Birth control and abortion debates haven't always looked the way they do today

Here is a fascinating article about the history of birth control in the US. Apparently it used to be illegal to give out information on birth control- it was considered an obscenity. Birth control advocates got caught up in debates with eugenics advocates. Churches have sometimes promoted it, sometimes rejected it.

"I think a lot of [how issues like birth control and abortion became partisan] comes from moral posturing around this issue. I think we would do better if we could have these conversations outside of a partisan arena where there is far too much to gain by making these issues partisan," she says. "You can track over American history how much people have gained by staking out these partisan positions, and I think it's a real tragedy."

Why a Philosophy Job Search is Like Dating

In philosophy, when you've finished your dissertation (or are close to doing so), you get to go on the job market. I didn't actually expect this to be too stressful, because I don't mind doing applications and administrative kinds of things generally, and putting my dossier together hasn't actually been all that bad. Asking people for letters makes me uncomfortable, though promoting my research and teaching ability on paper doesn't bother me. What does end up being stressful is the way your whole mentality changes. An adviser once explained to me that thinking about the job search will take over all of your spare thoughts, to the point that it's what's on your mind when you're in the shower. And he was more or less right about how consuming it can get.

What I think is the hardest part of the job search, however, is how it's like dating: what you want is to find someone who appreciates you for who you really are, and a relationship you can start building for the long-term, knowing you belong.

What you get, instead, is a lot of impersonal ads that you scan, wondering whether you'd be compatible (Christian institution seeks associate professor of philosophy with interests in ethics and political philosophy to contribute meaningfully to school mission, enjoys deep conversation and long walks on the beach). Then you picture yourself at each school and write a letter trying to communicate your vision of how you could contribute to the department and institution (not really like using a pick-up line at all, except in that you have to start somewhere), and then you wait to see if anyone will give you a chance at a date. Since I'm still at the pick-up line stage, I don't really know how it goes after that, but I'm sure I'll give it some thought next time I shower.

Trying Not to Speak Christianese

This isn't a real post. It's mostly just me giving you a link to Addie Zierman's blog; she's creating an annotated glossary of Christianese, "How to Speak Evangelical." I'm enjoying it so far. My current series of posts has been about a bunch of Christian cliches connected to somewhat sketchy spiritual techniques- "Finding God's Will," "Giving God Control," "Not Splitting Head From Heart," and so on. Actually, I haven't written the post on the last one yet, but think about it- what kind of an odd phrase is that? It's Christianese- an example of language Christians (especially Evangelical Christians in America) use casually, but which can be pretty obtuse for someone who's not steeped in Christianity.

Actually, it's quite normal for people who associate over a specific, common cause or issue to develop some jargon. (I wasted some time last night exploring some of the WWF jargon on wikipedia, for instance.) But if part of the purpose of your association is to reach out and connect with others, then jargon isn't going to help. I've heard it said that "The Christian Church is the only organization on earth that exists soley for the purpose of those who are not yet members of it." (A quote from the late archbishop of Cantebury, Dr. Michael Ramsey, apparently.) So I'm liking Addie's blog, because I think Christians should be very careful about this sort of thing.

Why Your Motivations are Probably OK

This post continues my reflections on Philip Cary's book Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don't Have to Do. This week I'll talk about chapter 5, where Cary addresses the anxiety we face over whether our motivations are good enough.

In previous chapters, Cary emphasized becoming a wise steward who seeks to follow God's commands (where they're explicit) and discern what is good (where they're not). Now he moves on to address a couple specific sources of anxiety for the Christian who is trying to please God. Like previous practices that have been discussed, the attempt to have the right motivations is the result of sincere but unsound teaching. In short, motivations are important, but focusing on them leads us to miss what's most important.

Cary argues that we should be more concerned with the question of whether what we are doing is good than whether we have the right motivations. He describes a student who realized she needed to drop his course because she had too much on her plate, but was worried that her motivations were solely about grades and that dropping the course would amount to selfishness. This kind of deliberation, based on motivations rather than on what's good, leads into what he describes as an "endless inner labyrinth": we have many real, mixed motivations for what we do, and furthermore:

How (Not) to Find God's Will (or Give Him Control)

This post continues my reflections on Philip Cary's book Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don't Have to Do. This time I'll review chapters 3 and 4, where he talks about the ideas of giving God control and finding God's will.

I'd like to start by noting that both of these practices stem from the same basic insight, which is a good one: quite simply, we're all better off if we do things God's way. Cary isn't arguing that we're free to live however we  please instead of living to please God. Rather, he criticizes the practices of giving God control and finding God's will because they 1) involve a misunderstanding of our relationship to God, and 2) lead to something other than obedient lives that please God.

In the case of letting God take control, the basic misrepresentation of our situation in relation to God is that this practice makes it sound like we can wrest control from God in the first place. Think about it: if Satan and all the fallen angels cannot defeat God, isn't it a little silly to think that you can ruin his plans? To quote Cary,

God's Spirit and Revelation

Lest you think I'm neglecting my blog for frivolous reasons, I'm attempting to get a complete draft of my dissertation off to my committee by the end of this week. (If you get annoyed by sorry-I-didn't-blog/update posts, my apologies! I get annoyed by them too, if they show up too frequently. I don't expect finishing a dissertation to be a repeated event in my life, however.) In the meantime, here's what's on my mind this week (beside the dissertation, teaching, the job market, and my family and church, not necessarily in that order).

In his work Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas Aquinas makes the following comment:

...it was necessary for the real truth concerning divine things to be presented to men with fixed certainty by way of faith. Wholesome therefore is the arrangement of divine clemency, whereby things even that reason can investigate are commanded to be held on faith, so that all might easily be partakers of the knowledge of God, and that without doubt and error. Hence it is said: Now ye walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their own notions, having the understanding darkened (Eph.4;17, 18); and, I will make all thy sons taught of the Lord (Isa. 54:1, 5).

In context, Aquinas has been making the point that for all that philosophers have worked out some truths about God's existence and nature by reason alone, few people have the luxury of this kind of study, and it could never give us complete, certain results. God in his wisdom, however, has revealed himself and his purposes to us, and they are recorded in scripture.

One question I've gotten from several of my students when they read Aquinas' discussion special revelation is whether Aquinas recognizes a role for the Holy Spirit in guiding a believer's reading of scripture. I haven't studied Aquinas' material in-depth, but the review I have done doesn't seem to include this idea. Anyone know if it was present in the thought of the Protestant Reformers, or if it is a more recent idea?

Jesus says in Matthew 18:20 that when two or three gather in his name, he is with them, and I can see how you could extrapolate from that that God is present when believers study scripture together. In John 14:25-27 he promises that the Spirit will come and teach them all things/remind them of what Jesus has taught. Does this provide a scriptural basis for the idea that the Holy Spirit is a sort of scripture-study-buddy? 1 Corinthians 2: 12 shows that we are able to understand God's revelation because we have been given the spirit. Is this power to understand God and his will a general result of our sanctification, or a specific ongoing sort of prompting and dialogue with God's Spirit "in our hearts"? (Cary, remember, argues that it doesn't make sense to talk of the Spirit as a "voice in our hearts.")

Are there other scriptures that address this?

How (Not) to Hear God's Voice

This post continues my reflections on Philip Cary's book Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don't Have to Do, which I reviewed in the previous post. In particular, I'm interested in what Cary has to say in the first two chapters, where he talks about hearing God's voice and recognizing the difference between our own intuitions and the Holy Spirit.

Cary describes how a very honest student in one of his college classes was having trouble with the notion of revelation: it's so hard to tell if it's really the voice of God speaking in one's heart, the student explained, and if you can't tell it's God's voice, then how can God reveal anything?