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Issue
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Volume 6 No 1 February 2000 >next>
Issue 27 |
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In
Celebration of Fire Fire was thought by ancient Greeks to have been brought to earth by Prometheus who had lighted a torch at the sun’s chariot. In Rome the Vestal Virgins tended the sacred fire kept perpetually burning on the altar of the goddess Vesta. Earlier and more primitive people give evidence of having employed and treasured fire. It is now accepted that no fireless tribe of humans has ever been found. I have just survived a winter ice storm in which fire took on new charm, new image, and new wonder.
Due to an utterly uncharacteristic attack of foresight, I had used one
pleasant fall day, months ago, to lay by me in store a full cord of seasoned
wood. Well.
The thing that actually triggered this alleged foresight was a little ad,
semi-literate, in the newspaper offering a full cord of wood for the decidedly
reasonable price of $75, with an extra charge of $30 if they delivered it and
stacked it. If you don’t know,
then let me tell you something. That
is a very un-New Millenniumish price. So I called and took the woman up on the offer.
She said yes, they would deliver the wood the next day.
The next day I wailed expectantly until it was pitch dark when I
reluctantly gaved them up, with not a few pejorative thoughts about the promise
breakers. After a few days, however, my pejoratives cooled, somewhat.
I would have called somebody else, but all of their prices were much too
high for my emphatically plebeian inclinations.
So I called my original firewood mongerer, she of the broken promises,
and inquired as to what had happened. It
seems that a few days before when they had finally got the trailer loaded with
the wood, it was dark and that since their old truck didn’t have any lights,
they couldn’t see to make the delivery. Okay,
I allowed. Could they deliver it
tomorrow? Yes. Kruschwitz Is Coming
The Scholar's Vocation: The
Search for the True-the Search for the Good
It is a great pleasure to be with you and to take
part in your celebration of scholarship, though as those of you who know my work
will expect, my celebration will be contentious, but that, too, is a legitimate
part of scholarship. As a Christian I sometimes feel that I am living in the
belly of the beast at Berkeley. In any case what I will say today comes out of a
lifetime spent at secular universities and so may not apply to you at Baylor.
Yet we live in the same society and are subject to the same academic pressures,
so there will probably be some relevance after all. The Elbert Factor There are people and places that have played a
significant part of my life's journey. Confessions of a Lapsed Luddite
The Luddites, as many will know, were a small group of English craftsmen
in the early 19th century who were alarmed because the introduction of
technology into the English cloth industry meant
that their jobs were under threat. They reacted violently, seeking to destroy
the machines that
undermined their ways of making a living. They failed, of course, and the march
of new technology
went inexorably on.
I have never been a real Luddite. True, for many years I resisted the
lure of the computer, despite the pitying glances of many of my friends. I was a
bit of an outcast because I had no email address. But, finally, some
months ago, I succumbed and bought a computer. Now I have an e‑mail
address and use a computer for my writing (which really gives me, in that
respect, little more than my old word processor gave me.) But I like
e‑mail. It keeps me in touch with a lot of people with whom it would
otherwise have been difficult to maintain connections. I have never been
seriously tempted to launch a violent physical attack on machines, factories, or
laboratories--all bastions of the new technology--though I have occasionally
thought of taking an axe to my television set, especially when all I can get is
Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, or Montel Williams.
I haven't lost, however, a nagging distrust of uncritical enthusiasm for
any and all technological advance. The current convenient axiom in some
scientific circles—“if it can be done, do it”--does not sit comfortably
with me. I am old fashioned enough to believe that, perhaps, there are some
things we can do which, morally, we ought not to do. The problem is that
computers and technology are amoral. They are inanimate machines, however much
they may mimic human behavior. They have no moral or ethical sense. Whatever
morality is programmed into our technology is put there by human beings.
And I am haunted by my Biblical--and experiential--understanding that all
human beings, whether they be computer programmers, scientists, technicians, or
writers for ethical journals are sinful beings. Whatever moral knowledge they
feed into their machines arises out of their own moral sensibility, and that
sensibility is always and everywhere suspect. A Woman Who Waited for
the Lord God Eunice Walker Wood was a woman who waited for
the Lord God, who cried out of the depths to Him, who received his plenteous
redemption. From childhood to old age, she found her hope in the Christ who
does not mark our iniquities, but who judges us with a love so steadfast that
nothing, not even death, can separate us from it. No Frozen Images Watching the World Go By A ninety-year old professional student of history, I have been thinking of what may b the two chief failures of Western Civilization in the hundred years just past.
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Violence:
Competition or Cooperation We live in a very violent world. There are wars, murders, rapes and other forms of violence reported every day in our newspapers. What is the origin of such human violence? And why does the reaction to violence seem to be inconsistent? Some religious leaders who speak of life as sacred neither respect their adversaries nor serve as models of nonviolence. From the Pope on over to Pat Robertson and James Dobson, life in the womb is sacred but the life of the pregnant woman is not. During the second World War and theCold War, none of the above leaders of religious group and few others who speak of the sanctity of life opposed war or the development of nuclear and other weapons that could be used to destroy hundreds of thousands of non-combatants, innocent men, women, and children. There
are various theories about the origin of violence, though apparently some of us
have never even wondered how humans became as violent as we are.
One theory about the origin of violence relies on the Genesis account
that God created a perfect world and that violence was caused by human sin. Book Review by By Daroid H. Morgan Blinded
by Might Just
the mention of these authors should comes as a shock to the readers of Christian Ethics Today These authors are for-met insiders in both
the Moral Majority movement of Jerry Falwell and the Religious Right; Christian
Coalition as well. For years they epitomized the essence the hard-line Religious
Right in America with their highly publicized agenda on abortion,
homosexuality, unqualified support for Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party,
the school prayer issues, and the voucher approach to the public education
problems. And this book shows that their positions on these flammable questions
have altered little despite their very public breach with Falwell, James Dobson,
and others still active in the Religious Right Movement. Book Review by By Daroid H. Morgan Blinded
by Might Just
the mention of these authors should comes as a shock to the readers of Christian Ethics Today These authors are for-met insiders in both
the Moral Majority movement of Jerry Falwell and the Religious Right; Christian
Coalition as well. For years they epitomized the essence the hard-line Religious
Right in America with their highly publicized agenda on abortion,
homosexuality, unqualified support for Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party,
the school prayer issues, and the voucher approach to the public education
problems. And this book shows that their positions on these flammable questions
have altered little despite their very public breach with Falwell, James Dobson,
and others still active in the Religious Right Movement. A Book Review By Dennis Bender More Than Houses
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity International
and its many local affiliates have worked long and hard to tackle one of the
world's greatest problems--poverty housing and homelessness. Past Imperfect, Future Perfect - Tenses of Declension I am a guardian of the meaning of life: a professor of British and American literature. My concentration areas are 16th-19th century texts. By professional involvement, I am "expert" in the writings of Queen Katherine Parr (last wife of Henry VIII), John
Bunyan, Charles Dickens, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Oh, yes. I am a closet Tele-tubby for Ernest Hemingway. Past Imperfect, Future Perfect - Tenses of Declension I am a guardian of the meaning of life: a professor of British and American literature. My concentration areas are 16th-19th century texts. By professional involvement, I am "expert" in the writings of Queen Katherine Parr (last wife of Henry VIII), John
Bunyan, Charles Dickens, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Oh, yes. I am a closet Tele-tubby for Ernest Hemingway. Watching the World Go By A ninety-year old professional student of history, I have been thinking of what may b the two chief failures of Western Civilization in the hundred years just past. A
Perspective on Man and a Century I Humankind by reason lifted
Throwing all, dreamers had gambled And usher in a brave new day They knew not the greatness of
man Watching the World Go By A ninety-year old professional student of history, I have been thinking of what may b the two chief failures of Western Civilization in the hundred years just past.
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