Randal Rauser's Blog, page 116

My Biggest … and Most Frustrating Publishing Success

A few weeks ago one of my readers, David, let me know that on his travels in Brazil he had seen copies of my book Encontre Deus na Cabana (the Portuguese translation of Finding God in the Shack) at different Brazilian bookstores. Since I haven’t been paid any significant royalties on this edition of the book for several years, I was (how shall I put it?) intrigued.

So I contacted InterVarsity Press who owns the copyright to the book. (As owners of the copyright, it is InterVarsity that licenses translations and collects the royalties from the satellite publishers.) They notified me that a new print run of 5000 copies had been made by the Brazilian publisher in light of the release of The Shack movie. And that presumably explained the book’s high profile at bookstores.

Good to know!

By the way, I also inadvertently discovered that the book has now been published with a new translation (there is a different translator listed on the book). Come to think of it, it would have been good to know that too. But I learned long ago that after you sign the contract, you are often the last person to hear what is happening to your book.

Here’s the most interesting thing. Today I discovered the following cover of the book online, one that boasts “mais de 500 mil exemplares vendidos.” Since your Portuguese is probably about as good as mine, let me translate: “More than 500,000 copies sold.”

Wow, that’s a lot of books.

I had no idea the sales numbers were anywhere close to this. (Remember, I haven’t received a substantial royalty payment in years.) So far as I can see, record keeping and royalty payments in Brazil are not quite as reliable as they are in North America.

And there you have my biggest and most frustrating publishing success.

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What is wrong with this Ancestry DNA ad?

I’ve seen this irritating ad on TV multiple times. And while there are several things wrong with it, let’s focus on one.

“Lyn” discovers she is “26% Nigerian.” Apparently a genetic plurality in one’s DNA profile is sufficient to claim any cultural expressions historically associated with that genetic identity as one’s own.

Since Nigerian DNA occupies a plurality of her DNA makeup, Lyn claims that Nigerian culture (including cultural dress) is her culture.

After that rather grand leap in logic, it is but a small additional step to conclude that those who lack the minimal genetic plurality in their DNA profile lack the right to claim cultural expressions historically associated with that DNA.

Now let’s think of England as an example. By this logic, if you lack a plurality of Anglo DNA in your genetic profile then you lack the right to claim English culture (including derby hats, fox hunts, and Doc Martens) as your own. So, for example, the genetic Chinese or African person who immigrates to England will lack the claim to expressions of English culture that are enjoyed by those who have a plurality of Anglo DNA.

Kind of sounds racist, doesn’t it?

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Good Christian song. Bad theology

When I was growing up my parents vacillated between encouraging me to listen to God-honoring sanctified music and allowing me to listen to secular music. As for me, I often found myself waffling between the two, resolving one minute to seek spiritual purity and giving in the next minute to the lure of Casey Kasem’s Top Forty.

During those times when I would resolve to purify my ears, I inevitably looked for Christian versions of my favorite secular artists. Like a new vegan convert desperate to find a tofu patty that tastes like real beef, I was desperate to find a satisfactory sanctified substitute for my favorite secular singers.

I recount some of that tortured process in What’s So Confusing About Grace? As I note there, the Christian bookstore had a long list of Christian versions of secular artists. If you like ABBA, check out Silverwind; Iron Maiden? Try Barren Cross; Is Ratt your thing? Definitely give Whitecross a listen.

The year was 1985 when Heart’s eponymous eighth album exploded onto the scene … and promptly blew me away. Full of awesome tracks like “Never” (still my favorite), “Nothin’ at All,” and “These Dreams” I quickly became a Heart fanatic.

So what to do a couple years later when I found myself back in Pilgrim’s Slough of Despond, keen to shelve my secular music and seek pious entertainment instead?

Then a light broke through. One day I was reading a Christian magazine — I think it was Campus Life — when I read the review of an album by a new artist named “Margaret Becker.” The reviewer gave the album a solid review and noted crucially that Becker sounded a lot like Heart.

I was sold! Down to the Christian bookstore and I picked up the album Never for Nothing. And on the lead track at least Becker did sound a lot like Ann Wilson! To be sure, Never for Nothing was never really a substitute for stellar albums like Heart or Bad Animals, but like a passable tofu burger, it was enough to keep me on the wagon for awhile.

Thirty years later as I listen to the eponymous title track I find that the song has held up fairly well. At least the music part has. But the lyrics are, frankly, horrible.

Consider, the song is an encouragement to continue doing good works even when they are not reciprocated. As Becker sings, we should remember that “It’s never for nothing when you love with no return.”

Why, exactly? Why is it never for nothing?

Becker reveals the reason in the second verse:

Your friends say you’re the fool – For loving with nothing to gain – But they can’t see the reward – That you’ll claim – So hold on to the holy promise (that says) – No labor of love is in vain – Precious tears are changed to jewels – In the rain

Oh. My. Goodness.

So … the reason we continue to “love with no return” is because you WILL get a return. Oh yeah! A BIG REWARD.

I hope my atheist friends never run across this song. It will confirm their worst suspicions! By this logic, Christian ethics is merely transactional, the ultimate quid pro quo: we love not because he first loved us but because we’re going to get a posthumous payout.

Perhaps the worst part is that Becker’s first album was named after this song, and the song became the lead track for the album. This bad theology didn’t just slip through the cracks: it was on the cover! That suggests to me that many Christians (at least many in the late eighties) accepted what Becker is singing: for them ethics was indeed merely transactional, self-interested, a necessary evil in pursuit of heavenly reward.

How ironic that I would listen to a song like this as an allegedly sanctified substitute for morally inferior “secular” music.

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What’s wrong with this atheist meme?

A couple people told me they found my last run at this meme too cryptic. So I decided to delete my cryptic post and take another run at the meme to explain the problem. Let’s start with the meme:

pic.twitter.com/EobVBLtTPO

— Atheist Republic (@AtheistRepublic) September 9, 2017

Interpreting the Meme

Let’s begin with the church sign. What, according to the meme, is the problem with it?

One possible interpretation is that the meme is objecting to the way faith is defined on the church sign. In other words, the meme is saying:

“That definition of faith right there is the problem.”

But I don’t think that’s a plausible interpretation of the meme for one simple reason: atheists are not typically interested in parsing out nuanced definitions of faith … especially when it comes to tweetable memes.

This brings me to the second interpretation. According to this interpretation the meme accepts the definition of faith provided by the church sign. In addition, the meme assumes that the church sign is commending faith as defined as a good way to go about believing things.

It is this latter point — the point at which faith, as defined, is commended to passerby — with which the meme takes issue. In other words, the meme is saying:

“That idea that faith should be preferred over common sense is the problem.”

And it is this latter point with which the meme takes issue. Contrary to the church sign, the meme insists that it is not commendable to believe something when common sense tells you not to believe it.

However, there is a problem with this interpretation: it appears to be a grossly uncharitable read of the church sign. Why? Because that would imply that the church sign commends always and in all cases the practice of favoring faith, as defined, over common sense.

But surely the church sign cannot mean that because that would be patently absurd, and thus that reading would equate to a base strawman of the church sign.

Since it seems equally uncharitable to believe the meme would strawman the church sign so egregiously, we must modify our interpretation of the meme. On this slightly modified reading, the church sign is commending the preference of faith over common sense in some (but clearly not all) circumstances. Meanwhile, the meme is taking issue with that advice by eschewing faith over reason in all circumstances. Hence, I arrive at the final interpretation of the meme:

“That idea that faith should EVER be preferred over common sense is the problem.”

Repudiating the Meme

And this brings me to the real problem: the meme has it quite wrong. To see why, I gave some examples in my original overly-cryptic article where it is surely proper to favor faith to common sense. I have reworded the examples to make it maximally clear what I’m saying:

When common sense tells you the water is good to drink (after all, it’s perfectly clear), but an environmental scientist tell you the water is infected with something called “cryptosporidium,” you should have faith in the scientist’s testimony rather than your common sense.

When common sense tells you the earth is getting cooler (after all, it was rainy and cold all summer), but a respected climatologist tell you the earth is in fact warming due in part to human cased factors, you should have faith in the scientist’s testimony rather than your common sense.

When common sense tells you you’re healthy (after all, you feel fine), but your doctor tells you that you have a tumor requiring treatment, you should have faith in the scientist’s testimony rather than your common sense.

When common sense tells you the earth is flat (seriously, just look around!), but your kindergarten teacher tells you that it’s an “oblate spheroid” you should trust your kindergarten teacher.

Conclusion

I suspect that the meme (or the memer — is that a thing?) would agree that common sense can be trumped by faith in many circumstances including the instances of testimony cited above. Consequently, I also suspect that there may be more common agreement among the memer and the church than the memer realizes. Both recognize that common sense is fallible and can be trumped, not least by respected testimonial authorities.

Where they differ is not in the basic analysis of faith and common sense, but rather in the range of authorities to which they are willing to defer.

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Stupid Atheist Meme of the Day

And without further ado:

pic.twitter.com/EobVBLtTPO

— Atheist Republic (@AtheistRepublic) September 9, 2017

Right. Thanks to “Atheist Republic” for that bit of wisdom.

So when common sense tells you the water is good to drink (after all, it’s perfectly clear), you can dismiss all those “scientists” who tell you the water is infected with something called “cryptosporidium” (as if that’s a thing!).

And when common sense tells you the earth is getting cooler (after all, it was a rainy and cold all summer), you can dismiss all those “scientists” who bleat about “climate change” and “global warming”.

And when common sense tells you you’re healthy (after all, you feel fine), you can dismiss all those “scientists” who tell you that you have a “tumor” requiring treatment.

And when common sense tells you the earth is flat (seriously, just look around!), you can dismiss all those “scientists” who tell you it’s an “oblate spheroid” (whatever that is).

Yeah, clearly having faith in the testimony of others is stupid. We just need our common sense!

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God and the Weather Revisited

Ten days ago I posted an article titled “‘I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth…’ Could God be punishing Texas?” Since then I rewrote and expanded the article and this morning it was posted at Strange Notions as “Does God Punish People Through Natural Weather Events?“

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Confusing Grace: The Unfundamentalist Christians Review

Dan Wilkinson at the blog Unfundamentalist Christians just posted a great review of What’s So Confusing About Grace? Here are a couple excerpts:

“Equal parts humorous, sobering, and thought-provoking, Rauser explores the big issues of Christianity by honestly recounting the often self-deprecating anecdotes of his youth.”

“Rauser readily admits when he doesn’t have the answers, and good-naturedly pokes at his younger self when he thought he did. This account of his spiritual growth over the last forty years is a wonderful demonstration of how doubt need not destroy faith, but can instead cause it to blossom.”

You can read the review here.

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Because Jesus would build a wall, that’s why!

The base of the Statue of Liberty includes this famous poem by Emma Lazarus:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Well-intentioned, perhaps. But is it really so wise to send out an invitation to the world’s “huddled masses” of “wretched refuse” — in other words, losers?

Not according to the “Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration.” To be sure, they still welcome immigrants, but they advocate for what they call a “wise welcome.”

“Wise welcome?” That would seem to be code for being far more discriminating about whom one allows across the borders than that bleeding heart, Emma Lazarus.

Here’s the problem. Jesus seems to side with Emma Lazarus since he talked at length about the importance of embracing the least of these: those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and in prison. In short, he invited the huddled masses and wretched refuse of the world.

What is more, while John describes the New Jerusalem as having walls and gates, those gates will never be shut (Revelation 21:25).

But the Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration choose not to use Jesus’ teaching and the New Jerusalem as touchstones for determining just what a biblical immigration policy should be. Instead, they conveniently turn to the book of Nehemiah which chronicles the efforts of a charismatic leader to rebuild the walls surrounding a once great people so that they may regain their “God-honoring culture.”

So there you have it. If Jesus were around today, he’d build a wall, just like Nehemiah.

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How inhumane would it be to end DACA?

Sixteen years ago Dave divorced his first wife Suzie over “irreconcilable differences”. Dave then went on to marry Margie. Dave and Margie have now been married for fifteen years and they have one fourteen year old son, Scottie.

Now imagine that Dave and Margie are members of a particular church denomination. And that denomination decides that Dave and Margie are in adultery based on their interpretation of Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage. As a result, they render their judgment: Dave and Margie need to divorce and Dave needs to return to his first wife, Suzie.

Can you imagine the impact that ending Dave and Margie’s marriage would have on Scottie? That provides an illustration of the kind of effect that ending DACA would have on countless Dreamers.

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Tooting my own horn again…

Here’s a fine review of What’s So Confusing About Grace? courtesy of Michael. And here’s an excerpt:

“Randal’s retrospective is warm, funny (laugh out loud funny in places – see for example his sidebar on faking how to speak in tongues p. 156), sincere, and graciously kind. And he takes his earnest, childhood faith and uses it to craft a book that made me think and enriched my faith.”

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