"Racism" in Pennsylvania

Life is good in America. Too good, perhaps, when a nation is scandalized because a private club in Pennsylvania has decided to void a contract with a summer camp. The Valley Club in PA had an agreement to allow 60+ kids from a nearby summer camp use their pool on Mondays throughout the summer. However, the Club rescinded the agreement after the first visit due to complaints from club members. Apparantly, a couple of the camp children - who are predominantly black or hispanic - heard such racial slurs as "black kids." Oh, wait, that's the only "racial slur" being reported. (Side note - the article I read on this referred to "black" as a slur, yet used it several times to refer to various leaders in the black community who were expressing outrage.) Still, most of the club members looked disapprovingly at the camp children and wouldn't let their kids play with the camp kids. This is racism? Certainly there is bigotry at work, but it is about social class, not race. The club members - remember this is a private club in a posh suburb - are upset that their club is being overrun by poor kids from a summer camp. If they wanted that kind of socio-economic intermingling, they would just go to a public pool and save the membership dues. But they paid their money to keep their kids separate from poor kids who can't even afford designer swimsuits. This isn't racism. It's just another example of the haves wanting to get some distance from the have-nots. As a lifelong have-not, I know of what I speak. I've been asked to leave plenty of places that were too "rich" for me, and even the places that didn't toss me out certainly knew how to make me feel unwelcome. But this isn't racism. It wouldn't have mattered one whit to the folks at Valley Club if those camp kids had been white. They were still poor, and that's why they didn't belong.

John Calvin at Baker Book House

At the risk of alienating all of my Reformed friends out there, I think I'm a little John Calvin'ed out. Yes, he is an important figure in Western history, and yes, tomorrow is his 500th b-day, and yes, I am Calvinist in my theology. But Tuesday evening's symposium on John Calvin at Baker Book House really put this whole 500th b-day fever into perspective. I went, and now I want my 90 minutes back. It was worse than pointless. It was an attempt to fill a space that had been specifically created for having a space to fill. The first topic was on dispelling the myths about John Calvin. Yawn. Moving on. Richard Muller was supposed to speak on whether Calvin was a Calvinist, which I find intriguing, although I already have my mind made up on that, but he had to back out due to a family emergency. Finally, there was an attempt at trendiness, trying to draw a critique of emergent "theology" out of Calvin's thoughts, but this is an exercise in futility. Calvin wouldn't have even wasted his time, and it was clear that the presenter on this topic knew this but was still faced with the task of filling his time with something. Perhaps my hopes were just too high, but I expected more. I do not consider myself a Calvin scholar by any stretch of the imagination - quite the opposite, which is why I went. I guess I felt cheated since I didn't really learn anything new. Oh well. Better luck next time.

LOGOS software and the dumbing down of the Church

I was asked to do a review of the LOGOS software system after participating in a demo session for seminary students. As is the case with any product, there are a lot of strengths and a few weaknesses. Overall, I think it is a nifty system, albeit incredibly dated. Let's face it, publishers aren't going to release their latest and greatest titles on LOGOS. Plus, there is just something about the feel of paper between your fingers that just makes you feel scholarly. My bottom line on LOGOS as a system: great concept, but I think I can find all of the info either online in public domain or in books already in my office.

Despite my lukewarm review of LOGOS as a product, I do have a major beef with the marketing campaign behind the demo session I participated in. Apparently the makers of LOGOS think that simply having the tools to do extensive biblical scholarship is the same as being trained how to use those tools appropriately. Simply looking up the Greek etymology in Strong's Concordance is not really the same as understanding the significance of terms such as "imperative", "genative", "subjective" and so on and so forth. These terms are critically important in doing language studies (and the ability to do language studies quickly and efficiently is one of the big selling points of LOGOS), and it takes years of study to truly understand the nuances of a language. I know this because I have failed so spectacularly in the past. My beef, then, is LOGOS passing off their product as a replacement for a seminary education (a line they actually use in the promo I viewed). LOGOS may give you the tools, but it doesn't give you the knowledge to use them appropriately or with discernment.