Archive for January, 2009
101 Reasons Why It Doesn’t Pay to Be an Intellectual Snob
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Self-Portrait, Yawn | Ducreux
Admit it: you’re a snob. An intellectual snob.
Just like me.
Do you curl your lip at Harry Potter books? Does American Idol make your stomach churn?
Do you tend to spend your time on ideas and projects devoid of practical value. . .but replete with entertaining possibilities?
If so, then yes. . .you are an intellectual snob.
It’s okay. We still love you.
What Is an Intellectual Snob?
An intellectual snob is not defined by income, class, or sex. An intellectual snob is defined by superior thoughts, words and deeds.
Relish it. [I do.]
But although flaunting and mocking, this raunchy upper-crust sensibility does have it’s drawbacks.
101 to be exact. Possibly more. That’s where you come in.
After you’ve scanned this list, leave your own example of the pain asserting your ascendancy over your friends and family’s caused you.
Trust me: It’ll be cathartic.
Now. . .step up for big dividends in the giddy heights of snobbish mockery.
1. I make an easy target for low-brows.
2. Chokes on his own spit when offered a ride in a dualie.
3. Weakness for irrationality.
4. Can experience rage and jubilation over the same statement. Depending on who said. [See no. 100.]
5. Snobs aren’t easy to buy for. Especially clothes. [You'll see why in a minute.]
6. Reclining in the college library reading Baudelaire aloud labels you. Quickly.
7. Unexpected and protracted engagements in the search for a superior moral justification of intellectual snobbishness while in the bathroom.
8. People ask you boring questions like, “What were you doing in the bathroom for so long?”
9. People avoid you because you give rude answers.
10. I involuntarily sneer when someone says something stupid.
11. I involuntarily vomit when someone says, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”
12. I own the same set of clothes for the last six years.
13. I don’t care that I own the same set of clothes for the last six years.
14. I can have a set of clothing for everyday of the week. . .like a uniform.
15. I read everything. Especially when people are talking to me.
16. I throw vicious fits when someone doesn’t understand what I say.
17. I throw vicious fits when someone criticisizes me for mumbling.
18. People misunderstand me all the time. For example, I cruise blogs and whip off comments that make me seem like a curmudgeon even though all I’m doing is making jest with a good heart. Get it?
19. I get all bent out of shape when someone says they read 100 books last year. Now, I have to read 101 this year.
20. I don’t have a lick of common sense.
21. Couldn’t balance a check book to save my life.
22. My wife wants to vomit every time I string the words “intellectual” and “snob” in the same sentence.
23. Intellectual snobbery makes for a bad love life. [See no. 22.]
24. Involuntarily shriek when I watch Oprah.
25. Didn’t realize how impolite it was to applaud when Jonathan Frazen rejected Oprah’s Book Club.
26. Name dropping Russell or Wittgenstein at a Kentucky cocktail party stops conversations cold.
27. Party-goers usually see my nose in a book during festivities as a vicious, personal attack on their character. [It's not. Entirely.]
28. Non-intellectual snobs don’t trust me.
29. Forget trying to find my car keys. . .where’s my car?
30. Unintentional, violent laughter when someone says they were reading Reader’s Digest. “Reading, really?”
31. I play chess by myself. All the time.
32. Hurt awfully bad when friends reject my overtures to play a round of sudoku.
33. Women giggle when I mention I want to be a member of Mensa.
34. I butcher the more prestigious words in the English language because pronunciation isn’t nearly as important as simply knowing a big word.
35. My wife vomits when I mention I butcher a prestigious word in the English language.
36. Generally ignored at dinner parties. [And by Mensa. Which hurts. Bad.]
37. No one to share my obsession for the encyclopedia with.
38. Most people don’t consider knowing who the last 8 Nobel Prize in Literature winners important.
39. Been accused of wanting to be a transvestite because I want to join Mensa.
40. Saying Hieronomyous Bosch was the best Flemish painter who ever lived at a Nascar event usually gets me killed.
41. Regarding madness as a virtue sours my relationships with my psychiatrists. All 37 of them.
42. Name dropping Michel Foucault or John Frame can quiet the crowd at any Christian coffee shop and put their eyes on you.
43. Simple tasks become enormous mind jobs because I’m incapable of seeing at that level. [The practical level, that is.]
44. My worst nightmare is that someone will call me stupid. I couldn’t bear it. At all.
45. Saying you’re “in a state” after drinking a bottle of porter isn’t funny to anyone. Including your wife.
46. Said wife vomits when I make these bad jokes.
47. Considers the use of the word “verbage” an impeachable offense.
48. Madly in love with reversible, monogrammed, stripe-motif smoking jackets when everyone else isn’t.
49. Often confuses the doctrine of predestination and it’s baggage to mean that I’m chosen to be smarter than most people.
50. I go nuts when I meet people even marginally smarter than me.
51. Am the only one who finds unending comfort in correcting lax theology, vulgar spirituality and crass emotions.
52. Am alone. A lot.
53. Constantly tweaking my list of “top 10 books every child should read before bedtime” during dinner ruins lots of potentially beautiful moments.
54. Bewildered by fashion creeds like “socks must match your pants.”
55. Doesn’t understand his wife’s resistance to giving Dante’s Inferno to his 7-year-old daughter.
56. Tormented by my secret love for Enid Blyton books.
57. Can’t sleep at night when I discover that someone with brains doing the unthinkable: watching Big Brother.
58. I unexpectedly insult family when I comment about their slide into stupidity.
59. Flesh ripples in a good way when someone calls me a condescending snit.
60. Has to be constantly reminded that “white trash” is a bad word.
61. I’m poor.
62. I’m accused of being a socialist or communist all the time. [I believe in capitalism. I just can't figure out the profit-making part.]
63. Rickety and tempermental relationship with money: I hate it when I got it. I hate it when I don’t.
64. My wife vomits when I say, “I hate money.”
65. Easily embarrassed by Bette Midler and Barbra Steisand.
66. Easily embarrassed by MTV videos of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?“
67. Carelessly lumped in with the likes of Hillary Clinton and Lizzie Grubman.
68. I didn’t realize people would get up in arms over a little book burning.
69. The Shack? Really.
70. Can’t shake the view that heaven is an endless library. . .and hell a tiny library full of endless airbags.
71. Capable of carrying around the same $100’s cause I’m afraid to spend it.
72. Seized with anxiety when standing in front of a pair of $14 jeans.
73. Buyer’s remorse looms for days on small purchases. Lasts weeks on larger purchases. . .like a microwave.
74. Look! My jeans are fine. They do their job–covering my legs. Who cares that their faded and paper-thin?
75. Thinks re-working the same seveteen lines of a poem forty times a legitimate way to relax.
76. Partial to words like “abrogate,” “derogate” and “abdicate.”
77. Gets a sick, enslaving kick out of watching the mental gymnastics necessary for people to comprehend abrogate, derogate and abdicate.
78. Heavy reliance on phrases like “without a brain.”
79. Dates with my beloved are punctuated with moments where I suddenly put down my knife and fork, gasp, strike my head with my head, lean forward and say, “Angie, I think I’ve just had an afflatus!”
80. Fond of near-crippling psychological disorders. In other people.
81. Find it impossible to enjoy a good weepie like Australia. My beloved finds me impossible.
82. Finds a movie like Wall-E unrealistic and absurd and impossible to believe. Yet, funny.
83. Doesn’t get a lot support in my theory that sports are merely an outlet for intellegent people to behave like brainless people. [See no. 78]
84. Supports the idea that the habit of getting excited and screaming for no good reason creates a momentary bubble of ignorance.
85. Shocked to learn that non-intellectuals don’t actually sleep with their sisters.
86. Once caught in a bikers’ rally wearing a bow tie. [All I did was walk out of the St. Louis Art museum. Just kidding.]
87. Habit of weeping in non-sentimental environments like the barber’s.
88. Will support universal health care only if it involves free haircuts.
89. Hyper interested in learning words I’ve never heard of and using them in ways that will gorgonize my friends beyond measure.
90. One day tried to teach a vulture how to sing “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” [How do you think I come up with my big ideas, eh?]
91. Knew this intellectual snobbery thing wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be when I spent half a night at a party talking to Nurse Bob about the unbearable lightness of being.
92. Encourages his children to use obscure. . .sometimes preposterous. . .words for no other purpose than to confuse their peers.
93. Visibly appalled at linguistic deformities like “breffus” and “lassitive.”
94. Had a bleaker understanding of human nature and fewer friends after reading Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.
95. Wonders why more people don’t consider watching small-minded people trapped inside a retail store entertainment.
96. Still doesn’t know why Nick Hornsby got so excited when I offered to come along for the ride. The ride being the travail that is Nick taking his autistic son to the park.
97. Makes enemies faster than he makes friends. [See no. 94. Or 95. Or 98.]
98. Not encouraged–at all–in his dreams to engineer a situation in which he could call someone an “impotent, conceited, obscene, hairy-buttocked toad.”
99. Has a murdeously uphill battle convincing people that there isn’t much difference between visiting a morgue and some Methodist churches.
100. Mildly amused when someone calls me a repellant, smarmy, wooden-headed contrarian. Contrarian being the operative word.
101. Am alone. A lot.
Your Turn
Don’t be shy. I know that humility is nothing more than a disguise for an enormous ego bristling to demonstrate its superiority.
Flaunt away. I did.
What Camus and Frankl Can Teach You about the Meaning of Life
Albert Camus
Is it possible to find meaning in life without God? Albert Camus and Victor Frankl think so.
Both agree that the most fundamental question a person can ask himself is “What is the meaning of my life?”
All other questions are secondary.
Camus on the Meaning of Life
Both men were atheists. This means neither thought God had to be part of the equation of meaning.
What they recognized was if a person didn’t have a purpose in his life then depression and suicide would be there fate.
Camus said that suicide is the philosophers biggest challenge: Why should I live if my life has no purpose? In his mind God was dead, so…God wouldn’t do.
Frankl on the Meaning of Life
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl describes how he found that a man in a concentration camp was more likely to survive when he had a son or a wife or a cause to return to when released.
Furthermore, Viktor discovered in clinical studies that a man could conquer depression if he trained his mind on a child or a dream.
In other words, something outside himself.
Is Meaning without God Possible?
In his book Can Man Live Without God? Ravi Zacherias cites a story in Life magazine about a man named Raymond Samulyson.
In the article, Samulyson argues that life can be meaningful even for those who don’t believe in God.
His argument: If a man adores a grove of plum and cherry blossoms and find lots of meaning tending them…he’s found meaning outside of God.
But Samulyson misses the point.
What Camus and Frankl Don’t Teach You
The point Samulyson misses is this: life without God implies life without moral, social and political boundaries.
What Camus, Frankl and Co. don’t teach you is that a man who finds meaning in his life from his cherry and plum blossoms is given little shelter from another man who finds lots of meaning in mowing down cherry and plum blossoms with a bulldozer.
Or, better yet, imagine if you had a 10-year-old daughter you adored. You found lots of meaning raising her. However, the meaning you found through raising your daughter could do little to shelter her from a gang of men bent on rape and murder.
What does it matter so long as everyone is happy?
Absolute Versus Relative Values
Camus, Frankl and Co. miss the larger point: Without a large, objective meaning involved in life that draws social, moral and political boundaries, the world will eventually descend into a race of men running about recklessly pursuing their passions at the expense of other men.
Granted, some men build societies to protect their families. But what is its prevailing social, moral and political code? Is it in absolute truths like justice and purity? Or is it anything goes as long as nobody is hurt?
Someone has to decide. And it’s best to use an objective standard.
My Point
Camus, Frankl and Co. seem to ignore the implications of living in a meaningless universe…a universe where somehow a man’s passion is going to overcome the larger emptiness.
The emptiness that will consume you when your passion fails you.
Listen: you must have meaning in life…but that meaning must be grounded in something like God.
And then you need clarity about who that God is. Uncertainty only invites confusion, fear and chaos. In your life and the world around you.
What Do You Think?
So, what is the meaning of your life? Do you live a safe, ordered and healthy life without God? Am I missing anything? I look forward to hearing from you.
Four Approaches to the Doctrine of the Trinity
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Gregory of Nyssa
**Part of the Thoroughly Painless Guide to the Doctrine of God’s Trinity series.**
Chances are, you think about God’s Trinity a lot. Question is, are you thinking correctly?
Two weeks ago I wrote about 10 inadequate views of God’s Trinity. This week, I want to look at four correct views…
And then I’ll explain why clarity on this doctrine is so important to you.
Cappadocians on the Trinity
This 4th Century family of monks known as the Cappadocian Fathers made major contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity following the Council of Nicaea.
The formula to best describe this approach to the Trinity is “one substance in three persons.” The one indivisible Godhead is common to all three persons of the Trinity.
This approach, however, gives priority to the father, and in doing so, can easily hint at tritheism or modalism.
Karl Barth on the Trinity
Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth is generally regarded as championing the importance of the Trinitarian doctrine after a sustained period of neglect by dogmatic theologians.
Barth argued that sin prohibits man from seeing or hearing the self disclosure of God as redeemer. Therefore, the Holy Spirit’s function is to make this revelation visible to sinful man.
In other words: God reveals Himself through the Son…but sinful man is blind to this revelation without the help of the Holy Spirit.
Karl Rahner on the Trinity
One of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th Century, Karl Rahner, said the way God reveals himself in the economy of salvation–Father, Son and Holy Spirit–is a disclosure of who he actually is in eternity.
The proper starting point, then, when discussing the Trinity, is our experience of salvation. When we reflect on our salvation experience, we see the Trinity.
Rahner is simply building on what Barth said: Christ is the image of God. But we’ll never see that image unless the Holy Spirit reveals it. That is salvation.
Robert Jenson on the Trinity
In his book The Triune Identity–a recommended read if there ever was one– Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson says that the Trinity identifies and isolates the Christian God from rival gods through his historical actions–namely, raising Christ from the dead–as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
In other words, when you use God’s proper name, you are being unquestionably clear about the God you are talking about. This is theological precision. Precious in an age of lax theology.
Why This Is Important to You
I think the number one reason why you should care about the doctrine of the Trinity is this: you can’t truly adore who you don’t know.
We don’t marry strangers. Or even people we kind of know.
When we truly love someone, we want to know everything about that person. So clarity about God deepens our adoration and dependence on Him as we see His beauty in light of our wretchedness.
In fact, refusal to refine our view of God is an act of rebellion. You know you can know God better. What are you going to do about it?
Your Turn
Which of the four approaches helped you see God better? [For me, it was Jensen's approach.] Do any of these approaches expose any error in your belief or behavior? Do you agree clarity about God is even important? If not, why?
Trevin Wax on Abortion, Anarchy and Antinomianism
If you’ve spent a lot of time around the Christian blog scene in the last year or two, chances are you’ve run into Trevin Wax.
Trevin Wax serves the people at First Baptist Church in Shelbyville, TN as Associate Pastor for Education and Missions.
He’s also a contributor to Christianity Today and the author of the forthcoming book Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals. Read excerpts.
But I know him through his blog Kingdom People.
At Kingdom People Trevin tackles theology, church issues and he’s among the best Christian book reviewers out there. All you have to do is read a couple of his reviews and you’ll understand.
Without a doubt, Trevin has the pedigree and chops to articulate our Gospel faith clearly, concisely and compellingly.
That’s why I decided to approach him and nail him down on three issues I think are fracturing Christianity: anarchy, abortion and antinomianism.
Are you ready?
Trevin Wax on Anarchy
Demian: Do you think the American church is a cohesive or a chaotic body?
Trevin: The American Church seems to me quite fragmented at the present hour, which is one of the side effects of living in a fragmented culture.
But we’re not only seeing fragmentation at the denominational level. You also have a breakdown of church unity even at the local level, and that should always give us cause for concern.
Many churches are dividing up their congregation based on age or musical preference. These new developments are an indication that we have brought the consumerist mindset into the church, and though evangelical churches may experience a measure of initial success, consumerism becomes deadly down the road.
Demian: Do you think there are persons or groups or movements who are trying to systematically undermine orthodox Christianity?
Trevin: I’m sure there are some people who are intentionally seeking to undermine the church. Many people are hurting. They’ve been bruised by the church in some form or fashion.
Demian: What do you think about The Shack?
Trevin: A book like The Shack demonstrates what is good and bad about evangelicalism today.
The good? We emphasize personal experience. A personal relationship with God is still on the forefront of our imagination and at the center of our heart’s desire. And God himself provides the answer to our suffering and sin.
But The Shack’s popularity also demonstrates the bad of evangelicalism. Too few evangelicals have the doctrinal foundation to clearly recognize what is wrong with The Shack – in its portrayal of God, in its blatantly anti-Church mindset, and its individualistic streak (just me and God, no other community necessary).
Trevin Wax on Abortion
Demian: Do you have no, mild or strong feelings on abortion?
Trevin: I have always been pro-life. Ever since I was a child, I remember having a deep understanding that abortion is morally wrong.
About three or four years ago, I began to be cynical about the way in which abortion was used by the Republican party…an issue dangled before our eyes every four years and then put away until the next election cycle.
Bush made some progress for the pro-life movement and deserves our praise and gratitude. But much of his good work will probably be erased by Obama. And then we will be back where we were during the Clinton years.
Demian: Do you wish people would stop talking about abortion?
Trevin: In the past couple of years, I have become less convinced that seeking to change laws is the only way forward. Instead, we need to work on a number of levels at eliminating abortion.
I am convinced that abortion is the greatest single issue of justice in our culture today. It goes to the heart of what we believe about human dignity.
I understand that some evangelicals want to broaden the scope of political issues. But let us not deemphasize abortion. It must be prioritized. We are talking about innocent human life.
So… I wish people would talk about abortion more. Not on blogs or in the media necessarily, but on the street.
I wish people would be discussing this in Starbucks, at Borders, at theaters and plays. I wish people would watch an abortion on the internet and see the horror of dismembering a baby.
Demian: Do you agree that abortion is equal to child sacrifice?
In many ways, abortion is our culture’s version of child-sacrifice. Most abortions take place because the mother decides the baby should be sacrificed instead of her emotional health, her career path, or her financial stability. In other words, something else is more valuable than human life.
Demian: Will abortion ever go away?
Trevin: But I am optimistic. If our country can turn the corner in race relations in forty years and elect an African American president, who’s to say we can’t turn a corner on the abortion issue in forty years? I hope that my grandkids will not only live in a world where abortion is illegal, but unthinkable.
Trevin Wax on Antinomianism
Demian: Do you think we are overwhelmed by people who latch onto grace but ignore the law and run wild in sin?
Trevin: I don’t think that we have an epidemic of grace in our country. I think we have too little grace actually.
Those who latch onto grace and then ignore the law haven’t actually latched onto grace. The grace of God meets you where you are, but it doesn’t leave you in that state. It changes you. It transforms your desires.
Demian: Do you think grace-heavy/lawlesness is a non issue?
Trevin: The problem is not that we believe too much in grace…it’s that we have not yet realized the enormity of human sin.
There is no need for costly grace if sin is not a big problem. When sin isn’t a big deal, neither is grace. Neither is the law. Who needs Jesus, except as life coach and cheerleader?
What Do You Think?
Trevin’s brought up some great ideas, like the problem of antinomianism lies…not in too much grace…but in an ignorance of the severity of sin.
Do you agree? And what about his thoughts on abortion–do you share his optimism that abortion could be gone one day?
Share your throughts. Brutal and all. We look forward to hearing from you.
Quick Study: Our Wretched State
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Little Distraught Dawkins
Remember towards the end of the movie Expelled when Richard Dawkins, quoting Bertrand Russell, said:
“When I stand before God, I’ll ask him why he didn’t give me more evidence.”
Remember that? I find that comical.
I also find it comical when someone like Dan Barker suggests that he’ll rail on God when he gets the chance.
Strange positions for people who supposedly don’t believe in God.
Naturally, unregenerate people aren’t going to share the biblical view of God or His holiness. Or their wretchedness.
So, in that vein, I’m kicking Monday off right by sharing narratives from the Bible that demonstrate what our true response will be when we stand before God–whether in this life or the next.
Because of this I must lament and wail, I must go barefoot and naked; I must make a lament like the jackals. And a mourning like the ostriches. Micah 1:8
But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” Exodus 33:20
But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Luke 5:8
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ Luke 18:13
and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. Ezra 9:6
Then I said, ”Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” Isaiah 6:5
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire This is the second death, the lake of fire.
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15
Tell me: Do these passages humble you, stir your heart or…make you want to vomit? Does your skin crawl when I use the word “wretched”? Can you think of any passages I’m missing?
I look forward to hearing from you. Brutal and all.
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