Day 39, Summit Semester
Charlie Pepitone, our art teacher, is familiar with all kinds of art, but his focus is theater. He has his Master’s in theater production or direction or something like that, and he leads an acting group around here. He’s taught college drama courses, so he definitely knows what he’s doing with theater. We spent art class today learning about theater, and it was really interesting. I was involved in all the plays and musicals in high school on the tech side of them, doing lights and sound, so I’ve had decent exposure to theater. It was really interesting to have a class with a professional actor/director, and hear what he tells his professional actors. Let’s just say it was different from my high school experiences, and quite fascinating.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Day 38, Summit Semester
Today we went to Durango, which is about an hour away from SWL. We had lunch in a park, then we hung out in downtown Durango for a couple of hours. It was nice to have a day to just chill and not have a whole lot of driving or activity. There are several blocks of shops – mostly touristy kinds of stuff, but it was fun to go and look around. I hung out with Bethany most of the day, and that was good.
The most interesting experience of the day was a used bookstore. It looked like an old small house, and it was completely crammed from floor to ceiling with books. The aisles were so narrow that you often had to walk kind of sideways to get through, and you definitely couldn’t pass anyone. You had to back out and let them come through or some other maneuvering. It was kind of cool, but also had kind of a chaotic overwhelming feel to it as well.
After downtown, we had a little over an hour to shop at Wal-mart and grab dinner before heading back to the lodge.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Christianity and Culture diagrams
So I still haven't processed this enough from last week to do a decent job of coherently explaining what we talked about. We discussed so much and it's all so important. I want to write a book about it, but I have to get it straight in my head first. So that will be forthcoming, but until then, here are some of the diagrams from the lectures. I'll try to explain them, but they should give a quick idea of the complexity of some of the stuff we're dealing with. I loved this course though, and I will elaborate later...
Click on each picture to get a bigger image...
So this is the chart of the history of Evangelicals and Fundamentals in America the past two centuries. Ideas have consequences, and they have histories.
Culture is what we create and what creates us. We have to be able to "read" what culture tells us and what we internalize, and we have to "write" culture - externalize and create culture.
This is dealing with how we understand culture and our call to create from Genesis. Below is a larger version. God formed and filled the earth, and calls us to do the same.
Click on each picture to get a bigger image...
So this is the chart of the history of Evangelicals and Fundamentals in America the past two centuries. Ideas have consequences, and they have histories.
Culture is what we create and what creates us. We have to be able to "read" what culture tells us and what we internalize, and we have to "write" culture - externalize and create culture.
This is dealing with how we understand culture and our call to create from Genesis. Below is a larger version. God formed and filled the earth, and calls us to do the same.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Bauman returned! He had only been gone a week and a half, but somehow it seemed longer. It was fun to have class with him again. We jumped right back into everything.
In politics, we moved from our discussion of John Stuart Mill and Libertarianism to Niccolo Machiavelli and The Prince and his theory of the politics of power. It’s pretty straightforward: if you want to get and keep power, you must become indifferent to questions of morality and Christian values. You also have to be a realpolitik – realistic about the world, knowing that it’s better to be feared than loved or hated. You have to be un-virtuous in a subterranean fashion – accommodate evil and get it done quickly under the table.
Beyond this, though, you have to be a “political virtuoso” – you have to be as good at politics and reading situations and people as a violin virtuoso is with his instrument. You have to practice for hours and hours every day for years to reach this level; you can’t survive if you’re an amateur. You have to have insight and perception others don’t have; you have to have careful and precise observation so you know how things are now and how they can be changed in your favor.
Here’s the frustrating part. I’ll just quote Bauman: “CHRISTIANS DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS! It’s not enough to send money to Focus on the Family, pray once in a while, and vote Republican. The guys we’re opposing know Machiavelli and they hope we stay just how we are right now. The typical Christian just hopes and prays things turn out well. Machiavelli says this is like rolling the dice and leaving things to chance, which virtuosos never do. God is in control of history, but He works through His people.”
Machiavelli said to be both a lion and a fox; Jesus commanded us to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. If we’re not wise in what we do, we can’t be harmless: we will inflict harm on our causes and ourselves.
Ronald Reagan is the best example of a Christian following Machiavelli’s principles. We’re starting to read When Character was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan by Peggy Noonan, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say about him later. Bauman also mentioned Phyllis Schaeffly as someone who knew what to do and did it well. He said she single-handedly defeated the Equal Rights Amendment by taking on both houses of Congress and 30 states and winning.
I asked Dr. Bauman why the Church is so terrible at influencing culture and politics and how we can change that. His reply was basically “the Church isn’t going to change. You have to learn and get involved and get good, fast.” Christian individuals need to study Machiavelli, study Reagan and Schaeffly and the like, and become virtuosos, not bumbling idiots who don’t really know what they’re doing or what their opponents are doing.
PS: See FB note for additional response to this + culture class from last week…
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Day 32, Summit Semester
Today art class was a little different. Last week we talked about what it meant for something to be “sacred” and how to define “sacred arts.” We read a chapter on “midrash,” the Hebrew concept of inventing stories about the silences in Scripture to understand the text better. Most of us agreed that while that could be helpful to a very limited level, it’d be pretty easy to take that concept way too far. Anyways, our assignment was to create some form of art based on Genesis 22, the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. We could draw, write, sing, put together a play, sculpt, just about anything. It was interesting to see what people came up with. I did a sketch of sorts, using the words and the context of what we know about Abraham and the promises he had received before this. I used different verses, from Genesis 12 through 22, and a couple random ones from Hebrews and Samuel, to illustrate the scene. The history of what Abraham and Isaac have been through add so much to the story – you really have to get the background to understand the story at all.
This evening we had Jeff Ventrella come speak. He’s the vice-president of Alliance Defense Fund, an organization and network of Christian lawyers working to support Christians legally and especially protect free speech and First Amendment rights as it relates to Christianity. Jeff is in charge of their education department, which includes speaking to groups and overseeing Blackstone Fellowship, a nine-week internship they have for first year law students, to train them in a Biblical perspective of law.
He talked about natural law, and how that’s the foundation for private and social life in Western Civilization. Natural law isn’t innate moral knowledge, biological instinct, matters of consensus, the physical laws of nature, or moral law as known through the Bible. He defined natural law as “a notion of law that is both transcendent and imminent, and is therefore binding and knowable.”
He explained why we have to have natural law from an experience he had in a debate hosted by the Museum of Tolerance in San Francisco. The Museum of Tolerance was originally an organization created after the Holocaust to prevent that from happening again, but has since been hijacked by the Left. His opponent declared that there was no natural law, but that all rights came from the state. Jeff refuted this quickly, arguing that if the only source of rights is the state, and the only law is positive law, what we create, then Dachau was right and Nuremburg was wrong, because the Nazis did everything according to their positive law. There has to be a law above our law.
Wednesday morning, we had “Bible with Eric and God, “ our Bible survey class. We had read the book of Deuteronomy, and we talked about the Law and how we’re under the New Covenant. Bauman came back, but he didn’t teach because we had another lecture with Jeff Ventrella on law.
Today art class was a little different. Last week we talked about what it meant for something to be “sacred” and how to define “sacred arts.” We read a chapter on “midrash,” the Hebrew concept of inventing stories about the silences in Scripture to understand the text better. Most of us agreed that while that could be helpful to a very limited level, it’d be pretty easy to take that concept way too far. Anyways, our assignment was to create some form of art based on Genesis 22, the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. We could draw, write, sing, put together a play, sculpt, just about anything. It was interesting to see what people came up with. I did a sketch of sorts, using the words and the context of what we know about Abraham and the promises he had received before this. I used different verses, from Genesis 12 through 22, and a couple random ones from Hebrews and Samuel, to illustrate the scene. The history of what Abraham and Isaac have been through add so much to the story – you really have to get the background to understand the story at all.
This evening we had Jeff Ventrella come speak. He’s the vice-president of Alliance Defense Fund, an organization and network of Christian lawyers working to support Christians legally and especially protect free speech and First Amendment rights as it relates to Christianity. Jeff is in charge of their education department, which includes speaking to groups and overseeing Blackstone Fellowship, a nine-week internship they have for first year law students, to train them in a Biblical perspective of law.
He talked about natural law, and how that’s the foundation for private and social life in Western Civilization. Natural law isn’t innate moral knowledge, biological instinct, matters of consensus, the physical laws of nature, or moral law as known through the Bible. He defined natural law as “a notion of law that is both transcendent and imminent, and is therefore binding and knowable.”
He explained why we have to have natural law from an experience he had in a debate hosted by the Museum of Tolerance in San Francisco. The Museum of Tolerance was originally an organization created after the Holocaust to prevent that from happening again, but has since been hijacked by the Left. His opponent declared that there was no natural law, but that all rights came from the state. Jeff refuted this quickly, arguing that if the only source of rights is the state, and the only law is positive law, what we create, then Dachau was right and Nuremburg was wrong, because the Nazis did everything according to their positive law. There has to be a law above our law.
Wednesday morning, we had “Bible with Eric and God, “ our Bible survey class. We had read the book of Deuteronomy, and we talked about the Law and how we’re under the New Covenant. Bauman came back, but he didn’t teach because we had another lecture with Jeff Ventrella on law.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Day 31, Summit Semester
On Monday, our weekend day, we would have climbed the 14-er, but instead we had just a chill day in town. We got to use the internet for several hours, make phone calls, walk around and see the touristy shops, and we had lunch at the Mexican restaurant. We came back to the lodge around 3:30, and studied or hung out for the rest of the day. That evening was the long anticipated (for some) football game between the Vikings and the Packers, and there was a party at Bob’s house. (He’s the property manager for Snow Wolf Lodge, and he’s a really cool guy. He also has a really nice TV…) Almost-7-month-old Liam was enjoying watching everybody and learning to clap when everybody else did, but he got scared at the first touchdown when several of the guys exploded. The Smiths decided it was bedtime after that, haha. It was a fun, restful day.
On Monday, our weekend day, we would have climbed the 14-er, but instead we had just a chill day in town. We got to use the internet for several hours, make phone calls, walk around and see the touristy shops, and we had lunch at the Mexican restaurant. We came back to the lodge around 3:30, and studied or hung out for the rest of the day. That evening was the long anticipated (for some) football game between the Vikings and the Packers, and there was a party at Bob’s house. (He’s the property manager for Snow Wolf Lodge, and he’s a really cool guy. He also has a really nice TV…) Almost-7-month-old Liam was enjoying watching everybody and learning to clap when everybody else did, but he got scared at the first touchdown when several of the guys exploded. The Smiths decided it was bedtime after that, haha. It was a fun, restful day.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Day 30, Summit Semester
Last week John Stonestreet was here Wednesday through Saturday morning lecturing on Christianity and Culture. Bauman had a week off to stay in Michigan and not worry about crossing two time zones to teach at two different institutions several states away. We definitely missed him, but Stonestreet’s lectures were amazing. He and his family left after lunch on Saturday, so we had Saturday evening free. This was the weekend we were scheduled to camp overnight and then climb the fourteener, but it turns out there was a blizzard on the mountain. We decided to stay home.
We had a campfire Saturday evening, with s’mores and banana boats. I had never had banana boats, but they were fun. You unpeel only one part of the banana, hollow out the top, and then fill it with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Cover it with the peel and tin foil, then heat it in the coals. It was really good.
We told stories – stupid, “scary,” and funny, sang songs, and laughed a lot. It was a fun evening. About half of us then sleep outside. I was with five other girls in a tent, but a good number were just sleeping out under the stars. We were really grateful for the tent when it started raining at about 1 a.m. Gratefully, it didn’t get nearly as cold as it has other nights.
The next morning we had instant oatmeal and toast cooked over the fire, then we hiked up to the cross on the ridge opposite our lodge. During the first semester here three years ago, several of the guys erected this huge cross as a symbol of the legacy they wanted to leave. It looks really small from the lodge, but it’s definitely big in person. We hiked about two miles, I think, going the long way, which meant we weren’t bushwhacking all the way up. There were some steep parts, but it was beautiful. It was the last great chance to see the leaves in all their glorious color. Since then, the leaves have definitely been falling/turning more of a brownish color. We hiked over several beautiful ridges, and we saw a black bear on the opposite ridge from us.
Once we got to the cross, we had church up there. We sang several hymns, and then Benn (“Benn with 2 “n”s – it’s not short for anything, it’s just long for Ben”), who was at Semester last year and is the brother of Abby, a student this year, did a devo. He talked about humility and how that’s the defining characteristic of Christ in Philippians 2. It was a really cool time.
Last week John Stonestreet was here Wednesday through Saturday morning lecturing on Christianity and Culture. Bauman had a week off to stay in Michigan and not worry about crossing two time zones to teach at two different institutions several states away. We definitely missed him, but Stonestreet’s lectures were amazing. He and his family left after lunch on Saturday, so we had Saturday evening free. This was the weekend we were scheduled to camp overnight and then climb the fourteener, but it turns out there was a blizzard on the mountain. We decided to stay home.
We had a campfire Saturday evening, with s’mores and banana boats. I had never had banana boats, but they were fun. You unpeel only one part of the banana, hollow out the top, and then fill it with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Cover it with the peel and tin foil, then heat it in the coals. It was really good.
We told stories – stupid, “scary,” and funny, sang songs, and laughed a lot. It was a fun evening. About half of us then sleep outside. I was with five other girls in a tent, but a good number were just sleeping out under the stars. We were really grateful for the tent when it started raining at about 1 a.m. Gratefully, it didn’t get nearly as cold as it has other nights.
The next morning we had instant oatmeal and toast cooked over the fire, then we hiked up to the cross on the ridge opposite our lodge. During the first semester here three years ago, several of the guys erected this huge cross as a symbol of the legacy they wanted to leave. It looks really small from the lodge, but it’s definitely big in person. We hiked about two miles, I think, going the long way, which meant we weren’t bushwhacking all the way up. There were some steep parts, but it was beautiful. It was the last great chance to see the leaves in all their glorious color. Since then, the leaves have definitely been falling/turning more of a brownish color. We hiked over several beautiful ridges, and we saw a black bear on the opposite ridge from us.
Once we got to the cross, we had church up there. We sang several hymns, and then Benn (“Benn with 2 “n”s – it’s not short for anything, it’s just long for Ben”), who was at Semester last year and is the brother of Abby, a student this year, did a devo. He talked about humility and how that’s the defining characteristic of Christ in Philippians 2. It was a really cool time.
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