o1mnikent

Calvin originally wrote the Institutes in two languages–Latin for scholars and French for non-scholars. Unfortunately, the standard English translation is, at present, accessible only to scholars and even then, barely so.

Christian, Nathan, and the folks at CCEL have begun a translation that recovers Calvin’s original intent for the French version: that it be accessible for everyone.

Here are the first two paragraphs:

Almost all the things we know—the good things, the true things—center on two kinds of knowledge: What we know about God, and what we know about ourselves. There’s a lot of common ground between the two, and it’s difficult at first glance to say which one comes first.

On one hand, I’d like to start by suggesting that we can’t think about ourselves without also thinking about God—in whom the book of Acts says we “live and move.” Obviously, all the life and movement we’re born with don’t come from us – in fact, there’s nothing about us that doesn’t fully depend on God.

http://www.isitchristmas.com

The thing I love most about this site is that it has rss feeds.

Word around the denominational building this afternoon is that synod is discussing women tonight at 7:00.

*draft*

“Dawkins seems to have chosen God has his sworn enemy.
Let’s hope God doesn’t return the compliment.”
-Alvin Plantinga

Richard Dawkins is a distinguished scientist and a prolific writer. His previous books elucidate the complexities of evolutionary theory for a general, non-scientific audience. The accessibility of these books to the reading public has made him wildly popular. In his early books, Dawkins’ denial of God and suspicion of religion remained only implicit assumptions that took the backseat to biology. But in recent books, especially Climbing Mount Improbable, Dawkins brings his polemic against religion to the forefront, which culminates in his most recent book. The God Delusion is almost exclusively devoted to philosophy. In it, Dawkins intersperses his own disdain for religion with social commentary and fiery rhetoric. Nor does he limit his attack toward one religion in particular or religious fundamentalism. Lest his readers miss the point, he makes clear that his attack is against “God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented” (36).

Toward that end, Dawkins several themes emerge throughout the book, including fundamentalist Islam (especially the Danish cartoons), religious indoctrination as a form child abuse, morality from an evolutionary psychology perspective, patriarchal misinterpretation of scripture, and other topics, too numerous to deal with here. This paper will instead attempt to engage Dawkins in only three particular areas. First, it will discuss Dawkins accusation that religion constitutes a source of great evil in the world. This discussion of evil will not attempt to cover each aspect of the problem of evil. This will not be a discussion about the problem of evil, because Dawkins does not use the problem of evil in his case against religion. Instead, the paper will show that Dawkins wrongly concludes that religions are evil because he mistakenly quantifies evil. Second, the paper will attempt to show that the reasons Dawkins gives for God to be improbable are do not conform to good logic. Third, empiricism will be discussed to the extent that its shortcomings are apparent. This will show that Dawkins’ philosophy is not only ill-equipped to speak about God but also self-refuting. Last, the paper will reveal that Dawkins’ claims – indeed, his entire perception of reality – cannot be trusted because they rely solely on sensory input and are not external to a mind which cannot be trusted. Were Dawkins right, we would be forced to conclude that he was wrong. As we will see, no good reason exists to accept Dawkins’ claims, and there is excellent reason to reject them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a name - other than Ann Groten - familiar to anyone who is or has ever been a student of New Testament Greek. He’s the editor of the most recent edition of the Greek New Testament, and the foremost authority on textual variants.

see article

I’ve been sick the past couple days. I spent most of yesterday at home, catching up on, among other things, a paper on The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, which is a truly hideous book. He’s an ardent atheist, nonsensical, and hostile to religion in general and Christianity in specific. The most challenging part of the paper so far has been to respond with more clarity and logic than Dawkins serves his readers.

I’ve also taken a dose of NyQuil for the second evening in a row. Normally, taking NyQuil at 9:00 means that I’ll miss the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, both of which I watch religiously each night from 11:00-midnight. But tonight I’ve decided to try to stay awake. Only one hour to go. Hopefully I’ll make it before complete lethargy sets in.

Paul’s words to the Romans (chapter seven, to be exact) are relevant. Just replace “sin” with “NyQuil”:

¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

A few others have reflected on the past year. I thought I’d do the same.

I jammed with Bob, Paul, Daniel, and Greg at the worship symposium last year. We led opening worship on Thursday morning, along with a session on playing together as a team. I also got to play piano for a video that accompanied the conclusion of Mary’s sermon.

I spent a weekend in New Jersey and New York last January and visited a Philipino immigrant church, a Dutch immigrant church, and a mid-sized suburban CRC. On the way home, our flaps didn’t work and our plane couldn’t land. In fact, eleven months later, we are still circling Wayne County International Airport and Northwest Airlines now owes me 17,569,421 airline miles.

Spring break in Florida with fellow seminarian Mark was fun. I sat on the beach and read as much Marilyn Robinson as possible, while enjoying climates unheard of in Michigan. We stopped in Nashville on the way home and stumbled upon an incredible blues gig at a back-alley, hole-in-the-wall bar.

I preached for the first time at my home church in June. It was Pentecost Sunday and I preached in the evening. I used John 14 as my text and talked about the Holy Spirit as our comforter – not just the spiritual dumping grounds of the Trinity. (Don’t worry, I didn’t use the phrase “spiritual dumping grounds of the Trinity” or anything like it in my sermon.)

My sister graduated in May and I got to go home to see her, after dealing firmly and malevolently with the Northwest Airlines ticket agent unfortunate enough to pick up his phone and hear me on the other end of it.

A roadtrip around Lake Michigan with Dave in July was fun. We stopped in Traverse City, Painted Rocks National Seashore, and at his parents’ home in Milwaukee for a few days.

I went to Asia for three weeks in August with a group from the CICW and Calvin Seminary. I was the youngest of the nine who traveled to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore. The trip was life-changing in many ways. It reshaped my views on American churches, globalization, and made me question my own assumptions about the significance of culture. I learned much about Islam by spending a week in Indonesia and traveling with Anne, who is an Egyptian. I spent a lot of time pondering U.S. foreign policy. I met new friends, some of whom will be in Michigan in a couple weeks. I learned that, no matter how good that mango shake tastes, fruit and dairy should be consumed in moderation so as to prevent two kinds of digestive ailments that are fundamentally different but equally disruptive.

River Terrace Church brought new joys and new responsibilities this year. Worship Leader Brian moved to Los Angeles in August. For the third Advent Sunday, we assembled a choir of a couple dozen people to join our regular ensemble of drums, bass, piano, and guitar. The jazz leanings of the instrumentalists, the Gospel sound of the choir, and the anticipation and lament inherent in traversing through Advent toward Christmas was deeply moving.

I read some really good books. I started the year off with Steinbeck. I read East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. I read almost everything Marilyn Robinson has ever written, including a great review of The God Delusion. I read a book about the history of racism and crime in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan. I read too much Baudrillard. I read a couple books on language - including a book solely about irregular verbs - and evolutionary psychology by Steven Pinker. I read some Gerrit Keizer. I read a couple books by Bill Bryson, including his memoir, and A Short History of Nearly Everything, the best book ever. I read a lot of Stephen J. Gould – enough to realize that he’s a controversial figure. I read The Childrens’ Blizzard for its meteorological history and familial significance; it documents the winter storm that drove my great-great-great grandparents from the Great Plains in the 1890s. I read The Life of Pi. I read Thomas Lynch. I bought my first book of poetry. I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I also read with new eyes the Gospel of John, several epistles (I’m most intrigued by Paul’s epistle to the church in Thessalonica), plenty from the Psalms this summer and Isaiah this Advent, and I’m relearning the mysteries of origin, existence, and providence found in the first dozen chapters in Genesis.

I read some really good other stuff. I started reading the New York Times pretty regularly. I started reading ALDaily.com. I started reading the Economist. And I read some really great blog posts.

I got really mad about a few things, such as US immigration policy after spending time with Philippino immigrants in New York. I got really mad at the voters of Michigan for passing Proposition 2 (the affirmative action vote) after learning a lot this past spring about systemic racism. I got really mad at just about everyone in Lynden for racist and hypocritical opposition to a casino. Fortunately I was able to keep my mouth shut most of the time, and when I didn’t, I was blessed with gracious people who listened to my often-mindless venting, including Shelly, my family, and Northwest Airlines ticket agents.

I learned a lot about hymnology this year. I went to the annual meetings of the Hymn Society in Indianapolis in July. I spent the summer finding resources for a forthcoming Psalms songbook. I spent the fall on a New Testament songbook committee. I researched and wrote song notes for the forthcoming leaders edition of Sing With Me. I even wrote three hymns this year that are getting published.

I got engaged to Shelly, and we experienced the trials and joys that come with the initial stages of wedding planning, registering for gifts, and a wedding shower, along with our already-existing anticipation of spending a life together.

I went to my first wedding shower. When it comes to wedding showers, Hendrickses do not discrimate on the basis of gender, and so I, as a male, was included. We got some great gifts, and it was great to spend so much time with family. We’re still keeping our fingers crossed for the Calphalon pans.

So what’s in store for the year ahead? I’ll be one year closer to graduating. I’ll probably become a bit more conservative, to the dismay or delight of many of you. I hope to get back to Washington a couple times. I’ll probably spend a couple of months out-of-country for a cross-cultural internship. I’ll have watched Shelly graduate from Calvin. I’ll be married.

Looking ahead, the words of Isaac Watts are appropriate:

Before the hills in order stood
Or earth received its frame,
From everlasting you are God,
To endless years the same.

This is Shelly on the phone telling people she’s engaged. To me, of course.

Time named me their Person of the Year for 2006, thrusting me into the ranks of Winston Churchhill, Joseph Stalin, and the president of Amazon.com. They did this to recognize the arrival of Web 2.0, characterized by blogs, YouTube, wikipedia, podcasting, and social networking sites such as myspace and facebook. (An aside: I just set up a facebook account, and I have an embarrassingly small number of friends. We can all work together to make sure that my online persona is not lame.) They’ve named groups of people before as the POTY; in the sixties, both young people and women were named POTY, giving young women the rare honor of being named POTY twice.

But this year is different. The website tells me to

“…look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.”

Included in the group of people who has not changed the world this year - i.e. not ME - are the ad executives at time.com and Chrysler. When I click on the POTY website from Time.com’s homepage, I’m redirected to a Chrysler ad that begins thus: “You may not be the person of the year, but you can drive like one.” This ad fails to recognize that I, like every one of its other viewers, am the person of the year. The protasis of this ad takes no account of my ability to befriend fellow facebookers (hypothetically), or post comments on time.com’s blog, or post the videos on YouTube or Google Video of Dave digging into our Christmas tree, looking for the keys that he threw in there. But that’s why I am the person of the year, and Chrysler is not.

Fellow POTYer Bill Langworthy’s acceptance speech on yesterday’s All Things Considered sums up my sentiments.

Nathan recently referred me to a blog called “Blogging the Bible” by David Plotz and hosted by Slate. David is reading the Bible for the first time and commenting on it. His comments are free from any historical and theological interpretive baggage, for better or worse. Either way, it’s worth a read.