The Threat of Culture

This essay is adapted from a lecture given on February 19, 2009 at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.

“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.” This statement, often attributed to Nazi leaders, is actually a quote from the play Schlageter, an expression of Nazi ideology performed on Hitler’s birthday in 1933. In Hanns Johst’s play the original line is slightly different. It translates as “Whenever I hear of culture… I release the safety-catch of my Browning!”¹

Image - Marc Chagall, Purim, 1916–18, Oil on Canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art. This was included in the notorious Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) exhibition, mounted by the Nazis, which opened in Munich in July 1937.

The line is spoken by a character named Friedrich in the midst of condemning the empty ideals of the French and describing the futility of doing studies instead of combat.

He says, “the last thing I’ll stand for is for ideas to get the better of me! I know that rubbish from ‘18… fraternity, equality,…, freedom…, beauty and dignity! You gotta use the right bait to hook ‘em. And then, you’re right in the middle of a parley and they say: Hands up! You’re disarmed…, you republican voting swine! — No, let ‘em keep their good distance with their whole ideological kettle of fish…. I shoot with live ammunition! When I hear the word culture…, I release the safety on my Browning!”²

Distrust of intellectuals and creative people has always characterized fascist regimes. Friedrich did not want “ideas to get the better of me.” For that matter, any administration concerned to make people tow the line is worried about creativity. Examples abound. Consider the attempts to purge jazz from the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

The irony, of course, it that jazz was actually a workingman’s music (remember the communist adoration of the proletariat), which should have gained the approval of the Soviets. To remedy this possible contradiction, the Russian jazz critics specified that the American version of it was decadent, not the music itself. Indeed, a well-funded kind of kitsch Soviet jazz band was created to prove the point.

The government tried to promote distinctly Soviet popular music. What you sing is what you believe, Solzhenitsyn once declared. Likewise, Louis Armstrong never performed in the U.S.S.R, though producer George Avakian tried hard to arrange for him to tour there. Ekaterina Furtseva, the Soviet Union’s culture minister, refused to welcome him because she felt “he was going to be too popular.”³

Culture, then, is subversive. It can subvert for ill or good. At times Christians have feared its power. They have worried that it might drive them into worldliness, removing their focus from the spiritual goals of salvation. Some cultural expressions can do that. There is a lot to worry about in our time, and threats to spirituality abound. But is that the end of the story? Must we reach for our guns? Or take the “conservative” side in the culture wars? Is there a better way?

I believe cultural engagement is an important kind of warfare. Occasionally, when Christians are being properly creative, others may reach for their guns. We are told that the extension of the kingdom of God will come with opposition. But we are to continue to preach the gospel and its values, through our words, acts and lives, and let the consequences be what they may. My suggestions for how we can do this parallel Paul’s speech on Mars Hill as recorded in Acts 17.

This speech not only urges us toward cultural engagement, but is a model for how we should understand and do it. Paul connects with the Athenians where they are. He approves some of their insights but denounces their wrong assumptions. He then pleads for change, based on the resurrection and Christ’s coming judgment. In doing so, Paul lays out two insights that should guide our work.

Paul’s first lesson: how culture becomes perverted. Many parts of our culture give us much to worry about. If Paul is correct, peoples around the globe are seeking God. However, they are unable to find him because, despite their best insights, they arrive at false conclusions about what God should look like and what he should do. In Paul’s words, they “feel their way toward him,” but end up in the wrong place.

The people of Athens were very religious. It is my strong conviction that this is the case for much of our planet today. Even Europe, which is more secularized than most continents, is religious in at least two ways. The first is the rise of various non-Christian religions. From Islam to Hinduism, to New Age, to occultism, there is plenty of religiosity.

The second way is the “religious” nature of many of its cultural practices. Sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger has argued, for example, that French government, banking, artistic pursuits, education, and the like have a Roman Catholic cultural infrastructure without the label. Similarly, Scotland has a Presbyterian infrastructure, regardless of its low church attendance.⁴

Of equal importance is Paul’s identification of two sorts of idols in Athenian religion. The idols affirm two kinds of gods, which coexist in a strange sort of dualism. The first are smaller objects of worship kept in human temples and the second, an unknown god named on an altar.

Apologist Dick Keyes brilliantly suggests that idolatry usually comes in two forms: a nearby god and a faraway god.⁵ This is true for biblical times and for our own. He cites Jeremiah 10, in which the prophet scorns the creation of portable gods who can do neither harm nor good (10:5). The scarecrow-god may frighten the birds away, but can never give the kind of material prosperity sought by the people. These gods are tame and limited.

At the same time the people have a faraway god who provides meaning and purpose, even though impersonal. For example, in Isaiah 65 the prophet faults the people for forsaking the Lord and “spreading a table for Fortune and willing bowls of mixed wine for Destiny” (65:11). They needed some sort of assurance that there is a purpose, a meaning, something in control. This was the case even though Fate and Destiny cannot express love; nor can they judge our lives in the end.

Keyes explains that these two types of idols are distortions of the fundamental purposes of mankind according to the Christian worldview. They are stand-ins for dominion and trust. Mankind was originally created to have dominion over the world. Not violent oppression, but gentle lordship. This rulership was to be under the overall lordship of God Almighty. Our rule is based on trust in his higher authority. Idolatry substitutes a nearby god for dominion and a faraway god for trust.

Our culture presents examples of both. Money, possessions, communication, these are among the nearby gods we desperately adore. The love of these has contributed to our present economic crisis. We are what we have, we might say: we think we all need PDA’s, cell phones, big screen TV’s, designer styles, and so forth. In a brilliant article on the economy, GCP Executive Director Chris Simmons traces the history of this nearby idol in America, though it applies to all of the West.⁶

Simmons explains that: “Before 1885, most white males owned property, did not work for a salary, did not have a regulated work schedule and did not go to a workplace away from home. Price tags did not develop until the mid-19th century because they were unnecessary. Customers bought things from people they knew so they could just ask how much things cost.”⁷

As a result of the industrial revolution, all of that changed. It was hoped that industrialization and lower prices would vastly improve the standard of living, and they did. However, supply exceeded demand. As a result it became necessary to stimulate demand; or let’s call it by its proper name, desire. Mainstream Protestant leaders affirmed a sort of Manifest Destiny of Americanism, the notion that more and new are always better. Media, particularly advertizing, got into the action, and helped create a “desire to desire.”⁸ General Motors is a good example of making up for bad planning with clever advertising. Think, Simmons suggests, of the way Howie Long, the former NFL player, promotes the Chevy Silverado by putting down nerds and weaklings.

Nothing is altogether simple. There are scores of reasons for our dreadful economic downturn. But what is undeniable is the way we cling to American consumerism even to the point that it may be the death of us. We do this partly because having these nearby gods gives us a sense of increased security, of control over our world.

Candidates for a faraway god abound as well.⁹ Sticking with the theme of money, we might say that a faraway god is the means of achieving security. Many of us nurture the semi-conscious hope that if only we can achieve some measure of financial stability, we can be happy. Perhaps we trust in a system like the free market. Or we believe hard work must produce results. The notion of progress has hit upon hard times, and yet people still nurture the idea that somehow, given time, things will get better. Or maybe it is just good luck, or Fate, or “the man upstairs.” All of these can and do replace Yahweh as our vague faraway god.

These are many perversions of the truth. They penetrate deep into our culture. But is it right simply to reach for our gun? Does the perversion of culture mean that the problem is culture itself? Although there are Christians who defend such a view, it is far off the mark.

Paul’s second lesson: how culture may be redeemed. It is never enough simply to decry the evils of the world, and then to offer salvation either as a way of warring against culture or as an escape from the world. In his Mars Hill speech, Paul reminds his listeners of the original purpose of history. God is the maker of the world and everything in it. He is to be worshiped as such.

He gave purpose to human existence. First, he gave us life and breath and his creation to enjoy. According to Bruce Waltke, being made in the image of God means we are “passionate vitality.” We are alive for the purpose of worshipping God.¹⁰ Second, he gave us a task: to multiply and live on the face of the earth. Our purpose is to seek God in the hope of finding him through our life in this world.

In light of that purpose, Paul tells the audience to correct their mistaken views both of the nearby gods and the faraway god. God is not to be worshiped through art and imagination divorced from faith in Christ. Nor is he unknown, nor is he to be worshiped in ignorance. He is known and has now made his presence even better known. God has announced a purpose to call everyone to account at the fixed day when history ends.

If all this is true, how should we live? In a word, says Paul, by repentance. Repentance means a turnaround, a paradigm shift. It is a radical reorientation. What might this look like in terms of culture?

We know that in the centuries after Christ’s resurrection, despite small beginnings, the church grew quickly, and eventually redefined many of the cultural and social realities of ancient Rome. What should this look like today?

However much many of us have been influenced by Abraham Kuyper and his ideal of cultural transformation, most of us have become more sober, more modest in our outlook. Ironically, though, that may lead to greater effect. Andy Crouch provides helpful guidance. In his recent book, Culture Making, he cautions us against triumphalist claims of changing the world through inventions, strategies, causes, and the like.¹¹ He urges us to look at the divine pattern of culture making, which asks the rich to become more humble and work instead for the empowerment of the poor and disenfranchised.

He then cites examples such as the end of Apartheid in South Africa and the revolutions in former Soviet republics. He also cites small-scale changes, which do not appear in the headlines, but are just as significant as the larger ones. These include showing love within families or the gracious treatment of employees. This is absolutely not to lower our expectations or abandon the grand calling to make disciples of the nations. There are two ways we can work out the implications of these ideas in terms of cultural engagement.

The first is to redefine or redirect cultural patterns affected by the fall. Of course, the gospel is a new creation, not simply a restoration. As a result our redirecting should be very ambitious. As we seek to enact change, we are living out our heavenly citizenship. Each one of us has a calling. Here are a few ideas as to what this might mean in terms of individual callings.

All of our callings should be fulfilled honorably, truthfully and skillfully.

Artists should feel their way through the confusing varieties of modern art and see if they can redirect some of that talent in order to skillfully tell the true story. Maybe they will participate in initiatives such as Prospect.1 New Orleans, which ran from November to January. It was the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the U.S. It served multiple purposes: to help the local economy after Katrina, to restore a sense of aesthetics to that historic city, to educate people about the arts, and to “redefine the city as a cultural destination.”¹² Or maybe they will teach art at a Christian college as does Bruce Herman, and translate biblical and first century models for our times.

Scientists should see if they can redirect ongoing research for the greater benefit of the human race. Maybe they will get into redefining the use of the environment. One constant model is the Au Sable community in Michigan, which educates people in recognizing the earth as the Lord’s and teaches sustainable community in an age in which most environmental studies have been done outside the church.

Those in business should look for ways to go beyond profit making and provide for the betterment of their community and of global society. They should provide fair and encouraging working conditions for their employees. When a downturn comes, be the first to provide generously for those in trouble. Work quietly with your hands in order to provide for those in need.

Mothers and fathers should look at the broken families all around us and redirect these relationships with love and healing.

In all these cases culture should not be seen as a threat, if it is tied to the glory of the original creation and reconfigured in Jesus Christ. It may be perceived that way by our detractors. If we are quietly generous, whether we encounter opposition or not, we have a clear conscience before the Lord.

One more thing. I have come to believe that we Christians should be subversive. Is there not a place to undermine the dominant powers and exercise divine power to dismantle strongholds? (2 Corinthians 10:4) When Jesus became incarnate his mother Mary sang her Magnificat, praising God for bringing down the mighty and exalting the humble. (Luke 1:52) Our Lord Jesus undermined the power of both religious teachers and Roman rulers.

He did not do this violently but subversively, and with great imagination. Think of the parables. Think of his interactions with the Scribes, catching them off guard with his deepening of the law, his praise of the simple and anonymous, his defense of the vulnerable and his cleansing of the Temple.

After his magnificent speech, Paul received three reactions. I suggest they are the ones we will receive not only when we speak, but when we work at challenging and transforming culture. Some believed. Some repented and enlisted in the task force. Some mocked and rejected the whole idea as preposterous. Perhaps they reached for their guns! Still others wanted to know more.

Our times present extraordinary opportunities for this kind of engagement. Let us give our neighbors reason for the hope we have. (1 Peter 3:15)

_________
¹Hanns Johst, Schlageter. Translated with an introduction by Ford B. Parkes-Perret. Akdemischer Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, Stuttgart: 1984, (Act 1, Scene 1).
²Ibid.
³S. Frederick Starr, Red Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, (Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Limelight Editions, 2004).
⁴Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000).
⁵Os Guinness and John Seel, eds., No God but God: Breaking With the Idols of Our Age (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), 29–61.
⁶Chris Simmons, “Our Culture, Ourselves,” gospelandculture.org, http://www.gospelandculture.org/2009/01/our-economy-ourselves/ <3.5.2009>.
⁷William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 3–38. Cited in Simmons, “Our Culture, Ourselves.”
⁸Simmons, “Our Culture, Ourselves.”
⁹Dick Keyes, “The Idol Factory,” in No God but God, 41.
¹⁰Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), 70–71.
¹¹Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2008).
¹²http://www.prospectneworleans.org/. <3.9.2009>

William Edgar is Director of The Gospel & Culture Project as well as Professor and Chair of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Courageous Cowards...as Evidence of the Resurrection

There’s no video of Jesus rolling the stone away. The empty tomb is unmarked, its whereabouts unknown. None of us has put our hands in His wounds. Yet we believe Jesus died and rose three days later. For Christians, it is a matter of faith.

If irrefutable evidence for the Resurrection existed, there would be no need for faith. After all, as the author of Hebrews puts it, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Jesus Himself tells us, “Blessed are those who believe and yet have not seen.”

He was talking about people like you and me.

Not seeing all the evidence forces us to make a conscious decision about believing or not believing. And pushing against the doubt and uncertainty stretches and strengthens our faith, as a muscle is strengthened by resistance to weights.

That being said, there is ample evidence for the Resurrection—more than enough to give skeptics second thoughts and to give believers assurance.

Shrouded in Questions
Before digging into the real evidence, it may be helpful to discuss the stuff that poses as proof of our Lord’s resurrection—the stuff that diverts our attention rather than builds our faith.

The evidence is not some burial cloth locked away in Italy. There’s been a debate about the Shroud of Turin’s authenticity for centuries, with skeptics and the faithful using science to make their respective claims. Just last year, scientists began a new round of “shroud-ology,” hoping to settle once and for all whether the burial cloth dates to the 13th century or first century.

However, try as they may to validate these claims, the faithful can’t carbon date the Shroud into proof of anything at all. By investing so much energy in the Shroud, they run the risk of being disappointed by scientific findings. Worse, some become believers in the Shroud rather than in the Christ.

The evidence is not in the writings of Josephus or other non-biblical sources, either. Josephus, after all, never called Jesus the Christ and did not argue that Jesus had risen. Rather, as Dr. James D. Tabor, a professor of Christian origins at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, explains in Josephus on Jesus, the references in Josephus’ first-century writings that include the religiously loaded word “Christ” and assertions about Jesus’ resurrection were “rather clumsily added” sometime in the 11th century.

Josephus was not an apologist and doesn’t appear to have been a convert to Christianity. Instead, he offered “matter of fact, neutral reporting,” in Tabor’s words.

Josephus did, however, call Jesus “a wise man.” He noted that Jesus “drew many after him.” He reported that Pilate “condemned [Jesus] to the cross.” He reported on the claims of Christ’s resurrection—not on the Resurrection itself. There is a significant distinction. And, tellingly, he reported that Jesus’ followers “did not forsake him.” An older version of Josephus’ text cited by Tabor—an Arabic translation—puts it this way: “Those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him.” (We’ll return to this in a moment.)

The “evidence” explained in The Da Vinci Code and other films and books from this strange genre is not accurate either. No matter what ABC News and The History Channel say—no matter how hard they try to scramble history and heresy, opinion and fact—it’s still all based on a work of fiction that is itself based on someone’s theory about a painting from the 15th century (Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper). It’s fiction pretending to be fact, a novel masquerading as a documentary.

We can hope and pray that God has mercy on those who have foisted this off as history, because pushing seekers away from their own pursuit of the Truth and planting the seeds of doubt in baby believers is dangerous ground. As Jesus warned, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

Finally, the evidence is not even the empty tomb—at least not for us. After all, we don’t know where it is. We can’t point to the actual site. We didn’t see the hurried Sabbath-eve burial ceremony. Of course, for those who did, seeing the empty tomb meant everything. And that leads us to the real evidence of Christ’s resurrection: the existence of His Church, of Christianity itself.

Fighting against God
Jesus’ first followers were real people. They were proud and petty, short-sighted and short-tempered, and cowardly when Jesus needed them most. They ran from Gethsemane when the Roman soldiers and temple guards came to arrest their friend, their teacher, their Messiah. They hid in the shadows as He was led from jurisdiction to jurisdiction—from Caiaphas and Annas, to the Sanhedrin and Herod, to Pilate and the mob. They publicly disowned Him. And they locked themselves away somewhere outside Jerusalem, forgetting His promises and succumbing to their fears.

Yet the Church—our faith—somehow came into being because of these people. How? The only thing that can explain their transformation is an encounter with the risen Christ, the living God.

When Jesus was buried, the Gospels tell us that a detachment of Roman soldiers was stationed outside the tomb. Pilate ordered them to “make the tomb as secure as you know how” (Matthew 27:65).

How many of Caesar’s soldiers were there is not clear, but we do know that Roman military personnel were neither derelict nor fearful. They were highly professional and usually ruthless in carrying out orders. The disciples caught a glimpse of their ruthlessness during Christ’s arrest, torture, and execution, and they learned about the Roman military’s respect for order and the chain of command from firsthand experience with a centurion. “I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me,” the godly soldier explained. “I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (Luke 7).

In other words, Roman legionnaires did what they were ordered. But on that first Easter morning, they were asleep “like dead men.” And the tomb was empty.

Matthew’s account tells us that the Sanhedrin grappled with how to smother the story. Ultimately, they “gave the soldiers a large sum of money,” encouraged them to report that the body had been stolen, and promised to cover for them if the story got out.

Just as they feared, the story was leaked. A shrewd teacher named Gamaliel finally convinced his fellow Pharisees to stop the cover-ups and persecutions with words that at once appealed to their reason and stabbed their collective conscience: “If their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5).

Making All Things New
Among the first to hear the story that the Sanhedrin were trying to bury were Peter and John, who immediately “started for the tomb,” as John’s account explains. “Both were running.”

That little sentence tells us a lot. John and Peter ran to Jesus. Three days earlier, they had run away from Him.

Living in a time when even non-Christians embrace elements of Christ’s message, in a country where most people practice Christianity, in a place within walking distance of three different Christian denominations, I cannot blame the apostles for what they did and what they failed to do at Gethsemane. The most powerful military on earth—with a long record of brutally crushing any threat to Pax Romana—was knocking on their door. They had good reason to scatter in fear, to give up hope, and to hide on that long Sabbath Saturday.

Mark tells us that when the Roman centurions marched into the Gethsemane garden to seize Jesus, “everyone deserted him and fled.” One of them was so terrified that he “fled naked, leaving his garment behind.”

• Everyone fled. That included John and his brother James.

A week before Christ’s execution, the two were arguing about their position and place in Christ’s kingdom, demanding of their preoccupied teacher, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask” (Mark 10).

Their arrogance melted into fear once the Roman army arrived. But after they encountered the risen Christ, they became new men.

Acts 4 tells us that the Sanhedrin, including Caiaphas himself, was “astonished” by the “courage” of John. When the priests ordered John and Peter “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus,” they refused. “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God,” they declared, “for we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

John went on to write a large chunk of the New Testament and was exiled for his faith in Jesus. James was so bold that he died for His savior at the hands of Herod.

• Everyone fled. That included Peter, the one who publicly and loudly disowned Jesus not once but three times. “I don’t know the man!” he exclaimed on that dark Friday.

But after the Resurrection, after Christ’s restoration, Peter would never disown Him again. Not only would he stand up to the Sanhedrin; he “stood up among the believers” and stood out in the world.

He became the leader of the Church, winning converts, counseling the unsure, healing the crippled, teaching the wise, breaking down barriers of race and religion, going to prison for his faith, and dying for Jesus. Peter was martyred sometime around 67 A.D.

• Everyone fled. That included Thomas.

When the other apostles told Thomas that Jesus had appeared to them, Thomas was dismissive. “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it” (John 20).

For Thomas, seeing was believing. But Jesus was quick to tell him otherwise. “Because you have seen me, you have believed,” Jesus said. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

That encounter was enough to transform Thomas. “My Lord and my God!” he cried. The doubter had become a believer, and the believer became a lion. Tradition tells us that he died spreading the Good News far from his home, perhaps as far away as India.

• Everyone fled. That included Philip.

John tells us about the time Jesus turned a few fish and loaves into a feast for 5,000. Before He served His miracle feast, Jesus first tested His disciples, and Philip was one of the students that day.

“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’”

Philip’s answer was not exactly what we would expect from someone who believed He was standing in the very presence of God. “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite,” he nervously responded, focusing on what he did not have and overlooking that the Creator doesn’t need to shop for food.

Yet after the Resurrection, Philip had enough courage and faith to be imprisoned and martyred for Christ.

Philip was imprisoned and martyred for Christ in 54 A.D.

Some of those who formed the foundation of the Church were not at Gethsemane. James, the half-brother of Jesus, was probably among this group.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus was estranged from His family. According to John, “Even his own brothers did not believe in him.” Mark’s account quotes Jesus’ family as saying, “He is out of his mind.”

“At first he did not believe in Jesus and even challenged Him and misunderstood His mission,” one commentary writes of James (NIV Study Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, 1995). Yet sometime after the resurrection, James was transformed. He led the Council of Jerusalem and authored the New Testament book bearing his name, providing timeless instruction on Christian action, temptation and testing, faith and works, and the power of prayer. He died for his faith—for his brother and savior—in 62 A.D.

Secret Faith
Of course, some of Christ’s followers were transformed even before the Resurrection. Like us, they believed yet did not see. But unlike most of us, they expressed their belief at great risk to themselves.

Nicodemus was a key member of the Sanhedrin, and he had a reputation to protect. So, Nicodemus “came to Jesus at night,” as John reports. We shouldn’t miss the symbolism here. Nicodemus came under cover of darkness in order to protect his image. In response, Jesus delivered a blunt message about darkness and light: “Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil,” He explained, no doubt sending a signal to His visitor. “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

In a sense, Jesus was saying to Nicodemus and to us that it’s not enough just to know about Him or to know Him. We must also have the courage to identify ourselves with Him. Nicodemus wasn’t immediately ready to take that step. But he would get there.

During their encounter, Nicodemus asked questions and expressed doubts: “How can a man be born again when he is old?” It was a very personal and honest question for Nicodemus, and it was probably humbling for such a wise man to ask. “Surely he cannot enter a second time his mother’s womb to be born,” Nicodemus wondered aloud.

Jesus answered by explaining that everyone who believes in the Son will have eternal life.

There is no evidence that Nicodemus believed what Jesus was saying at the time. But the seeds were planted. And in John 7, Nicodemus openly defended Jesus before the Sanhedrin. In response, his colleagues mocked him with sneering questions. By John 19, the seeds had bloomed and the transformation of Nicodemus’ heart was well underway. With a courage the apostles lacked that weekend, Nicodemus prepared Jesus’ lifeless body for burial, wrapped his teacher in linen, and buried his Savior.

We can almost hear him whisper through his tears: “Now I understand. You were pierced for our transgressions. And through your blood and death we are born again.”

That is a life transformed.

Nicodemus wasn’t alone as he buried our Savior. Joseph of Arimathea, another “prominent” member of the Sanhedrin, in the words of Mark, assisted him. John tells us that Joseph “was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly” because he feared reprisals from other council members. But on that terrible Friday, Joseph revealed his heart to the world. Luke notes that Joseph “had not consented to [the] decision and action” of the Sanhedrin’s kangaroo court. And Mark reports that Joseph “went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.”

His faith would never again be a secret. Indeed, Acts 6:7 reports that “a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” It seems likely that it was Nicodemus and Joseph who shared the Good News with their fellow teachers.

Faithful Faith
This change in the disciples from “a snuffling band of unreliable followers into fearless evangelists,” as Philip Yancey argues in The Jesus I Never Knew, “offers the most convincing evidence for the resurrection.”

Many of them died for Christ, and all of them lived for Him. The author of Hebrews offers the details of what they endured. They “stood [their] ground in a great contest in the face of suffering,” were “publicly exposed to insult and persecution,” and “joyfully accepted the confiscation of [their] property.”

You can’t fake that kind of faith, and you don’t have that kind of faith in a hoax.

As the first generation of Christians passed from this life to the next, Christianity gradually changed from a faith of followers, eyewitnesses, personal connections, and Thomases into a faith of, well, faith. It grew into a faith comprised of people who believe and yet do not see. People like you and me.

Alan Dowd, a writer and researcher in Fishers, Ind., is the author of more than 400 articles covering everything from faith to philanthropy to foreign policy.

Why Does a Good God Permit Evil?

David Hume, the famous 18th-century philosopher, framed the issue as succinctly as anyone: “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”

Much closer to our time, philosopher H.J. McCloskey, in his 1962 article “The Problem of Evil,” describes the situation as follows: “The problem of evil is a very simple one to state. There is evil in the world; yet the world is said to be the creation of a good and omnipotent God. How is this possible? Surely a good, omnipotent God would have made a world free of evil of any kind.”

You don’t have to be a philosopher to feel this tension. All of us experience various types of evil, whether great or small, on a regular basis. Why would a good and all-powerful God allow this? Satisfying answers do not spring readily to mind.

It is therefore no surprise that the presence of evil drives many people to conclude that such a God does not exist. The logic is straightforward: “A God who is good and all-powerful cannot allow evil to exist, but evil does exist, therefore there is no good and all-powerful God.”

Obviously, many others come to a different conclusion. Despite the presence of evil, millions today do believe that God is both good and all-powerful. For some, the reality of evil causes pain but no tension; it is a sad fact of life in a fallen world. For others, however, the tension persists. They don’t give up their faith, but feel at times like their faith is shaky, or even that they’re somehow being dishonest, like those refusing to acknowledge a bad diagnosis.

So what can we say about the problem of evil? To answer this question we must ask five more.

Question 1: What do we mean by “evil”?

It’s important to begin here because we use the word “evil” in at least three different ways.

To begin, we sometimes use the term loosely to refer to things we don’t like, such as fruitcake or the DMV office (or the New York Yankees). That’s not the type of evil we’re discussing here.

Second, we sometimes use the word to refer to some sort of harm, misfortune, or negative circumstance we choose to bring upon ourselves. For example, I love to run. In fact, I love to run so much that I began training for a marathon. Now when training for a marathon, they say to build up your pace gradually, otherwise you will end up with an injury. But I went out for a long run at a pace that was way too fast for my poorly-trained body. The resulting injury meant I had to completely give up running for a time.

Interestingly, even though I knew this was entirely my fault, I still found myself saying, “Lord, why me?” And even though the answer was obvious, I wanted to blame someone else. Since God could have prevented this, he happened to be my first choice.

Here’s another example: What happens if a man is unfaithful to his wife and she leaves him? The suffering will be real, but it’s suffering he has brought upon himself. The responsibility is his, not God’s. These types of evil—the ones we choose to bring upon ourselves—are not what we’re talking about either.

Today we’re talking about evil in a third sense: the suffering we cannot control. Sometimes it is due to the moral choices of others: a parent abuses us; a drunk driver kills a beloved friend; our parents divorce. Other times the suffering comes from natural events: a hurricane destroys a city; a tsunami wipes out 250,000 people; a child is stricken with leukemia. It is this type of evil—the suffering we can’t control or prevent—that leads to the “problem of evil.” It is in the face of this type of suffering that we sometimes conclude, “Surely a good and all-powerful God does not exist.”
And this leads to our second question.

Question 2: Does the problem of evil prove that there is no good and all-powerful God?

For many, the answer to this question is a slam-dunk: “Of course it does.”

But how so? What does the argument look like? It’s not enough simply to declare this. We have to explain why the presence of evil leads us to this conclusion. For example, consider the following sentence: “All single men are bachelors; therefore, Abraham is not a bachelor.” As it stands, this is not an argument; the first statement does not necessarily lead to the second. In order for this to be an argument, we need to add another statement: “All single men are bachelors; Abraham is not a single man; therefore, Abraham is not a bachelor.” Now we have an argument.

Similarly, if we say, “Evil exists; therefore there is no good and all-powerful God,” we have not made an argument. The first statement does not necessarily lead to the second. We need other statements in between. Perhaps the most common approach goes as follows: “Evil exists; a good and all-powerful God would not permit evil unless there was a justifiable reason; if there were a justifiable reason, it would be apparent to us; there does not appear to be any justifiable reason for evil; therefore such a God does not exist.” Now we have an argument. The argument only works, of course, if we know that each of the additional statements is true. Are they?

Many have pointed out there is a huge assumption here, namely, that if a good and all-powerful God has reasons for allowing evil, then we as finite human beings would be able to figure them out . But why should we assume this to be true? As finite beings we’re limited in ways that an infinite being is not. He may have reasons we cannot begin to comprehend.

Philosopher William Alston gets at it this way: Suppose that some of the very best scientists in the world come up with a new theory about quantum physics. Suppose I, as a non-physicist, look at their theory and say, “Because I cannot figure it out, they must be wrong.” It’s possible they might be wrong, but I have no real basis for knowing.

Alston’s point is simply this: We are not in a position to assume that if an infinite God has reasons for allowing evil, then we as finite and fallible beings should be able to figure them out. And because we cannot assume this, any argument which does—such as the approach identified above—has not proved anything at all.

Naturally, some of us hear this and say, “I don’t care how the philosophical arguments go. I still feel in my heart of hearts that there are types of suffering that are so bad—so unjust—that it is impossible that a good and all-powerful God exists.” This leads to the next question.

Question 3: How is evil a problem for atheism?

As soon as we use the term “evil”, we are making a judgment; we’re saying that something is wrong, that injustice exists in the world. We feel that it is wrong for one person to murder another. We feel that it is unjust for a man like Hitler to murder six million people. And we feel this way because we believe human beings have dignity and, as a result, fundamental rights.

But on what basis do we feel this? Christians respond that we have been created in God’s image and given inherent worth by Him. But if this is not true—if we’re simply the random product of evolutionary forces—then where does such dignity come from? At this point even many secular thinkers acknowledge that it is difficult—if not impossible—to argue that we have any inherent dignity or worth if there is no God. In his 2000 article, “A Common Humanity,” atheist thinker Raimond Gaita states it this way: “The secular philosophical tradition speaks of inalienable rights, inalienable dignity, and of persons as ends in themselves. These are, I believe, ways of whistling in the dark, ways of trying to make secure to reason what reason cannot finally underwrite. Religious traditions speak of the sacredness of each human being, but I doubt that sanctity is a concept that has a secure home outside those traditions.”

If, for example, we’re watching a National Geographic special on lions and see one lion kill another, do we sense that it has committed a wrong? That it has in some way transgressed the dignity of the other? No, we think only that this is a matter of nature working its course. The first lion is under no moral obligation to let the second live.

But let us not miss the point: Without God, we are no different than the lion in terms of dignity; we are simply smarter animals on a different branch of the evolutionary tree. It is no more wrong or unjust for one person to kill another than it is for one lion to kill another, or for the robin to eat the worm. It might be unwise to murder, because there will be penalties to pay. It might go against community opinion in terms of what is right and wrong. It might be unfortunate for the person who is murdered. But in no way is it fundamentally wrong; no injustice has occurred. It is simply the working out of the survival of the fittest.

None of this, of course, is meant to disprove atheism. It is simply meant to illustrate a point: If our hearts tell us there is evil in the world—that certain acts are horribly wrong because they transgress our dignity and worth—then retreating to atheism doesn’t help us, since atheism—to be consistent—can’t provide a basis for human dignity in the first place. In this regard, evil is just as much a problem for the atheist as it is for the believer.

At this point someone might well respond: “All that’s been said so far is that evil does not disprove God and that evil is also a problem for atheism. So what? The question still remains: How could a good and all-powerful God allow so much evil and suffering in the world?”

Let me admit up front that we do not know what the answer is. But, as Tim Keller says in his book The Reason for God, we do know what the answer is not. And this leads to the fourth question.

Question 4: How might the fact that God himself experienced evil help us?

The foundation of the Christian story is this: In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, God has entered into human history and voluntarily experienced ultimate suffering and evil, all as an act of love for us. Christian writer Dorothy Sayers puts it this way:

The incarnation [of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth] means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall into a condition of being limited, to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death—he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine ... . He himself has gone through the whole of human experience—from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death ... . He was born in poverty and ... suffered infinite pain—all for us—and thought it well worth his while.

On the one hand, Sayers is pointing out that Jesus’ sufferings were many and real. In the Gospels you see Him rejected and slandered (Matthew 12:24), misunderstood by family and friends (John 11:16; 14:8), abandoned and betrayed by those who loved Him (Matthew 26:47-56; Luke 22:54-62), and suffering unimaginable physical violence (Matthew 27:27-35). Be it emotional or physical pain, God has not kept Himself immune from the suffering of this world.

BE IT EMOTIONAL OR PHYSICAL PAIN, GOD HAS NOT KEPT HIMSELF IMMUNE FROM THE SUFFERING OF THE WORLD.

But even more significantly, Sayers points out that He did all this as an act of love for us (John 10:11-18; 15:13). The Scriptures teach we’ve all contributed to this world’s suffering, be it from things we have done or failed to do. So how can God bring justice for these things—to make sure that someone pays for them—without destroying we who are guilty? Only by paying the penalty Himself. This is the unique message of Christianity: God’s love for us propels Him to pay our penalty on our behalf, and in so doing to experience evil in all its ferocious brutality.

So how can a good and all-powerful God allow suffering and evil? We simply don’t know. As Keller states, however, we know what the answer is not: It is not because He doesn’t love us; it’s not because He doesn’t care; it’s not because He doesn’t understand. It cannot be any of these, for his love-propelled voluntary suffering on our behalf tells us otherwise. Writer John Stott, in his book The Cross of Christ, explains:

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? ... [The God I worship is] that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. … There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we … stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.

And this leads to our last question. The fact that God voluntarily suffered evil might demonstrate His love, but is this where the story ends? Is this world simply like one long, sad movie, with a God who understands our suffering, who loves us in our suffering, and yet who does nothing about it in the end?

Question 5: Where does the story end?

In the second to last chapter of the Bible, we read this description of what the end will be like: “[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). The very things that cause us suffering now—death, mourning, pain—will be gone. On what basis is this claim made? The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

IF HE CAN DEFEAT THE STRONGEST OF EVILS, THEN HE CAN DEFEAT ALL THE REST.

We may think of it this way. Suffering and evil show up in all sorts of ways: poverty, war, abuse, relational pain, and ultimately death itself. These are all similar in one way—we label them as evil. But one of them is unique: Death is the only one that can never be avoided. People may be brought out of poverty; wars and abuses may end; relational pain can be healed; but death is unavoidable. It is the strongest expression of evil there is. No one has ever ultimately defeated it—except Jesus. The Scriptures teach that God not only suffered and died on our behalf, He also came to life again and defeated death itself. Which means this: If He can defeat the strongest of evils, then He can defeat all the rest.

Why does He not do so sooner? The Bible doesn’t say. But its certainty about the end of the story is not rooted in wishful thinking; it is rooted in a cosmic battle that has already taken place, a battle in which Jesus has defeated the worst of all evils. It is this Jesus—this victorious king—who not only comforts us in our present suffering, but who will one day come again and defeat suffering in all its forms. This—and nothing less—is the assurance that belongs to those who name Him as their king.

Jay Sklar is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 2001. He is still training for the marathon.

5 Ways to Become a Better Climber

What do I need to do in order to improve my climbing abilities?

Once a week I ride a 15-kilometer climb with an 8- to 14 percent incline. Although I started this two years ago, I've never noticed a real improvement, even when I replaced my old ride (a stock Scott Speedster S2) with a lightweight (7.5kg) Specialized Roubaix Pro with DT Swiss 1450 wheels.

I also mountain bike, which includes pedaling to the top of the same mountain on a 34-pound rig. I expected that climbing on a heavy bike would give a boost to my leg-power.

I climb at a very slow cadence (40 to 55 rpm) on my road bike. I stay in the lowest gear during long climbs while my friends ride two to three cogs higher. I've also noticed that since I started road biking my legs have become skinnier. I was expecting my leg muscles to grow bigger.

Sometimes I feel pain on my knees too. A friend told me to try a compact crankset or a triple chainring setup, but I'm not sure if this is the solution. I am 1.80 meters tall, weigh 72kg and am in good shape with a low fat percentage, and I also swim and weight-lift to prevent injuries. Do I do something wrong?

— George, Greece

Climbing is an art form that requires more of a mindset from a rider than it does strength and leg power. If superior climbing was simply a power-to-weight ratio, then big men, like Miguel Indurain could not have made their marks on the infamous European ascents of the Grand Tours.

Your letter and its mention of the mountain bike lead me to believe that your fitness is not the problem—nor do you need lower gearing. You do, however, need to abandon your mountain bike pedaling mentality and develop proper road bike climbing technique.

As far as your legs getting skinnier; it is natural for unneeded muscles to atrophy as a cyclist reaches peak fitness, especially in the calf area. The following five techniques have been helpful to me.

1. Lose the Mountain Bike Mentality

Rough ground and uncertain traction require a mountain biker to ride much lower gears than a road rider to remain efficient. Mountain bikers need to remain slightly below, not right at, their anaerobic threshold because they must conserve energy and recover from intense maximum-output bursts of power needed to cope with technical sections of the climbs.

The road rider has the benefit of a smooth surface and gradually changing gradients, so it is not necessary (nor wise) to exceed the anaerobic threshold. The road climber combines powerful, rhythmic breathing with an unyielding focus on power output at every degree of the crank revolution, so that pedaling pressure never exceeds (or drops below) the anaerobic threshold.

Tip: The regulation of power is more important than a specific cadence RPM for a road climber.

2. Good Pain/Bad Pain

The key to climbing is the same one that time-trialists use on the flat—putting the maximum amount of pressure on the pedals, while remaining just below the anaerobic threshold. To simplify this: a burning feeling in your legs means you have exceeded your threshold and are accumulating lactic acid in your muscles This accumulation causes intense pain and acts to short-circuit the nerve impulses that tell your muscles to move—both of which will defeat you before the summit.

Soreness and dull pain are normal effects of high-level efforts and are ignored by top climbers because the sweet spot, the place were a climber knows he or she is pedaling at peak performance, lies at the threshold between dull pain and the lactic-acid burn. Once you discover it, this place will be your new mental home on the bike.

3. Mental and Emotional Preparation

There is a French saying that roughly translates to: "Put a frog into boiling water and he will hop out and dash away. Put the frog into cool water and heat it slowly, and he will swim around happily until he is cooked." Arrive at the climb as fresh as you can. Stay relaxed as you begin ascending and work on establishing your breathing and pedaling synchronized into a smooth, relaxed cadence.

Watch ProTour climbers in action and you will discover that most climb at about 70 to 85 rpm. Don't stress on a particular cadence, instead, pedal at the rpm that allows you to meter out power as smoothly and efficiently as possible throughout the pedal circle.

Minimize your suffering by remaining seated as long as possible, and when you stand, relax your body and use your weight to turn the cranks so that the out-of-the-saddle interval is actually a resting period for your lungs and heart to catch up with your legs.

Never attack a mountain, instead, let the climb come to you. The key is to add pressure slowly, know that suffering is inevitable, but it is best served in increasing increments. Pile on the pain one tablespoon at a time as the climb progresses. It will be a lot easier to overlook intense suffering when the summit is within sight—and the top of the mountain is where a maximum effort cannot defeat you.

Tip: Remember that you must always climb alone—it is a dance between your will and your body's power threshold. Be prepared to let rival climbers go ahead. Most often, the early leaders are reeled in and crushed well before the summit.

And do not doubt yourself if you leave riders with powerful reputations behind. You can only be sure of your own output on a given day, so don't waste precious concentration and energy second-guessing the fitness of others.

4. Your Secret Weapon

Twice a year; once as you ride in to your fitness in late spring and another time near your peak in mid-summer, climb a mountain or pass that is twice as long and hard as anything you will see throughout the year. One of the reasons that professional road racers can motor over mountain passes in big gears is that they are completely confident that they can top the climb and recover in time for the next ascent—they have all survived worse on many occasions.

One way to achieve such confidence is to pick a couple of days each year to climb harder and higher—to push yourself so far beyond what you have led yourself to believe is your limit. The end result after your massive effort is that all lesser climbs will seem well within the realm of possibility, regardless of your perceived fitness or pain threshold on a given day. Absolutely knowing that you can bust out a big climb is far more empowering than most cyclists would believe.

5. Serve It Up

Last but not least; if there is going to be suffering involved, it is always better to give than to receive. Keep the pressure on when you are climbing with a group and, often, superior athletes will crack.

Always keep in mind that, regardless of the façade, everyone suffers on a climb—so find that place within yourself where you can block out everything and everyone around you, keep your effort steady and balance your power output on the edge of your pain threshold.

Resist the urge to back off the pressure when your rivals relax and sit up. Why prolong the effort by taking a break? The sooner you can reach the summit, the less you will hurt.

The President Has Become a Divisive Figure - Compare his start with George W. Bush's.

The Pew Research Center reported last week that President Barack Obama "has the most polarized early job approval of any president" since surveys began tracking this 40 years ago. The gap between Mr. Obama's approval rating among Democrats (88%) and Republicans (27%) is 61 points. This "approval gap" is 10 points bigger than George W. Bush's at this point in his presidency, despite Mr. Bush winning a bitterly contested election.

Part of Mr. Obama's polarized standing can be attributed to a long-term trend. University of Missouri political scientist John Petrocik points out that since 1980, each successive first term president has had more polarized support than his predecessor with the exception of 1989, when George H.W. Bush enjoyed a modest improvement over Ronald Reagan's 1981 standing.

But rather than end or ameliorate that trend, Mr. Obama's actions and rhetoric have accelerated it. His campaign promised post-partisanship, but since taking office Mr. Obama has frozen Republicans out of the deliberative process, and his response to their suggestions has been a brusque dismissal that "I won."

Compare this with Mr. Bush's actions in the aftermath of his election. Among his first appointments were Democratic judicial nominees who had been blocked by Republicans under President Bill Clinton. The Bush White House joined with Democratic and Republican leaders to draft education reform legislation. And Mr. Bush worked with Republican Chuck Grassley to cut a deal with Democrat Max Baucus to win bipartisan passage of a big tax cut in a Senate split 50-50 after the 2000 election.

Mr. Obama has hastened the decline of Republican support with petty attacks on his critics and predecessor. For a person who promised hope and civility in politics, Mr. Obama has shown a borderline obsessiveness in blaming Mr. Bush. Starting with his inaugural address and continuing through this week's overseas trip, the new president's jabs at Mr. Bush have been unceasing, unfair and unhelpful. They have also diminished Mr. Obama by showing him to be another conventional politician. Rather than ending "the blame game," he is personifying it.

The question that will worry the Obama West Wing is whether the views of independents come to look more like Democrats or Republicans. Recent opinion surveys show that support for his policies among independents is slipping.

On both Mr. Obama's performance and policies, independents are starting to look more like Republicans. For example, the most recent Fox News poll (taken March 31 to April 1) found that Mr. Obama's job approval among independents has fallen to 52%, down nine points from the start of March and down 12 points from late January. Over the same period, the number of independents who disapprove of Mr. Obama's performance has doubled to 32% from 16%.

The same poll also found that 76% of independents worry that government will spend too much to help the economy; only 12% worry it will spend too little. Independents oppose Mr. Obama's proposed budget by a 55%-37% margin.

If independents continue looking more like Republicans, especially on deficits, spending and the economy, Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats could be in for a rough ride.

About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon & Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.

Or, you can send him a Tweet @karlrove.

It was the concern of independents and "soft partisans" about national debt and spending that gave rise to Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential election. More significantly, independents angry about deficits and spending were the key swing bloc in the 1994 congressional races, where Republicans picked up eight Senate seats and 54 House seats, winning their first House majority since 1955.

Declining support for the Obama agenda among independents may further unnerve congressional Democrats, especially in the House. Sixty-nine Democratic congressmen represent districts carried by Mr. Bush or John McCain in two of the last three presidential contests. Forty-eight of these districts were carried by Mr. McCain last election. If independent support continues slipping, many of these Democrats will be fingering worry beads as the mid-term election approaches.

Perhaps that's why 20 House Democrats voted no or abstained on the president's budget resolution, joining all 198 Republicans in not supporting Mr. Obama's budget framework. Nineteen represent GOP-leaning districts -- and at least 16 are vulnerable to Republican challengers, including 14 freshmen or sophomore congressmen.

We don't yet know the price Democrats will pay for Mr. Obama's fiscal radicalism. But we do know that no presidential hopeful in our lifetime has made bipartisanship more central to his candidacy and few presidents have devoted as many eloquent words to its importance. Yet no president in the past 40 years has done more to polarize America so much, so quickly. Mr. Obama has not come close to living up to his own standards. It took him less than 11 weeks to achieve the very opposite of what he promised. That, in its own regrettable way, is quite an achievement.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

President Obama’s First 70 Days

In just the first 70 days of the new administration, a number of Obama supporters have expressed some dismay at their new president. Some find his ethically challenged appointments at odds with his soaring moral rhetoric.

Others lament his apparent inability to stir up supporters in impromptu speeches, at least in the manner he did with set oratory on the campaign trail. And they worry about his occasionally insensitive remark.

Many cannot quite figure out why, after lambasting George W. Bush for running a $500-billion deficit, Obama has outlined eight years of budgetary red ink that would nearly match the debt run up by all previous U.S. presidents combined.

But such disappointments should be tempered. Not only is Obama simply drawing on his past 30 years of education, writing, work, and associations, but he is also properly reflecting the worldview of many of those working for him.

What, then, is the mindset behind America’s new approach to domestic policy and foreign affairs?

If you believed that average Americans are not well educated, do not think in sophisticated and rational ways, and cannot be trusted to make good decisions, whether for themselves or for their nation, then you would expand the power of better-educated and wiser government overseers. This would ensure that, instead of millions of private agendas that lead individuals improperly, and at times recklessly, to acquire and consume, we would have benevolent and far-sighted powers directing our lives in ways that benefit the environment, the economy — and themselves.

If you believed that highly educated and sometimes distracted liberals occasionally slip on rather mundane questions of taxes, lobbying, and conflict of interest — but not at all in the felonious, premeditated manner of the corporate hierarchy — then it would be necessary to overlook such minor lapses for the greater good of marshalling talented and well-disposed experts into progressive government.

If you believed that socially minded liberals are tolerant and extraordinarily empathetic, then their rather impolite speech is not at all offensive. Constant disparagement of the previous administration, and jokes about fellow Americans — ranging from the physically or mentally impaired, to Nancy Reagan and her séances, to the stereotyped religion and culture of a clinging middle America, to the purported prejudices of a “typical white person” — are not insensitive, let alone callous. No, the evocation of these occasional infelicities reflects the tally-sheet of nitpicking right-wing agitators, keen to bring down a hard-working progressive sacrificing for the people.

If you believed that compensation in this country was intrinsically unfair — that income is arbitrary and quite capriciously rewards some while unjustly shortchanging others — then you would wish to hike income and payroll taxes on high earners to reach confiscatory levels so that a fairer government could correct the errors of an unfair market for the benefit of the many. Higher taxes on some, then, are not just a means of raising revenue, but an important redistributive tool of government to spread the wealth around.

If you believed that government does too little for the average citizen — that at present, with its unnecessary wars and perks for the wealthy, it cannot ensure everyone lifelong entitlement — then you would wish to double, even triple present federal expenditures. The key would be to borrow enough now to provide relief to the people first, and only afterwards to worry how to pay off the resulting deficit of $1.7 trillion. Once people are accustomed to the services they deserve, they will ensure that their representatives find the right revenue mechanisms to guarantee that such necessary benefactions continue. If you build programs to help the people now, the necessary taxing and borrowing for a $3.6-trillion budget will come.

If you had little idea of how businesses are created, how they are run, and why they sometimes go broke, and if you thought that the truly talented and sophisticated never go into business but instead gravitate to the Ivy League to be trained as lawyers, professors, writers, and organizers, then you would assume that our present problems are largely the fault of the former, and can best be addressed by putting as many of the latter in your government as possible.

If you believed that Main Street and Wall Street have little, if anything, to do with why publishers can afford to extend million-dollar book advances, or why the Ivy League has millions in scholarships for students, or why foundations, universities, and governments can afford to hire so many advisors, consultants, administrators, lawyers, and professors, then you would never really connect the conditions that promote good business with those that allow intellectuals, technocrats, and bureaucrats to thrive.

If you believed that those with capital have had an unfortunate head start, or have done dubious things that others less fortunate would not, then you would seek ways to forgive loans, to allow the indebted to start over with a clean slate, to ensure new borrowing with record-low interest rates, to lower or eliminate taxes on most people, and to expand in turn the financial help from the government — and not worry that stocks are down, dividends are nearly nonexistent, interest on deposits is at a record low, equity in real property has often disappeared, and accumulated capital is itself often diminished or insecure.

If you believed that the story of the United States is more a narrative of gender, race, and class oppression than of brave souls promoting liberty and trying to reify the promise of the Constitution, then you would have empathy for fellow victims of such endemic Western oppression. The cries from the heart we are hearing from Bolivia and Cuba, from Iran, Syria, and the West Bank, are not anti-American, much less illiberal: they are efforts to articulate the oppression that the people in those places have suffered at the hands of others.

While in the short run the once-victimized may need to be deterred in their anger from harming the United States or themselves, in the long run their legitimate grievances must be addressed through a variety of concessions, apologies, or dialogues in order to promote the general peace. That a Hugo Chávez calls Americans “gringos,” or Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva blames “white, blue-eyed” bankers for the financial mess, or that state-run Palestinian papers refer to Jews as “pigs and apes,” or that the Iranian president serially claims the Holocaust is a concoction of Zionists, is all an unfortunate rhetoric of the oppressed (in the same way Reverend Wright once referred to Italians as “garlic noses”), brought on by colonization and exploitation, rather than proof that a large portion of the world beyond our shores is run by racist — and rather loony — people.

If you believed that the traditions and customs of the United States are largely a story of the oppressed overcoming the perniciousness of the privileged, rather than the collective efforts of the many to stop tyranny, then you would talk about past oppression, past victimization, and past unfairness far more than you would evoke Shiloh, the Meuse-Argonne, or Iwo Jima.

If you believed that the United States is hardly exceptional, but merely one nation not all that different from others, then you would have confidence in the aggregate wisdom of the United Nations, and the cultural and economic paradigms provided by the nations of the European Union.

If you believed that wars, crises, and international tensions are brought about by miscommunications, misunderstandings, and Western insensitivity, rather than by despots trying to advance illiberal agendas whenever and wherever they sense an opening, then you would blame past administrations for our present ills, with all their bellicose and retrograde talk of preparedness, deterrence, and pre-emption. You would grandly proclaim a new age of harmonious relations, and count on your rhetorical abilities and charisma to persuade past rivals and mischaracterized enemies that, at this rare but opportune moment, there are no real differences between us — and thus no reasons for future disputes.

In other words, if you believed as President Obama and many of his advisors do, then you would do what Obama and his advisors are now doing.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.

Survival Skills for a Fallen World, by Paul Tripp

An audio series from Paul Tripp:

• Introduction: Survival Skills for a Fallen World
• You Have To Know Where You Came From
• Learn To Accept Reality
• Accept Mystery
• Rest In Sovereignty
• Humbly Admit Your Limits
• Act On What You Can Be Sure Of
• Resist Passivity
• Resist Spirituality
• Eavesdrop on Eternity (Revelation 5 & 7)
• Pursue Community
• Exercise Influence (Matthew 6:19ff)
• Fall in Love All Over Again
• Learn How to Wait
• Be Good and Angry
• Celebrate Grace
• Minister Everywhere
• Worship Constantly

U2: 3-part interview with Yahoo!

Yahoo Music has posted a three-part interview with Bono, Adam, and Edge that was done earlier this month when the band was in Los Angeles. (Larry was ill.) Total running time is about 10 minutes.

U2: The Y! Music Interview, Part 1

U2: The Y! Music Interview, Part 2

U2: The Y! Music Interview, Part 3

U2’s NLOTH spiritual resonances (part 4)

I had a fascinating conversation with some friends last week about the Celtic concept of ‘Thin Places‘. These are places around the world where the gulf between heaven and earth is smaller than in other spots. This was the sort of thinking that led to places like the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland or the island of Lindisfarne off the north English coast being regarded as holy and spiritual in some sense. There was even a tradition that heaven and earth are only 3 feet apart, but in the thin places, the distance is even shorter. There are a kind of portal, I suppose.

Now, whatever one makes of that, I wonder if this is the sort of metaphor that lies behind the album’s title and ethos - as well as obviously the opening track. Bono has spoken of the view over the Irish sea from his Dublin home - and anyone who knows anything about the Irish weather will know that there are days that are so grey, it’s impossible to tell where the sea stops and the sky begins. And what this seems to allude to is the fusion between the temporal and eternal, the secular and sacred, and even the intervention of the divine in the mundane. On this, actually, hangs the Christian’s hope because it points us towards the incarnation as well as the now and the not yet. But the imagery seems to evoke (to my mind) the sense in which trusting the Christ means eternal life starts NOW: I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me HAS eternal life and will not be judged but HAS crossed over from death to life (John 5:24). The eternal has invaded the temporal.

But isn’t that the way that God always seems to work? Isn’t he as much the God of the mundane, pedestrian and commonplace as he is of the spectacular and miraculous? So often, you can’t immediately spot where he’s rolled up his sleeves to get involved - it’s only clearer in retrospect. As if there’s no line on the horizon, until you’ve passed through it.

All of which reminds me of something that Bono said in a New York Times interview (quoted in Christian Scharen’s One Step Closer, p9):

There’s cathedrals and the alleyways in our music. I think the alleyway is usually on the way to the cathedral, where you can hear your own footsteps and you’re slightly nervous and looking over your shoulder, and wondering if there’s somebody following you. And then you get there and realize there was somebody following you: it’s God.

More on Unknown Caller

Incidentally, as I was leafing through Bono on Bono by Michka Assayas again, I found this bit on the very last page. Surely, here is the spine-tingling chorus of Unknown Caller in embryonic form (cf. previous post)?

Assayas.: You said about your father: “He would disappear into silence and wit.” I think that in your case, you do disappear into volubility and wit. [Bono bursts out laughing] What do you make of that?
Bono: Guilty, your honour.
No further comment?
‘Be silent and know that I am God’ That’s a favourite line from the Scriptures. ‘Shut up and Let Me Love You’ would be the pop song. [laughs] It’s really what it means. If ever I needed to hear a comment, it might be that.
Ultimate question, then you’re rid of me. What leaves you speechless?
[sighs… 20 second pause, continuous sound of cicadas] Does singing count?
I’m afraid not. Songs have words.
But not when I start. Usually, it’s just a melody and nonsense words. Hmm… Songs are about as succinct as I get. I’m just sparing you. [laughs then ponders for a moment] ‘Forgiveness’ is my answer.
You mean ‘being forgiven’?
Yeah.

No Line on the Horizon

This song a great opening to the album. Musically pulsating, driving, teeth-gritting as well as uplifting; it shouts, “we’re back”. The question is - what with? Well, bizarrely enough, it’s a French policeman who’s got claustrophobic in his routine life. And like Get on your boots, it’s essentially a non-sentimental love song.

I’m a traffic cop, Rue du Marais, The sirens are wailing, But it’s me that wants to get away - this is what fired Anton Corbijn’s creative juices for his ’silent’ companion film of the album, Linear (a word quoting this song). His heart’s elsewhere - a girl for whom he’s desperate to escape. She’s the dreamworld beyond the mundane and banal.

The interesting thing is that she is one who gives the narrator the stepping stone into a larger world. I know a girl who’s like the sea // I watch her changing every day for me… One day she’s still, the next she swells // You can hear the universe in her sea shells. … She said infinity is a great place to start… She said “Time is irrelevant, it’s not linear”. She’s vibrant; she’s truly alive, like the ocean - in apparent contrast to his life.

I just wonder, therefore, if this love affair is a sort of relational thin place. Of course, I’ve already mentioned in this little series of posts what the apostle Paul said about marriage in Eph 5? But could this also be touching on what John was on about in his somewhat elusive discussion of love (cf. 1 John 4:7-12). There’s certainly an elusiveness to this cop’s yearning: The songs in your head are now on my mind // You put me on pause I’m trying to rewind and replay… Every night I have the same dream // I’m hatching some plot, scheming some scheme. He’s spellbound - and has to ‘get out’.

But could it be that actually what he needs is not so much to escape his life (in contrast to Corbijn’s take in his movie, which opens with the cop burning his motorbike and heading off into the sunset) as to get it together with the girl? For she is his key to the eternal; in her there is no line on the horizon. Relationships are what matter - especially eternal ones… If that’s on to something, it would rescue the song from being gnostic anti-materiality/reality - and actually the antithesis of an incarnational thin place. And so, like every great love song, it is an intimation of the love song of the Christ.

Get on your boots

I gave this song the benefit of the doubt when it was released as a single. But i have to say that it feels a bit silly. And IMHO it’s the weakest on the album. Nevertheless, it has a real energy and humour - which is why I don’t ‘mind’ it very much. Bono, (in what’s quite a fun interview with the band for New Zealand TV) has said that it’s basically a pretty simple song - a love song without the sentimentality. Well, it certainly isn’t sentimental!

I suppose it’s a Make-Love-Not-War appeal - the closest this album gets to U2’s well-established pacifist anthems - but it’s more a case here of let’s put the grimness of it all out of our minds for the moment. Night is falling everywhere // Rockets at the fun fair // Satan loves a bomb scare // But he won’t scare you… I don’t want to talk about wars between nations // Not right now… Still, in a bomb-scared world, the only hope is Here’s where we gotta be // Love and community // Laughter is eternity // If joy is real. Love… community… others. For love is the only thing that can overcome hatred - Luther King again.

But the main question is who’s the ‘you’ who has to put on her sexy boots, the ‘you’ in the bridge passage: You don’t know how beautiful // You don’t know how beautiful you are // You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you?. Well, it’s obvious it’s a girl - but could it not be more than a girl? Couldn’t it be THE bride? For there is a theory around that Bono’s ‘you’ is very often God’s people - they too often are the ones who don’t get it. Is that too far-fetched? Well not if the sound is the sound of Amazing Grace - cf. earlier post on the album. Let me in the sound becomes a shared experience: Meet me in the sound. He then gets more desperate: God, I’m going down // I don’t wanna drown now // Meet me in the sound. Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come…

Now of course, it might be much more straight-forward than all of that. For as Neil McCormick discovered, ‘Get on your boots’ is East African Slang for use a condom. Well, i suppose that’s topical, in Africa at least, after the pope’s recent utterances. Make love not war.

But perhaps the song does a rocking shimmy between both spheres - in true Bono style.

Cedars of Lebanon

Is this the same guy as the Paris traffic cop? Corbijn certainly seems to think so. But whoever it is, (and he feels to me more like the soldier in White as Snow, longing for home and love) this is a lost soul in the Middle East. It’s a beautiful song - beguiling and troubling. There are some profound reflections on what it is to live in a war-ravaged reality:

This shitty world sometimes produces a rose // The scent of it lingers and then it just goes - there are occasional intimations of life and love - this side of the horizon. This is a darker side of the experience in the first song No Line - this is back to reality. This is a world where a child has to drink dirty water from the river bank.

The worst of us are a long drawn out confession // The best of us are geniuses of compression. NONE of us (not even the best of us) is what we could and should be. Now I’ve got a head like a lit cigarette // Unholy clouds reflecting in a minaret // You’re so high above me, higher than everyone // Where are you in the Cedars of Lebanon?. Cedars of Lebanon clearly have biblical resonances - both from descriptions of the geography of the ancient near east and more specially as illustrations of the Lord’s blessing: e.g. Psalm 92:12 and 104:16. He’s looking for ‘you’ here. Is this God?

Choose your enemies carefully cos they will define you // Make them interesting cos in some ways they will mind you // They’re not there in the beginning but when your story ends // Gonna last with you longer than your friend - this echoes a line in Heaven on Earth (from All You Can’t Leave Behind) which goes: Where there [were many trees] we’d tear them down // And use them on our enemies // They say that what you mock // Will surely overtake you. For all their pacifism, there is still a war to be fought in this world it seems.

But the appeal, all the way through, is to return the call to home. This is a homesick exile, trapped and lost. And yet the person he seems to be talking to says ‘you say you’re not going to leave the truth alone // I’m here cos I don’t want to go home‘. Is that just what ‘you’ think? Or does he genuinely want to keep searching for the truth?

But if there is a hope to it all, it is beyond the horizon. That to my mind is the message of the whole album. Thank God there is no line on the horizon, because he brings the beyond-horizon world to bear on this-side-world; and without that, we’d be left with a shitty world of despair.

NY Times Oped - Dear A.I.G., I Quit!

March 25, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.

DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I’d like to tell you about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs in a world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance to M.I.T., and the institute’s generous financial aid enabled me to attend. I had fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.’s effort to repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

I have the utmost respect for the civic duty that you are now performing at A.I.G. You are as blameless for these credit default swap losses as I am. You answered your country’s call and you are taking a tremendous beating for it.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That’s probably why A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that the company would “live up to its commitment” to honor the contract guarantees.

That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified to us your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he truly found the contracts “distasteful.”

That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on March 13.

Steve Stockman reviews NLOTH

First listens to new albums are all about judgements. The surprising thing about this, the most eagerly anticipated eleventh studio album by U2, is that it caused my first judgement to be not about the the album itself but on U2’s previous two releases. In the light of No Line On The Horizon, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and All That You Can’t Leave Behind must feel a little insecure, frail and vulnerable. They were good albums with many songs that will pepper U2 concerts for many years to come BUT alongside the jury made up of the songs on this new album they are found wanting; good but no longer great. The initial judgement of NLOTH is that it is indeed great. Many spoke of ATYCLB being the third great U2 album but actually it actually it might just have arrived now, though time, and hearing these songs in the live context, will tell. NLOTH is, for sure, a much more carefully crafted, mature, fulfilled work of art.

Taking that extra time between albums, the longest gap in U2 history, and feeling their way towards an album rather than chasing deadline day mixes has all been worth it. Bringing in Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, their producers and musical mentors for twenty five years, as co-creators this time has also added sonic breadth, width and depth. What the six creators have finally presented to the world is an album of various shades and atmospheric shifts, big big riffs to move the body and sparse reflectives to caress the soul. Edge, Adam and Larry have rarely played better and Bono’s lyrics and voice show another level of maturity. Lanois and Eno then add loops and left field lateral thinking that brings a treasure trove of slow burn layered melodic wonder.

Every U2 phase gets a name check... the worship of the youthfully exuberant October is back on Magnificent which finally kicks in to a Unforgettable Fire soundscape... while Fez - Being Born has a Passengers mood... Stand Up Comedy is the girder crunch chords of Achtung Baby... the lyric of Unknown Caller would sit well on Zooropa... Cedars Of Lebanon is like one of those great Joshua Tree soft spoken word poem out-takes that finally got their recognition on that album’s Twentieth Anniversary Edition. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight would have sat nicely on the last two albums but as highlighted in the unsettling sound of the lead-off single Get On Your Boots it is all wrapped up in fresh experimental recycling. Having suggested familiarity there are many tracks and sections of tracks that if played without vocal would not reveal the band’s identity at all. Moment of Surrender is such a song; seven minutes of spiritual journey where the Edge actually plays a solo from David Gilmour’s guitar school. The mixing the U2 sound with that which isn’t gives more twists and surprises than we have heard for awhile.

A Twitter friend asked for a one word review to which I wrote Theological. We have gotten used, some of us excited, about Bono’s declarations of faith over thirty years but there is enough theology on NLOTH to set up a Seminary! As the lyrics are more thought through so is the theological undercurrent to songs where God is rarely in the headline but omnipresent in the story. Since How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb I have come to regard Bono as a theologian and here is more evidence of his contribution to helping us navigate us through the uncertainty of the post modern age with assurances that grace is all that we need because grace is all that we have. With U2 there is an absence of dogmatic arrogance but always a humble strength of belief, a constant of confession and the discernment to thus “everyday I die again and every day I’m born again” and that it’s “Not that I believe in love but that love believes in me.”

What U2 do is believe in spite of the evidence and believe that the evidence will change to almost quote, one of Bono’s social justice allies, Jim Wallis. In U2 songs we are not about hanging around waiting for some better day way down the line or denying the bad news that is strewn across the newspapers today. U2’s religion is not an opiate as Marx might have accused Bono had they both found themselves as a team fighting poverty in the same era. Instead it kisses the future while holding its arms out to the world on the street. It believes that reaching the light is certain even though it is a mountain to climb. The songs on NLOTH shimmy and shift between the reality of war and the worship of God; there are couplets of doubt alongside convictions of hope.

It could be that U2 from north Dublin are the natural successors to the negro slaves who wrote those amazing spirituals on the plantations of America’s southern states. Obviously I am not thinking of Edge’s guitar sound but the spirit of the songs and the theology that underpins. A careful look at the spirituals will reveal that the belief in what will happen in the next life directly impacts the present one. The belief is that redemption is already here and at the same time still yet to come. So if we believe that “we’re going to make it all the way to the light” then don’t just sit around waiting but fuelled by such a belief we might find ourselves at times “lost between the darkness and the dawning” but we can “shout at the darkness, squeeze out the sparks of light.” This album is a journey through that hinterland and the horizon is blurred with no demarcation line. Time is not linear and we are not to look for the visibility of the evidence around us but a vision of how it is going to be. If you are on such a spiritual pilgrimage then here are more songs of worship and catharsis.

Maybe one of the challenges to U2 about this album is that the music world has changed again since their last release. There is a credit crunch and the download has broken up the world of the LP. It could be that in years to come this might be considered one of their fullest works but not their biggest seller. So will U2 really be content with making art rather than the top of the charts? I hope so. Those with ears to hear need a whole dose more of this!