Is this why Fox beats CNN & MSNBC in ratings?

This is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. However, one could argue that each characteristic mentioned below has its own cable news channel.

“Patriotism is usually stronger than class-hatred, and always stronger than any kind of internationalism.” — George Orwell, in his essay “England Your England”

The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery

From the introduction:

“Because of the predominately theological and devotional purposes to which Christians put the Bible, it is almost impossible not to slip into the error of looking upon the Bible as theological outline with proof texts attached. Yet the Bible is much more a book of images and motifs than of abstractions and propositions. This is obscured by the way in which preachers and theologians gravitate so naturally to the epistles. A biblical scholar has correctly said that the Bible speaks ‘largely in images’…”

-Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (IVP)

Where John Stott is Rector Emeritus: All Souls Langham Place

I stumbled upon this church today, roughly three blocks off Oxford Circus in London, while Kristi and the girls were scooping up all kinds of clothing inside John Lewis and M&S. Check out the plaques below.

All Souls Langham Place

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Sign outside the church

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An historical note...

Actually, it kind of IS about you

In a basement auditorium on a small historic campus, one of my grad-school professors — an editor of a venerable literary journal — was giving a public reading of an essay he had written.

While this professor made no proclamation of faith, he taught me something about Christian testimonies, as well as how and why to talk about myself.

My professor’s essay moved into a critique of a popular New York Times columnist who has a habit of using the word we when talking about the things that happen as a result of U.S. foreign policy.

The columnist would say things like, “We already fund this country,” and “We already have strained diplomatic relations with that country.”

The professor eventually paused and asked, “Who is this we?”

I took his point; I took it severely.

For me, there would be no more writing with “we” and no more abstractions about what we all think and do.

I realized that a personal, first-person account is all I have to offer. I can’t speak for others.

The world is too diverse for me to suppose I’m on the same page with everyone else — even those with whom I might agree about foreign policy.

I then worked hard to change my habit. My writing — and my points made in conversation — would be made in terms of stories about what I had experienced and I had observed.

No generalizations. Instead, stories: personal and concrete.

Of course, this presented me with a problem.

When attempting the write, I could make great strides forward by focusing on what I knew best: myself and my experiences.

Then again, I constantly ran the risk of making conversations sound like they were about me. Often, I have perceived that I was being heard as someone who is talking about himself.

Not a comfortable feeling. Not a winning plan for extended conversations, either.

I’m plenty human and full of myself, but after the “we” epiphany in grad school, my intention in talking about myself wasn’t always to communicate something about me — the point often was to illustrate something I thought was bigger than my own story.

I was referring to something that I suspected to be broadly relevant if not universal, while I could not claim a broad or universal grasp.

When I suspect my experiences are legitimate points of reference for another person or an organization with which I am affiliated, I want to tell my story.

I suspect my experiences could very easily be experienced by other people. Communities and groups and individuals could make the conceptual and practical decisions that could lead to my previous experiences, bad and good.

But, having taken my professor’s point rather severely, I usually try to avoid making my observations outside of a personal story.

The advantage is that true stories have a kind of absoluteness to them — this really happened, and it happened to me. No one is thought to be a pompous, self-absorbed bore when he says, “Every time I eat at that restaurant, I get sick!” And that’s not open for debate, either.

I might even be able to learn from someone else’s true story, if I think about how it might relate to me.

Which brings us — hard to avoid, isn’t it? — to personal testimonies of the Christian variety.

Christian conversion stories are the perfect examples of the universal within the particular.

In the Christian faith, the self-sacrificing Creator reaches out for a restored relationship with the human race — a universal call of redemption.

How each person responds to that call, to that extended hand, differs from believer to believer — each one has a particular, individual story.

A month or two ago, I listened to the testimonies of a dozen or so people who had recently completed confirmation classes at Trinity. It was an enriching experience to hear so many different stories — different responses to God’s call, different life circumstances.

So, in a way, sharing the Christian story kind of is about you — you have the story only you can tell, and that might just be the story someone else needs to hear.

There’s a good way to talk about yourself. Your subjective, personal story is more compelling than grand generalizations. Try to sidestep that “we” and speak for yourself.

By the way, a few days after the professor asked about “this we,” I was in a seminar with him.

When I had an opportunity to speak, I complimented him on his reading, and said something like, “We learned a lot that could help us with our writing.”

He laughed.

Top of Saint Paul’s Cathedral: Audrey and I climb 528 steps

Audrey, on the Golden Gallery of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London yesterday, with the Thames River and the Tate Modern (with the brown tower in the middle) behind her. Look closely, to the left of the Tate, and you can see a small white structure with a dark roof. That's the recreated Globe Theater.

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One of the front spires, from the Golden Gallery

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Check out this diagram of the trip to the top of the Saint Paul’s Cathedral dome.
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We were waaaay up there.

Walking behind my wife in London

… to protest the encroaching new order.

Baptist wireless

An edited version of this item, from my Beerman column, appears in the current Weekly Surge, a free newspaper distributed in the Myrtle Beach area:

I was staying at a Baptist conference center the night before my PBR article was due.

I’m always racking up the frequent-guest points at Baptist conference centers, and cashing them in for sweet tea and potato salad.

I was there because my wife had gone the center’s accompanying girls’ camp during her growing-up years, and now my daughters are carrying on the tradition.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great camp, and the conference center’s room were cleaner than most hotel rooms. I guess working for cranky tourists is a little less motivating than working for the Almighty.

Anyway, I had to do a little PBR-related research to do, so I went online. The Google search returned the results, and I clicked.

Suddenly, a note popped up on the screen: the site was banned, for it fell within the “Alcohol/Tobacco Category.”

I knew I couldn’t bring any alcohol or tobacco – I was really proud of myself for not smuggling any in – but I couldn’t even read about it?

Wouldn’t it count as opposition research?

That’s why I’m an Episcopalian. Our little-known motto is, “The Protestants Who Drink.” Our Jesus turned water into wine, not Welch’s Grape Juice.

Jowett: The apprehending spirit

One of the most precious endowments in the Christian life is an apprehending spirit, a healthy delicacy of soul, which can detect the hidden presence of the Lord. I think it is Bagehot who makes much of Shakespeare’s “experiencing nature,” a rich equipment of responsiveness which enables Shakespeare to enter into the lives of clowns and statesmen, of peasants and courtiers, or merchants and kings. Well, what we need as disciples of Christ is an experiencing nature, 143exquisite in its apprehension, which can discern the secret place of the Lord. “Thy grace betrayeth thee!” And if we are to have this fine scent for the things of the King’s gardens, we shall have to get rid of all our benumbment. Our spiritual senses may be deadened by sin, they may be blunted by formality. Prayerlessness makes us spiritually dull, while intercession makes us vigilant. Prayer makes us watch. We become alive unto God.

– John Henry Jowett, Friend on the Road and Other Studies in the Gospels, accessed through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Spitting on Darwin’s grave? A London Postcard

Yesterday I was accused of being Edward Longshanks.

Well, singled out for being as tall as the English king and villain of Braveheart, anyway.

A chap named Tom of London Walks gave us splendid views and explanations of the changing of the guard at Buckingham and then the graves and historical features of Westminster Abbey.

Between those two destinations, while we were walking, we stopped on the sidewalk in respect for a fallen soldier and the somber procession of a military funeral. All this tourism, all these people, from various places around the world, visiting London, and a war and its losses and sorrows continue apace.

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In Westminster Abbey, Tom showed us the grave of Charles Darwin. He said not long ago — two years if I remember correctly — someone came into Westminster Abbey and spat on Darwin’s grave. Everyone in the group seemed to agree that such an act was outrageous — not only a grave, but to spit in a church, too! Tom said Darwin never wrote anything about faith, only his observations of nature. Can any fact-checkers tell me if that’s true?

Tom also mentioned that within our lifetimes, really just a few years ago, one of Darwin’s predictions proved to be true. I found some notes about that prediction here and here.

London Postcard: Whose oil spill?

This is cute:

On the televised BBC News this morning, the bottom of the screen says “U.S. Oil Spill.”

Not “BP Oil Spill.”

It’s “U.S. Oil Spill.”

This BBC web link has it right: “BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil well pressure tests to begin.”