Prof. John Stackhouse’s Weblog

So someone at the University of British Columbia (UBC) decided it was a good idea to bring Richard Dawkins to campus to give a free public lecture. Fair enough. He’s an academic celebrity and there are precious few of those.

The two (two!) professors who introduced him, however, introduced him as someone who could impressively relate the humanities and the sciences. That claim deserves a little scrutiny.

Lots of people have analyzed and criticized Dawkins’s arguments over the years. Indeed, there are whole forests’ worth of books now in print responding to one or another of his anti-theism volumes. And who can count the number of phosphors employed similarly in the blogosphere?

What I will do over the next three posts is to offer what I hope will be some observations that complement these direct engagements with this ideas, and I will do so indeed from the perspective of the humanities.

Let’s begin with one of the most ancient of the liberal arts and consider Dawkins as Rhetor, as orator, as public speaker.
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The single most viewed post on this blog so far has been “Jesus, I’m NOT in Love with You.” As of this writing, it’s had over 8000 views.

In that post, I engage in a little criticism of a certain trend in contemporary Christian music. So, in the spirit of “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness,” I happily recommend a new album by Canadian singer Jon Buller and two of his musical friends. It’s “The Hymn Project” and it’s a simple setting of a dozen or so great hymns and songs for three male voices and a guitar or two.

Here’s the solid gold list: My Hope is Built on Nothing Less - Come Thou Fount - All Creatures of our God and King - Blessed Assurance - Great is Thy Faithfulness - The Old Rugged Cross - Trust and Obey - It Is Well With My Soul - My Jesus I Love Thee - Jesus, Priceless Treasure - Jesus Loves Even Me - I’d Rather Have Jesus - His Eye is on the Sparrow.

I had the privilege of teaming up with Jon, his band, and his group “Hear the Music Ministries” at a worship seminar they held in Winnipeg a few years ago. The highlight for me was borrowing a guitar from Jon and doing my best Eric Clapton impression in a blues his band generously played behind me. Confident as I am that no one actually mistook me for Mr. Clapton—or even for a decent amateur player, which I wish I were—it was nonetheless a blast.

Happily for this album, however, Jon and his friends are much better than decent amateurs, and their beautiful and imaginative vocals and guitars give new life to these fine expressions of worship.

Here’s what I wrote to endorse the album on Jon’s website:

In The Hymn Project, we find what we badly need to find: skillful music and rich lyrics that can fill in the empty spaces left by so many of today’s thin praise songs. What a high standard is set by these deceptively simple arrangements of classic hymns! Older Christians will rejoice to hear these good old hymns refreshed; middle-aged types (such as I) will be inspired by these clear declarations of the gospel; and younger listeners will perhaps finally realize why so many of us miss “the old songs.” This really is an album for everyone.

Now, I’m all for new music and not simply the recycling of the old, no matter how worthy the result. But some old stuff needs to be part of our repertoire of praise, too, and this album proves it. I bought twenty of them to give away over the next year to friends and family. Check it out: It’ll do you good!

Amid all the arguments among Christians regarding the roles of men and women in home, church, and society, one of the most prominent nowadays is the argument from the Trinity, namely, that the way the persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) relate and are related to each other tells us something important about how men and women are related and ought to relate to each other.

And no wonder some argue this way. What a trump card! “Our view of gender is rooted in the very nature of God!”

The first troubling thing to notice here, however, is that this argument is deployed by both complementarians/patriarchalists and egalitarians/feminists.

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There is a lot of huffing and puffing nowadays about “postmodernism” and “skepticism” and “certainty” and “absolute truth.” And it’s been going on for a long time.

On one extreme we have those who affirm that all statements are simply indications of one’s own state of mind, simply matters of opinion, and have no determinable reference to reality. On the other are those who declare their belief in absolute truth and in the absolute truthfulness of their conviction about their favourite absolute truths.

I’ll deal with the radical postmodernists/skeptics/cynics/social constructivists/solipsists another time. (I’ve already dealt with postmodernism in a previous book—Humble Apologetics—and doubtless will again.) Today, let’s deal with the other end of the scale, those who declare not only that certainty is to be had, but that right-thinking people and particularly Christians ought to say that we have it about the main convictions of our outlook.

Alas, too many of these folk proclaim that anyone (such as your servant) who questions whether a human being is actually equipped to enjoy certainty about his or her convictions is guilty of betraying the faith. Some of these folks are clearly off their rockers, while others seem sensible enough on most matters, if regrettably strident and rigid on this one.

The situation boils down to a simple distinction between two kinds of certainty. The former describes a situation and the latter describes a state of mind.

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Normally this blog attends to matters mainly of the mind and spirit. But mind, spirit, and body all are honoured at my favourite restaurant in this foodie town, The Pear Tree, located just over the Vancouver/Burnaby border on Hastings at Gilmore.

My beloved and I have been enjoying The Pear Tree since shortly after its opening, when we moved here ten years ago and found this gem just a few blocks from our house. Chef Scott Yeager has gone from strength to strength in the kitchen, last year receiving 7th Place honours at the international Bocuse d’Or competition in France as Canadian team captain. (He is coach of this year’s team.)

Appetizers, if I may say so, are Scott’s speciality. His frothy lobster “cappuccino” is the finest lobster dish I have ever had, and his scallops are simply the best anywhere. Main dishes are reliably tasty and inventive, without ever being weird–so reliable, in fact, that I routinely order food from Scott that I would rarely order anywhere else–and there is always a high-value table d’hôte option. Desserts are superb. (Kari and I usually have the lemon and chocolate desserts, respectively, although occasionally she walks on the wild side and has the extraordinary crème brulée).

Wife Stephanie runs the front of the house, and is as good at her job as Scott is at his. The service is simply flawless. Always appearing right when you need them, the staff come and go in friendly silence. No grandstanding, no ingratiating chit-chat to push up the tip, they leave you free to enjoy your dining mates while supplying every need before you quite realize you have it.

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It’s getting towards the end of the academic term throughout North America, and it’s time to confirm a thought that haunt the corners of many student minds particularly this time of year. It’s not a pretty truth, but it needs to be said:

Your intelligence, your chance of competing successfully in the global marketplace, your ability to contribute meaningfully to the world, and your entire worth as a human being is precisely correlated to your grades.

The corollary to this axiom is that you must do everything you can to earn or otherwise obtain the highest grades possible, even if that includes shameless flattery of professors (”Have you been working out, sir?”), dark hints of litigation (”I don’t know how my parents, or their attorneys, will feel about any grade lower than a B+”), or obsequious alacrity in helping in the classroom (”Here, let me move that podium for you, ma’am, and get you some nice, cool water to go with the chocolates I’ve brought, and fan you while you lecture”).
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