Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 1 - Albert Mohler

There is little doubt that the inerrancy of the Bible is a current and often contentious topic among evangelicals. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy represents a timely contribution by showcasing the spectrum of evangelical positions on inerrancy, facilitating understanding of these perspectives, particularly where and why they diverge.

Each essay in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy considers:

• the present context and the viability and relevance for the contemporary evangelical Christian witness;
• whether and to what extent Scripture teaches its own inerrancy;
• the position’s assumed/implied understandings of the nature of Scripture, God, and truth; and
• three difficult biblical texts, one that concerns intra-canonical contradictions, one that raises questions of theological plurality, and one that concerns historicity.

Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy serves not only as a single-volume resource for surveying the current debate, but also as a catalyst both for understanding and advancing the conversation further. Contributors include Al Mohler, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Bird, Peter Enns, and John Franke.

* * * * * * * * *

Scott McKnight begins a discussion of Inerrancy to which I will add

occasional emendation, notes, links, and resources. - R.E. Slater, August 4, 2014

Inerrancy: A “Classic” Model

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/08/04/inerrancy-a-classic-model/

by Scot McKnight

August 4, 2014

Comments

The word “inerrancy,” like the word evangelical, beggars clear and compelling definitions and articulations. Many of inerrancy’s proponents don’t believe simpler words — like truth, truthful, trustworthy — adequately express what is to be believed about the Bible. So there is an Inerrancy Debate, and it is now in an official form: Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy. The editors are J. Merrick and S.M. Garrett, and the contributors, with responses to each of the other essayists, are R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Peter Enns, Michael F. Bird, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and John R. Franke. Believe me, this is one of the more volatile issues among evangelicals (the term “inerrancy” tends not to be used except by evangelicals, and then not by all). I am not a fan of these Counterpoint books since, in general, the responses go down hill fast. I do value sketching various views of a topic, including inerrancy. But this sketch is clearly an in-house-evangelical affair with not a look at Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans or others.

Mohler kicks the volume off, and after reading him carefully I have come to this conclusion: Mohler creates an argument the way Kris and I do crosswords — we work in this corner and then that corner, and then on this line and then on that line. We don’t finish up one section before we move on to another. The problem is that arguments are not crosswords. Mohler’s essay, in other words, is a tangled mess with barely any order — here one thing, there another, with an application/polemical point now and then later another one, with some Bible and then no Bible. One can discern what he believes well enough, but for a representative of the “classic” view (and he means Warfield through the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy) this is at best a hodgepodge of claims. There are much better studies, including those by B.B. Warfield, E.J. Young, J.I. Packer, and Paul Feinberg’s well-framed essay in a book called Inerrancy (ed. N. Geisler).

I was a college student when the inerrancy debate became big at the hand of Harold Lindsell’s famous The Battle for the Bible. I devoured the book, stood amazed at some of his claims, but knew there was much to study in this topic — so I read B.B. Warfield and E.J. Young cover to cover, carefully watching how they worked. They were articulate, careful, and mostly convincing. But not all have achieved their level of patient exposition of the Bible’s understanding of itself.

He contends inerrancy is supported by the Bible’s own claims, by the course of theological history, and for pastoral reasons.

These are representative statements by Mohler:

“An affirmation of the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible has stood at the center of the evangelical faith as long as there have been Christians known as evangelicals” (29). He’s more or less right: I don’t think it is all that helpful to call the Reformers “evangelicals” (as we know them today), but evangelicalism (properly boundaried) has believed in inspiration and authority.

One of his best lines is “When the Bible speaks, God speaks” (29). He accepts ETS’s older statement — “The Bible alone, the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs” (29). He approves of Carl Henry’s line that “inerrancy should be seen as a requirement of evangelical consistency rather than as a test of evangelical integrity” (29), though I’m not sure what this means. He knows many aren’t in agreement, including Roger Olson [(cf. The Doctrine of Inerrancy's Oblique Terminology and Virtual Meaninglessness and When Did Evangelicalism Start to Go Wrong (or, Right)?)].

He believes in a slippery slope mentality: give up inerrancy and things fall apart theologically, morally, epistemologically, and ecclesially. Giving it up leads to “hermeneutical nihilism” and “metaphysical antirealism” (31).

His history of this discussion focuses on the 20th Century — from Warfield to Lindsell to ETS and CSBI (1978). God is perfect; his words therefore are perfect; Scripture is inspired by God and therefore inerrant; the Spirit attended the authors and the text and speaks to us today in the inward witness; the Bible is plenarily inspired; authority follows from this and without this the authority is shaken.

He then makes his case: the Bible, history and pastoral ministry.

His case for the Bible starts off poorly for me. He quotes 2 Peter 1:21, which in the NIV 2011 reads: “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Mohler’s observations: “Peter’s point is that the Scripture is to be trusted at every point, and he defines its inspiration as being directly from God, through the agency of human authors, by means of the direct work of the Holy Spirit” (37). Well, not exactly: Does “prophecy” mean “Scripture… at every point”? I doubt it. He speaks of the “original text” but is that one of Peter’s categories? Anyway, the point is that Mohler colonizes 2 Peter 1:21 into his existing theory of inerrancy and explains Peter through his theory. Fortunately, his section on the Bible improves and his stuff here on Paul is done well. Yes, I agree: Paul and the NT authors, including Jesus, were Jewish and had a “high” view of Scripture and its truthfulness and God’s trustworthiness in the Word. This does not solve the hermeneutical problems but it does give us a good framing of the early Christian view.

On the faith of the church, Yes, the church has always believed the Bible is true, trustworthy, and authoritative. To import the word “inerrancy,” which means CSBI or ETS for Mohler, is simply a bad case of anachronism run amok. It is not good history to impose later categories on the church fathers and medieval theologians or even the Reformers. Plus, they always operated with a strong sense of “tradition” alongside the Bible.

The authors are to use test cases: Joshua 6; the tension of Acts 9:7 and 22:9, as well as Deut 20:16-17 and Matthew 5:43-48. On Joshua 6; Jericho, archaeology and the Bible: he believes in inerrancy, therefore there is no problem; on Acts 9 and 22, he believes in inerrancy therefore there is no problem; and the same on Deut 20 and Matt 5.

This is a great example of a priori logic, of assumptions, and of deductive logic but I’m glad there are other essays in this volume.

Three more critical observations

Mohler makes claims about the history of theology without documentation.

Why not trot out statements from Augustine to the modern day? Why not frame what they believed in their terms and let the chips fall where they may? Instead, he makes summary statements about history, and (as we will see) his summary statements are not accurate. Both Bird and Vanhoozer take Mohler to task for his claims about history.

Mohler uses a priori Logic as Argument

The second observation is that here is how Mohler’s logic works: I believe in inerrancy, therefore the Bible is not wrong. Over and over he says, Since I believe in inerrancy this theory about a passage can’t be right. This is a priori logic, if not fideism [(sic, exclusive reliance in religious matters upon faith, with consequent rejection of appeals to science or philosophy)], and it is being used for a doctrine that was formed, if my reading of the history is right, on the basis of inductive logic.

Mohler affirms inerrancy with little biblical examination

Third, for someone who affirms inerrancy of the Bible there is precious little emphasis in this study on the Bible itself. He has one short section (3 pages) and in the challenging portions he spends far too little time patiently examining what the Bible actually says. A “biblical” inerrancy is one founded on patient study of what the Bible says.

Summary

It is because of understandings of inerrancy like this of Mohler that many of us don’t want to use the term “inerrancy.” What does that mean? In the hands of Mohler, the word “inerrancy” is boundary-drawing politics and polemics.

The Bible’s way of talking about the Bible is “Word” and a word is spoken by a Person, who is engaged in a covenant relationship of love, and the proper response to the Word from God is to listen because, as covenant people, we want to know what God says and do what he wants. I have sketched this in the “Boring Chapter” in The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible.

* * * * * * * * *

Why Can’t I Just Be a Christian?” Parakeets make delightful pets. We cage them or clip their wings to keep them where we want them. Scot McKnight contends that many, conservatives and liberals alike, attempt the same thing with the Bible. We all try to tame it.

McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet has emerged at the perfect time to cool the flames of a world on fire with contention and controversy. It calls Christians to a way to read the Bible that leads beyond old debates and denominational battles. It calls Christians to stop taming the Bible and to let it speak anew for a new generation.

In his books The Jesus Creed and Embracing Grace, Scot McKnight established himself as one of America’s finest Christian thinkers, an author to be reckoned with. In The Blue Parakeet, McKnight again touches the hearts and minds of today’s Christians, this time challenging them to rethink how to read the Bible, not just to puzzle it together into some systematic theology but to see it as a Story that we’re summoned to enter and to carry forward in our day.

In his own inimitable style, McKnight sets traditional and liberal Christianity on its ear, leaving readers equipped, encouraged, and emboldened to be the people of faith they long to be.

* * * * * * * * *


continue to -

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 1 - Albert Mohler

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 2a - Peter Enns

Peter Enns - "Five Views of Inerrancy," Part 2b - Peter Enns Responds

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 3 - Mike Bird

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 4 - Kevin Vanhoozer

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 5 - John Franke

RJS - Inspiration? Yes! – Inerrancy? No.

An Analysis of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy by Peter Enns

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 6 - Scot McKnight

Roger Wolsey - 16 Ways Progressive Christians Interpret the Bible

The Importance of "Gentle Commerce" for the Pacification (Decline of Violence) in the World

Phys.org posted a recent article supporting the idea that commercial exchange and craft specialization provokes humanity to "work, live, and co-exist" with one another more peaceably than if no economic exchange existed and instead, major populations competed fiercely with one another for the same resources, provisions, and technology.

Interestingly enough, the movie "Divergent" depicts a stratified society divided up within a small, localized region (the ex-Chicago area) measured not economically but sociologically into five groups: the protectors, the servers, the farmers, the law keepers, and inventors. But in any Utopian vision of the world there can, and will be, differences and division that may not be enough to hold a society together.

However, through trade and commerce with the Soviet Union, China, SE Asia, the Mid-East, and Africa, both Europe and the Americas have created conditions for communication,  a forum for the exchange of ideas and ideology, and a good measure of population movement between specialities and regional resources. Even so is global technology also contributing to the necessity amongst humanity to live peaceably with one another against the larger urges to retain fundamental regional beliefs and ignorance.

No country is impervious to discrimination and cultural warfare. We see this with the clash between Western culture and Eastern religions; between tribal identities and familial affiliations; between adaptive democracies and resisting autocracies; between economic fascism and market economics. In fact, wherever a population with large identities meets with another population with similar patriotisms, devotions, or nationalisms, there can always exist a struggle between acceptance, tolerance, and workability vs. dissolution, intolerance, and the refusal to cooperate with one another.

Here in America we see this on a church level as regional denominational bodies and independent church fellowships struggle to recognize each other's right of a pervasive biblical view. Conservatives disallow liberalism while liberals debunk conservatism; hate speech and segregating violence is deemed right-and-just in some faith organizations while the civil liberties of all citizenry are more broadly recognized in others; church creeds and constitutions are constructed to delimit the rights of congregants while in other fellowships they are freely embraced by right of biblical principle.

What the 21st century has brought to mankind is the ability to speak to one another in a deeper, more expansive language of social construction than at any other time in human history. And yet, the struggle of the human spirit to accept change, adapt to population movement, and allow cultural reception is just as large now as it was centuries earlier with America's Southwest native tribal federations (as shown in the article below).

Into these differences of the human mind and heart has come Jesus Christ to invoke God's love and grace against the religious and civil intolerances of the human heart unwilling to adjust, to see, to hear, learn, or listen, to any other diatribes or debates other than its own regional mindsets and resistance.

But to the degree that Jesus was successful in enlarging the human heart of a willing disciple to willfully change and adapt, to that degree was the gospel enlarged and a spirit of peace and cooperation has been able to take root.

But when Jesus' gospel was rejected He was crucified, his disciples persecuted and scattered, and the gospel of God became yet another gospel spoken from the roots of a false tongue and deceiving witness by nay-sayers and opponents, false prophets and would-be followers.

It is into these turbulent times God's church, and the people of this world, must submit to loving one another or reap the whirlwind of their own destruction and demise. To seek to relax religious and ideological principles enough to be able to see the other who is different from ourselves seeking refuge and help rather than wishing to compete or combat. America's border wars must be refashioned so that the innocent may find safety, education, trade, and very existence itself. And America's debate with the Muslim man or woman must become no debate at all for those wishing peace and harmony while holding on to their own faith structures.

America is in a global position of leadership, and leadership by its very definition is that of serving the other, recognizing the other, and helping the other different from ourselves. In this service must be the willingness to be pervasively tolerant and not simply enforcing intolerance by guns and bullets, sharp tongues, and intolerant ideology. Let us learn to beat our weaponry into plowshares and begin the harder task of uniting all men and women. To write civil laws that are equal and just. And to speak a gospel of peace and harmony against a gospel that would divide and dehumanize one's fellow neighbor. This is what it means to "bring in the Kingdom of God" by both the human spirit and the Spirit of God until He comes. Amen

R.E. Slater

August 4, 2014

Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler has documented a 40-year period of violence
among the ancient pueblo people of southwest Colorado. Credit: Washington State University

Researchers see violent era in ancient Southwest

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-violent-era-ancient-southwest.html

It's a given that, in numbers terms, the 20th Century was the most violent in history, with civil war, purges and two World Wars killing as many as 200 million people.

But on a per-capita basis, Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler has documented a particularly bloody period more than eight centuries ago on what is now American soil. Between 1140 and 1180, in the central Mesa Verde of southwest Colorado, four relatively peaceful centuries of pueblo living devolved into several decades of violence.

Writing in the journal American Antiquity, Kohler and his colleagues at WSU and at the University of Colorado-Boulder document how nearly nine out of ten sets of human remains from that period had trauma from blows to either their heads or parts of their arms.

"If we're identifying that much trauma, many were dying a violent death," said Kohler, whose study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Yet at the same time, in the northern Rio Grande region of what is now New Mexico, people had far less violence while experiencing similar growth and, ostensibly, population pressures. Viewed together, said Kohler, the two areas offer a view into what motivates violence in some societies but not others. The study also offers more clues to the mysterious depopulation of the northern Southwest, from a population of about 40,000 people in the mid-1200s to none 30 years later.

From the days they first arrived in the Southwest in the 1800s, anthropologists and archaeologists have for the most part downplayed evidence of violent conflict among the early farmers in the region. A minority raised the specter of violence but lacked a good measure for it.

"Archaeologists with one or two exceptions have not tried to develop an objective metric of levels of violence through time," said Kohler. "They've looked at a mix of various things like burned structures, defensive site locations and so forth, but it's very difficult to distill an estimate of levels of violence from such things. We've concentrated on one thing, and that is trauma, especially to the head and portions of the arms. That's allowed us to look at levels of violence through time in a comparative way."

Meanwhile, Kohler and his colleagues are examining the role of factors like maize production, changes to the climate, and growing population in changing levels of violence. A paper of his published in June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the Southwest had a baby boom between 500 and 1300 that likely exceeded any population spurt on earth today.

Both the central Mesa Verde and northern Rio Grande experienced population booms, said Kohler, but surprisingly, the central Mesa Verde got more violent while the northern Rio Grande grew less so.

Kohler offers a few explanations.

Social structures among people in the northern Rio Grande changed so that they identified less with their kin and more with the larger pueblo and specific organizations that span many pueblos, such as medicine societies. The Rio Grande also had more commercial exchanges where craft specialists provided people both in the pueblo, and outsiders, specific things they needed, such as obsidian arrow points.

But in the central Mesa Verde, there was less specialization.

"When you don't have specialization in societies, there's a sense in which everybody is a competitor because everybody is doing the same thing," said Kohler. But with specialization, people are more dependent on each other and more reluctant to do harm.

Kohler and his colleagues also cite Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker's thinking in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

"Pinker thought that what he called 'gentle commerce' was very important in the pacification of the world over the last 5,000 years," said Kohler. "That seems to work pretty well in our record as well."

The episode of conflict in Southwest Colorado seems to have begun when people in the Chaco culture, halfway between central Mesa Verde and northern Rio Grande, attempted to spread into Southwest Colorado.

"They were resisted," Kohler said, "but resistance was futile."

From 1080 to 1130, the Chaco-influenced people in Southwest Colorado did well. In the mid-1100s, there was a severe drought and the core of Chaco culture fell apart. Much of the area around Chaco lost population, and in 1160, violence in the central Mesa Verde peaked. Slightly more than a century later, everyone left that area, too.

"In the Mesa Verde there could be a haves-versus-have-nots dynamic towards the very end," said Kohler. "The people who stayed the longest were probably the people who were located in the very best spots. But those pueblos too were likely losing population. And it might have been the older folks who stuck around, who weren't so anxious to move as the young folks who thought, 'We could make a better living elsewhere.'" Older, or with too few people to marshal a good defense, the remaining people in the Mesa Verde pueblos were particularly vulnerable to raids.

At least two of the last-surviving large pueblos in the central Mesa Verde were attacked as the region was being abandoned. Some of their inhabitants probably made it out alive, but, says Kohler, "Many did not."

Explore further: Scientists chart an ancient baby boom—in southwestern Native Americans from 500 to 1300 AD

God as the Poet of Possibilities: Capturing the Spirit of Process Thought in the Improvisational Writing of Our Lives

Novel Theology: Confessions of a Whiteheadian Novelist

http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/novel-theology-confessions-of-a-whiteheadian-novelist.html#.U94gucE9NMw.facebook

by Patricia Adams Farmer

from Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism

*Patricia Adams Farmer (www.patriciaadamsfarmer.com) is the author of Embracing a Beautiful God and the Fat Soul Philosophy Novel Series (The Metaphor Maker and Fat Soul Fridays). Other JJB essays include: What is Fat Soul Philosophy?, Theology in 5/4 Time, The Art of Savoring, The Quaking and Breaking of Everything, The Numinosity of Rocks, Savoring, and Fat Soul, Happy Soul

“[God] is the poet of world . . . " --A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality

"At the heart of the nature of things, there are always the dream of youth and the harvest of tragedy.  The Adventure of the Universe starts with a dream and reaps tragic Beauty." --A. N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas

THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID about the writer's old adage:

Write the first draft with your heart, and the second with your head.

This is especially true for improvisational writers like me. By improvisational writing, I mean something akin to the jazz artist who, out of the possibilities within a given chord progression, creates a spontaneous melody as she goes along. As both an essayist and novelist, my writing falls into this category, that is, taking a cue from a single thread of an idea and playing it out “as the spirit moves.” If it gels into something coherent, the creative process wins. If not, it can be set aside or discarded. Essays work well this way, often needing only light editing. But the novel--an unwieldy cauldron of multiple personalities--is a whole other story.

Truth be told, the characters in my novels run the show, giving real meaning to the term “character-driven.” (How I envy those who can plot every jot and tittle and stick to it! But, alas, my personality won't allow it.) Of course, I do work from an outline, and yes, I lure my characters in that direction. But they do have a will of their own and a definite say-so in the plot. So I listen and write and let the narrative take its course, constantly readjusting my outline as events unfold. The end result is usually quite different from anything I imagined when I started.

And then comes the re-write . . . 

Once the euphoria of the finished story subsides, reality sets in. Like all first-flush creations born of the enthusiastic heart, first drafts cry out for that second stage of creation, the brass tacks, the hard, analytic thinking. My characters, with their free-wheeling personalities, now have to take a backseat to the pesky realities of logical coherence, continuity, detail, and foreshadowing—not to mention the painful, gritty, mind-numbing work of copy editing. But there’s no getting around it. Creativity must, in the end, give way to craft.

So, with a deep breath and copious amounts of tea, I take the novel as it is, and transform it into what it can be—much like the world of process philosophy. Process theologian Marjorie Suchocki says that God “works with the world as it is, in order to bring it to where it can be.”

Thus, the entire artistic process of writing and re-writing can serve loosely as a metaphor for what Whitehead calls “creative transformation.”

The process world of Alfred North Whitehead is a story unfolding in time with no pre-determined outcome. Many influences are at work in the writing, like strong-willed characters colliding against each other. And yet, every becoming moment of the story also includes a divine urge toward intense harmony. Whitehead calls this Beauty. In fact, the "poet of the world" lures us always and forever toward Beauty. The divine poet beckons and persuades and lures us forward with enticing possibilities, but can never strong-arm a character's action. So, in sense, God works as the improvisational writer works—not as an all-powerful tyrant over characters and plot, determining the outcome from the beginning, but rather as a the poet of possibilities, luring the narrative into realms of richly contrasted Beauty.

When it comes to our individual stories--our personal story within the cosmic story--we choose our own words. And not always with care. Bombarded by a plethora of influences all vying for a place on the page, we make our choices of nouns and verbs, characters and plot, metaphors and meaning, and hope for something close to a happy ending. But things happen. Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in constant need of revision? We ignore the divine lure toward Beauty on a daily basis, sometimes making a holy mess of things. Or, we simply write ourselves into a corner and don’t know how to get out. And even when we do our best to write our stories on the dreams of youth, evil characters lurk among the pages and unforeseen tragedy dismantles our carefully constructed plot.

But thankfully there is always more to the story. God, Whitehead believed, is not only the lure toward Beauty, but the reaper of "tragic Beauty" when the story goes awry. This divine companion—the poet of the world—is our constant co-writer, who is able to take our flawed and fractured lives and re-imagine them into fresh metaphors of meaning. Just as words are alive and open to a thousand interpretations, so the past is alive and breathing, just waiting for a fresh word, an embrace of love, a divine imagination that can re-create out of the wreckage we have wrought.

No, we cannot erase the actual facts of the story we have written—the past—but we can transform those facts into an ongoing story that can still be made beautiful. In fact, isn't that what we love most about stories--the redemption of flawed characters? In this way, no story is really set in stone. All can be redeemed; all can re-interpreted; all can be re-imagined and loved and forgiven and woven into the cosmic story that unfolds under a canopy of stars in a universe of glimmering possibilities.

Social Media Ties & Complex Networks of Interaction

Emerging Technology From the arXiv

August 1, 2014

How Yahoo Research Labs Studies Culture as a Formal Computational Concept

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529521/how-yahoo-research-labs-studies-culture-as-a-formal-computational-concept/

The ultimate goal: a truly computational understanding of human society, say Yahoo’s computational anthropologists.

The study of online social networks has revolutionized the way social scientists understand human interaction on a grand scale. It is based on the assumption that the fundamental unit of interaction is the social tie that exists between two individuals. This tie can be a message that one person has sent to another, that one person follows another, that one person “likes” another and so on.

These social ties are the atoms of social network structure. And much of the research on social networks has focused on how these atoms join together to create complex networks of interaction.

Much less thought has been given to the atoms themselves, whether they fall into categories themselves, whether different atoms have different social properties and how combining atoms of different types might be indicative of entirely different relationships.

Today, Luca Maria Aiello at Yahoo Labs in Barcelona, Spain, and a couple of pals, changed that. They tease apart the nature of the links that form on social networks and say these atoms fall into three different categories. They also show how to extract this information automatically and then characterize the relationships according to the combination of atoms that exist between individuals. Their ultimate goal: to turn anthropology into a full-blooded sub-discipline of computer science.

Aiello and co[mpany] used two data sets from a pair of large social networks. The first consists of over 1 million messages sent between 500,000 pairs of users of the aNobii social network, which people use to talk about books they have read. The second is a set of 100,000 anonymized user pairs who commented on each other’s photos on Flickr, sending around 2 million messages in total.

The team analyzes these messages based on the type of information they convey, which they divide into three groups. The first type of information is related to social status; messages displaying appreciation or announcing the creation of the social tie such as a follow or like. For example, a user might say a photograph is “an excellent shot” or say they’ve followed somebody or acknowledged attention they’ve got by thanking them for visiting a site.

The second category of information involves social support of some kind. The main purpose of a message that falls into this category is to greet or welcome someone to a website, to explicitly express affection or to convey wishes, jokes and laughter.

The final category of information is an exchange of knowledge. Messages that fall into this category share information and personal experience, or ask for opinions and suggestions, or display knowledge of a particular field.

Aiello and co. then develop an algorithm that automatically categorizes the messages sent between individuals according to the content they contain and their similarity to messages of the same type.

Finally, they evaluate the results of the algorithm by asking human editors to assess a sample of 1000 randomly selected messages from each website and label them according to the three categories. They then compared the human choices with the algorithms and found good agreement.

The results of this analysis allow them to work out how often people use the different modes of communication and also how they transition from one to another during a conversation.

They find that in aNobii, the most frequent interactions involve status giving where the archetypal message is “nice library”, referring to a user’s collection of books.

By contrast, Flickr users communicate in a different way. “In Flickr the proportion is very balanced instead, with no domain being predominant on average,” say Aiello and co.

More interesting is the way that social ties evolve over time. Aiello and co. say that status exchange is particularly common in short conversations and at the beginning of longer ones. However, the conversations rapidly evolve into a mix of knowledge exchanges and social support. “It thus appears that status exchange serves to set the foundation for the future relationship, feeding to the interactional background after the tie-formation stage,” say Aiello and co.

That’s a fascinating study that provides a new way of looking at social ties as strings of interactions. In a way, it changes the atomic theory of social ties into a kind of string theory.

Aiello and co. clearly think this should lead to plenty of new insights and they are optimistic about the future. “The ultimate goal of such analysis is the unpacking of “culture” as a formal, computational concept,” they say. And they think of the patterns of strings of interaction as a kind of grammar of society. “We hope our work provides yet another step towards a truly computational understanding of human societies.”

That’s an ambitious goal– a truly computational understanding of human society. Both fantastic and a little frightening the same time.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1407.5547 : Reading the Source Code of Social Ties

New Book Recommendation - The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion

The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion
Edited by Clayton Crockett, B. Keith Putt, and Jeffrey W. Robbins

Series: Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion

Series: Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion

Paperback: 302 pages
Publisher: Indiana University Press (July 17, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0253013887
ISBN-13: 978-0253013880
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Indiana University Press - click here

Amazon link - click here

Book Description

What is the future of Continental philosophy of religion? These forward-looking essays address the new thinkers and movements that have gained prominence since the generation of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Levinas and how they will reshape Continental philosophy of religion in the years to come. They look at the ways concepts such as liberation, sovereignty, and post-colonialism have engaged this new generation with political theology and the new pathways of thought that have opened in the wake of speculative realism and recent findings in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Readers will discover new directions in this challenging and important area of philosophical inquiry.

Authors

Clayton Crockett is Associate Professor and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Central Arkansas. He is author of Radical Political Theology: Religion and Politics after Liberalism.

B. Keith Putt is Professor of Philosophy at Samford University. He is editor of Gazing Through a Prism Darkly: Reflections on Merold Westphal's Hermeneutical Epistemology.

Jeffrey W. Robbins is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy, and Director of American Studies at Lebanon Valley College. He is author of Radical Democracy and Political Theology and editor (with Clayton Crockett) of Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Back to the Future 

Part I. The Messianic

1. Is Continental Philosophy of Religion Dead?
John D. Caputo
2. Friends and Strangers/Poets and Rabbis: Negotiating a “Capuphalian”
Philosophy of Religion
B. Keith Putt
Response by Merold Westphal
Response by John D. Caputo
3. On Faith, the Maternal, and Postmodernism
Edward F. Mooney
4. The Persistence of the Trace: Interrogating the Gods of Speculative Realism
Steven Shakespeare
5. Speculating God: Speculative Realism and Meillassoux’s Divine Inexistence
Leon Niemoczynski
6. Between Deconstruction and Speculation: John D. Caputo and A/Theological Materialism
Katharine Sarah Moody 

Part II. Liberation

7. The Future of Liberation

Philip Goodchild
8. Monetized Philosophy and Theological Money: Uneasy Linkages and the Future of a Discourse
Devin Singh
9. “Between Justice and My Mother”: Reflections On and Between Levinas and Žižek
Gavin Hyman
10. Verbis Indisciplinatis
Joseph Ballan
11. Overwhelming Abundance and Every-Day Liturgical Practices: For a Less Excessive Phenomenology of Religious Experience
Christina M. Gschwandtner
12. Counter-Currents: Theology and the Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion
Noëlle Vahanian

Part III. Plasticity
13. The Future of Derrida: Time between Epigenesis and Epigenetics
Catherine Malabou
14. On Reading – Catherine Malabou
Randall Johnson
15. Necessity as Virtue: On Religious Materialism from Feuerbach to Žižek
Jeffrey W. Robbins
16. Plasticity in the Contemporary Islamic Subject
John Thibdeau
17. From Cosmology to the First Ethical Gesture: Schelling with Irigaray
Lenart Škof
18. Prolegomenon to Thinking the Reject for the Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion
Irving Goh
19. Entropy
Clayton Crockett

List of Contributors
Index

Online Class - Christ(ology) Through the Writings of Theologians: Barth, Bultmann, Pannenberg, Tillich, Sobrino, Vattimo

Christ(ology): Reflections In the Wake of the Event

• Teacher: Tripp Fuller
• Teacher: Peter Rollins

We are gonna spend six weeks looking at six central thinkers and their Christologies. These figures have each developed a unique and influential understanding of the Christ Event. Each week we will read a chapter and then spend 90 minutes together engaging the text. Our goal is to see how each figure is shaped by different philosophical commitments and confessional assumptions. Together we will encounter & hear multiple answers to questions such as:

• Does the historical Jesus matter?
• What are the conditions for the possibility of genuine revelation?
• What did God do in Christ?
• Is Christology sustainable in our pluralistic world?
• Can a Christology rid itself of God?
• How is Jesus’ Cross connected to those of the poor and oppressed?
• What is the Kingdom of God & its significance for theology?

Format of the Course: 90 Minutes

30 Minute Talk

30 Minute Conversation

30 Minute Q & A

Dates:

9/4, 9/11, 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/9

Start Time:

6 pm PST / 9 pm EST

All Sessions will be video live streamed. Afterward each course member will be able to download the audio/video.

Class Registration - click here

4 September - 10 September

Barth

11 September - 17 September

Bultmann

18 September - 24 September

Pannenberg

25 September - 1 October

Tillich

2 October - 8 October

Sobrino

9 October - 15 October

Vattimo

Homebrewed Online Offerings

The Sunni-Shiite Divide Explained With Extremely Useful Maps And Timelines, Part 2

In the currency of global discussion and dialogue it is always appropriate that one attempts to understand nationalities and heritages foreign to our own Westernized cultures here in America. Part of that discussion must include an appreciation and respect for the Islamic culture around the world in this day-and-age of pluralistic, cross-cultural communications of religions, languages, tribal relationships, and racial ethnicities. Without a bare minimum of knowledge in these venues it would be hopeless to assume any rational discussions with one another as responsible/responsive global citizens to an increasingly smaller world laced with technology, economic, ecologic, and civil concerns.

Huffington Post recently published a brief history between the Sunni and Shiite Muslim populations that may help connect current events within the larger palette of civil wars, global terrorism, tension, and turmoil. In hopes of providing more concrete discussion these few historical vignettes are here repeated to help enlarge the scope of world events and their connectedness to the past, present, and future relations with the Western World's plethora of democracies and capitalistic activities of commercialism.

As we well know, the present will always challenge our ideas of the past and future. That nothing stays the same for long. And that the past can never be returned to. What the present demands of us is that we become willing, and capable, observers of our present times while learning to use practical common sense, a large dose of goodwill, and an even larger dose of learning to listen better to one another. What we think we have heard or understand may not necessarily be the full embodiment of the ideas presented to us. That doubting our position and ideas might will help towards cementing better accord with religious groups far different from our own sense of God, faith, worship, and conduct.

In essence, we are to be peacemakers in a world going mad. Humble servants to one another where only brutality and oppression exist. Thoughtful providers of life-giving streams that might better defeat ignorance, corruption, greed, and ignoble pride. Looking back on world history these pleas seem hopelessly misplaced when trying to imagine a world greater than itself. And yet, if one doesn't dream or imagine peace and goodwill, respect and grace, than the world cannot continue under the domain of humanity. Its end result will be annihilation and destruction as befitting its senseless species and foolish pride.

Respectfully,

R.E. Slater

July 28, 2014

Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 20:19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Mark 9:50 Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Luke 6:27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

Romans 12:17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

1 Corinthians 7:15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

James 3:18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

continue to -

The Sunni-Shiite Divide Explained With Extremely Useful Maps And Timelines, Part 1

* * * * * * * * * * *

CFR map link

CFR link

The Sunni-Shiite Divide Explained With Extremely Useful Maps And Timelines

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/27/sunni-shiite-violence_n_5617767.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051

The Huffington Post | By Yasmine Hafiz

Posted: 07/27/2014 9:18 am EDT Updated: 07/27/2014 9:59 am EDT

"If we want to understand the Middle East, if we want to understand why conflicts are happening the way they are, and how these conflicts may be resolved, we cannot take our eyes of the Shiite-Sunni conflict, says Vali R. Nasr, Dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in a video from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The Sunni-Shia Divide

The video is part of an interactive infoguide produced by CFR, that is an in-depth look at the roots of a divide which is at the heart of many of the violent conflicts currently engulfing the Middle East.

"The Shiite-Sunni divide is a political and religious divide around who was the rightful heir after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad in early Islam. Yes, it's remote history, going back to the seventh century, but for millions of Muslims around the world, it's what defines them- sectarianism," says Ed Husain, adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at CFR, in the overview.

* * * * * * * * * * *

THE PRESENT

* * * * * * * * * * *

To see how this ancient dispute has been playing out in the modern word, this timeline starts with Iran's Islamic revolution and goes up to the present day...

JANUARY 16,1979

Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Tehran in 1979 after fourteen years of exile. AP Photo

Iran’s Islamic Revolution

Iran’s ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, flees the country after months of increasingly massive protests. Exiled Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns and leads an Islamic republic based on a constitution that grants him religious and political authority under the concept of velayat-e faqih (“guardianship of the jurist”). Khomeini is named supreme leader and starts to export the Islamic revolution, which is viewed with suspicion by Sunni rulers in countries with significant Shia populations, such as Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon.

DECEMBER 24, 1979

Afghan tribal rebel with captured Soviet-made light machine gun.
Hiromi Nagakura/AP Photo

Soviet Army Invades Afghanistan

Soviet forces invade Afghanistan after the communist government in Kabul requests military aid to fight Islamist rebels. The insurgents, known as mujahadeen (“those who fight jihad”), attract mainly Afghan fighters and are augmented by thousands of foreign Sunni fighters, including a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden. Weapons and cash for the mujahadeen are supplied through Pakistan by Saudi Arabia and the United States. The war, which is framed as a resistance to Soviet occupation, raises the profile of fundamentalist Sunni movements.

JULY 5, 1980

Muhammad Zia Ul-Haq, Pakistan's sixth president, ruled from 1978 to 1988.

Central Press/Getty Images

Shia Protests in Pakistan Exposes Sectarian Tensions

Tens of thousands of Shias protest in Islamabad against the imposition of some Sunni laws on all Muslims. Pakistan’s president gives Shias an exemption, but the sectarian confrontation becomes an important political issue in the country. Sunni groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, funded by Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, kill thousands of Shias over the next three decades. Smaller Shia sectarian militant groups such as Tehrik-e-Jafria also emerge but are responsible for fewer attacks.

SEPTEMBER 22, 1980

An Iraqi soldier watches the Iranian Abadan refinery burn during the Iran-Iraq conflict.
Henri Bureau/Corbis

Iraq Sparks a War with Iran

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a Sunni ruling over a majority-Shia country who fears the spillover effects of the Iranian Revolution, sends his troops to occupy part of an oil-rich province in Iran. The move sparks an eight-year war, resulting in roughly one million deaths. Iraq is backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, the latter responding to hostility from Tehran’s new government following the Islamic revolution and taking hostage of U.S. diplomats.

FEBRUARY 28, 1991

Bodies suspected to be Shias killed by Saddam’s regime are found in a mass grave in 2003.
Damir Sagolj/Courtesy Reuters

Saddam Crushes Shia Insurgency After Gulf War

Riots erupt in the Shia cities of Basra and Najaf after U.S.-led allies drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait and rout them on the battlefield in the first Gulf War. The Shia protestors are in part motivated by a perception that they will receive U.S. backing if they turn against Saddam. U.S. officials say this was never promised. Saddam’s forces mount a brutal crackdown, killing tens of thousands of Shias, shelling the shrines of Najaf and Karbala, and razing parts of Shia towns.

AUGUST 8, 1998

Afghans flock to the Blue Mosque, also known as the Tomb of Ali, in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Taliban Massacres Shia in Mazar-e-Sharif

Taliban militants, Sunni fundamentalists who seized power after the defeat of Soviet forces, capture the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northwest Afghanistan. The Taliban kills at least two thousand Shias in Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamiyan in 1997 and 1998. The offensive in northwest Afghanistan, backed by Pakistan, helps the Taliban consolidate power in the country. Militants kill eight Iranian diplomats based in Mazar-e-Sharif, prompting Tehran to deploy its troops to the border, but United Nations mediation averts a confrontation.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

The second tower of the World Trade Center explodes into flames on September 11, 2001.
Sara K. Schwittek/Courtesy Reuters

Al-Qaeda Strikes the U.S., Killing Thousands

In response to the attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. forces pursue al-Qaeda leaders and militants to their bases in Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban government. U.S.-led international troops help set up a new order in the country. The toppling of the anti-Iranian Taliban government in Afghanistan, followed shortly thereafter by the U.S. invasion of Iraq that brings down another Iranian foe, Saddam Hussein, fans Sunni fears in Jordan and Gulf states of a Shia revival.

MARCH 19, 2003

U.S. troops pull down a twenty-foot statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad.
Goran Tomasevic/Courtesy Reuters

U.S. Forces Topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq

A coalition led by the United States invades Iraq and ends Saddam’s regime and centuries of Sunni dominance in Iraq. Sectarian violence erupts as remnants of the deposed Ba’ath party and other Sunnis, both secular and Islamist, mount a resistance against coalition forces and their local allies, the ascendant Shia community. Shia militias also emerge, some of which also oppose the U.S. military presence. Foreign Sunni militants, many affiliated with al-Qaeda, flock to Iraq to participate in what evolves into a sectarian war. Iranian influence in Iraq grows dramatically as Tehran backs Shia militants, as well as the Shia political parties that come to dominate the electoral process.

FEBRUARY 14, 2005

Supporters of Rafik Hariri in protest over his killing.
Ali Hashisho/Courtesy Reuters

Assassination of Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri

Former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is killed in a car bomb after spearheading an effort to raise international pressure on Syria to withdraw its forces, which have been in Lebanon since 1976. His assassination is seen as a Syrian plot supported by Syria’s Lebanese allies, including Hezbollah, and leads to massive demonstrations that convince Syria to withdraw. The assassination and subsequent mobilization pit the Lebanese Sunni community, whom Hariri had come to represent, against Hezbollah and Lebanese Shias, who remain allied with Syria. Lebanese Christians split, with some supporting the Hariri camp and others supporting Hezbollah.

FEBRUARY 22, 2006

Iraqis walk past the damaged al-Askari mosque following an explosion in Samarra.
Hameed Rasheed/AP Photo

Bombing of Shia Shrine Escalates Iraq Violence

Sectarian killings become normal in Iraq, with both Sunni and Shia militias targeting civilians across the country. The bombing that destroys the golden dome of al-Askari mosque in Samarra, home to the tombs of the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams, triggers a more intense wave of violence that almost doubles the monthly civilian death toll in Iraq to nine hundred.

DECEMBER 30, 2006

Indian Muslims protest the execution of Saddam Hussein. Ahmad Masood/CourtesyReuters

Saddam’s Execution Inflames Sunnis

Saddam Hussein, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Shias and Sunnis in Iraq, is executed amid taunts by witnesses who chant the name of Shia cleric and Mahdi army militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The unruly scene, captured on video, elevates Saddam’s status as a martyr among many Sunnis in the region and underscores the new reality of rising Shia power in Iraq.

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

Protests Erupt in the Middle East, Exposing Sectarian Fault Lines
Uprisings in Tahrir Square - Wikipedia

A wave of pro-democracy protests sweeps across the region, starting with the overthrow of Tunisia’s president, and then Egypt’s on February 11, eventually spreading to other Arab states in what is known as the “Arab Spring” or the “Arab Awakening.” Iranian officials welcome the fall of long-term U.S. allies like Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, and unrest in Bahrain, home to an oppressed Shia majority. As protests reach Syria in March, Tehran backs the government, which is dominated by Alawis, a heterodox Shia sect, while the opposition is dominated by members of the majority Sunni community. Dormant sectarian tensions in Syria are revived and a regional sectarian showdown begins.

AUGUST 30, 2012

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks to Egypt's president, Mohammed Morsi, during
the sixteenth summit of the Nonaligned Movement in Tehran. Courtesy Reuters

Egypt’s Morsi Visits Iran

President Mohamed Morsi’s trip to Tehran, the first visit by an Egyptian leader since Cairo’s recognition of Israel in the 1980s, signals the potential for a new relationship between Iran and Sunni Islamists. Iran tries to rebrand theArab uprisings as an “Islamic Awakening” and an extension of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But the visit by Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, exposes Islam’s deep cleavage. He praises Islam’s first three caliphs, whom Shias reject, and says opposing the Assad regime is a “moral obligation,” remarks that Iranian officials criticize.

OCTOBER 1, 2012

Hezbollah members carry the coffin of commander Ali Bazzi, who was killed in Syria.
Ali Hashisho/ Courtesy Reuters

Hezbollah Commander Killed in Syria

Civil war divides Syrians largely along sectarian lines, with Sunnis supporting rebels, and Alawis, Shias, and other minorities backing the Assad regime. Foreign Sunni fighters trickle and then flood into the country, and signs of increased involvement from Iran and its Lebanese proxy militia, Hezbollah, emerge. The death of Hezbollah founding member Ali Hussein Nassif comes months before the group publicly acknowledges its role in the war. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries fund rebels, turning the fighting in Syria into a regional proxy war.

APRIL 8, 2013

Jihadist group ISIS declares Islamic ‘Caliphate’ in Iraq, Syria

Al-Qaeda’s Iraq Affiliate Expands in Syria

The Islamic State of Iraq, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, extends its activities into Syria, creating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Known for its brutality against Shias and most Sunnis who oppose it, the group proves to be too extreme for al-Qaeda and is eventually expelled from the network. ISIS attacks in Iraq and Syria add an additional layer of sectarian violence to the region, and its control of territory in both states threatens to dissolve borders and fracture countries in the Middle East. (Yaser Al-Khodor/Courtesy Reuters)

APRIL 20, 2014

Indonesian Shias protest plans to relocate hundreds who had been driven from their village.
Ibnu Mardhani/Demotix

Anti-Shia Sentiments Spread to Indonesia

Asian Muslims, influenced by the sectarian violence in the Middle East and Pakistan, aim to avoid potential tensions by suppressing the growth of their tiny Shia communities. Indonesian clerics and radical Islamists hold an “Anti-Shia Alliance” meeting in the world’s largest Muslim country, which is more than 99 percent Sunni. Malaysia, where Sunnis are also dominant, has implemented laws forbidding the propagation of the Shia faith.

JUNE 10, 2014

Mahdi Army fighters loyal to Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr march in Najaf. Alaa Al-Marjani/Courtesy Reuters

Shia Militias Mobilize as ISIS Advances in Iraq

ISIS militants and other armed Sunni groups seize Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, with little resistance from the Iraqi army. The Sunni insurgency, brewing for years in response to what it sees as exclusionary policies of Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, expands toward Baghdad and the borders with Syria and Jordan. ISIS threatens to destroy sacred Shia shrines, prompting a call to arms by Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Shia civilians respond to a mass recruitment drive that swells the ranks of militias and elevates sectarian tensions.

continue to -

The Sunni-Shiite Divide Explained With Extremely Useful Maps And Timelines, Part 1