HIndsight, Insight and Foresight: On Old Age

 "I heard Ruby Sales, the civil rights activist say, "the aching knee, the bad eyesight and the arthritis--all of it--that's no good; but where she sits on her front porch is great being an elder. She has hindsight, and insight, and foresight. That's 360 degrees, she says. And I agree with that." --Julia Alvarez https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2024/04/03/cemetery-of-untold-stories

Russell Moore: ‘Christ Is King’ Is Not the Slogan Some White Nationalists Want It to Be

 

Russell Moore nails it:
https://christianitytoday.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=f621f27661e5da0ee6019f6c7841bb47.16206&s=5605d0d2acb470b82790331867d1e911

"Something dark is haunting the world right now. The old gods of blood and soil are rustling. We have endured the same before. But we must not let them claim the cross. The cry “Christ is king” is true. That’s why it must never be emptied with a satanic kind of kingship. Abominations are in the world around us until the end, but Jesus warned us of a specific kind—the abomination that is “standing in the holy place (let the reader understand).” Jesus says, along with the prophet Daniel, that that kind of abomination—the kind that uses the holy things of God—leads to “desolation” (Matt. 24:15). What we must fear the most is not that which can push us down but that which can hollow us out...

You cannot have both Jesus as Lord and Jesus as Caesar without twisting the cross. A twisted cross is just another swastika, and that’s no cross at all."

Peter Harrison: 2019 Bampton Lectures

 I need to watch these:

The Bampton lectures were founded by the will of John Bampton and have been taking place in the University of Oxford since 1780. These two day conferences are open to the public as well as members of the University. They are suitable for anyone with an interest in the relationship between science and religion. The relationship between science and religion is often thought of in terms of competing factual claims or ways of knowing - evolution vs creation, reason vs faith. But arguments along these lines are rarely persuasive. Peter Harrison, the Bampton Lecturer, will argue that this is because the dialogue is an expression of commitments to implicit historical narratives about science and religion. The most common is the conflict narrative, which proposes an enduring historical conflict between science and religion. Less commonly remarked upon is a naturalism narrative, according to which there is nothing in the universe but physical forces and entities. The lectures will trace the historical emergence of these powerful narratives and the ways they have unhelpfully shaped contemporary arguments about divine action and purpose. Peter Harrison is a former Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He is now an Australian Laureate Fellow and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. He has written numerous books and articles on the historical and contemporary relations between science and religion. In 2011 he delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, now published as The Territories of Science and Religion (2015). His most recent book is Narratives of Secularization (2017).

Bampton Lecture 1 Peter Harrison 2019 Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paTZeJjH43Y

Bampton Lecture 2 Peter Harrison 2019 Science and the Disenchantment of Nature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbGrXo0sH4Q

Bampton Lecture 3 Peter Harrison 2019 Nature and the Idea of the Supernatural

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G3eiEiH2NE

Bampton Lecture 4 Peter Harrison 2019 Religious Belief and the Myth of Scientific Naturalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6WB0hsGq8M

To Lead, or to Serve?

 When I worked at the local evangelical/charismatic Bible college, the goal was to "Develop Leaders." Today, I saw a van from Eugene's largest evangelical Baptist church, and on the side was emblazoned, "Live, love and lead like Jesus." I'm beginning to think that maybe the way to tell evangelicals from mainliners is that that instead of leading, the latter seek to serve. Like Jesus.

A former student commented: "I've been saying this for years. The evangelical churches are being run more and more like businesses. They only want to create leaders, but if everyone's leading, then no one's following, and honestly, at that point no one's really leading either. Churches can't be a commodity, and people don't exist to be the consumers."

FB conversation about citizenship, nations, nationality, and nationalism

 FRIEND: I am so glad my citizenship is in heaven!

ME: yes; but we need to be careful not to be gnostics. God has created us as material beings, and as such, we must incarnate Christ wherever we live. For better or worse, we are in the world, even if we are not of it.

FRIEND: Amen. I have never seen myself as only living for what is to come, but rather to practice/ learn what the treasures are that I can accumulate for the city I am a citizen from, by being Jesus‘ hands and feet.

ME: I agree with N.T Wright that when the Kingdom comes, it will be a complete healing of the world that God created and called good; not a completely different/discontinuous one to replace what He had first created. Too many American dispensationalists believe the latter, which allows them to hold that they can trash this world because God will totally replace it with a brand new model.


FRIEND: Since I have lived in 4 different countries I was always comforted by having my citizenship in heaven, cause that is where I want my loyalty to lie.

ME: I look on people like you and our grandson as having a jump on the rest of us. You have experienced a wider variety of humanity, and have had the opportunity to have your mind and heart grow as a result.


Scripture talks a lot about "the nations." For instance,

cf. Ps. 22:27-28, , Ps. 86:9, Is. 2:2, Matt. 8:11, Rev. 15:3-4, and in particular, Rev. 21:26 and 22:2.

In the NT the word "nations" is from ἔθνος, (ethnos) from where we get our word "ethnic." It means a group of people, joined by shared language, customs, history, and culture.

As I understand it, "heaven"/the Kingdom will be the peaceful community of all nations, somehow preserving their diversity but doing so within the unity of the Spirit.

I think there are two ways of understanding "citizenship." One is literal and particular, qualifying one to hold a specific passport. The other is metaphorical and general: to be a member of a group of people/ἔθνος.

So yes, absolutely: our loyalty as Christians is to Christ; but ISTM that He will not erase our "nationality"-- that is, our corporate character. That metaphorical sense of "citizenship" will remain.

However, I think "nationality" is different from "nationalism." "Nationalism" recognizes only the literal sense of citizenship, and insists that any other "nationality" besides one's own is inferior. The sin of "nationalism" is to idolize nationality over Christ. He alone is the King of Kings, and the Lord of all nations.

Catholics at least have a tradition of social thought; even if they ignore it

 As Michael Gerson put it when describing Catholic social thought, “The doctrinal whole requires a broad, consistent view of justice, which—when it is faithfully applied—cuts across the categories and clichés of American politics. Of course, American Catholics routinely ignore Catholic social thought. But at least they have it. Evangelicals lack a similar tradition of their own to disregard.”

I-270 and My Mom's Dementia

 When I was 10-12 years old, part of our property was claimed by eminent domain to build I-270 in St. Louis. Instead of fireflies, there were headlights. The sound of sirens and gears shifting uphill replaced the murmur of the creek, and the wind in oak trees. And the first year the interstate opened, our plum tree produced twisted, misshapen fruit, and then refused to ever bear again.

Two decades later my mother developed dementia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/23/alzheimers-brain-air-pollution-study/

People who inhale higher concentrations of tiny airborne particulates, like from diesel exhaust or other traffic-related air pollutants, are more likely to have signs of Alzheimer’s disease in their brains, according to a new study, the latest in a growing body of research that shows a link between air pollution and cognitive decline.

For the study, published this week in the journal Neurology, researchers examined the association between concentrations of ambient air pollution and signs of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain. They found that people who were exposed to higher concentrations of fine particulate matter air pollution, also known as PM2.5, at least a year before their death were more likely to have higher levels of plaques — abnormal clusters of protein fragments built up between nerve cells, which is a sign of Alzheimer’s in brain tissue. The research also found a strong association between the pollution and signs of the disease for people who were not already genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s.

“This suggests that environmental factors like air pollution could be a contributing factor to Alzheimer’s disease, especially in patients in which the disease cannot be explained by genetics,” said Anke Huels, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Emory University’s School of Public Health. While the study does not prove that air pollution causes Alzheimer’s disease, it found an association between exposure to specific kinds of pollution and signs of the disease.

Researchers examined tissue from 224 donors in Atlanta’s metropolitan area who, before their deaths, volunteered to donate their brains to research.

“Donors who lived in areas with particularly high levels of traffic-related air pollution showed more plaques related to Alzheimer’s disease at death than donors who lived in areas with lower air pollution concentrations,” Huels said.

What that told researchers, she added, is that being exposed to high levels of the pollution increases your risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

More than half of the donors had what’s known as the APOE gene, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. But for the donors who were not already genetically predisposed, researchers found a stronger association between traffic-related air pollution and signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s long been known that concentrations of PM2.5 can trigger short-term respiratory problems. That’s because the particulates are so small — measuring 2.5 microns and smaller in diameter — that they enter the bloodstream after being inhaled. Breathing in smoke can also irritate your sinuses, throat and eyes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In more severe cases, exposure is linked to cardiovascular impacts — including heart attacks and stroke — as well as lung cancer and damage to cognitive functions.

Gaurab Basu, the director of education and policy at Harvard’s center for climate, health and the environment, said the study shines a spotlight on ambient air pollution’s dangers to the brain.

“We often think about air pollution in the lungs, but it’s critical that we put the brain at the forefront of the conversation of the ways that air pollution impacts our health,” Basu said.

While this study primarily examined the brains of White, college-educated men, Basu said poorer communities and communities of color are often more exposed to particulate matter and traffic-related pollution — because highways and roadways are intentionally built in their communities.

“This pollution does not impact everyone the same,” Basu said. “Vehicular air pollution is fundamentally an issue of health equity.”

More research is needed to determine the exact connection between traffic-related air pollution and the brain changes of Alzheimer’s disease, said Heather Snyder, the Alzheimer’s Association vice president of medical and scientific relations.

“We know that Alzheimer’s is a complex disease, and it is likely that there are a variety of factors, in combination, that impact a person’s lifetime risk,” Snyder told The Post in an email. “Avoiding exposure to air pollution is a risk factor that some people can change, but others can’t, or can’t so easily.”

This study is also just the latest in the growing literature revealing associations between ambient air pollution and cognitive decline. Emerging research has also found that exposure to traffic-related fine particulate matter is correlated with reduced cortical thickness and thinner gray matter in the brain, which may influence information processing, learning and memory. Experts pointed to mounting evidence that links exposure to air pollution with cognitive decline, mood disorders and diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease.

To Huels, the best way to mitigate exposure is to make individual changes such as limiting time outdoors when air pollution concentrations are high and wearing a mask when appropriate. She said other changes such as driving an electric vehicle or taking public transportation can contribute to reducing air pollution.

“To really reduce air pollution exposures, we need political decisions and changes,” Huels said. “There really isn’t a safe or healthy level of air pollution in general or traffic related air pollution.”