Seeking to improve

I signed up last night for the 100-Day Challenge with Gary Ryan Blair.

I have no question, it will be worthwhile. At the same time, Blair kind of drives me nuts with his sensei- [Japanese martial arts instructor] style aphoristic speech. Everything--or just about everything--he says comes across as some kind of pithy, final, distilled, definitive "word of wisdom." And he fills his speech with beautiful, high-sounding language: "Excellence. Dedication. Decision. Commitment. Persistence. Inspire. Promote. Celebrate. Define. Choose." Almost too dense for me to assimilate.

I can get over that stylistic problem. I "simply" have to take careful notes, or listen twice . . . or three or four times.

But what pushed me to blog here about his program was these three sentences that appear on p. 10 of the Orientation's (Day O's) MAP (Massive Action Plan) document.

Blair writes:

Our world is filled with people with every conceivable type of handicap and liability but who have gone on to build wonderful lives for themselves.

Often people around them have ascribed their good fortune to luck. But if you talk to these people and you trace their stories from where they began to where they are now, you will find that luck had nothing to do with their success, and it has nothing to do with yours.

As I wrote on his website,

I appreciate the intention to have me take responsibility for my actions, and the need to have me make a wholehearted commitment to pursue a goal. But philosophically and practically--and, let me say, religiously/theologically, not to mention historically--I am convinced that, in the end, none of us is the master of his or her own fate.

We all come up against events beyond our control--whether hurricanes or earthquakes, tsunamis or economic crises, or any of a myriad of different obstacles. OR, by contrast, sometimes God is simply extra generous to us and gives us breaks that no human being has the right to expect.

On at least one of his recordings, Gary acknowledges this. He speaks of “luck” and “Acts of God.” But yet, there is that prior statement: "luck ha[s] nothing to do with . . . success." And I say, "Not so!"

I am "lucky" I was born in the United States and not the son or daughter of an uneducated farmer in Madhya Pradesh, India. That, right there, puts me on a completely different path than the little boy who was born in Madhya Pradesh within hours of me back when I was born. . . .

So, while Gary wants me to sign some kind of (seemingly crazy) "faith" contract: "I am making a quantum leap. I know exactly where I am going. And I am open to the unexpected."

I will write a modified version of the same. Something about desiring to make a quantum leap and knowing exactly where I think or believe I want (and I believe God wants) me to go. But yet acknowledging that where I think I want to go may, somewhere in the middle of the path, turn out to be very definitely NOT where I want to go. And so, indeed, I want to be "open to the unexpected."

I don’t want to give myself a lot of wiggle room and opportunities for excuses or what we might call "justified failure." At the same time, I really do want my commitments to be solid and, if you will, sacred.

Precision . . . Corrections . . . and Apologies

As someone who deals with words, I was struck by this article from The Atlantic.

Osama bin Laden was dead, and Frank Lindh -- father of John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" -- had been invited on [San Francisco's KQED Forum show] to discuss a New York Times op-ed piece he'd just published about his son's 20-year prison sentence. The moment host Dave Iverson completed his introduction about the politically and emotionally charged case, Lindh cut in: "Can I add a really important correction to what you just said?"

Iverson had just described John Walker Lindh's 2002 guilty plea as "one count of providing services to a terrorist organization." That, Frank Lindh said, was simply wrong.

Yes, his son had pled guilty to providing services to the Taliban, in whose army he had enlisted. Doing so was a crime because the Taliban government was under U.S. economic sanctions for harboring Al Qaeda. But the Taliban was not (and has never been) classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization itself.

This distinction might seem picayune. But it cut to the heart of the disagreement between Americans who have viewed John Walker Lindh as a traitor and a terrorist and those, like his father, who believe he was a fervent Muslim who never intended to take up arms against his own country.

That morning, the clash over this one fact set host and guest on a collision course for the remainder of the 30-minute interview. . . . The collision was set in motion nine years before by 14 erroneous words in the New York Times.

The 14 erroneous words? "Mr. Lindh agreed to plead guilty to one of the 10 counts in the indictment against him. It charged he had provided service to the Taliban, which is a felony because President Bush and former President Bill Clinton had declared the party a terrorist organization."

Reality: Neither president, Bush or Clinton, ever formally declared the Taliban to be a terrorist organization. Okay. But in most Americans' minds, does it really matter whether the Taliban was formally declared to be a terrorist organization? After all, the Taliban gave Al Qaeda a haven and Al Qaeda attacked the United States. So aren't we merely splitting hairs to try to distinguish whether the Taliban was a terrorist organization?

Absolutely not! says Frank Lindh.

"It is no small thing to accuse a person of being a terrorist, or of providing assistance to or conspiring with a terrorist organization. . . . It's basically calling the person a murderer." His son, John, maintained that his purpose in joining the Taliban army had been to defend Muslim civilians from attacks by the insurgents who would later come to be known as the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance.

The record of the Lindh legal proceeding shows that federal prosecutors wanted very badly to hang the "terrorist" label on Lindh, but they [didn't]: either they didn't have the evidence, or they had some other reason to drop all of the terrorism-related charges. As New York Times Justice Department correspondent David Johnston reported in a front page companion piece to [the] story [that contained the error], U.S. officials "had grown skeptical that Mr. Lindh played any meaningful role in Islamic terrorism." They allowed Lindh to limit his guilty plea to two violations of the Taliban economic sanctions.

Lindh's statement to the court carefully maintained this distinction. He said: "I provided my services as a soldier to the Taliban last year from about August to December. In the course of doing so, I carried a rifle and two grenades. I did so knowingly and willingly knowing that it was illegal."

The [Times'] mistaken description of the Taliban as a federally sanctioned terrorist organization was therefore far from a minor detail. For Lindh and his sympathizers, it was the crux of the story.

Besides the fine legal distinction, I am intrigued by The Atlantic article's discussion about making corrections in news stories online.

After the KQED show hoisted the mistake into the spotlight, MediaBugs, an online service for recording and fixing problems in news coverage, filed an error report and contacted the Times about the matter. And within a week, the Times had corrected the error--in a way.

If you look up that July 16, 2002, story today, you find the words "correction appended" inserted, a little awkwardly, between the byline and the first paragraph. And if you press "next page" three more times to get to the conclusion of the story and scroll all the way down, you'll find the following notice:

"Correction: This article gives an imprecise explanation for why providing assistance to the Taliban was a felony. Executive orders by Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush forbade such assistance because the Taliban was considered a threat to the United States and had provided haven to Al Qaeda, but those orders did not declare the Taliban to be a terrorist organization. (The error was brought to The Times's attention after related news reports in June 2011.)"

One might quibble with this wording's halfhearted walk-back: After all, the article's explanation wasn't "imprecise" -- it was wrong. But correction notices have a long history of defensive phrasing; minimizing your missteps is human nature. The main thing is that the Times noted, and corrected, its goof.

Or is it?

I noted a similar problem with a young-earth creationist site that modified and, from my perspective, wildly misrepresented something Charles Spurgeon once said in a sermon. (See Honesty . . . it's such a lonely word . . . and Editorial license.)

As I complained there, so the author of the Atlantic article complains in his article: the Times' correction is way too difficult to find. Indeed, it almost begs to be ignored:

[T]he paper did not edit the story's original text to reflect the correction. The same erroneous 14 words still sit, live, on the Times' website. To learn that they've been superseded, you have to click through three more pages. (Or, if you're really unlucky, Google might send you to a different version of the same story that shows no trace at all of any correction.)

Philip Corbett, the Times' associate managing editor for standards, explained in an email, "For practical and technical reasons in this case, we decided simply to append the correction, rather than trying to rewrite a passage in a nine-year-old article." (Editor's note: The Atlantic approaches corrections on a case-by-case basis. However, in a similar situation, we would probably leave the original wording intact but provide a linked asterisk at that spot in the text, which would take you to the full correction at the end of the piece.)

Is that enough? Corrections expert Craig Silverman, author of the book and blog "Regret the Error" and Columbia Journalism Review columnist (he is also an adviser to MediaBugs), doesn't think so.

"If you only read the first two pages of that story," Silverman says, "you're not going to get to the correction, and you're going to get the mistaken piece of information, and so it's just not effective. That's a very long article. What percent of people are going to read to the end of that and get to the correction, or even know that 'correction appended' means that it's necessarily on the exact last page? The basic principle of 'Let's make sure that this error stops spreading' is not really being upheld here."

Institutions like the Times honed their correction practices in the age of print, when appending a notice was the best feasible option. But an always-available digital page is also always editable -- and is part of a rapidly evolving news ecosystem in which stopping the spread of misinformation is more important [than] ever. Post-publication edits can uphold that principle without being furtive or seeming to rewrite history. Any changes to long-published articles can be made transparently, either in the text of an accompanying correction notice or in an archive of previous story versions.

So how should newspaper editors take care of errors in news stories? (According to a study referenced by the Atlantic author, "59 percent of local news and feature stories were found by news sources to have at least one error.")

"For starters," writes Atlantic author,

[editors] can demonstrate that they invite and welcome pointers to potential errors from readers. Today's stance -- "we're willing to consider fixing our mistakes if you hunt down our contact information and pester us" -- is too passive. But it can be upgraded to an active pursuit of truth via some simple interface changes on a news website. Put a button on every page of every story, current and archived, that says "Report an error" -- and then follow up on what the public tells you. Think of this as a customer service feedback loop, or a quality-control system. That's how the most efficient large businesses that produce software or cars run their operations today; surely the information we use to run our society deserves at least as much care.

There's more at TheAtlantic.com and on the KQED webpage dedicated to the Frank Lindh interview. (I encourage you, especially, to read the Listener Comments.)

"Other" ways of thinking and learning . . .

I thought this cartoon from "One Big Happy," by Rick Detorie, perfectly reflects something I've seen numerous times throughout my life. Grandpa is helping Ruthie, a young elementary school age girl, with her homework. He reads the major, defining portion of the sentence. She completes it:

Choose [the best] word from the word box to complete each sentence. Word Box chair store park horse

"You buy food at a . . ." Grandpa begins. "--Park!" says Ruthie. "You know, hot dogs and ice cream from the li'l carts."

"You sit down on a . . ." "--Horse! Unless you're one of those trick riders."

"You play at the . . ." "--Store. . . . When mom's shopping, Joe and I play hide and seek in the deli section!"

"You ride a . . ." "--Chair! I love rockers!"

There's a little more (Grandpa expresses concern about how well Ruthie may be doing in school and she offers her perspective), but I think what I've quoted gets to the heart of what I'm interested in, here.

Ever bumped into someone like Ruthie?

It seems as if some of us tend to think in ways alternative to the mainstream. "Regular" people find these ways of thinking completely baffling. Ridiculous. Inappropriate.

"Quit trying to be cute!" they may say. Or, "You're making it more difficult than it needs to be!" Or, "Quit trying to think of the most obscure option. Choose the most obvious." Or, even, "Don't look for ways that all answers could work. Just try to think of the answer that most people are likely to think of."

And, yet, still some of us rebel: "I'm not 'trying to be cute.'" "I'm not trying to 'make it difficult'; I'm simply trying to acknowledge the truth: Things are not as simple as you (and, apparently, many--most?--other people) want to believe." "I see how and why you think ______ is obvious. But this other answer is also 'obvious.' At least it is to me!" "As for whatever answer you think 'most people' are likely to think of: Well, I haven't interviewed most people."

"You're just being obstinate."

"I'm just trying to be truthful. There is not just one answer to your question. So when you ask me which one is the 'right' answer, I have to tell you that there are two or three right answers. Your 'one' is not 'the' right answer!"

Objective truth . . . and subjective truth

I read this morning an insightful article from Tony Woodlief in the April 25th World magazine:

In surveys aimed at discerning Christian worldview (e.g., whether respondents believe that absolute truth exists, that Christ was sinless, etc.), Barna Research Group finds the portion with consistent biblical beliefs holding steady the past dozen years, around 10 percent. Similar surveys reveal disturbing ignorance of dogma among professing Christians.

While the vast majority of Americans claim to be Christian, in other words, a good many of us don't seem capable of explaining what that means. Little wonder the comically vicious Bill Maher had such a field day filming a mockumentary wherein he accosted Christians about their faith. Not knowing what we believe makes it awfully hard to answer why we believe it. It shouldn't surprise us if Christians who can't articulate what they believe have children and grandchildren who don't even bother to try. And this is exactly what we are seeing, as large numbers of young people stop attending church altogether upon leaving home.

The way many churches respond to declining public interest exacerbates the problem. The Christian church grew when its leaders stressed biblical study and fervent prayer, each of which was considered, in the early church, a means of knowing God. The modern feel-good church, meanwhile, de-emphasizes both in favor of "messages" that are "relevant to my life." (Don't tell me what Job said about the imponderable glory of God, tell me how to have fulfilling personal relationships.) That kind of offering can only be as stimulating as its deliverer, which explains why telegenic showmen find their congregations swelling, and so many other churches are shrinking. Eliminate the theologies of Word and prayer, and all you have left is a competition to see who can provide the best circus.

What we are in danger of--in our country, in our churches, in ourselves--is practical atheism. This is not a considered embrace of godlessness. It is instead the slow slide into lives where God is irrelevant.

--Emphases added. JAH

May I summarize it this way: "We need objective truth!"

[By the way: There's more good stuff on this subject at the original article.]

*******

Well, this article reminded me, somehow, of the "sermon" I endured yesterday . . . and an article to which my sister called my attention yesterday morning as well.

First the "sermon."

We had a guest preacher. Except . . . he didn't really preach. Instead, representing the denominational Bible college, he subjected us to an extended advertisement (lousy advertisement) for his college . . . structured loosely--very loosely!--around Philippians 3:7-11.

As a person who has been involved in marketing, and as an editor, it struck me: Not once did he address his audience. Never did he speak to us (i.e., during his speech, never did he use the word "you" in reference to members of his audience; he occasionally did use the word "you" to refer to "people in general" . . . as in [not something he actually said, but for illustrative purposes], "If you look out your window, you can see whether it's raining"). Instead, he reported to an undifferentiated audience about things he has seen back at the college.

I mention this by way of partial response to Woodlief's comment about "The modern feel-good church . . . de-emphasizes [biblical study and fervent prayer] in favor of 'messages' that are 'relevant to my life.'"

I think we need biblical study and fervent prayer. We need objective truth. (I'm sure the representative of the denominational college was conveying to us objectively true information.)

But, if Christians are going to take the time to listen to sermons, it would be helpful if the pastor-preacher-teachers would consider how to address their audiences directly, offering thoughtful, practical and illustrative applications of what a Scripture might mean for individual members of the audience: "You, fathers: when you ______, you need to [realize, remember, seek God . . . ] . . . And you, mothers: based on the passage at hand, when you _____, is it not clear that ______? . . . And you, grandpa and grandma: when _______, does God not call upon you to ______? . . . And you, children . . . And you, young adults . . ." Etc. Etc.

In marketing, we are told to make the use of a product "so real" to the mind of the reader/hearer that the prospective buyer can "see, taste, touch, smell, hear" it in his or her mind. "'Dimensionalize' the benefits," says one marketing "guru" I follow. Help the prospect imagine deeply what it is like to own whatever-it-is you're selling.

So there is a subjective element of the truth, too, that needs to be addressed: the truth as it relates to the members of one's audience.

But there is another form of subjective truth, too, that needs to be addressed.

As long as preacher-teacher-pastors have to get up in front of audiences that are unable to observe them day-in and day-out, 24-7, throughout the year (as parents are instructed to allow and encourage their children to observe them--Deuteronomy 6:6-9; 11:18-20), I believe it makes sense that they should at least tell their congregations the detailed stories of how they apply the Scriptures practically in their lives.

I believe they should follow St. Paul's example when, as he said to the Thessalonians, he loved them "so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us" (1 Thessalonians 2:8).

. . . And while I'm on that subject, let me draw your attention to--what for me is--a compelling article by John Piper: The Pastor as Scholar. (Thank you, Ruth, for bringing this to my attention!)

Piper says,

F. F. Bruce, representing the British of a generation ago (and perhaps not too different today), said at the end of his autobiography, In Retrospect: Remembrance of Things Past (1980, p. 306),

While some readers have observed that in these chapters I have said little about my domestic life, others have wondered why I have been so reticent about my religious experience. The reason is probably the same in both instances: I do not care to speak much—especially in public—about the things that mean most to me. Others do not share this inhibition, and have enriched their fellows by relating the inner story of the Lord’s dealings with them—one thinks of Augustine’s Confessions and Bunyan’s Grace Abounding. But it calls for quite exceptional qualities to be able to do this kind of thing without self-consciousness or self-deception.

. . . My first reaction when I read this was to say, “No wonder I have found his commentaries so dry—helpful in significant ways, but personally and theologically anemic.” My second reaction was to say (this was in 1980, the year I left academia and entered the pastorate): “Good grief! You say, ‘I do not care to speak much—especially in public—about the things that mean most to me.’ I say, ‘The only thing I care to speak about—especially in public—are the things that mean most to me!’”

Now both his and my statements are probably overstatements. But seriously: This is one of the differences between me and many scholars that drove me out of the guild. I am regularly bursting to say something about the most precious things in the universe, and not in any disinterested, dispassionate, composed, detached, unemotional, so-called scholarly way, but rather with total interest, warm passion, (if necessary) discomposure, utter attachment, fullness of emotion, and, I hope always, truth.

I am with Jonathan Edwards all the way when he says,

I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with.¹

And, of course, my assumption is--for Edwards and for myself--that in our aim to raise the affections of our hearers, we have experienced authentically raised affections ourselves about what is true and in proportion to the nature of the truth.

So I have zero empathy with F. F. Bruce and others when they say (sometimes in the name of personality, and others in the name of scholarly objectivity), “I do not care to speak much--especially in public--about the things that mean most to me.” I think it hurts the cause of the gospel if such scholars insist that a theological lecture or a critical scholarly commentary is not the place for that.

Amen.

---

¹ Jonathan Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 4, The Great Awakening, edited C. C. Goen (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1972), 387. Return to text.

What do we know?

In my last post in the Perspectives on an Evolving Creation series, I wrote, "We must beware the dangers of thinking our interpretations of Scripture are as infallible as the Scriptures themselves. We must similarly beware the dangers of ever imagining our science expresses a definitive understanding of nature."

As I wrote that second sentence, I was reminded of something I have wanted to blog for many weeks--about a frustration I experienced while reading Glover's book, Beyond the Firmament. Page 30.

I was out of town at the time I wrote that post, so I couldn't get a-hold of Glover's book to quote it. But now that I'm back, I have access.

So.

On page 30 Glover writes,

[E]very astronomer knows that stars are formed when clouds of interstellar dust and gas, mostly hydrogen, fall in on themselves under the influence of gravity, and the intense pressure and heat ignites the nuclear furnace that fuses the hydrogen into helium and releases tremendous amounts of energy.

Some of the details are still a little sketchy, but no supernatural explanation is necessary for that. . . .

When I read these statements by Glover, I thought: "Whoa! Hold on, Glover! 'Every astronomer knows? How well does he or she know? Do you really think your 'known' explanation for the formation of stars is going to remain intact for another hundred years? The relatively few sketchy details you think there are: Are you sure they aren't actually many details . . . and perhaps more sketchy than you realize?"

--Just thought I should comment.

There is plenty of need for humility on all sides.

Knowledge and Truth

File photo of Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University, taken February 11, 2007, at the meeting in which she was named president. Image by Getty Images via DaylifeHarvard's president Drew Faust made the following comments at her inauguration last October 12th. I just ran into her speech last Thursday evening at a special meeting of CrossGlobal Link, The Mission Exchange, and the Evangelical Missiological Society/EMS--a dinner held in honor of the lifetime achievements of my former boss and mentor Dr. Ralph Winter.

One of the speakers quoted a portion of Dr. Faust's comments and expressed a certain degree of contempt.

"Harvard is both a source and a symbol of the ever expanding knowledge upon which the future of the earth depends," said Dr. Faust, "and we must take an active and reflective role in this new geography of learning."

And what is the content of the knowledge upon which the future of the earth depends? According to Faust,

The "Veritas" [Latin for "Truth"] in Harvard's shield was originally intended to invoke the absolutes of divine revelation, the unassailable verities of Puritan religion. We understand it quite differently now. Truth is an aspiration, not a possession. . . . [I]n this we – and all universities defined by the spirit of debate and free inquiry – challenge and even threaten those who would embrace unquestioned certainties.

We must commit ourselves to the uncomfortable position of doubt, to the humility of always believing there is more to know, more to teach, more to understand. . . .

Clearly, Faust means to place herself and the Harvard University outside the scope of "those who would embrace unquestioned certainties."

But I wonder where such a refusal to embrace certainties--questioned or not--might lead? With what is one left if truth is always and only "an aspiration [and] not a possession"? If it is true that one can never possess truth, then on what grounds can Faust urge any form of responsibility such as what we read in her last quoted sentence: "We must commit ourselves . . ."?

The question I have just raised becomes even more insistent as we listen further to what she said in her speech:

We are able to live at Harvard in a world of intellectual freedom, of inspiring tradition, of extraordinary resources, because we are part of that curious and venerable organization known as a university. We need better to comprehend and advance its purposes – not simply to explain ourselves to an often critical public, but to hold ourselves to our own account. . . . We must regard ourselves as accountable to one another, for we constitute the institution that in turn defines our possibilities. . . .

It is not easy to convince a nation or a world to respect, much less support, institutions committed to challenging society’s fundamental assumptions. But it is our obligation to make that case: both to explain our purposes and achieve them so well that these precious institutions survive and prosper in this new century. . . .

James B. Conant, Harvard’s 23rd president [wrote in 1951 that he] was confident "[that Harvard] will maintain the traditions of academic freedom, of tolerance for heresy. . . ." We must dedicate ourselves to making certain he continues to be right; we must share and sustain his faith. . . .

This is a ceremony in which I pledge – with keys and seal and charter – my accountability to the traditions that [Conant']s voice from the past invokes. And at the same time, I affirm, in compact with all of you, my accountability to and for Harvard’s future. As in Conant's day, we face uncertainties in a world that gives us sound reason for disquiet. But we too maintain an unwavering belief in the purposes and potential of this university and in all it can do to shape how the world will look another half century from now.

Fascinating all the "necessities" laid upon us by someone who is confident that she possesses no truth!

But, of course, she does believe in truth . . . and truths. And she holds certain perspectives by faith. She said so herself. Indeed, she laid it upon her audience as a necessity that they hold certain perspectives by faith.
******
I wonder if she overstates her intent?

I sense a kinship with her in her stated desire always to express "the humility of always believing there is more to know, more to teach, more to understand." And I find it in accord with my own personality to "challeng[e] society’s fundamental assumptions." So I find it no difficulty to "support . . . institutions committed to [these ends]."

However, it seems a fool's errand to seek "knowledge" when there is no pot of gold--no truth, i.e., therefore, no real knowledge--to be found on the other end of the rainbow.

I am reminded once more of the statement attributed to G. K. Chesterton: "The purpose of opening one's mind, as of opening one's mouth, is to close it again on something solid."

Or of Budziszewski's question for the intolerant professor of tolerance, "Don't we have to use standards to describe what is tolerable and what isn't? What are yours?"

Because, ultimately, isn't that a goodly portion of the real question: "Choose you this day whom you will serve"?

Whom will you serve?

Faust has made clear it is not the god of the Puritans who founded the institution she now leads.

Standing in the middle

I haven't written a Christmas/annual letter in years. To anyone. But this year I'm trying to write such a letter. At least to a few friends.

Anyway. I was thinking yesterday morning . . . uhhhh writing yesterday morning . . . about some of the struggles I've been having with my dad. (NOTE: Not that he has caused me trouble directly. Rather, I have been troubled by some of his behaviors. And so I have struggled, internally, to know how I ought to respond. . . .)

I wrote yesterday:

It bugs me (and others of my siblings) that he seems so . . . dishonest. One of my siblings called him a "chameleon." It's hard to know what he is really thinking because he seems to take on a different persona depending on who he is with. [That is most evident when it comes to religion. Depending on who he is with, he will come across as a devout Jew, or evangelical Christian, or secularist, or New Age follower. . . . But the same "go along to get along" attitude and behavior seems to permeate his life elsewhere as well.]

I had just written this and then it struck me: There are very positive aspects of this personality trait. Indeed, doesn't my whole desire to "stand in the middle" and "bring opposing viewpoints together" come from my dad? (I think so!)

And, in a way--in a way--doesn't St. Paul seem to speak positively of this trait when he says, "To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law . . . , so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law . . . , so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Corinthians 9:20-22; NIV)? Again: I think so!

So the ability to shift personas, as it were, can have positive attributes. It can be used for good purposes. And I pray my use of this ability to "become as" may be for good purposes.

It is, I think, a unique ability or strength--a talent?--I have: always to be able to "go to the other side" in an argument to seek to understand the other viewpoint, indeed, to "take on" the other viewpoint to such a degree that people on "my" side think I am "enemy."

*****

Something else along the same lines.

Now, this morning, I just realized I never posted what I thought I had posted a month ago. Something about a man whom--without, honestly, knowing that much about him--I believe is a kind of "hero" to me, a "kindred spirit" or some such: Philipp Melanchthon.

As I say, I know very little of Melanchthon, other than that, according to my understanding, he was always seeking to bring about peace between otherwise warring factions. And he was criticized for it. Some of the same kinds of criticisms (he was too diffident and lacking in decisive backbone) that my siblings and I have raised against our father. As the Wikipedia article about him notes:

[T]he Augsburg confession . . . was mainly the work of Melanchthon. . . . Luther did not conceal the fact that the irenical attitude of the confession was not what he had wished, but neither he nor Melanchthon was conscious of any difference in doctrine, and so the most important Protestant symbol is a monument of the harmony of the two Reformers on Gospel teachings. Some would say that at the diet Melanchthon did not show that dignified and firm attitude which faith in the truth and the justice of his cause could have inspired in him, perhaps because he had not sought the part of a political leader, as he may have lacked the necessary knowledge of human nature, as well as energy and decision. [Emphasis added--JAH]

Later, the article notes,

Melanchthon's importance for the Reformation lay essentially in the fact that he systematized Luther's ideas, defended them in public, and made them the basis of a religious education. . . . Melanchthon was impelled by Luther to work for the Reformation; his own inclinations would have kept him a student. Without Luther's influence Melanchthon would have been "a second Erasmus," although his heart was filled with a deep religious interest in the Reformation. While Luther scattered the sparks among the people, . . . Melanchthon's many sidedness and calmness, his temperance and love of peace, had a share in the success of the movement.

And then,

As a Reformer Melanchthon was characterized by moderation, conscientiousness, caution, and love of peace; but these qualities were sometimes said to only be lack of decision, consistence, and courage.

I would desire for myself to be a man of moderation and conscientiousness and known for my love of peace. I am not so sure I seek caution, however!

Still. There is something in what I have read about Melanchthon's character that resonates with me.

And then there is that other man of roughly the same period in history: Desiderius Erasmus.

I once told Sarita that I thought he was a kind of hero to me as well, a man whose character I believe I seek to emulate. (Not out of any conscious wish to be like him. I mean, simply, that I desire and naturally pursue the kind of character qualities and behaviors I sense Erasmus had.)

Sarita responded with horror at the thought.

But I have just read his summary biography at Wikipedia and I think I was not as wrong as she seems to believe. "[P]artisanship was foreign to his nature and his habits," says the article.

And yet, the article notes:

Erasmus was sympathetic with the main points in the Lutheran criticism of the Church. He had great respect for Martin Luther, and Luther . . .hoped for his cooperation in a work which seemed only the natural outcome of his own. . . . [But] Erasmus declined to commit himself, arguing that to do so would endanger his position as a leader in the movement for pure scholarship which he regarded as his purpose in life. Only as an independent scholar could he hope to influence the reform of religion. When Erasmus hesitated to support him, the straightforward Luther felt that Erasmus was avoiding the responsibility due either to cowardice or a lack of purpose. Erasmus, however, . . . believed that there was room within existing formulas for the kind of reform he valued most.

Ah, yes! Common themes! "Cowardice." "Lack of purpose." Or as one of the partisans of our day has said of me: too much "compromise"!

And then the traditional difficulty of the person in the middle: Erasmus was "too Catholic for the Protestants" and "too Protestant for the Catholics." Thus, as the Wikipedia article says of his Legacy:

The Catholic Counter-Reformation movement often condemned Erasmus as having "laid the egg that hatched the Reformation." Their critique of him was based principally on his not being strong enough in his criticism of Luther, not seeing the dangers of a vernacular Bible and dabbling in dangerous scriptural criticism that weakened the Church's arguments against Arianism and other doctrines. . . .

Reformation supporters see Erasmus's critiques of Luther and lifelong support for the universal Catholic Church as damning. His reception was particularly cold by the Reformed Protestant groups.

Just some meditations on a theme.

I realize I am nowhere near as irenic as perhaps I could be. When I am committed to an idea in the area of marketing, for example, I will wrestle it to the ground.

But in more philosophical or theological areas, for some reason, though I love to "work" in those areas, I am happier, I think, to "float" and not come down too strongly on one side or another.