Archives for October, 2003
Don’t Read the Bible ‘Alone’
Christopher Hall talks about how evangelicals should approach the church fathers.
Christopher Hall believes in the Reformation principle of Scripture Alone. But he doesn’t think we should read the Bible alone—that is, in isolation from those who have gone before us.
Hall, one of the key evangelical theologians calling us to pay attention to the leaders of the early church, has written Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (IVP, 1998) and Learning Theology with the Church Fathers (IVP, 2002). He is currently writing Praying with the Church Fathers, the third volume in that series. He is the associate editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (IVP), which gathers the church fathers’ observations on Scripture passages from sermons, commentaries, and letters into a verse-by-verse commentary. Hall, who is professor of biblical and theological studies at Eastern University, will present a paper titled “The Role of Tradition in Evangelical Theology” during the American Academy of Religion’s annual meeting in late November.
Because this is unfamiliar territory to many CT readers, editor David Neff recently asked Hall to explain how he actually puts the Fathers to use.
Interesting interview. Hall wrote one of my favorite books called Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers and brings out several interesting ideas here.
You may be able to read this…
Hey, my domain name is not working right. If you need to get hold of me, e-mail me at coop @ jordoncooper.sk.ca. You will be able to find my domain at www.jordoncooper.sk.ca until everything is back to normal on Monday.
ugh
Had a really bad conversation with a person who didn’t want to listen or even look at the facts. Mad over some emotion and I got the brunt of it. Sad thing is that it ruined the relationship. Even sadder is that I think I am relieved. Pathetic.
Halloween
Tomorrow we are celebrating Halloween again. I was hoping for warmer weather as I enjoy a lot of candy giving and seeing the neighbors and their children. Mark is going out as a Fireman this year. He has the hat, jacket, and toy fire axe all ready to go. The two Halloween’s that stick out in my mind was in about 85 or 86 and it was around -40 below out. That was a lot of fun and two years ago when there was a jail break of several violent criminals in Saskatoon the night before and there were almost no children out that night all across the city. I miss the Halloween’s I had in Calgary growing up. I remember them being really hot evenings, perfect for collecting bags and bags of candy. You could never have enough.
Two years ago, we had Jeb and Sharla over for the evening and Mark was dressed up as Yoda (he could barely walk so he walked like Yoda too) and was so hopped up on sugar that he could have done some of the stuff that Yoda did in Attack of the Clones. It was funny to watch. Watching Mark made me feel quite sorry for my mother and every teacher I ever had who had to teach a class of students on November 1. It must have been horrible.
Mayhem
There is a sense of disconnection in the world. There is a sense of disconnection with one another. There is a sense that mayhem is taking over.
What: A 2 day gathering of the emerging church in our present mayhem. Brian McLaren will help lead the conversation to make sense of our present reality and point us towards the future. We are gathering to say that we are not alone.
Where: Vineyard Central, Cincinnati, Ohio
When: January 9-10, 2004
Time: Doors open at 5:00 p.m. on Friday evening and the event ends at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.
Who’s Hosting: An emerging network of missional communities in the Midwest region.
Who’s Invited: People who are passionate about being connected in the emerging church. People who resonate with words like simple, organic, community, natural, missional, relationship and Kingdom. (others?)
Format: Our gathering will be highly interactive and relationally driven. Main sessions led by Brian McLaren. Round-table conversations led by practitioners who are making attempts in the new mayhem. Community worship, monastic reflection, common meal, communion, prayer and new friendships breaking out all over.
Hospitality: We will be providing housing for a limited number of participants based on a first come first serve basis. We take hospitality very seriously and want you to feel welcome, as well as keep your costs down.
Another public service announcement by jordoncooper.com. It looks like a great time.
Summary of Jim Collins book "Good to Great"
From Fast Company
You are a bus driver. The bus, your company, is at a standstill, and it’s your job to get it going. You have to decide where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, and who’s going with you.
Most people assume that great bus drivers (read: business leaders) immediately start the journey by announcing to the people on the bus where they’re going — by setting a new direction or by articulating a fresh corporate vision.
In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline — first the people, then the direction — no matter how dire the circumstances. Take David Maxwell’s bus ride. When he became CEO of Fannie Mae in 1981, the company was losing $1 million every business day, with $56 billion worth of mortgage loans under water. The board desperately wanted to know what Maxwell was going to do to rescue the company.
Maxwell responded to the “what” question the same way that all good-to-great leaders do: He told them, That’s the wrong first question. To decide where to drive the bus before you have the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus, is absolutely the wrong approach.
Maxwell told his management team that there would only be seats on the bus for A-level people who were willing to put out A-plus effort. He interviewed every member of the team. He told them all the same thing: It was going to be a tough ride, a very demanding trip. If they didn’t want to go, fine; just say so. Now’s the time to get off the bus, he said. No questions asked, no recriminations. In all, 14 of 26 executives got off the bus. They were replaced by some of the best, smartest, and hardest-working executives in the world of finance.
With the right people on the bus, in the right seats, Maxwell then turned his full attention to the “what” question. He and his team took Fannie Mae from losing $1 million a day at the start of his tenure to earning $4 million a day at the end. Even after Maxwell left in 1991, his great team continued to drive the flywheel — turn upon turn — and Fannie Mae generated cumulative stock returns nearly eight times better than the general market from 1984 to 1999.
When it comes to getting started, good-to-great leaders understand three simple truths. First, if you begin with “who,” you can more easily adapt to a fast-changing world. If people get on your bus because of where they think it’s going, you’ll be in trouble when you get 10 miles down the road and discover that you need to change direction because the world has changed. But if people board the bus principally because of all the other great people on the bus, you’ll be much faster and smarter in responding to changing conditions. Second, if you have the right people on your bus, you don’t need to worry about motivating them. The right people are self-motivated: Nothing beats being a part of a team that is expected to produce great results. And third, if you have the wrong people on the bus, nothing else matters. You may be headed in the right direction, but you still won’t achieve greatness. Great vision with mediocre people still produces mediocre results.
The prevelant church culture is as Bill Hybels says, “rises and falls on the leader” and his or her (ahh forget it, in most traditions it is a “his”) vision. Staff associates are generally expendable (as evidenced by the extremely short tenures of most associate and esspecially youth pastors in North America).
"Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you’re condemned to turn the pages of."
Camille Paglia on reading weblogs
Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you’re condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There’s a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one’s mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there’s no editing — it’s free speech without institutional control….
Now and then one sees the claim that Kausfiles was the first blog. I beg to differ: I happen to feel that my Salon column was the first true blog. My columns had punch and on-rushing velocity. They weren’t this dreary meta-commentary, where there’s a blizzard of fussy, detached sections nattering on obscurely about other bloggers or media moguls and Washington bureaucrats. I took hits at media excesses, but I directly commented on major issues and personalities in politics and pop culture…
If bloggers want to break out of their ghetto, they’ve got to acquire a sense of drama and theater as well as a flair for language. Why else should anyone read them? And the Web in my view is a visual medium — I don’t log on to be trapped on a muddy page crammed with indigestible prose.
…every writer must work on his or her prose to find a voice. No major figure has emerged yet from the blogs — Andrew Sullivan was already an established writer before he started his. A blog should sound conversational and be an antidote to the inept writing in most of today’s glossy magazines.
As a writer, I’m inspired not just by other writing but by music and art and lines from movies. I think that’s what’s missing from a lot of blogs. Most bloggers aren’t culture critics but political or media junkies preoccupied with pedestrian minutiae and a sophomoric “gotcha” mentality. I find it depressing and claustrophobic. The Web is a wide open space — voices on it should have energy and vision.
The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time
Friedman: Some advice to Republicans on Iraq
If I were a Republican senator, here’s what I’d tell the Bush team:
* What in God’s name are you doing forcing Iraqis to accept Turkish peacekeeping troops? Are you nuts? Not only will Turkish troops in Iraq alienate the Kurds, our best friends, but they will rile the Shiites and Sunnis as well. Honor is hugely important in Iraqi society, and bringing in Turkish soldiers — Iraq’s former colonizers — to order around Iraqis would be a disaster. “If we bring in the Turks, it will bring back bad memories,” notes Yitzhak Nakash, a Brandeis University professor and author of one of the best Iraq books, The Shi’is of Iraq. “Worse, a Turkish presence in Iraq will only prompt the Iranians, Syrians and Saudis to try to increase their influence. That is no recipe for a stable country.”
It’s time for the Bush team to admit it made a grievous error in disbanding Iraq’s army — which didn’t even fight us — and declare: “We thank all the nations who offered troops, but we think the Iraqi people can and must secure their own country. So we’re inviting all former Iraqi Army soldiers (not Republican Guards) to report back to duty. For every two Iraqi battalions that return to duty (they can weed out their own bad apples), we will withdraw an American one. So Iraqis can liberate themselves. Our motto is Iraq for the Iraqis.”
* Attacks on our forces are getting more deadly, not less. Besides those killed, we’ve had 900 wounded or maimed. We need to take this much more seriously. We’re not facing some ragtag insurrection. We’re facing an enemy with a command and control center who is cleverly picking off our troops and those Iraqi leaders and foreigners cooperating with us. Either we put in the troops needed to finish the war, and project our authority, or we get the Iraqi Army to do the job — but pretending that we’re just “mopping up” is a dangerous illusion.
* The neocons need a neo-Baath. I’m glad we banned the Baath Party, but the ban was not done right. It needed to be accompanied by a clear process for people who simply joined the Baath to secure government jobs, like school directors, to recant and be rehabilitated. Just tossing these people out has purged thousands of technocrats, weakened the secular middle class and left a power vacuum filled by religious groups. Also, Iraq needs a party that can express the aspirations of Iraq’s Sunni minority and give them a stake in the new state. Right now, the Sunni mainstream in Iraq isn’t sure how it fits into any new order, so the worst elements are opposing us and the best are apprehensively sitting on the fence.
* “There is now a struggle for power emerging within the Shiite community,” says Nakash, “between those clerics and secular leaders who are ready to give the Americans a chance and a grass-roots leadership that wants to challenge both the Americans and the traditional Shia hierarchy. This grass-roots leadership is seeking control of mosques, followers, religious authority and income from religious taxes. Iraq is rapidly moving toward the politics of militias and arms. This trend has to be stopped.”
Bottom line: We still haven’t established a moderate political center in Iraq ready to openly embrace the progressive U.S. agenda for Iraq and openly defend it. That center is potentially there, but because, so far, we have failed to provide a secure enough environment, or a framework for Iraqis to have the national dialogue they need to build a better Iraq, it has not emerged. We need to fix this situation fast. Instead of applauding without thinking, Republicans should be telling that to the president.
For more of Tom Friedman’s advice, read the full story here. Friedman was pro-war all along but even he is seeing the problems that no one wants to talk about. Good article.
Israel’s Chief of Staff Denounces Policies Against Palestinians
Israel’s top-ranking soldier said that current hard-line policies against the Palestinians were working against Israel’s “strategic interest” and had contributed to the downfall of the previous Palestinian prime minister, Israeli news organizations reported on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was described as “furious” about the comments, attributed to Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the military’s chief of staff, Israeli television stations reported later in the day.
Several leading Israeli newspapers reported the controversial comments, attributing them to a senior military official. But during the day, Israeli reporters identified the source as General Yaalon, who made the remarks to Israeli journalists at a background briefing on Tuesday.
Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli columnist with the daily Yediot Ahronot, quoted “a military official” as saying comprehensive travel restrictions and curfews imposed on Palestinians were actually harming Israel’s overall security.
“It increases hatred for Israel and strengthens the terror organizations,” Mr. Barnea wrote, quoting the official.
General Yaalon also said that Israel should have eased punitive measures to bolster the fortunes of the former Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned on Sept. 6 after only four months on the job.
Mr. Abbas expressed frustration that Mr. Sharon never took concrete steps to convince Palestinians that the Middle East peace plan, initiated in June, would bring about any real improvements in their lives.
“There is no hope, no expectations for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, nor in Bethlehem and Jericho,” Mr. Barnea quoted the “military official” as saying. “In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest.”
Mike Yaconelli died in a car crash Wednesday evening
From the Youth Specialties website
Early this morning, Thursday, October 30, we lost a friend, a father, an inspiration. Co-founder and owner of Youth Specialties (YS), Mike Yaconelli, was in a fatal car accident in northern California late Wednesday evening.
The number of lives touched by Mike is beyond what we could even estimate. He is the father of modern youth ministry in many minds. Through his books, speaking engagements, and YS events, he has ministered to untold thousands all over the world.
Mike dedicated his life to what God had called him to do. He believed in youth ministry, and did all he could to equip youth workers to change the lives of students. He lived with a passion that was unmatched. He was the incarnation of his book titles, Dangerous Wonder and Messy Spirituality; he lived a life of wonder and amazement at God’s grace. He never claimed to be perfect; he just lived as he was—a man after God’s own heart.
History’s overexposure
Caterina Fake has a brilliant post about history’s overexposure and our own memories.
But the image of history’s overexposure stayed with me as I slept. When I woke I was thinking of great calluses that have formed on the body of history — Waterloo, the JFK assassination, September 11, and the frailty and solitude of our own, personal memories; a vast, unknowable empire of memory of stories told by other people, such as that suffered by Kublai Khan in Invisible Cities. I’ve been thinking about this since I posted about the man’s wife eating duck in Beijing, and Michael’s comment about the scene in Citizen Kane in which the accountant recalls a woman getting on a ferry — whom he as thought about every week since then for 40 years.I lay in bed half asleep trying to remember things I hadn’t thought of for a long time, and that effort produced memories of a party I attended in Narragansett, RI circa 1993 for my friend Nicole’s younger sister’s high school graduation; a boy in a house across from our hotel in Aleppo, holding up things one by one — a pair of pants, a ball, a toy, a shoe — laughing and gesturing, communicating in an obscure language of things.
Maybe that’s why we keep these bizarre things called weblogs. Something to keep some of our memories in and something to look back at and bring back even more memories. Some of my earliest memories go way back when we lived in a single trailer in Rainbow Lake, Alberta. I remember the yard and our hideous brown couch and watching Sesame Street when I was just three or four. Tossing a red and blue football with my Mom. A sermon growing up about Fonzie. Getting a quad stuck up to its handlebars in the mud. My first shutout in hockey (can’t remember my first goal, only my third) and getting shot at while in college but a person who intended to kill us (great story but maybe not for the blog). A couple generations ago, those memories seemed safer. Maybe because we didn’t travel as much and leaving home meant moving a couple sections down the lane to start my own farm. Since Mom died and the Cooper’s dispersed, I am not even sure where home is. Maybe this blog is home.
Zimmer vs. the Boss Steinbrenner
from the New York Times
The Yankees lost the World Series in Game 6 on Saturday night, and once again there is no joy. There is one less coach, too. A few players arrived at Yankee Stadium to clean out their lockers yesterday, and Don Zimmer, the 72-year-old bench coach, came to clean up after his Yankees career.
On Saturday, Zimmer said he would quit. A day later, he reiterated his decision to leave the Yankees and went into detail about his rift with Steinbrenner. It was more about a lack of respect from Steinbrenner than anything else. “No question,” Zimmer said. “Or I’d still be here.”
“He’s no longer the Boss,” Zimmer added. “He called me Zimmer for 25 years, I called him the Boss for 25 years. Today he’s Steinbrenner, he’s no longer the Boss.”
Steinbrenner commented yesterday only through a brief statement, but Zimmer gave an impromptu news conference in a stairwell at Yankee Stadium. He described a feud with Steinbrenner that began last year after the Yankees were eliminated in the first round of the postseason by Anaheim. Zimmer said Steinbrenner accused him of being the source of information that was leaked to reporters. Soon, Zimmer said, Steinbrenner stopped speaking to him.
“I’d go to the racetrack in Tampa where I go frequently and George is there, and he just quit talking to me,” Zimmer said. When the Yankees reported to spring training, Zimmer said he was told Steinbrenner had taken away his rental car.
In the middle of this season, Zimmer stood up for Manager Joe Torre when Steinbrenner criticized him for the team’s struggles. “I just thought the comments were unfair,” Zimmer said. “There were just so many things; I mean, how much can you take? I just thought it was time to move on. It’s a tough way to leave, but that’s what I want to do.”
Zimmer said he would not reconsider and he would not return: he’s quitting the team and the franchise after eight seasons.
“I won’t be back,” he said. “When I say I won’t be back, I ain’t coming back to work for Steinbrenner or be around him. They could have a day for me and the answer would be no and only because of him.”
Twenty minutes after Zimmer left the Stadium, Mel Stottlemyre, the Yankees’ even-keeled pitching coach, emerged from the clubhouse. He said this was the most taxing of his eight seasons as a Yankees coach, although he had not made up his mind about whether to return.
This was his “most stressful year,” Stottlemyre said, because of problems with the pitching staff and the bullpen early in the season and because of what he called “off-the-field happenings.”
“Normally you just kind of let them go by,” Stottlemyre said, “but in my case, I felt personally abused because of some things that happened during the course of the season where it was a tough situation for me.”
The unpleasantness started in April. Torre and Stottlemyre decided to send the struggling José Contreras, a Cuban pitcher signed in the off-season, to Class AAA Columbus. Steinbrenner overruled that decision and sent Contreras to Tampa, Fla., to work with Billy Connors, the organization’s pitching guru.
“That has bothered me, it still bothers me a little bit, but I’m over that bridge,” Stottlemyre said.
Without mentioning Steinbrenner by name, Stottlemyre alluded to an incessant pressure to win, leaving little room to enjoy what most people regard as achievements. What’s considered a great season for most teams is regarded as a failure for the Yankees. And failing to reach the World Series or reaching the World Series but not winning could be grounds for dismissal.
That standard is ridiculous.
“Some people will feel like we went out and won games and that was success,” Stottlemyre said. “Some people will feel like we got into the World Series and that’s successful. And there are some people that think that if you don’t win the whole thing, sometimes four games to none, it’s unsuccessful. I don’t think I need to say anymore.
“We didn’t win the World Series, but I’m not walking away from here today feeling like we had a nonsuccessful year.”
The more I think about Steinbrenner, the more I think of Roger Neilson, who could be called the anti-Steinbrenner. Roger Neilson never won any championships but was respected by his friends, family, players, opponents and almost everyone he ever came into contact with. Like many other men throughout history who lose sight of reality, he will be given his credit for his achievements but will remembered by very few fondly or with respect. Steinbrenner loved to win while Neilson was loved by others. Take your pick on what you want.
A note to the Boss
“You analyze your deficiencies and try to shore up your weaknesses,” says general manager Brian Cashman, who could be fired or stripped of power. “We’ll try to improve our defense, try to improve our success on the offensive side, and obviously now we’re going to have some holes on the pitching side and the bullpen in middle relief.”
That’s a lot to fix after spending $180 million on this year’s club. The problem is, the only short-term solution is to spend more.
Including pro-rated portions of signing bonuses, the Yankees have committed approximately $95 million to eight players next season, $93.5 million to seven players in 2005 and $80.5 million to five players in ’06. As one agent says, “Even the Yankees are fast approaching the point where resources will actually matter.”
If I am a New York Yankees fan, I am nervous right now.
Hmmm, Thunderbird
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know about my constant struggle with spam. I have tried a lot of products but I think that I may have found the perfect one. Mozilla’s Thunderbird. If you don’t know what Thunderbird is, here is a short description
Thunderbird is a free, open-source and cross-platform mail client for most operating systems including, but not limited to, Windows, Linux and Macintosh. It is based on the Mozilla codebase. It is a robust and easy to use client, similar to competing products like Outlook Express, but with some major advantages such as junk mail classification.
It is the junk mail filters that make it so amazing. Within a day or two, it has captured most of the spam I am getting. It is free and a safer alternative than Outlook Express. I am in the process of ditching Outlook for it but am looking for a more suitable calendar program. Anyone recommend a really good PIM?
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Messy Faith: Daring to Live by Grace by A. J. Gregory October 28, 2008
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
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