A new Posting at Rom Phra Khun Reviews

At the end of August, conservative and evangelical pastors and lay leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) met in Minneapolis in the wake of our denomination's decision to make possible the ordination of homosexuals to the offices of the church.  I have just posted a review of reports coming out of Minneapolis on my "other blog," Rom Phra Khun Reviews (here).  You might want to check it out.

Jerry's Wisdom

I hear what you're saying, but I trust what you do.

Coach Jerry Kill

Minnesota Golden Gophers

quoted (here)

Optimism Creep

Minnesota head football coach Jerry Kill

Minnesota Gophers' new coach, Jerry Kill, has taken Minnesota by storm.  Formerly at Northern Illinois and other smaller schools, his appointment as the next head coach at the U of M was initially received with something amounting to derision.  But Coach Kill is a down-to-earth, straight shooter who talks a good line by not talking a good line.  The Gophers haven't been much to talk about for five decades, and now everybody and their brother is expecting that to change—maybe not this year, but surely by next year.  The sports media in Minnesota is rife with optimism.  People are excited about the Gophers.  OK.

But, hold on—there's this thing called "optimism creep,"  a term I recently came across in an article (here).   The article describes how every year Washington Redskins fans get pumped up with what turns out to be an unwarranted, false optimism. The closer they get to opening day the more the optimism grows—of its own volition.  Then comes the actual season and, wham, reality returns.  That's optimism creep.


They know about optimism creep all too well in my home state of Minnesota.  Every April the Twins are going to win the World Series "this year."  Every September the Vikings are headed to the Super Bowl "this year."  Last fall, 2010, the men's basketball Gophers were sure to make it deep into the Big Dance "this year."  Optimism was in the air, as it often is in Minnesota before each season starts.  The results are invariably anything from mildly disappointing to disastrous—year in, year out, decade following decade.

So, now it's Saturday, Sept. 3rd, 2011.  The new season begins with a coach who has a record for transforming poor teams into good ones.  The Gophers' opponent, USC, is ranked 25th in the nation.  Minnesota is abuzz.  Everyone knows this year will be a tough one, but still they hope and now believe that Gophers' football has "entered a new era."  Well, maybe.  Or is it just our old friend optimism creep?  The hope that springs eternal says, 'no, but didn't I read somewhere that they're working on a new breed of pigs that fly?  Oh well, Go Gophers!

Recommended

Windmills of Lewis County

This coming Monday, Sept. 5th, I'm going to start a long series of postings on the subject of "the church," which will take up most of this month.  Partly, I want to give the science & religion theme a rest for awhile, partly do some postings of more immediate relevance to First Presbyterian Church, Lowville, and partly spend less time trolling the Web (for awhile).  In the meantime, here's a couple of items I have come across that might be of interest to some Rom Phra Khun readers:

The first item has to do with idolatry, one of the minor themes I've been playing with here.  It is by David Novak and is entitled, "Idolatry: the Root of All Evil," posted in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website's section on religion and ethics.   Novak focuses on the American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, who used the biblical notion of idolatry to describe the deadly, evil ideologies rampant in the 1930s and 1940s.  It's a good article.

Also worth reading is Jeffry Small's article on the Huffington Post website entitled, "The Common Ground Between Science and Religion."  Small describes the way in which commentators tend to be polarized regarding the relationship of religion and science and to overstate the one over the other.  Science, he observes, is good at explaining how things work but doesn't do as well on what life means.  He concludes,

"Atheist critiques of religion, like those from Oxford Biologist Richard Dawkins and Cambridge Physicist Stephen Hawking, are only valid in that they disprove a certain antiquated image of God -- the grandfather in the sky who created the universe like a potter or a watchmaker might and who governs it like a cosmic chess master. If we allow our religions to evolve, we might find that science and religion can complement each other: each may open a different window into reality, just as art and science do."

The article is a good short inquiry into the conflicted question of science and religion.

That's the couple of articles.  Here's one other thing I came across in the last day or so that has nothing to do with anything except it piques my interest as somebody who once was a practicing historian.  The Aussies have turned up the skeletal remains of one of their great folk heroes, the outlaw Ned Kelly—without his skull.  Besides the fact that it is interesting, the main reason for the clip below is that I've just figured out how to link directly to videos on line (as you will have noticed yesterday) and want to do it again—for fun.  So, here's Ned Kelly.  Enjoy.

The Point of Christianity

The point of Christianity is to make possible a relationship with a divine Other, a relationship deepening through worship and prayer.  Christianty does not seek to offer a competing explanation to scientific theories in accounting for facts about the universe and life.

Mikael Stenmark
How to Relate Science and Religion (2004)

The Future of Entertainment?

Maybe it's just a fad, but maybe not.  Hatsune Miku, the Japanese singing sensation who has performed on stage in Los Angeles, is a hologram that uses the synthesized voice of a real singer.  She has her own fan club and has become a genuine star in Japan.  At least one commentator (here) thinks that Hatsune Miku will revolutionize the music industry as well as the international pop music culture.  Another describes (here) as "a singing, digital avatar."  She can be bought by anyone and then programmed to sing whatever song one chooses.  Her music can't be copyrighted.  And evidently she is all the rage not only in Japan but also in Europe, especially France.

If this sort of thing does take hold, as does seem more than possible, why stop with singers?  Why not newscasters, professors, and even preachers?  In the not too distant future, pastors might not preach themselves but, instead, program a spiffy, exciting, challenging, bring the house down avatar instead.  Small churches would be able to receive just as good a preaching as the megachurches.  Who knows what the future holds?  But do take note of the reaction of the young American crowd in the video clip and the skill of the performer.  She blurs the boundary between animation and reality, no question.  (When I linked to this YouTube video clip it had well over 8,700,000 hits.  That's popular!).

JX 594: A Name to Remember

Medical researchers in Canada have completed an initial clinical trial of a bio-engineered virus, JX 594, which has the ability to replicate in and potentially destroy cancer cells anywhere in a patient's body, not just where the cancer is known to be.  In a group of 23 test patients with various stages of cancer, JX 594 proved that it could replicate inside of cancer cells while leaving all other cells alone, and the patients suffered only mild colds as a side effect.  More trials have to follow, but this viral therapy may well revolutionize and simplify the treatment of cancer.  JX 594 can apparently be engineered to attack different kinds of cancer cells in a way tailor made for patients.  This is incredibly good news (reported here).

Things like cancer, which causes untold amounts of human suffering and sadness in our world, remain one of the most difficult things to deal with theologically.  Why did God's good creation lead to things like this?  Suffering and sadness, however, seem to be related somehow to the divinely structured evolution of life on Earth.  We know from personal experiences that pain and loss can have beneficial affects.  We grow, we learn, and sometimes we find deeper spiritual life through such things.  Why it has to be this way, we don't know.

If, however, we are going to "blame God" for all of this suffering and sadness, then it is also only fair to understand that God also created (and continues to create) us with the potential for medicine—for being increasingly able to reduce suffering and bring relief to those in pain.  Evidently (or, better, evidentially), the capacity to overcome diseases is engineered in us as a potential we are more and more realizing.  And when we also realize that nature itself provides the basis of many medical treatments including many herbs and plants—well, if we're going to blame God for allowing the suffering, it is only fair that we praise God for graciously engineering in us and our world answers to our suffering.

The God who built grief into us has also built joy, and there seems to be a connection between them that we don't understand very well at all.  It's worth wondering, however, if our joy would be so deep, so meaningful if we had never known grief.  Are not joy and sadness partners in the dance of life, together drawing us to a deeper place within ourselves?  Is that place not wisdom, which remains one of our most precious human gifts?  This is not to say that we should not seek to conquer cancer with things like JX 594, but rather to say that in doing so we are heading in the direction set us for us from the beginning—the peaceable Kingdom of God.  Amen.

Owning Bad TV

Watching a bad TV program, we become the TV program.  We are what we feel and perceive.  If we are angry, we are the anger.  If we are in love, we are love.  If we look at a snow-covered mountain peak, we are the mountain.  We can be anything we want, so why do we open our windows to bad TV programs made by sensationalist producers in search of easy money, programs that make our hearts pound, our fists tighten, and leave us exhausted?

Thich Nhat Hanh,

Vietnamese Buddhist monk

Peace in Every Step, page 13

Karen Armstrong Interview

While looking into the "Charter for Compassion," I came across this informative interview (here) with Karen Armstrong , the religious writer who initiated the charter.  It is 25 minutes in length and well worth the viewing.  She discusses her background, faith journey, and thoughts on contemporary religion including the relationship of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to each other.  You might want to check it out.

Roll Cloud Over Racine

NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" often features amazing pics.  Today's is of something I never heard of, a "roll cloud," this one seen over Racine, Wisconsin, in 2007.  For the explanation of what a roll cloud is go to the picture of the day site (here) for August 31, 2011.  To see earlier roll clouds featured as pictures of the day, go (here).  Enjoy!