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Aug 8

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Ad-trocious

I don’t like advertising.

I resent the exorbitant amounts of money that are spent to convince people to buy things that, in all likelihood, they probably don’t need. I resent the pathetically transparent appeals to human pride and vanity that accompany most commercials, and I resent the level of intelligence that most advertisements implicitly assume of their audiences—as if I am really expected to believe, for example, that shaving with four blades (or is it five now? I can never keep track of how close a shave I ought to be demanding from the manufacturer of my grooming products…) will transform me into a ravishingly handsome fighter pilot, barely able to fend off the hordes of gorgeous women who will inevitably be lured my way by the extra micro-millimeter of hair that I have managed, with the benefit of “fusion” technology, to harvest from my face. Read more

Aug 3

13 Comments

I Give Up! (An Utterly Ridiculous Reflection on Bathroom Technology)

I’ve done a lot of traveling over the past couple of weeks. First, it was back to southern Alberta to spend some time with my family, then up to Edmonton for a speaking engagement, then over to Hepburn, SK for a whirlwind visit with my brother and his family, then back to Lethbridge to spend a week with Naomi’s folks, and then, finally, the long trip back to Vancouver. And then, after only a brief period at home, we were off again—this time to Galiano Island to spend a delightful couple of days enjoying the laid-back island life with friends. We just returned tonight and are now going to settle down around home for the month of August (and try to get some of the work done that I have been putting off for most of the month of July!). Read more

Jul 31

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Religion Poisons Everything?

I’m currently reading Christopher Hitchens’ book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. While the book is thus far proving to be a much more entertaining and interesting read than, for example, Dawkins’ The God Delusion (Hitchens is just a flat out good writer), I am finding the same troubling tendency to access history selectively—focusing exclusively on the tragically frequent instances where religion has been a (not “the,” as in “the only”—things are rarely that simple) motivating factor in the perpetration of great evil and ignoring the simple fact that religion is responsible for a lot of the good in the world as well. Read more

Jul 25

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How Could God Allow this to Happen?

I recently became aware of a tragic automobile accident which claimed the life of a young man and seriously injured a fellow passenger. I don’t know any of the people directly affected by this tragedy personally, but I am aware of many people who do. This death, as all deaths are, will be devastating for a huge network of people connected in a variety of different ways. Read more

Jul 23

18 Comments

What are People For?

I’ve been meaning to write a few (!) words about this article since I came across it in The Globe and Mail several days ago. It’s a review of a book called The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, and while I’ve not read the book yet, I find the premise of the book to be a curious one—one that I’m not sure is best suited for what it is trying to accomplish. Read more

Jul 17

1 Comment

Redemption as Imitation

Well, I apologize for the lack of activity here over the last couple of weeks. The infrequency of my posting is due to the fact that we are out in Alberta and Saskatchewan visiting family and friends. We’ve been out here for just over a week now, and so far we’ve been having a very enjoyable time. Read more

Jul 4

5 Comments

A Necessary Lesson

It’s funny the kinds of situations that produce “teachable moments.” I spent a good chunk of today fruitlessly banging my head against the wall, trying to come up with a workable structure for the class that I will be co-teaching this fall at Columbia Bible College. It was a very frustrating day, and on the trip home my mind was filled with misgivings and anxiety about my ability to do the things that are required of me over the next couple of months. Read more

Jul 2

5 Comments

iInsanity!

Readers of this blog will know that I have mixed feelings regarding the ubiquitous nature of technology in our culture. On the one hand, I am happy to use it for the things that make my job easier; on the other, I resent the way in which I allow it to monopolize my time and dictate the manner in which I engage with the world around me. I resent the way it conditions us to value the immediate, the visually stimulating, the excessive, the spectacular, and the trivial. Technology giveth and technology taketh away; it is a decidedly mixed blessing. This, in a nutshell, is my view on the matter. Read more

Jun 27

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All the Good Music Comes from Across the Pond

Throughout the last week or so I have been making incremental additions to my sad excuse for a music library. One of the occupational hazards of being a student is, obviously, a lack of extra funds to explore and purchase new music. I usually get new music twice a year—July and December, when I get a bit of birthday and Christmas money. And as much as I consider Def Leppard’s greatest hits to be a greatly under-appreciated work here at the dawn of the 21st century, I can only listen to the same songs as I bang away on my keyboard for so long until something gives. Read more

Jun 25

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Moltmann on the State of the World

I came across these powerful lines, which conclude Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, this morning and thought they would be worth sharing in light of my previous post on the inappropriateness of perpetual happiness in a world plagued by sin and evil. I think that this is a much better (and much more realistic) way of understanding the state of the world and what we ought to do and expect in it:

This means, however, that the hope of resurrection must bring about a new understanding of the world. This world is not the heaven of self-realization, as it was said to be in Idealism. This world is not the hell of self-estrangement, as it is said to be in romanticist and existentialist writing. The world is not yet finished, but is understood as engaged in history. It is therefore the world of possibilities, the world in which we can serve the future, promised truth and righteousness and peace. This is an age of diaspora, or sowing in hope, of self-surrender and sacrifice, for it is an age which stands within the horizon of a new future. Thus self-expenditure in this world, day-to-day love in hope, becomes possible and becomes human within that horizon of expectation which transcends the world. The glory of self-realization and the misery of self-estrangement alike arise from hopelessness in a world of lost horizons. To disclose to it the horizon of the future of the crucified Christ is the task of the Christian Church.

Jun 24

1 Comment

Are You Happy? Should You Be?

The Globe and Mail is currently doing a very interesting feature on happiness. I was particularly intrigued by this article that I came across yesterday which questions our cultural fascination with the “cult of happiness,” both its legitimacy as an enterprise, and its efficiency in achieving the results we crave. We are obsessed with being happy, and when this happiness eludes us, we’re desperate for someone to tell us how to fix the problem. Everywhere we turn, there are no shortages of “life coaches,” psychologists, therapists, and all manner of “happiness experts” eager to lead us (usually for a handsome fee!) to the promised land of rapturous bliss. Read more

Jun 21

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The Altruists Paradox

A few days ago, I came across this piece on the nature of altruism from John Tierney in the New York Times. Apparently brain scans conducted at the University of Oregon found that “pleasure areas” of the brain are activated in experiments where participants performed a charitable act, thus demonstrating that there is a biological basis for altruism. Typically results such as this are thought to bolster arguments against theistic belief—if some human behaviour can be shown to produce pleasure its origins must clearly be explained without remainder by evolutionary biology. Read more

Jun 19

4 Comments

Moltmann on Hope

It seems like every second author I’ve come across lately is full of references to some book or other by Jürgen Moltmann. So, this week I decided to start reading him for myself. Suffice it to say that I think I’m starting to see why many find him to be such a compelling voice. This quote, in the middle of a reflection on the nature of Christian hope, stopped me in my tracks: Read more

Jun 18

1 Comment

Oh Canada!

I returned yesterday from a technology-less weekend at our church’s annual family camp to discover that I had missed a glorious weekend for Canadian soccer! I’ve been a soccer fan for nearly a decade now, and have largely had to content myself with the odd exploit of a Canadian player overseas, or an occasional miraculous result (Canada’s 2000 Gold Cup win) when it comes to Canada’s performances on the international soccer stage. Read more

Jun 14

5 Comments

Ryan the Bible Teacher?!

For those who do not know, I have been hired to teach one section of an Introduction to Biblical Studies class at Columbia Bible College in the fall semester. I’m pretty excited about this—my wife and I attended CBC for a year in the mid-1990’s and we have very fond memories of the place. Also, it’s not much of a secret that I would like to teach on a more permanent basis after I graduate—either in an academic or church context—and this could represent one tiny foot in the door to the world of teaching. At the very least, it will give me some much needed experience in learning how to be a public figure, and it will force me to learn how to communicate ideas clearly and helpfully in an interactive environment (not to mention I get a funky CBC library card that says “Sessional Faculty” on it, right beside a picture of me with a rather stupid looking grin on my face—almost like I was convinced that I was getting away with something, and I wanted to get out of there before somebody found out…). Read more

Jun 13

5 Comments

The Force is With Me!

I have a confession to make. Until last week, I had never seen Star Wars.

I’ll give you a moment to get over this shocking bit of news.

How it is, you ask, that I have managed to get this far in life in complete ignorance of such a massive cultural symbol? It is a mystery, to be sure. Read more

Jun 10

12 Comments

One Book Meme

I was made aware of a pretty interesting blog (from my perspective at least) this week when Gil sent me a link to a review of a book I had recently read. It’s pretty heady stuff over there, but I’ve come across a couple of really interesting posts whilst scouring some of the archives. Here‘s one of them. I don’t know if he’s taking a bit of a dig at Richard Dawkins here (I believe he coined the term “meme” to explain how ideas survive by a process of cultural evolution; needless to say, not everyone thinks this is the most plausible way to explain how ideas are transmitted…), but this might be one “meme” that is, at the very least, entertaining, and could be an interesting way to get to know people better. Read more

Jun 7

13 Comments

Naming a Blog

Ever since I entered the weird and wonderful world of blogging I’ve been utterly vexed by my inability to come up with a good name for this site. As fascinating as my name is as a title, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps I might come up with something just a bit snappier and more compelling, a bit more indicative of the kind of stuff people might expect to find here, a bit less dull and unimaginative… Read more

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