A pair of books for your consideration

These came in the mail recently from Blackwell Publishing. I've only briefly scanned them, but I like what I see; and on that basis alone I'll make a recomendation. (I'm not going to bother with a scad of fancy links; if you can find my little blog in all of cyberspace then you are surely adept enough to find these online).

David M. Gunn. Judges. Blackwell Bible Commentaries Series, 2005. 329 pages. softcover.

This is a history of interpretation, get this, on the entire book of Judges, pericope by pericope rather than a traditional commentary. Assuming you've done your Hebrew exegesis, you'll want to engage Dunn. This book could well by itself form the heart of a intruiging class on Judges/hermeneutics/Western history. After a brief introduction Gunn takes the reader through the major stories thusly: synopsis of the text followed by a survey of how the text has been engaged and interpreted by 1) ancient and medieval commentators and 2) Early modern and modern ones. Laws a mercy (tip of the hat to Brad Denton) what a study! From the back cover: "The commentary traces the reception of Judges through the ages, not only by scholars and theologians, but also by preachers, teachers, politicians, poets, essaysists, and srtists. it shows how ideology and the social location of readers have shaped the way the book has been read, disclosing a long history of debate over the roles of women and the use of force, as well as Christian prejudice against Jews and "Orientals." In this way, it offers a window onto the wider use of the Bible in the Western world."

I'm again teaching Judges, Ruth and Samuel this fall. While there's no way my students can get their noggins around Dunn, I 'll be reading him closely the first six-weeks or so of the new semester. More on the series at http://www.bbibcomm.net

Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris. New Keywords, A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society. 2005. 427 pages. softcover.

This one will help me get a handle on the language of culture vis-a-vis some summer studies in Postmodern theologies. (What did you do on your summer vacation? I studied postmodernism; I will now deconstruct you. I'd write an essay about it, but it would be nonsensical). Anyhow, this is a collection of "142 signed entries - from art, commodity, and fundamentalism to utopia, virtual, the West, and youth - that capture the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary culture and society." (another back-cover blurb).

I doubt I'll be reading it all, but it looks like a fine starting point.

What're you reading?

Grace and peace.

Quote without comment from Thomas Merton

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

--Thomas Merton

Summer Plans

The Ice's are awaiting the arrival of a baby girl, Ella, in late July (see previous post). We have a small garden in the back yard, growing mostly weeds at the moment. Mac is working one day per week at the Disciples of Christ Historical Society (as an archivist intern) sorting through the official records of the National Convocation of the Christian Church (formerly the National Christian Missionary Convention). See: http://www.disciples.org/convo/index.htm These records have never been fully and comprehensively sorted and catalogued; I get to do the tedious preliminary sorting...great stuff! I am also taking a counseling course at Lipscomb and the usual preaching and teaching at Central Church. Laura is giving a few piano lessons and keeping well-hydrated (Doctors orders are 8 ounces of water every 10 minutes). Darby is taking dance and ballet lessons and helping her Dad weed the garden and feed the birds.

Dateline June 27th, One Month and Counting

Ella May Ice is due to arrive July 27th. Each day (and night) has its own periods of heartburn, nausea and aches and pains for Laura. We have the girls' room almost finished. Laura hasn't packed her suitcase yet (I keep telling her that this child will come like a theif in the night, leaving us naked and unprepared!). As far as we can tell Ella is healthy and right on track. Darby is excited about having a little sister; we think she will adjust well. We count our blessings inasmuch as when we were at 20-something weeks with Darby I was wheeling Laura around in a wheelchair. This go-around have had a much easier time in that regard.

My colleague and friend Russ King stopped me in the back of the office at school one day in the early spring semester (February or so). He told me that somehow God prepares parents hearts to love all of their children; that while it may seem hard to beleive now, our hearts will have as much love for two children as one child. I've thought about that often Russ, and as always, you are right. On a much larger, deeper and more profound scale must be the love of Father God for all of his creatures.

Certainly one of the (more?) significant metaphors in Scripture for the relationship we have with God is that he is Father to us. At the risk of extrapolating and projecting my parental experience onto God (thus having a God who looks suspiciously, er dangerously, like McGarvey Ice), I do find this particular metaphor meaningful at this point in my life. I often think of Jesus' words about the generosity of God: if you evil parents have your wits about you enough to give good gifts to your kids, what about a perfectly good Father in Heaven? Does he not know how to give good to those who ask of him? (MIV) [Not NIV, new International Version, but the MIV, the Mac Ice Version].

The experience of parenting puts a whole new spin on my read of Scripture, my theology of prayer, the list could go on. Just one (of a dozen) ways inwhich our situatedness affects (for good, ill or otherwise) our experience with the text. I could ramble on, enough now. I've got a dresser to paint.

Grace and peace.

Good Food, Good Friends, Good Memories, Good Times

What a fantastic night tonight. Hosted by the ever-gracious Dr. Jeff Todd family at their palace in Woodbury, several couples and their 27 kids gathered tonight to love on Mark, Lori, Luke, Connor and Lydia Jane Manry before they head off the Jinja, Uganda later this fall.

It was so wonderful to see old college friends and catch up on our lives, to enjoy conversation and reminisce, to watch our children play together. The only thing lacking was Brad Benedict.

My old high school Bible teacher, Charles Baugh, once said at the beginning of a school year (I remember this clearly) that "people are the only things worth living for because only people live forever." Nights like tonight are vivid reminders that such is truth.

Of course it was a bittersweet reunion because we came together for one last hurrah for the Manry's. The Manry Family will be leaving later this fall for several years of preaching and teaching in Jinja, Uganda. All of us have special memories of Mark and/or Lori; and we also have now grown fond of their beautiful children: Luke, Connor and Lydia Jane. That said, the coming months will be difficult as we say our goodbyes. But that wasn't really on the radar tonight; instead we dwelt on the joy we share as friends, remembered the good times, and expressed hope and confidence for their future.

I'll be seeing Mark again in a few weeks as he closes out another degree from Lipscomb, and in fine style I might add: a John Mark Hicks Seminar in Theology, Postmodern Theologies, at that. Thank you, sir, may I have another? So I'll save a few thoughts about Mark and all the trails we've trod together (like when we sang Rocky Top somewhere in New Mexico) for another post.

Jeff McInturff, if you happen to read this, email me, let's have you over for supper sometime.

Tonight was a night of grace and peace.

Of disclaimers and critical thinking

Given my profession I regularly surf church, parachurch, biblical studies and other like ministry websites. Invariably I run across disclaimers, usually on the links pages, that read something like: We at Church X/Ministry Y/Organization Z do not operate these websites and cannot be held responsible for their content/point-of-view/doctrine/teaching, (etc.) so we caution you as you read and study them....You've seen them, you know of what I speak.

Maybe it is the cynical devil perched on my shoulder, planting malicious doubts into my ear, but I can't help but read them with a bad taste in my mouth. The impression I get when I read these disclaimers is that there is an ironic twist to freedom of thought. As long as you are within, say a church-controlled site, you don't need to think for yourself (because it is safe in here), but if you go elsewhere, then you'd better put your antennae up because who knows what you'll run across. "Inside" there is no need to be critical, but on the "outside" then you've really got to be on your best guard. Seems skewed to me: skewed in favor of self and against the other guy. That is probably very unfair and condescending of me, but its what I feel when I read them. Maybe I ought to lighten up, get over it, and let folks run their own sites as they see fit.

I'd phrase a disclaimer differently. Instead of cautioning my readers against all sorts of (possible if not probable) horrid misinformation I'd just invite folks to read and think and study for themselves and leave it at that. I hope I'd recogize g that no site is error free and we are all subject to our own kinds of misinterpretation, fallibility and exegetical nonsense. I hope I'd put my own stuff at the top of the fallibility list.

I'd like to see a ministry post a disclaimer about its own content; something along the lines of "You know, we've done the best we know to do, but no doubt we have probably really misread Scripture somewhere in all of this, so be a good student and exercise discernment. We've also linked to some sites we think will add to your comprehension of the story of God. We encourage you to read them with the same charity and discernment as you would use here. Above all, let's all use our minds to the glory of God and in love to our fellow seekers."

That is as close to a "disclaimer" as you'll get on my blog. So friend, love the Lord with your mind and give your brother the benfit of the doubt. To tweak a phrase: Don't criticize until you've thought a mile in the other person's head.

Grace and peace.

Follow the truth...

...wherever it may lead" read the sign on the Music City Assembly of God...not bad for a marquee one-liner. I snapped a picture of it one day on the way home; that photo has been above my desk in my study ever since. I think it'll make a fine intro to my blog: it is simple and it is honest. And as far as one-liners go, its a splendid compass point. I'd like that sentiment to hang over my desk here in cyberspace.

I don't know the subtext behind that marquee. Maybe the good folk at the Music City Assembly intended it to have a subtext of swarshbucklin' go-get-em "defense of the faith." Maybe they were trying to communicate with the commuters on Edmondson Pike that their church was a safe place to seek truth. For all I know they got it off one of those horrid emails that comes around every so often loaded with 27,000 trite-if-not-idiotic one-liners (i.e. OUR CH--CH...what's missing??? UR).

Whatever their intent, and whatever the subtext, it struck me in a positive way. And the sentiment has remained with me. I'd like to embrace the rhetoric that speaks with humble conviction: I will follow the truth where it leads. I want to seek truth. Not that I have obtained it, for I see darkly, but one day...

Seeking truth, and following truth, is a hopeful journey. Hope is confidence in what (who/Who) is other than my self; I am not satisfied with now, I press on to the more truthful tomorrow. I am not satisfied with self, but only in He who is truth. Truth-seeking is a humbling journey. I am not arrogant now, indeed, I cannot be, dare not be, arrogant in the now, but relentlessly open to the more truthful tomorrow. It is a journey: both in seeking truth and in following it. Both in discernment and in implementation.

I'd like to be hopeful in my journey for and with truth. I'd like to be humble in my journey for and with truth. I am humbled by my ignorance and my failure to implement. Sometimes I'd rather not go where truth will lead. Sometimes I am deluded by my prideful knowledge. Hope both lifts my vision beyond pride and humbles me because I constantly see how far I have yet to journey. Hope also lifts my vision beyond despair, because I am not secure because of my grasp of the truth, or a truth, or any truth, but I am secure in Him who is Truth.

In future posts I'd like to explore how this sentiment can shape my task as teacher, exegete, theologian and scholar. I'd also like to explore how this sentiment can shape how I live as a human. I'm charged up to do this because I am convinced that the hopeful-yet-humble journey of truth-seeking resonates in our own postmodern context. I want to speak a word of grace and peace to our context; I suspect that the Music City Assembly marquee may give me the vocabulary and the spirit with which to do it.

Your thoughts are welcome here, friend.

Grace and peace.

Well...here goes...

So I have now joined the throng of bloggers. I've hitched my wagon to the electronic equivalent of the old party-line, only there about 27 billion people listening in, and not just on conversations, but on my own random thoughts, and this I do voluntarily (?), knowing that the world can see. This is too odd. At one point not long ago I whispered a vow to myself that I wouldn't get caught up in this gig. And now I'm rambling on my own seconds-old blog about how I'd never blog. And what is "blog" anyhow; sounds like something you'd scrape off your shoe after a walk through the park. (Excuse me sir, but I think you have stepped in some blog...) I suspect that this sort of mildly self-critical irony, and dry mediocre humor, is par for the course.

So here's to it. I'll only go around once, so why not?

I've been mulling over this blog for a while, even in spite of my prejudice against all things technological (in the new world order there will be no technology: that's an inside joke only about twenty-seven of you in cyber-space will even get), primarily as a way for family to keep up with us, our goin's and doin's, and as a way for me to interact with my students, who are more comfortable online that I am drinking coffee in a Waffle House (ok, another one of those things that only the elect will understand). Of course, the trick is to con my students into actually looking at their teacher's blog. How dorky that must be. What am I thinking anyhow?

There are some creative things I'd like to con this blog into doing: hopefully to extend the conversations begun in my classroom, to probe ideas and post reflections. I'd like to take advantage of those possibilities. I'd like to write and publish; this is a way to do that as well.

So, perhaps this will be a worthwhile journey (there's another one of those esoteric "blog phrases"...I'm irritating myself). Time will tell.

In all seriousness, my hope is that this will be a place for thinking out loud about all sorts of things, where the journey is as prized as the destination, and where enjoyable conversation makes the whole thing worth its bandwidth. Do check back in; I'd like to hear from you.

From my desk to yours, my sincere wish for you is grace and peace.