Hope you and A are well.

As a Christian, I think that we have to keep two things in tension: our calling to use the natural world to meet our needs, and the calling to recognize that the natural order belongs to its creator. In my entry I meant to suggest that good creations like the internal combustion engine have also carried with them negative results, largely unintended by their creators. Having a car is not wrong, certainly. However, we have to recognize that driving alters our perception of distances, speed, and the community in which we live. I often walk down Hwy 54 in Chapel Hill, and when I do I find myself thinking what a crappy stretch of road it is between Glen Lennox Apartments and Meadowmont. This is not because there are no trees, or birds, or grass, rather it is the incessant drone of engines that ruins it.

The wrong thinking that I had in mind is the type of thinking I often engage in that elevates convenience or speed above participation in the community. Every time that I choose to walk from ponit A to B I am glad that I did. However, more often than not I drive. In so doing I abstract nature/natural world and make it something that I perceive from behind glass.

In fact, the very words I am using i.e., nature, natural world suggest the abstraction that has taken place. When I lived in England, nature was not something that we drove to see it was something of which we were a part in that from any place in our town, there were sidewalks and footpaths across fields, etc.

I think that the more alienated our society gets from itself the more attractive the pre-Christian myths will become. As Christians we ought not be comfortable with such a trend, especially given the fact that care of and identity with the natural order is fundamental to our Christian identity, especially as outlined in the book of beginnings, Genesis.

Hope this helps, N.

When you refer to “decades of wrong-thinking by Christians who have bought into the thought patterns and practices of the industrial revolution,” to which thought patterns and practices are you referring?

N

The quote of the night, which summed up why I can’t take Ehrman seriously, was “miracles cannot be proven historically.” Close behind was “the Gospel of Mark does not portray Jesus as God.” You’re exactly right that his take is quintessentially modern, and I’d say it’s an endless overreaction against the flaws of literalism that he rightly points out.

I thought Hays did an excellent job of articulating a faithful Christian way of approaching modern scholarship.

I just discovered that you have a blog (via Matt & E’s, via Steve and Laura’s, via Emily), and just popped by to say “hi.”

Hi.