Online Media Should Lead to Reading Books
Books are a life line forcing us into complementation against our internal compulsion. They are in this sense the front line in our defense against becoming mere machines who work and live and die as cogs in the economic process. So remember the ordering of things. Use the internet as an appetizer. Use books as a meditative feast.
Do not exclusively read articles online. Think of online articles as portals to books. Articles may answer an important question, give insight into an issue, and help us to know what to seek and to know.
But books deliver the contemplative ruminations that thinking requires. Online articles are an appetizer. Both are important. And the media of books and the internet are here to stay.
But there is an ordering. First the short article. Then the book.
Internet
Here is how I think of social media, online articles, and the rest. Social media can connect you with the greatest thinkers alive today, if you follow those thinkers. You can open up your eyes to ideas that are profound. But you can only skim the surface. These great thinkers will link to great appetizing articles and books.
Podcasts stand in the middle. A good podcast might allow you to learn something by overhearing an intelligent conversation. It replaces medieval disputations. A good podcast might also contain a lecture, replacing the older University system of lectures. Students used to choose to listen to a lecture. Now they choose to listen to a podcast.
We can deny it all we want but podcasts in some ways have replaced traditional forms of education.
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Faithful Shepherding In The Midst Of Suffering—Part 1
Everything that’s happening to us today is right there in the Scriptures, and happened to the very, very first Christians. They all suffered persecution. So let us prepare ourselves, and the way we prepare ourselves is to teach what the Bible says: what Jesus taught, what Paul taught, what Peter taught. And they all taught a lot about preparing for persecution.
If you were to visit me in my office, you would see little statuettes of shepherds, which I have collected from around the world. I like to collect shepherds, because the Lord said to me, “Alex, shepherd my sheep.” Of course, I do it with other brothers. But we’re still all shepherds. One of my favourite ones is King David, as a teenager holding a lamb over his shoulder. That’s one of my favourite ones. But anyway, I use these to remind myself to be a good shepherd, like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I think it’s almost universally agreed that believers throughout the world right now are suffering in a way that has not been true in a very, very long time. In fact, I’m reminded of a verse, here in 1 Peter 5, where Peter talks about universal brotherhood and suffering. He says this 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober minded and watchful your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood, throughout the world.” A wonderful verse, in which he looks at the whole Christian church, a brotherhood, a sisterhood, and they are going through various kinds of suffering. I see this true in two ways today. One is we see an increase in persecution against believers in a way that we haven’t seen maybe in hundreds of years. I don’t know if you know of the open door ministry, ‘World Watch List’. In the 2018 version, there is a list of the 50 countries where it’s the most dangerous to follow Jesus. And by the way, the statistics here are really staggering of how many thousands of believers have been martyred for Christ, how many have been marginalized, can’t get jobs, or are facing persecution. So we are seeing suffering in the area of persecution.
In fact, I have an article here that’s very, very touching. It’s an article about the young ladies in Nigeria who have been captured by Boko Haram, and how they have stayed faithful. In fact, they have a statement that they make, when they get discouraged, and they just say together, “Just be faithful.” It’s become actually a famous statement, now: “Just be faithful.” They say that to one another, and they have some Bibles and Scriptures, they write out that as they hide to encourage one another. And they have been able to write letters and get them out of the place of captivity to other people in the world. Let’s remember these dear young ladies captured by Boko Haram, and their faithfulness to the Lord suffering persecution.
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How Jesus Wanted Us to Read His Gospel
At one point in his ministry, Jesus drew a crowd of 5000 hungry people. Enamored by stories of Jesus healing the sick, they followed him. Desiring to feed the crowd, Jesus multiplied a little boy’s fish and bread, the disciples passed out lunch, and the crowd ate until satisfied. Enamored by yet another sign, they tried to “make him king by force” (John 6:15). When Jesus escaped, the crowds followed him to the other side of the sea, and he quickly determined what they were after: they wanted the food, the physical bread (John 6:26–27). Once again, they were more interested in what this man had to offer them instead of the man himself. Jesus patiently responded with a well-known declaration of his identity: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
Today my son found months-old Saltines at the bottom of a wicker basket. I pried his mouth open and begged him to spit them out, but he slipped away, swallowing his prize with a grin.
In the next room, strewn across the floor and his high chair, sat his half-eaten lunch. I’ll never understand what makes my toddler desire stale crackers instead of a freshly made sandwich, but he always eats the crumbs off the floor, the bread that seems lesser to me.
Often, I’d argue, when we’re reading the Gospels, we also eat the lesser bread.
At times I open a Gospel to wrestle over Jesus’ teaching, a parable or a specific teaching point, and I forget to see the One who’s teaching. I forget that, by reading the Gospels, we don’t just learn about Jesus, but we can know him.
The Gospel writer John emphasized repeatedly his desire for everyone to know Jesus—through teaching, pointed questions, and important events in Jesus’ life—and in the middle of the Gospel of John, he further emphasized why he wrote: “These [things] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name” (John 20:31). In other words, John didn’t write just because, or to provide loosely connected observations on Jesus’ life, but he had evangelism in mind. This is the heart of John’s Gospel: that we might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that we might believe him.
John spent several years following Jesus, hearing him speak, watching his miracles, listening in on conversations. He witnessed Jesus weep, experience hunger and thirst, resurrect a dead man, die, and come back to life. John knew Jesus, and he wanted his reader to know Jesus too; he wanted his reader to really know Jesus—to experience a lasting relationship with Christ that only comes through belief in him.
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Confessionalism Promotes Academic Integrity
The path forward academically in a post-postmodern context requires being transparent about ones beliefs, values, and even to some extent our personal experiences. Some of that is built into confessionalism. The confessional academic isn’t pretending she is unbiased; on the contrary, she is transparent about the place from which she is analyzing and assessing the data. In response, those who read the work produced by confessional academics should not treat that transparency as a disadvantage (resulting in a dismissive attitude toward the research), but rather as an advantage, since the presuppositions and values of their interlocutor have been acknowledged from the outset.
The WordPress “Headline Analyzer” algorithm has determined that my title is not all that provocative or interesting, scoring a mere 22/100. When I re-titled it “top ten reasons why confessional institutions are better than the ‘free academy’” it scored 84/100; however, because I’m a responsible academician and refuse to cave to click-bate, I’m sticking with the original and more boring (and accurate) title.
If my reading of the academic landscape is correct, then most scholars, even those in historically confessional institutions, would likely disagree with or qualify my titular statement. After all, doesn’t being “confessional” mean that certain kinds of questions are, by definition, verboten? Wouldn’t that in turn mean that academics in those institutions have to sacrifice the “science” of biblical and theological study upon the altar of confessional consistency? At the very least it should be axiomatic that scholars at non-confessional institutions should regard the products of their confessional cousins as suspect, right?
Not at all. I believe the opposite is the case. Confessionalism, properly defined and winsomely practiced, provides a better and more productive academic environment than the “free-thinking” alternatives. I should qualify things before we continue: I recognize that this article presents an “idealized” view of how confessional academics work. If any of the following seems too rosy and glowy, feel free to insert copious “oughts” and “shoulds” in the list. With that qualification out of the way, here are a couple of reasons why confessionalism promotes academic research and integrity (with more to come).
Confessional Research is Slow
Slow doesn’t sound good but it is. Scholars that work in confessional institutions don’t often make the research headlines, and they’re usually not trying to make the headlines. They (hopefully) do not idolize the past, but they also don’t dismiss the knowledge and wisdom of previous generations. When they encounter a difficult text in Scripture they consult their tradition, and while they (should) feel free to disagree with that tradition if there’s textual warrent–the norming norm of all theology is Scripture–they ought also be reluctant to dismiss it. Slow can be valuable. Slow doesn’t mean that we ignore contemporary issues or drag our feet with regard to the tough questions; rather, it means that we are careful with the latest discoveries and reluctant to reject the wisdom handed down to us. We spend time assessing, debating, and integrating the best of what’s new with the best of what’s tried and tested, which will hopefully result in something fuller and more robust in the long term. But for more on that, see the next point.
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