Blue Cord

The folder on my computer that contained all of my research and publications . . . gone. Fourteen page paper I wrote in July . . . gone. Notes on new book I am writing . . . gone. Don’t know where it went or when it was deleted. Just gone . . . gone . . . gone . . .

Most recent backup was in June. Did a lot of new work in July. Now its gone. Bye, bye fresh ideas. Bye, bye research. Bye, bye paper for next year’s SBL. All gone.

Tyler Williams and others in the biblioblogosphere have been finding out how nerdy they are. I am pleased to announce that I am a mid-level nerd. Or at least I think I am pleased. I have always thought of myself more as a geek.

One thing that brought down my score, I am sure, is that I am using Windows. But I think I ought to get a few more nerd points for the fact that my Wisdows desktop and explorer look very unlike most Windows installations. I use Window Blinds to change the skin of my windows, Object Dock to give myself a dock for folders and other tasks, and Icon Packager to change all my icons. And of course I use GIMP instead of Photoshop. That should at least move me up on the geek scale, if not on the nerdometer.

There is an editorial in the New York Times today that points to the growing problems with college education in America. Of twenty-seven nations studies in a recent report, the US ranked 16th among the proportion of college students who complete college. To be fair, America may have more students in college, but we should be able to produce graduates in the same proportion as other countries.

One of the problems is cuts in state and federal aid, which has made it less affordable for students to go to college.  While this might save the government some money in the short run, in the long run it will be very costly.  Of course, very few politicians are willing to do things that will help only in the long run, when they need to get reelected in the short run.
This is not the only problem, however. College keep raising their price, because students are demanding more and more of college. Unfortunately, most of what they are demanding is not academics, but nicer dorms, better computer labs, and other bells and whistles. This drives up the cost of college, but does not necessarily improve the quality of the education.

I am currently reading a book our academic dean loaned me. It is called Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts Colleges. One of the problems it highlights is something we also have here at LCC (an American style liberal arts college). More and more students in America (and Lithuania) are looking for utilitarian degrees, i.e., degrees that will get them hired and make them money. The problem is that a liberal arts degree is not intended to prepare one for a career. It is supposed to prepare one for life. Certainly, that includes a career, but the idea of a liberal arts major is that someone with a comprehensive understanding of the world is a better employee (and citizen!) than someone is is merely trained for one particular job. Unfortunately, students in America are more and more focused on their own success and less interested in the big picture. (There are, of course, many exceptions to this rule.)

It is somewhat understandable here in Lithuania, where the entire economy is recovering from the Soviet period. But we need to do a better job here of convincing people that they and their country will be better off if they educate students to be better people instead of simply better workers. The same message needs to be restated in America as well.

The New York Times is reporting that the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico has announced the discovery of a stone slab bearing the oldest known inscription in North America.

The slab, containing sixty-two different signs, dates from about 900 BCE, which makes it 400 years earlier than any other inscription from the Americas. They suggest that the writing is Olmec, a culture from which we have no other writings. The Olmec civilization emerged about 1200 BCE and lasted until 400 BCE, roughly the same time as the ancient Israelite states (c.1000 - 587 BCE). The oldest known Hebrew inscription is the recently discovered Tel Zayit inscription from the 10th century BCE.

Ben Witherington has a blog today on a Time magazine article that deals with the prosperity gospel.  I wanted to put up a quick post on this to direct some of my students to his blog.  I also wanted to make one comment on what Dr. Witherington has to say.

He notes that the prosperity gospel is “a profoundly American Gospel, especially connected to blue collar Protestant religion, that thrives on the rages to riches mythology of our culture.”  I thinking that is a very astute assessment.  But I wanted to point out that the prosperity gospel also has a strong following here in Eastern Europe. 

Towards the end of the Soviet period, when things were beginning to open up, a number of American missionaries began working in this area, including some from the prosperity gospel group.  Due to the fact that communism had left the economy in ruins, the prosperity gospel was very attractive to a number of people and caught on quickly.  It still has a large following now, fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Few people in the churches here have heard of Barth or Bonhoeffer, but they certainly know of Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, and Kenneth Hagin.  Videos by these pastors shysters are not in short supply here.

One of our theology graduates last year came out of the prosperity gospel movement.  She wrote a wonderful thesis tracing the history of the movement in Lithuania, critiquing the theology, and noting ways in which churches here have moved away from the American version of the prosperity gospel.  Fifteen years without achieving prosperity can certainly have an impact on one’s beliefs.