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Apologia Report 18:21 (1,157)
June 6, 2013
Subject: Making a case for the rightness of revenge
In this issue:
APOLOGETICS – "Desire, the connection between apologetics and popular culture"
BIBLE INTERPRETATION - "Why multiple translations might even be better than Scripture in its original languages"
EVANGELICALISM - how charismatic Latinos are "transforming religion in America"
VENGEANCE - the pronounced absence of compassion in an honest, but harsh secular analysis of revenge
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APOLOGETICS
"Popular Culture, Apologetics, and the Discourse of Desire" by Theodore A. Turnau <www.ow.ly/lKNn8> -- from the publisher's online abstract: "Popular culture and apologetics, properly understood, need each other. [Popular culture is] a religiously significant mixture of grace and idolatry that shapes desire. As such, it demands an apologetical response. ... The connection between popular culture and apologetics is desire. Desire is not simply biological or emotional. It is revelation with eschatological significance; desire carries messages about the consummation of the world. The essay ends with an extended discussion of how desire is configured ... and how it led to good conversations with ... non-Christian college students."
Early in the essay, Turnau notes that "the influence of popular culture ... has a markedly religious coloration." With a focus on the secular movie-goer experience as a "two-hour magic carpet ride" employing worldview influences, he writes: "If we, as Christians, are to understand and respond appropriately to this alternative 'religion,' popular culture and apologetics need to be seeing a lot more of each other than they do currently. A conversation needs to take place. ...
"On the silver screen, over the airwaves, the Internet, in magazines, and in computer games the current landscape of desire is laid out for all to see (and for all to buy into). If we are to understand popular culture as Christians, we need an apologetical perspective. If we are truly to engage in apologetics, we cannot do it without popular culture. There is a necessary, reciprocal relationship between the two. Both popular culture and apologetics operate on the same terrain: the discourse of human desire. They both deal in the currency of imagination, dreams, ultimate reality and happiness.
"This article explores the dialogue between popular culture and apologetics in three parts. Part I lays out a brief theological perspective of popular culture and its religious significance. ... Part II examines the nature of apologetics as persuasion. Apologetics is not primarily about neutral 'facts' but rather about the relevance of the facts. [I really like that explanation! - RP] ... Finally, Part III examines why apologetics and popular culture intersect in desire."
Turnau concludes that, if unchallenged, "popular culture will succeed in 'de-eschatologizing,' delivering us into a world where the now is all that there is, and where the Christian hope sounds foreign and intrusive. A Christian analysis of popular culture must have an apologetical edge." He cites an example of how popular culture enables "the projection of human desire, yearning, frustration, disappointment, and fulfillment ... beyond itself toward God and so [provide] an excellent arena for a stimulating apologetical discussion about the things that really matter to us humans. This is what popular culture at its best always does.
"In this way, apologetics and popular culture can combine to connect with desire in ways that lead gently toward God. The opportunity offered by all sorts of popular culture is that it acts as a sounding board for our friends' inner world of desire - a sonar map of the seascape of desire. Apologetics' role is to analyze and critique the answers to desire that popular culture provides and to show what real hope looks like." Cultural Encounters, 8:2 - 2013, pp25-46.
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BIBLE INTERPRETATION
"Knowing What the Bible 'Really' Means: Why multiple translations might even be better than Scripture in its original languages" by Jost Zetzsche -- that subtitle is hugely significant. Zetzsche follows this with the huge understatement that "many Christians assume that they could glean a deeper and more profound meaning from Scripture if only they knew the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.
"As a working translator, I have studied translation for years. And though I would agree that knowing the original languages is key for any other text, when it comes to the Bible, I don't. In fact, I believe that translations of Scripture are not secondary fill-ins. Rather, they are integral to the ongoing and primary expression of God's message to us. ...
"Any expression in any one language has a range of meaning, something that linguists call a semantic field. ... [A] variety of expressions in English -and in any language - can be used to convey single aspects of the field. But none matches the full range of meanings. Add to that the constantly changing nature of language and corresponding changes in meaning, the opinions and allegiances of translators to certain theologies and doctrines, and the ongoing research that casts new light on the source text, and you end up with a lot more than one translated version of the Bible for each language, especially in cultures with vibrant faith communities.
"In English alone, we've had more than a dozen new mainstream translations in the past 20 years alone. But instead of this confusing the meaning of Scripture, it actually gives English-speaking Christians a rich, multilayered resource for gaining fresh insights on the Word of God. ...
"Every new rendering of God's Word in a linguistic set of human expression - a language - enriches the worldwide church in her understanding of God, regardless of whether we speak that particular language. ...
"Translation is not a magical act where a unique facet of God is unearthed each time a new translation is published or a language is 'conquered.' But as each faith community matures, discoveries ... can add to our understanding of God." Christianity Today, Apr '13, pp42-45. <www.ow.ly/lBi9d>
My own (RP) seminary training in the biblical languages and subsequent experience leads me to add a hearty "AMEN" to what Zetzsche says here. This article can become a very important tool for discipleship in the hands of those who discover it.
Have you been tracking the many advances made by The Bible Gateway over its long history? <www.biblegateway.com> (Note the Spanish-based site option [top right].)
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EVANGELICALISM
"¡Evangélicos!: The Latino Reformation" by Elizabeth Dias -- this cover story for Time magazine (Apr 4 '13, pp18-28) uses the subtitle "Inside the new Hispanic churches transforming religion in America." The first page explains: "According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, more than two-thirds of the 52 million-plus Latinos in the U.S. are Catholic; by 2030, that percentage could be closer to half. Many are joining evangelical Protestant congregations. Among young Latinos, the drift away from the Roman Catholic Church is even more rapid. ...
"Christianity Today, the country's leading evangelical magazine, is preparing to publish in Spanish <www.ow.ly/lKQ0b> this year. ...
"Catholic Latin America experienced the first inklings of the 16th century European Protestant Reformation only in the 1970s and '80s, thanks largely to evangelistic Pentecostal television and radio programs. Catholics were 81% of Latin America's population in 1996, while Protestants made up only 4%, according to Latinobarómetro <www.latinobarometro.org>, a Chilean polling group. By 2010, Protestants had jumped to 13% of the population, while the percentage of Catholics dropped to 70%. ...
"One reason the latino protestant movement is important to watch is that it is largely charismatic. ... Its most fervent extremes are enough to give even a devoted believer pause." Dias cites apocalyptic prophecy, convulsions in worship, and the vomiting of demons. Then she adds: "This kind of church treads on shaky theological ground." And a bit later: "many evangélico pastors rely more on experience than on any formal training in college, much less divinity school." One more distinctive: "evangélicos are often willing to put women in the pulpit. That's a huge advance from many of their white evangelical siblings....
"According to the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, up to half of Latino Catholics in America are expressing their faith much as the evangelical community does - praying with hands raised, speaking in tongues, expecting the miraculous. One attempt to keep those members in the fold has been the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, which has gathered steam over the past few decades. But it may not be enough. ...
"By the year 2050, Latinos will make up nearly a third of the U.S. population." <www.ow.ly/lBcs3>
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VENGEANCE
Payback: The Case for Revenge, by Thane Rosenbaum [1] -- "The need to punish wrongdoers is natural, and ancient societies embraced, even codified it. Novelist, essayist, and law professor Rosenbaum [Fordham University] reflects on this while discussing how fictional revenge sagas are not signs of a modern-day 'closet barbarian', but that such plots fulfill needs that ought to be met in legal systems. Suppressing revenge desires is de rigeur in real life, with 'justice' sought in its stead. But this is obfuscation via language; 'revenge is justice with an individual face.' Rosenbaum inhabits both the fact-based legal world and the emotion-based arts realm, able to address everything from talion to The Princess Bride. His satisfying work gives us permission, contrary to contemporary politeness, to assert 'honor in payback.' Far from wanting chaos, Rosenbaum argues that leaving aggrieved parties on legal margins, and their emotions outside its doors, leads to more violence, even madness. He suggests that in the real world's cold rationality, it's only through art we publicly admit 'evil does, indeed, exist in the world.' And in light of the emerging field of narrative medicine, to seal this gap we could acknowledge lawyers as agents with a social contract to a client's emotional life. Refreshingly honest, Rosenbaum renders a consequential, often gruesome topic uplifting, even fun." Publishers Weekly, Apr '13 #2, n.p.
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Payback: The Case for Revenge, by Thane Rosenbaum (Univ of Chicago Prs, 2013, hardcover, 328 pages) <www.ow.ly/lB6I0>
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