Men of Straw and Steel

Atheist Sam Harris famously claims to have no patience with philosophically or theologically developed concepts of God; instead, he wants to attack the "real God" in whom most Americans believe. This God is a benevolent grandfather in the sky, so to speak -- the kind of God, for example, who intervenes in football games to make sure that your team wins. So there is a popular concept, held by those who neither reflect upon nor attempt to defend their idea of God, and there is theological concept, at which one arrives when one begins reflecting upon and defending the idea of God. To simply define the terms of the discussion in such a way that "God" means "God-without-any-possible-defense" may score rhetorical points, but gets us nowhere. It is easy to attack embarrassments like the Creation Museum, but it is much harder to articulate a minimally reasonable atheist response to the strong claims of the Christian theological tradition.

The crucial personal move, though, is to ask myself how often I do the same thing. How often do I object to precisely the version of an idea that has no defenders? A straw man may have many adherents, but it is the steel man, defended by those who take a reflective and developed approach to the idea, that is the legitimate target of critique.

Sweet Potato Pizza

We had Sweet Potato and Fontina Pizza today for lunch, recipe number twenty-seven. I found this in my Taste of Home magazine.

Sweet Potato and Fontina Pizza

1 medium sweet potato

2 T water

1/4 t salt

1/8 t pepper

1 tube (13.8 oz) refrigerated pizza crust

1 cup (4 oz) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1 cup (4 oz) shredded fontina cheese

2 T olive oil, divided

1 t minced fresh rosemary or 1/4 t dried rosemary, crushed

1 t minced fresh thyme or 1/4 t dried thyme

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease a 12-in pizza pan. Peel and cut sweet potato into 1/4 in slices. Cut each slice into 1/2 in wide strips; place in a microwave-safe dish. Add water. Microwave, covered, on high 3-4 minutes or until potato is almost tender. Drain; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Unroll and press dough to fit prepared pan. If desired, pinch edge to form a rim. Sprinkle with mozzarella and fontina cheeses; drizzle with 1 T olive oil. Top with sweet potato; sprinkle with herbs. Drizzle with remaining oil; sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake on lowest oven rack 12-15 minutes or until crust is golden and cheese is melted.

This was a good pizza. It was fun to have something so unique and it looked nice. I liked the herbs and the combination of cheeses.

Croutons

I made Garlic Croutons today with some leftover French bread, our twenty-sixth recipe. I doubled the recipe, but cut back a little on the butter. When I mixed it all together in the pan, the first pieces soaked up most of the butter, so I added a little olive oil. I also sprinkled on some Italian seasoning. They turned out well. I wasn't planning to use a recipe to make my croutons, but when I made sweet potato quesadillas on Friday I forgot to take a picture. Since I didn't want to post without it, I decided that recipe didn't count and so now we have croutons. Anyway, the quesadillas were pretty good too, although a bit strange.

Cabbage and Thesis

We tried Barbecued Cabbage with our dinner tonight, our twenty-fifth recipe. We ran out of propane after putting the pork chops and cabbage on the grill and discovered that we only had empty propane containers, so Joshua had to run next door to Home Depot and get some more. Thankfully, it didn't seem to detract from the quality of the food; everything turned out great. We thought the soy sauce was too strong on the cabbage, but liked its acidic saltiness contrasted with the sweetness of the cabbage. I'm likely to make this again, just cutting the soy sauce in half next time.

We spent the evening trying out our new board game, which we got to celebrate that Joshua submitted his thesis to his committee today! Yes, the thesis is written! Now we have a little bit of a break before beginning the process of revision, editing, and defending. Needless to say, we are quite excited.

Visitors

We had the Nickell kids over to have dinner with us last night. Uncle Joshua was in charge of taking some pictures, so we have: 

"So hungry you are about to attack the food"

 "Your biggest smiles because you are having dinner with Uncle Joshua and Aunt Sarah" and

"Just normal happy smiles."

We had a great time hanging out with the kids, eating some good food and playing the beginning of a very energetic game of Risk.

Cajun Shrimp

We tried Cajun Shrimp Skillet for dinner Tuesday, our twenty-fourth recipe. This was another one from Taste of Home. 

Cajun Shrimp Skillet

3 T butter

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup amber beer or beef broth

1 t Worcestershire sauce

1 t pepper

1/2 t salt

1/2 t dried thyme

1/2 t dried rosemary, crushed

1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 t cayenne pepper

1/8 t dried oregano

1 lb uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined

Hot cooked grits, optional

In a large skillet, heat butter over medium-high heat. Add garlic; cook and stir 1 minute. Stir in beer, Worcestershire sauce and the seasonings; bring to a boil. Add shrimp; cook 3-4 minutes or until the shrimp turn pink, stirring occasionally. If desired, serve over hot cooked grits.

This was another delicious, but easy, meal. We both really like shrimp, so it is hard to go wrong, but these were quite tasty and had just a little bit of kick.

Teriyaki Chicken

We had our twenty-third new recipe for dinner this week, Baked Teriyaki Chicken. It was good and easy to make. I think this would be great barbecued too. I made the sauce on Sunday, then Joshua baked the chicken the next day, which worked out well.

Valentine's Day

 It was fun to have Valentine's Day fall on a Friday this year because we were both off work. Of course, we did some usual Friday things like going to the grocery store and working on the thesis, but we enjoyed having the extra time to celebrate together.

We started Thursday night with a heart shaped pizza, then had pink heart shaped pancakes for breakfast Friday.

 We drove up to Reimer's in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day for a drive and Joshua's first time visiting Three Rivers.

We topped things off by getting sushi for dinner; which was particularly special since we haven't gone out to sushi for a long time.

Acceptance

We received an exciting email on Monday; it was our first acceptance offer from a doctorate program! At the beginning of January, Joshua applied to eight schools for the fall. We were thrilled and a bit surprised to get an acceptance much sooner than anticipated; and from one of our top choices too! We went out for dessert to celebrate. I'm so proud of Joshua and all the work he has put in finishing his Masters degree and putting together grad school applications. It has been a lot of time and effort and it is exciting to see it starting to pay off and thinking about transitioning to the next step soon.

Lemon-Garlic Cream Fettuccine

We had another lemon recipe from Taste of Home last night for dinner. Recipe twenty-two was Lemon-Garlic Cream Fettuccine. 

Lemon-Garlic Cream Fettuccine

3 t grated lemon peel

2 t minced fresh parsley

2 garlic cloves, minced

8 oz uncooked fettuccine

1/4 cup butter

1 small onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 t grated lemon peel

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 t salt

1/8 t pepper

4 oz cream cheese, cubed

2 T lemon juice

2 plum tomatoes, chopped

2 t minced fresh parsley

Grated Parmesan cheese, optional

In a small bowl, mix lemon peel, parsley, and garlic. Cook fettuccine according to package directions; drain. For sauce, in a large skillet, heat butter over medium-high heat. Add onion; cook and stir 2-3 minutes or until tender. Add garlic and lemon peel; cook 1 minute. Stir in cream, salt, and pepper. Whisk in cream cheese until melted. Remove from heat; cool slightly. Stir in lemon juice. Add pasta, tomatoes, and parsley to skillet; toss to combine. Serve immediately with lemon peel mixture and, if desired, Parmesan. 

This recipe was supposed to serve four, so I started off by making half a recipe. That looked like a tiny amount of pasta, so we cooked the other half of the fettuccine, but left the sauce at half a recipe. That ended up working well. The servings were generous, but half would have been very skimpy. And the amount of sauce compared to the pasta was good, it seems like a whole recipe would have been too much. I also used regular milk instead of whipping cream, dried parsley instead of fresh, and a roma tomato, which was probably a lot more than two plum tomatoes. Anyway, this pasta was delicious. It was flavorful without being overpowering and with only half the sauce it wasn't too heavy. We both enjoyed it a lot.

Bread Baking Day

 I love bread. Baking it, eating it, how it makes the house smell good, the sound of a good sourdough coming out of the oven, the way it brings people together. I enjoy the process of making bread; the mix of creativity, precise measurements, and knowing the feel of the dough you are working with meshes well with my personality. It takes time to make a good batch of bread, you have to slow down and pay attention to the dough. I get cravings to work with dough the way I crave making something with clay, and it has nothing to do with having something at the end. I have long had an idealized dream of having a bread baking day once a week to bake fresh bread for the coming week. I think I could probably do that for quite awhile before getting tired of it. Anyway, this week I was feeling ambitious and/or inspired and decided to try two new bread recipes yesterday.

The first was Russian Rye Bread, recipe twenty. This was similar to the black bread we made last weekend, but it had a higher rye to wheat flour ratio and didn't call for caraway seeds. The recipe did include dates, but I left those out. It turned out great; I love the round loaves, they look so inviting. We liked the recipe from last week better though, it was a heavier bread and the caraway seeds added a lot. I think next time I'll try the first recipe again but with the higher rye to wheat flour ratio.

Our second batch of bread was a Cinnamon Swirl Raisin Bread, recipe number twenty-one. This batch turned out wonderfully too, although I think I didn't seal the roll well enough on the bottom because it tends to come apart as you eat it. Oh well, still delicious. We had it warm from the oven last night and toasted for breakfast this morning. It was quite nice both ways.

Christian Economics

In a recent conversation about economics, my brother-in-law observed that it is often difficult to analyze economic claims in relation to the claims of Christianity, and I agree. If there can be something like "Christian economics," the phrase must designate an approach to economic thinking that is rooted in and substantively informed by the doctrines of Christianity. The task of thinking about economics in this way is difficult and infrequently ventured; far more often we simply baptize as Christian whatever approach to economics is demanded by our predetermined political allegiances. We might even be tempted to think that economics is a "neutral" discipline and the teachings of Christianity have nothing in particular to say concerning it. What difference could a religious doctrine have to economic theory?

But Christianity does bring to economic theory a fundamentally important insight, which has in traditional Christian theology gone under the name, "the universal destination of goods." Simply put, economics begins in the recognition that there is a bunch of stuff to be used, and we need to figure out how we are going to use it. It is because we find ourselves in a world of resources -- air, land, muscles, minerals, etc. -- that something like "economics," the science of "managing the household," becomes important. A Christian approach to economics, however, begins with a modification of this initial assessment: we do not simply find ourselves in a world of resources; rather, the earth and its resources are a gift, something entrusted by God to our stewardship.

If material goods are a gift, to whom are they given? Clearly, they are not given to any one person, but rather to all human beings: the goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. This, then, becomes the guiding principle of economic activity. The task of any economic system is to ensure that the goods of creation exist to the benefit of all people, and this is the standard by which any economic system is to be measured. Regardless of how property and other economic rights happen to be distributed under a given mode of production, the use of property must always be destined for the universal good. Economic rights, such as the right to private property, have validity as a way of achieving this end and to the extent that they do so.

With this in mind, the use of material goods in such a way that deprives another is not merely mean or selfish but is in a strong sense thievery: taking for oneself what God has given to another. Those who hold goods -- land, buildings, skills, musculature, etc. -- do so provisionally, in trust of the others to whom these things also belong by divine will and action.

Significantly, the right to the use of goods does not, from this perspective, stem from merit: it is not a function of our hard work, intelligence, skin tone, moral character, national affiliation, etc. The goods of the earth and our use of them do not originate in our own merit, but in a gratuitous act of God whereby they are created and gifted. This undermines the classic objection to an equitable distribution of goods, which argues that the distribution of goods should follow merit, which is not equitably distributed. From a Christian perspective, this way of thinking is predicated at the outset upon a fallacious assumption. (It is in this sense, I think, that St. Paul emphasizes the importance of material equality, stipulating that those with much should not have too much, and those with little should not have too little.)

Of course, the claim is not that a non-Christian (or, more properly, a non-theistic) thinker would never be able to arrive at a similar conclusion. For example, one need not reflect for more than a moment to realize that wealth production is inherently social in character, not individual; this is a considerable step in the right direction. Nevertheless, the universal destination of goods, as a consequence of understanding material goods as gifts of divine benevolence, follows directly and precisely from the doctrines of Christianity and in that sense constitutes a distinctive contribution to economic thought at its most fundamental level.

Heather's Birthday Celebration

We had a great Superbowl party at the Nickell's house on Sunday; which of course means that we had lots of good food. I made my traditional muddy buddies. Isaac tried a new recipe for wings that turned out really well.

 I also was honored to make a fruit tart for Heather's birthday celebration, which took place after the game. We had a light dinner for anyone who still felt like eating (that included me) then had tart and opened presents. Last time I made a tart it was for Natalie's birthday, apparently we are developing a fun trend.

Half Time

I have a hard time with the gladiatorial violence of football -- a game in which young men line up to smash heads together, resulting in shocking amounts of brain damage that leave the average NFL player in his thirties with severe memory problems at a rate nineteen times the national average and with a life expectancy twenty years lower than that of the general male population.

This Super Bowl, though, I had a particularly hard time with a different sort of violence: the half-time show, when Bruno Mars sang about the joys of sexual predation:

Well looky here, looky here,
Ah what do we have?
Another pretty thang ready for me to grab.
But little does she know
That I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing,
'Cause at the end of the night
It is her I'll be holding.
"I love you so," hey,
That's what you'll say.
You'll tell me,
"Baby baby please don't go away,"
But when I play, I never stay.

But there were bright lights, gold coats, and fancy footwork to distract us, and we could be indignant or amused when some guys were not wearing shirts, and everyone can talk about how miserable the game was...

Mediterranean Baked Chicken and Hummus Mashed Potatoes

We tried two new recipes again for dinner last night, Mediterranean Baked Chicken with Lemon and Hummus Mashed Potatoes, recipes eighteen and nineteen. The chicken was another recipe from Taste of Home and the hummus recipe was one that Gayle found and shared with me.

Mediterranean Baked Chicken with Lemon

1 cup olive oil

1/2 cup lemon juice

6 garlic cloves, minced

1 t salt

1 t dried thyme

1/2 t pepper

1/4 t ground allspice

1/4 t ground nutmeg

8 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (6 oz each)

3 medium lemons, thinly sliced

Spice Blend

2 t paprika

1/2 t garlic salt

1/2 t lemon-pepper seasoning

1/4 t ground allspice

1/8 t cinnamon

In a small bowl, whisk together the first eight ingredients until blended. Pour 1 cup marinade into a large resealable plastic bag. Add chicken; seal bag and turn to coat. Refrigerate 1 hour. Cover and refrigerate remaining marinade. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange lemon slices in two greased 11x7in baking dishes. Drain chicken, discarding marinade in bag. Place chicken over lemon slices. Mix spice blend ingredients; sprinkle over chicken. Drizzle chicken with reserved marinade. Bake chicken, covered, 35-40 minutes or until a thermometer reads 165 degrees.

This chicken turned out quite well. It looked pretty and tasted good. The hummus mashed potatoes were a great side to go with it. They were delicious and creamy without using any butter and I liked working with the Yukon Gold potatoes, they had a rich golden color.

Response to Patricia

In a recent comment, Patricia asks:

Would you like to share your journey to Christ with the community?

I replied:

I hope that is what I am doing when I make these posts: sharing my journey to Christ with those who read the blog.

This was not quite what she meant; she specifies accordingly:

Let's say, the story of the few months leading up to when you went from sinner to saint...and that moment of time of capitulation into Jesus' saving arms.

I decided that the response deserves its own post.

What I like about the question is that it emphasizes (1) the importance of moving from sinner to saint, (2) the importance of "capitulating into Jesus' saving arms" (a nice way of phrasing it), and (3) the fact that such conversion is the result of a process that can often take months (or even longer).

What I do not like about the question is the definite article: "the" (and its counterpart, "that moment"). I cannot count the number of times that I have experienced a movement from sinner to saint in my life, nor can I count the number of times I have experienced moments of capitulation into Jesus' saving arms. Were I to count them, the number would nevertheless be incorrect, for I intend to experience many more of each.

Fundamentally, the call to conversion is continual, and the act of conversion is likewise. Until we attain the beatific vision, we are saints in expectation and in hope, who discover continual need for further movement into sanctity.

Of course, some conversions have been more dramatic than others (some exalted, some desperate, etc.) I often wonder, though, if many of the conversions that seem less important to me would be in truth much more pivotal than the dramatic ones if seen from a God's-eye view.

Thus, I think my initial response to Patricia's question was the most appropriate. "Sharing my journey to Christ" is precisely what I am doing by making these blog posts, and I hope they are in some way part of a process in which those who read them move from sinners to saints.