The Difference Between Gutenberg and Zuckerberg

Neal Gabler (in the LA Times):

...Gutenberg's Revolution transformed the world by broadening it, by proliferating ideas. Zuckerberg's Revolution also may change consciousness, only this time by razing what Gutenberg had helped erect. The more we text and Twitter and "friend," abiding by the haiku-like demands of social networking, the less likely we are to have the habit of mind or the means of expressing ourselves in interesting and complex ways.

That makes Zuckerberg the anti-Gutenberg. He has facilitated a typography in which complexity is all but impossible and meaninglessness reigns supreme. To the extent that ideas matter, we are no longer amusing ourselves to death. We are texting ourselves to death.

A Severe Mercy

I finished reading A Severe Mercy over Thanksgiving. It's one of those books I had heard about for a while but never got around to reading. I'm very glad I finally did. It was easily the best book I've read this year.

The author, Sheldon Vanauken, tells the story of how he falls in love with his wife Davy, how they both befriend C.S. Lewis and come to faith in Oxford, and how Sheldon deals with the death of Davy. It is very well-written and hard to not become drawn in.

It's hard to imagine a husband and wife loving each other more than what's described in this book. And to see how Sheldon ends up calling his wife's death a severe mercy is pretty amazing.

"If my reasoning - my judgment - is correct, then her death in the dearness of our love had these results: It brought me as nothing else could do to know and end my jealousy of God. It saved her faith from assault. It brought me, if Lewis is right, her far greater help from eternity. And it saved our love from perishing in one of the other ways that love could perish. Would I not rather our love go through death than hate?

If her death did, in truth, have these results, it was, precisely, a severe mercy."

Wired for Distraction

An interesting article was published in the New York Times a couple of days ago entitled Growing Up Digital, Wired For Distraction. It looks at the growing problem of how technology is negatively impacting how students are learning. Leading a group of high school juniors myself, I constantly see how dangerous the distractions in their lives really are (they've also helped me evaluate and eliminate the distractions in my own life). Learning and reading is boring. Entertainment is becoming the goal in all of life. Neil Postman's famous book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is a very appropriate statement for what is happening to this generation.

Here's a few paragraphs from the article:

Escaping into games can also salve teenagers’ age-old desire for some control in their chaotic lives. “It’s a way for me to separate myself,” Ramon says. “If there’s an argument between my mom and one of my brothers, I’ll just go to my room and start playing video games and escape.”

(...)

Sean’s favorite medium is video games; he plays for four hours after school and twice that on weekends. He was playing more but found his habit pulling his grade point average below 3.2, the point at which he felt comfortable. He says he sometimes wishes that his parents would force him to quit playing and study, because he finds it hard to quit when given the choice. Still, he says, video games are not responsible for his lack of focus, asserting that in another era he would have been distracted by TV or something else.

“Video games don’t make the hole; they fill it,” says Sean, sitting at a picnic table in the quad, where he is surrounded by a multimillion-dollar view: on the nearby hills are the evergreens that tower above the affluent neighborhoods populated by Internet tycoons. Sean, a senior, concedes that video games take a physical toll: “I haven’t done exercise since my sophomore year. But that doesn’t seem like a big deal. I still look the same.”

Sam Crocker, Vishal’s closest friend, who has straight A’s but lower SAT scores than he would like, blames the Internet’s distractions for his inability to finish either of his two summer reading books.

“I know I can read a book, but then I’m up and checking Facebook,” he says, adding: “Facebook is amazing because it feels like you’re doing something and you’re not doing anything. It’s the absence of doing something, but you feel gratified anyway.”

He concludes: “My attention span is getting worse.”

(via)

"It is finished" is the power for sanctification and freedom

From a recent post by Matt Ballard:

I find it interesting to note that the last words of Buddha were “keep striving”….. the last words of Jesus? ”It is finished”. I find my perpetually caffeinated, got-it-together persona often sounds a lot more like Buddha than like Jesus. My inner voice reminds me of a multitude of failures and urges me to make up for it by working harder, doing better. It tells me to strive FOR the privileged position of acceptability, but the Gospel of grace tells me to rest. It’s finished. Strive? YES, but strive FROM the privileged position of a beloved child that Jesus has earned for me. Engage your world with a restful soul. Maybe you can identify with me.

Jesus seems to always be wrecking my paradigm. Why would he do that? Because my old paradigm of ‘get it together, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, fake it till you make it, it’s not spiritual to need or grieve or be human perfectionism’ is tailor made to rob me of life, intimate relationships, freedom, and joy. God is in the business of liberating my heart and emancipating me to live out the story of His love to a watching world.

Spurgeon on God's covenant keeping grace and our sonship

There are so many amazing truths in the following quote. I challenge you to read through it a few times to let it all sink in. These are the kinds of truths that will save your life from worry, fear, legalism, anger, and despair. They will instead help you treasure Christ more and be filled with a deep, thankful joy.

Charles Spurgeon (from a sermon preached on Oct. 6, 1889):

...there can be no reason in the faultiness of the believer why the Lord should cease to do him good, seeing that he foresaw all the evil that would be in us. No wandering child of God surprises his heavenly Father. He foreknew every sin we should commit: he proposed to do us good notwithstanding all this foreknown iniquity. If, then, he entered into a covenant with us, and began to bless us with all our sin before his mind, nothing new can spring up which can alter the covenant once made with all these drawbacks known and taken into account. There is no scarlet sin which has been omitted, for the Lord has said, "Come now, and let us reason together: though your sins be as scarlet." He entered into a covenant that he would not turn away from us, to do us good; and no circumstance has arisen, or can arise, which was unknown to him when he thus pledged his word of grace.

Moreover, I would have you remember that we are by God at this day viewed in the same light as ever. He saw us at the first as under sin, fallen and depraved, and yet he promised to do us good.

"He saw me ruined in the fall, yet loved me notwithstanding all."

And if to-day I am sinful, if to-day I have to groan by reason of my evil nature, yet I am but where I was when he chose me, and called me, and redeemed me by the blood of his Son. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." We were undeserving objects upon whom he bestowed his mercy, out of no motive but that which he drew from his own nature; and if we are undeserving still, his grace is still the same. If it be so, that he still deals with us in the way of grace, it is evident that he still views us as undeserving; and why should he not do good towards us now as he did at the first? Assuredly, the fountain being the same, the stream will continue to flow.

Beloved, we feel sure that he will not cease to bless us, because we have proved that even when he has hidden his face he has not turned away from doing us good. The Lord has withdrawn the light of his countenance, but never the love of his heart. When the Lord has turned away his face from his people, it has been to do them good, by making them sick of self and eager for his love. How often he has brought us back from wandering by making us feel the evil of the sin which grieves his Spirit! When we have cried, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him!" we have been greatly blessed by the anguish of our search. Bear me witness, ye tried people of God; the Lord's chastenings have always been for your good. When the Lord has bruised you till the wound has been blue, your heart has been bettered. When the Lord has taken away your comforts, he has done you good by driving you closer to the highest good. The Lord has enriched you by your losses, and made you healthy by your sicknesses. If, then, the Lord our God, when he is seen in darkest colours, has not turned away from doing us good, we are persuaded that he will never cease daily to load us with benefits.”

Moreover, remember that he sees us now in Christ. Behold, he has put his people into the hands of his dear Son. He has even put us into Christ's body; "for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." He sees us in Christ to have died, in him to have been buried, and in him to have risen again. As the Lord Jesus Christ is well-pleasing to the Father, so in him are we well-pleasing to the Father also; for our being in him identifies us with him. If, then, our acceptance with God stands on the footing of Christ's acceptance with God, it standeth firmly, and is an unchanging argument with the Lord God for doing us good. If we stood before God in our own individual righteousness, our ruin would be sure and speedy; but in Jesus our life is hid beyond peril. Firmly believe that until the Lord rejects Christ he cannot reject his people; until he repudiates the atonement and the resurrection, he cannot cast away any of those with whom he has entered into covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ.

...The cost to which our Lord has gone assures us that he will complete his designs of grace.”

Thanks to Dan for the link.

Living in the light always, not just publically

Ed Welch:

If there is one ecumenical feature of most theologies it is this: God sees and hears. He is omnipresent. Yet if there is one feature of most theologies that quickly slips from conscious awareness, it would be this one. Most sin is a temporary denial of how we live publicly. Addiction is the classic example. Most addicts will not indulge their addictions when a spouse, boss or parent is present. It’s amazing how much self-control we can have when people are watching...

(...)

This can too quickly evoke visions of a heavenly hall monitor or a parent saying, “Watch yourself young man, because I have my eye on you.” This isn’t the picture God gives us. Instead, the eyes of God are our hope. They are a blessing. When he sees us it means that he is close, and there is nothing better than to be in the presence of the Lord. So the picture is not that of a heavenly gestapo. It is of heaven penetrating earth – God with us. His presence reminds us that we are in his holy presence, in which we can see that sin is a destructive intruder. With the Light shining clearly, we can run from sin and death, and we can be imitators of the Light. His presence is our protection.

Yet there are old instincts in us. We still have some affinity with the darkness. We don’t want to go to that darkness all the time. We only want to go there when our interests diverge from God’s stated will. For example, we prefer the darkness when we believe that someone who disrespected us needs a good cursing out, done only, of course, when no one is looking, or when our lusts need to be topped off. We think, God will understand. We are only human, after all.

Lord, have mercy. And he does.

The Merciful One draws us back into the light. He reveals our deceptive and self-destructive tendency to hide in the shadows. He proclaims forgiveness that has been assured by the cross of Jesus. He surrounds us, once again, in unfailing love. We are left with a greater desire to see reality and remain in the light.

Jonsi's glimpses of glory

I went to see Jonsi Sunday night at the Tabernacle and was blown away. I knew it would be good, but I didn't know that it would be THAT good. As you might remember, when his album came out last spring, I could not stop listening to it. It is a beautiful album and Jonsi does an amazing job at presenting it in concert as such.

I believe Jonsi was unknowingly providing glimpses of glory through his performance on Sunday night. His magnificent voice, the imaginative instrumentation, and the stunning graphics behind him truly created a transcendent experience. As I was caught up in it, I was thinking about how much greater God's infinite beauty and glory must be. I'm thankful for these moments that help remind me of that truth.

To get a taste of what I'm talking about, here's the ending to his song Boy Lilikoi:

And here's the last song of the night, Grow Till Tall. He definitely saved his most magnificent performance until last:

Also, since it was Halloween, I decided to dress up with some friends of mine the Baileys. I was supposed to be the crazed Joaquin Phoenix (of the Letterman interview), but my get-up also seemed to work as John Belushi, Will Smith of Men in Black, and James Bond (all according to various people's guesses throughout the night). I'm good with that variety.

Some Interesting Facts About Coke

"A billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth.
A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged.
A billion seconds ago, the Beatles changed music.
A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning."
- Robert Goizueta, CEO of the Coca-Cola Company, April 1997

From A History of the World in Six Glasses:

1. Coca-Cola got its name from two of its main ingredients, the South American coca plant (known as "the divine plant of the Incas) and nuts from the West African kola plant.
   
2. In the late 1800s, John Pemberton was a maker of patent medicines who combined the coca and kola plants with sugar to make a new medicine that was meant to cure ailments.
   
3. Pemberton created the drink in 1886, when Atlanta voted to prohibit the sale of alcohol for two years. Coca-Cola became popular as a temperance drink and was well established once the ban was lifted.
4. Asa Candler secured the rights to Coca-Cola after Pemberton's death in 1888 for $2,300. By the end of 1895, annual sales exceeded 76,000 gallons as it was being sold in every state in America to pharmacists.
5. In 1899, Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead were granted rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola which led to it being drunk by the everyday consumer, being made available in every town in America.
6. Coca-Cola became a global brand as America emerged as a global superpower through WWI and WWII. During these wars, it was sent with the troops and was considered a great morale booster, both as a refreshment and reminding them of home.
7. Many parts of the world boycotted Coca-Cola because it's association with American values. The Arab world had a boycott until the late 1980s because of Coke's entry into Israel in the 1950s.
8. Today, Coca-Cola is said to be the second most commonly understood phrase in the world, after "OK". Globally it supplies 3% of humanity's total liquid intake.
   

In a series

1. Beer

2. Wine

3. Spirits

4. Coffee

5. Tea

6. Coke

Video Compilation of Extraordinary Stunts

Here: :

(via

Celtics fan really loves interpretative dancing

This

(via)

From Illegimate Child to Beloved Son

My good friend Jeff Dunbar was recently given the opportunity to share a bit of his life story in this video

Jeff Dunbar from James Christerson on Vimeo.

Some Interesting Facts About Tea

From A History of the World in Six Glasses:

1. Tea originated in the jungles of the eastern Himalayas and was found to valuable to Buddhist and Taoist monks in China as early as the sixth century BC.
2. Green tea was the kind of tea that had always been consumed by the Chinese. It made it to Europe in 1610, France in the 1630s, and England in the 1650s.
3. In Britain, almost no one drank tea at the beginning of the 17th century and almost everyone did by the end of it. Black tea became popular during this time, partly because it was safer to drink.
4. At the end of the 17th century, a cup of tea was about five times more expensive than a cup of coffee. By the mid-eighteenth century, tea was becoming the cheapest drink outside of water.
5. In 1787, a tea merchant named Richard Twining put a specially designed sign over his door as well as a label on his tea with the same design. This is though to be the oldest commercial logo in continuous use in the world.
6. In the early 1800s, the British East India Company, the supplier of Britain's tea, started trading large amounts of opium from India to the Chinese in exchange for tea. In 1838, the Chinese emperor put an end to the opium trade which led to the Opium War of 1839-42. Britain defeated China and took control of Hong Kong.
7. By the end of the nineteenth century, India took over China as Britain's main supplier of tea after it was discovered a certain type of tea shrub was indigenous to India. India is now the world's largest producer and consumer of tea.
   

In a series

1. Beer

2. Wine

3. Spirits

4. Coffee

5. Tea

6. Coke

What does a man gain from Facebook friends?

Jeffrey Overstreet offers his review of The Social Network as well as some comments on Facebook itself. Very intriguing. Here's a few paragraphs that stood out to me:

When I hear people scorning Facebook as a total waste of time, my response is this: Facebook is what you make it. If we fill it with thoughtless words, trivialities, and self-absorption, we’ll waste each other’s time. But if we use it to cultivate substantial conversation, treating people generously, we may be surprised at what grows there...

(...)

This desire to remake the world to satisfy ourselves is as old as the oldest story. When the serpent in the garden appealed to our vanity, inviting us to become “like God,” we became insecure. We doubted our worthiness. We accepted a poisonous vision of power games and competition.

For our sins, God revoked our access to the garden. He offered us grace and reconciliation, but what have we done? We’ve gone about building gardens of our own design, setting ourselves up and judge and jury.

The conclusion of Christ’s parable of the prodigal son is revelatory. Who is the only one absent from the feast? The prodigal’s older brother. He has access to all of his father’s blessings, but he can’t enjoy them because he is upset that blessings aren’t being dealt out to his liking.

In his commentary on The Social Network, David Brooks writes, “I was reminded of the famous last scene in The Searchers, in which the John Wayne character is unable to join the social bliss he has created. The character gaps that propel some people to do something remarkable can’t be overcome simply because they have managed to change the world.”

Despite his grand achievements and their rewards—money, fame, power—Zuckerberg ends up lonely and dissatisfied. His pride has cost him his only friends. Demanding love on his own terms, he’s made meaningful relationship impossible.

If you build it, they will come. And they may even find blessings in your work. But will you? What does it gain a man if he wins a world of Facebook friends but loses his soul?

Lecrae - Rehab

In 2008, Lecrae released his third studio album entitled Rebel. It was ground-breaking and definitely put him on the map as the most talented Christian hip-hop artist. Musically and lyrically the album is phenomenal.

A couple of weeks ago, he released another highly anticipated album called Rehab. At first listen I thought it was good, but felt it lacked a lot of the instant hits of Rebel (songs like "Don't Waste Your Life" & "Got Paper"). However, after a few more listens I have become hooked. It really is a fun album that both gets my body moving and encourages me with thoughtful, gospel-centered lyrics.

Check out this video for his song "Background":

And here's the song "Just Like You".I love the way it ends:

You said you came for the lame, I’m the lamest
I made a mess you say you’ll erase it, I’ll take it...
You said you came for the lame, I’m the lamest
I broke my life, but you say you’ll replace it, I’ll take it...

How sitcoms lead to loneliness

David Foster Wallace:

And to the extent that [TV] can train viewers to laugh at characters’ unending put-downs of one another, to view ridicule as both the mode of social intercourse and the ultimate art-form, television can reinforce its own queer ontology of appearance: the most frightening prospect, for the well-conditioned viewer, becomes leaving oneself open to others’ ridicule by betraying passé expressions of value, emotion, or vulnerability. Other people become judges; the crime is naiveté. The well-trained viewer becomes even more allergic to people. Lonelier.

(via)

Is the Sabbath still required for Christians?

Justin Taylor has been posting some interesting excerpts from Thomas Schreiner's upcoming book, 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law. The latest selection is on the subject of the Sabbath. I think Schreiner makes a compelling case and one that I have begun to agree with the last couple of years. Here's the summary:

Believers are not obligated to observe the Sabbath. The Sabbath was the sign of the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic covenant and the Sabbath as the covenant sign are no longer applicable now that the new covenant of Jesus Christ has come. Believers are called upon to honor and respect those who think the Sabbath is still mandatory for believers. But if one argues that the Sabbath is required for salvation, such a teaching is contrary to the gospel and should be resisted forcefully. In any case, Paul makes it clear in both Romans 14:5 and Colossians 2:16–17 that the Sabbath has passed away now that Christ has come. It is wise naturally for believers to rest, and hence one principle that could be derived from the Sabbath is that believers should regularly rest. But the New Testament does not specify when that rest should take place, nor does it set forth a period of time when that rest should occur. We must remember that the early Christians were required to work on Sundays. They worshiped the Lord on the Lord’s Day, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, but the early Christians did not believe the Lord’s Day fulfilled or replaced the Sabbath. The Sabbath pointed toward eschatological rest in Christ, which believers enjoy in part now and will enjoy fully on the Last Day.

You can read the whole argument here

Some Interesting Facts About Coffee

When a seventeenth-century European businessman wanted to hear the latest business news, follow commodity prices, keep up with political gossip, find out what other people thought of a new book, or stay abreast of the latest scientific developments, all he had to do was walk into a coffeehouse" - p.151, A History of the World in 6 Glasses

From A History of the World in Six Glasses:

1. Coffee originated in the Arab world, first becoming popular in Yemen in the mid-fifteenth century.
2. The first coffeehouse opened in London in 1652, and by 1663 there were already eighty-three.
3. Arabia was the only supplier of coffee until the Dutch started coffee plantations in the 1690s in Java (in modern day Indonesia).
4. In January of 1684, a conversation took place in a coffeeshop about the theory of gravity. Edmond Halley, one of three discussing the matter, visited Isaac Newton a few months later to ask him about the idea. Newton had done some work previously but decided to devote himself to the subject. In 1687 he published The Principia which outlines the principle of universal gravitation.
5. The world's leading insurance market, Lloyd's of London, was birthed out of a coffeeshop opened by Edward Lloyd in the late 1680s.
6. There was only one coffee tree in Paris in 1723 and was a gift from the Dutch to Louis XIV in 1714. A French naval officer named Gabriel de Clieu was able to obtain the tree and take it to the French West Indies. A few years after harvesting the plant, descendants of that original plant could be found in many other countries, which began to overtake the Arabian coffee market.
7. The coffeehouses of Paris in the mid-eighteenth century were centers of philosophical and political discussion that produced the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

In a series

1. Beer

2. Wine

3. Spirits

4. Coffee

5. Tea

6. Coke

Looking at The Social Network

I saw The Social Network early last week. It is definitely worth seeing, both for the fast paced, intriguing plot line as well as for the deeper messages being conveyed. I won't ruin anything, but it's amazing to watch how utterly inept Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerburg is at connecting with real people. He is so consumed with being part of exclusive groups and being successful that he is unable to make and keep real friends.

There is so much in the film that should cause us all to reflect on the ways we engage in community today. With the world of Facebook and social media only growing stronger, we ought to be considering how to keep fostering face to face interactions with our friends, as opposed to merely scanning statuses and pictures with an occasional note or comment.

I like the way Brett McCracken said it in the conclusion of his recent review of the film. He basically gives a summary of why Facebook is so dominant:

In this new age, punk geniuses like Mark Zuckerberg come out on top because they’ve learned how to use technology to break down the previously impenetrable boundaries of class and power. They’ve learned how to take the aristocrat’s most prized possession–networking, exclusive connections–and make it an accessible, populist pastime for the masses. Facebook is a revolution because it harnesses the universal human longing to know and be known, while slowly eroding the old guard’s stratified systems of cultural hierarchy and power. Facebook is about leveling. Ironically, anyone can be a part of it, even while it feeds on our desire for exclusive membership and the performance/proclamation of unique identity. The paradox of this is why 600 million people are on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is the world’s youngest billionaire.

Some Interesting Facts about Spirits

"Spirits played a role in the enslavement and displacement of millions of people, the establishment of new nations, and the subjugation of indigenous cultures." - p. 129, A History of the World in Six Glasses

From A History of the World in Six Glasses:

1. The modern form of distillation began in the Arab world around 970 AD and was routinely applied to wine at this time.
2. For many centuries, distilled wine was called 'aqua vitae" (water of life) because it was thought to preserve youth, improve memory, cure blindness, and treat diseases.
3. With the invention of the printing press during the 1430s, distilled drinks became more of a recreational drink.
4. The sugar production and trade during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, unfortunately using millions of slaves, was highly influenced by the demand for spirits such as brandy and rum.
5. Since rum results from the waste product of sugar production, molasses, it has to be made in coastal towns.
6. In the second half of the seventeenth century, rum was becoming the colonists' new favorite drink and it soon became the most profitable manufactured item in New England.
7. Whiskey was the drink of the American settlers moving westward, since it was made from cereal grains, and quickly became associated with independence and the American pioneer spirit.
   

In a series
1. Beer
2. Wine
3. Spirits
4. Coffee
5. Tea
6. Coke

Baptism as a gift of God to His people

My friend and coworker Jason posted some good thoughts on paedobaptism (infant baptism). He points out a few different arguments for paedobaptism, as well as a couple of good resources, for those of you that are confused or wrestling through this issue. I encourage you to read his post.

Personally, I have grown more convinced that this is the biblical understanding of baptism. It really clicked for me last spring as I was studying the theology of the church and the sacraments in my RTS class. Besides the normal arguments, the following idea did it for me. Circumcision for the Jews was a sign that they ought to be circumcised of the heart (Jer. 9:25-26). In the same way, baptism is now a sign that points the people of God towards His covenant love and reveals the need to receive a baptism of the heart (See Colossians 2:11-12). Baptism is a sign of entrance into the visible covenant community.

Jason took the following quote from Robert Booth's book, Children of the Promise. I think it wonderfully sums up the point of the sacrament of baptism:

“Baptism, as circumcision, is a gift of God to his people, not of his people to God. Abraham did not bring circumcision to God; he ‘received’ it from God. God gave it to him as a ‘sign’ and a ‘seal,’ not to others but to himself. It is inadequate, therefore, to speak of baptism as ‘the badge of a Christian man’s profession.'...The witness of baptism is not to others but to ourselves; and it is not by us but by God that the witness is borne.”