Why is PowerPoint so bad?

You've seen hundreds of examples of horrendous PowerPoint slides. Edward Tufte even argues that PowerPoint is evil.

But the problem is not the software. The problem is how it is used.

Richard Mayer takes this argument one step further:

"Asking whether computers are a good instructional technology is like asking whether books are a good instructional technology. It all depends on how they are used, that is, on the instructional method" (June 2005 issue of Educational Psychology Review).

Seth Godin contends that PowerPoint presentations are used as crutches by presenters and audiences alike. The presenter uses it as a teleprompter. The audience uses the print out of slides as a verbatim record of the presentation.

Godin suggests five rules to rescue your next presentation:

1. No more than six words on a slide.
   
2. Use professional images.
   
3. No dissolves, spins or other transitions.
   
4. Never use the sound effects that are built in to the program.
   
5. Don't hand out print-outs of your slides.
   

Garr Reynolds offers these suggestions:

• Use a remote.
  
• Blank the screen when appropriate.
  
• Limit the special effects.
  
• Use high-quality graphics.
  
• Choose your fonts well.
  
• Don't use built-in sound effects.
  

But Richard Mayer sees the problem as much deeper. A few tips will not solve the problem. What is needed is a good theory and some real-world research.

It is worthwhile to distinguish between two possible goals in making a PowerPoint presentation — information presentation, in which the goal is to present information to the audience, and cognitive guidance, in which the goal is to guide the audience in their processing of the presented information. When your goal is information presentation, PowerPoint slides can be full of information that may be extremely hard to process by the audience. However, since your goal is simply information presentation, you are not concerned with whether or not the audience can process the presented information. When your goal is cognitive guidance, you want to make sure that the audience members build appropriate knowledge in their memories. Your job is to communicate in a way that will have the desired impact on the audience, so you need to design your slides so they are consistent with how people learn. In my opinion, many of the examples of misuses of PowerPoint occur when the slides are designed to present information rather than to guide cognitive processing. In short, like any communication medium—including books — PowerPoint can be misused as a device for presenting information without regard for how the audience will process the presented information (bold added).

In his Multimedia Learning, Mayer explains the three assumptions that form the foundation for his work:

1. Visual and auditory information are processed through separate "channels."
   
2. Each channel is limited in its ability to process information.
   
3. Processing information is an active cognitive process designed to construct coherent mental representations.
   

Mayer explains that most presentations are focused on the technology:

It is worthwhile to distinguish between a technology-centered approach and a learner-centered approach to the use of educational technologies including PowerPoint. In a technology-centered approach, the focus is on the capabilities of cutting edge technology. Thus, we would be interested in the effects of each of the many features of PowerPoint. In a learner-centered approach, the focus is on the way that people learn and process information. Thus, we would be interested in finding ways to use the features of PowerPoint to support people's natural ways of learning, that is, as aids to human learning.

He explains that humans are not information processors. They are meaning makers. And this requires three distinct steps:

1. Selecting what is important.
   
2. Organizing what has been selected.
   
3. Integrating the new meaning with previous knowledge.
   

In my next post I'll list his "research-based principles for the design of multimedia instructional messages."

So what do you think? Does this theory fit with your own experience?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Wright-ing History

In his Judas and the Gospel of Jesus, N. T. Wright makes an important point that is often overlooked in the discussion of Gnostic Christianity.

The gnostic gospels are today being trumpeted as the radical alternatives to the oppressive and conservative canonical gospels, but the historical reality was just the opposite.

Elaine Pagels is one of those heralds of Gnostic superiority. In The Gnostic Gospels, she writes:

At a time when the orthodox Christians increasingly discriminated between clergy and laity, this group of Gnostic Christians demonstrated that, among themselves, they refused to acknowledge such distinction. Instead of ranking their members into superior and inferior "orders" within a hierarchy, they followed the principle of strict equality…

Such practices prompted Tertullian to attack "the behavior of the heretics."

(Quoted at The Gnostic Jesus.)

The popular view is that Gnostic Christianity is "a lost treasure of immeasurable value, long buried in the suffocating darkness of conventional orthodoxy on one side, and blind fundamentalist extremism on the other."

But Wright argues that the truth is very different:

The people who were burned at the stake, fried on hot irons, thrown to the wild beasts, pulled apart on the rack…, these people did not imagine themselves to be on the way to a great political victory of "orthodoxy" over "heresy." They were not, as is often suggested, settling down and making comfortable compromises with the status quo…. They were following their crucified Lord.

The proponents of Gnostic Christianity, like to bring in factors from the reign of Constantine and from the time we call the Middle Ages. But the second century was a very different world.

In a.d. 177 many Christians were martyred in Vienne and Lyons. Among them was Pothinus, the Bishop of Lyons. He was immediately replaced by Irenaeus who was living in Rome, but who had been a highly-respected presbyter in Lyons. "And it was exactly then that he wrote his Against the Heresies, the work which mentions the 'Gospel of Judas.'"

This runs counter to the popular narrative about the emergence of Christian orthodoxy:

Reading Ehrman, Meyer and others, it is easy to forget what was really going on at the time, and to imagine that Ignatius, Irenaeus and other like him were simply unpleasant and arrogant heresy-hunters, eager to simply prop up their own power and ecclesiastical systems.

The truth is that in the second century the Gnostics were the cultural conservatives. They were the ones who took the path of least resistance. There was nothing dangerous, radical or progressive in Gnostic "Christianity."

The Gnostics were quite content to capitulate to their surrounding culture, in which mystery-religions, self-discovery, Platonic spirituality of various sorts, and coded revelations of hidden truths were the stock in trade. In other words, the Gnostics were the cultural conservatives, sticking with the kind of religion that everyone already knew.

In fact, an honest reading of the Gnostic texts will give us the impression that these people were "fairly thoroughly sexist, anti-Semitic, and lacking the courage to stand out against the ideologies and authorities of their day."

In stark contrast:

It was the orthodox Christians who were breaking new ground, and risking their necks as they did so.

(All unattributed and unlinked quotations are from Judas and the Gospel of Jesus by N. T. Wright.)

As an aside: As it was in those days, so should it be today. The orthodox Christians should not be known for "heresy hunting," conservatism and caution. Rather we should be known as the ones breaking new ground and risking our necks as we do so.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Cultural Literacy

Many Christians are culturally out of touch. I don't mean that they aren't up to date on their pop culture. I mean that they have little understanding of what culture is.

To these Christians, culture is all the stuff in the world that is different than "what Christians do." Here is an example of this mindset:

Redesigning the church to suit one's own cultural or generational preferences (as opposed to seeking a biblical approach to church order) is the very thing that caused the evangelical movement to run aground in the first place.

This implies that there is a neutral culture or, even worse, a "biblical culture" in which Christians can and should live. It says in so many words that there is only one way, "the biblical way," to structure a church.

And there are many other voices calling for a return to "traditional values." One news commentator styles himself as a cultural warrior.

There is no doubt that contemporary culture is growing increasingly hostile to organized religion. And there are many values of today's culture that are in direct conflict with the gospel. But this has always been so.

There has never been a time when society did not present a threat to the gospel.

• This was true in first-century Israel.
  
• It was true in fourth-century Constantinople.
  
• It was true in twentieth-century America.
  

When modern missionaries first started evangelizing the peoples of the world, they often were more focused on instilling western culture than in instilling biblical values.

Much of this seems obvious to us now. Few Christians would confuse these western values with biblical Christianity:

• Capitalism
  
• Democracy
  
• Western ideas of modesty
  
• American hymnody
  

But there are many aspects of contemporary Christianity that have no biblical foundation. Even though they've become a common part of Christian practice and culture, they are relatively recent additions.

Here's a list of elements found in churches and Christian observance:

• Altar calls
  
• Baptism
  
• Cathedrals
  
• Christmas
  
• Church buildings
  
• Clergy
  
• Easter
  
• Evangelism program
  
• Individual Bible study
  
• Jesus as personal Savior
  
• Ordination
  
• Organ music
  
• Pews
  
• Priests
  
• Public reading of Scripture
  
• Revival meetings
  
• Sacred music
  
• Sanctuaries
  
• Sermon
  
• Sunday Sabbath observance
  
• Sunday worship
  
• Weekly offering
  

Tell me which ones you think are essential to Christianity and the gospel.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Religious Literacy

According to Stephen Prothero, "Americans are both deeply religious and deeply ignorant about religion."

In his book, Religious Literacy, Prothero traces the decline of religious knowledge, proposes a remedy and compiles a dictionary of religious literacy. He includes a quiz for readers to test their knowledge.

Here are a few of those questions along with some of my own:

1. Name a sacred text of Hinduism.
   
2. What are the five books of the Torah?
   
3. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Where is this found in the Bible?
   
4. What are the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism?
   
5. What is Ramadan?
   
6. What is the difference between the Sunnis and the Shiites?
   
7. Ellen White founded what religious faith?
   
8. What religion celebrates Kwanzaa?
   
9. What are the teachings of Gnosticism?
   
10. What are the five pillars of Islam?
    
11. What is the Decalogue?
    
12. Vishnu is a deity of what religion?
    

If you don't know one of these, do a Google search and explain the answer in the comments.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Wright on Time

I just received my CDs of N. T. Wright's lectures at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake on March 23. At the end of the first lecture I asked this question:

The popular Christian view tends to see time as an illusion. If, as you argue, time is real and an enduring fact continuing into the new creation, it seems to me that this requires that God interacts with time in a way that involves genuine participation in the passing of time. I'm sure you've given this some thought. Could you comment on this please?

Here is his answer:

Yes, there is, of course, quite a debate at the moment I'm aware of, within North American not least, about God's interaction with and engagement with time, with the question being really whether things that happen in time can, in our cricketing image, put God on the back foot, whether God thinks, "Hmm, never thought you were going to get up to that."

There are, of course, places in the Bible which do seem to say that. You know, when Jeremiah inveighs against the practice of offering children to Molech, he says as the Word of God, "Not only did I never command that, it never entered my mind." That's an extraordinary idea for us, that humans can do something which God would never have dreamt of. And it kind of puts God in a different position. But God remains sovereign.

Jonathan Sachs, the chief rabbi of the UK, is one of the finest commentators on our present scene in Britain, wrote a piece no long ago likening the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness to what happens when you have a sat-nav or GPS system in your car. The voice says, "In half a mile turn right." And you say, "Actually, no. I don't like that road. I'm going to turn left in a quarter of a mile." And there's a pause, and the voice says in effect, "Well, this wasn't what we had in mind, but since we're now here, you're going to need to go this and this and this and this." And it seems to me that this is a perfectly proper way to think about how the sovereignty of God plays out through the responsibility of humans.

It's all to do with image-bearing-ness as humans and the sense that our job in worshipping God is to reflect him into the world. And because God has made the world like that, it is part of God's sovereign determination rooted in the triune nature of God himself that he will act through and with what humans think and do, and that actually you can collapse that back but you're actually moving away from the Trinity if you do so. Equally, you can move it too far forwards into a kind of totally indeterminate idea where really there is no sense of God as creator and judge, but merely of God as one player in a rather odd game. So for me, bring it back to the Trinity. Think through particularly creation and judgment, and you may be able to hold together what some people at the moment find is falling apart. Not a very adequate answer, but that's a starting point at least.

I'd be interested in your reaction to his answer.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Psychological Literacy

If scientific literacy calls into question the book of Genesis, then psychological literacy apparently rules out faith completely.

David Barash, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, makes the case against faith in "The DNA of Religious Faith" published in the April 20, 2007, issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

He announces that "the era of deference to religious belief is ending."

Religious faith, which he defines as "belief without evidence," is dangerous to society. In fact, "the very teaching of religion to defenseless children is a form of child abuse."

Psychological literacy has excluded religious faith for quite some time. "Scholars have found it easy to explain religion: They've done it hundreds of times, in psychological, psychoanalytic, sociological, historical, anthropological, and economic terms."

The problem, as he sees it, is that evolutionary theory hasn't been able to explain the survival of religious commitments in evolutionary terms. "It often appears that religious practice is fitness-reducing rather than enhancing." He writes, "Think of the frequent advocacy of sexual restraint, of tithing, of self-abnegating moral duty and other seeming diminutions of personal fitness, along with the characteristic denial of the 'evidence of our senses' in favor of faith in things asserted but not clearly demonstrated."

But riding to the rescue are "the four horsemen of the current antireligious apocalypse," Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Carl Sagan, "all passionate advocates of reason, committed to the proposition that religion is essentially unreasonable."

"Part of the attention-grabbing novelty of the Four Horsemen has been their refusal to abide by" the idea that science and religion are two independent domains, "insisting that when religion makes egregiously false 'truth claims' against science, it must be confronted, and that, moreover, religion itself can and should be 'naturalized'— that is, subjected to the same scrutiny that science brings to other phenomena."

Barash celebrates the iconoclastic work of the "Horsemen" in destroying the historic arguments for the existence of God. He takes particular glee in the attack on the argument from design, which he puts in quotes (presumably because it is not a legitimate argument or because only the scientifically illiterate would see design in biologically complex organisms). In spite of the "absurdity" of the argument from design: "This chestnut has had numerous stakes driven through its heart, but like a cinematic version of the undead, it keeps resurrecting itself, staggering, zombielike and covered with flies, back into public view."

He also addresses the "fine-tuning" argument. "Both Dawkins and Sagan examine this argument, which Dawkins caricatures as 'god-as-dial-twiddler.' Such twiddler-twaddle is oddly tautological, in that if the universe were not as it is, we indeed would not be here to wonder about it." Then he shows his disdain for articles of faith, theories that are not falsifiable: "The anthropic principle can also be 'solved' by multiple universes, of which ours could simply be the one in which we exist. This might apply not only to horizontally existing multiverses, but also to the same one occurring differently in time, if there have been (and will be) unending expansions and contractions. Moreover, it isn't at all clear that the various physical dials are independent, or that the physical constants in the universe could be any different, given the nature of matter and energy."

We wouldn't want our children to commit intellectual suicide by putting faith in "the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible." It is so much more intellectually rigorous to think that universes are multiplying at every quantum event happening all over the "current" universe, whatever that word means.

Not only is there a universe where I never made this post, but there would have to be an infinite number of universes where I made an infinite number of different posts. There would even be a universe where Richard Dawkins is a TV evangelist. But we can't have people believing in things that can't be proven. That is why Sam Harris feels a "need to take the United States in particular by the scruff of its neck and rub its nose in the dangers and absurdities of religious belief."

But the last stronghold of religion to be destroyed is the idea of transcendent moral law. Barash asserts that "God is no longer needed to explain 'Moral Law.'" Biologists have shown that "kin selection, reciprocal altruism, group selection, third-party effects, and courtship possibilities, as well as simple susceptibility to social and cultural indoctrination" taken together or in various combinations provide sufficient foundation for a transcendent morality.

Professor Barash is well within his rights to refuse to believe in Christianity or any other traditional faith, but he doesn't seem to realize that his own plausibility structure is loaded with unprovable assumptions. If he chooses to place his faith in multiverses rather than a personal God, that is understandable since his assumptions exclude the existence of such a being. But surely he could spare us the patronizing lecture.

While I would agree with his view that scientific truth and religious truth are not two completely separate realms, I am not prepared to adopt materialism as my "scientifically-proven" religion whose "articles of faith" are not open to scrutiny. I prefer my religion to be transparent and honest about what it wants me to believe.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional Dip

Seth Godin has a new book, The Dip. I've ordered it, but it doesn't ship until May 10.

Here are some quotations about the topic of the book.

From the book description at the Amazon site:

"Maybe you're in a Dip-a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it's really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try."

"Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt-until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it."

"Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip—they get to the moment of truth and then give up—or they never even find the right Dip to conquer."

From an interview with Guy Kawasaki:

"What's the worst time to quit? When the pain is the greatest."

"The willingness to quit when you get off track pushes you on the path to mastery."

"When you copy something that's already on the other side of the Dip, you've already lost."

From an old essay at Fast Company:

"Fundamentalists decide whether they like a new piece of information based on how it will affect their prior belief system, not based on whether it is actually true."

Here's my summary of what Seth is trying to say:

• Any accomplishment that is really worthwhile gets difficult before there is a "pay off."
  
• But not all difficulties are created equal.
  
• Some difficulties are essentially dead ends.
  
• The "trick" is to be able to tell the difference.
  
• The bigger the dip, the greater the pay off.
  
• Each person, or organization, must discover what challenges should be faced and what obstacles are simply too big to overcome.
  

This requires a little translation to apply to missional Christianity. But here are some observations I would offer:

• Missional living is the ultimate "Dip."
  
• There is no quick pay off, no short cut.
  
• But the eventual reward is incalculable.
  
• There is no one-size-fits-all approach to ministry.
  
• One of the most important disciplines for a congregation is to learn to say, "No."
  
• It is a mistake to copy what another congregation did to get to the other side of the "Dip."
  
• The reward for getting to the other side of the "Dip" is not
  
  • Getting big
    
  • Becoming famous
    
  • Speaking at seminars
    
  • Telling other people how to do it
    
• The reward for getting to the other side is
  
  • Participating in the viral spread of God's kingdom
    
  • The opportunity to encourage others to survive the "Dip"
    
  • The opportunity to "risk it all" to cross another "Dip"
    

So what do you think? What would you add? What do you take issue with?

Here's an even more important question: Does this sound like something you'd be willing to spend your life for?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

No Accent

Since I moved to the Chicago area 25 years ago, people have wanted to know what my accent was. As it turns out, I don't have one.

What American accent does Rod have? His Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Northeast
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Try the quiz for yourself and post your results here. (Philosophy students: this does not count toward extra credit. I'm generous, but not that generous.)

Pastor Rod
"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Calvin & Hobbes

Using a word game that seems to be more at home in the Sunday comics, some philosophers and theologians argue that determinism is not inconsistent with free will.

They say that a person is free as long as he can choose to do what he wills.

(For more background, read this.)

This seems to make sense. But the problem is that the words don't mean what they seem to mean.

R. J. Rummel Professor Emeritus of Political Science from University of Hawaii explains:

What does it mean to say that we are free? One answer, proposed by Hobbes and Tolstoy and favored by the contemporary empiricist, is that we are free insofar as we may do as we wish without hindrance or constraint. If thus free the question about the will's freedom is meaningless, for freedom then refers to whether a person can do what he chooses, not to the choosing itself; it refers to the freedom of the action, not to the choice of act. A person's will could be enslaved by the passions, chained to Freudian complexes, bound to the body's needs, limited by heredity, and necessitated by environmental causes, and yet by this meaning of freedom, he could be totally free to do that which is determined.

Translation: Free will defined in this way is meaningless. In this definition, free will only means that I am "free" to do what I am compelled to do by my completely-determined will. This is a category mistake. It confuses the freedom to act with the freedom to choose. In this view, a brainwashed person is free.

Rummel continues:

Freedom thus defined may resolve simply and satisfactorily the determinism-free will controversy for some, but at the cost of ignoring its essence, for freedom as simply measuring a lack of constraint or opposition is not freedom as usually intuited by those posing the question. It violates common sense to call free a person who is determined in his course like an object thrown through the air and following its trajectory without opposition.

Translation: While this definition may allow people to win philosophical or theological arguments, in practical terms it is bankrupt. This "freedom" is not freedom. This is doubletalk worthy of Orwell's label of Newspeak. Inevitability is really choice. White is really black. Manipulation is really freedom.

Rummel again:

For Kant, freedom is an independence of the will of motivations, character, and external causes. It is more than just the power to choose. Freedom is the power to fulfill our moral oughts (ought implies can), to will as reason directs, to be a first cause of events.

At the heart of this doublespeak is a reductionist view of the human will.

Calvin and Hobbes reduce the will to nothing more than a calculator, one that can perform only one operation: determining which of two numbers is greater.

In other words, this view of the will makes a human being no different from an animal in acting on desires. An animal "chooses" to act in response to its strongest desire. Yet humans seem to have the capacity to choose between desires on the basis of values.

This view of the will also does not allow for second-order desires: desires to have or not have a desire. As humans, we can want a piece of cake, but we can also want not to want the cake. We can choose to act on our second-order desire instead of being a slave to our first-order desire.

A robust view of free will does not require that people always can choose to act in a different way. It only requires that in some cases a person could have chosen a different course of action.

The compatibilist would argue that a person's choices are determined by his or her character. The answer is that, while character influences actions, actions also shape character. And at least some of our choices are free in a libertarian sense. If all a person's choices are determined, then in what sense is he or she a person?

If no choices are free in the libertarian sense, then most the Bible collapses into nonsense.

In Genesis 4:6–7, Yahweh says to Cain,

"Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

Is this just a piece of theater, or does Cain have a real choice?

Joshua's call to choose (Joshua 24) is pointless pilling on, if the people really are "not able to serve the Lord."

Paul explains to the Christians in Corinth (1 Corinthians 9:16–18):

When I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.

He is saying that

• He has no choice whether to preach the gospel.
  
• He is compelled by God to do so.
  
• The only free act he can choose is to preach the gospel "free of charge," not to insist upon his rights to receive compensation from those to whom he preaches.
  

The compatibilist would turn this argument into gibberish.

If I were all powerful, I wouldn't make everyone believe in libertarian free will. But I would make people stop using the word choice to mean something that is entirely determined.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Scientific Literacy

One prevailing plausibility structure in today's culture is "Scientific Literacy."

Steven Pinker writes:

Today, no scientifically literate person can believe that the events narrated in the book of Genesis actually took place.

How would you answer Pinker from the plausibility structure of orthodox Christianity?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

A Plausible Gospel

The Apostle Paul says, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). "We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23).

According to the prevailing Greek plausibility structure, Jesus was a failure. According to the Jewish plausibility structure, Jesus was cursed by God and consequently a false Messiah.

But to those who have received the Good News, the defeated, humiliated, crucified Messiah is the power of God.

There are many who read 1 Corinthians 2:14 (The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.) as if the "man without the Spirit" cannot understand the grammar and syntax of plain language whenever the Gospel is communicated.

Rather, Paul is referring here to plausibility structures. (I'm not suggesting that he has this concept in mind or even was aware of the particular idea.) He is saying that according to the reigning belief system, the Gospel seems foolish and absurd:

• "Why would I want to trust in someone who couldn't even save himself?"
  
• "Everyone knows that the true Messiah could never have been crucified."
  

So what makes the Gospel plausible?

There are several factors involved, not the least of which is the Holy Spirit. But the primary reinforcement of the Gospel's plausibility is the community of believers.

It is only as we are truly "indwelling" the gospel story, only as we are so deeply involved in the life of the community which is shaped by this story that it becomes our real "plausibility structure," that we are able steadily and confidently to live in this attitude of eager hope. Almost everything in the "plausibility structure" which is the habitation of our society seems to contradict this Christian hope. Everything suggests that it is absurd to believe that the true authority over all things is represented in a crucified man. No amount of brilliant argument can make it sound reasonable to the inhabitants of the reigning plausibility structure. That is why I am suggesting that the only possible hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation which believes it.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 232

This sheds a whole new light on the idea that participation in a Christian community (church) is optional. Living the Gospel is virtually impossible alone. The Gospel not only needs community to create a hospitable plausibility structure, but it also demands to be expressed in community.

The reigning plausibility structure can only be effectively challenged by people who are fully integrated inhabitants of another.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 228

Unfortunately, much of what is being proclaimed as the "Gospel" does not challenge the reigning plausibility structure or require a community to survive.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Why?

When tragedies such as the massacre at Virginia Tech happen, people want to know how a good God could allow such things.

Some respond with a defense of their particular theological view:

Even in the wake of such horrific terror and carnage, God remains sovereign. God remains holy, righteous, and just. God remains merciful and kind. God remains good.

The good that can come from this tragedy is this. Men and woman around the world may be brought to their knees in repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this:

We serve an awesome God. A God who is in absolute sovereign control…

In God's sovereign economy, there are is no place for "what if's". Even in the midst of chaos, He is in ultimate control.

And believe it or not, this:

There is a very straightforward answer for the question, "Where is God when evil things happen?" it is the answer given by Scripture, "[He] rides upon the highest heavens, which are from ancient times" (Psalm 68:33). Where is God? God is in heaven, from whence he judges the heavens and the earth and will exercise his wrath upon men who will [not] turn to His only way of salvation, Jesus. It is that salvation, that answers the inevitable question as to whether God is loving or not. Is God loving or not[,] sinner? [Are] you worthy of judgment? Absolutely, just because these souls at Virginia Tech have experienced massive tribulations does not mean that they are being judged any more than the masses dying from any variety of evil things, or the most natural, death. The reason that these become so tragic, is that we are all likewise trying to avoid death.

And then there is the theological equivalent of a punt:

Many will ask, "Where was God in that?" Well, the answer is confusing, because we are incapable of fully understanding God and His ways (Rom 11:33-36).

We can say this for sure, He is either sovereign, or He is not God (Job 2:1-10). We can also attest to this fact--the tragedies of our world affirm the claims of scripture, not the opposite--namely, that our world is fallen (Rom 8:18-24). Lastly, we must ask the question, well, if He is not absent, and if our world is fallen, does He provide any hope? That hope is found in Jesus, His Son (Jn 3:16-18). The outward affects of the Fall are unfortunate outward expressions of our own corrupt nature.

For many who do not question if God really exists, a more disturbing question arises amidst these events-- does God care? The answer is yes! Read verses 17-18 of John chapter 3 very closely. If He did not care, then He would not provide a means of rescue and restoration in a glorious relationship with Himself. The world is fallen, but we can be redeemed. And only those who are redeemed can find comfort amidst tragedy (1 Thes 4:13-18).

I'd like to think that Christianity has better answers to offer than these.

So here's an attempt to sketch out a more satisfying, yet admittedly incomplete, response to this tragedy.

• God created a good world in which his creatures were given the freedom to submit to his authority or to rebel against it.
  
  
• Because God made humans in his own image and granted them a degree of freedom, they have the ability to make real choices with real consequences that affect others as well as themselves, for good or for ill.
  
  
• Yet in the midst of this creaturely freedom, God remains in control.
  
  
• He accomplishes his purpose in human history without fail.
  
  
• He accomplishes his purpose in the lives of those who trust in him and depend upon his grace.
  
  
• He showers his grace upon even those who are rebellious and temporarily protects them from the ultimate consequences of their choices.
  
  
• He even uses the very acts of disobedience and rebellion to accomplish his purposes.
  
  
• God does not remain distant and detached from human suffering, saying, "I told you so."
  
  
• Rather, he participates in our suffering, offering comfort and healing.
  
  
• Earthly life is about more than just "getting signed up for heaven."
  
  
• God opposes evil in every form in which it appears and calls his people to do the same.
  
  
• Our choices really matter. They affect us and the people around us.

(If you are wondering where the Scripture references are for each of these points, click here.)

So what do you think? Tell me what I left out. Tell me where I'm wrong.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Belief & Community

I've been exploring the concept of plausibility structures and how this insight can help us to think more clearly about the church's relationship with culture.

One important component of a plausibility structure is community:

A plausibility structure is not just a body of ideas but is necessarily embodied in an actual community. It cannot exist otherwise.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 99.

Every plausibility structure grows out of a community. There is no such thing as a disembodied plausibility structure.

• Scientists have their own community with its plausibility structure.
  
• Public universities and colleges have a distinct community and accompanying plausibility structure.
  
• The inner city minority community has its own plausibility structure which includes the idea that the police and the courts cannot be trusted.
  

This has several implications for the Gospel.

• The alternative plausibility structure of the Gospel cannot survive outside the community of the Church. If a person attempts to be a "Lone Ranger" Christian, the reigning plausibility structure of society will eventually swallow up the competing beliefs of the Gospel.
  
  
• There is no neutral, benign environment for the claims of the Gospel. These audacious claims need the community of the saints to survive.
  
  
• One cannot ossify a particular community and its plausibility structure as a timeless reference for "biblical Christianity" (e.g. 16th-century Geneva).
  
  
• Furthermore, there is no "pure" Christian culture. Every genuine expression of Christianity is always in the context of a particular culture at a particular time.
  
  
• Any community that does not embody the plausibility structure of the Gospel is not truly a church.
  

This concept of plausibility structures does not mean that there is no absolute truth. It is an observation about how people understand, process and practice truth. The idea that truth can be apprehended and adopted in an objective and detached manner is as much a fiction as the idea that people buy cars for entirely non-emotional reasons.

We are really not in a secular society, but in a pagan society—not in a society which has no gods, but a society which has false gods.

Lesslie Newbigin, Interview

Here's the assessment of Dave Chang:

Reading Newbigin's works is dangerous business. It puts fire in the intellect, courage in the heart and motivation for action for the universal mission of Christ to a despairing world. A modern-day prophet has walked amongst us. We would do well to rally to his call to leave our privatized ghettos and ride forth to engage our pluralistic culture.

So what do you think? What are the implications for individual congregations? What are the implications for denominations? What are the implications for how we do theology?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Misplaced Certainty

There's been a lot of hand wringing about the lack of certainty in parts of the contemporary church.

At issue is a number of amorphous "movements" within Christianity, the most visible of which is the Emerging Church. One of the distinctives of these groups is a relaxed attitude about doctrines perceived to be not at the core of the Christian faith.

But many see this relaxed attitude as a threat to the Gospel.

In fact, there are many Christians who see almost every doctrine as crucial. They have a long list of teachings that they consider essential to Christianity. In other words, if you don't accept these, then you are not a true Christian:

• A young earth and a 144-hour creation
  
• A Bible that is free of any inaccuracies (from a modern scientific perspective)
  
• A particular view of the schedule of the final days
  
• Restriction of certain ministries to men
  
• Total abstinence from alcohol
  
• A particular theory of the atonement
  
• A specific system of theology
  

There doesn't seem to be any lack of certainty here.

Unfortunately, these people cannot distinguish between

• Their idea of God and God himself
  
• Their interpretation of the Bible and the teaching of God's Word
  
• Their apprehension of the truth and the objective, ultimate Truth.
  

Newbigin had something to say about this situation:

Fundamentalists are often dismissed as obscurantist or crazy fanatics, and some may be. Whatever their defects, they recognize the problem. If we cannot speak with confidence about biblical authority, what ground have we for challenging the reigning plausibility structure?

Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. p. 97.

Their diagnosis is correct, but their solution is faulty.

But the fundamentalist case has been flawed. If the Bible is treated as a compendium of factually inerrant propositions about everything in heaven and earth, then it is impossible to explain both the contradictions between parts of the Bible and things we certainly know as the results of the work of science, and also the obvious inconsistencies within the Bible itself on factual matters. Even the most convinced fundamentalist who lives in the modern world has to rely at innumerable points on knowledge provided by science and not by the Bible.

Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. p. 97.

Part of the problem is that fundamentalists have tried to make Christianity fit into a modernist plausibility structure. If the Bible is true, then they assume that it must satisfy the definition of truth in the reigning plausibility structure. In this view, any inconsistency betrays a lack of veracity.

But this idea of truth is not "self-evident" except in certain plausibility structures. In fact, a degree of inconsistency is often an indication of veracity.

In a court of law, for example. If four witnesses tell exactly the same story, without a single variation in detail, a wise attorney will quickly recognize that the testimony has been tampered with. In the real world, witnesses have slightly different perceptions of what happened.

Statistics has a term for a model that explains the available data too exactly: overfitting. With limited data it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the noise from the data. Our understanding of God's truth always involves a degree of "noise," because we must process revelation through our limited reasoning capacity.

But many Christians crave certainty. Andrew Sandlin calls this Hyper-Realized Epistemology:

It's certainty, not faith in Jesus, that they're really after. Jesus helps them with their certainty addiction; He's a means to an end.

Our commitment is to the Truth, not to our version of the truth.

Our commitment is to God, not to our theology about God.

Our commitment is to the authority of divine revelation, not to our analysis of that revelation.

Certainty and humility do not need to be mutually exclusive.

• We can be confident without being arrogant.
  
• We can be open-minded without being tentative.
  
• We can be gracious without being accommodating.
  

So what do you think? What would you put on the "short list" of essential Christian doctrines? What are some things that you think should not be open to debate? What do you think about the idea that the Bible might contain some "inaccuracies"?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

That’s Impossible!

"Self-evident truths" are a reflection of society rather than a reflection of reality.

This is the argument of Peter Berger.

Every society constructs a plausibility structure through which it processes "reality." It is impossible to process experiences or information except from within a plausibility structure. There is no objective reference point from which to understand "truth."

This is not to say that there is no such thing as objective truth. But it is to say that there is no neutral authority to which we can appeal to determine what that truth is. All evaluations of "truthiness" and "realness" can only be made from the context of a community.

My first exposure to this concept of plausibility structures was in the writing of Tim Keller. He focused on the negative aspects of this phenomenon and referred to the "implausibility structure" and "defeater beliefs."

Recently, I have learned more about this from reading Lesslie Newbigin's book, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. He explains the key conclusion of Berger's model:

All use of reasoning depends on and is embodied in a tradition.
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 53.

This has many implications for followers of Jesus Christ. It explains why so many efforts to present the truth of the Gospel fall flat. If a person's "implausibility structure" (to use Keller's term) considers something impossible, no amount of evidence will persuade that person to change his or her mind. This is what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 2:14:

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

This doesn't mean that "the man without the Spirit" cannot understand the words that are used to communicate the truth about Jesus Christ. It means that "they are foolishness to him" because they are outside his plausibility structure.

The gospel gives rise to a new plausibility structure, a radically different vision of things from those that shape all human cultures apart from the gospel. The Church, therefore, as the bearer of the gospel, inhabits a plausibility structure which is at variance with, and which calls in question, those that govern all human cultures without exception.
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 9.

This has several implications for evangelism, apologetics, biblical interpretation, theology and preaching. I'll explore some of these topics in subsequent posts.

So what do you think? Is Berger's model a good fit? Does it explain things that other ways of looking at the world can't adequately address? What are some of the implications of this perspective?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional, Shmissional

There are many critics of the emerging church and the missional movement.

Many of them simply dismiss anything new or different as heresy. Many of them would have difficulty identifying their own cultural assumptions that have nothing to do with the gospel. Many of them misunderstand the issues to the point that is too difficult to try to straighten out all the misconceptions.

But I read something today that is worth responding to. Phil Johnson says,

"I'm starting to hate the word missional. Apart from the fact that it's useless jargon, I suspect it is often used to disguise a strategy that is actually anti-evangelistic, where the gospel never even enters the picture at all, much less becomes a focus of ministry."

He seems to conflate the Emerging Church movement and the missional movement. He implies that all they are really interested in is "how cool the Church is." He argues that the Church can stand apart from culture altogether: "How about let's forget trying to accommodate the fickle shifts of contemporary culture and worldly thinking altogether?"

He calls for the Church to discard all "vagueness, ambivalence, hesitation, wavering, apprehension, a cloudy message, fickle opinions, obsessive self-criticism, or any of the other qualities postmodernism falsely equates with 'humility.' " What we need is more "certainty."

He suggests that we recover holiness as a priority in the Church. But then he seems to equate holiness with being against "tattoos, cigars, beer, poker, and other stylish emblems of worldly culture."

Now I know Phil to be an intelligent man. Even when I disagree with him (which is rather often), I can usually respect his position. But this time…

• The emerging church and the missional movement are not the same thing. Sure there is some overlap. And there are many superficial similarities. But anyone who thinks they are the same just hasn't done his homework.
  
  
• If Phil understood what the word missional means, I'm sure he would not be saying that he hates it. He might as well say that he hates the gospel.
  
  
• With just a little more effort, Phil would have discovered that being missional is not about being cool, hip or even relevant. He might even have found out that it is not a reaction to post-modernism.
  
  
• Phil seems to think that he and John MacArthur
  
  • Are free of all cultural baggage,
    
  • Live in the same culture as Paul, or
    
  • Have some kind of timeless culture that all Christians in all places and at all times should adopt.
    
    
• Phil complains about "teachers who invent their own doctrine on the fly and see nothing wrong with the practice." He apparently thinks that theology is like mathematics. Our primary job is to learn our "sums." I suppose I can understand why he might view theology that way, but his "received theology" would not even exist if everyone had taken that view back in the 16th century.
  

I can respect Phil's passion for the Truth. And I agree with him that the Truth is absolute. But he seems to be confusing his understanding of the Truth with the Truth itself. He must have found a way to avoid the difficulties of 1 Corinthians 13:12.

But back to the essential meaning of missional.

Missional is primarily a shift in thinking about what it means to be the church.

• It's a shift from attractional ministry to incarnational ministry. Instead of putting on programs and trying to "bring them in," a missional view seeks to "go into" the community and live the Gospel. (This is not in place of proclamation. It is the context for proclamation.)
  
  
• It's a shift from a dualistic view of reality to a holistic view. A missional mindset does not divide life into sacred and secular "parts."
  
  
• It's a shift from a hierarchical view of the Church to a "flat" view of the Church. This was one of the emphases of the Reformation. All believers are priests. We all are called to real ministry.
  
  

[If I were as skilled as Phil I'd insert a picture here of a three-inch wide paint brush dripping with red paint.]

There are many foolish (even dangerous) things being said in the Emergent Conversation. But let's be careful to identify them specifically and carefully. It's a dangerous thing to attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to the forces of darkness (Matthew 12:24).

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Monday, Monday

Many people find Monday to be a difficult day.

The Mamas and the Papas said, "Whenever Monday comes, you can find me cryin' all the time." Most people seem to hate Monday because it means the weekend is over and they have to go back to work (or school).

Some people have specific reasons to dislike Monday. According to Survey.com, IT workers hate Monday because they are swamped with support issues from the weekend. But pastors find Monday difficult for different reasons.

So what can be done to salvage Monday? Australian scientists say we should stop sleeping in on weekends. Someone at iPetitions is trying to get Mondays banned. Pastor Bob Hyatt responded to the aftermath of Sunday by not taking Monday as his day off.

The editors at DM Review suggest that IT departments implement self-service support to avoid the big backlog on Monday. Big Cheese Coaching suggests some positive thinking strategies to change Monday attitudes. Daryl Gibson posts Monday Morning Motivation every week for salespeople.

But I'm more interested in the weekly dynamics for pastors.

It seems that there are two main factors that cause such angst on Monday.

• Enormous importance is invested in Sunday.
  
• Enormous importance is invested in the pastor.
  

While these values are deeply ingrained in North American evangelical culture, I maintain that they are both misguided and dangerous.

Christianity is not about what happens on Sunday morning in a special building. This is one of the emphases of the missional movement. The Church is a community, not a crowd that meets once a week. What happens during the week is even more important than what happens on Sunday. The gathering on Sunday is more like a backstage pep talk than a big theatrical production. The congregation doesn't gather to be the Church, it assembles as people who have been acting as the Church all week.

The pastor is not the Church. The pastor is not a CEO. The pastor cannot be a lone ranger. Too many pastors feel pressure to build the Church. They are expected to measure up to a business model of success. Pastors feel that they cannot afford to be transparent because they must be more advanced spiritually than their congregations.

And let's be honest. It's not just that high expectations are placed upon the pastors. Pastors place these expectations on themselves. They like being in control. They like being the star. They like feeling indispensible.

Here's a news flash: None of us is indispensible.

The only person indispensible in the Church is Jesus.

He's the only one who can build the Church. He's the one who is responsible for the future of the Church. He's the only reliable role model.

Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). But you would never believe that by watching most pastors. There doesn't seem to be anything easy or light about being a pastor. Nor does there seem to be anything easy or light about being a member of one of their churches.

Seems to me that's it's time to change that.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Image of God

The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God.

In another post, we can explore just what that means. But I've been thinking about how the image that we have of God shapes us. We tend to emulate the qualities we imagine God possessing.

At various times in the history of the Church, Christians have seen God as a harsh, judgmental overseer. And that led to embarrassments such as the Inquisition. If God is viewed as the ultimate warrior, that tends to spur movements such as the Crusades. (Though I must point out that the Crusades have gotten a bad press.) If God is seen as the Great Philosopher in the sky, that leads to Scholasticism.

Some Christians seem to think that God is obsessed with his own glory. They argue that he cannot be charged with arrogance because God is God. It would be wrong for him to love something more than himself. Since there is no good higher than God's glory, it is only right for that to be God's highest objective.

In other words, behavior that would be sinful in other people is holy because of who God is. (I know that this is not how they would describe their own position and that this is an overstatement. But I also think that this a fatal flaw of this position.)

Those who hold this view tend to behave in a similar way as they envision God acting.

They redefine love to include any action or attitude used in the service of the truth (as they see it). Because they are convinced that their particular brand of theology is the ultimate truth, they deny the possibility their attitudes could ever be arrogant. They are intolerant of those who hold differing theological views, even though those views are well within orthodoxy.

So that's my impression. What do you think?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Test

Wiki-Sermon: Resurrection Sunday