Month: November 2010

Who is the better reader? PoserorProphet … not

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PoserorProphet, liberation theologian, Christian anarchist and frequent blogger, regularly chokes the internet with his false teaching.  When I accuse him of misreading the Bible or other sources, he comes back and says that I blatantly misread him.  So yesterday, for example, I suggested that his view that Jesus’ advocated violence against property was going to get him killed, and that already during a protest he had had his hand on the firearm of a law enforcement officer, he wrote:

“Near” not “on” (and only because I was pushed off balance from behind). No need to charge me with crimes I have not committed. Although, let’s be honest, that’s one of the difficulties of speaking with you — you continually engage in such blatantly false misreadings of the texts (whether my own writing or Jewett’s comments on insulae in Rome or whatever else) that it’s hard to not conclude that you are engaging in false misreadings deliberately (after all, you do have a fair amount of exegetical training… [sic] you should know better). Still, despite all the rhetoric, I want to love you, buddy.

My fault in the case of his hand on or near a gun was one of memory, not reading, since I was referring by memory to blog that he’d posted a few months ago.  Now I have asked Poser for clarification regarding my blatantly false misreading of Jewett, because I am genuinely mystified by what he could mean.  I will write more on that later.  But here he accuses me of doing something that he himself does quite regularly: blatantly false misreadings of texts.  We could take for example his blatantly false misreadings of the biblical text as a beginning.  But this discussion reminded me of something I wrote earlier at City of God.  In a blog by the Brooks, discussing a book by Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, Brooks (in the comments) demonstrates that Poser had misread Klein’s book.  I wrote to congratulate Brooks with these words:

Brooks:

You have defended the accuracy of your original post very well and have managed also to show Poser as the one who can’t seem to read his sources accurately (surprise, surprise).

You have to be careful not to accept Poser’s take on a source as right, because while he reads widely, he doesn’t appear to be a careful reader–at least this example confirms my own experience of going back to his secondary source and finding that he seriously misconstrued and misrepresented what that author was trying to say. If you ever watched Home Improvements, it is like when Tim Taylor repeats to his wife Jill what Wilson, his philosopher neighbor, recently told him; only in the case of Taylor the essence of what Wilson says usually survives–in the case of Poser, the essence of his source may be turned on its head.

I wonder if it is symptomatic also of the manner in which Poser treats the Scripture. He is deeply influenced by liberation theology and their interpretative methods. If you get used to interpreting the Scriptures to say the opposite of what they are saying, how much more likely are you to read modern, secondary sources with the same imprecision and lack of attention to detail? Take the article that Brandon cited in Andrew’s recent post. Ched Myers and Eric Debode turn Matthew’s Parable of the Talents into a parable of the world instead of a parable of the Kindgom in direct violation of the context. The good guy is the whistle-blower who calls the master hard. The bad guy is the master who lends the talents and expects exorbitant returns on his investment, profiting from the labor of others. This turns the parable on its head. Once you get used to these kinds of interpretations, your sources can say just about anything that you want them to say; and then you can turn around and tell others how much smarter you are than they are because you read so widely–but while they may read slower, at least they are trying to come to an authentic understanding of what their sources are really saying. … [snip]

Poser gives reasons to doubt the accuracy of the reviewers of Klein. Keith, you’ve shown that he is dead wrong on that count. So now we have sufficient reason to doubt Poser’s accuracy, whenever and where ever he cites or interprets a resource. Breadth in a scholar is indeed a virtue. But if breadth is not combined with insight and precision, the scholar remains mediocre at best.

This is one of the reasons for reading narrowly. If you decide, hey life is short, and that you don’t have that much time, why not choose to read only the best scholars who have breadth, insight and precision? Otherwise, you are likely to pick up bad habits from the books that you read.

Poser has blocked me from commenting on his blog.  His refutations of my criticisms are very insubstantial and reactionary.  For example, I wrote a long post concluding that he commits several of interpretive errors which James Sire explains in his books Scripture Twisting: 20 ways that cults misread the Bible.  His only response was to ask me if I’d read the French philosopher’s Foucault, whom he insists is necessary for understanding Paul’s view of sexuality.  Thus, he usually lashes out rather than dealing with the substance of my criticisms. Telling his opponents that they can’t understand the Bible unless they’ve had his experiences or read the books that he’s read is both arrogant and fallacious.  So I don’t blame him for blocking me.  Yet it would suggest that he does view me as a nemesis, since otherwise he would have no fear of what I might write in the comments.

Vale to invest 10 billion in Canada

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Foreign money continues to poor into the Canadian resources sector.  Now, the Brazilian company Vale which has had very bad press after it bought  Sudbury mining company Inco, is promising to spend 10 billion to develop their mines in Canada.  The good news for Canada keeps pouring in.

Chris Bosh: A Diminished Brand

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Toronto Raptor fans were disappointed when Chris Bosh decided to sign with Miami and to play with Lebron James and Dwayne Wade.  This is perhaps the biggest investment error that a player like Bosh could have made.

Toronto fans have seen it before.  Damon Stoudemire, Mighty Mouse, left Toronto to join the Portland Trailblazers.  He went from “the man” to a role player, and his career was never even close to the same–but perhaps it’s only because he had a marijuana problem.  Arguably Vince Carter has not done as well since leaving Toronto.  Tracy McGrady left Toronto to escape Carter’s shadow, and it diminished his chances at a title, though not his scoring ability.

But Bosh’s decision is a little puzzling.  Is a chance at being a contender immediately so important?  What happened to the David Robinson approach of sticking with the same franchise and building brand for himself and for the city.  Is that approach dead?  Perhaps not with Kobe Bryant who is a Laker for life.

Bosh’s numbers are down across the board.  I suggested to a friend that he would become the Lamar Odom of Miami (but Odom is much better rebounder); Bosh is not even second fiddle in Miami.  In Toronto the offense revolved around getting it to the man, the go-to guy, Chris Bosh.  Now, his shot attempts are down 33% from 16.5 attempts per game last season to 11 per game in Miami.  Even more telling, his free throw attempts per game are down 45% from 8.4 to 4.7.  He is not getting the touches–the ball-handlers James and Wade are getting theirs–but poor Bosh requires that someone pass to him.  But there is no Jose Calderon in Miami.  Wade and James will make the All Star team.  But Bosh will only make the All Star team by sympathy vote.

If he had stayed in Toronto and built up a contender around himself, he had a chance of retaining his brand, an all star, perhaps an all-time great player.  Now, the only chance he has of regaining his market capital is if he helps Lebron and Wade win a championship in Miami.  But then he is not Lebron’s Scotty Pippen.  He is more like Lebron’s Ron Harper or Tony Kukoc.  He doesn’t rebound well enough to be Lebron’s Dennis Rodman.

As for whether Miami will win a championship any time soon, I have my doubts.  The last time Bosh, Wade, and James played together on the same team, they lost to the Greek national team.

Theological Education Bubble I : exegesis

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As a visiting professor in an African school that taught to the Master’s level I was once confronted with student who plagiarized a paper and failed the class as a result.  The academic dean pleaded with me to give him a third chance after the student failed the mandatory remedial session with me.  Thus, I permitted the student to take an oral examination, but he gave the most absurd answers to the most rudimentary questions of biblical history, such as he could not tell me the order of the empires, Persians, Greeks and Romans.  Later, I was told that this student was a womanizer who spent as much time in the local neighborhood chasing skirt as he spent in class.  It was hardly any surprise that he couldn’t pass his course with me.  But to my chagrin, this student went on to defend his master’s thesis and graduated, while the course he had with me was pre-requisite to entering the final year at the master’s level–a course he never passed.  Now this man is apparently a Bible professor in the capital city of his country.

I present this anecdote only to say that sometimes the diploma from a school is a meaningless paper, inflated like so much fiat money that is printed endlessly to the point of being worth nothing.  Perhaps this story is a no-brainer.  What should we do with an incompetent womanizer?   Fail him of course.  He has no business having a theological degree.

But what if it is the case of an extremely brilliant but wrong-headed student?  I have become somewhat of a nemesis to PoserorProphet, a self-stylized biblical scholar who is finishing his Master’s degree at Regent College.  And yet he has serious problems in biblical interpretation.  But he is able to defend his point, albeit with subtle and specious arguments, with such brilliance that he could easily pass any academic program at a secular university.  So now it puts theological educators in an awkward position:  are we to serve the church and the Kingdom of God, or are we to serve secular academic standards?  If the student can put together a specious heretical argument for a position, does that mean he deserves to pass so that he can then serve his heresy to the world, but now bearing the recognition of a theological degree from a once reputable institution?  Or should the school risk legal sanction for failing a student who is brilliant, academically gifted and yet theological off-the-wall?  There is a great deal at stake here.  I don’t see that there is simple answer.  But as a teacher of exegesis and biblical interpretation I have some serious problems with what I see.

We have had lengthy discussions with this student, PoserorProphet, who though attending an evangelical school has openly advocated full equal rights to practicing homosexuals in the church; the acrobatics that it takes to get around the biblical prohibition against homosexuality is already reason to have grave concerns.  But this student, in his embrace of liberation theology, has also taken passages like “Thou shalt not steal” to mean something like, “Thou shalt not not share”, thus twisting the plain sense of the text.  But then he also has recently advocated vandalism, such as done by anarchist demonstrators, through the texts recounting Jesus’ cleansing the temple, Jesus’ allowing the demons called “Legion” to enter into and kill a herd of swines and Jesus’ tacit approval of the the digging up of the roof to lower the paralytic, thus doing property damage to the house.  The main difficulty is that the Bible isn’t teaching that it is ok for us to go out and vandalize to support a higher cause, i.e., the poor and marginalized.  It has another agenda about which PoserorProphet seems quite unconcerned.  Through his exegesis, the Bible serves his liberation agenda.  In a discussion over at the City of God, I said that his “exegesis” is like that of the Marxist in the Fiddler on the Roof:  He recounts how Laban cheated Jacob, causing him to marry Leah while the original contract gave Jacob the right to marry Rachel.  Now, Laban required Jacob to work another seven years to pay for Rachel.  The Marxist’s conclusion:  The Bible teaches us that you can never trust an employer!  See the clip at 1:07:

Even the milkman’s daughter can see through this Marxist interpretation.  It is a moment of light humor.  But PoserorProphet is not joking.  He’s serious.  And yet his interpretations are hardly less ridiculous.

As an undergraduate in Dr. Pecota’s Principles of Interpretation course, I was required to read James Sire’s Scripture Twisting: 20 ways cults misread the Bible (see this summary). Part of the art of biblical interpretation is knowing how not to do it.  So Sire’s book is a lesson in good interpretation by avoiding pitfalls.  PoserorProphet actually commits a fair number of these 20 ways of twisting Scripture:  I would mention: 11. Selective citing; 12. Inadequate evidence; 14. Ignoring alternate explanations; 18. Supplementing biblical authority (with such writers as Michel Foucault!); 19. Rejecting biblical authority; and 20. World-view confusion (confusing his anarchist views with the Bible).  Thus, a basic undergraduate course in theology already would provide the ability to see how PoserorProphet is twisting the Bible, and yet today, it is apparently ok for him to defend a Master’s thesis in biblical studies.  There is no questioning his brilliance.  It is his judgment that I challenge.  But is it the task of theological education to produce brilliant heretics?  Or are we rather to produce graduates who will serve the church and the Kingdom of God.  If we knowingly pass even one such student, does that not call into question the whole enterprise?

The recognition that a theological diploma establishes should not be considered lightly.  Since the early church, Christian heretics have sought recognition from authorities who stood in apostolic succession.  For example, according to Irenaeus, Marcion once approached Polycarp and made a request:  “Recognize me.”  Polycarp responded in a manner which I think was appropriate, “I recognize you; I recognize the first-born of Satan.”  Polycarp was following the example that Paul laid down (Tit. 3.10-11):

As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned.

Obama Narcissus

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In an article at the Weekly Standard, “American Narcissus“, Jonathan V. Last has compiled a very comprehensive list of anecdotal evidence of Obama’s narcissism.  He even mentions the story of a beloved classmate of Obama at Harvard Law school that they had a Obamameter:

“One of our classmates once famously noted that you could judge just how pretentious someone’s remarks in class were by how high they ranked on the ‘Obamanometer,’ a term that lasted far longer than our time at law school. Obama didn’t just share in class—he pontificated. He knew better than everyone else in the room, including the teachers. ”

Obama’s career before becoming a senator suggests that affirmative action played a large role.  Last outlines how the University of Chicago wanted him as a faculty member because he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review and an African American.  With the effects of affirmative action policy in full bloom, Obama is the first affirmative action president, and has become an utter failure of incompetence.  This demonstrates why we must fully reject affirmative action and diversity hiring.