2 coming to my church office in tears, “Everyone in my office is gone, and there’s no office. What do I do? How do I pray?” A church member on the phone in Chicago, doing business with a colleague in WTC 1, suddenly hears this: “There’s fire all around. I don’t know what’s happening. Here’s my home number, call my wife and tell her I love her.” Then the phone goes dead. I’ll never forget looking down 5th Avenue at 9:30am, in front of the Disney store, across from Fifth Avenue Presbyterian, as the World Trade Center smoked in the distance. Then at 10:15, only seeing smoke…
The scale of yesterday’s terrorist attack is immense. Reverberations throughout the city.
A group of families meeting in the Pierre Hotel to discuss 900-1000 employees missing, with nametags, “Scott Behrens looking for Jane Cananda…” A 30-year old woman found herself late for work to World Trade Center #2 coming to my church office in tears, “Everyone in my office is gone, and there’s no office. What do I do? How do I pray?” A church member on the phone in Chicago, doing business with a colleague in WTC 1, suddenly hears this: “There’s fire all around. I don’t know what’s happening. Here’s my home number, call my wife and tell her I love her.” Then the phone goes dead. I’ll never forget looking down 5th Avenue at 9:30am, in front of the Disney store, across from Fifth Avenue Presbyterian, as the World Trade Center smoked in the distance. Then at 10:15, only seeing smoke…
The scale of yesterday’s terrorist attack is immense. Reverberations throughout the city.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Some Ancient Wisdom on Relating Christian Faith & Science
"Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an unbeliever to hear a Christian, presumably giving meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics [like astronomy, physics, and biology]. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books and matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learned from experience in the light of reason?"
St. Augustine
St. Augustine
Monday, July 31, 2006
Evolution and God? Yes
I've been encouraged (or was it goaded?) by my friend, John, to reflect on creation and evolution. Here's a short, slightly altered, excerpt from my book, "Creation and Last Things: At the Intersection of Theology and Science." It goes something like this...
Although I am more committed to the truth of creation by God than of evolution by natural selection, I am not compelled to choose between the two. In fact, the doctrine of creation makes two primary affirmations: we are created in God’s image, and the world is not fully consistent with God’s intentions. With this mind, there is ample room for scientific discovery. And we must avoid dictating the best way for God to create. Instead we should look concretely and openly at the evidence. As John Calvin wrote, "If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God."
Overall, my church, the Presbyterian Church, does not see conflict between evolution and the doctrine that God created the natural world. Here the Presbyterians and the Roman Catholics agree. Surprisingly, what is true for the PC (U.S.A.) and the Vatican can be extended to the U.S. populace. A 1999 People for the American Way Foundation poll discovered that 68% of our country found no contradiction between evolution and the belief that God created us and guided human development.
Put simply, Christians believe God created us and our world and used evolution in that process. I find no scientific argument that disproves God’s creative act.
Although I am more committed to the truth of creation by God than of evolution by natural selection, I am not compelled to choose between the two. In fact, the doctrine of creation makes two primary affirmations: we are created in God’s image, and the world is not fully consistent with God’s intentions. With this mind, there is ample room for scientific discovery. And we must avoid dictating the best way for God to create. Instead we should look concretely and openly at the evidence. As John Calvin wrote, "If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God."
Overall, my church, the Presbyterian Church, does not see conflict between evolution and the doctrine that God created the natural world. Here the Presbyterians and the Roman Catholics agree. Surprisingly, what is true for the PC (U.S.A.) and the Vatican can be extended to the U.S. populace. A 1999 People for the American Way Foundation poll discovered that 68% of our country found no contradiction between evolution and the belief that God created us and guided human development.
Put simply, Christians believe God created us and our world and used evolution in that process. I find no scientific argument that disproves God’s creative act.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Henry Ford and the Politics of the Middle East
The current carnage in Lebanon is just one more instance of the amazingly violent dysfunction of the Middle East. It has spurred me not to comment directly, but to recall a more general connection between Henry Ford's mass production of his Model T 98 years ago and the politics of the Middle East. Could anyone then have realized the unintended consequences of this astounding triumph of American ingenuity?
The obvious connection is the increasing thirst over the past decades for oil. The internal combustion engine's ascendancy to the primary means for moving people and goods also means that entire economies have become dependent on fossil fuel for transportation. No one can reasonably deny the United States' need to secure oil reserves plays a major role in our ongoing interest in the Middle East. And conversely, oil-producing nations have enormous and disproportionate pull in international affairs as a result. It's so obvious I need not comment further.
The more subtle correlation is between Tin Lizzie and terrorists, who now have a ready-made, and certainly surreptious, means for delivering a bomb. The automobile becomes an explosive, driven unannounced to its destination, and wrecking immense havoc. Who could foresee the process set in motion way back in 1908?
The obvious connection is the increasing thirst over the past decades for oil. The internal combustion engine's ascendancy to the primary means for moving people and goods also means that entire economies have become dependent on fossil fuel for transportation. No one can reasonably deny the United States' need to secure oil reserves plays a major role in our ongoing interest in the Middle East. And conversely, oil-producing nations have enormous and disproportionate pull in international affairs as a result. It's so obvious I need not comment further.
The more subtle correlation is between Tin Lizzie and terrorists, who now have a ready-made, and certainly surreptious, means for delivering a bomb. The automobile becomes an explosive, driven unannounced to its destination, and wrecking immense havoc. Who could foresee the process set in motion way back in 1908?
Monday, July 10, 2006
"Pirates," Redemption, and Culture
I just checked my Google News and found that "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," has taken in $135.6 million, which is the highest gross of any film on its first weekend. I saw the film on Friday with a packed house in Incline Village, Nevada. It was certainly entertaining, and visually overwhelming, though not--I'm quick to add--as good as the first installment of "Pirates." The latter movie was a serendipity. I've pondered the themes of Pirates II to discern any deeper meaning, and redemption looms large, whether it's for cruel Davy Jones, or the generally upright Will Turner, or even the mischievous Captain Jack Sparrow. All these characters bear chains of one sort or another from which they want freedom so that they can live. And significantly, this one of the core theological images for the critical experience of the Christian life--that we're in a bind without hope or release, unless someone else intervenes. So maybe the U.S. senses this deep need.... Or maybe they just like the visual effects of Pirates II.... At this point, it's not easy for me to decide between the two options.
(Incidentally, I've extended these reflections through a post on the Thoughtful Christian blog: http://thethoughtfulchristian.blogspot.com.
(Incidentally, I've extended these reflections through a post on the Thoughtful Christian blog: http://thethoughtfulchristian.blogspot.com.
Friday, June 30, 2006
A Time to Reflect
Thankfully, one of the earthly benefits of life as a Presbyterian pastor is four weeks of vacation and two of study leave every year. Well, I'm about to use a third of that bounty, hanging out with my family, swimming, reading, mountain biking, and pondering the inscrutable azure of Lake Tahoe. I will plunge deeper into Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics IV/3.1 as he continues to develop the missional church (without ever employing that word, of course) as it follows the God-Man Jesus Christ, who, as Prophet, is sent out by God. I'll also begin sketching a book that retells the history of Christianity focused on Christ and how we, as a Christian community, have responded or rejected Jesus' ministry and mission. I'm pretty sure I'll discover that Jesus has plenty of surprises for the people who call on his name.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Karl Barth and the "Missional" Church
My wife (an irreverent theologian, to be sure) asserts that "missional" is not an English word, but some theological babble that people noise about today. Yes, I admit that the word doesn't appear in my Webster's 10th edition, but contemporary writers are using it to describe the basic theological conviction that God sends the church into the prophetic task of witness and service. ("Missional" comes from the Latin missio, which means "to send.") More importantly, these writers are drawing us back to what Jesus directed us to do: To live for the benefit of others, not ourselves. Too often, the church is pathetic and not prophetic.
Thankfully, when I turned to Karl Barth (the greatest theologian of 20th century), I found all the theology I needed and nothing called "missional." Barth believed that in Jesus' role as Prophet, he sends his community into the world in service (Church Dogmatics IV/3.2).
I'll let the Swiss theologian Barth speak for himself (though translated, of course): "The Holy Spirit is the enlightening power of the living Lord Jesus Christ in which He confesses the community called by Him and His body, i.e., as His own earthly-historical form of existence, by entrusting to it the ministry of His prophetic Word...."
I'd let to know what you think of them Apfels.
Thankfully, when I turned to Karl Barth (the greatest theologian of 20th century), I found all the theology I needed and nothing called "missional." Barth believed that in Jesus' role as Prophet, he sends his community into the world in service (Church Dogmatics IV/3.2).
I'll let the Swiss theologian Barth speak for himself (though translated, of course): "The Holy Spirit is the enlightening power of the living Lord Jesus Christ in which He confesses the community called by Him and His body, i.e., as His own earthly-historical form of existence, by entrusting to it the ministry of His prophetic Word...."
I'd let to know what you think of them Apfels.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Prayer and the Mathematics of Technology
6 June 2006, Metanexus Conference, University of Pennsylvania
This morning I led Protestant Prayer at the Metanexus Conference on science and religion. It was filmed by a crew whose director determined that this could be “the highest level academic conference in which prayer was actually on the agenda." That fact, in his estimation, made the prayer time worth digitally recording and presumably broadcasting. Ironically, it didn’t seem to make it worth attending since only about 1/30th of the conference attendees were there.
I need to be clear: I’m not complaining. Within the logic of faith, the number of human attenders didn’t matter, of course. For one thing, I was happy that there were enough pray-ers to join during in the intercessions so that my voice didn’t simply ricochet off the walls. It seemed like we even “had church” to some degree. I’m not complaining because it’s the audience of the One to whom we pray that ultimately matters.
That somehow brings me to reflect on technology and faith. The computations of technology (a child of science) and those of faith are quite different. Not at all impugning the motives of the film director (actually, his motives seemed quite commendable), I still know that the mathematics of technology is based on tangible numbers and the prestige of those in attendance. The mathematics of prayer is counted by the degree to which God enters. God + impressive crowds is no greater than God without anyone. It's that math which makes prayer imminently worthwhile.
This morning I led Protestant Prayer at the Metanexus Conference on science and religion. It was filmed by a crew whose director determined that this could be “the highest level academic conference in which prayer was actually on the agenda." That fact, in his estimation, made the prayer time worth digitally recording and presumably broadcasting. Ironically, it didn’t seem to make it worth attending since only about 1/30th of the conference attendees were there.
I need to be clear: I’m not complaining. Within the logic of faith, the number of human attenders didn’t matter, of course. For one thing, I was happy that there were enough pray-ers to join during in the intercessions so that my voice didn’t simply ricochet off the walls. It seemed like we even “had church” to some degree. I’m not complaining because it’s the audience of the One to whom we pray that ultimately matters.
That somehow brings me to reflect on technology and faith. The computations of technology (a child of science) and those of faith are quite different. Not at all impugning the motives of the film director (actually, his motives seemed quite commendable), I still know that the mathematics of technology is based on tangible numbers and the prestige of those in attendance. The mathematics of prayer is counted by the degree to which God enters. God + impressive crowds is no greater than God without anyone. It's that math which makes prayer imminently worthwhile.
Monday, June 05, 2006
More from Metanexus Conference on Religion & Science
5 June 2006, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Today the science and religion conference will focus on contributions from European scholars. (It'll be interesting because it might help me put together a "study trip" to Italy... for entirely scholarly purposes, of course) Yesterday, we looked at the nature of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement from an impressive variety of perspectives. ID didn't fare very well, to be honest. One of the more powerful presentations came from Jeffrey Schloss at the evangelical school, Westmont College in Santa Barbara. As a biologist, he carefully noted the deficiencies of the ID paradigm from a scientific perspective, all the while critiquing it thoughtfully and charitably, never resorting to caricatures or truthiness (because I say it loudly, it has to be so). That combination, to my mind, represents Christian scholarship.
Today the science and religion conference will focus on contributions from European scholars. (It'll be interesting because it might help me put together a "study trip" to Italy... for entirely scholarly purposes, of course) Yesterday, we looked at the nature of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement from an impressive variety of perspectives. ID didn't fare very well, to be honest. One of the more powerful presentations came from Jeffrey Schloss at the evangelical school, Westmont College in Santa Barbara. As a biologist, he carefully noted the deficiencies of the ID paradigm from a scientific perspective, all the while critiquing it thoughtfully and charitably, never resorting to caricatures or truthiness (because I say it loudly, it has to be so). That combination, to my mind, represents Christian scholarship.
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