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Unethical Plants vs. Unethical Animals: what to eat? [OPEN MIC]

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

So, I have this friend…

He loves documentaries and whenever he find one that is particularly informative, he tells us about it.

If I remember correctly, he may have been the first person from whom I heard about Food, Inc. which challenged our sensibilities about where our food comes from, and the whole notion of factory farming. I was now aware. I started hating Monsanto seed company with everyone else, buying organic food items, and buying my meat at a local farm, even though it was an hour drive and the meat was crazy expensive (I eventually gave this last part up, although I still try to be somewhat conscious at the store)

Then, I heard about King Corn and saw talks like this one and became all the more sure I should stay away from non-organic food purchases and try to cook more. My emphasis became “real” food and ethically grown crops.
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a homosexuality post-script & conclusion

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Most of last week on this blog was spent discussing some recent “conversations” about the Evangelical church’s relationship with the homosexual community. I first addressed conservatives, and then progressives (as well as some thoughts on the “willful persistence in sin” comment I hear from conservatives a lot). This week, we move on. But not yet. In response to some of the ways people have responded to these posts, I felt I needed to write this.

In conclusion to it all…

These posts I’ve written got a lot of circulation around the web (and to those who commented/posted links, I thank you), and so for anyone that runs across them, I want to make something clear:

It might seem odd that I’ve typed far more words and dripped more sarcasm in attacking the more conservative side of this issue, all while ultimately agreeing more with them at the end of the day. In the end, even with all of my many theological and social disagreements, I cast my lot with them, even though I know most of them would not have me.

These posts, hopefully, have been written in the same spirit as Mark Noll’s blistering attack on Evangelical anti-intellectualism, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, which he calls “an epistle from a wounded lover”.
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For Theology Nerds: a satirical dictionary (don’t miss this!) [casual fri]

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

Andrew Wilson, over at The Theology Forum has done us a great service my creating this “Brief A–Z of Theological Jargon”, and it is great. Everyone gets some elbows in the ribs. Check it out. You don’t want to miss it. Here are some of my favorites:

Complementarianism 
1. The belief that men and women are complementary.
2. The antiquated and repressive notion that wives should submit to their husbands, and women should not teach or have authority over men.
3. The attempt to disguise (2) by referring to (1).

Egalitarianism 
1. The belief that men and women are equal.
2. The modern and liberating notion that women can do everything a man can, sister, including wearing trousers, leading the home, leading churches and teaching and having authority over men.
3. The assumption that (1) necessitates (2).

Roman Catholicism
The belief that the church is universal, apart from Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, and pretty much everyone except Roman Catholics.

Bible Survey Class // liberti church center city

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

Update: I have the first lecture up.

For those interested, I have been given the opportunity to serve at my church this summer by teaching a six-week long Survey of the Bible class. It’s been super fun getting back into all my old seminary books (as well as getting some new ones).

In the class, we’ll go through a theology of the Bible, the history and background of the Bible, as well as go through each of the books of the Bible. In the last class, we’ll talk about how to use this knowledge and the Bible itself to cultivate an actual life of worship and  devotion. We will also taking two “field trips”. One to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Franklin Institute, the other to the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

We’ll be recording the lectures, and I’ll post both the audio and my manuscripts on this blog for your edification (hopefully). So feel free to take a look at the official page above for the Bible Survey Class.

Be sure to question, counter, encourage, and ask me on the posts for each of these posts.

Also, if you’re in Philly on Sundays through July and August, please feel free to stop by. We”ll be doing these classes at liberti church: center city from am to pm, after church, at 17th and Sansom in center city Philadelphia.

The first class audio and manuscript will be going up later today so check back!

Girls: my new obsession

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

The TV show. The TV show. Rest assured, I mean HBO’s new dramedy, produced by Judd Apatow, about four twentysomething girls living in New York City. It just wrapped up its first season, and it was amazing.

Why was it amazing? Well, a few reasons. The writing is wonderful–it’s funny, thought-provoking, real, and profound. The characters are distinct and well-acted.

The show casts outright indictments against many of the marks of current twentysomething culture, revealing our narcissism, obsession with irony, and incessant naval-gazing; our infatuation with “becoming” and “being” more than “doing”; it betrays how our
Facebook culture has reduced our self-identity to the level and substance of a “Profile”, and the way we present ourselves and relate to others appears more like a well-manicured “Wall” (or rather, “Timeline”) rather than real, human interaction and messiness.

Further, the show shows genuinely messy and hard friendships and relationships. Granted, other media does this, but Girls is the best I’ve seen at showing how these difficulties are not “hiccups” or “things to overcome and get past”, but instead are the very things that challenge, shape, grow, and mature the characters and ultimately help them overcome those above-mentioned shortcomings of contemporary culture. It’s only by our messiness colliding and us holding on (as opposed to discarding) one another that we will become who we are trying to be.

Yes, the show takes us into the most intimate moments of characters’ lives–moments that are at times beyond our normal sensibilities of sexuality, relational “health”, and humor–and so many people (especially Christians, the primary readership of this site) will want to think long and consider deeply before embarking on this show.

Girls is indeed unflinching in its voyeurism and dysfunction, but it’s precisely that rawness and nakedness that ultimately turns the accusing finger towards us, exposing the ultimate delusion of our generation: that we’ve made emperors of us all, but emperors, in the end, with no clothes–more naked, awkward, fearful, and in need of covering than anyone that shows up on that screen.

But it’s also a comedy, so in the end, it reminds us not to take ourselves, the show, or even reviews of the show too seriously.

It’s so good.

Philly Beer Lovers: get very, very excited.

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

From the article “Pennsylvania debates new beer flow” in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

States have adopted various strategies in the 79-year effort to prevent pre-Prohibition alcohol abuses, but Pennsylvania has been particularly idiosyncratic, said Eric Shepard, longtime editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights in Suffern, N.Y.

“Pennsylvania is unique,” he said. “You are by far the weirdest state.”

The bill under consideration, introduced by state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) with Gov. Corbett’s backing, is just the latest effort to get the state out of the liquor business. But Turzai’s new twist would permit beer distributors and other businesses that could afford a license to sell beer in any quantity, along with wine and liquor.

In short, one-stop shopping for alcohol buyers, a la New Jersey.

Read more…

Also, be sure to contact your local representative to support this bill.

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Uh-oh (a Post-Script to my previous post on Moses)

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image

I just reached this part in the book I referenced in my post earlier on Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. This book was somewhat challenging the Documentary Hypothesis in my mind. I thought this book, in its recounting of Documentarians, was pretty fair and not too blindly fundamentalistic. But, now that he has turned from documenting the development of the field to laying out his own thoughts, I see I was wrong. Crap.

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The Pentateuch: Moses vs. the Documentary Hypothesis [OPEN MIC]

/ Paul Burkhart / 22 Comments

imageUpdate: I realized I was wrong.

Okay, for many of you, this will seem silly and inconsequential; others will find it blasphemous. But bear with me for this quick post.

Starting in a few weeks, I’ll be teaching a survey of the Bible class through the summer at my church (I’m going to try and record it and post it here each week). To prep for this, I’ve been delving back into seminary-land, reading about 12 different OT Surveys, OT intros, and Pentateuchal commentaries to get ready for just the Intro to the Old Testament and Pentateuch parts.

And of course, this brings up the issue of the authorship of the Old Testament. Honestly, I don’t plan on going more than 2 minutes on the topic in this class, but I want that two minutes to be fair, informed, helpful, and above all, edifying to the people in the room. I want people walking away understanding that godly people disagree on this stuff and why they do. I don’t want to caricature and criticize unnecessarily.

The main issue I’m working through is what part Moses (or any other pre-10,000 B.C. ancient authors/editors/redactors) had in writing the Pentateuch.

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Obama’s War on the World (and Americans) vs. the War on Women

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

No, this isn’t a full post (I’m still not blogging). Just wanted to vent. A week ago, a damning piece of journalism was published in the New York Times. Or at least, it should have been damning. It was a piece by Jo Becker and Scott Shane on Obama’s free use of, and unilateral decision-making authority in, Executive “kill lists” against those he uses secret intelligence to deem as “threatening”, including American citizens. Times editors, commentators, and blogs were writing about this all last week.

And nobody cares.

I was shocked that this article made barely a ripple in the media, the blogosphere, the twittersphere, facebook, and our societal conversation in general. As others have wondered, have we really let this nation go this far down this path, that it no longer phases us? These actions by Obama are a neo-conservative’s wet dream, and liberals don’t want to–under any circumstances, it seems–criticize their guy whom they, perhaps, feel is the “lesser evil”. After all, it’s an election year.

But what does phase us as a culture? What causes the blogosphere and editorials to go crazy? A New York Times article about a tech lawsuit with this golden opening line: “Men invented the internet”. (It also has a few other gender offenses.)

Is this article insensitive and silly? Yes. Should it be talked about and criticized? Yes. Is there consistent inattention and inaction given to the needs, abilities, rights, and presence of women in our national story (and Church)? Absolutely.

But is this “War on Women” worse than Obama’s War on the World, our civil liberties, and American citizens themselves? I challenge you to answer that yourself.

(And once again: no, I don’t consider this blogging.)

I’m Obsessed with Myself (a blog fast)

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments


I haven’t talked about it much (on this blog or to many people), but for the past 6 or 7 months I’ve been in professional counseling, primarily for anxiety (and it’s various outward expressions). There is a constant tension and busyness inside me that keeps me from living so many aspects of life. The counseling has been challenging, amazing, and painfully slow in the growth it has been producing in me.

But growth it has produced.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a week off from the blog, somewhat as an experiment. That week, I experienced more freedom from the various expressions of anxiety in my life than I had for years. I began to experience once again that communion with Christ I’ve written about wanting before. I was reading his Word, praying, and serving those around me with such calm and freedom.

I then thought to myself, “Wow. That was amazing! Now, I can go back to blogging.” I came back to the blog all last week, and all the anxiety came rushing back with it.

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Memorial Day: American Malaise & Christian Skepticism

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

Update: Shortly after writing this, I ran across this amazing quote in Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion and posted it on the blog.

In America, today is Memorial Day. This is the day Americans pay tribute to the soldiers that have served in our nation’s military and in our various wars. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, ostensibly (as you can see to the right) the most Patriotic state in the Union (Hmm… I can hear cries of “damn right!” ringing through the air from the South….). Of the Unquestionable Cultural Orthodoxy I was raised with, the glorification of the military sat right there next to Jesus, George W. Bush, and any anti-abortion and anti-evolution efforts there may have been.

And indeed this was the pattern I observed in this nation in this past one score and one year I have been around. No matter how anti-war some “crazy wack-job” liberal was (because who could possibly be against any war we–The Great Good–were fighting), they were quick to say “but I support the troops!”

Reading the various blogs and articles throughout the interwebs, though, it seems the past year has seen a shift. As our disenchantment with every other American institution has grown, the military does not look to be exempt from this.
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