One more thing...

A big thanks to Travis Stanley for this post on his "Blogging with the Saints" site. St. Ephrem's respect and humility before the text would serve us well when we start to obsess about every detail of the Genesis account.

Public Less Fearful of Terrorist Attack

According to an article in today's Washington Post, the Bush administration worries that Americans just aren't as scared as they should be. These people constantly talk about protection and "homeland" security, but when it comes right down to it, this man's re-election is based upon fear, upon convincing people that we need him to protect us from our worst nightmares.

I'm thankful that God calls his children to be "peacemakers" (Matthew 5.9) and to "live in love" (Ephesians 5.2). One of the NT writers said that "perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4.18). I'll take that path; Mssrs. Bush and Cheney can take theirs.

The aim of knowledge

So, I've been reading Richard Weaver's trenchant Ideas Have Consequences. There are plenty of snippets that I could share but here's one that encapsulates alot of my thinking about the purpose and direction of my life as an academic.

The split in the theory of knowledge which took place at the time of the Renaissance is enough to account for that form of ignorance which is egotism. Under the worldview possessed by medieval scholars, the path of learning was a path to self-deprecation, and the philosophiae doctor was the one who had at length seen a rational ground for humilitas...An opposing conception comes in with Bacon's "knowledge is power." If the aim of knowledge is domination, it is hardly to be supposed that the possessors of knowledge will be indifferent to their importance. On the contrary, they begin to swell; they seek triumphs in the material world (knowledge being meanwhile necessarily degraded to skills) which inflate their egotism and self-consideration. Such is a brief history of how knowledge passes from a means of spiritual redemption to a basis for intellectual pride.

As I've gone through college and, now, through the first few years of graduate study, I've discovered the paradox that the more I learn, the less I know. And, as Weaver indicates, that is the beginning of humility. None of this is to toot my own horn. But I have noticed in so many churches a fear of higher education that springs (I think) from a fear of how the educated handle their knowledge (with arrogance, with contempt of others). So, it remains for me and for all who pursue higher education to consider how we use our knowledge and the responsibility that that knowledge places upon us.

a warning for IE users

I usually try to avoid techie stuff, but this looks like it's worthy of wide distribution. In short, if you use Internet Explorer, you may want to reconsider.