Category Archives: Christianity

Stuff to do with my church and the church.

The Word became flesh: Urbana 09

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So I pretty much spent half of my break at Urbana 09 instead of playing through Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru Episode 5. On the bus ride there, I did manage to get through Bungaku Shoujo and that will be the extent of my animu-related consumption while I was there. More on both of those another time.

I went to Urbana with the promise that I’d come away from it with a better understanding of what my role would be in God’s global mission. And I did. Did God give me a specific calling? Nope. Did I have a firm enough idea of what I’d be doing that I’d be able to make a commitment via decision card? Nope. What Urbana did do for me was that it reaffirmed a lot of the stuff that I’d been hearing about over the last few years and a lot of my own suspicions about what I think I should be doing and how things should be.

I’ll be honest. I was (pleasantly) surprised at the big topics that they focused on in the evening sessions. I was expecting a huge emphasis specifically on evangelism (focus on people groups or specific issues). What we got was migrants and displaced peoples, money, environment, and divisions between peoples. Beyond those particular sessions, I felt that instead of just focusing solely on evangelism, the big issue was social justice.

The theme was “He dwelled among us” and the focus was on John 1-4. Essentially, the incarnation of Christ is the model that we’re supposed to follow in missions. This is interesting, because it’s something that my pastor at my home church has talked about before. Why did it seem like our faith really grew and we could see God moving when we went away to university but nothing happened back at home? The answer is in being incarnational: living in the community you’re trying to serve and becoming a part of it.

Most of the seminars I went to were on advocacy: a lot of stuff on how to advocate on behalf of the poor, both urban and third-world, or the oppressed. Essentially, it was about how to use our incredibly privileged positions as well-educated citizens of a first-world democracy to change things around for those who can’t escape poverty or oppression. This is the kind of stuff that I’m looking for in an answer when I ask how I should put my degree in computer science and mathematics to use. I’ve always felt that the things we study and our occupations should and can be used to further God’s kingdom beyond the standard cop-out answer, that we’ve been placed in our workplaces so we can evangelize to our co-workers bla bla bla bla zzzzzzzzz.

I think this speaks to how much we don’t understand how blessed we are. We have so much influence and so much opportunity within our grasp and the only way we can advance the Kingdom is by sharing your faith with your coworkers? Really? We have exponentially more talents than the majority of the world, but so much of the time, we’re using less than or equal to those who have much, much less, using one or two here and there and burying the rest into the ground.

We’re very familiar with the concept that sharing the Gospel isn’t just shouting the book of John at a random guy. We’ve come up with clever and creative ways to present it and we know that different aspects appeal to different people. This is exactly the same with combating poverty and oppression. You don’t need to go and hand food to the poor to help them. Like I said before, where we’ve been placed in society gives us unique ways to do stuff like advocate for the poor and the oppressed.

Something that stuck with me about missions was from my short term missions trip a long time ago. Essentially, our purpose is not missions, but worship. Why is this? Missions is temporary. There will come a point in time when Christ returns and missions will no longer be necessary. In the same way that Christ told us to go and make disciples of all nations, he told us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and to visit those in prison. Like missions, all of these things are temporary, because, well, there aren’t really going to be any oppressed after Christ returns, are there?

And I think that something that’s been keeping us from thinking bigger and about the world is our inability to use our gifts in a way that isn’t obvious. One of the things that really made me think about what’s going on in other parts of the world are the accounts and stories of the church in other parts of the world. They’re facing incredible challenges that we can’t even imagine and they’re still able to do what we can barely do here, in our comfort and wealth. And those are just those who are oppressed and know Christ. Imagine living in slavery or poverty and not knowing Christ!

Something that Urbana does very well is remind us that there is a world beyond our immediate vision. Being forced to worship in a different style and language is a very easy way to get across the point that God and his church is much, much bigger than we often realize. And once we notice that there’s an entire world out there and we’re overwhelmed with the enormity of this realization, Urbana is ready with resources to guide us towards taking creative and daring, but realistic and manageable steps to impact not just the people around us, but the world.

So where does that leave me? Well, I have a much greater awareness and understanding of the kinds of things I want and need to be doing. At this point though, I’m still unsure what it is exactly what I’ll be doing. If you know me, then you’ll know that I love theory but hate application. I guess that’ll be the struggle I’ll be facing in the next couple of months while I continue to digest the things I brought back with me from Urbana.

Apologia

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I find the way that most Christians approach apologetics to be pretty frustrating. Apologetics is a fine thing and it’s pretty interesting to see how your faith fits into the framework of the world outside of theology. But I find that most people are either “Great! Now I can definitely convince x with this loose collection of facts” or will furiously push back at any argument that doesn’t coincide with their faith. The first is a lot easier to deal with than the second.

After so many of these classes, I think that I’ve been able to get a feel for the scope of these things. These classes are fine for providing brief answers to common tough questions. They are not sufficient for providing enough background and context for a serious debate with someone. See, no matter what you’re debating, if you’re going to try and argue with someone, you had better be sure not only in what you’re arguing, but what you’re arguing against.

I’ve used all three of Windows, OS X, and Linux for years, each as my main OS. I’ve taken a basic OS course and a basic computer architecture course. I have a pretty good understanding of how computers work. Are you, guy with a Dell laptop running Windows and studying business, going to tell me Macs suck and that I’m an idiot for spending so much money on a Macbook Pro? If you’re going to say my computer is a pile of crap, you’d better be damn well prepared to talk about stuff like UI or file system design.

I’ve never gotten into evolution debates. Why? Because I don’t know enough about it. I didn’t take grade 11 bio, so how would I expect to argue with a biology major about evolution? And honestly, it’s inconsequential to me either way. I would need to be pretty arrogant to forge ahead and try to argue with someone like that.

The most dangerous thing about apologetics is the tendency for us to miss the point. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is our favourite dead horse to keep flogging. Yes, it’s hilariously full of ridiculous inaccuracies, which are substantiated only with his claims that he totally researched it all, man. Anyway, it’s an interesting starting point for exploring the history of the church after what’s recorded in the New Testament. But then, we start to become eager to strike down anything that’s inaccurate, without understanding the context, making us look like pedantic jerks.

One of the “arguments” that writers and speakers love to trot out is pointing out how inaccurate Da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper, would be if Mary Magdalene were depicted in the painting and that it’s not supposed to be a literal rendering of the real Last Supper. Well, of course not, Da Vinci kind of existed hundreds of years after. That’s not the point of the painting though. If someone had done some basic research, like read the book, it’d be immediately obvious that the painting has nothing to do with “proving” that Jesus and Mary were married and has everything to do with the fictional plot, in which the painting was a vehicle for Da Vinci to communicate his message through his works. Suddenly, the relevance of the painting in this context is useless.

So what is the point? It should really only be used to clear up misunderstandings or to answer some questions that someone who’s curious might have. You can’t use your patchwork knowledge to confront someone or wage a long campaign to convince them. If you do, you’ll likely only aggravate things.

The other danger is if the class degenerates into an echo chamber. In this case, the teacher gives standard, generic answers and the participants take it in. In the other case, the teacher provides counterpoints and the students rubber-band to treating those counter-arguments with derision. The danger here is that that derision carries over to conversations with non-Christians.

What bothered me was a claim that a BBC documentary about Jesus was biased, because it focused too much on naturalistic evidence rather than also providing Christian arguments. Even worse, it was compared to the Paul Maier interview, where the interviewer was asking fairly obviously pointed questions for Paul Maier to blow off silly secular arguments. Pretending that a BBC documentary, which has proper journalism, is as credible as a staged interview means that you’re being deliberately obfuscating and obtuse. Yes, technically, there is no true neutral stance, but bias is not a binary value.

It’s the sorts of arguments like those against naturalistic viewpoints that are harmful to these sorts of things. We can’t just write them off as obviously wrong or biased, because this is the perspective of the people we’re trying to talk to. And if you wouldn’t blow off an argument as ridiculous in front of someone you’re talking to, why would you need to do it while we’re trying to understand that viewpoint? Trying to dissect an argument so that we can know how to respond to it is much more easier when we don’t poison the well with our own bias.

I guess I’m really tired of the “here’s why we’re right” version of apologetics where we don’t consider why people might think the way they do. Thankfully, the iteration of the class I’m in right now is doing a pretty good job, what with the healthy amount of processing alternate viewpoints and arguments and trying to deconstruct them properly.

What’s a Christian politician?

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As both Canada and the States are heading into federal elections, I feel the need to bring up my problems with both countries’ conservative parties. I’ve touched on my reasons for supporting Barack Obama or the New Democratic Party before and for the most part, my arguments were grounded in policy. I had also expressed my frustration at how quick other Christians are to jump in and blindly align themselves with conservatives. This was done, again, based on the policies that the candidates proposed. This time around, I want to focus on our conservative politicians from a different angle.

A lot of the time during election seasons, I will often hear at church the congregation being asked to pray for Christian leaders among our politicians. Of course, we never really go into how we could recognize a Christian leader in our government. How would a Christian MP do his or her job? Would they represent their constituents’ views, even if they were contrary to their own or would they vote based on their faith? Would they respect the democratic process or would they willfully obstruct and disrupt it to get the results they want?

To be honest, I suspect that when we Christians ask for Christian leaders in our government, we don’t actually want honest, accountable politicians, but just a guy who promises to vote against abortion and same-sex marriage. Do we seriously consider the character and integrity of who we’re considering to give our vote? If we don’t, then we’re being disingenuous when we pray for Christian leaders to rise up. Of course, if you’re fine with Christian leaders who aren’t principled, then I guess I’d have to concede that point.

And this is the problem that I have with the conservative parties in North America. It turns out that they aren’t accountable, they aren’t transparent, and they don’t have an ounce of integrity left intact. All of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada and John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Republican Party should not have the vote of any Christian that values honesty, integrity, and accountability.

McCain and Palin together have done nothing but lie about Obama’s policies and character, lie about their qualifications for the office that they’re running for, and lie about Palin’s questionable history and both of their poor track records as senator and governor. Their party has done nothing but smear and swiftboat the opposition since they’ve been in power. Their party’s politicians are constantly trying to evade subpoenas and investigations.

In Canada, it’s not much better. The Conservatives are the party that had a 200 page booklet published and distributed among their caucus detailing how to obstruct parliamentary committees. This is the party that runs attack ads on Stephane Dion using that retarded picture of him over and over again. I’d honestly expect snarky, mean-spirited ads to come out from the NDP more than the Conservatives.

These are the people that Christians support. Is it any wonder why most people don’t see us as people who value integrity and accountability?

Techmology

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Something that I’ve heard said endlessly for as long as I can remember is the fact that we as a society are going downhill because technology is invading our lives and that we’re becoming worse because of it. Somehow, our generation is under attack by technology and we must now stand vigilant against the tide of techmonology that is coming to make our lives shallower.

We’re overloading on too much information! Our attention spans are short! We can’t concentrate on anything! We’re so much more superficial now! We can’t stay still anymore! We’re burning ourselves out! We’re going too fast! I keep on hearing these things said so much that they’ve become truths. The technologies is always bads!

The context and catalyst for this post is a short conversation that I was around for concerning deeper conversations in the context of fellowship. I was surprised at how quickly the blame was put on technology for something that I consider to be our fault. The great thing about these sorts of conversations is that it takes anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours for me to gather up my thoughts, so that will explain my lack of contribution in these things.

Of course, this post isn’t a direct riposte, for those of you who have any idea of what I was referring to (not that I’m sure anyone bothers to read this anymore). But, after a few years of observation within the church, I’ve decided to put forth more of my opinion in this matter, because I believe that the fact that technology is actually a reason for our shortcomings means that there is something wrong with our premise regarding this thing.

The main evidence offered to support the idea that this ethereal threat of technology looms about is the contrast between our generation and some sort of generation before us. The definition of generation in this case changes from group to group, but it’s usually in the form of “you kids are [something bad] because of [technology] compared to [generation before]“. This seems to imply that as time goes on and there is somehow an increase in technology, we become more bad in some way.

In the case where generations are real generations, the time period would be measured in decades. So instead of being the corrupt youth of today, what would we have been doing if we were living x amount of decades ago? According to this myth, we would be having deeper conversations, reading more, and generally being more thoughtful. Do you actually believe that? Do you really believe that just because we remove the Internet and computers and video games and TV and all of these other things that are bad for us that we’ll be living more meaningful lives?

I, sure as hell, do not.

I call shenanigans on this fast paced, instant entertainment destroying meaningful stuff school of thought. Technology and entertainment do not magically make people less inclined to grow in our relationships with other people. The argument says that we’re all distracted by all of this stuff. That implies that there wasn’t enough stuff to entertain the folks back in the day and that they did not have these problems we are trying to fix today. To me, that argument sounds ridiculous.

And every time this argument gets brought up, two technologies that are very dear to my heart are inevitably brought up and denounced. These are the Internet and video games. For some reason, we love to equate these two things as wastes of time, especially in the context of the depth of relationships between people. Instant messaging is a waste of time. Facebook is a waste of time. Video games are a waste of time. Stop spending so much time on the Internet! Why are you always playing games? Try going outside!

These things are only wastes of time if people make them wastes of time. Facebook is such a powerful way to connect with people and it makes it really simple. We make Facebook a waste of time when we use that power to join meaningless groups and add retarded applications. This is why it was far more potent when it emphasised exclusivity rather than allow this rampant, global Facebook-wide garbage.

I believe in the potential and power of technology to change and improve our social interactions. Technology is a tool. It cannot be inherently good or bad. It is neutral. It is what we make of it. The problem isn’t technology, it’s people. Technology has nothing to do with how close friends are. No, relationships are about trust. Trust has nothing to do with any of this stuff we’ve been blaming our shallow relationships on.

So the reason why we aren’t engaging in deeper conversations is not because we are tainted from the start. It is a matter of trust. Why should I share thoughts on very important things to people that I don’t trust? We can’t expect people to magically open up if we haven’t reached a certain level of trust. I know I definitely have opinions that will offend people and make them not like me if they don’t know me well enough.

And so, logically, if there is a level of trust where such opinions can be exchanged, why isn’t it happening? Are we being distracted by the interwebs? The answer is simple, we simply don’t want to do these sorts of things. There are a lot of fun things we can do instead of talk about serious things. So at this point, the blame is squarely on the people. Regardless of technology, we humans are awesome at dodging things.

And now, because this is srs poast, I will make a plea for thoughts to be shared through comments, because this is what this is all about right? Also, I want to see if people are still interested in what kinds of crap I have to say so I can write further craps knowing that I’m not speaking to this phantom audience I have in my head.

Software and Social Justice Revisited

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Several months ago, I posted something about Eben Moglen’s talk on free software and social justice. In it, he goes through how software will control the 21st century and how free software will enable us, the people, to achieve social justice and freedom without the need for violent upheaval.

The guest speaker at CCF was talking about social justice, and it was a very good talk. One of the questions that was asked of him was, what do we do? His answer: right now, we can’t do anything, except to work hard through school and get into a position where you can do something.

Something I’ve always tried to do is to connect everything I do back to my faith. Whether it’s design, math, or programming, there will always be some way to connect what we do with God. And why not? After all, he did make it so that ??¬? can never be true and that ?f?df(x)dx=f(x).

And so I’m always trying to find out what God would have me do with the skills and interests he’s placed in me. How does typography further the kingdom? How do web standards advance the kingdom? How do recursive descent parsers expand the kingdom?

So the obvious thing is to use your gifts at church. And obviously, that’s too easy. It’s great for discovering and developing your gifts, but Jesus called us to the ends of the earth. The extent of our talents should not be the church.

So what other ways are there to excercise your skills? Christ called us to go out and serve the weak, the needy, the broken, and in doing so, show them the love of Christ. The problem is that there’s so much to do. The hungry, the sick, the oppressed, it’s impossible to serve all of them especially with our finite skillsets.

I am studying software engineering. Presumably, I’m going to go on to become a software developer and come up with some hot algorithms to parse some hot language. But how does software accomplish the Great Commission? And that’s when I read and listened to Eben Moglen’s “Software and Community in the Early 21st Century”. Afterwards, what I had to do was made much clearer.

Below, is the transcript from the talk; thanks to Geof Glass who transcribed it.

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