Quote of the Day

I posted an amusing quote from Tom Woods concerning nullification and racism on my blog this morning, for those who are interested.

ISI and Liberal Learning

I've starting posting some thoughts on my blog about ISI's recently published reading list on liberal learning. Check it out if you're interested. I think Dr. Woods is going after this, too, from a slightly different angle.

F&A Conference a Great Success!

Our Faith and the Academy Conference last Friday came off very well, and kudos are due particularly to the MLA students who presented papers. I have not heard a single negative comment about any of the presentations or of the conference as a whole, but many Faulkner folks and off-campus guests (including our plenary speaker) have spoken very highly of the quality of the sessions.

Let's do what we can to keep our momentum going. Perhaps some of you (faculty or students) have gotten ideas for new reading or research projects from the conference. Don't let those wither on the vine! The rest of us will do whatever we can to support you.

Sobran on Abused Words

MLA students (and others), you should get a kick out of this article, and maybe it will make you think twice the next time you are considering using words like "reinvent" or "oxymoron" in your papers.

Upcoming Conference

The third annual Journal of Faith and the Academy Conference will take place next Friday, February 19, on the Faulkner campus. Our plenary speaker is Dr. Darryl Tippens, the provost of Pepperdine University. Dr. Tippens will give lectures on academics and the Christian life in both the morning and afternoon sessions. After his second presentation, a faculty panel will respond to the major issues raised in his two lectures.

This year will see the most conference participation yet from the MLA students. Six students are going to read papers. Their titles are as follows:

Emily Bradford: "Leisure: A Permanent Thing"
Brian Burnett: "Another Perspective on the East-West Schism"
Andi Jerles: "Liberal Arts Education: The Key to True Freedom"
Anthony Lamar: "The Portrayal of Sex in the Christian Society"
Joseph Rich: "Death and the Afterlife as Moral Motivation"
Preston Salisbury: "Christianity Against Grade Inflation"

All three of the MLA faculty will also be presenting papers.

The conference will begin at 8:45 a.m. in the Lester Chapel.

Cultural Literacy Series on Lewrockwell.com

Back in the spring, I wrote a series of articles for Lewrockwell.com on cultural literacy. It turned out to be a recommended reading list of 150 books. The categories weren't as nice and neat as I would have liked because of the way in which the articles came about. Still, it's a good list, despite the inevitable omission of a number of worthy titles. Here are the links:

Part 1 (Narratives, antiquity-19th century): http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/jewell2.html

Part 2 (Narratives, 19th century-present): http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/jewell3.html

Part 3 (Other fields): http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/jewell4.html

The Liberal Arts and National Security

We had a great colloquium last night with Mark Conversino of the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base here in Montgomery. Dr. Conversino spoke on "The Liberal Arts and National Security," and I think he brought to the audience a new understanding of the value of liberal arts education in the "real world."

The abilities to think critically about the "big picture" and to "ask the right questions" about strategic issues are essential to success in the armed forces, particularly among senior officers. Dr. Conversino shared several anecdotes from recent military history and from his own experience that illustrated this principle. He noted that when Gen. Petraeus was trying to put Iraq back together, he didn't rely on technical specialists to determine his policies, but on "woolly-headed" academics who had voiced skepticism about the prospects for easy victory back in 2003. He pointed out the errors of those who assumed that the Serbs would "roll over" on Kosovo in 1999 as they had in Bosnia in 1994, not realizing that Kosovo played a much larger role in Serb national consciousness than Bosnia. He described the awakening his students had when confronted with the unanticipated vociferous opposition, based on cultural and historic ties, voiced by Russian officials over the proposed NATO membership for Ukraine.

In all of these scenarios, the skills acquired by study of the liberal arts enabled people to ask the right questions and potentially avoid the loss of life, while the absence of those skills, exhibited in the unawareness of cultural issues, etc., led to very negative consequences.

Everyone who attended spoke highly of the session. We hope that we will be able to collaborate with Dr. Conversino and the Air War College on more joint efforts in the future.

Checking In

I shudder when I think how long we've gone between posts on this blog. Part of me wants to take the easy way out and simply shut it down, but I still believe it can play a useful role in building community within the MLA program and also in reaching out to others.

Our program is slowly growing; this fall I have my largest group yet in 5330 (Community and Culture), and the level of discussion in class has been high. Everyone turned in his first paper last night; we'll see if my high expectations are justified there!

Our fall colloquium will be held tomorrow evening in the Lester Chapel; the topic is "The Liberal Arts and National Security." Now THAT should be interesting.

Old Sesame Street Episodes Labeled "Adults Only"

It strains credulity, but it's true. Apparently, "today's preschool child" will be adversely affected by the unhygienic Oscar the Grouch, the overeating Cookie Monster, and the delusional Big Bird, who talks to an imaginary Mr. Snuffleupagus.

Thank heavens there are good-hearted people out there protecting The Children from these horrors!!

Modern-Day Emperor Worship

And I bet you thought this sort of thing went out with the Romans . . .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=YO3UR4VQ05ZZJQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/19/wphilip19.xml

Sad, isn't it?

Herodotus Vindicated?

For hundreds of years, archeologists and historians have been speculating about the origins of the Etruscans, the civilization that dominated central Italy before Rome's rise to power. They should have just trusted Herodotus:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11174-on-the-origin-of-the-etruscan-civilisation.html

Yet another example of the trustworthiness of ancient sources in the face of modern skepticism.

The Bible and English Literature

My wife and I read to each other in the evenings, and recently we've been going through a volume of Rudyard Kipling's short stories. I have been struck by the extent to which Kipling's style was influenced by the Authorized Version (or King James Version, if you prefer) of the Bible.

For example, in the story "Three and--an Extra," we find the following statement concerning Mrs. Hauksbee, a lady given to dallying with married men: "You had only to mention her name at afternoon teas for every woman in the room to rise up and call her not blessed." This, of course, is a clever twist on the description of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31:28 : "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." Kipling knew the Scripture and was confident his readers did as well.

The ironic part about all this is that Kipling was no Christian. In fact, a thinly-veiled hostility to the Church is evident in much of his writing. Yet he still worked within the idiom of the Bible. The same could be said of many other 18th- and 19th-century English and American authors.

Isn't it sad that these unbelievers' writing styles were more influenced by the Bible than the style of professing Christian writers today?

A Faith-Producing Culture?

Those of you new to Faulkner and my rambling diatribes will soon become accustomed to my references to Chronicles magazine and its various contributors. Chronicles is a monthly publication that deals with the American (non-)culture from a "paleoconservative" perspective. There is a pronounced Roman Catholic tinge to much of what appears there, but other voices are also present. It is the one magazine to which I would never dream of canceling my subscription.

The most recent issue has education as its theme, and the article "Educated at Home" by Hugh Barbour contains a stimulating passage I wanted to share with everyone:

"The most serious and dangerous challenge for Christians today is not precisely the loss of faith and religious practice among the fallen away, but a more material, basic human threat--namely, the lack among believers of a human cultural foundation capable of disposing them and their offspring to persevere in the Faith. I mean here not a lack of cultural Hochformen, but a lack of culture in its everyday, domestic, and social sense. This deficit produces among devout Christians a "mere" religiosity, a reduction of Christian life to explicit devotion and moral uprightness, and the sense that things suffice, and that culture is at best an accidental thing, harmful if secular and amoral, helpful to the extent that it is or can be made explicitly religious.
"In this case, religious practice either takes the place of culture or is indifferent to it so long as it is not clearly contrary to faith and good--especially sexual--morals."

Before I comment on the passage, I'd like to know what some other folks think about it. Do you think Barbour is on target, or is he overrating the importance of culture?

I'd especially like to know whether Dr. Woods considers American Idol an "accidental thing."

Clowns in the Pulpit

After we mentioned this at our gathering Saturday evening, I couldn't resist posting it here for the students to see. I wonder how soon we'll see this in Montgomery.

Some of my favorite user comments:

"At least they admit they are led by clowns. I can think of a few churches that are still in denial."

"….can’t sleep…clown will eat me…can’t sleep…clown will eat me "

"Notice how Racism is the chief evil nailed to the cross. I’m sure erosion is on there too (perhaps out of view.)"

"One minute later the congregation was shocked when the secret member of the Clue Clucks Clowns set the cross on fire."

The Hiatus Has Ended . . .

Now that the school year is about to begin, it's time for the posting drought on this site to end. The MLA faculty are ready to begin posting again, and we have a bright new crop of students to keep the conversations invigorating.

So look for a lot more action here in the near future . . .

Recapturing Relevance in the Church

How?

By playing rock music during communion, of course!

Introducing the U2 Eucharist.

What will they think of next?

The Other Shoe Drops

Remember Eugene Robinson, the first openly homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church-USA? It turns out that he is also an alcoholic.

Not to worry, though. Condemnation of drunkenness is so first-century, just like condemnation of homosexual offenses. God is more enlightened now, apparently. According to Robinson, "We worship a living God, not one locked up in the Scripture of 2,000 years ago."

Translation: The "Scripture of 2,000 years ago" is no longer the Scripture of today. It speaks volumes about the ECUSA that it would make a man with such a view of Holy Writ one of its bishops.

Last weekend I met a member of the University of the South's board of trustees. (The University of the South is affiliated with the ECUSA.) He told me that the ECUSA is set to be ejected from the worldwide Anglican communion within the next year or so over this bishop. That should be interesting to see.

The Forgotten Byzantine Era

Here is a brief but largely accurate article about how most Westerners are ignorant of the Christian civilization that flourished in the East during the European "Middle Ages." The Byzantine Empire had its problems and its heretical ideas (caesaro-papism comes to mind), but we can still learn from it in some areas. I just wish we had time to cover it more in the Western Heritage series.

It Had to Happen . . .

You may have suspected that I wouldn't be able to resist making a post about Brokeback Mountain. No, I have not seen it and have no intention of doing so; one doesn't have to enter the sewer to know that it stinks. However, I did want to pass along some perceptive comments made by Chris Ortiz over at the Chalcedon Foundation's blog:

"Brokeback Mountain

The world is swimming in hogwash over the release of Brokeback Mountain. Critics are falling over themselves to laud compounded praise over this story of two ranch handlers who can't keep their hands off each other. What is disturbing -- beyond the celebration of sodomy -- is the idea that "love" redefines all God-created categories of the Biblical social order. God created man and woman and ordained their consecrated union as the covenantal unit upon which civilization find its fulcrum. Yet, Joe Bob and Jethro can two-step over divine order "cuz they love each other."

It's Romeo and Juliet from the pit of Gomorrah -- forbidden love that leads to self-destruction. And, again, it is the oppressive authority of Christian culture and the Christian family that forbids "lovers" from fulfilling their persecuted desire and drives them to self-destruction. The victim is now the sinner, and God and His order are the tyrannical perpetrators.

Is Brokeback Mountain a great movie? I'll never know. Is it superbly acted? Who cares? It's celebrated for it's "bold statement" more so than it's creative content. Much the same as Scorcese's Last Temptation of Christ was held up as creative genius. Yea, right. What men love is not art, they treasure war against God. Producing such movies is their way of thumbing their noses at the pious ethic of Christianity. Their target is the Church and it's 2,000-year reign of puritanical morality. Perverted man seeks freedom to sin but obtaining a gay marriage license will never quiet his God-given conscience. Removing the Church will never stifle the Spirit that strives with man (Gen. 6:3)."

The entire post can be found at http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog/2006_02_01_archive.php#113968791200630743

Oh . . . my . . . goodness

I'm having trouble believing that it's not some kind of joke. The title of this article makes it clear (unwittingly, no doubt) that this upcoming movie about "Jesus" preaches exactly the opposite of what Jesus himself taught.