Fire and Knowledge

The current NAMB spending report controversy made me reflect more on the problems of institutionalized giving. When we give money to an individual person who is active in a cause, we can usually trust that the money will be put to good use (especially if we know them). However, when we give to an institution, there is a much higher likelihood that it will be used in ways the giver would not approve of — and will never know of. For example, here are two notable items in the NAMB report:

• the expenditure of $1 million on the creation of a high-tech, three-dimensional Vision Center in NAMB’s lobby in 1999, which was closed four years later due to lack of use; and the spending of another $1 million to redesign the space into a high-tech, state-of-the-art conference center
• $3,771 spent on a four-day trip to England so Reccord and his wife, Cheryl, could attend a premier of The Chronicles of Narnia.

Individuals and churches who give to the NAMB should be disappointed with spending like that. However, they should not be surprised. This is typical spending for many non-profit institutions.

Americans have more money than we know what to do with. So we give it to institutions and think we are doing something. Starving kids in Africa? Give money. Teen pregnancy center? Give money. Hurricane victims? Give money. But as Wendell Berry has said, giving is not doing. Giving to a large organization and hoping that most of your money will go to the cause is similar to hoping that most of your tax money will go to your local schools.

This is because institutions are like government. They get bigger, but they rarely get smaller. The budgets get bigger. The staff gets bigger. The salaries get bigger. The buildings get bigger and more numerous. Rarely does an institution seek to simplify and reduce budgets and spending — and when they do, they often reduce the right things to pay for the wrong things (like buying new technology when what they have works fine).

What can we do about this? One way is to reduce giving to large institutions. My initial thoughts are that we should (1) strive to do what we can ourselves, in our own way and (2) when we see a need that we can do something about, fulfill it through individual people. For instance, it is better to give to a missionary on the field instead of to a large missionary corporation organization. There is more of a chance it will be used for the right purposes and go to the actual cause.

I’m excited to announce that my new article “Surrounded by Loneliness” has been published in the most recent Circle Six Magazine. This is noteworthy to me as this is the first of my articles to be published outside my own site. I hope you’ll take the time to read it.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. Alfred A. Knopf (2005), 322 pages, $25.95 (hardcover).

Anne Rice has been writing horror novels for over 30 years (her first book Interview with the Vampire, was written in 1973). But something happened to her in the late 90’s. She was drawn back to God through the mystery of the survival of the Jews. In 1998 she went back to the Catholic Church.

As she began studying the Bible, she decided to give herself completely to the task of understanding Jesus Christ. She said she was “ready to do violence to [her] career,” and decided she wanted to write the life of Jesus Christ in the first person. She consecrated herself and her work to Christ, and began studying.

As Mrs. Rice read more of the skeptical scholarship about Jesus, she became disillusioned with the lack of coherence of their arguments:

What gradually came clear to me was that many of the skeptical arguments—arguments that insisted most of the Gospels were suspect, for instance, or written too late to be eyewitness accounts—lacked coherence. They were not elegant. Arguments about Jesus himself were full of conjecture. Some books were no more than assumptions piled upon assumptions. Absurd conclusions were reading on the basis of little or no data at all…. I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I’d ever read. I saw almost no skeptical scholarship that was convincing, and the Gospels, shredded by critics, lost all intensity when reconstructed by various theorists. (pp. 313-314)

She then decided that the real challenge was to write about the Jesus of the Gospels:

Anybody could write about a liberal Jesus, a married Jesus, a gay Jesus, a Jesus who was a rebel. The “Quest for the Historical Jesus” had become a joke because of all the many definitions it had ascribed to Jesus. The true challenge was to take the Jesus of the Gospels, the Gospels which were becoming ever more coherent to me, the Gospels which appealed to me as elegant first-person witnesses, dictated to scribes, no doubt, but definitely early, the Gospels produced before Jerusalem fell—to take the Jesus of the Gospels, and try to get inside him and imagine what he felt. (pp. 319-320)

And that is what she tried to do. But can someone successfully write a book about a man who was God using the first person? A book written in the first person says volumes about the narrator: in this case, Jesus Christ, Son of God. The personality and thoughts of the narrator are revealed—even the language, vocabulary, and general style of the writing says something about him. In other words, the narration of the novel is an accuracy problem waiting to happen. It is also, in my opinion, the foundation for much critique.

It is easy to forget that this is only a novel—some reviewers treat it as a work of scholarship. But it is a work of fiction (although based on scholarship), and this review attempts to treat it as such.

Plot

The very first line of Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt tells us that Jesus is seven years old, and we can infer that he is the narrator. Jesus is writing his history—but for whom? And for what purpose? These questions are never answered (or asked, apparently). Stranger yet, it does not sound anything like the Jesus in the Gospels. This is not because he is a child—the adult Jesus is narrating. We know from the Scriptures that Jesus has an unparalleled range of insight and is eminently quotable. Surely the adult Jesus narrator would write with amazing insights filled with wit and wisdom. But this is hardly the case. In fact, I could not find even one sentence that would be worth quoting outside of a review. If you are going to have an adult Jesus narrating, you must make it sound like an adult Jesus. And based on all the evidence of what Jesus Christ spoke like, this does not have any resemblance.

Mrs. Rice knows that there will be many people who read this who are unfamiliar with Old Testament stories. So she weaves in old stories with whatever event is happening, and she does a good job of it. She is not content to make a distant reference or allusion. This is done, for instance, with King Saul and David, as well as the story of Jonah and the whale. This is not only helpful to the reader, it also gives greater exposure to these forgotten stories—and might even create interest to read the actual stories in the Bible.

Mrs. Rice also does a good job imagining how songs and prayers might be intertwined with the daily lives of the Jews. Songs are always being sung, and prayers always being said, during travel, work, or even when alone. It fits beautifully with the characters, setting, and culture and is very convincing.

Consistent characters are key to a good story. Unfortunately, the character of Jesus is inconsistent. A recurring theme is Jesus becoming scared or frightened, and working himself into crying. He often has bad dreams and wakes up crying for his mother, for example. This does not seem to fit with any reliable information we have on Jesus, nor does it fit with his supernatural abilities. He is a boy who can kill people, raise them again, make sparrows out of clay, make rain stop, make it snow, make blind people see. Yet he spends most of his time being afraid and crying! That does not sound like consistency in character. Could it be that the author is so used to writing about fear and horror that she must assign these qualities to Jesus as well?

Another inconsistency issue is the difference between desire and prayer. For example, on page 171, Jesus wants the rain to stop, and it ceases. He did not have to pray, but only to desire. Yet all through the story Jesus desires many things that he does not get—he wants the fighting to stop in the Temple, for instance, but it does not. This is complicated by the fact that the main “suspense” in the story is Jesus being ignorant regarding his birth, and gradually learning bits and pieces from various people other than his parents (Mary and Joseph forbid Jesus to even ask about it). So Jesus wants his parents and Uncle and brother to tell him all about his birth, but Jesus does not get what he wants.

Speaking of Jesus’ birth, why do Mary and Joseph not want Jesus to know about his childhood? Why do they forbid him to even ask about it? This seems odd and unrealistic. It seems more likely that Jesus would have been told about his birth from a very young age. And it would not be something to be hushed up and awkward to speak of in the family—it would be celebrated!

The character development in general is not strong. By far the most interesting and well-developed character (other than Jesus) is Jesus’ Uncle Cleopas. The other characters are flat. Mary is treated like a child (in order to emphasize her “innocence” one presumes). Joseph is unintelligent—he forbids Jesus to ask questions about his birth because he does not know the answers. And the rest of the family (other than, perhaps, Little Salome) could all be the same people with different names and jobs.

Setting and Historical Accuracy

Enough about the plot. Is the novel historically accurate in its setting? In the author’s note at the end of the novel, Mrs. Rice explains her obsession with historical accuracy:

Every novel I’ve ever written since 1974 involved historical research. It’s been my delight that no matter how many supernatural elements were involved in the story, and no matter how imaginative the plot and characters, the background would be thoroughly historically accurate. And over the years, I’ve become known for that accuracy. (p. 305)

With as much reading as she has done, it would be hard for her not to be historically accurate! And I am happy to say that overall she is careful and accurate. There are certainly things to quarrel about. For instance, Mrs. Rice dates the birth of Jesus at 11 B.C., a view not too popular among conservative scholars. That being said, the setting and characters fit the time period and culture. The food, landscapes, towns, and rituals all fit together like a puzzle. This is certainly the best part of the novel.

Style

Christ the Lord is a “contemporary” novel in almost every sense of the word. If you can imagine our culture’s plain metal and glass buildings and our taste for concrete slabs translated into a literary style, you will have something close to the style used in this novel.

I mean to say that the writing style is very plain and simple. It could easily be understood by a child, and takes little effort to understand for an adult. The sentences, paragraphs, and dialogues are very short, and rarely complex. The language is informal, and the constant contractions grate on the mind.

The novel is mostly dialogue—there are few riveting descriptions that move imagination. In fact, at times it reads more like a screenplay than a novel. It does not take full advantage of the medium of the written word, but rather seems like it was made to be a movie (and that, no doubt, will happen). Compare Christ the Lord with a work of imagination from Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, or J.R.R. Tolkien and you will see what I mean.

Another stylistic problem is the narration, as I have touched on already. The adult Jesus is narrating this story, which brings in even more issues than if the child was narrating. The narrator does not sound like a mature man, much less the God-man. There does not seem very much wisdom or insight in his words. Surely Jesus would have been more didactic in his narration, and given deep truths as to why certain events happened. And can you imagine Jesus, who created everything and for whom all things were made saying that “perhaps” this and “maybe” that, even looking back? Not I.

An excellent test for literature is how it affects us after we read it. Good literature makes us new people—we experience new lives, one could say. Our minds and imaginations are stretched. An experienced reader knows this feeling well. I think C.S. Lewis has the best explanation of this concept that I have ever read:

We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves…. We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own… We demand windows. Literature as Logos is a series of windows, even doors….

In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do. (Lewis, C.S. Quoted in Leland Ryken, The Christian Imagination, pp. 51-52)

But I felt none of this when I finished this book. I did not feel like I gained much of anything by reading it, other than a collection of notes for this review. I was not challenged nor stretched—and if any book should challenge or stretch me, I think it would be a book that is narrated by Jesus Christ, Son of Almighty God!

Orthodoxy

In one sense, all reading is worldview reading. The author espouses a worldview through the narration, characters, and plot. The reader must discern this in order to truly understand literature. But for the Christian, this becomes extremely important when reading works written about Christ or Christianity. Books always affect us—for the better and/or for the worse. Discerning the author’s worldview (and the worldview of various characters the author has created) is greatly beneficial to making sure we are not being misled.

And here Mrs. Rice is not easy to figure out. While she is a Catholic, not all the ideas she espouses are orthodox, even within the Catholic Church. In terms of Catholic doctrine, she certainly puts forth Mary’s “innocence” and virginity:

“[Joseph] never lies beside her….” [Jesus said]
“He never touches her because he does believe. Don’t you see? How could he touch her after such a thing?” (p. 47)

Because of Mary’s perpetual virginity, Jesus’ brothers and sisters are Joseph’s children from a former marriage (which is different than both traditional Catholic or Protestant doctrine). But more troubling than this is Mrs. Rice’s picture of Jesus Christ.

The novel begins with Jesus accidentally killing a bully. Then Jesus seeks out his dead body and gives his life back. This is essentially the Son of God not understanding his power, misusing it, and then fixing his mistake by using his power in a different way. Did you catch that? The novel begins with Jesus making a mistake. An error. God just did something wrong, and had to fix it. But an orthodox understanding of God (and therefore Jesus, since he is God) is that he does not make mistakes, and makes no errors or misjudgments.

A few pages later Jesus makes another mistake:

“There’s blood on your face!” my mother whispered. “Your eye, there’s blood. Your face is cut!” She was crying. “Oh, look what’s happened to you,” she said. She spoke in Aramaic, our tongue which we didn’t speak very much.

“I’m not hurt,” I said. I meant to say it didn’t matter. (p. 8)

Jesus accidentally said something other than what he meant to say. Again, Jesus makes a mistake. Even more of a problem, what he does say is a lie. The page before explained that Jesus had been kicked in the face and in the ribs, and “ached all over.” And his mother (in the above quote) says his face is cut. So for Jesus to say that he was not hurt is a complete lie. This is not an orthodox representation of Jesus Christ.

Little Jesus not only makes mistakes and lies, but also has trouble with obeying his parents. For instance, after Joseph commands the family to “get on your knees and stay there,” Jesus disobeys:

A wild will came over me and I struggled to get up and free. I pushed and jerked to the side until I wasn’t under Joseph, and I climbed to my feet as if I was running….
“Joseph, look,” cried my mother. “Get him, pull him down.”
I pulled free of the hands that tried to tug at me. (p. 59)

So much for honoring or obeying his parents! I wonder if Jesus got a spanking after that episode, because it sounds like he deserved it.

Another problem Jesus has is a faulty memory. Consider this passage, which serves as a good example of not only this point but also the previous two as well:

“What happened in Bethlehem?” I asked. I blushed. I’d forgotten Joseph’s order to me not to ask. I felt a sharp pain all through me. “I’m sorry I said it,” I whispered. (p. 235)

In this passage Jesus forgets his father’s order, makes a mistake, disobeys his father, and then is sorry and guilty for his sin. But this is not the only time Jesus struggles with a forgetful mind. Jesus couldn’t remember “all those links” to Old Sarah, “no matter how often they were told to me” (p. 133). He couldn’t remember the names of Old Sarah’s grandfather’s seven sons, even though Joseph could (p. 142). He couldn’t remember “a single word that my mother said to me that night in Jerusalem” even though his mother insisted that he do so (p. 173). And he couldn’t remember much about what Elizabeth had said about Zechariah’s murder in the Temple (p. 265). Clearly, the Jesus in this book has a memory just like the rest of us. He is a man, and shows no signs of being God incarnate. At best he might be a prophet, who works miracles and has glimpses of insight from time to time.

That is perhaps the most disturbing part of the novel: the lack of the divinity of Jesus. I would not think Jesus was God from this novel. Prophet, yes. Half-God, maybe. This, in my opinion, is worse than portraying a Jesus who lies, makes mistakes, and has a faulty memory. Mrs. Rice does not portray one of the most essential truths about Jesus: that he is not only “Son of David” or “Son of God” but God incarnate wrapped in human flesh. He is the God-man: 100 percent God, and 100 percent man. Yet the novel does not clearly portray this, and that should caution us and help us see that this is not—by Catholic or Protestant standards—an orthodox portrayal of Jesus Christ. A God who lies, makes mistakes, is forgetful, and is not aware that he is God does not sound like the God of the Scriptures.

Conclusion

Christ the Lord is a good experiment. It is good because through this experiment we know that writing a novel about Jesus in the first person simply does not work. God’s ways are above our ways, his thoughts above our thoughts. If we try to write down his thoughts, we will fail.

But even apart from the first person narration, I don’t think this novel is exceptionally written. The main benefit of reading this book is gaining an imaginative rendering of how Jewish culture functioned during the time of Jesus. But if you are looking for a well-written story along with an accurate portrayal of Jesus, you will have to look somewhere else.

I have a confession to make. I have an addiction. I have had it for as long as I remember. You see, I am addicted to style. That is, style over substance. Form over content. I am obsessed with aesthetics over essence. This addiction has proven hard to break—in fact, I fear that it will never be completely broken. It resists reformation like the worst of fiends.

As I said, this has been haunting me since my memory begins. Life is a barrage of images seeking for my attention. They have confronted me from every front, and I have been undone. Television, video games, billboards, web sites, product packaging—there has been no rest. Even during middle school my addiction was plain. It is illustrated well by a Calvin & Hobbes comic: Calvin is confident that he will receive a good grade on a book report because of his professional looking clear plastic binder. I used to laugh at it because it was funny. Now I laugh at it because I see myself, and it is pathetic.

Calvin: Thank you. Before I begin, I’d like everyone to notice that my report is in a professional, clear plastic binder.
Teacher: That’s very nice. Go ahead.
Calvin: When a report looks like this, you know it’ll get an “A.” That’s a tip, kids. Write it down.

Of course Calvin ends up receiving a failing grade, and receiving no credit for his professional-looking binder. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the same experience, and somehow passed most of my classes.

Here is an example of what I mean: when I begin writing an article on the computer, I select a new serif font for the body—no Times New Roman for me, thank you—and select a classy sans-serif font for the headings. My footnotes must be just right. My indentations must be just so. It is quite pathetic really. When I have something “presentable” done, I take a step back and look at it and I think to myself—“now there’s an article!” Perhaps if I spent as much time revising my content, I wouldn’t be the only one reading this. While I am certainly grateful for my college education (although I didn’t quite finish it), I am not thankful that my classmates and I were marked off more for not conforming to our style guide than for writing a poorly-researched and poorly-written essay.

But of course, it’s not just essays. My addiction isn’t happy to stop there. Websites must look good. I have even been known to recommend templates to others, so help me God. The content can come later. And that is quite sad, since the best websites have a merging of style and content. As Francis Schaeffer put it, “For those art works which are truly great, there is a correlation between the style and the content. The greatest art fits together the vehicle that is being used and the message that is being said.”

The best art is a beautiful compliment of style and content. That is why it is impossible to create good writing when the main focus is on style. The content must come first, and must be done excellently. Then, after the content is completed, a complimentary style can be adorned.

And that is what I want to do. When I am creating art, I need to keep a balanced focus on the style and content. When I am writing an essay, I need to focus completely on the content, and not worry about the style until later. To combat my tendency to focus on style, I am currently handwriting all my first drafts. This allows me to focus solely on the content and leave the style for later. With websites, I need to understand the content and what the message is—then, it can be presented through a proper medium and style.

Perhaps my addiction will never be broken. But I will fight it.

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, by Eric Brende. HarperCollins (2004), 233 pages, $24.95 (hardcover).

What would it be like if a young couple left modern technological life for an 18 month experiment without electricity? In Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, Eric Brende shares his story of living with the “Minimites” (a fictional name for a real community).

Mr. Brende—a former graduate of M.I.T.—gradually became disillusioned with the way technology has taken over all facets of our lives. We work long hours so we can pay for our transportation to our job, purchase groceries and obtain “time-saving” devices. However, these “time-saving” devices do not seem to actually give us any more time. We are still rushing, always too busy to talk to neighbors, pray, cook a meal from scratch, or settle down with a good book.

Better Off is written in the form of a very compelling story. I had a hard time putting it down. In the midst of enjoying the story, I learned some very interesting things. For instance, in winter some community members harvest ice out of ponds and lakes, and pack it into sheds with thick sawdust insulation. Surprisingly, it stays cold all summer and they can have ice cream in August. Indoor plumbing can be added through a “ram” that uses the movement of a stream or spring to pump water to a house. As a bonus, I also received a refresher course on the social impact of technological history.

This book is a living experiment of how technology affects society. What is a community like that has shared values, but no TVs, computers, recorded music, video games, or cars? The hypothesizing stops: we see a real picture. The children are helpful, loving, and kind. The neighbors bear one another’s burdens. Hard labor intersects with socialization that results in close relationships and enjoyment. Meals involve enjoying the fruit of your own labor. People become skilled and knowledgeable workers (not just players) again. Leisure time for reading and playing equals (or surpasses) our own. Modesty is the rule. Divorce is virtually non-existent.

Their community is not perfect, however. They tend to be cultish: they believe their church is the one-true denomination (Brende himself is a Catholic). Their self-government seems to lack structure and written law. Some community members think there is too much technology while others think there should be less.

Like any book, it is not without faults. It gives little detail on some things (How did they solve everyday medical problems? How did they bathe? What would happen during a community crop failure?). While Mr. Brende is a good writer, his prose sometimes spills over into language that a reader might find too extravagant for such a story, for instance:

It was as if the field were there to harvest us, not we it, the whole undertaking a pretext, a cosmic matchmaker’s ruse. At the stroke of midnight we shed our mortal shells and become prince and princess of creation, presiding over the majestic ball of life, ceremoniously joining with nature in jocund betrothal, a feast of love. (p. 173)

But those are small faults for an overall excellent book.

In the end, this book is more than an interesting story. It contains technological history, life lessons, and a personal journey wrapped up in a conservative, ecological philosophy of technology. It raises questions that beg the reader to give consideration to: how much technology is needed for human comfort and leisure? How can we use technologies that serve us, and avoid those that we serve? This book might help you find the answers to questions like that. You may even find an awakening of a desire you never knew existed—a desire “to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands … so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).

Joshua P. Sowin
Minneapolis, MN

Christians In a .Com World: Getting Connected Without Being Consumed, by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. and Christopher L. Stamper. Crossway Books (2000), 190 pages, 14.99 (paperback).

Book Review by Joshua Sowin

Like it or not, we live in a “.com” world.  Everything has a .com—companies, clubs, churches, families—even individuals.  Everything “real” seems to require a “virtual” counterpart.  Those who do not have a virtual counterpart—for instance, a company—are curtly told to “get with it,” and indeed, if they do not, their opportunities and resources to compete are quickly surpassed.

This creates a question for the thoughtful person, namely, how can we live in this virtual and image-saturated culture without being consumed by it?  And that happens to be one of the reasons I read this book, as its subtitle suggests: “Getting Connected Without Being Consumed.”

The book begins with a general introduction and an excellent historical overview of computers and the Internet.  It separates this history into three chapters—the history of computers, networking, and the world wide web.  I have read a number of brief histories on computers and the Internet, but this one tops them all.  Concise and well-researched, the overview presented should be simple enough for the “uninitiated” to understand and informative enough for the “geeks” to enjoy.

Unfortunately, I did not find the rest of the book as impressive as the historical overview. Perhaps this was due to recently reading Mr. Veith’s Reading Between the Lines, and thinking this work would be on par with that excellent book.  If I did not have that expectation in mind, my impression of this book might have been quite different.

I believe most of my hopes were dashed on the high-tech rocks of technophilia. Veith and Stamper see through much of the hype of the Internet, but not all of it.  Although the authors warn against technophilia, the book sometimes struck me as being exactly that.  Consider the following excerpts (emphasis mine):

No system for finding the best product at the best price has ever existed before in human history.  Such a free economy is working exactly the way Adam Smith thought it would. (p. 10)

Electronic publishing gives anyone a press.  The competition for attention will be fierce.  The book world will converge with the Web world.  When the dust settles, what remains may not be one industry dominated by a handful of Manhattan-based monoliths but a true marketplace of ideas. (p. 92)

On the whole [the Internet] should be good for Christians.  The great theologians of the past—many of whom are now unavailable and out of print—can be rediscovered.  Christian debate and discourse will not longer have to be filtered through the demands of commercialism.  The Church, which often drifts wherever the culture leads, may be able to pull itself back together and recover its own identity as the people of God.  (p. 152)

A virtual community is still a kind of community.  Modernism fragmented human relationships and undermined communal values, but the Internet, to a certain extent, can put some of them back together. (pp. 170-1)

Perhaps this is being too nitpicky.  Scattered throughout the history and hype are many warnings and cautions, most of which people desperately need to hear and follow.  For instance, the authors mention how the Internet “obscures the normal status markers, hierarchies, and authorities…. favors short bullets of information…. [and has much] information available [that is] brief, undeveloped, and ephemeral” (p. 137).  However, although the bad is pointed out, the authors seem to believe that the good side will win.  I question their conclusion.

There are also several inaccuracies in the book, two of which I will point out.  The book asserts, “search engines do not discriminate about which sites are reliable—they list them all” (p. 137), which is an understandably incorrect misconception.  First of all, search engines discriminate by the way they sort sites by pseudo-relevance.  Second, they do not list sites that have requested not to be listed (personally or through a file on their website).  Lastly, if you are in another country, search engines can (and do) discriminate against certain sites.  For instance, MSN China recently blocked sites that contained words like “democracy” and “freedom.”

The authors’ explanation of Internet anonymity is also inaccurate.  The authors state that, “ironically, though the Internet promises anonymity, this, like so much of cyberspace, is an illusion.”  That is correct, but not for the reason the authors identify:

It provides a virtual anonymity that seems real but is not.  The fact is, nearly everything ever done on a computer can be traced and found somewhere on the hard drive.  Cookies leave their trail of electronic crumbs. (p. 143)

The problem is that anyone with basic computer knowledge can easily delete the history, cache, and cookies.  The Internet lacks anonymity because of your ISP (Internet Service Provider).  They have logs of everything you have accessed.  You also have a unique IP address that accessed sites store in their logs along with a listing of every page (and image) you access.  That is what gives the Internet its lack of anonymity, not cookies.

The authors correctly point out that the Internet is predominately centered around typography.  Since Christianity is a religion of the Word, they argue, it only makes sense for Christians to latch on to this medium.  However, the authors fail to realize (or at least fail to write about) why the Internet has been largely text-based: bandwidth limitations.  More and more households are getting broadband, and as this happens, the Internet will become based less on text and more on imagery.  We have already seen this effect through widespread use of Flash animations/videos, but it will only get worse.  The Internet will become the new TV, only with more interactivity. CNN has recently provided free live streaming video through their website.  This trend will continue, and people will end up watching TV (or something similar) through the Internet.

Overall, I think Christians in a .com World is a good book that Christians interested in technology should read.  The historical overview is worth the price of the book by itself.  However, if you are looking to know how to “get connected without being consumed” you will have to either draw your own conclusions or look to a different book.

Introduction

Love.  It is one of the most complicated, yet most desired virtues—it is what every human heart longs for.  Is that not why the most devastating thing a parent could say to his child is “I do not love you”?  Or a spouse telling the other “I hate you”?  It is also why the love of God is one of the most amazingly precious truths—it is answer to our dominant longing.  Without love, life seems meaningless.

Love is usually associated with the marital relationship between a man and woman.  Historically, the common way to peruse marriage has been courtship and betrothal.  Around the time automobiles were mass-produced dating began to replace courtship.  New freedom was given to teenagers—namely, four motorized wheels and a backseat.  Before the automobile, spending time with your lover without your family was rare.  Nowadays, it is rare to spend time with your lover together with family.  Because of this, a wave of unprecedented sexual freedom (that is actually bondage) has swept in that has not been seen since pagan times.

The Internet appeared around a century after the automobile.  We (or at least some of us) are currently watching how the Internet is shaping culture.  No technology is neutral, and all technologies affect culture for the better and for the worse.  We are constantly reminded what benefits modern technology bring; yet we ponder little what it will destroy.

With the dawning of the Internet came immense globalization.  Instantly you could chat with someone in Hong Kong for the same price as someone next door.  The potential advantages for communication and growth seemed endless.

It was only a matter of time before “personal ads” would move to the Internet.  Since it is by nature a more interactive and global medium than newspapers, it was destined to be popular.  Perhaps there isn’t anyone compatible with you in your city, but maybe there is in another state or country.  Or at least that is how the thinking goes.

When I looked for articles assessing the negatives of online dating, I found very little.  In fact, I found only one article, and it was hardly what one could consider negative.  Now, I am sure there are articles available somewhere, but the point is that I could not find them easily and that means neither could someone wanting reasons why online dating could be personally and socially dangerous.  Therefore, I have decided to make my own small case against the current practice of online dating.

Online dating seems like the perfect solution to humanity’s love problems.  A popular idea is that people can’t get along because they don’t have enough in common or do not “match” up.  We supposedly know this because couples lose interest in one another, or as many put it, “fall out of love.”  The solution, then, make sure you are compatible before you begin dating.  Surely that will make the relationship more “lovely.”

So online dating services take a survey of the applicant’s likes and dislikes, what color hair and eyes they have, what kind of music they listen to, etc. ad nausem and then shows them a list of matches.

The Perceived Benefits

From what I can gather, there are three main perceived benefits of online dating.

• You can find the person that you have dreamed about, since you can find out everything about them before you even decide to email them.
• Location is not an issue anymore.  You used to be limited to the few people in your city, now you only limited by those with an Internet connection.
• You can get to know someone without the commitment of actually getting together.

The Problems

Anyone can see how the perceived advantages could be tempting.  Who doesn’t want to find Mr. or Mrs. Right?  However, I believe there are far more problems with online dating then there are advantages.

• Unparalleled Frankness.  When you read all these self-revealed facts about someone you don’t know, you can “hit it right off” because you already know a wealth of information about them.  Yet that information also creates a pseudo-intimacy that leads to unhealthy and premature frankness.  Add to this the removal of personal intimacy through the medium of text and you have one bold man and woman.  They will say things to each other that people in a real relationship could not say for months, if not years.  You know what I mean if you have been involved (or know someone) involved in an “Internet-based” relationship.
• Extreme Dishonesty.  It is estimated that 1/5 of online daters are married men.  You never know who you are really talking to—even what gender or “sexual orientation” they are—until you meet them and see them for who they really are.  And by that time, it may be too late.
• Knowing only a façade.  Even if a person is being more honest than dishonest, they usually put their best foot forward when talking about themselves.  But online you can be an entirely different person.  People create multiple online personas.  It is the ultimate place of being whoever you want to be.
• Turns love into shopping.  It is one thing to shop around for the best price on a car, but it is a whole other thing to shop around for a date by pre-defined answers.  “Hmm, let’s see, I’d like a girl with brown hair, blue eyes, 5’9’, 120lbs, smart, and funny.” (Of course, thousands of matches would probably come up, since people seem to find ways of exaggerating these qualities.)
• Let’s men be wimps.  Let’s be honest here.  It takes “guts” to ask a girl out on a date.  Let’s continue to be honest.  It takes none to email some girl you’ve never met.  If there is an easy way out, most wimps will take it.  Consider the middle school way of asking someone out: “Uh, hi my name is Scott and my friend Johnny over there—yeah, the one with buck teeth and pimples—he wanted me to ask you if—hey, come back!”  Real men don’t hide behind friends or email.
• Profiles based on what the person thinks of themselves, not what you think of them. Even if a person is being more honest than dishonest, they usually put their best foot forward when talking about themselves.  But online you can be an entirely different person.  People create multiple online personas.  It is the ultimate place of being whoever you want to be.

  When you look at someone’s “profile” or “autobiography,” you are basing your “match” on what that person thinks of himself.  So, even though one girl might say “I am a vivacious, intelligent, warm-hearted, attractive, cool chick, with a sharp, witty, and effervescent personality” you might say “She’s an airhead” after watching her with her friends for 30 seconds.  But you won’t know that until you finally decide to meet up somewhere, which could be weeks to years down the road.

• Removes support and accountability of family and friends.  Good relationships thrive best when nourished with support and accountability from friends and family.  Friends an2d family want what is best for you and can often see when something isn’t working out long before you can.  It is nearly impossible to have any accountability on the Internet—which is, of course, one reason why people love it.

Based on the above reasons, I cannot in good conscience recommend online dating to anyone.  Are there exceptions?  Yes!  Marvelous exceptions where God has used online dating to bring people together who genuinely love one another.  But let us not look for truth in exceptions.  Let us look for truth through the normative experience of healthy relationships from the past and at the present.

Update 2/1/07: Scientific American has an article on “The Truth about Online Dating.”

[Note: All page citations are from John Adams by David McCullough]

Most people associate the fourth of July with fireworks and firecrackers and grilling.  Most know it is called “Independence Day.” Most think the Declaration of Independence was signed on that day.  It wasn’t.

Did you know that the key date resulting in independence with Britain was not July 4, 1776 but rather Wednesday, May 15, 1776?  On that day

the preamble was approved.  When an exasperated James Duane [who was against the preamble] told Adams it seemed “a machine for the fabrication of independence,” Adams replied that he thought it “independence itself.”  [Adams] was elated.  Congress, he wrote, had that day “passed the most important resolution that was ever taken in America.”

Others agreed.  Even “the cool considerate man thinks it amounts to a declaration of independence,” wrote Caesar Rodney enthusiastically. (p. 109)

A little less than a month after, on Monday, June 10, Congress was scheduled to have an official vote regarding the independence of America.

Rutledge… succeeded in having the final vote delayed for twenty days, until July 1, to allow delegates from the middle colonies time to send for new instructions [on how to vote].  Nonetheless, it was agreed that no time be lost in preparing a declaration of independence.  A committee was appointed, the Committee of Five, as it became known, consisting of [Thomas] Jefferson, [John] Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin… (pp. 118-9)

It was decided that Thomas Jefferson would draft the declaration.

[Jefferson] had none of his books with him, nor needed any, he later claimed.  It was not his objective to be original, he would explain, only “to place before mankind the common sense of the subject”…. He borrowed readily from his own previous writing, particularly from a recent draft for a new Virginia constitution, but also from a declaration of rights for Virginia….

But then [George] Mason, [James] Wilson, and John Adams, no less than Jefferson, were, as they all appreciated, drawing on long familiarity with the seminal works of the English and Scottish writings John Locke, David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and Henry St. John Bolingbroke, or such English poets as Defoe[:]

When kings the sword of justice first lay down,
They are no kings, though they possess the crown.
Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things,
The good of subjects is the end of kings.

Or, for that matter, Cicero.  (“The people’s good is the highest law.”) (pp. 120-21)

Congress met for the fateful final decision on Monday, July 1, 1776.

Richard Henry Lee’s prior motion calling for independence was again read aloud; the Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole and “resumed consideration.”  Immediately, Dickinson, gaunt and deathly pale, stood to be heard.  With marked earnestness, he marshaled all past argument against “premature” separation from Britain…. To proceed now with a declaration of independence, he said, would be “to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper”….

[John Adams rose to speak.]  He wished now as never in his life, Adams began, that he had the gifts of the ancient orators of Greece and Rome, for he was certain none of them ever had before him a question of greater importance….

No transcription was made, no notes were kept.  There would be only Adams’s own recollections, plus those of several others who would remember more the force of Adams himself than any particular thing he said.  That this was the most powerful and important speech held in Congress since it first convened, and the greatest speech of Adam’s life, there is no question.

To Jefferson, Adams was “not graceful nor elegant, nor remarkably fluent,” but he spoke “with a power of thought and expression that moved us from our seats.”  Recalling the moment long afterward, Adams would say he had been carried out of himself, “‘carried out in the spirit,’ as enthusiastic preachers sometimes express themselves.”  To Richard Stockton, one of the delegates from New Jersey, Adams was “the Atlas” of the hour, “the man to whom the country is most indebted for the great measure of independency…. He it was who sustained the debate, and by the force of his reasoning demonstrated not only the justice, but the expediency of the measure.” (pp. 126-127)

The debate lasted nine long hours.

At one point, according to Adams, Hewes of North Carolina, who had long opposed separation from Britain, “started suddenly upright, and lifting up both his hands to Heaven, as if he had been in a trance, cried out, ‘It is done! and I will abide by it.’” (p. 128)

But when a preliminary vote was taken some of the colonies unexpectantly held back.  Some delegates were divided and some were missing.  The final vote would be postponed until the next day.  “To compound the tension that night, word reached Philadelphia of the sighting off New York of a hundred British ships, the first arrivals of a fleet that would number over four hundred” (p. 129).

The next day on July 2, Congress met again.  Ceasar Rodney, a missing delegate from Delaware, “had [almost unimaginably] ridden eighty miles through the night, changing horses several times, to be there in time to cast his vote” (p. 129).  Two of the opposing delegates for Pennsylvania did not show up so that the Pennsylvania vote would be swung towards independence.

New York continued to abstain, but South Carolina, as hinted by Edward Rutledge, joined the majority to make the decision unanimous in the sense that no colony stood opposed…

So, it was done, the break was made, in words at least: on July 2, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American colonies declared independence.  If not all thirteen clocks had struck as one, twelve had, and with the other silent, the effect was the same.

It was John Adams, more than anyone, who had made it happen. Further, he seems to have understood more clearly than any what a momentous day it was and in the privacy of two long letters to [his wife] Abigail, he poured out his feelings as did no one else:

The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more….

That the hand of God was involved in the birth of the new nation he had no doubt.  “It is the will of heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever.”  If the people now were to have “unbounded power,” and as the people were quite as capable of corruption as “the great,” and thus high risks were involved, he would submit all his hopes and fears to an overruling providence, “in which unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.” (pp. 128-9)

Yet things were still not completed.  The Declaration had to be edited and a final vote be taken.  It all went very smoothly—the votes were the same as on July 2.

Congress ordered that the document be authenticated and printed.  But it would be another month before the engrossed copy was signed by the delegates.  For now, only the President, John Hancock, and the Secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, fixed their signatures.

With the passage of the Declaration of Independence thus completed, and having thereby renounced allegiance to the King and proclaimed the birth of a new United States of America, the Congress proceeded directly to other business.  Indeed, to all appearances, nothing happened in Congress on July 4, 1776.  Adams, who had responded with such depth of feeling to the events of July 2, recorded not a word of July 4.  Of Jefferson’s day, it is known only that he took time off to shop for ladies’ gloves and a new thermometer…

But by the following morning, the fifth, printer John Dunlap had broadside editions available and the delegates were busy sending copies to friends.  On July 6, the Pennsylvania Evening Post carried the full text on its first page.

The great day of celebration came Monday, July 8, at noon in the State House Yard, when the Declaration was read aloud before an exuberant crowd… Bells rang though the day and into the night.  There were bonfires at street corners.  Houses were illuminated with candles in their windows.  In the Supreme Court Room at the State House, as planned, a half dozen Philadelphians chosen for the honor took the King’s Arms down from the wall and carried it off to be thrown on top of a huge fire and consumed in an instant, the blaze lighting the scene for blocks around…. As in Philadelphia, drums rolled, bonfires burned, prayers were said, and toasts raised in town after town, North and South.  When the news finally reached Savannah, Georgia, in August, it set off a day-long celebration during which the Declaration was read four times in four different public places and the largest crowed in the history of the province gathered for a mock burial of King George III….

The actual signing of the document would not take place until Friday, August 2, after a fair copy had been elegantly engrossed on a single, giant sheet of parchment… Nothing was reported of the historic event.  To judge by what was in the newspapers and the correspondence of the delegates, the signing never took place.

In years later, Jefferson would entertain guests at Monticello with descriptions of black flies that so tormented the delegates, biting through their silk hose, that they had hurried the signing along as swiftly as possible.  But at the time Jefferson wrote nothing of the occasion, nor did John Adams.  In old age, trying to reconstruct events of that crowded summer, both men would stubbornly and incorrectly insist that the signing took place July 4….

The fact that a signed document now existed, as well as the names of the signatories, was kept a secret for the time being, as all were acutely aware that by taking up the pen and writing their names, they had committed treason, a point of considerably greater immediacy now, with the British army so near at hand….

The most encouraging results of the decision for independence was its almost immediate effect on “spirit,” within Congress and among the people, but also among the rank-and-file militia….

Even those in Congress who had been so ardently opposed, now, by word or deed, committed themselves to the “Glorious Revolution.” Robert Morris continued in his duties without pause, working as strenuously as anyone.  “I think an individual that declines the service of his country because its councils are not comfortable to his ideas makes him a bad subject,” he wrote, still unable to see himself as other than a “subject.”  John Dickinson, though ill and exhausted from the strain of the past weeks, departed at the head of the first troops to march out of the city to join in the defense of New Jersey, a scene that made a deep impression on many, including John Adams.  “Mr. Dickinson’s alacrity and spirit,” he told Abigail, “certainly becomes his character and sets a fine example.” (pp. 136-9)

So for this Independence Day, I encourage everyone to remember our heritage, read our documents, and serve this country even if its decisions are not your decisions.  It is one amazing country.

Suggestions for Independence Day readings:

• The Declaration of Independence [free online]
• The Constitution of the United States [free online]
• The Articles of Confederation [free online]
• The Judiciary Act [free online]
• The Bill of Rights [free online]
• John Adams by David McCullough
• 1776 by David McCullough
• The Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History, Ed. By Michael Kammen