Dear Reader,
It’s always fun hearing from you. Some emails received from readers in recent weeks, the first on the occasion of my 50th birthday last Friday:
“We are 50. Remember when we were the new kids on the block, the young pups, the in-the-know, culturally relevant GenXers who people turned to for advice on how to relate to the younger generation? And now you're someone's father-in-law. Well, welcome to the club. It's all in how you look at it. In 2020/21, we've got to consider ourselves lucky to be alive, healthy, employed, and living in a house with people we get along with.”
I can’t find much to disagree with there. Here’s some feedback on last week’s history essay:
“Congratulations on a wonderful, award-winning essay! While I've always been a lifelong suburbanite, sometimes I have a somewhat nostalgic picture in my brain of a small town in which I've never lived and a lifestyle that may or not really exist. I enjoyed your take on the notion of whether the county shapes the people or vice-versa.”
And here’s some constructive criticism from a few weeks back (I didn’t include it in last week’s issue with my history essay because, well, it was pretty long):
“I was looking forward to your return to Second Drafts. I only have one observation, and please accept this from the most verbose of writers (me): the posts are too long. I don't generally have enough time for them to hold my interest long enough to read the whole thing. Maybe it's starting with so much political chat, which actually (personally) turns me off. I know I need to pay more attention to all of the rhetoric on all sides of every discussion with political ramifications, but I (personally) have to take this medicine in very small doses. I love your honesty and your scholarship - the second of which is often lacking from my musings. I keep thinking ‘I'll read that later,’ and then all of a sudden, my inbox has a new edition.”
I appreciated this reader’s honesty. Yes, I know the newsletter is long, but I mean for it to be. It would be different if I were sending one of these every day or even twice a week, but as long as I’m able to create and compile enough good and varied content that readers can savor, I’m happy to put in the work that a longer newsletter requires. Perhaps other readers could let me know how they’re doing with the length? I’ll continue to give it some thought as well.
As always, thanks for reading.
Craig
PS: Though comments are turned off, you’re welcome and encouraged to email me directly with feedback, ideas, links, etc. at cmdunham [at] gmail [dot] com. Just know that, unless you specifically tell me not to, I may quote you here (though it will always be anonymously).
Hot Takes
I’ve purposely not been following much news this week, mostly because I’ve had other things to do and because I’m uninterested in the plight of Donald J. Trump and the Senate’s circus impeachment trial. Still, here are a few items that caught my eye:
On Thursday, Christianity Today published a follow-up piece (Ravi Zacharias Hid Hundreds of Pictures of Women, Abuse During Massages, and a Rape Allegation) to its September 2020 report (Ravi Zacharias’s Ministry Investigates Claims of Sexual Misconduct at Spas) on Ravi Zacharias. The new piece includes a 12-page report that confirms Zacharias, a well-known apologist for the Christian faith who died at 74 in May 2020, also happened to be quite a dirtbag.
“One woman told the investigators that ‘after he arranged for the ministry to provide her with financial support, he required sex from her.’ She called it rape. She said Zacharias ‘made her pray with him to thank God for the ‘opportunity’ they both received’ and, as with other victims, ‘called her his ‘reward’ for living a life of service to God,’ the report says. Zacharias warned the woman—a fellow believer—if she ever spoke out against him, she would be responsible for millions of souls lost when his reputation was damaged.’”
When you get into how the ministry was structured and who key board members and staff were (family), none of this should be surprising. What should be surprising is that these folks don’t seem to have the common sense to completely shut down the ministry whose namesake gave the Body of Christ such a black eye before he died.
“Even before the report’s release on Thursday evening, RZIM leadership had shifted to reduce the involvement of the Zacharias family. Margie Zacharias, Ravi’s widow, resigned from the board and the ministry in January, while her daughter Sarah Davis stepped down as board chair but remains CEO. Staff members inside RZIM say the ministry—the largest apologetics organization in the world—plans to dramatically downsize to as few as 10 US apologists and a few international speakers, supported by a small staff.”
It sounds strange, but sometimes it takes more courage to shut down something wrong than it does to continue something right. I hope there are people left in Zacharais’ ministry who know the difference and will be courageous…and soon.
And then there’s this headline and article in The Wall Street Journal:
Yes. Next question.
Becoming What We Behold
(and Where to Find the Good Stuff)
On Thursday, I had the opportunity to speak to about 60 students and staff as part of Montana Bible College’s chapel. The theme for first part of the semester has been “Becoming What We Behold,” and this was (more or less) my take on it.
Let me introduce you to my friend Shane McClaflin. Shane owns and operates Sunrise Pack Station, a trip outfitting service that goes into the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park for an adventure like no other.
Watch the first two minutes of Sunrise’s new video to learn how Shane fell into doing what’s he’s doing (don’t worry, you can and should watch the rest later):
Some quotes from the first two minutes:
“When I first met him at the trailhead, I was like in awe.”
“’Why are you here?’...I looked at Dick and I said, ‘I want your job. I want to learn to do what you do.’”
“This is what I want to do. This is where I want to go. I want to be like him in that I take people into the backcountry.”
“What Dick Clark did with me is help me understand what I was looking at.”
Shane’s story is powerful because it’s a real example of beholding something - or in this case, someone - he eventually became: an independent trail guide in Yellowstone National Park. I’ve been with him on one of his day trips and seen him in action; he loves what he does, and he does it very, very well. He cares for the people and animals in his care, and he has the utmost admiration and respect for God’s creation.
I share this video as a reminder that, if it’s true that we become what we behold, then what we behold should be of highest importance to us. Shane is a real-life example of someone who found someone virtuous and worthy of imitation, aspired to that person’s ideals and the work required to pursue them, and reaped the wisdom and benefits of having done so - not just for himself, but for the benefit of others.
We become what we behold. This is the way discipleship works. This is a good thing.
Becoming What We Behold
In his epistle to the Church in Philippi, the Apostle Paul wrote:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9 (ESV)
It’s tempting to read Paul’s prescriptive adjectives through the myopic lenses of perfection, as if they comprise an all-or-nothing list that we either should or shouldn’t observe. We hear Paul telling us to focus on those things that are only true, only honorable, only just, only pure, only lovely, only commendable, only excellent, and only worthy of praise, for (by implication) everything else is tainted and not worth our time.
This can be helpful to our discipleship in becoming more like Jesus…except when it isn’t. I would suggest this view is a narrow misreading of the passage, particularly when one considers the words the adjectives modify - whatever, any, and anything. Paul wasn’t trying to limit the vision of what the Philippians beheld; he was trying to provide categories in which to expand the vision to include all God was doing.
J.B. Lightfoot, in his St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, paraphrases Paul’s sentiment as, “Whatever value may reside in your old heathen conception of virtue,” in order to stress Paul’s concern not to omit any possible ground of appeal. Dr. Robert H. Mounce elaborates on Lightfoot’s thought, saying,
“Paul draws up a list of virtues which might well have come from the pen of a Greek moralist. Two of the eight do not occur elsewhere in the NT, and one occurs only here in Paul’s writings…They (the Philippian Christians) are ‘to take into account’ (logizomai; AV, “think on”) these virtues of pagan morality…in addition, they are to keep on practicing all the distinctively Christian ethics and morality they have learned from the apostle’s life and teaching.”
In other words, yes, only Jesus is only true, only honorable, only just, and only pure; only Jesus is only lovely, only commendable, only excellent, and only worthy of praise. But even so, Paul commands the early Christians to find the smallest examples of what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise in whatever, any, or anything they can find, and to think about and dwell on those things. This is not putting words in Paul’s mouth, but emphasizing what we normally don’t:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9
“Don’t limit yourselves to beholding only perfection,” Paul is saying; rather, look to behold any perfection in even the most imperfect of places and dwell on that reality.
18th century Presbyterian pastor Matthew Henry, writing in his commentary, says,
“The apostle would have the Christians learn anything which was good from their heathen neighbors…We should not be ashamed to learn any good thing from bad men. Virtue has its praise, and will have.” (p. 680)
Thus, the first part of my message is this: behold the good stuff - whatever, any, and anything we can - and let it play its part in our becoming what we behold.
The question this begs, of course, is, “What is the good stuff, and where can I find it?” Borrowing from the succinct listing within a new book, I offer six recommendations.
Where to Find the Good Stuff
In his just-released book (seriously, as in “just-released last week”), The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World, author Brett McCracken writes,
“From cradle to grave, we are formed by others. Contrary to what a ‘look within’ world would suggest, the world outside our heads defines our existence in ways we are foolish to ignore. Rather than seeing this as oppressive, or simply pretending (foolishly) this isn’t the case, we should accept this situation as a gift: truth comes, in large part, from outside ourselves. We can choose the sources of where we look for truth. We can choose how we synthesize truth and apply it as wisdom in everyday circumstances. But we don’t get to choose whether or not something is true. We don’t invent truth. We don’t determine it. We search it out and accept it with gratitude, even when it’s at odds with our feelings or preferences.” (p. 60-61)
McCracken then goes on to introduce the Wisdom Pyramid, a simple graphic (similar to the Food Pyramid from back in the day) made up of six different “sources of truth for a life of wisdom.” They are:
McCracken makes a few introductory observations of the graphic before digging in:
first, the Wisdom Pyramid is a visual aid to help us understand what sorts of knowledge categories are reliable sources of truth and conducive to wisdom;
second, in a Food Pyramid, each “food group” is important for a “balanced diet,” whereas in the Wisdom Pyramid, this isn’t necessarily the case - only the two bottom sections - the Bible and the Church - are absolutely essential;
third, from the bottom up, it goes from most enduring (the eternal Word) to most fleeting (the here-and-gone social media post); it goes from clearer and more reliable communication of truth at the bottom to less clear, less reliable sources at the top, where truth is possible but requires more discernment to find;
fourth, the width of each level, ranging from wider at bottom to more narrow at top, speaks to quantity of attention each should receive in relation to another;
finally, the inclusion of the elements in one pyramid implies they all go together.
Let me tell you a few stories from my own life to illustrate how these six sources were the real deal when it comes to Philippians 4:8-9, and therefore worth your time.
God’s Word
The Bible is the foundation of knowing anything about God. Though I had become a zealous Christian at the age of 14, Proverbs 19:2 described my groundless faith: “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.”
The Bible didn’t become important to me until I was a sophomore in college at the University of Missouri-Columbia. There, I met The Navigators, a worldwide Christian parachurch organization whose mission was “to know Christ and to make Him known.” Larry Glabe was the NavStaff who met with me once a week for two-and-a-half years of Bible study and Scripture memory, helping me learn and grow in Jesus.
Fifteen years later, those fundamental basics became the building blocks upon which I built a broader theological education at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. Here I saw the seeds of what I learned from Larry take deeper root and produce fuller fruit in the way I viewed and related to God, His Word, and His world. Seminary brought the pieces together for me.
Of all the disciplines concerning the Bible, the one that has most impacted me over the years has been Scripture memory. I was a Scripture memory monster in college, memorizing and maintaining as many as 5-8 new verses a week, and while my tenacity for Scripture memory has fallen by the wayside with age (or at least that’s my lame excuse), those verses learned thirty years ago have not; they are words fitly spoken by the Spirit of God, like apples of gold in a setting of silver, even today (Proverbs 25:11).
The Church
Next step up on the pyramid is the Church. Though I grew up in church, I thought little of it as more than a building rather than Christ’s body that He Himself said He would build. As a result of my low ecclesiastical view - of church, of the sacraments, of the weekly assembling of the saints - it wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I began to take church and my part in it seriously in the life of a believer.
The great thing about Christ’s Church is the number and variety of saints there are to behold. Believers from thousands of years ago as well those I saw just last week testify to the goodness of God and the lordship of Christ. We will never run out of examples of the virtues of what Paul calls us to in Philippians 2:8-9 when we consider those who have gone before us in the faith and those living their faith today.
In addition to stories of men and women in the Bible, thousands more are available by way of studying Church history. In addition, in our local and living congregations today, there are those whose stories of God’s faithfulness run parallel and sometimes even converge with our own across generations, ethnicities, and socioeconomic lines. There is no other place or body on earth quite like the Body of Christ.
Nature
As Shane’s story illustrates, God’s creation can be a powerful force - a siren, a muse, a comfort - in the life of a person. I’ve grown in this area, coming to value the outdoors more in the past fifteen years of my life than I had before. Hiking and camping are two of the few things I do in which I feel almost completely present with God in the moment, and there are few better places than Montana to be able to do that.
Perhaps nature’s most important function, at least according to McCracken, is that, “Nature makes us wise by reminding us of our creatureliness and grounding us in God’s design.” This humbles us like few things in our world do anymore. I think of this on a brisk February morning when there’s a high of -21 degrees forecast and how it would not take much apart from God’s protective hand for Montana to kill me.
But more than strike fear into our hearts, God’s creation inspires us, and not just with amazing views or pretty places. When we consider the biological world alone and how it all fits together in so many millions of different ways, we begin to get an inkling of the vastness of God that goes beyond our feeble imaginations. Indeed, with regard to God’s general revelation,
“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”
Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
What a privilege to be humbled - and yet still known! - by the God of the Heavens.
Books
In addition to building and exercising the basic discipline required to read, I love good books because they have been my friends, companions, and counselors over the years, resonating with my own experiences and taking me beyond them as well. Unlike the Scriptures, books (fiction and non-fiction) are not infallible sources of truth, but neither do we need to consider them a complete (or even a partial) waste of time.
Speaking to the sufficiency of the Scriptures (as well as to the fact that it’s not a sin to read additional books), the great Reformer Martin Luther once said, “One Book is enough, but a thousand books are not too many.” Yes, books are supplements to - not replacements for - the Scriptures, but that doesn’t mean good can’t come from books that aren’t in the Bible or written by authors who aren’t Christians. “All truth is God’s truth,” said Augustine, regardless of from where or whom it comes.
Recommending the benefit of new and old books alike, renowned scholar C.S. Lewis wrote, “It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.” I try to start a book (new or old) every 10 days or so and usually have three or four going at once. I don’t finish every book I read if I’m not enjoying it after 50 pages - life’s too short to read bad books.
Whether fiction or non-fiction, I annotate, turn down the corner of a page, transcribe, and sometimes even try to memorize particularly meaningful or beautiful lines and ideas. I also have a handful of select authors whose complete works I want to read to understand as fully as I can the breadth and depth of their observations of life.
Beauty
When I think of beauty, I inevitably think of culture. And when I think of culture, I inevitably think of the most beautiful music and painting and sculpture ever created. As McCracken writes,
“In its very nature - superfluous, unnecessary, abundant - beauty teaches us about our abundant God, whose love and grace are bountiful in ways that a Mozart piano concerto or a Monet water lily can uniquely convey. Beauty shapes our hearts, orients our loves, quiets our minds, and stills our souls in a noisy and weary world. It’s a profoundly important part of any wisdom diet.”
Beautiful things - songs, films, letters written in a stunning cursive - affect me. This is why I can’t help but cry while watching God act on behalf of Moses in The Prince of Egypt. An animated children’s movie, yes, but with the familiar Bible story retold accompanied by Hans Zimmer’s powerful musical themes, this work of art once caused me to weep like a baby as I watched with my unsuspecting daughters.
Beauty leads us to worship because it touches the deepest parts of us; it opens us up and makes us vulnerable to the God Whose image we bear, even as the fallen ruins that we are. When we see or hear or experience beautiful things, it reminds us of what we were designed to be, and by God’s redemption of us through Christ, it gives us hope for what we will one day be again.
Internet/Social Media
The top of McCracken’s Wisdom Pyramid is the smallest, signifying the least virtue and value available to us. Interestingly, we tend to invert things, starting our days by reaching for our phones instead of our Bibles, and working our way up (or is it down?) from there.
To be sure, there is value to the Internet and social media; they are amazing tools with many good and profitable uses. But they are not infallible sources of information or inspiration, for just as one has to be discerning about beauty, and books, so we must be even more so about the Internet and social media.
As silly as it sounds, when was the last time we prayed before going online to do whatever business we feel we need to do? I recently found a liturgy for such a thing - “A Liturgy for Those Flooded by Too Much Information” - written by Douglas McKelvey in his wonderful book, Every Moment Holy, and commend it (along with a more intentional approach to the World Wide Web) to you.
Conclusion
Again, as we’ve said, if it’s true that we become what we behold, then what we behold should be of highest importance to us. Who are we hanging out with? Who are we putting in our ears to listen to? Who are we bringing before our eyes to see? 1 Corinthians 15:33 is instructive for us:
“Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’”
In light of God’s love, Jesus’ example, and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, let us heed the call of Paul to find the good stuff - anywhere and everywhere! - and become more and more like what we behold in Jesus, who by the Spirit, is the perfect incarnation and representation of our one and only God the Father. Amen.
Post(erity): “The Lord Is Our Refuge”
Each week, I choose a post from the past that seems apropos of something (of course, you’re always welcome to search the archives yourself whenever you like).
This week’s selection - “The Lord Is Our Refuge” - dates back to June 22, 2014, when I was afforded the opportunity to speak at another chapel service, this time on a Sunday morning to the staff at Eagle Lake Camps in Colorado Springs, where Megan and I met and labored together for 12 years.
Peaches’ Picks
If you get a chance, watch this hour-long 1993 documentary, “Goin’ Back to T-Town,” now being rebroadcast in honor of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre (our family visited the area and memorial this past November).
There’s an interesting angle in the perspective of several interviewed that life in Greenwood (the 35 blocks on Tulsa’s north side) was actually better during segregation than after integration, and the documentary certainly presents a compelling picture of what Greenwood’s black culture looked like before 1921.
Peaches and I found ourselves wondering whether places like Greenwood were the exception rather than the rule in America during the time of Jim Crow, and to what degree black culture has benefitted and suffered as a result of integration since?
An important film.
Fresh Video
When I’m not writing this newsletter, I have a day job that entails helping communicate about and market the latest and greatest in cryogenics technology. As part of our latest product release earlier this week, we produced this animated video to help explain why early career physicists should get excited about Montana Instruments’ new CryoCore. (Note: Even if you’re not an early career physicist, the video’s only 90 seconds long and still pretty cool…no pun intended.)
I've not done a good job promoting our Sunday afternoon Sanditon project, but others certainly have. Quick backstory: Sanditon was the last novel Jane Austen was working on when she died. An anonymous author finished it, and PBS did a one-season adaptation last year before cancelling it on a cliffhanger ending.
One of my classmates from high school (Carol OBrien) was a fan disappointed by this move and took matters into her own hands, writing an entire season two of episodes carrying on from where season one left off. Approximately twenty or so of us are spending a couple of hours every Sunday afternoon to bring them to life via period clothing, English accents (though we have some true Brits among us), and Sanditon backgrounds via Zoom.
Here's episode #4, with all episodes available at the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation as well as on YouTube. Beginning in Episode 3, our narrator is Caroline Knight, the fifth great-grand-niece of Jane Austen, and the last family member to live and grow up on the estate where Austen wrote Sanditon.
Thousands (I'm not kidding) from all over the world are watching this week to week, so join the masses and enjoy (and yes, that's Millie Dunham starring as Alison Heywood, and yours truly as Tom Parker).
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