evangelical snobbery?

Dr. Stacy spoke in chapel this morning! On top of being very eloquent, he is a deep and thought provoking speaker; definitely a symbol of the excellence in our school. Today’s subject had to do with Christianity’s influence on culture. He posed the question: “what is it that evangelical Christians do to benefit culture?” He first quoted Dr. Peter Augustine Lawler, saying that “the only hope for cultural reform is through evangelical Christians.” However true this might be, evangelicals are doing little if anything to encourage that hope. Stacy suggests that evangelicals do little to promote, perfect, or advance culture. If anything, Christians have become passive and inoffensive pleasers.

It seems that evangelical’s insignificance stems from a combination of cultural immersion, cultural subversion, and postmodernism. Cultural immersion: while being open minded and inoffensive, they accept anything and everything. Cultural subversion: while being closed minded and disconnected, they become removed and extraneous. Finally, at the bottom of the totem pole is ineffective postmodernism. Where is the evangelical identity? They are anything and everything, all-embracing, eclectic Jacks-of-all-Trades. As Christian’s contribute to art, Stacy argues that it is largely a mimetic and capitalistic process. Kirk did a good job of portraying some of these confusions in the following attachment: Music Snobbery.

Are evangelical Christians really this shallow? Do we just imitate the secular world? Do we fear condemnation from irrelevant people? What should we do differently? This is a huge question! What do you guys think? What are the symbols of Christianity in our culture? Somebody point out some excellence here!

Ithica

home
Originally uploaded by aesthetic realist.

Going home for Thanksgiving. There is something very special about home, sort of gives me goosebumps or something. It's, in some ways, like the Homeric Ithaca; a place of belonging. Thanks for that parallel Dr. Mitchell… The attached picture is just out our back door.

On a side note: Mom, I'm starving :-/

ramblings

Not one to wear my emotions on my sleeve; today is one of those days that my sleeve has been deprived... God, why...? We work so hard and fall so far. Our burdens are often insignificant and our labor is overly focused on earthly gain. Why have mood pills when you can take part in mind numbing labor? Forget biotechnology, and consider the affects of hard work. It seems there are two basic types; work for the sake of work and work for the sake of happiness. True happiness can only come from the eternity in the hearts of men. At the moment I could easily get lost in my studies/work, even a mood pill sounds good, but then again no. The painful problem with eternity in our hearts is that we cannot fathom it.

'"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!"'

"What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him."

neurotransmitters

I can't understand how you can understand biology...if anything is above me (which many things are), this is one of them...maybe my brain is just frozen in a phagocytic capsid, without any nucleic acid...this class, causes my axons to branch out in confusion, sending a wave of depolarized information...most of my reason is lost at the neural nodes, and any remaining sense is then transfered back through the CNS to my brain, where homeostasis is quickly destroyed...

Where are my neurotransmitters?!?!?!?

White House Watch

White House Watch
Originally uploaded by aesthetic realist.

I was the bouncer for the press, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night. In payment, I was given a pass to the official White House watch party. Wow, not to mention being the biggest Republican Party that I've ever been to, it was also the most satisfying. Congratulations President Bush!

"...today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation. We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us."
- President George Bush

Oh, and my apologies to all the press that got turned away on Tuesday (nothing personal...).