Owner: America's Young Theologian - The Life and Theology of Dan Morehead URL:http://americasyoungtheologian.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:59:05 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: America's Young Theologian seeks to bring you, not simply music, poetry and mirth, but theological biography and biographical theology. Site statistics:Click here
blog | Strange Connection Of The Week 1970-01-01 00:59:59 "The Dude" over at Questionable Answers linked to my recent post: On Walton. I commented on his blog saying that I was glad that he enjoyed the piece. His mother logs on that week and proceeds to email him saying, "We used to live across the street from the Morehead's." His family moved when we were in elementary school; his older brother was a year behind me in school. How's that for a blast from the past?[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Friends][Blog] Read more:Strange
politics | Communicating With A Senator 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I'll post a follow up if I receive one, but I received an email today from the office of Senator
Dick Durbin:October 19, 2006Mr. Daniel MoreheadXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, XX XXXXXDear Mr. Morehead:In light of your past correspondence about the agenda of the Bush Administration and the United States Congress, I am writing to provide you with an update.As the 109th Congress draws to a close, I remain deeply concerned that the Administration and the Majority in Congress have misjudged the priorities of the American people. The Senate Majority established a light working schedule and devoted significant portions of that schedule to matters such as same-sex marriage and flag desecration. While these issues are not insignificant, our nation faces a host of more urgent concerns that are a higher priority for the American people and require Congressional attention.We should have used precious Senate workdays to address other issues. Congress has so far failed to pass 10 of the 12 appropriations Read more:Communicating
, politics
photo | Photography Of Photography 1970-01-01 00:59:59 These were taken near Todtnauberg im Schwarzwald, Summer of 2005.These were taken in Barcelona, España, Summer of 2005.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Photography]
politics | Two Responses And A Thought About The Military Commissions Act of 2006 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Bush signs bill to interrogate, prosecute terror suspectsOctober 17, 2006WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some of the most notorious names in the war on terror are headed toward prosecution after President Bush signed a law Tuesday authorizing military trials of terrorism suspects.The legislation also eliminates some of the rights defendants are usually guaranteed under U.S. law, and it authorizes continued harsh interrogations of terror suspects, a provision Bush had said was vital.Imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and awaiting trial are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged would-be 9/11 hijacker, and Abu Zubaydah, who was believed to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many al Qaeda cells."With the bill I'm about to sign, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people will face justice," Bush said in a White House ceremony.The Pentagon expects to begin pre-trial motions earl Read more:Commissions
, Military
, politics
theology | Meditation on Matthew 5:5 1970-01-01 00:59:59 See also:Meditation
on Matthew
5:3Meditation on Matthew 5:4"How honored are those who do not use force,for they shall receive the earth."+ + +Lord, being gentle, refusing force or manipulation, is terrifying. I'm quite convinced that I can take, I'm good at it, but waiting to receive requires a level of vulnerability which I'm not always prepared to render. What if I wait in vain? I suppose I doubt sometimes that you provide. I doubt that things can operate as you suppose, which is the same as doubting that this is in fact your world. Do you not know that we live in a dangerous violent world which might just roll over me if I let down my guard? I know it a foolish question. You know the violence personally. All violence is personal to you. I may be imprisoned behind my walls which I construct as a show of strength in a hostile world, but at least I am safe. Is this really safety? Being locked behind an impenetrable wall sounds more like death than safety. But a freedom, true freedom Read more:theology
friends | News From The Far Country 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Reno is back in action and picks up on the story in the Independent: 655,000: The toll of war in Iraq. The story begins:"The human cost of the war in Iraq could be far higher than previously thought. A new survey says more than 650,000 Iraqis have lost their lives as a consequence of the invasion by the United States and Britain, with an estimated 200,000 violent deaths directly attributable to Allied forces."Reading stories like this make me want to do something rash, like quote a bumper sticker: Fighting for Peace is like Fucking for Virginity. However, as I've tried to demonstrate the decent into bumper sticker politics would only further polarize ourselves and miss the real conversations that need to be had.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics] Read more:Country
tech | AYT Gets New Power Supply 1970-01-01 00:59:59 In order to protect the identity of the power supply discussed in this post, the picture to the right does not depict AYT's old power supply, but does adequately represent it.Most people never get a good look at a computer power supply. Rather, it's simply part of the back of the computer. Most people could tell you that there is a place where you plug in the power cord into the back of the computer and could tell you that there's a power switch on the back. But, for most people, if you started talking about PSU's, they might quickly add that they had a friend that went to Penn State. This story may explain why in some ways, it may be better to be "most people."I like building things. That can be mountain bikes, computers, or theological systems. In 2003, I built a killer desktop computer, which still out-performs most new computers that one would buy off the rack at Dell. I hate Dell, by the way, in the same way and for the same reasons that I hate Chili's Bar & Grill, namely Read more:Supply
Go Bears! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 As I always say, I don't really care about sports, and more specifically I don't really care about American Football, but I do love the Chicago Bears
!
poem | Bob Dylan on Woody Guthrie 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I promised my friend Julie that if I came across a poem that came up in conversation that I'd pass it along. So, here is the audio of Dylan
.htm">Bob Dylan
reading his spoken word poem entitled "Last Thoughts on WoodyGuthrie
."...No but that ain't yer game, it ain't even yer raceYou can't hear yer name, you can't see yer faceYou gotta look some other placeAnd where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'Where do you look for this oil well gushin'Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'Where do you look for this hope that you know is thereAnd out there somewhereAnd your feet can only walk down two kinds of roadsYour eyes can only look through two kinds of windowsYour nose can only smell two kinds of hallwaysYou can touch and twistAnd turn two kinds of doorknobsYou can either go to the church of your choiceOr you can go to brooklyn state hospitalYou'll find God in the church of your choiceYou'll find woody guthrie in
travel | Nov 17-30, Plus, An AAR Roll Call 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Travel ItineraryNovember 17-21 - Washington, D.C. (Attending AAR)Yes, I'll be back in the District! If you'll be attending AAR, let me know and we'll try to connect (which might be a little bit of a challenge as I no longer have a US cell phone). I'll most likely be at the following sessions:A19-42Theme: Critical Reflections on Cornel West's Democracy MattersSunday - 9:00 am-11:30 amA20-24Theme: Pragmatism: Broadening the DiscussionMonday - 9:00 am-11:30 amA20-111Theme: Critical Responses to Theology and the Political: The New DebateMonday - 4:00 pm-6:30 pmA20-137Theme: The Good of Diversity and the Virtue of ToleranceMonday - 7:00 pm-8:30 pmNovember 21-25 - Chicago, IL (Thanksgiving)Nieces, poultry, and the like. Email me if you're going to be in Chicago for Thanksgiving.November 25-30 - Princeton, NJ (PU/PTS/NYC)Friends; conversations theological and otherwise.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Travel]
quote | In Front Of A Lens 1970-01-01 00:59:59 "Now, once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of 'posing,' I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image...I lend myself to the social game, I pose, I know I am posing, I want you to know that I am posing, but (to square the circle) this additional message must in no way alter the precious essence of my individuality: what I am, apart from any effigy. What I want, in short, is that my (mobile) image, buffeted among a thousand shifting photographs, altering with situation and age, should always coincide with my (profound) 'self'; but it is the contrary that must be said: 'myself' never coincides with my image; for it is the image which is heavy, motionless, stubborn (which is why society sustatins it), and 'myself' which is light, divided, dispersed..." [1]============[1] Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (London: Vintage, 1993), 10-12.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Roland Read more:Front
misc | Criticism, Ontology, And Truth 1970-01-01 00:59:59 "The fundamental challenge facing all critical strategies and historical ontologies is a version of the naturalistic fallacy: less the problem of attempting to derive an 'ought' from an 'is' (there being strategies to overcome this, such as Spinoza's derivation of ethics from ontology), but the problem of responding to an 'ought' with an 'is' (for example, choosing Spinoza's ontology because it lends a strategy for overcoming the naturalistic fallacy), and thus repeating the positivist commodification of truth." [1]=============[1] Philip Goodchild, "Capital and Kingdom: An Eschatological Ontology" in Theology and the Political, ed. Creston Davis, John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2005), 129.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Theory][Books] Read more:Criticism
, Truth
article | The World Made Complicated 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I have two articles to suggest today. Both delightfully complicate the ways that most of us look at the world. Both reveal why simplistic accounts of reality, may surrender the claim to be reality:1) Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, answers a set of questions about his book Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands, wherein he uncovers stories of how many Arabs risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust in Europe and North Africa. Read the article at Aljazeera.com...2) "Wanting to have children who follow in one's footsteps is an understandable desire. But a coming article in the journal Fertility and Sterility offers a fascinating glimpse into how far some parents may go to ensure that their children stay in their world — by intentionally choosing malfunctioning genes that produce disabilities like deafness or dwarfism." Read the article at NYTimes.com...Below I reproduce the New Read more:World
theology | Two Theological Statements On Israel 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I. The biblical people of Israel
, though related, should not be reduced to nor equated with the modern nation-state of Israel.II. Though there are many horrrific genocides in human history (Stalin, The Khmer Rouge, Julius Caesar's campaign against the Gauls), the Holocaust can be taken to be theologically more significant precisely for its attempt to exterminate God's covenant people wherever they be found.It should be clear why the first point is important, if not, read David D. Kirkpatrick's disheartening story, For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is "God's Foreign Policy', from NYTimes.com: "Many conservative Christians say they believe that the president's support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state, which some of them think will play a pivotal role in the second coming. Many on the left, in turn, fear that such theology
may influence decisions the administration makes toward Israel and the Middle East."[America's Young Theolo Read more:Theological
theology | A Thanksgiving Meditation 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I had a dream last night. I only remember the part where my mother walked in the house with a great deal of excitement wanting to show us what she had wrapped in a cloth. "I have an opossum," she proclaimed. In the dream, I didn't get to see the animal, but I assume it must have been a young opossum given its size.I'm not sure what a dream like that means. I don't give a lot of credibility to dreams or their supposed meanings. I've only had one dream for which I've found some plausible explanation thanks in part to Freud. In that dream, all of my teeth were falling out in shards. They say that has something to do with feeling powerless and it came at a time when I'd just been living at L'Arche for a couple months. I suppose I felt somewhat powerless to be in a living situation where the way things operate didn't have much room for input and wasn't flexible enough to take into account the individuality of those living there.I ate dinner last night with my roommate from my fresh Read more:Meditation
, Thanksgiving
, theology
news | Starbucks loses four laptops... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Starbucks Loses Four Laptops with 60,000 Social Security NumbersNovember 7, 2006by Humphrey Cheung"Starbucks Corporation is missing four laptops
which contain nearly 60,000 names and Social Security numbers of current and former employees. The laptops were supposed to be stored in a closet, but an employee discovered that they were missing way back in September.Two of the four laptops contained the names and Social Security numbers of employees and contractors who began working for Starbucks before December 31st, 2003.Starbucks issued a statement saying the laptops had password protection and that there is no indication that the information has been misused."Give that employee a free Frappuccino®! Read more:Starbucks
poem | This Is How Memory Works 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I wrote a poem last night, but it needs to be reworked and titled before sharing, so here's a poem I read yesteday and enjoyed:This Is How MemoryWorks
by Patricia HamplYou are stepping off a train.A wet blank night, the smell of cinders.A gust of steam from the engine swirlsaround the hem of your topcoat, aroundthe hand holding the brown leather valise,the hand that, a moment ago, slicked backthe hair and then put on the fedorain front of the mirror with the bevelededges in the cherrywood compartment.The girl standing on the platformin the Forties dresshas curled her hair, she hasnylon stockings -- no, silk stockings still.Her shoulders are touchingly military,squared by those shoulder padsand a sweet faith in the Allies.She is waiting for you.She can be wearing a hat, if you like.You see her first.That's part of the beauty:you get the pure, eager face,the lyrical dress, the surprise.You can have the steam,the crowded depot, the camel's-hair coat,real leather and brass clasps on the
politics | Shadow Company 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I've posted elsewhere about my concerns about what Eisenhower termed the military-industrial complex, a complex so widespread that there is hardly an American politician who could vote to curtail military spending without offending constituents. Here's a look at the business of 'security:'In a headline today, Al Jazeera asked, "Are the 70,000 Pentagon Mercenaries in Iraq killing Shias, Sunnis?"[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics][Film] Read more:politics
, Shadow
travel | Out Of The Office 1970-01-01 00:59:59 My parents requested more photos of Scotland, which is a little difficult to supply at the moment, given that I'm back in the U.S.A.The above picture is my office at the University of Aberdeen. Below is a picture of the Loanhead of Daviot, a 5,000 year old recumbent stone circle, located a little northwest of Aberdeen.Lastly, though not related to Scotland at all, here's a picture of Rodin's "Spirit of Eternal Repose" from a recent day in Paris.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Travel][Photography][Rodin]
quote | Enough With The Eros/Agape Opposition 1970-01-01 00:59:59 "It is bad to be fascinated and transfixed as it were by the picture of erotic man in the Greek sense to which the picture of Christian man can be so easily - indeed, far too easily - opposed. The remarkable consequence of this far to simple opposition has been that in whole spheres of Christendom Christian love has been far too unthinkingly accepted merely as the antithesis to Greek eros and thus unconsciously depicted and extolled in the contours and colours of the original. At a first glance it is not easy to tell which of the two figures in Titian's famous painting is supposed to be heavenly love and which is earthly. For the two sisters are so much alike." [1]===================[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. III.2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), 280.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Agape][Karl Barth][Titian] Read more:Enough
, Opposition
article | Chess, Iraq, And Mediocrity 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Here are two more articles worth reading:1) First is a fun article from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Fun because I enjoy hearing the opinions of people who have acquired virtues outside of the field on which they comment. So why not listen to what a former world chess champion, Gary Kasparov, has to say about Iraq
. It sounds as good as any of the soundbites that came out from the "Iraq Study Group Report.""This dire situation is a result of the only thing worse than a failed strategy: the inability to recognize, or to admit, that a strategy has failed."Read entire article...2) The second article, which comes from The Washington Post, is more personal as it relates to the home that I lived in last year in Washington, D.C. More specifically, it is about Gene, one of the people with whom I lived. The MRDD (Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities) system in D.C. has a terrible track record (think: occasions of people with developmental disabilities starving in
misc | Word Of The Day 1970-01-01 00:59:59 nu·ga·to·ryADJECTIVE:1. Of little or no importance; trifling.2. Having no force; invalid."The post you are reading could be described aptly as nugatory."
theology | Grace, Gratitude and Love 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Grace, Gratitude, Love...of the three I suppose I talk the least about grace, though it is assumed in most everything I say on the other two. Thanksgiving has passed, though one would think it was months ago given how fleeting my focus on gratitude was. I was reviewing Karl Barth's, Church Dogmatics, volume III.2, for my weekly meeting with my advisor, John Webster, and came across the following line, "Only as he thanks God does man fulfill his true being." I decided that I needed to focus again on gratitude, which is nothing more than an awareness of God's grace.I decided to go to my office early this morning while it was still dark outside. I was excited about the pages before me and the rhythm I've recently developed as far as reading goes. I was thankful for Orion's belt visible in the dark morning sky, and grateful for a conversation had the evening before. "As man thanks God and is man in so doing, he does no more and no less than all other creatures do with their life. He do Read more:Grace
, theology
misc | The Hold Steady, Arendt, Merton 1970-01-01 00:59:59 she's got a cross around her neck that she ripped off from a schoolgirl in the subway on a visit to the city / she likes how it looks on her chest with three open buttons / she likes the part where one brother kills the other / she has to wonder if the the world ever will recover / because cain and abel seem to still be causing trouble /"Perhaps this has all come about because in her quiet, barely awakened youth, she had encountered extraordinary and wonderful things. So she got used to dichotomizing her life with a naturalness that later almost terrified her: as a Here and Now and a Then and There. I don't mean longing to attain any particular thing, but longing as what makes up a life, what can constitue it."silly rabbit / tripping is for teenagers / murder is for murderers / and hard drugs are for bartenders / i think i might have mentioned that before /"The early Christian tradition and the spiritual writers of the Middle Ages knew no conflict between 'public' and 'private'
humor | PC's Fight Back! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Thanks, Greek Geek, I found this funny. Mac's are fine, but I don't care for their cult status. When my former employer was buying a new computer, the computer service company they use said, "We'd recommend Apple or Dell." That's like saying, "We'd recommend a Honda Accord or any Pontiac." Given choices like that, most would buy the mac, which was, by the way, slow out of the box with hardly anything loaded on it. If you want to talk computers, perhaps it's best to talk to someone who knows BMW to exist.
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