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Friday, November 04, 2005
Alright, all of you education types. Just remember, no matter how difficult teaching is, it could be worse. You could have had this essay turned in by one of your students. Then you would have been left with a terrible dilemma: do I give young Jeremy Lavine from period 3 an A because I laughed myself stupid, or do I give him an F for turning in a ridiculous paper that was mostly made up out of his brain. I, of course, would give him an A+, evidencing once and for all that I don't belong in the public schools. 
Posted at 01:48 pm by timkjohnson
 | | | Laurie
December 2, 2005 03:48 PM PST
Hope I'm posting my comment in the right place--the kid is brilliant! Read Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man," he would have given Jeremy an A too. | |
| | | timmer
November 11, 2005 08:19 AM PST
Let me just say upfront that I disdain proof-texting. I'm not *that* kind of Christian. So let me go with a more story perspective first--I think that's what you'd perfer (let me make a third request here for you to use something other than "name" for me to refer to you. It doesn't have to be a real name...this just feels so impersonal).
I agree with Aaron that the testimony of scripture is sort of an "already/not yet" kind of salvation. As a defense of the noun...I have found 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 to be helpful on this issue. Paul makes a distinction there between old/new, reconciled and unreconciled. I think it seems to imply some sort of starting point, the point at which I stopped being old and began to move toward "newness." I think that's the heart of reconciliation--to begin to face that which you had your back toward. I think Paul's message here is not that God has his back to us, but that our backs are to God.
As far as the verb goes, I would go to Philippians 2 where the same Paul tells us to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling..." It's a paradox to be sure, but one that I think IS EVIDENT in the Biblical text.
The dangers--which I think you are getting at--is when people err to much on the noun side, disdaining all else as a "works salvation gospel." In my opinion, this is "cheap grace," as Bonhoeffer put it. It's lazy Christianity, and a bad example to the world of what Christ came to do.
I think there is equal danger in seeing it is all verb. This puts all the emphasis on human action rather than God's reconciliation. I've thought a lot about this issue (believe it or not, this one woke me up in the middle of the night last night multiple times!). I appreciate having it called in to question. I would thank you for your probing questions...but I still don't have anything to call you... | |
| | | Name
November 9, 2005 09:14 PM PST
Aaron, if I may quote you, I think you have spoken well in isolating what this discussion centers around... I hope I am not pulling you out of context when I quote you here. I am not pulling your quote to critisize it, I use it because I think this might be where the root disagreement may arise.
"we either believe, allowing transformation to happen and THEN follow the best we can, or we reject the message of the new dance that we have been presented with. We either submit to his direction, or we do not."
I this is where the question of what is a Christian center upon.
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| | | Name
November 9, 2005 08:30 PM PST
Timmer, I agree with your critisism of Christian being an adjective in that sense. A guy I know once called that junk (ie cross shaped I-pods) Christian-porn becuase it replaces the true bueaty of God with some shallow material crap that that is ultimatly unsatifying.
Timmer and Aaron,
I am interested in hearing a defense of the noun.
I think it is important because by questioning the noun, we call into question the idea that salvation is an indivualy oriented "in" or "out" deal.
If Christian is a noun (ie an object), then logically one may speak of a point in time "when one became that particular noun". Hence on "is" or "is not". There are massive biblical and philosophical problems with this.
This is why I like the ballete. It removes the point of conversion and replaces it with a situation where all participants are in process. I think this has stronger biblical case than the point in time conversion.
What is our reasoning for believing in the saved/unsaved dualism?
When we let go of that paradigm the Bible actually brings us more challenge to always be in process of being transformed into the salvation relealed in Christ.
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| | | Aaron
November 9, 2005 10:49 AM PST
Okay. Time to join the fray. The whole grammar discussion is a quite interesting process at a discussion that has been going on for quite some time. I think Tim is on to something here about the word "Christian" being a both/and word. It IS both a label (noun) and communicates real meaning (verb) in taking the abstract and applying it to the concrete.
While the ballet analogy might have a good resonance at a few points, there are quite a few, to me, unsettling trajectories of conclusions. The most troubling conclusion comes from the final paragraph. The "director" is not simply a model to follow as a clear example of the vision of the director; it is that, or course, but not simply that (and I'll fill that out in a second.) Rather, the director plants himself on the stage to implement a NEW dance we are all to follow. Finally putting down the dance of the old imposter. The old dance in which everyone was moving anticipated, and perhaps, completed its run upon the arrival of the director. Now it is up to those he taught the new dance to go out and form others in the new dance of the director. So Name is correct, its not dancers and non-dancers, but dancers who know, live and follow THE dance, believing that the one who said he was the director is in fact the director and those who either don’t know or refuse to follow the dance implemented by the director. Furthermore, the director isn’t some stand-offish entity who simply directs, but a director who continually, repeatedly, jumps on stage to call, correct, teach and shape dancers according to HIS vision.
My fear in Name’s perspective is that what Name suggests sounds an awful lot like Medieval pietism and the “exemplar theory of atonement.” That Christ was simply an example, perhaps even the BEST example to follow. But my friends, this is not enough. Christ was MORE than an example to follow. He redeems and recreates after his own vision. And we either believe, allowing transformation to happen and THEN follow the best we can, or we reject the message of the new dance that we have been presented with. We either submit to his direction, or we do not.
The real question is not ARE they dancing together in the rhythm, movement, and style that the director wants; the real question is do they believe that the director was who he said he was, and therefore submit to his direction and leading. If they have, then the rhythm, movement etc will slowly, gradually, come together with much help from the director himself as well as others who know the director and dance. We just need to be gracious to those who are learning and help teach when we’re needed as teachers, and allow ourselves to learn when we’re next to someone who might be further down the learning curve than we are.
So is conversion a process? Yes and no. Does conversion take a lifetime to “get down?” Absolutely! Does conversion have a starting point? Assuredly! But let’s not tread the line too much and confuse conversion with a grace vs. works-righteousness discussion, which seems to be a borderline issue here.
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| | | timmer
November 9, 2005 08:43 AM PST
Matty--I have no idea who the teacher was, what the assignment was, or even what age group the kids was. I have to say though, that essay has perhaps unparalleled quotability...with the exception of Napolean Dynamite. You should check out that whole website--compfused.com. Lot's of funny stuff. | |
| | | timmer
November 9, 2005 08:37 AM PST
Ok, no name guy/girl...at least put a handle on your next post so I can call you *something.* Even the internet shouldn't be that impersonal :)
First, I love your allegory about the ballet--hopefully I can discuss that one a bit later. Let me put a thought out there about the whole noun/verb/adjective nature of the word Christian.
I am willing to concede that, in some senses, Christian should be conceived more as a verb than a noun...I think the testimony of scripture is that the verb is the outpouring/evidence of the noun. Does that make sense? The book of James does a great job explaining how the noun/verb interaction should look. I don't know if I would dismiss Christian as a noun completely.
I am actually vehemently opposed to the use of the word Christian as an adjective. I think those who use the word Christian in this way are guilty of promoting a materialistic subculture within Christian youth. This is how we get things like "testa-mints" and a ridiculous number of colored bracelets/bumper stickers/tee-shirts with clever but demeaning sayings on them. We have told these young people--"It's a Christian _________ so you should buy it.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in the music sold by "Christian" bookstores (there it is as an adjective--how do you honestly feel about these bookstores?) Again, the youth are told that they should buy the music because it is "Christian." I could go on for pages about how it is often low quality, cheesy and repeating the same cliches over and over, but I won't. That's a rant for another post.
All that to say--I'll give you Christian as a verb as long is it is not a verb independent of being a noun, but I would urge you to rethink the use of Christian as an adjective. | |
| | | mjonthemove
November 8, 2005 06:38 PM PST
Holler, on the education topic. While his piece has minimal grammar failures, he has no discernible thesis, body or conclusion. What was the assignment? Do you have a rubric for grading all of the assignments?
peace,
m.j. | |
| | | Name
November 8, 2005 01:55 PM PST
If the world is a ballet stage, and the creator set up the whole world as a ballet, it is not useful to speak of one person being a dancer and another as a non-dancer. By definition, in this creation, everyone is already created in the image of a dancer and they are performing in the ballet whether they want to or not. Every move they make is part of their dance on the stage, and it interacts with the other dancers on stage for whatever time that they are each put there.
The real question becomes, Are they dancing together in the rhythm, movement, and style that the director wants?
It is not an issue of needing to somehow convert people from non-dancers into dancers. It a matter of all the dancers on the stage getting better at moving together in the manner the director desires.
In this scenario; all are dancers, and all are imperfectly dancing.
Maybe some are getting better at the movement and example of the director who once came onto the stage in order to save the whole performance from utter decay, and some once were doing well and are now loosing the rhythm. Allright, enough on that, its time for me to dance my way over to the dentist's office. | |
| | | Name
November 8, 2005 01:50 PM PST
What if being a Christian is not an “in or out” thing? What if the world is not dualisticly divided between Christians and non-Christians?
What if "Christian" is not a noun but rather an adjective or an adverb?
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| | | timmer
November 8, 2005 10:29 AM PST
Good question, "captain anonymous." I'm actually gonna turn the question back on you (and any others reading this). What is conversion all about? Is it a process, or is it a point in time. Or is it both.
Perhaps the underlying question here is: What is a Christian? I'm fairly confident the answer to this question will help frame the answer to your question. What exactly are we "saved" from or into? I don't know that we can talk about conversion until we have answered this question. What do ya think? | |
| | | Name
November 8, 2005 12:15 AM PST
A Question on Coffee, Conversations, and Freud
Tim, I am struck by a theme that both these entries center around, While I too am greatful for the encouragement in stories of people who tell of dramatic spiritual transformation, I would like to toss out a question on this.
What if there is no story of how we came to Christ? At least not in the sense that we can speak of being "unsaved" and then "saved" in totality. Maybe alot of people have expiriances of intense transformation in a moment and some over a few years. But "conversion"? I guess I want to raise the question of what this word conversion means to us. Why do we believe in "conversion" as something that happens at a point in time? Someone recently asked me "when did you become a Christian"? I am starting to wonder if that question assumes a beliefe in black and white conversion that we ought to leave behind with other 18th century technology and inventions. Just curios what you think. | |
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