Kruse Kronicle

'Government ordered Dafur attack'

BBC: 'Government ordered Dafur attack'

Fresh claims have emerged of people being attacked in Darfur. A student at Khartoum University has told the Today programme that she and 30 other women were attacked on the university campus by men wielding metal bars. Correspondent Mike Thomson talks to one of the students, who has asked for her name not to be broadcast.

Great Geek Debates: Kirk vs. Picard

Wired: Great Geek Debates: Kirk vs. Picard

If you’re a Star Trek fan, you’ve surely considered the differences between the captains in the various series, even if you don’t have a favorite. And, while Sisko, Janeway, and even Archer have their fans, the quintessential Star Trek debate has been, since TNG premiered nearly 22 years ago, who’s the better captain: Kirk or Picard? ...

... So, who’s really better? There have been countless articles and lists written on the subject, so I’m not sure how much new territory there is to cover here. What I will try to do, then, is distill the argument down to five key subject areas, then compare and contrast Kirk and Picard (I’m only considering the original, William Shatner, Kirk here, incidentally, because otherwise this gets way too complicated): ...

There is no debate. It's this guy, hands down.

CS Lewis: Outside the Pale? (RJS)

Jesus Creed: CS Lewis: Outside the Pale? (RJS)

... One of the comments on the last post noted that Augustine's view of  the doctrine of original sin, causes the most significant conflict for many of us today.  This came up again in an e-mail I received dealing with the doctrines of Adam, Eve, and Original Sin. The letter writer sent the following (and I quote excerpts with permission):

I went through considerable emotional turmoil when a Presbyterian pastor I respect responded to my statement that I am not sure that the human race descended from a single pair and that I believed descent from more than one pair is not necessarily in conflict with biblical teaching. This pastor declared that my views are "outside the pale" of Christianity, not just Reformed Christianity, but all Christianity (including Roman Catholic doctrine), and that if I were to attend his church, he would consider me like the Oneness Pentecostals who deny the Trinity. I am not a Christian, even if I am a nice guy. He qualified by saying that he cannot judge my state before God, but doctrinally I am not a Christian.

The letter writer went on to note that this "pastor is generally a model of charity and would not say what he said if he did not feel conscience-bound to do so." This letter poses the question I would like to consider today.

Is any position other than monogenesis of the human race with Adam and Eve as unique historical individuals outside the pale of orthodox Christianity?

To begin to consider this question I will lay out a few perspectives on the question of Adam and Eve within the boundaries of orthodox Christianity.   ...

Pope: scientific analysis done on St. Paul's bones

Guardian: Pope: scientific analysis done on St. Paul's bones

Associated Press Writer= ROME (AP) The first-ever scientific tests on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul "seem to conclude" that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday.

Archaeologists recently unearthed and opened the white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, which for some 2,000 years has been believed by the faithful to be the tomb of St. Paul.

Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or second century.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul," Benedict said, announcing the findings at a service in the basilica to mark the end of the Vatican's Paoline year, in honor of the apostle. ...

Okay. I'm not buying it until Temperance Brennan has a look.

Retirement: The burdens of old age

The Economist: Retirement: The burdens of old age

Retirement in rich countries is becoming unaffordable.

IN 1935, when America first introduced state pensions to relieve poverty in old age, the average life expectancy was 62. The official pension age was 65. That meant the cost of the pension system was very modest.

These days people live a lot longer. America’s official pension age is now 66, but people on average retire at 64 and can then expect to draw their pension for 16 years.

Over the next few decades things will get a lot worse because rich countries’ populations are ageing fast.

At present, the developed countries on average have about four people of working age for every person over 65. But by 2050 this will have come down to only two workers for every pensioner.

America will come off best, with a ratio of about two-and-a-half, because its population will remain relatively youthful. Britain will also do better than average, and France only slightly worse. But in Japan and Italy there will be only one-and-a-half workers for every pensioner. That will impose an unbearable burden. Pensions will have to become less generous, and most people will have to keep on working well beyond 65.

Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 4)

[Series Index]

Today we look at “Faith and Faithfulness,” the third of four parts in John Stackhouse’s discussion of “Principles of a New Realism.” (Chapter 8 in Making the Best of It.) We’ve already looked at “A Mixed Field, Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results” and “The Normal and Beyond.” “Liberty and Cooperation" will be the topic of the next post.

Faith and Faithfulness

The Christian life is one of faith: trusting in God for salvation – of oneself, one’s neighbors, and the world. A vital aspect of that faith is trusting the work of God in oneself, in one’s neighbors, and in the world. Another is trusting the work of God through oneself, through one’s neighbors, and through the world. (288)

Stackhouse identifies two important pitfalls. First, individually or as a group, we may arrogate God’s work to ourselves. Our efforts are equated with God’s efforts. Those not with us are defying God. We are unwilling to make common cause with others, Christian and non-Christian alike, who may not match up with our vision in all the particulars. Our zeal to do “the Lord’s work” can actually interfere with God’s work. We frequently we come off as pests and bullies.   

Second, we may retreat from engagement with the world, while we seek pure hearts and clean hands, trusting that God will work everything out. As Stackhouse notes, “Political decisions, at least most of them, are made by those who show up.” (290) (By “political decisions” he means decision-making done in all spheres of societal life.) God is working in and through human institutions to bring shalom. We cannot be absent from them.

Stackhouse titles one subsection, “Irony, Paradox, Integrity, and Effectiveness.” Alluding to Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life as a parable, he points out how interwoven our lives are; how hard it is to anticipate how even small actions might have a future impact. Consequences of our actions frequently don’t match our intentions. We create welfare programs that encourage sloth and workfare programs that damage the innocent. Ironies are all too frequent. Yet we are called to persevere, in spite of what seems a tangled mess of paradoxes and complexities. This perseverance is key to what faithfulness means. Stackhouse writes:

The Cross show us that we won’t always win. And it shows us that we always, finally, do win – through the Cross, and through our crosses. (291)

But mindlessly engaging in a pattern of behavior, without  regard to actual consequences, is not faithfulness. I really appreciated this passage:

Many individual Christians, however, and also churches and other groups of Christians, congratulate themselves on their faithfulness over against any consideration of effectiveness. “Our job is not to be effective – that’s God’s business – but to be faithful.” How convenient it is for such Christians to fly the flag of faithfulness as their numbers dwindle, their evangelism remains fruitless, and their social ministry stands unwelcomed by others: “We’re small, and uninfluential, and disparaged by others, but that’s just because we are so true to the gospel.” I grew up hearing this from conservative Christians, but nowadays one hears such rationalization also from those on the religious left as they reassure themselves about what they are pleased to call their prophetic fidelity. (292)

Stackhouse draws on the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30. The slave who hides and preserves his talent, and is therefore rebuked and condemned, “… is the very picture of integrity without effectiveness.” Faithfulness requires consideration of both integrity and effectiveness.

Prudence and shrewdness are other virtues we would do well to cultivate. Individually and as groups, we are limited beings with limited resources. We have to discern where we should focus our efforts within our given contexts. Frequently that means tolerating things we find objectionable and working with others whose views we may find objectionable in order to be effective.

Again, God tolerates a certain amount of evil and does not try to fix everything at once. We should therefore be more godly and less fastidious. And we can do so because we hope in God who one day will make all things new. (295)

Stackhouse closes this section with observations about hope. We undertake our work without despair or desperation. He challenges the widely held view of total destruction of this world and an ex nihilo creation of a new world. He comments on II Peter 3:7, 10-13, showing that it is not about annihilation, but rather the imagery is akin to Noah's flood that washed away what was evil and left what was good. In this case, the imagery is a refiner’s fire burning away the impurities, leaving that which is pure. “… there is great discontinuity with the world as it was, but also great continuity." (296)

He closes, writing:

… Precisely because we hope in God, we do not perpetually rush forward into the next thing with our ready-made programs and provisions, but rather cultivate the humility that awaits his direction and supply. (297)

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Seattle center develops tech for poor people

Computerworld: Seattle center develops tech for poor people

The first question many people asked when Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus proposed the Village Phone idea was: Who will they call?

Village Phone is the project that turns primarily poor women in developing countries into entrepreneurs by offering them micro-loans to buy a cell phone that they let other villagers use for a fee.

Now that there are more than 220,000 Village Phone operators in Bangladesh and more in Uganda, Rwanda, Cameroon and Indonesia, we know the poor have people to call, said Peter Bladin, founding director of the Grameen Technology Center and executive vice president for programs and regions at the Grameen Foundation.

Bladin helped prove that the Village Phone idea would work outside of Bangladesh, where Yunus founded the bank that gave the loans and was part owner in the mobile-phone company. Bladin heads the little-known Seattle-based Grameen Technology Center, an arm of the Grameen Foundation, which is the U.S. organization that raises money to support micro-finance around the world. ...

... It turns out that some of the first calls made by customers of the original Village Phone operators were by farmers to relatives in market towns, asking them how much a product was selling for. Such farmers often lack the means to transport their crops to the market so they rely on middlemen, who buy the products from the farmers and deliver them, Bladin said. But if the farmer knows the price the product is going for at the market, he can often convince the middlemen to pay a fair price.

"When the opportunity cost is high, people are willing to use this technology," Bladin said. While the cost of that phone call might seem expensive relative to the user's income, if the call will result in more income, the user will pay for it. ...

... "The next step is, what if you use the phones that are already out there to make information searchable through text? What if you digitized information or made it available to people, how would people use that to empower themselves?" he said. ...

Discovery: Grain storage began well before farming

Kansas City Star: Discovery: Grain storage began well before farming

WASHINGTON | People were storing grain long before they learned to domesticate crops, a new study indicates.

A structure used as a food granary discovered in recent excavations in Jordan dates to about 11,300 years ago, according to a report in last week’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That’s as much as a thousand years before people in the Middle East domesticated grain, the research team led by anthropologist Ian Kuijt of the University of Notre Dame said. ...

... The ability to store food is essential for the development of farming, the researchers said.

“The granaries represent a critical evolutionary shift in the relationship between people and plant foods, which precedes the emergence of domestication and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years,” they reported. ...

The Justification Debate: A Primer

Christianity Today: The Justification Debate: A Primer

Two of the world's most prominent pastor-theologians on justification—and what difference it makes.

Since Christianity Today's August 2007 cover story, "What Did Paul Really Mean?" Piper and Wright have taken the debate on justification from the academy to the masses. Here is where the two evangelicals differ.

Download a PDF of this article here.

John Piper: Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Author of The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright.

N.T. Wright: Bishop of Durham, Church of England. Author of Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision.

The Problem

Piper: God created a good world that was subjected to futility because of the sinful, treasonous choice of the first human beings. Because of this offense against the glory of God, humans are alienated from their Creator and deserve his just condemnation for their sins.

Wright: God created a good world, designed to be looked after and brought to its intended purpose through his image-bearing human beings. This purpose was thwarted by the sinful choice of the first human beings. Because of human sinfulness, the world needs to be put to rights again and its original purpose taken forward to completion. God's purpose in putting humans "right" is that through them, the world can be put to rights. ...

Economic Trend?

(Source: Awn)

Those who know me well know that I have frequently alluded to Wile E. Coyote as the quintessential metaphor for my existence. Life frequently feels like a game of anvil dodge ball.

I'm currently using this pic as my avatar at Twitter. I love this "chart."

The Climate Change Climate Change

Wall Street Journal: The Climate Change Climate Change

The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.

If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming. ...

...In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.) ...

I don't doubt that Strassel is carrying the water for certain political aims but I think her assessment is generally correct. It is intriguing to me how so many people of a postmodern bent are willing to deconstruct all types of authority but climate change scientists are Moses coming off the mountain. Science is a very human endeavor filled with people who have authentic desires to better the world as well as people with egos who desire to establish a legacies. Science is also heavily funded and  influenced by government and political agendas. Furthermore, there are powerful economic interests who have stakes in scientific outcomes (positive or negative) and are willing to bend science toward there economic intrests, usually aided by plitical allies. The human/political/economic contribution to the emergence of climate change science is rarely considered.

My regular readers know I have doubts about the anthropogenic CO2 driven climate change scenario and even greater doubts about the apocalyptic impact scenarios. There is a joke that says  economists have successfuly predicted nine of the last five recessions. Climate is infinitely more complex than economies. I'm much more concerned about ecological impacts that are consuming natural habitats and creating unsafe environments for humanity today. I also value the creation of renewable enegry for political and economic reasons. I hope Strassel is right ... that reevaluation is going on ... because my perception is that the climate change agenda has been driven at least as much by politics and vested interests (if not more so) as by science.

Shopaholics wanted

The Economist: Shopaholics wanted

Can Asians replace Americans as a driver of global growth?

ASIA’S emerging economies are bouncing back much more strongly than any others. While America’s industrial production continued to slide in May, output in emerging Asia has regained its pre-crisis level (see chart 1). This is largely due to China; but although production in the region’s smaller economies is still well down on a year ago, it is rebounding in those countries too. Taiwan’s industrial output rose by an annualised 80% in the three months to May compared with the previous three months. JPMorgan estimates that emerging Asia’s GDP has grown by an annualised 7% in the second quarter.

Asia’s ability to decouple from America reflects the fact that the region’s downturn was caused only partly by the slump in American activity. In most Asian economies falling domestic demand was more important than the drop in net exports in explaining the collapse in GDP growth. The surge in food and energy prices in the first half of 2008 squeezed profits and spending power. Tighter monetary policy aimed at curbing inflation then further choked domestic demand.

The recent recovery in industrial production reflects the end of destocking by manufacturers as well as the large fiscal stimulus by most governments. But the boost from both of these factors will fade. Meanwhile, export markets in developed economies are likely to remain weak. So the recovery in Asian economies will stumble unless domestic spending, notably consumption, perks up.

Consumers’ appetite to spend varies hugely across the region. In China, India and Indonesia spending has increased by annual rates of more than 5% during the global downturn. China’s retail sales have soared by 15% over the past year. This overstates the true growth rate because it includes government purchases, but official household surveys suggest that real spending is growing at a still-impressive rate of 9%. In the year to May, sales of household electronics were up by 12%, clothing by 22% and cars by a stunning 47%.

Elsewhere in the region, ...

Response to MV tourism operator on “Should starving people be tourist attractions?”

Aid Watch (William Easterly): Response to MV tourism operator on “Should starving people be tourist attractions?”

... I have considered your letter and these other responses carefully, and I am open to the possibility that I was wrong.

In the end, however, I don’t find your responses or others have really addressed my central concern from the earlier post. I agree with commentators like geckonomist: “I simply can't find in his text any other tourism attraction than : extremely poor people.” I continue to believe that the whole idea of tourists going to see poor people simply because they are poor -- or to see the interventions targeted at these poor because they are poor -- is degrading. It perpetrates the patronizing view that the poor are some faceless mass of helpless victims which the MV is rescuing, which is part of the flawed philosophy of the MV itself.

Respecting the individuality, humanity, and dignity of every person, no matter how poor, is a sacred and fundamental cause. I believe our debate has generated so much discussion because of the importance of this cause.

As another commentator suggested, let’s apply the Golden Rule: if I was poor and still in my birthplace of West Virginia, would I want tourists coming by to see how poor I was and how some project was rescuing me from my miseries? If I was sitting at the bedside of my child with a life-threatening illness, would I want a tour group coming through to see how the heroic doctors were saving my child? No thank you. ...

Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 3)

[Series Index]

We continue with the Principles of a New Realism (Chapter 8)  in Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. Monday we looked at Mixed Field, Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results.  Wednesday we began our look at The Normal … and Beyond. Today we finish that discussion.

The Normal … and Beyond: Steering Societies, Converting Communities, Improving Individuals. (Continued)

We concluded the last post by noting the difference between making ethical decisions based on unwavering adherence to ethical prescriptions (deontological ethics) and making choices in an effort to maximize shalom (consequentialist ethics). Stackhouse embraces the latter … as do I with some trepidation. Having said this, Stackhouse identifies four considerations we must deal with as we reflect on these issues.

1.  “The first consideration is to observe where are in the Christian Story.” (275) We do not live in Jesus’ day and we do not live in the New Jerusalem. Stackhouse takes theologians like John Howard Yoder to task here:

It seems to me, then, to indulge in a weird kind of “second naivete” (Ricoeur) to continue to advocate an ethic that depends on the strong expectation of imminent coming of the Lord – as Yoder conspicuously does. (276)

There is a willful dismissiveness of 2,000 years of church history. We are apparently in this for the long haul. Stackhouse is also critical of characterizing the emergence of Christendom with some “… grotesque deviation from authentic Christian mission …” Christendom was the natural result of mission. The state was merely the last social domino to fall. Did this raise a whole new set of challenges? Absolutely! But it was not a departure from the mission of the church.

One of the charges I hear made against fundamentalist Christians is their tendency to absolutize behaviors they believe are taught in the Bible (ex. Women don’t preach) without consideration for the distance of 2,000 years and changing culture. Yet some of these same critics want to absolutize the posture the NT church (i.e., Christ vs. Empire) as the absolute culturally-transcendent posture for relating to culture. That was then … this is now. I believe there are different postures and responses for different culture contexts.

2. “The second consideration therefore is to recall the creation commandments and the redemption and the redemption commandments, and their relation to each other.” (278) Too many Christians opt to obey the redemption commandments only. We are to work for the greatest shalom possible as we obey the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commandments.

Here again, he is critical of the Anabaptist attempts to disassociate with worldly powers (ex. Yoder, Hauerwas, Willimon). They will argue that the greatest shalom can be created by being a witness separate from the powers. Stackhouse writes:

… I think it is wrong for all Christians to hold to this view. Indeed, I think it is best that most Christians take another, more participatory, and thus more morally dangerous and ambiguous stance. (278-279)

He offers the last two considerations as his rationale.

3. “The third consideration, then, is to return to the Christian Story to witness God involved in violence, deception, and other contraventions of “normal” morality.” (279) Stackhouse lays out several instances in Scripture where such actions were engaged in by God or God’s people. He grants that we do not find instances of this concerning the apostles but it is also true that the biblical record does not recount events where the apostles were placed in extreme ethical dilemmas akin to the SS officer hunting Jews at our door . Thus, the only argument here is one from silence. The holiness of God, in ways that may seem mysterious to us, somehow incorporates these actions.

4. “This fourth consideration is the distinction between God’s work and ours, between what is proper only to him and what we are to do in resemblance to, and in cooperation with, him.” (280) He goes on:

Since we are created in the image of God to engage in godly work in the world – namely, caring for the rest of creation – and since we are always to love God and our neighbors as ourselves, then we must continue to obey those commandments. Finding refuge from them in the redemption commandments will not do, as we have seen in other contexts. Indeed, in this context we can say that as Christians refuse to work for justice in coercive ways, as well as in non-coercive ways, we could be implying that coercion is always wrong, when in fact we believe in a God who finally will coerce the whole universe back into line. … the only recourse is to distinguish between God’s work and ours in such a way the helps us avoid ethical dilemmas. (280-281)

Human beings are not God. We have neither the intellect or the moral wisdom to carry out God’s vengeance in the world. “Yet society does need to be protected, and to be protected by violence – legal, authorized, monitors, and minimal violence but violence nonetheless.” (282) Stackhouse goes on to write:

… I suggest now that a Christian community that tries to witness to the world by leaving off participation in other activities that instantiate Kingdom values (such as order, justice, security, and freedom) will also thereby compromise its very witness. This fact is deeply ironic because such communities typically see it in the exactly opposite way. They fear that involvement in these activities will compromise their witness. … (283)

I quote the following because I believe this long passage ties much of Stackhouse’s thinking together:

The Bible is a rich resource to help us understand what it means to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. We are not to glibly deploy either a shallow love ethic or a ruthless justice ethic or even a well-intentioned shalom ethic, with all of their vulnerability to oversimplification and rationalization along whatever lines suit our interests and sensibilities. We are not, that is, simply to try to maximize shalom in defiance of explicit teachings of God’s Word, nor in simplistic deference to a few verses or principles we think we have adduced from Scripture as applied to our best take on the scene before us. The Bible not only tells us to seek shalom but also gives us considerable detail as to the definition of shalom – and of love, justice, and other key terms. We are not free to simply snatch these words from the Bible, write them on a banner, and then fly that banner over whatever we would like to do. We are to heed the whole Bible, bearing in mind the wisdom of Christian tradition, the deliverances of reason, and the impression of experience. We are to consult our fellows in the church, seeking to profit from their various perspectives. And throughout this deliberation we are to trust the Holy Spirit of God to guide us to the action that makes the most sense of all of these resources in the interest in maximizing shalom. We do not wait until all the pieces of the puzzle nicely fall into place and the way forward opens up before us utterly clear and bright. We walk by faith, not by sight. But we also do not precipitously charge forward on the basis of our favorite simplistic principle and a superficial reading of the situation. Instead, we do our part, our cognitive part, as responsibly as we can, and we trust God to supervise that process such that it will bring Christ’s command to us in the here and now.

If we do engage in such thorough study and reflection, we will see that we live in a world in which God himself does not nicely avoid difficult decisions that result in violence against his own ultimate ideals. We live in a world instead into which God has thrust us to do his work of cultivation and redemption, and the way he does it sometimes involves dirt and blood.  (284-285)

Stackhouse elaborates using Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s dilemma between pacifism and plotting to assassinate Hitler, but I think you get the picture.  I’m sure others will challenge Stackhouse's views here, but I found that I strongly identify with this passage.

What do you think?

Next week ... Faith and Faithfulness

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Spiritual, But Not Religious

Tim Keel: Spiritual, But Not Religious

I was invited to be a guest on a radio show of our local NPR affiliate KCUR. The show is called "Up To Date with Steve Kraske." Once a month Kraske hosts a religion roundtable. Today's topic was "Spiritual, But Not Religious."

I had a great time, and I think the discussion was a good one. If you would like to listen to the show, you can do so here: The Religion Roundtable discusses "Spiritual But Not Religious."

Keel is the pastor at Jacob's Well, a large Emergent congregation here in my Kansas City neighborhood. Brian Ellison, pastor of Parkville Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), and an all around good guy, is another of the participants. Interesting dialog.

Underworked

Economist: Underworked (HT: Victor Claar)

Why are MD Salaries So High? The Medical Cartel

Carpe Diem: Why are MD Salaries So High? The Medical Cartel

 

Greg Mankiw features the chart above on physicians' salaries in the U.S. vs. various European countries and Canada, showing that MDs in the U.S. make about $200,000, which is between 2 and 5 times as much as doctors make in other countries. How do we explain the significantly higher physician salaries in the U.S.?  ...

... Bottom Line: One reason we might have a "health care crisis" due to rising medical costs, and the world's highest physician salaries is that we turn away 57.3% of the applicants to medical schools. What we have is a form of a "medical cartel,: which significantly restricts the supply of physicians, and thereby gives its members monopoly power to charge above-market prices for their services. ...

The Mankiw post offers further food for thought.

Finding the Will of God–or–Not Getting Lost in the Forest

Prof. John Stackhouse Weblog: Finding the Will of God–or–Not Getting Lost in the Forest

Last December my family and I moved to North Vancouver, to a house surrounded by trees on the shoulder of Mount Seymour. Settlement ends near our home and gives way to forests that include long trails up and down the mountainsides and valleys of this beautiful region.

I have taken to hiking these trails, and the other day I took a new one. I almost got lost, and instead came upon a fresh illustration of the guidance of God.

The trail started clearly and broadly enough, but after ten minutes, as I started down a hillside toward Seymour Creek and eventually home, the trail got smaller and smaller. Suddenly, as I rounded a bend, it disappeared. Actually, it didn’t so much disappear as become indistinguishable from several other possible paths, identically lined with pine and spruce needles. I began to feel more than a little worried, not least because I had not seen another person for half an hour or more.

God expects us to follow the trails of normal life without prompting and without special assistance. He has given us the ability to see the trail and to follow it. And much of our lives is just like that sort of hike: clearly marked-out paths of duties, opportunities, relationships, talents, limitations, joys, and challenges. We don’t need any big revelation about what we’re supposed to do. Instead, we need energy and faith and encouragement and perservance to do it.

But now I was lost. ...

Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 2)

[Series Index]

We continue with the Principles of a New Realism (Chapter 8)  in Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. Monday we looked at Mixed Field, Mixed Motives.  Today we look at The Normal … and Beyond.

The Normal … and Beyond: Steering Societies, Converting Communities, Improving Individuals.

The underlying theme here is that the work of advancing shalom occurs primarily ....  not through miracles, not through extraordinary efforts, .... but through the diligent living of everyday lives. Crises don’t come out of nowhere. They are most often the product of processes that have long been at work. Those who influence the processes exercise much control over the crises. I think this underscores the importance of  Christians participating in every sphere of sociey (ex. law, business, government, military, education, art, etc.) if there is to be an ongoing influence toward shalom.

Stackhouse astutely points out that history moves neither in a circle nor a straight line. The strategies of waiting for things to come back around to where they were, or of assuming the continuation of the present trajectory of events, are foolhardy. “History is made of up of multiple lines with multiple curves with very limited predictability.” (268) The reality is that as some things seem to be moving in a bad direction others seem to moving in a good direction. Fixating on one to the exclusion of others leads us into poor judgment.

The issues involved are massively complex. Add to this that we are fallen and finite human beings. The pursuit of shalom a difficult and unpredictable, even with our best efforts.

But what about the borderline cases? Stackhouse raises the frequently used scenario where a Nazi SS officer comes to a home and asks if you hiding Jews. How should we respond? Stackhouse writes:

… the choices are just two, no matter how high or how low the stake. The first is to refuse always to do something that is forbidden somewhere in Scripture (or perhaps, by extension, in Christian tradition), no matter what the intention or expected consequence. One commits the matter to God, who will do what is right, according to his sometimes mysterious plans, but who never requires the believer to do what is evil in order that good may come. The second choice is to do whatever will be truest to the revelation of the will of God, taken as a whole, recognizing that in a topsy-turvy world sometimes one must do what one would never do in Eden or the New Jerusalem, something that is objectively impure that nonetheless is the best of available options and will produce the most shalom in the situation.  (274-275)

Stackhouse opts for the second choice and I’m with him. He fully acknowledges the danger of relativism that some will charge … it is a philosophical debate that has been going on for generations. Be that as it may, it is the ambiguous reality we live in. I agree that this is the uncomfortable tension we are compelled to live in. Frankly, I worry that both those who hold to his first option, or those who simply conclude ethics is all relative, are merely seeking a comfortable escape from the tension we have been called to live within. Instead, … empowered by the Holy Spirit … we are to trust the dynamic interaction of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to lead us, and God's grace to cover us.

Stackhouse lays out four considerations we must address when wrestling with such matters. We will pick up with those in the next post.

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Isaac on N.T. Wright's "The New Testament and the People of God"

I mean it .... literally!

Frankly, reading theology often has this affect on me as well.

I'm guessing John Piper will be pleased to see that Wright's work can be put to some useful purpose. :-)

Is there a caption for this picture?

Four Misconceptions About the Prodigal Son - Kenneth Bailey

Whale-watching 'worth billions'

BBC: Whale-watching 'worth billions'

Whale watching generates far more money than whale hunting, according to a report released at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting here.

Worldwide, the industry now generates about $2.1bn per year, it says.

The group commissioning the report, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), says whaling countries would gain from a switch to whale watching.

However, Iceland's delegate here said the two industries were compatible and could grow together.

Iceland recently announced a major expansion of its fin whale hunt and plans to take 150 of the animals this year, along with up to 100 minke whales.

"As governments sit here [at the IWC] debating what to do about whaling, their people are showing the way," said Patrick Ramage, director of Ifaw's whale programme.

"Whale watching is clearly more environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial than hunting, and whales are worth far more alive than dead," he told BBC News.  ...

Sustainable Success

Wall Street Journal: Sustainable Success

For companies operating in developing countries, it pays to commit to improving social and environmental conditions.

A series of scandals over the years have taught Western companies an important lesson about operating in developing countries: Any indication that a company or one of its suppliers is exploiting workers or damaging the environment in these regions can have devastating effects on a company’s reputation—world-wide. The result is fleeing customers and investors.

But here’s a lesson many executives have yet to learn: A commitment to improving social and environmental conditions in the developing countries where a company operates is the key to maximizing the profits and growth of those operations.

That’s the conclusion we drew after studying more than 200 companies. As a group, the companies most engaged in social and environmental sustainability are also the most profitable.

What does sustainable management entail? ...

PC(USA) records steepest membership loss since reunion in 1983

Presbyterian News Service: PC(USA) records steepest membership loss since reunion in 1983

LOUISVILLE — Membership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) fell by 69,381 in 2008, the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) has announced in its annual statistical report, continuing a trend that began in the mid-1960s.

Total membership of the denomination is now 2,140,165.

According to the Research Services office of the General Assembly Council (GAC), the 2008 decline was the PC(USA)’s largest numerical and percentage net membership loss since Presbyterian reunion in 1983.

Almost 104,000 people joined the PC(USA) last year, but that good news was more than offset by the 34,101 Presbyterians who died, the 34,340 who were members of the 25 congregations that left the PC(USA) for other denominations, and the staggering 104,428 who were removed from the rolls by their sessions without apparently joining any other church.

In a statement released with the annual statistical report, General Assembly Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons noted that those who have “gradually drifted away from our congregations” are a particular cause for concern.  ...

Twittering in Church, with the Pastor's O.K.

Time: Twittering in Church, with the Pastor's O.K.

John Voelz isn't trying to brag, but it's fair to say he was down with Twitter before most people knew it was a proper noun.

Last year, Voelz, a pastor, was tweeting at a conference outside Nashville about ways to make the church experience more creative — ways to "make it not suck" — when suddenly it hit him: Twitter. (See the 2009 TIME 100: Ashton Kutcher on the Twitter guys.)

Voelz and David McDonald, the other senior pastor at Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Mich., spent two weeks educating their congregation about Twitter, the microblogging site that challenges users to communicate in 140 characters or less. They held training sessions in which congregants brought in their laptops, iPhones and BlackBerrys. They upped the bandwidth in the auditorium. (See "Finding God on YouTube.")

As expected, banter flourished. Tweets like "Nice shirt JVo" and "So glad they are doing Lenny Kravitz" flashed across three large video screens. But there was heartfelt stuff too.

"I have a hard time recognizing God in the middle of everything."

"The more I press in to Him, the more He presses me out to be useful"

"sometimes healing is painful"

There's a time and place for technology, and most houses of worship still say it's not at morning Mass. But instead of reminding worshippers to silence their cell phones, a small but growing number of churches across the country are following Voelz's lead and encouraging people to integrate text-messaging into their relationship with God. ...

The Left's Collapse… In Europe, that is.

Wall Street Journal: The Left's Collapse… In Europe, that is.

America's self-declared progressives see the U.S. future in Europe's welfare model. Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, voters en masse are dumping the political movement that gave them the nanny state. Hmmm.

Of late, the winning political formula in Europe is simple: Promise to ease heavy tax and regulatory burdens and shake up stagnant economies. The welfare system is seen as broken. France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Italy's Silvio Berlusconi took this path to power. In the largest economy, Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel looks poised to defeat a divided left in September's elections.

Across the Continent, the left is in disarray. France's Socialist Party, which last won a Presidential election in the 1980s, refuses to move to the center -- and further sinks in the polls. Italy's leftist parties compromised themselves in a brief two-year stint in office, before Mr. Berlusconi swept them out in April of last year. The center-left ruling parties in Britain and Spain, which inherited economies revitalized by courageous politicians who implemented free-market ideas, are also in trouble.

Even in a recession so widely attributed to unfettered capitalism, socialists are unable to take advantage. Consider the results last week of elections for the European Parliament. Center-right parties gained in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and across most of eastern Europe. Sweden, Denmark and Greece were exceptions. ...

Should starving people be tourist attractions?

Aid Watch: Should starving people be tourist attractions?

Senegalese entrepreneur Magatte Wade on the Huffington Post touched a raw nerve about condescension towards Africans. She noted that a tourism operator was marketing one of Jeff Sachs’ Millennium Villages (MVs) as a vacation destination and quoted from the brochure "Please do not give anything to the villagers -- no sweets.”

I decided to look more into the MV tourism project, not to pile on, but because I believe patronizing attitudes towards Africans is a BIG issue in aid. ...

... The real problem is that patronizing attitudes towards the African beneficiaries of the MVs follow naturally from the ideas that inspire the MVs – that the poor are helpless victims and it is up to foreigners with superior expertise and funds to rescue them. Condescension towards Africans is both offensive AND a sign of a counterproductive approach to development. ...

Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 1)

[Series Index]

We now come to Chapter 8, the concluding chapter of Part III in Making the Best of It, by John Stackhouse. This chapter is called “Principles of a New Realism.”  Stackhouse begins the chapter:

How, then, do we fulfill our calling within the global mission of God and in our particular place in the Christian Story? This chapter sets out a serious of principles by we may construe vocation and then construct our participation in it. (261)

There are four sections to the this chapter:

• A Mixed Field , Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results
• The Normal … and Beyond: Steering Societies, Converting Communities, Improving Individuals
• Faith and Faithfulness: Faith in God’s Providence
• Liberty and Cooperation

Today we begin with first section.

A Mixed Field , Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results

Stackhouse begins with Jesus’ parable of The Wheat and Tares in Matthew 13:24-30, where an enemy sows weeds in among a farmer’s wheat. The weeds must be left to grow with the wheat until harvest because uprooting would destroy the wheat. (I remember reading elsewhere that the tares looked so similar to wheat that even experts have difficulty telling the difference with the naked eye. Only when the head matures does the difference become obvious.)

Jesus explains that the field is the world. Two kingdoms are mixed together in our present reality. Referencing Augustine, Stackhouse notes that now is not the time for apocalyptic confrontation with enemies of Christ. Some may yet become his friends before the harvest.

So what does it mean to be seeking shalom in a world where “the tares” are alongside us? First, we should expect sin and plan for it.

It means refusing to live as if we were in Eden or the New Jerusalem, and instead intentionally structuring our lives, individually and corporately, with the expectation of evil. (263)

Stackhouse is critical of both Christian liberals and conservatives who see the world in stark polarities of good and evil, and fail to truly wrestle with ambiguity that exists in our present context. This is a concern I’ve had more and more with each passing year. I understand the frustration many Christians have with cultural accommodation, particularly younger ones. But all too often the response borders on millennialism; an implied, if not explicit, belief that the Church will usher in the Kingdom of God. This unchecked idealism is the root of any number of well-intended destructive movements throughout history. The antidote to both cultural accommodation and the variant forms of idealism is a realism of the variety Stackhouse is espousing.

Second, Stackhouse wants us to deal not only with the “bad out there” but “the bad in here.” What about the evil in ourselves, our families, or our churches and Christian Organizations? Stackhouse writes:

One of the great oddities of so much American evangelicalism is the simultaneous commitment to American political institutions and to an ecclesiastical cultural populism. (264)

Our Constitution and foundational documents take a much dimmer view of human proclivities, carefully separating powers to avoid concentration of government with any one group or branch of government. Yet so much of evangelicalism is driven by powerful personalities in large churches with highly centralized power.

I don’t think evangelicals are alone in peculiar thinking on these issues. The Emerging Church movement is mostly anti-institutional, with most folks believing in small, highly decentralized faith communities that are only loosely connected. Therefore, one might presume a heavy sympathy for libertarian politics. On the contrary, I find considerable affinity with big government solutions to almost every problem that confronts society. Emergents often seem to be a mirror image of evangelicals, having an almost a hyper-resistance to powerful leaders in big churches or organizations while readily embracing considerable concentration of societal power in centralized governmental institutions; some virtually identify “social justice” with government action. I suspect this may be due to a reaction against the large church with a powerful pastor model, as well as the libertarian leaning nature of many evangelicals, more than a well reasoned theological response to culture.

Third, we should not despair because evil is always among us. There is fruit that is growing as well. Law will not bring about total righteousness but it can establish minimal boundaries that will allow us to flourish. (Personally, I like to think in terms of Chesterton’s language of “making room for good things to run wild.”) We can always live better than the law but we also recognize we will not achieve life as it will be in the new creation. All or nothing attitudes (left or right) toward societal engagement are usually destructive; sacrificing actual incremental improvement for idealistic principle. Picking our battles and nudging the world toward greater shalom in all we do is our mission in the mixed field we live in.

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A Second Life for Presbyterians

Presbymergent: A Second Life for Presbyterians (Neal Locke)

**This is the first of a planned 4 part series I’ll be doing this summer on Presbyterians, Emergents, and Presbymergents in the popular virtual reality world, Second Life.***

If the birth of a real Presbyterian ministry in a virtual world isn’t evidence of the church emerging, I don’t know what is. And as strange, foreign, (or even silly) as the concept may sound to some, the more I explore the world of Second Life, the more convinced I become that this is a new context in which God is already at work, and God’s people across the world are already engaged in a diversity of ministry.  I think we should join God, and join them.

For those not already familiar with Second Life from various news reports, magazine articles, and other usual sources of hype, to explain would take up more space than would be wise in this blog post.  Instead, I recommend starting here. It’s eye opening reading, I promise.

When I first started exploring Second Life, I found plenty of evidence of minstry — from a United Methodist Chapel, to a Lutheran Pavillion, to a Taize Sanctuary 500 meters in the sky! ...

Best of It: Vocation (Part 5)

[Series Index]

At the end of the chapter on vocation in Making the Best of It, John Stackhouse makes some important closing observations.

We’ve talked about human vocation and Christian vocation, but Stackhouse astutely notes that there is temporal nature to our lives. I don’t know who originally said it but I’ve always like the observation that time is what keeps everything from happening at once.  

Reflecting on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Stackhouse points that there is rhythm and flow to life. There are onetime events, like birth and death, and cyclical activities, like planting and harvesting. There are also episodic events like childhood, school, jobs, marriage, parenting, and retirement, and so on. Each of these demands certain things of us and restricts us from doing other things. There is a time for everything under heaven. We don’t do everything all at once. I think we must always be asking “What time (or season) is it?” based on where we find ourselves.

This raised two important issues for me. First is the issue of boundaries. Stackhouse touches on the issue of particularity at places in his book. We are each unique limited beings. It occurs to me that we are not the savior of the world. And even when the savior of the world was with us in the flesh, he occasionally walked away from demanding crowds to be alone with the Father.  He also spent only three of his thirty years in ministry we see recorded in the gospels. There are limits to what we can and should try to do.

When it comes to poverty, for instance, I have little doubt that we American Christians don’t do enough.  Yet I get weary of the endless guilt trips and moralistic brow-beating by those who advocate justice. If I gave up everything I own, quit eating and consuming, and then died a few days later from starvation, the world would not be changed. In fact, it would likely be worse off because it would not have the benefit of the jobs that are created and sustained by participation in the economy, and it would not have the regular offerings I will give every year over the next decades to help address poverty. (These are just two factors.) There are limits on what I can do.

There are two unhealthy consequences of moralistic idealism. First, compassion fatigue. The problem becomes so overwhelming that people despair of ever having an impact. They simply live their lives and ignore the problem. Others become so absorbed in trying to fight the problem that become slothful in other aspects of human and Christian vocation. Relationships and the witness of the Church suffer as a result.  I’m persuaded that sustainable healthy change comes when significant numbers of people learn to exhibit compassion and justice from within the boundaries of their own existence. I’m fully aware that this can be characterized as a rationalization for doing less than my part but I don’t think that is true. There is a tension between broad vocation and personal limitation, and I don’t think the Church has done well at helping us live in that tension. There is no formula that will answer the question.

The second issue this raised for me was pride and parochialism. How easy it is to get caught up in the thing that has lit a flame in our heart and begin to trivialize all others are not energized by our passions. Each of us is in different life stages and life episodes. God does not call us all to the same service … as Stackhouse wrote; we are all members, not microcosms, of the Church. I think each of us has to work to celebrate and appreciate the call of others, even as we relish our own particular call.

Finally, Stackhouse reflects briefly on mission and vocation. He writes:

He [God] aims to rescue, revolutionize, and renew all of creation toward its maturation in shalom. (25)

Keeping in mind all the above, we are to be ever asking, What will do the most for the Kingdom? What will bring the greatest shalom? What does this mean in terms of my relationships, my work, and my recreation? This is where the tetralectic  (reason, tradition, experience, and Scripture) all come into play. All that we do touches on our human and Christian vocation. Therefore, Stackhouse concludes the chapter on this note:

When someone asks, therefore, “What are you doing for the Kingdom?” we might well reply with any of the following:

• I’m mowing the lawn.
• I’m washing the dishes.
• I’m making a puzzle with my three year-old.
• I’m paying the bills.
• I’m composing a poem.
• I’m talking with my mother on the phone.
• I’m teaching a neighbor child how to throw a ball.
• I’m writing the mayor.
• I’m preaching.

Everything. Everywhere. Every moment. That is the scope of God’s call on our lives, and that is the dignity our lives enjoy. (259)

Next week we begin Chapter 8, "Principles of a New Realism."

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World hunger 'hits one billion'

BBC: World hunger 'hits one billion'

One billion people throughout the world suffer from hunger, a figure which has increased by 100 million because of the global financial crisis, says the UN.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said the figure was a record high.

Persistently high food prices have also contributed to the hunger crisis.

The director general of the FAO said the level of hunger, one-sixth of the world's population, posed a "serious risk" to world peace and security.

The UN said almost all of the world's undernourished live in developing countries, with the most, some 642 million people, living in the Asia-Pacific region.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the next worst-hit region, the figure stands at 265 million.

Just 15 million people are left hungry in the developed world. ...

Forced migration

The Economist: Forced migration

Countries with most refugees, and the burden on their populations.

The API revolution (Social media in Iran)

BuzzMachine: The API revolution

It soon will be - if it not already is - known as the Twitter revolution in Iran. But I’ll think of it as the API revolution.

For it’s Twitter’s architecture - which enables anyone to create applications that call and feed into it - that makes it all but impervious from blocking by tyrants’ censors. Twitter is not a site or a blog at an address. You don’t have to go to it. It can come to you (as newspapers should). Twitter is an outpost in the cloud and there can be unlimited points of access from every application and site using its API, so the crowd can always stay ahead of the people formerly known as the authorities. That, I believe, is the keystone in the architecture of the new infrastructure of unstoppable freedom of speech and democracy. That’s what enables Clay Shirky to declare, “This is it - the big one.”

It isn’t merely “social media” that make this a step-change in the internet’s impact on society and government, as the reporters who’ve been calling me and other pundits want us to say.  ...

A Tale of Two Depressions

Vox: A Tale of Two Depressions (HT: John Lunn)

Editor’s note: The 6 April 2009 Vox column by Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O’Rourke shattered all Vox readership records, with 30,000 views in less than 48 hours and over 100,000 within the week. The authors will update the charts as new data emerges; this updated column is the first, presenting monthly data up to April 2009. (The updates and much more will eventually appear in a paper the authors are writing a paper for Economic Policy.)

New findings:

• World industrial production continues to track closely the 1930s fall, with no clear signs of ‘green shoots’.
• World stock markets have rebounded a bit since March, and world trade has stabilised, but these are still following paths far below the ones they followed in the Great Depression.
• There are new charts for individual nations’ industrial output. The big-4 EU nations divide north-south; today’s German and British industrial output are closely tracking their rate of fall in the 1930s, while Italy and France are doing much worse.
• The North Americans (US & Canada) continue to see their industrial output fall approximately in line with what happened in the 1929 crisis, with no clear signs of a turn around.
• Japan’s industrial output in February was 25 percentage points lower than at the equivalent stage in the Great Depression. There was however a sharp rebound in March.

The facts for Chile, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Sweden are displayed below; note the rebound in Eastern Europe. ...

Lots of interesting graphs. Like I say, economists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions. While this is a severe recession, I'm still not convinced we are in for a depression.

Best of It: Vocation (Part 4)

[Series Index]

We continue with the chapter on vocation in Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. So far we have looked at human vocation in terms of “all, some, and individuals.” We looked at Christian vocation in terms of “all” Christians in the last post. Today we continue with Stackhouse’s observations about “some and individuals.”

Christian Vocation

All

See previous post

Some

Stackhouse sees the church engaging the world through many institutional means. He is not fond of the label “parachurch” organizations.  These organizations are not additives to cure deficiencies. They are modes through which the church is deployed.

Furthermore, Stackhouse is not be particularly troubled by the presence of multiple denominations and their traditions. He is not necessarily excited about the performance of traditional ecumenical bodies per se (ex. World Council of Churches or World Evangelical Alliance) but he does think that the differences can be mutually invigorating to the body. They may actually enhance the witness of the church. He uses differences over pacifism as an example. He believes (and I agree) that war is a thorny issue that is not easy to resolve in terms of Christian ethics. The faithful witness of Christians in the military may positively shape how a military functions and the faithful witness of pacifists will always serve as thorny reminder to the rest of us that we dare not take Jesus’ teaching on peace and nonresistance lightly. Our ecumenism should be one of tension where there one sharpens the other not purely a lowest-common-denominator relationship that too many ecumenical bodies develop.

Concerning congregations, Stackhouse writes:

Therefore, many congregations have never asked a fundamental question: “What can and should we try to do for ourselves and those God has called us to serve?” They certainly have never asked the corollary question, “What shall we deliberately not do, or at least not do very much of, in order to faithfully execute God’s particular plan for our ministry?” Churches all too often attempt to do a little bit of everything, and end up with mediocrity and ineffectiveness on every front. (249)

Amen! The same could be said about certain denominational structures I work with but we’re improving.

Individuals

“God wants his people to be in every walk of life, in every social stratum, in every ethnic group, in every location precisely to maximize his influence and draw the world most effectively to himself.” (250)

Stackhouse says we should actually be thankful, in a sense, for our personal limitations. It helps us narrow the scope of our competencies for service. Rather than being resigned to our particular situations maybe we should consider whether we have been assigned to them. We can take great pleasure in the work we are called to do and should be able to celebrate the work others are called to do.  We should not expect everyone to enjoy what we do nor should we be disparaging of the work that others do.

The diversity of gifts is a good thing. Stackhouse writes that each of us a member, not a microcosm, of the church. Another important point he makes is that some people’s spiritual gifts may have nothing to do with their workweek skills (ex. a high power executive who also has a gift of hospitality). He also notes that putting people’s spiritual gifts to work doesn’t necessarily mean putting them to work in a local church. We often need to be more sophisticated in how we think about spiritual gifts.

Stackhouse notes that all too often we lavish praise on the speakers and musicians in the church but what about those who do the work behind the scenes that is so essential? Stackhouse writes:

A mark of the church functioning properly surely must be the practice of inverting the normal hierarchy of honor and making sure that every member receives the recognition that he or she deserves according to the value of the Kingdom of God. (255)

Amen!

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Stealing back “mission” from business?

“Mission is a word that originated with the church. Business has stolen it. We need to take it back.” I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard or read this recently. I heard it again during a workshop at the Presbyterian Big Tent event in Atlanta. The speaker mentioned seeing a business mission statement at Taco Bell. He quipped, somewhat incredulously, “Who knew Taco Bell has a mission statement?” He then noted that mission was an idea that originated with the church and we need to recover it within the church.

While this instance was rather benign, such remarks often are not. “Stealing back mission” isn’t just about recovering it for the church. It is about getting it out of the hands of evil. There is a strong intimation, if not explicit declaration, that the idea of mission has been co-opted by something profane. The idea that a business would have a mission statement is mocked. After all, we all know that businesses are rooted in greed. Business mission statements are ultimately disingenuous attempts to dress up sinful motives.

 It strikes me that this frame of mind is rooted in a sacred versus secular dualism. Let me explain. As John Stackhouse so eloquently notes, God has given us two sets of two commands:

Creation Commandments

• Cultural Mandate – Exercising dominion over the earth and bringing all of creation, including human culture, into fullness and abundance.
• Great Commandments – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Redemption Commandments

• Loving Community  – Jesus taught that the world would know we are his disciples by the love we show for one another.
• Great Commission – We are sent into the entire world to make disciples.

Creation commandments are permanent while the redemption commandments have application only this side of the consummation of the Kingdom of God. The redemption commandments are about redeeming humanity and about recreating a world where flawless obedience to the creation commandments is a reality.

Business is a critical component of living out the cultural mandate. Economic activity is largely about transforming matter, energy, and data from less useful states into more useful states. This activity is integral to bearing the image of God. But like every aspect of our human existence, business has been corrupted by sin.  It is true that the mission statement for some businesses is a bit like putting pearls on a pig. But in my estimation, those who pejoratively dismiss the idea of businesses having a mission betray their own dualistic mindsets. For them, mission is confined only to the redemption commandments ... spiritual and relational matters. To the degree that mission does touch on business or economic matters, its role is one of prophetic denunciation, restraint, and suspicion.

Greed has been present with humanity throughout recorded history. It is present in our modern economies as well. But at its core, business is not about greed. Business is about people creating goods and services, and then participating in endless win-win exchanges. It is about people irrepressibly exhibiting the image of their creator. The idea of businesses being intentional and focused in their mission as they corporately reflect the image of God (which they do despite their intentions) should prompt affirmations and encouragement from the church. Sadly, for all too many church leaders, it merely elicits ridicule and scorn. It is viewed as the defilement of something sacred.

Best of It: Vocation (Part 3)

[Series Index]

Last week we began looking at vocation as discussed in John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It. We’ve discussed human vocation. Today we turn to Christian vocation.

Christian Vocation

All

The biblical narrative tells us that humanity has rebelled against God. God is now on a mission to redeem us and creation from this broken relationship. To this end, God has “called out” a people for himself to give witness to who he is and the new creation that is to come. He calls us to repentance. But here, Stackhouse makes a critically important distinction:

Everything else we are and do particularly as Christians connects with this mission [of giving witness.] That is not to say that mission is the sole activity of the church – contra much of the evangelical tradition and some of the Missional Church movement of our day. To say so is to substitute what Christians distinctly are to do for all that Christians are to do. Again, the creation commandments have priority: we are humans first and last, and “Christians” only temporarily. Thus the church engages in worship of God because that is the correct and healthful human response to God, to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength – not merely because worship helps the church perform it particular mission better, although it does. The church also cares for its own in fellowship because that is what people do when they are rightly related in shalom and love each other as themselves – not merely because fellowship strengthens the Body of Christ for service to others, although it does. In particular, it just isn’t true, despite its frequent repetition in some circles, that “the church is the one society that exists for the benefit of its non-members.” That’s cute but not correct. Nor is Kierkegaard’s image of the church as performers in worship with God as an audience: worship is a dialogue between God and ourselves, and he blesses us far more than we bless him, even as he gives us gifts with which to bless other as well. The church exists in the win-win-win dynamic of the Kingdom of God: to love God, to love our neighbor, and to benefit ourselves simultaneously. (234-235)

A couple of pages later he writes:

To repeat, therefore: the church performs its distinctive redemptive calling within, and in the service of, the general call of God upon humanity to be stewards of the whole earth God. (237)

Failure to understand the redemptive call as a call within a larger call is, in my estimation, one of the single biggest dysfunctions in the life of the Church. On the one hand are those who have all but lost any sense of God’s redemptive call, especially in terms of personal transformation, and on the other hand those want to make the redemptive call all there is. Stackhouse’s clarification on these issues is very helpful and absolutely crucial.

In this subsection, Stackhouse goes on to talk about the witness of the church. He notes that there are three modes in which we are a witness.

• The Church experiences something and relates that experience to others. We have stories to tell and experiences share.
• We are to be examples, imperfect as we may be, of what the Kingdom of God looks like. Others not only hear about Kingdom of God but see it alive before them.
• “Christ calls us beyond the roles of witness and example to be actual agents of mission.” We actively engage in transformative work in the world that moves the world closer to the idea of shalom. We are called to the hard work of “changing people’s loves.”

Stackhouse points again to the win-win-win dynamic of our call. Caring for others contributes to our sanctification and brings pleasure to God. There is a synergy in holistic witness that spirals upwards toward greater shalom all the way around.

Also, Stackhouse explicitly connects the dots between our obedience to the creation commandments as integral to our obedience to the redemption commandments. The tangible expressions of the Kingdom will come in our daily acts of “dominion” and practice of the great Commandments. While human and Christian vocation cannot be confused with each other, neither can they be separated.

We have seen what Christian vocation means for “all.” Next we look at his reflections on what it means for “some” and for individuals.”

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TV crews flee Hollywood for...Hoboken?

Christian Science Monitor: TV crews flee Hollywood for...Hoboken?

A first-of-its-kind study confirms that a key part of the TV industry – pilot production – is moving to other states, costing California millions.

Los Angeles - Fewer television programs are producing their first-ever episodes in Los Angeles, a new study says, for the first time confirming a long-held suspicion.

For Hollywood, the trend marks a further erosion of its hegemony in the film and television industry. For California, it means the state has lost some $100 million at a time when it can ill afford a further hit to the economy.

The $34 billion state film industry employs about 250,000 people in southern California alone. But since 2005, the overall number of prime-time television pilot episodes produced per season has declined by 17 percent, according to FilmL.A., the film permitting organization for Los Angeles. The overall number of pilots produced in Los Angeles has fallen nearly 42 percent, according to the study released Thursday.  ...

Delay the Minimum-Wage Hike

Wall Street Journal: Delay the Minimum-Wage Hike

Despite severe economic difficulties confronting businesses, and soaring unemployment among youths and minorities, the federal minimum wage is slated to increase to $7.25 in July from $6.55 today. This will be the final step of a three-step increase enacted in the spring 2007, when the unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Based on 20 years of research, I doubt there is ever a goodtime to raise the minimum wage. However, with the aggregate unemployment rate at 9.4%, the teen unemployment rate exceeding 22%, and the unemployment rate for black teens nearing 40%, next month's increase seems like the worst timing possible.

Despite a few exceptions that are tirelessly (and selectively) cited by advocates of a higher minimum wage, the bulk of the evidence -- from scores of studies, using data mainly from the U.S. but also from many other countries -- clearly shows that minimum wages reduce employment of young, low-skilled people. The best estimates from studies since the early 1990s suggest that the 11% minimum wage increase scheduled for this summer will lead to the loss of an additional 300,000 jobs among teens and young adults. This is on top of the continuing job losses the recession is likely to throw our way. ...

May take, based on what I've read, is that minimum wage increases can be a benefit for low-income workers who already have a job and some work experience. But the minimum wage is a detriment to unskilled inexperienced workers trying to enter the work force. It may not directly destroy that many existing jobs (though it does in some cases) but it does have a stifling affect on the emergence of new jobs.

Scalper Smackdown: Stub Hub vs. Ticketmaster

Carpe Diem: Scalper Smackdown: Stub Hub vs. Ticketmaster



Be sure to click on the link to the article to read Mark Perry's solution to the Miley Cyrus ticket problem.

Solar-powered manned flight: Flying for ever

The Economist: Solar-powered manned flight: Flying for ever

A new solar-powered aircraft attempts to fly around the world with zero emissions.



WHEN an airliner takes off for a transatlantic flight it needs to carry some 80 tonnes of fuel, which accounts for around one-fifth of its weight. On really long flights, fuel can account for 40% of a plane’s take-off weight, so that around 20% of the fuel is used to carry the rest of the fuel. Each tonne of fuel burned also produces 3.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Yet inside a hanger at a Swiss airfield is the prototype of an aircraft (illustrated above) that does not use any fuel at all. The wings of this aircraft are almost as big as those of an airliner, but they are covered in a film of solar cells that convert sunlight into electricity to drive its engines.

Solar-powered aircraft have flown before. The pioneer was Paul MacCready, whose Gossamer Penguin made the first manned flight in 1980 in California, with his then 13-year-old son at the controls. A derivative, Solar Challenger, crossed the English Channel in 1981. But nothing like HB-SIA, as the Swiss aircraft is known, has ever taken to the air. If it works as expected, another version will be built and this will take off, climb to 10,000 metres and, by storing some of the electricity generated during the day, continue flying through the night. Its pilots, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, plan to cross the Atlantic in it and later to fly it around the world.

The prototype will be unveiled on June 26th by Solar Impulse, a project the aviators run. ...

Netbooks: Small but disruptive

The Economist: Netbooks: Small but disruptive

Laptops are evolving—and forcing the rest of the computer industry to change.

IT WAS like waiting for Godot: in the end, the great man did not come. The crowd at Apple’s jamboree in San Francisco this week was visibly disappointed when Steve Jobs, the computer-maker’s legendary chief executive, did not even put in a brief appearance after a six-month medical leave. But another no-show was perhaps more important. Proving many techno-pundits wrong, Apple did not present a “tablet”—a pared-down computer in both size and abilities, with a touch screen. Had it done so, it might have helped settle a question that has preoccupied the personal computer (PC) industry for some time: are netbooks—cheap and basic laptops that are flying off the shelves—just a fad, or the future?

The answer is probably both, as an “iPad”, or whatever Apple’s device may be called, would have demonstrated. Netbooks are already being supplanted by a plethora of new gadgets, including tablets and increasingly computer-like mobile phones (see article). But the idea they embody, that a near-permanent connection to the internet permits simpler technology, is already changing the economics of the PC business.

Simple, low-cost laptops are not a new idea. ...

Rulers, communities, and revolution

Aid Watch: Rulers, communities, and revolution

... What does this (ridiculously whimsical) example teach us about institutional rules in development? Some have had a simplistic view of institutions in development as deriving only from top-down formal rules and laws. This example and much research indicates otherwise.

First, formal rules that are incompatible with community norms often have no effect (this extends to things like trying to have registered land titles when the local community already has customary allocation of land rights, research on paper land titles in Africa confirms they have little effect on anything).

Second, if the rulers are especially oppressive they could enforce the incompatible formal rules by force, which would make communities worse off. But in a free society, the community can resist the rulers, which is part of the benefit of a free society.

Third, most rules we live by in a free society are more the product of community norms than they are of formal laws. (Fancy version: Rules emerge out of complex social interactions in a spontaneous order.) This is a good thing, as it makes the rules more responsive to local circumstances and needs. Down with arbitrary rules, up with community norms.

Kiva to make microloans inside the U.S.

SFGate.com: Kiva to make microloans inside the U.S.

The San Francisco non-profit has arranged microloans for borrowers in Africa and other parts of the developing world since 2005. Now it will also serve borrowers in the U.S.

Kiva's lenders loan small amounts of money -- the average loan size is $416.09 -- to entrepreneurs who post their profiles on Kiva's Web site.  ...

Best of It: Vocation (Part 2)

[Series Index]

John Stackhouse, in Making the Best of It, talks about "human vocation" and "Christian vocation." Today we are looking at human vocation.

Human Vocation

All

In short:

All human beings are called by God to fulfill the creation commandments [Cultural Mandate and Great Commandments], as we have seen. We are to worship God, see each other’s best interests, and care for the rest of creation. … There are no “netural actions (Mt 13:48; Eph. 4:29 NASB). One is either making a contribution toward shalom or one is not. (223)

Stackhouse has already made clear that we will not see perfect shalom until the consummation of the new creation but here he takes aim at complacency … everyone remaining in their “station” and preserving the statas quo while we wait for “pie in the sky by and by.” The world is deeply marred by the fall but substantial movement in the direction of shalom is possible.

Like the seeds of leaven of Jesus’ parables that are diffused and then influence all around them, Christians must quietly, steadily, and sometimes dramatically effect change – as Christians have, whether in the development of constitutional government, the rise o f science, the abolition of slavery, the empowerment of women, the recognition of universal human rights, and more. (224-225)

The challenge is discerning what shalom looks like and having a robust appreciation for how all the particulars of human action contribute the flourishing of creation and shalom. Everyone has a legitimate role to play in moving things in the direction of shalom.

But lest we become fixated on productive labors, Stackhouse reminds us that there are “other generic human activities that deserve Christian affirmation” (226) … sports or art, for example. That some have too highly regarded  these activities is no justification for the denigration of them. As Stackhouse notes, “god is interested in more than productivity and spirituality.

Some Groups

Human beings function in groups and Stackhouse lists a couple dozen examples ranging from nation states, to families, to banks, to sports teams. As evidenced by this assortment. human institutions were not established by God merely to restrain evil but they exist as avenues to pursue a flourishing world. Modernity may have contribution to the multiplication of such groups but they have always been with us.

But human institutions consist of fallen human beings. They are not benign.

One of the great useless emphases of our time, to reiterate, is the championing of community over individualism, as if the former is good and the latter bad – indeed, as if the former is a kind of cure for the latter. (228)

Communities do great harm as well. It is time to end the false dichotomy of personal conversion and social change. Both are in need of transformation yet transformation from either angle will not usher in the Kingdom of God.

When it comes to groups, we must become more intentional and precise in how we see them contributing to shalom. Like individuals, groups get lost in their focus and we must be consistently asking how our institutions measure up to the standard of shalom.

Such a question ought to energize and direct a group, neither asking of it an impossible ideal nor releasing it to ethical complacency and thus to either stagnation or rapacity.  (229)

Stackhouse also makes this important observation:

Furthermore, a Christian ethic recognizes that governments are not families and governments and families are not business, and business are not charities or families, and so on. It is a mark of ethical confusion in our time … which gives rise to the rueful (and confused) protests that you don’t fire your family members or refuse to help them  if they’re in any trouble. Yet it is not only all right for business to fire people but essential that they do so. It is not only all right for businesses to fire people but essential that they do so. It is not only all right for hospitals to put patient care above fiscal efficiency but essential that they do so. … Differentiation, and thus ethical clarity, is essential for the proper functioning of each kind of group. (230)

Individuals

Each individual is called by God to play a particular role in the gardening of the world. No one is useless, no one is free of responsibility, and each is called to contribute to the generic human task of contributing to shalom.  (231)

Human vocation sanctifies our work. It makes it holy and a pleasure to God. However, while we all share this vocation it does not mean that our work will always seem rewarding and fruitful. There is sin in the world and there are oppressive economic forces as work. Stackhouse writes:

To persist in a truly awful job is an act of faith. It shows not only that we trust God for our future but also that we believe he is not wasting us now. We have faith that he can bring good out of the most menial and even oppressive situations. (232)

Stackhouse also reminds us that none of us can do everything and each of us is limited by abilities and interests when it comes to work. We all like some endeavors and not others. After listing several topics he has no interest in, Stackhouse writes:

Those subjects are not dull; I am dull to them. Yet this deficiency is also a blessing and an equipment for my service in the world. (233)

A point I would add in addition, is that we should be slow to denigrate fields of study or areas of work that don’t match our proclivities. The work that is done in other fields that we consider silly or less noble may be a source of great pleasure to God and the people he has called to work in those areas. Clearly there is work that does not honor God but I often wonder how closely my boundaries approximate God’s.

The bottom line for Stackhouse whatever it is that we do, it is imperative that persistently ask what will most increase shalom.

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It's Church not Prayer That Makes Us Good

New Republic: It's Church not Prayer That Makes Us Good (HT:Brad Wright)

Mike Gerson has a column up today laying out some of the key findings to be featured in Bob Putnam and David Campbell's upcoming book, "American Grace," that I mentioned on Wednesday.

In a nutshell, writes Gerson:

Against the expectations of hard-core secularists, Putnam asserts, "religious Americans are nicer, happier, and better citizens." They are more generous with their time and money, not only in giving to religious causes but to secular ones. They join more voluntary associations, attend more public meetings, even let people cut in line in front of them more readily. Religious Americans are three to four times more socially engaged than the unaffiliated. Ned Flanders is a better neighbor.

The interesting wrinkle that (as Gerson notes) promises to perturb many religious folks is that the increased "niceness," as Putnam kept apologetically describing this set of desirable behaviors, has nothing to do with the content of a person's beliefs. Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Mormon, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Anabaptist--some of you may not believe that the others are headed for Heaven, but the research indicates you're all better citizens than your unchurched counterparts. Theology doesn't matter. What does matter is how deeply immersed in a religious congregation you are and how many friends you have within it. 

CBOE Volatility Index at Nine Month Low

(HT: Carpe Diem)

Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions

(HT: The Mystical Limpet)  I gotta admit; this is pretty funny.

Best of It: Vocation (Part 1)

[Series Index]

Today we begin Chapter Seven in John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It. This chapter deals with vocation.

The word “vocation” comes from the Latin word vocare, and thus means “calling.” In history, however, this word has become bound up with the category of “work,” albeit in three different ways.  (221)

Work is vocation – Especially true of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christianity where “vocation” is a call to a religious career … monks, nuns, priests and such. Others are sometimes said to have “secular priesthoods”  … for example, medicine, law, or education.

Call of Christ to every Christian – Work is not vocation. Our call is to particular Christian activities (like evangelism or charity) that are disconnected from either an entire life pattern (like being a priest) or to economic labor.

Stackhouse was raised in this tradition and says there were only practical pieces of guidance for him:

… avoid sin (such as lying or gossiping at work, stealing office supplies, cheating on taxes, and so on) and evangelize co-workers and customers as often as possible. (221)

Sounds like Stackhouse and I have similar backgrounds.

Work is part of vocation – The root word from which get “saints” means “to be set apart for special use.” “…Each us are set apart by God for service.” Stackhouse notes the pervasive tendency to make distinctions between heroes and ordinaries, religious and secular, or saints and non-saints. The Reformation took aim at these dichotomies. He writes:

With this eradication of the two-tiered system in the Reformation, then, came two positive teachings: all (legitimate) work is blessed by God, and vocation is more than work. Vocation is the divine calling to be a Christian in every mode of life, public as well as private, religious as well as secular, adult as well as juvenile, corporate as well as individual, females as well as male. Thus to be a Christian in every mode of life is to show something of what it means to be a (redeemed and renewed) human being as well.

From these basic considerations, let us proceed to analyze vocation in nine sub-categories: two sets of three, and then a third trio that affects the first two. (222)

In case you hadn’t noticed, Stackhouse is embracing option number three.

Another pairing that immediately comes to my mind is “clergy” and “laity.” Back in the fall of 2005, I wrote a post that addressed this issue.  In short, the adjective “laity” (laikos) is not in the Bible. The word has the connotation of being from the profane common masses. It was a synonym for idiots, meaning nonprofessional … it is also the word from which we get idiot. :-) “Clergy” comes from the word kleros.  It means “inheritance.” Whenever it is used it refers to the entire people of God (laos tou theo). The entire community is God’s inheritance, not a select specialized few. There are no “clergy and laity” or “clergy and the people.” There are only the people who are the clergy, and from among the people some are called and gifted for leadership.

Okay. I’m off my soapbox now and we can move into Chapter seven.

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Global is the New Local

Christianity Today: Global is the New Local

Princeton's Robert Wuthnow says American congregations are more international than ever.

Christians have been transnational since Pentecost. But world events create new possibilities. Spanish missionaries followed closely on the heels of Columbus, and Danish and British missionaries capitalized on trade relations with India. Today, globalized economic and communications networks create new possibilities for American congregations, says Princeton University's Robert Wuthnow in his most recent book, Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches.

Since 2000, for instance, 12 percent of active churchgoers reported having gone overseas on a short-term mission while in their teen years. That is up from 5 percent in the 1990s, 4 percent in the 1980s, and only 2 percent before that. Currently, this represents about 100,000 congregations (or one-third of all congregations) every year sending teams that average about 18 members.

The rise in short-term missions accompanies a rise in giving to transnational ministry. U.S. church donations to both humanitarian and evangelistic transnational ministry now total about $4 billion annually. We see a similar rise in direct connections to congregations in the developing world, as modern travel and communications technology allow congregations to bypass denominational channels.

In an interview with CT Media Group editor in chief David Neff, sociologist Wuthnow doesn't see the new shape of congregational outreach as "a dramatic break from that past as some observers do." Churches that have been engaged in mission work are still doing it. But new technology, transportation, and markets mean they are able to do it better. ...