Daily Archives: June 27, 2017

Writing at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher raises some concerns with evangelical use of the concept of Christian worldview. Working as I do ata Christian worldview ministry, and having recently met Rod at the Colson Centers Wilberforce Weekend conference, I found the piece especially relevant. He makes a number of suggestions and statements with which I disagree, but two in particular stood out.

First, Rod suspectsthat teaching students to break down the world in terms of worldviews creates a kind of intellectual arrogance and dismissiveness:

The problem with worldview education[]is that it closes off the possibility of wonder by providing a rigid ideological measuring stick for texts. Gibbs said it gives students unearned authority over a book. Hand them The Communist Manifesto, they open it up, say, Marxist!, then cast it aside. Hand them Thus Spake Zarathustra, they open it up, see Nietzsches name, say, Nihilist! and cast it aside.

Better, suggests Rod, to encounter a work on its own terms, without any preconceived notions about the validity or consequences of the philosophy it teaches. Oddly, though, he seems to see the problem with this approach.

Worldview instruction involves giving students spoilers as it were about communism or nihilism or Islam or atheism. Christian parents and teachers explain the gist of a worldview, and why it ultimately cant account for reality or meet the needs of the human soul like Christianity can. But if, in place of worldview instruction, we allowed students to encounter these worldviews more organically (one might say experience them as their original adherents did), we run into a big problem. Far from gaining intellectual humility, young readers are notoriously prone to an even worse sort of intellectual arrogancethe kind that so often attends undergraduate apostasies. Rod writes:

I remember encountering Nietzsche in a college philosophy course, one in which I had first been introduced to Kierkegaard. Meeting Kierkegaard was an important step on the road to my own religious conversion, but one of my classmates caught afire with the gospel of Nietzsche. He found God is dead to be liberating. Once that semester, he stood on a bench at Free Speech Alley, the weekly campus forum, held high his marked-up copy ofThe Portable Nietzschefrom our class, and proclaimed to the crowd: God is dead!

Rods description is dead-on. I have met these kids. Oh, have I met them. And there is something palpably ridiculous about the freshman philosophy student who reads the seminal texts of nihilism or Marxism or transcendentalism or utilitarianism, and thinks he has received a revelation from Mount Olympus that no Christian has ever encountered, and which will upend the simple worldviews of everyone back home. Voddie Bauchams describes this problem well:

There ought to be a rule: You should not be able to talk aboutphilosophy unless youve had more than a semester ofphilosophy. If you havent had any, thats fine. Talk away! But if youve had a semester, you are messed up. Youd be better off just not taking it at all.

Contra Rod, what I find most often gives students a sense of unearned authority isnt instruction about other worldviews (at least not if its done right), but the unshakable and nave belief that they are the first Christian young person to ever read Nietzsche (or more often Peter Enns or Bart Ehrman) and that there are no good answers to these mens attacks on their parents and neighbors faith. Indeed, very often, these students are precisely those who havenot received worldview instruction, have not seriously interacted with the claims of non-Christian thinkers, and have come to believe as a result thatnoChristian has seriously interacted with such claims.

One thing worldview instruction at its best does is create in middle and high school students an awareness that theyre not the first Christians to encounter alternative worldviews and challenges to their own, and that there are good answers to these claims. In other words, it fosters a kind of intellectual humility, and keeps freshmen from coming home for Christmas to beat their grandparents over the heads with class warfare or intersectionality or JEDP theory.

Yes, we should be willing to read the seminal texts of alternative worldviews deeply and carefully, understanding what makes them tick, and not fall prey to caricatures of those faiths and philosophies (which is what worldview instruction at its worst looks like). But to learn about a worldview is necessarily to form some kind of preconception about it, and specifically (when it comes to the worldviews behind some of the worst mass-murdering regimes of the last century) a kind of prejudice against them. Theres nothing at all wrong with that.

Continued here:

A Reply to Rod Dreher on Worldview - Patheos (blog)

WASHINGTON Much analysis of Yuval Hararis brilliant new book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow focuses on the harrowing dystopia he anticipates. In this vision, a small, geeky elite gains the ability to use biological and cyborg engineering to become something beyond human. It may upgrade itself step by step, merging with robots and computers in the process, until our descendants will look back and realize that they are no longer the kind of animal that wrote the Bible [or] built the Great Wall of China. This would necessarily involve the concentration of data, wealth and power, creating unprecedented social inequality.

In the early 21st century, argues Harari, the train of progress is again pulling out of the station and this will probably be the last train ever to leave the station called Homo sapiens.

Few of us Homo sapiens are anxious to take such a trip, apart from some dataists who pant for the apocalypse. But, as Harari repeatedly insists, the prophets job is really an impossible one. Someone living in the 12th century would know most of what the 13th century might have to offer. Given the pace of change in our time, the 22nd century is almost unimaginable.

Yet the predictions are not the most interesting bits of the book. It is important primarily for what it says about the present. For the last few hundred years, in Hararis telling, there has been a successful alliance between scientific thought and humanism a philosophy placing human feelings, happiness and choice at the center of the ethical universe. With the death of God and the denial of transcendent rules, some predicted social chaos and collapse. Instead, science and humanism (with an assist from capitalism) delivered unprecedented health and comfort. And now they promise immortality and bliss.

This progress has involved an implicit agreement, In exchange for power, says Harari, the modern deal expects us to give up meaning. Many (at least in the West) have been willing to choose antibiotics and flat-screen TVs over the mysticism and morality behind door No. 2.

It is Hararis thesis, however, that the alliance of science and humanism is breaking down, with the former consuming the latter. The reason is reductionism in various forms. Science, argues Harari, revealed humans as animals on the mental spectrum, then as biochemical processes, and now as outdated organic algorithms. We have opened up the Sapiens black box and discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor self but only genes, hormones and neurons.

This rather depressing argument is well presented, with a few caveats. Hararis breezy style is sometimes in tension with his utter nihilism. Here is a moral rule: You can either be cheery or you can describe the universe as an empty, echoing void where human beings have no inherent value. But you cant do both.

And Hararis treatment of religion is, charitably put, superficial. He seems to think that the absence of an immortal soul can be proved by dissection. Scientists have looked into every nook in our hearts and every cranny in our brains. But they have so far discovered no magic spark. For future reference, religious believers dont generally view the liver or the pineal gland as the seat of the soul. And when Harari claims that religion is no longer a source of creativity and makes little difference, it is tempting to shout Martin Luther King Jr. at your Kindle.

But Harari has one great virtue: intellectual honesty. Unlike some of the new atheists, he recognizes that science is incapable of providing values, including the humanistic values of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson. Even Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and the other champions of the new scientific worldview refuse to abandon liberalism, Harari observes. After dedicating hundreds of erudite pages to deconstructing the self and the freedom of will, they perform breathtaking intellectual somersaults that miraculously land them back in the 18th century.

Harari relentlessly follows the logic of reductionism as it sweeps away individualism, equality, justice, democracy and human rights even human imagination. Yes, God is a product of the human imagination, but human imagination in turn is the product of biochemical algorithms.

This is the paradox and trial of modernity. As humans reach for godhood, they are devaluing what is human. Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, Harari says, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness. A humane future will require someone to offer a bridge across the chasm.

More here:

Michael Gerson: A brave new world none of us can see - Chippewa Herald

Long Beach native Vince Staples released his new album, Big Fish Theory, on June 23. The album follows his critically acclaimed Summertime 06 project, released in 2015.

By Gage Miskimen

gage-miskimen@uiowa.edu

There are plenty of fish in the sea that is hip-hop, but none have quite the fins of Vince Staples.

Staples released his sophomore album, Big Fish Theory, last weekend, and the project has the potential to move him into the mainstream.

Big Fish Theory takes a look at rappers and hip-hop in general from outside the fishbowl; Staples has always been an observer and critic of all aspects of society. The project analyzes how rappers act and how hip-hops looming influence on todays culture while continuing the theme from his 2016 EP, Prima Donna. That opened with a star rapper (presumably Staples) killing himself, and the rest of the project talked about how the fame and fans pushed him to that point.

Suffering from fame seems to be a constant theme in Staples music nowadays. On track three of Big Fish Theory, Alyssas Interlude, Amy Winehouses voice can be heard, taken from a snippet of an interview: Im quite a self-destructing person, so I guess I keep giving myself material, she says. Staples has been vocal about Winehouses death and unhappy with how the public has treated her.

Big Fish Theorys sound is innovative in terms of hip-hop. Electronic house beats are mixed with Staples introspective and confident verses in a way thats never been done successfully before.

The album is sprinkled with guests who add something extra. Artists credited throughout the album include Bon Ivers Justin Vernon, Kendrick Lamar, Ray-J, ASAP Rocky, Ty Dolla Sign, Kilo Kish, and Juicy J.

Though the album is great as a whole, there are particular tracks that stand out. The Vernon-produced Crabs in a Bucket is the opening track, and it kicks off in high gear, only giving the listener a few seconds to get comfortable before the bass hits. Crabs in a Bucket refers to the if I cant have it, you cant either train of thought. Crabs in a bucket will fight and climb over each other to reach the top, but their behavior inevitably does more harm than good to themselves and those around them, and Staples is comparing the crabs to rappers and society in general.

745 is another highlight of Big Fish Theory. The lyrics have Staples, driving around the city in a BMW 745, venting about his relationships with women. Staples typical nihilism shines on this track. This thing called love real hard for me/This thing called love is a God to me/and we all just Gods property/So feel free to fulfill the prophecy.

He has always felt like an outsider to hip-hop until recently. He has a Sprite endorsement deal, and radio shows in bigger cities such as The Breakfast Club on 105.1 are eager to interview him because of his dry humor and straightforward opinions. In Pitchforks Over/Under series on YouTube, Staples rated random things the hosts said from KFC to Tom Cruise, who he thought was underrated because the mission was impossible, and he pulled it off three times.

All this exposure, on top of his talent as a rapper, has brought him to the forefront of hip-hop. Staples lyricism, flow, and consistency in putting out high-caliber projects from mixtapes to full-length albums land him in the running for greatest rapper alive among Kendrick Lamar and thats about it. But honestly, listen to Staples, and see what hes accomplishing in his music, and one might consider him the heir to the throne.

Gage Miskimen is the creative director of The Daily Iowan this summer. He will examine and critique new music released every week. Have any recommendations of your own? Email him at gagemiskimen@gmail.com.

Original post:

Misky's Music Recommendations: Vince Staples, *Big Fish Theory* - The Daily Iowan