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Table of Contents - Summer 2005
Lessons From Shadowland
The struggles of C. S. Lewis in Shadowland I had read about and viewed in the screen drama. I never expected to visit that land myself. Yet Job-like, it crashed in upon our family without warning. A regular exam. A suspicious shadow. A biopsy. The startling words from the physician—“You have breast cancer.” Neither Audra nor I have ever expected immunity from disease or difficulty. Yet somehow we believed cancer would never visit our home. For most of our adult life we have eaten the right foods, exercised vigorously, avoided all cancer-causing agents, and taken regular exams. None of Audra’s four older sisters or her mother had this disease. But the
tests were conclusive: aggressive invasive ductal adenocarcinoma. The months of
April and May have been hectic, confusing, and often like a roller-coaster
ride. Why Are We Here? Note: This keynote address was delivered at the Inaugural
Convocation of the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky on A certain divinity school dean made it his
practice to welcome new students to the campus by urging them to give themselves
seriously and with discipline to their studies while in school. He told them it
was likely to be their last chance for an extended period to read, think, and
try to puzzle out the nature of the faith they would seek to communicate in
their vocations. “You need to know,” he said, “that when you get out of here and
take up your vocations, no matter what you say, some people will believe you!” The Ten Commandments and
Public Piety: The Contrasting Styles of Jesus and Judge Roy Moore Judge Roy
Moore has emerged as one of Recent
polls indicate that as many as two-thirds of Americans sided with Judge Moore
in his quest to have the massive display of the Ten Commandments serve as a
permanent symbol of the reality of God in American life. Judge Moore maintains
that it is his right, even his duty, as a public servant to “acknowledge God”
as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and the foundation of all American law,
and that this was best achieved during his tenure as a judge by displaying the
Ten Commandments monument prominently in the state’s chief courthouse of which
he served as chief justice. The President At President Bush delivered his first 2005 commencement address on
May 21 at In the past two months alone, GOP leaders have suggested God is on
their side in public discussions about the medical care of Terri Schiavo,
judicial-nominee votes in the U.S. Senate, and the treatment of House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay over charges of unethical conduct. This follows an election in
which the president regularly spoke of the need for government to support
“faith-based” initiatives, a religiously grounded “culture of life,” and
traditional marriage. 'Justice'
Or 'Just-Us' Sunday Much was written and said during the run up to and aftermath of the so-called “Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith”—or as Bob Edgar, of the National Council of Churches, called it, “Just-Us” Sunday—pointing out the arrogant presumption that the organizers of the event are right and godly and those who disagree are not only wrong but hostile to people of faith. The Baptist
Joint Committee weighed in full force with an early media statement and helped
organize a counter press conference the Friday before. Many thanks to our
friends Joe Phelps, pastor of Life After Schiavo Terri Schiavo has died, her cremains interred. The news media has long since focused attention elsewhere. And now—after fifteen years of having lived in a severely brain-damaged state, sustained by daily enteral tube-feedings, unknowingly enmeshed in a twelve-year family feud over her treatment plan—it finally is all over for Terri. But it is not all over for others. Indeed, the repercussions of her dying will remain with the Schiavo and Schindler families, and all of us, for years yet to come. There is of course the lingering sense of loss
and sadness experienced now and forever by those who loved their wife, daughter,
sister, patient, and friend. Life after Terri’s death surely involves grief
along with some relief. Updated Tuesday, October 25, 2005 |
Terrorism, Religion, and
War The tragedy
of 9-11 focused the thinking of most Americans on terrorism. We have been led
to believe that the tragedy was caused by an evil enemy, who suddenly appeared
out of the Can Terrorism Alerts Make You Ill? Experts writing in the British Medical Journal in recent
years have identified an ancillary threat of terrorism to the average
population of a country. According to Simon Wessely and other researchers a
psychological response to the threat of terrorism in the form of mass
sociogenic illness may be a primary threat of terrorism. Their findings have
very real implications for countries that continually magnify the threat of
terrorism against their own populace in order to achieve a political agenda. Feeling A Draft SOMEONE MUST HAVE LEFT A WINDOW OPEN FOR I FEEL A SLIGHT DRAFT COMIN ON. WAR HAS BECOME OUR NATIONAL PASTIME BUT WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF SOLDIERS TO TAKE CARE OF ALL THE HOT SPOTS. TOO MANY CELLS OF INSURGENTS ON THE LOOSE WE SMASH EM HERE AND THEY POP UP THERE. Wal-Mart and Human Dignity:
Labor Practices Come Under Fire The public relations campaign rolled out early this year by Wal-Mart to “set the record straight” regarding its labor practices has done little to quell the open warfare between the company and its critics. The back-and-forth charges highlight a stark contrast in viewpoints. The company
proclaims that efforts to unionize the tire and lube units of stores in The Two Swords of Pope Benedict XVI Wading into the turbulent waters of the relationship between church and state is always a treacherous affair, whether entering from the church or state side. With the installation of Pope Benedict XVI, we might be reminded of this fact. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger entered into these deeps during the last
presidential election cycle, as Martin Marty has noted with “grumbles” to which
I would add my own [“Considering Pope Benedict XVI,” April 25]. Cardinal
Ratzinger raised the specter of excommunication for those Catholic politicians
who did not steer clear of a pro-choice position. This brought to my mind the
actions of Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085), who dove headfirst into church-state
relations with the express intent of ensuring a church completely free of any
secular entanglements. Lost . . . in I left At about While
looking at my map I realized that I was lost. Tulia was not on my route to
Myth: Baptists Don’t
Believe In Women Pastors Without a
guiding principle, the Bible’s teachings on women may appear to be confusing to
some people. Only husbands of one wife should be deacons (1 Tim. Adam’s Rib I was quietly reading one evening when I encountered a statement claiming that many evangelicals believed that men had one fewer rib than women because of the story of Eve’s beginnings (Gen 2:18-23). I laughed until I thought I would cry. My wife looked up from her book and said, “What’s so funny?” I read the passage to her and she responded, “Your niece arrived at nursing school believing that!” I stopped laughing. The next
day I promptly inquired of all the students I could find. I posed the question
to each of my classes at the beginning of the semester. I have queried about 75
students. Those students who had grown up in the so-called mainline
denominations, or were from other countries had never heard of gender
differences in the number of ribs. Almost every other student or staff member
queried had heard it, been taught it, or still believed it. Growing up in the
south was not the issue, it was the religious tradition.
During the Gulf War, the B-2 Stealth Bomber frequently made the front page. We marveled at this wonder-plane that could deliver all manner of destruction to an unsuspecting target without being detected by enemy radar. The advantages of operating in stealth mode in battle go back to the U-2 spy plane and even to the Revolutionary War, where militias hid in the bushes rather than fight in the open dressed in colorful military finery. In war, camouflage is king. This tactic has not gone
unnoticed by churches seeking not to change their fundamentalist strategy, but
to increase the number of backsides in pews. Book Reviews
A Word On
Words “A raid on the inarticulate.” This is what the word merchant T. S. Eliot called each new writing venture—a raid on the inarticulate. Articulation is defined in the dictionary as what modern humans, in the broad genus of primate mammals, do in giving utterance or expression to meaningfully arranged ideas. To articulate is to put into words. A word is reason or sense articulated in such a way as to communicate with others. Human beings are nothing if not word makers. We have been called Homo sapiens—man, the knower, Homo erectus—man, the upright, and Homo faber—man, the fabricator. A not inappropriate designation might be Homo verbum—the word maker or man, the talker. Words are
immeasurably fascinating to me.
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