Open Diary - Rostin

Faith and Korea

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 0:00:01 GMT

Part of the reason I haven't written anything here in a long time is that I am currently in S. Korea, and I'm blogging my trip elsewhere. If you want the URL, let me know and I'll leave it with you in a private comment. The only thing I ask is that you not mention this blog on that one, because the readership is much wider and includes a number of people who I regard only as friendly acquaintances (or who, for other reasons, I am not really comfortable revealing my inner thoughts to).

Anyway, I've been thinking about faith a lot, lately. ~~The dominant set of thoughts can be concisely stated.~~

First, I rarely have what I might call "religious affections." I don't feel love for other people or gratitude towards God. I understand the idea of sin, and I understand that I am a sinner, but I usually don't feel like it's a big deal. I often find myself manufacturing guilt feelings to make up for that. I have almost zero passion for evangelism. This is not a new state of affairs; I have never really understood the excitement that some Christians exhibit. This is all bad, but from the point of view of my overall personality, I supposed it isn't as dire as it could be. It's not like I get excited or impassioned about much of anything. It's more a manifestation of a personality or character type (or defect) than an anomalous lack of interest in God, specifically.

Second, I have been more and more bothered recently by Genesis. I'm reading a book called An Historical Survey of the Old Testament that was written in the 1960s. The author spends a great deal of time defending young-earth creationism in an overly confident tone using mind-bogglingly bad arguments. The present and ongoing trouble is, I can criticize what he thinks and how he presents it, but I don't think anything. However bad his scientific arguments are, I have none, really.

It's the elephant in the room of my faith, because, in my considered opinion, it is difficult or impossible to honestly reject Genesis while maintaining the rest of Christianity. If the bible can't be trusted in places where it is scientifically falsifiable, why should we take the "spiritual" parts seriously? Also, it's not like Genesis is a parenthetical note, like one of Jesus' parables or the book of Job. It's firmly embedded in salvation history. Systematically speaking, it might be possible to understand it somewhat allegorically, but not too much. I'm no scholar, but I've read Genesis, and there doesn't seem to be an obvious way of disentangling the plainly historical from the possibly mythological. For one thing, the genealogies are traced right on back to Adam. Where would we insert the break?

These two things are related, even though they don't seem like it. Lately, some Christian philosophers have taken the position that Christian belief is rational (partially) because Christians have a direct, spiritual apprehension of God. This is as real to them as sight, smell, touch, taste, or hearing, and only prejudice would lead us to take our "physical" senses to be reliable while rejecting our "spiritual" sense.

This is a very thought-provoking line of reasoning. I am not a sophisticated enough thinker to know whether it's a good argument. It makes superficial sense, but almost everything can be stated in such a way. What's interesting, rather, is my personal response to it. Initially, it seemed to smack of fideism. It made me a little angry because it seemed to sweep up belief in God into an impenetrable fortress.

I don't want to dwell on answers to those objections or feelings. I just want to say that in considering them, I've come to realize to a greater degree how little of what I believe and say is in any sense rational. It's 90% conventional. It's from the "world view" given to me by my culture and education. Thinking clearly about whether to believe in God or not is very complicated, and for most people, it's a decision that rests lightly on a shaky foundation of unexamined assumptions.

For me, personally, that often takes the form of giving entirely too much credit to "scholars" or the "scholarly consensus", particularly on scientific issues. USAmericans have a rocky relationship with science.. we fluctuate wildly between wild-eyed skepticism and child-like acceptance. In spite of almost being a scientist myself, I am really no exception.

But science is immensely complicated. Almost no one who practices it thinks very much about what they are doing or how it can be justified or criticized philosophically. We have almost all unquestioningly adopted a naive realism.

That's about all I have to say about that. It's disconnected and disorganized, but that's only because I don't know what it means.

The second set of thoughts began just last night, really. I went out to a couple of bars with a new Korean friend and a fellow countryman who is also in the EAPSI program. The Korean took us to places where a lot of English speaking foreigners hang out. At the second one, I chatted for two or three hours with a man who was about 55 or 60.

He has led an interesting life, by most accounts. He is a freelance English teacher, and has been one for a long time. He's worked in at least four Asian countries. Before coming to Korea about 10 months ago, he was in the Philippines for about 15 years. Before that, he was in China and Taiwan, where he learned Mandarin.

Then again, there he sat, in a cruddy Korean bar run for foreigners, flirting with a bartender just a little more than a third his age. He didn't seem happy or enthusiastic about what he'd accomplished and where he had been. Instead, it seemed to me that he was leading his life perpetually in pursuit of novelty, but only finding cynicism, loneliness, and boredom.

Thinking about that man today has refreshed in my mind an old conviction that being "religious, but not too serious about it" is stupid in all its manifestations. Without some overarching purpose in our lives, some understanding of what (if anything) we are intended for, we are all like that man, just looking for the next diversion.

Jesus sets us a task, a mission, and even though it is often uncomfortable or boring, we choose to do it for the joy set before us, which is in large measure the Lord Himself. That kind of pursuit, of intentional living, can only be maintained when we have deep confidence in God. A shallow "not too serious" kind of faith approaches belief itself as though it were a diversion. Palliative, but never a cure.

Storm

Thu, 15 May 2008 0:00:01 GMT

I wish I had brought my camera with me this morning. There was (apparently) a big storm in the campus area last night with lots of wind and heavy rain, and perhaps even hail. On the bus ride to school, signs were cockeyed and leaves and small branches were everywhere on the ground. When I got off at my stop, the parking lot I cross every morning was like a Monet painting, standing in water and covered in green. Several larger branches and almost a whole tree blocked the sidewalk in other places.

Trees here are more delicate than back home. In the Panhandle, the wind blows incessantly. From the time that trees are saplings, they are culled. They even grow up bent in the direction of the prevailing wind. Tornadic winds are necessary to do much beyond blowing down a few leaves.

Surprisingly, this observation extends to man-made structures. Power lines blew down, windows blew out, and all sorts of other damage was dealt by the first big wind I experienced here. When people build something in the Panhandle, they tie it down. They anticipate routine gale-force winds.

Request

Tue, 13 May 2008 0:00:01 GMT

Please, stop describing Christian "stuff", like books, music, worship services, and whole churches, using the adjective "authentic." The word has ceased to mean what it once did, and has been hijacked to mean something like the following:

au�then�tic, adj

Sappy

Overwrought

Slightly but not overly heretical

Having the pacing and tone of someone who sounds like he/she might have a second job as a college radio DJ (that is, while teaching)

Involved in some ministry which the white, surburban church you grew up in neglected (so far as you know), such as helping out folks sick with AIDS, or (esp.) some "liberal" political cause

Not having pews

Having a pastor who preaches in a t-shirt and birkenstocks or overly tight pants that he/she bought at a vintage clothing store

Incorporating incense and/or candles and/or any other liturgical accoutrements

Indicating a preference to call one's church a "faith community" instead of a church

Having the proclivity to routintely and breathlessly use phrases like, "while we try to figure out what that looks like, together" or "faith journey"

Larry Norman

Fri, 9 May 2008 0:00:01 GMT

It's been ages since I last posted anything. That's not entirely true. I wrote an entry about a book I've been reading called Christianity and Liberalism, written by J. Gresham Machen. I recommend it. The entry started to get a little out of hand, so I set it to private.

I discovered Larry Norman a few days ago, and I'm all ate up with him, now. As I've mentioned to a couple of people who regularly read, he was one of the original Christian rock musicians. I'm not really a music expert, but I think he was pretty good, and he seems to have been moderately famous even before he became a Christian. His lyrics are simple, jaunty and not the "Jesus is my boyfriend" kind of sap that much contemporary Christian and praise music has degenerated into. Here's a sample that isn't extremely characteristic, but is still good.

Orientated

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 0:00:01 GMT

I'm in our nation's capitol (roughly speaking) attending an orientation for my Korea trip this summer. It's been surprisingly interesting and informative. Another nice thing is that I got to meet foolishathena in person. She ran into some (a lot of, really) trouble finding the hotel, partially because of bad directions from me, for which I remain very sorry. She eventually made it and we had an enjoyable supper together. It was enjoyable for me, anyway. She seemed to experience waves of shock over what an overbearing cad I am in real life. ;)

Altogether, there are (I think) 192 people traveling to seven Asian and/or Pacific countries as part of this program. Fifteen of us are going to Korea. They are a nice bunch of folks. Around ten are going to three or four different universities in Seoul. Only one other guy is going to the same place as me, POSTECH. I think that's mostly a good thing. I'd prefer to make friends with Korean people rather than always hanging out with Americans.

That's partially because, you know, I want to really experience the culture and la la la. But it's also because I've found that when most young Americans go on any kind of trip, they use it as an excuse to party extra hardy. It's nice that I'll get to mostly avoid the whole awkward process of alienation that results after revealing that no, I'm not interested in staying out until 3 in the morning and getting tanked.

Here's a related question. Really, it's the chain of thought that provoked the preceding paragraph. At what age does it become too shameful to revel in former drunken debauches in a formal setting? The Korean "alum", who participated in this program last summer, mentioned how much drinking everyone did at least three times in presentations she gave.

I'm past wondering when people become too old to consider binge drinking a worthwhile way to pass the time. I learned years ago that many people never outgrow it. But I think that if some 40 year old stood up before a couple hundred people at a government funded presentation and bragged about how much drinking he did during a government funded research program, most people would be embarrassed on his behalf. They'd find it unprofessional.

Later, in our Korea-specific breakout meeting, she reminded us to take a supply of any medications we might need, including birth control, which, she blandly confided, she forgot last summer. I'm not squeamish about female bodily functions, okay? Also, I'm not offended, per se. Even so, I wonder: Why mention it all? Birth control pills are not free of connotation for anyone, even if they are used for reasons other than birth control. What deeper insight into this alcohol sodden woman's personality does this reveal?

That's enough moral judgment for one entry, I guess.

Assorted other thoughts:

1. I have a lot of stuff to do to get ready for this trip, and it's coming sooner than I realize. I've been accustomed to thinking of it as being off in the distant future, "this summer." But it's really in two and a half months.

2. One possible living arrangement I hadn't considered is staying with a host family. There are evidentially Korean families who advertise on the internet, eager to have an American student to inflict on their young children. I don't know whether I'll opt for that, because I'm a bit of a private person, but it's something to consider.

3. POSTECH gives full scholarships to the top 1% of students in Korea. The cream of the crop of a nation of overachievers. It's in a semi-rural area, so I'm going to be the stupidest person for miles around.