WHEATSTONE FORUM

Richard Dawkins is now in the business of mentoring young atheists at a Wheatstone-style summer camp in the UK.
Campers will spend their mornings exercising their brains by discussing ideas like evolution and atheism, and their afternoons will be spent hiking and canoeing.

Sound a little familiar?

Al Mohler thinks this is a sign that Dawkins is becoming less and less culturally relevant:

In recent months, Dawkins has spent his personal credibility on a project to put atheistic messages on London buses and, now, on this very small experiment in a secularist camp for children. The bus advertisement campaign became something of a joke, with the signs declaring only the claimed probability that there is no God. Londoners seemed more bemused than persuaded. Now, Professor Dawkins lends both his name and his financial support to an atheistic summer camp that will teach evolution to children by day and teach them to sing the songs of John Lennon by night. The Boy Scouts should not fear the competition.

While it’s true that 24 students hardly constitutes a new atheistic revival, and it’s true that Dawkins’ copy-cat camp sounds a little corny, we shouldn’t underestimate this attempt.  Wheatstone alumni know better than anyone the life-changing experiences one can have in a “philosophy camp” environment.  Twenty-four students in the whole United Kingdom are not many, but many of those students’ lives may well be radically changed at Dawkins’ camp.  After all, Dawkins wouldn’t be trying this strategy if it weren’t known to work well in Christian circles.

So has Dawkins “jumped the shark”?  Maybe - and it just might work for him.

From Justin Taylor:

He is dead at the age of 50. He had everything the world offered–but no Jesus.

I remember once looking at the liner notes from an album of his, and he quoted the final lines from William Ernest Henley’s famous poem, Invictus:

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.Those are not the words you want written on your tombstone.

It is hard to think of a sadder public figure in recent years. A black man who never found his identity as one created in God’s image, and who never experienced the identity of being conformed to the image of Christ. Black and white, male and female, rich and bankrupt, genius and punchline, private and public, innocent and deceptive–everything seemed to be jumbled up.

The one thing that comes to mind about Jackson is how bad he was at hiding his brokenness. Even while living in a literal fantasy land, it was obvious to everyone that this was a person–enormously gifted–desperately seeking a mask to cover, in futility, who he was.

May God use even this to increase our compassion and ministry to the lost, broken, and confused.

How do you read your books?  Do you keep them carefully neat and clean, or do you mark them up and break them in?  You can tell a lot about a person by the titles they keep on their shelf, but you can often tell even more by the condition of the books they keep:

There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best-sellers-unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns wood pulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books-a few of them read through, most of them clipped into but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many-every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.)

From Mortimer Adler; read excerpts from his very useful essay here.

What does your library say about you?

It was quite possibly the best movie choice failure of all time.

Huge numbers of Iranian citizens have spent the past several days protesting the results of a rigged election (election results were announced before there was time to even count the ballots).  This week, in an apparent attempt to keep angry Iranians quiet at home and away from the protests, a state television channel has changed its usual programming.  Instead of broadcasting one or two popular Hollywood movies per week, channel two is broadcasting - get this - a Lord of the Rings movie marathon.

Right.  Because THAT will quell the rebels’ yearning for equitable treatment.

It’s difficult to imagine a less effective movie choice on the part of the Iranian government, or to envision a better film for the freedom-starved Iranian people.  Many will undoubtedly find Tolkien’s description of the people’s epic struggle against the power of a dark ruler uniquely appropriate to the situation in Iran.  One wonders if anyone in the Iranian government realizes how badly they have just shot themselves in the foot…

Of course, Iranian Muslims will interpret the film much differently than a Western, Judeo-Christian audience would.  Or will they?

Gandalf the Gray returns to the Fellowship as Gandalf the White. He casts a blinding white light, and his face is hidden behind a halo. “Imam zaman e?!” someone in the room asks. Is it the Mahdi, the last imam and, according to Shia Islam, the savior of mankind?

It is way too easy to play with the film, to draw comparisons to what is happening in real life. There are the overt Mousavi themes: the unwanted quest and the risking of life in pursuit of an unanticipated destiny. Then there is the sly nod to Ahmadinejad. Iranian films are dubbed (forget the wretched dubbing into English in the U.S.; in Iran dubbing is a craft) and there are plenty of references to “kootoole,” little person, the Farsi word used in the movie for hobbit and dwarf. “Kootoole,” of course, was, is, the term used in many of the chants out on the street against President Ahmadinejad. He is the “little person.” (”And whose side are you on?” Pippin asks the ancient, forest-dwelling giant named Treebeard. Those watching might think the answer is Mousavi, since Treebeard is decked out in green.)

Tolkien probably never imagined that his film would be used to  inspire hoards of revolutionary Muslims, or that the archetypal characters he created would transfer so well to a non-Western audience.

And neither it, seems, did the Iranian government.

From Francis Bacon’s “Essays, Civil and Moral”:

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning [i.e. pruning], by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores [Studies pass into and influence manners]. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body, may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins [i.e. the kidneys]; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores [splitters of hairs]. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers’ cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

(HT: Brandywine Books)

Rwandans today face a terrible question: having survived a recent genocide, how will they continue to survive?

In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were brutally slaughtered by their friends and neighbors.  It was a messy ordeal; the work was done mostly with machetes.  Men, women, and children alike were hacked to death indiscriminately, simply because they were Tutsis.

Rwanda is mainly populated by two groups: Hutus, and Tutsis.  Though there are slight physical differences between the two, it’s not always easy to tell them apart.  No one knows for sure when or why the conflicts between the two groups originated, but in 1994, the Hutus decided to rid Rwanda of the Tutsis once and for all.  They nearly succeeded.

Rwanda is about the size of Maryland.  When sixty thousand of those who killed their friends and neighbors during the genocide of 1994 were set free from prison in 2003, the nation must have felt even smaller - painfully small- to many Rwandans.  As one survivor put it, “If they told you that a murderer was to be released into your neighborhood, how would you feel?  But what if this time, they weren’t just releasing one, but forty thousand?”

As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda, Catherine Claire Larson’s new book, aims to answer this question. A growing number of Rwandans have chosen forgiveness over revenge, and have sometimes even been reconciled with those who murdered their friends and family.  Larson intersperses the stories of several of these Rwandans with thoughtful reflections on forgiveness.  Included discussion questions make As We Forgive good for small group use.

Although Larson doesn’t flinch in her descriptions of the horror of the genocide, her book is positive and surprisingly practical.  Most people, when faced with stories of genocide, tend to back away, ashamed of their own meager struggles and sure that such extreme suffering can have no bearing on their lives. Larson instead tries to learn from the suffering she describes:

“If Rwandans can find the courage to forgive, then perhaps there is hope for us in those problems that seem to pale in comparison…If forgiveness is possible after genocide, then perhaps there is hope for the comparably smaller rifts that plague our relationships, our communities, and our nation.” (p. 19)

Peace, explains Larson, is a much deeper concept than the ubiquitous graphic might imply.  While we usually use the word to refer to an absence of conflict, the term originally meant something much more holistic.

We in the US “keep the peace” by punishing lawbreakers.  Little or no attempt is made to promote healing in the victim or the offender, neither of whom is usually helped to reconcile with the other.  Many ancient cultures were instead concerned with restoration of peace for and eventual flourishing of the victim, the community, and ultimately the perpetrator.  Peace was a positive good, to be restored when broken, not merely something easily shattered by conflict.

After the genocide, Rwanda made a formal attempt to return to these ancient ideas of justice and peace.  Though their system isn’t perfect, it has been effectively supplemented with work done by churches and other organizations.  Little by little, individual Rwandans are beginning to find healing though the hard work of confession and forgiveness.

Most of us will probably never experience anything as horrible as genocide.  This doesn’t mean we are immune from sin’s effects, however, or from the need to learn about forgiveness.  As We Forgive helps us see how others have successfully navigated the difficult path of healing and restoration - and how we can do the same.

Wanted to be sure you guys saw these, from the comments on the last UP post:

(From Wheatstone staffer Ryan Swindoll)

. How does the opening scene of the film act as a hermeneutic for the film? How does the director want us to watch his film?

2. How does the digital short “Partly Cloudly” prepare us for the film itself? How are the two related?

3. Up is one of the first Pixar films in 3D. How did the director take advantage of this, in the story or the artistry of the film?

4. Up has some of the silliest humor in Pixar’s history, with a dog voiced like a chipmunk, a ridiculous bird, and direct references to Star Wars. To kids, this is welcome. Can we learn anything about the “Spirit of Adventure” from this?

5. Up is also one of the most perilous films in Pixar’s history. (2nd to Finding Nemo?) Notably, the conclusion of the film draws near to domestic violence that is hard to watch. Why did Pixar choose the PG rating in this instance?

6. And of course, why is the film simply called “Up?”

And one more of my own: Although UP looks like a cartoon, it’s not just a kid’s movie.  Why did the creators of this movie choose a cartoon format to explore the very “grown-up” themes of grief and loss?