Rationale

Why create [lab]oratory? There’s many books, speakers, sites and other media all about the relationship of Christianity and all kinds things. John Polkinghorne writes on theology and physics. I can’t name all of the books about the theology of music or visual art. Hollywood Jesus does well with theological topics in film. There are Christian business management styles and cookbooks full of monks’ recipes. Just about every arena has been well-connected to theology.

Except computers.

Perhaps the closest people we have doing this would include Marshal McLuhan (The Medium and the Light) and Donald Knuth (3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About). Generally the literature is pretty thin. The [lab]oratory is my contribution to this discussion.

The classic Christian metaphor

A friend of mine who is the pastor for Grace Anglican Church in Dothan, Alabama describes that congregation like this:

As Anglican followers of Jesus, we are “classic Christians.” You’ve seen classic cars, heard classic rock, and probably drink classic Coke. These are solid, time-tested, older than yesterday’s fad. They are proven items. We are classic Christians whose worship style, Creeds, and method of reading God’s Word in worship weekly reaches back for centuries.

Similarly, the Prayer Book Society uses the word “classic” to describe the species of Anglicanism that they represent. It’s a peculiar use of the word, hearkening to studies of “the Classics,” or “the Greats” of ancient Western civilization.
The whole concept enshrines a particular period, philosophy or way of life as golden. A classic ’57 Chevy and a classic Coke somehow evoke a power that my Honda Accord and a diet Mountain Dew fail to do.
This use of “classic” is familiar to lots of hackers. The famed Jargon File describes Classic-C like this:

Classic C: /klas�ik C/, n.

[a play on ‘Coke Classic’] The C programming language as defined in the first edition of K&R, with some small additions. It is also known as ‘K&R C’. The name came into use while C was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11 committee. Also ‘C Classic’.

An analogous construction is sometimes applied elsewhere: thus, ‘X Classic’, where X = Star Trek (referring to the original TV series) or X = PC (referring to IBM’s ISA-bus machines as opposed to the PS/2 series). This construction is especially used of product series in which the newer versions are considered serious losers relative to the older ones.

The division of classic and post-classic falls into the hands of the ANSI committee. Before that, and it was two guys, K&R, hacking on their projects at Bell Labs. Nothing but the innocent act of creativity. What could be more pure? What could be more great?

Its fall was the committee. To the Jargon File, the ANSI committee made a “serious loser” of C. Classic Coke was great until the focus groups came. Only a marketing committee would come up with the PS/2. After Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek fell apart at the hands of a committee of writers.

The classic form usually looks to a single inspired person or a small pairing (Roddenberry, K&R, Jobs and Wozniak). Almost out of a necessary narrative, committees and marketing groups come in later to ruin it all, leaving little but hackish nostalgia.

Classic Anglicans, by extension, try to hang their hat on Thomas Cranmer and the Book of Common Prayer. A nearly single-handed creation that was, like Algol-60, “a great improvement on many of its successors.” As soon as liturgy committees enter the picture, the attitude changes.

Certainly these behaviors are not unique to hackers and Christians. Classic Coke and classic cars also exemplify the same. Always looking back, we hope for the unexamined innocence of a golden past.

Theology is founded on the great genius and singlehanded work of Jesus Christ, a unique person if there ever was one. Unfortunately, the committee he entrusted his work to (Judas the Betrayer, Peter the Denier, Thomas the Doubter, etc) managed to muck it up from the year 34 onward. However, hoping for a future cast in the image of an innocent past finds canonical recognition in the New Testament with Jesus Christ as a second Adam, ready to create a new heaven and a new earth after the vision of ancient paradise, the Garden of Eden.

(Perhaps this can be expanded on in terms of the second-system effect.)

A Sermon Concerning Electronic Privacy

Preached in Miller Chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary on November 13, 2003. I’ve thought a lot about this subject and could probably write this over again, with better supports. Here’s the first iteration, warts and all.

When he was under pressure from the priest Amaziah, Amos confessed, I am not a prophet and not the son of a prophet; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees (Amos 7:14). When I read these words in my first semester here, in Old Testament 101, I felt a certain sympathy for Amos. There he was, caught up in a situation that he was not professionally trained for. And there I was, caught up in a seminary, left only with the confession, I am not a prophet and not the son of the prophet, rather, when I first came to PTS, I protested, I am a computer scientist, and the son of an engineer. I think that it is due to my background in computer science that when I reflect on the relationship between my faith in Jesus Christ and patriotism, particular issues from my past training always get my attention first. So, my desire is not to examine patriotism as we ordinarily think of it, but rather to turn to the problems that the USA PATRIOT Act poses for Christians.

First, I want to expose some specific problems that the USA PATRIOT Act causes for Americans of the 21st century, then to examine why these are problems that should bother Christians particularly, and then to give some resources and help for actions that can be taken if you feel as threatened by the PATRIOT Act as I do.

So, first of all, what problems am I talking about? The act became law just over two years ago (October 26, 2001) and has since been extended by follow-up legislation (January 9, 2003). It was developed as a part of the War on Terrorism and affords the government what some have called sweeping anti-privacy powers and it eliminates checks and balances that previously gave courts the opportunity to ensure that [the government's] powers were not abused. The act permits agencies to monitor an individual’s web surfing records, use roving wiretaps to monitor phone calls made by individuals ‘proximate’ to the primary person being tapped, access Internet Service Provider records, and monitor the private records of people involved in legitimate protests. Our US government has been given many extra powers and has lost much of the accountability that it once was expected to provide. With each passing revision of the anti-terrorism laws, the American’s fourth amendment right to privacy is eroded.

Our fourth amendment, if you recall, gives us citizens the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Woefully, this basic, once sacrosanct right has not well weathered the rapid changes in technology seen since the eighteenth century and, by the letter, it protects paper communication but not electronic media, telephones and the Internet.

Our present information revolution, now threatened by the US government, was heralded to us in the nineteenth century by none other than Karl Marx. In Das Kapital, he noted that the telegraph, steamships and railroads would accelerate the circulation of capital within and between nations [1]. Following his lead, Aldous Huxley in the last century remarked in his novel Those Barren Leaves that cheap printing, wireless telephones, trains, motor cars, gramophones and all the rest are making it possible to consolidate tribes, not of a few thousands, but of millions [1]. After him, a third prophet, late sociologist Marshall McLuhan, focused on the fact that television, radio, the telephone and the jet aircraft had woven the postwar world into a single community [1]. This single community he termed a global village where, following Huxley and Marx, high-speed communication technology draws us together into relationships, consolidating warring tribes by the millions into one community, one village. Now we have seen much fulfillment of our forerunners’ prophecies and we can say along with Nathaniel Hawthorne that by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point in time [1]. Like physical fields such as gravity and magnetism, where every single element in the field is in relation to every other single element in the field, high-speed electronic communication is capable of placing every person on the globe in relationship with every other person, tearing down past tribal boundaries.

Now, any village or community (not just McLuhan’s global one), if it is to survive, depends upon cardinal virtues such as trust and security. For example, the church is a single community, a global village (Ephesians 2:11-22; Revelation 5:9-10). However, its bonds are not photons and electrons passing through physical and empirical media but rather the church’s bond is the Holy Spirit. We exist globally, universally, across space and time, spiritually connected. And, as Christians, we do know all too well the pain and fear that is felt throughout the church when trust is broken and security lost. We feel embarrassment when the weaknesses of our single community are quickly exposed and broadcast throughout the global village via cable television. Simply search for the words “church” or “clergy” on an Internet news archive and pore over the results. We as church must be a place of trust, security, and confidentiality. Looking at our praxis, we are not, and the whole world knows it.

But why must the church be a place of trust, security, and confidentiality? Why are electronic privacy concerns a matter for Christian worry? When I turn to Holy Scripture, I find that the relationships modeled for us—relationships between Jesus and the disciples and between God and the prayerful Christian—these relationships are all modeled on such virtues. When we take our concerns to the Lord in prayer, we ought, as Jesus instructs us, go into [our] rooms and shut the door and pray to [our] Father who is in secret (Matthew 6:6). We can be assured that when we confess our sins to God or offer our praise and thanksgiving we do so in secret and in private. Prayer is a trustworthy communication between an individual and the Holy Spirit, and its confidentiality is inviolate.

Similarly, in many places in the Gospels, Jesus stresses that he can trust those who love him with secrets. Many times Jesus asked people to hold information in confidence and he sternly orders privacy, trusting that his identity be held in secret for a time (Mark 3:12, 7:36, 8:30, 9:9). Jesus also explained parables in private (Mark 4:34), confiding in those friends whom he chose.

So, our relationship with God is one that if nothing else is dependable. Because of this we can trust that our prayers will be treated with the confidence they deserve. Further, Jesus even trusts us, his disciples today, with the secret of the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11). Ideally, our relationships with one another, person to person, US citizen to US citizen, and Christian to Christian ought to reflect our trustworthy relationship with God. When we confess to others, when we bring concerns to others, when we share secrets with others, they ought be held confidentially, securely, trustworthily, and lovingly. Share confidence with others, as Jesus shared confidence with us. A model for relationships that is trustworthy and secure is a Christian model.

These relationships are the ones that the fourth amendment should protect. In fact, in order to protect confidential relationships effectively, the amendment should be enlarged so that it might apply to the many kinds of high-speed electronic communication that were unknown to the first drafts of the Bill of Rights. A few legislative efforts have recently been made to protect privacy in relationships, such as the HIPAA act that legislates privacy in professional medical relationships. However, HIPAA only covers a particular class of relationships. Concerning the whole of US American society, each one of us that uses electronic communication is not only experiencing the erosion of basic privacy rights, but is also experiencing the erosion of basic free religion rights. That is, we are unable to offer to one another confidentiality and security through email or over the telephone. We cannot give to others an accurate reflection of our relationship with Jesus, which is a part of our Christian calling. If we are unable to offer a trust and security with God and with others, then, I have to wonder, what is it that we hope to offer to congregations when we come to them as pastors?

So, the USA PATRIOT Act causes problems for me, as a US citizen, as one who loves the country he lives in, and as a Christian. Maybe you can see that these forms of anti-terrorism legislation are a problem for you too. I encourage you all to educate yourselves and others regarding all that is entailed in the USA PATRIOT Act. The global village of the Internet and the global village of the Church are both endangered by it.

The Electronnic Frontier Foundation has resources for your own learning and suggestions for action that you can take. Take steps now to protect your rights and to protect your relationships. Consider using software to protect or encrypt electronic communication that might otherwise be compromised. If you do anything, pray about this situation, for our nation, and for our global village. And whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:6).

Reference

[1] “The Computer in the 21st Century,” by the Editors, Scientific American, Special Edition, 1995.

Ad Fontes: Episcopal Theological Support for the Free Software Movement

This paper was written May 3, 2004 for a course in Anglican Moral Theology. Again, it’s a student’s paper somewhat hastily written. Probably worth a B. Here it is, warts and all. In 1983 Richard M. Stallman began a new movement, crying out “Ad fontes!” as his humanist forebears had done at the Reformation. But in seeking to return to the sources, Stallman hoped neither to recover the writings of the ancients nor to read critically the Holy Scriptures from their oldest origins. Rather he formally began a movement, now known as the Free Software Foundation, advocating free software for computers. This movement has since grown to the point of providing every piece of software that a computer user requires for daily function, absolutely free (the meaning of freedom will be explored below). To study the Free Software Foundation’s principles is to uncover principles that the Christian social tradition upholds, notably in Richard Hooker’s understanding of participation and in William Temple’s social theories. Free software follows out of Christian doctrine and ought to be incorporated into Christian praxis.

Computer programmers typically recognize programs as having two forms: source code and object code. When a programmer devises an idea for a program, she expresses this idea in a computer language such as C or LISP. This language is a human creation designed to meet halfway between human thought and the computer’s binary machine language. A compiler or an interpreter transforms a program from the source code form (useful to people) into the object code form (useful to the computer). For example, in Figure 1 (below), I have written in the C language, the instructions to carry out the computation of a factorial. If one is already familiar with this language, then its meaning is clear. If not, then please trust that a first-year student of computer science would understand and be able to create this subroutine.

int factorial (int n) {
  int t = 1;
  while (n > 0) {
      t = t * n;
      n = n - 1;
  }

  return t;
}

Figure 1. The source code of a program to compute factorials.Take notice of its English-like qualities: the keywords while and return, the abbreviation int for “integer,” and the mathematical notation. If a programmer wished to make this procedure compute a different answer or make it compute the same answer more efficiently, then she easily could modify the source code. Further, if she wished to explain to a peer how one might compute a factorial, she could share this source code with her friend.

However, computers cannot directly use a program in source code form. They must have programs in the form of object code (or machine language). From a human point of view, object code is nothing more than a sequence of uninterpretable numbers. Figure 2 below is an example of computer object code. Surprisingly, its function is identical to the program in Figure 1; these results were given when my personal computer translated the above into the below. These results even an expert computer programmer would not have guessed or devised!

Imagine our hypothetical programmer again. How would she change the object code to compute a new answer or compute the same answer more efficiently? How would she use it to help her friends? The answer of the Free Software Foundation is this: she cannot.

0000000000 3217162232 2485256128 2084440952 2424176728
0939524097 2417885216 2149449816 0796917760 1100808200
1207959588 2153644064 2149449816 2080506326 2417885216
2153644120 0939720703 2417885272 1275068372 2149449760
2080572280 2149646336 3150053368 1317011488 0000000001
0251723776 0000000000 0006252129 1668575090 1767992320

Figure 2. The computer-readable object code of a program to compute factorials.Most computer software today is bought and sold in the object code form only. Many companies in fact hide the source code from the public and refuse to make it available. Operating systems and word processors, the day-to-day stuff of computer use, are closed in the cryptic object code with the meaningful source code preserved in corporate coffers. Further, employers frequently persuade employees to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that stipulates that they will not share the source code to which they have access.

So, having only the object code available, the program cannot be shared, extended, modified, or improved. For example, the word processing program that writing this paper frequently crashes, sometimes losing entire sentences or paragraphs. Because the word processor distributed as object code, the user cannot modify the program to fix this problem. The only course of action is to report the problem to the corporation that sells the program and wait for them to fix the problem and to distribute a new version. Alternatively, if a user has a friend who also needs to do word processing, the user cannot help the friend by duplicating the software for him or her. Licensing agreements and legal issues prevent this and many discourage it further by referring to the act as “piracy.”

This problem is one of the primary concerns of the Free Software Foundation: the people who have purchased a computer program are without any means to improve or to fix the program on their own. They are bound to the corporation who sold the software to do it for them. These constraints on programmers and users frustrated former MIT employee Richard M. Stallman to conceive of the necessity of Free Software. As his views matured, he explains free software as a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept [one] should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer’ (The Free Software Definition). In the same article, Stallman names four particular freedoms that identify Free Software:

1. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
2. The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
4. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The method for using free software is not to apply these freedoms to software which is not free. Rather, Stallman encourages one to avoid any software associated with End User License Agreements or Non-Disclosure Agreements. He so strongly wanted to avoid such agreements that in 1983 he recruited people to create a computer system from scratch that had no association with these kinds of restrictions. In his initial announcement, he writes, I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free (new UNIX implementation).

What is it about this issue that has people using ethical and moral language such as “conscience,” “principles,” and “golden rule?” Exploring Stallman’s other writings yields a social theory that resembles William Temple’s Christian social theory and contains elements of Richard Hooker’s theology.

The first similarity between the Free Software Foundation’s (FSF) principles and Anglican moral theology is the emphasis upon participation in community. In one apology for the FSF, Stallman summarizes the above four freedoms:

These freedoms permit citizens to help themselves and help each other, and thus participate in a community. This contrasts with the more common proprietary software, which keeps users helpless and divided: the inner workings are secret, and you are prohibited from sharing the program with your neighbor. Powerful, reliable software and improved technology are useful byproducts of freedom, but the freedom to have a community is important in its own right. (The GNU GPL and the American Way)

The foundation of free software is the formation of community. Similarly, Temple defines freedom as self-control, self-determination, self-direction. To train citizens in the capacity for freedom and to give them scope for free action is the supreme end of all true politics (68). So, the principles of the FSF seem to increase one’s self-control, self-determination, self-direction by allowing one to share what one has with peers and to take software in new directions. In this kind of interchange, the computer user and programmer may feel that he [or she] has a real share and for which he [or she] may take some genuine responsibility (89). Possessing the source code of a program and also having the right to modify and distribute it, one could, say, fix a crashing word processor and share one’s improved word processor with one’s friends. Rather, in the style of Jacques Maritain, the responsibility is kept at the grassroots level, that which is of closest responsibility.

With Free Software, one is able to take this responsibility that is simply not permitted with conventional software licenses. So, the computer user is not left in a state of despondency, unable to fix broken programs or unable to extended them to new purposes. In one example, Stallman tells the story of a woman working for a bank. The bank needed their software to take on some new functionality. However, their software had been purchased as object code from a company that would not share the source code. In order to get the new functionality, this woman was hired to re-write the source code, from scratch, and then to add the new feature. Such time and effort had to be wasted to protect secrets. Most good programmers, Stallman notes, have experienced this frustration. The bank could afford to solve the problem by writing a new program from scratch, but a typical user, no matter how skilled, can only give up (Why Software Should Be Free).

Surprisingly, Stallman, an avowed atheistic computer programmer, points out the spiritual harm in this practice. He points to despondency: Giving up causes psychosocial harm—to the spirit of self-reliance. It is demoralizing to live in a house that you cannot rearrange to suit your needs. It leads to resignation and discouragement, which can spread to affect other aspects of one’s life. Temple finds similar problems with long-term unemployment. For the unemployed as well as this bank programmer, they were not happy in their idleness; most of them were conscious of futility and frustration…. They were degraded into a condition of universal dissatisfaction (35). With closed, secret software, users arrive, as the long-term unemployed do, at a sense that they have fallen out of the common life (34). If, alternatively, one could contribute to the community of computer users (Free Software is a prerequisite for this), then one of Temple’s objectives would be met: “Every citizen should have a voice in the conduct of the business or industry which is carried on by means of his labor, and the satisfaction of knowing that his labor is directed to the well-being of the community” (97).

For Temple and for Stallman, working for the well being of community is a precious jewel. They both recognize the definite quality of people to be social creatures. Temple draws on Jacques Maritain to demonstrate this:

Personality is social, and only in his social relationships can a man be a person. Indeed, for the completeness of personality, there is needed the relationship to both God and neighbors. … These relationships exist in the whole network of communities, associations, and fellowships. It is in these that the real wealth of human life consists. (71)

Both Stallman and Temple seem to take Aristotle’s understanding of the person as zoon logikon. That is to say, a person is by definition a talking animal. Speech and socialization are emergent properties of humans not unlike spinning webs is an activity of spiders. Something that does not spin webs is difficult to classify as a spider. Likewise, something that does not socialize is difficult to classify as human. “The isolated citizen cannot effectively be free” (70). As a result, Temple recognizes that long-term unemployment pulls one out of society resulting in the loss of participation in community, the loss of self-identity and freedom, and the degrading from what God has created one to be. So also for Stallman, if one cannot freely share programs and ideas, one has lost the possibility to participate in the global community of computer users. He frames this participation as an act of service toward the neighbor, cast in the golden rule. So, “Freedom, Fellowship, and Service,” and characteristics of social order pointed out by both Temple and Stallman. Although Stallman is not explicitly Christian in his formulation, Temple’s thought is in the shadows. They would both likely agree that “these are the three principles of a Christian social order, derived from the still more fundamental Christian postulates that Man is a child of God and is destined for a life of eternal fellowship with Him.”

Above, the definition of participation has been taken for granted. From its context, participation has something to do with sharing with one’s equals and peers, a certain giving and taking, but its exact nature has not been explored. If one turns to Richard Hooker, then one finds his definition: “Participation is that mutual inward hold which Christ hath of us and we of him, in such sort that each possesseth each other by way of special interest, property, and inherent copulation” (Lawes 5.56.1). This definition carries great weight for Hooker, as he rejects how “some men expound our being in Christ to import nothing else, but only that the selfsame nature which maketh us to be men, is in him, and maketh him man as we are” (5.56.7). No, something much greater is here! He turns back to Cyprian and recognizes “the highest and truest society that can be between man and him which is both God and man in one” (5.56.8). This society indeed is found in the believer, where Creator and creature are united. But one, as a creature, only follows after the union of God and Humanity in the Incarnation. So, human participation (society) is only raised up to so fine a level as it is patterned after the participation of Christ and Christian that in turn only has its pattern in the participation of divine life economically and immanently.

To complete the chain, Stallman asserts that people (especially programmers) must be ultimately free to share computer software with one another. In his past experience as a programmer for MIT, Stallman watched his department crumble as talented workers left for higher-paying jobs. As he stayed in contact with those developers, he learned that the companies that they joined made “them to feel in conflict with other programmers in general rather than feel as comrades. The fundamental act of friendship among programmers is the sharing of programs; marketing arrangements now typically used essentially forbid programmers to treat each other as friends” (Manifesto). The end is division and not communion. Recalling Maritain, one would be caught “programming alone.” So, he proposes an alternative:

By working on and using [Free Software] rather than proprietary programs, we can be hospitable to everyone and obey the law. In addition, [Free Software] serves as an example to inspire and a banner to rally others to join us in sharing. This can give us a feeling of harmony which is impossible if we use software that is not free. For about half the programmers I talk to, this is an important happiness that money cannot replace. (Manifesto)

To Stallman, Free Software has a characteristic that is not unlike Hooker’s view of Sacraments. While sacraments are more than didactic (5.57.1), they are still “moral instruments of salvation, duties of service and worship” (5.57.4). For Stallman, there is a great act of hospitality and communion in this act of sharing; here participation is happening, as there is such an “interest, property, and inherent copulation.” This participation gains meaning from and gives meaning to human participation in Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

Computer programming informs and is informed by participation from Hooker’s sacramental theology in another way. He goes on to describe two parts of human participation in Christ:

Thus we participate Christ partly by imputation, as when those things which he did and suffered for us are imputed unto us for righteousness; partly by habitual and real infusion, as when grace is inwardly bestowed while we are one earth, and afterwards more fully both our souls and bodies make like unto his in glory. (5.56.11)

The sacraments affect the Church step by step and make one gradually more a participant in the divine life. Computer programming models this process. When a programmer turns an idea into source code, the code is not immediately acceptable to the computer. The programmer must translate the source into object code, which the computer can run. The steps are traditionally this: the programmer enters the source code into the computer and edits it, the compiler refines the source code into assembly code, then the assembler assembles that into object code, then the linker connects multiple pieces of object code into an executable, finally the computer can run the executable and return results to the user. Each step refines the program a little more. Step by step, it becomes something that the computer can accept. At the end of the process, the execution of the program, the distinction between computer and program is blurred as they each participate in one another.

The process is dumb. Computer programs act slavishly to transform inputs to outputs. The conversion of source code into executable is a predictable process, without variation. But as mundane as it may be, it is also one of the most basic processes of computation. In Stallman’s initial announcement of his Free Software project, he announced that he will be making a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things (“new UNIX implementation”). These basics are the sacraments of computing, effecting a sanctifying change in human ideas.

So, when one takes the process as a means to understand sanctification, one enriches the processes. In parallel, the Christian receives the grace of the Sacraments throughout life. Step by step and phase by phase, the Christian is transformed and made more acceptable to God. Then, at the last, one participates in God so fully that distinction between the two is difficult to make. Perhaps the strength of participation has lead historically to Christological and Trinitarian doctrinal battles (5.54.10).

In this way, computer programming points to something higher. There is an iconic relationship whereby the programming process becomes a window to the sanctification process. The words of George Herbert’s “The Elixir” become relevant here: “A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine: Who sweeps a room, as for they laws, makes that and th’ action fine.” So, the mundane and dumb process is lifted up to a new meaning and significance: iconographic representation of the sacramental process. Even further, the use of the software also has iconographic importance. The type of participation that Stallman encourages itself is a window onto the type of participation that humans have in society as zoon logikon, the type of participation that the persons of the Trinity share, and the type of participation that still awaits perfection in human relationships with God.

William Temple suggests “all things should be done in the Christian spirit and in accordance with Christian principles” (59). So, in the case of construction, “if a bridge is to be built, the Church may remind the engineer that it is his obligation to provide a really safe bridge; but it is not entitled to tell him whether, in fact, his design meets this requirement…. In just the same way the Church may tell the politician what ends the social order should promote; but it must leave to the politician the devising of the precise means to those ends.”

As a result, the Church needs today to speak on the issues of computer programs, their development and distribution. Richard Stallman has already begun this work with the Free Software Foundation by establishing the need for participation in community. Since it is here recognized that the principles of the FSF are in accordance with Christian social principles in Temple and Hooker, the Church can encourage people to develop and share Free Software. The principles embodied point to Temple’s understand of actual freedom, which “is realized in fellowships of such a kind and size that the individual can take a living share in their activities.” (104). Computer programming and usage are areas of great and growing importance today and the Church ought not remain silent on the proper use of these technologies.

Works Cited

Hooker, Richard. Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie. Book 5. Ed. John Keble: Online. Internet. Project Canterbury. 8 February 2004. Available http://justus.anglican.org/resources/pc/hooker/5/

Stallman, Richard M. The Free Software Definition. 2003. Online. Free Software Foundation. Internet. 28 April 2004. Available http://www.fdf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.

—. The GNU GPL and the American Way. 2001. Online. Free Software Foundation. Internet. 28 April 2004. Available http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html

—. The GNU Manifesto. 1993. Online. Free Software Foundation. Internet. 28 April 2004. Available http://www.fsf.org/gnu/manifesto.html.

—. Lecture. Datorföreningen Stacken. Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Stocholm, Sweden. 30 October 1986. Online. Free Software Foundation. Internet. 28 April 2004. Available http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html.

—. “new UNIX implementation.” 27 September 1983. Online Posting. Usenet. 28 April 2004. Available news://net.unix-wizards.

—. Why Software Should Be Free. 24 April 1992. Online. Free Software Foundation. Internet. 28 April 2004. Available http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html.

Temple, William. Christianity and Social Order London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1987.

The Gospel in Hacker Literature

This is a paper written January 12, 2004 for the course “The Gospel in Unexpected Places.” Take it as exactly that, a student’s paper. In places I still like it. Not in others. Here it is, warts and all.

In considering the 1999 film The Matrix, as a source for the Gospel, a number of questions rise up. Perhaps one of the more profound one is this: how can the realm of computer science lend itself to theological speculation? Unlike theoretical physics or other sciences, computer science has not found the champions for connection to theological reflection. Computer science seems to have no Albert Einstein or John Polkinghorne. In the past two decades, however, several films and books have begun to capture popular attention that have in some ways questioned and some ways reinforced traditional understandings of the Christian Gospel. These films and books approach the great questions of human nature through the medium of “hacker literature,” a genre that employs a young, rebellious protagonist who acts as a deliverer for humanity, particularly through the manipulation of various gradations of reality (i.e., virtual reality or cyberspace). One of the highest grossing of these efforts was The Matrix, but other popular texts in this genre include Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash and John Badham’s 1983 film Wargames.

The genre of hacker literature offers perspectives that other genres do not. That is to say that, when looking for the Gospel in a source that is genuinely unexpected, one should go beyond ecclesial boundaries. Hacker literature frequently employs devices and settings that are indeed outside those lines and its authors also do not frequently have an explicitly Christian background, motive, or bias in writing. This type of literature, then, lowers the reader’s expectation for finding the Gospel. The (possibly false) reasons for lowered expectations will be discussed below.

In contrast, other genres of literature do not provide this lowered expectation. For example, when reading biographical material, the life story of a Christian should be expected to bear witness to the Gospel. For example, in Anne Lamott’s autobiographical chronicle Travelling Mercies, she as a Christian author makes several moves that raise expectations for finding traces of the Gospel in her writing. One of these moves is to demonstrating her solid background in the Christian faith. Although she admits that her father finds religion foolish, her childhood and youth are saturated with people who are all Christians. In the first paragraph of her book, she names “the boisterous home of the Catholics, the soft armchair of the Christian Science mom, adoption by ardent Jews” as her “early resting places” that ultimately delivered her to “the verdant pad of faith” (Lamott 3). Over the course of the next fifty pages, she details her relationships in these faith communities. Lamott is a woman who clearly loves the Christian faith. At times she is less committed or faithful to it, yet always she is near it and in dialogue with it.

In one paragraph, she seems almost to paraphrase Jurgen Moltmann’s The Spirit of Life. She writes, “I loved every second of Catholic church. I loved the sickly sweet rotting-pomegranate smells of the incense,” and she continues to describe the altar, the poor box, the Latin-chanting priest,n the “slutty older Catholic girls with their mean names” (7). Not only did she love every second, but she loved every thing about the church. She even reads her own past and autobiography as one that has been a trajectory ultimately toward faith; her interpretation of her past is also Christian.

Her fullness of love reflects and answers Moltmann’s question, “What do I love when I love God?” Moltmann counters Augustine of Hippo’s answer to the question by saying, “When I love God I love the beauty of bodies, the rhythm of movements, the shining of eyes, the embraces, the feelings, the scents, the sounds of all this protean creation” (98). For him, Moltmann knows to look not within but outside himself, “out of the narrowness of [his] heart.” Although Lamott does not use such words, she would undoubtedly agree with Moltmann in his saying, “The more immediately and wholly I exist, the more I sense the living God, the inexhaustible well of life, and life’s eternity.” So, while Lamott does write profoundly on the Christian experience, her book cannot be considered an unexpected source for the Gospel, considering her childhood steeping in the church.

On the other hand, hacker literature often does not have Christian authors nor does it have a writer who has a motive for Christian interpretations. Thus, when finding the Gospel in their writing, it can be assuredly less expected. For example, in the “Acknowledgements” and “About the Author” sections appended to Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, he cites no Christian individual as an influence, inspiration, or source. From these segments, one knows that he “issues from a clan of rootless, itinerant hard-science and engineering professors” and that he himself has a background only in physics and geography prior to his writing career. Further, when thinking of the people to whom credit is due, the only person with vaguely religious connection is the one “who got [him] started on Asherah,” the Canaanite deity who figures into the mythology of the narrative. Christian Science aunts and Catholic best friends are absent. Similarly, in The Matrix, direct references to Christianity are few. Viewers only know that Neo “goes to church,” as Morpheus points out. Wargames also shows a similar disinterest in the existence or value of Christian faith. So, if hacker literature omits clear references to the Gospel, then finding it is certainly unexpected.

This genre of literature draws upon actual communities of computer hackers. The protagonist figures are not figments of the authors’ imaginations. To best understand these communities, Eric S. Raymond’s book The New Hackers’ Dictionary distills and concentrates many facts, trends, and generalities about the demographic. The dictionary serves as a lexicon to the jargon and “tech-speak” that befuddles not only laypeople but those in diverse parts of the hacker community (i.e., US and UK hackers use some different terminology). At the back of the lexicon, an appendix offers “A Portrait of J. Random Hacker.” Raymond has, through polls, interviews, and study, categorized the major characteristics of the “average” hacker. Under the subheading “Religion” he begins, “Agnostic. Atheist. Non-observant Jewish. Neo-pagan. Very commonly, three or more of these are combined in the same person. Conventional faith-holding Christianity is rare though not unknown.” He seems to describe accurately a community that itself is steeped in theoretical thought, closely related to the hard sciences, and has only a “rare though not unknown” frequency for Christian faith.

Since this profile accurately describes the hacker communities, this characterization carries over into hacker literature. The heroes of these stories are people who are young and rebellious, inquisitive and intellectual. He or she is intimately aware of the connection between computer and reality. The hero, knowing how to manipulate the computer, can thus manipulate events in the real world. This manipulation is, as above described, a symbolic and theoretical one, which takes place first in the hacker’s mind, then in the computer, and finally in reality. For Raymond, this separation between the theoretical and the practical, the mental and the actual, admits “a definite strain of mystical, almost Gnostic sensibility that shows up even among those hackers not actively involved with neo-paganism, Discordianism, or Zen.”

This community has developed a mythology and folklore that delights in the artificial. Virtual reality is recognized as a construction. In The Matrix, the machines use virtual reality (the “Matrix” itself) in order to delude humanity. In Snow Crash, the main character, namely Hiro Protagonist, manipulates the Internet-like Metaverse in order to alter events in actual reality. For the movie Wargames, the young David Lightman accidentally causes a military computer to believe that World War III is happening, with potentially disastrous effects. Thus, while a construction, virtual reality is intimately connected to actual reality. Changes in one affect the other and vice versa. Although the narratives employ the artificial, the artificial is merely used as an accessible means to the real. Thus there is more in these stories than men and their machines in conflict, typically on an epic scale.

Raymond’s appeal to “Gnostic sensibility” seems to be rooted in that distinction between actual and virtual. The hacker fascination parallels the Platonic distinction between form and object. Philo of Alexandria championed the use of Plato in Jewish thought, especially in his allegorical readings of Scripture. For example, his On the Creation of the World attempts to harmonize the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2. In so doing, he admits that, in Genesis 1, God created the form of all things in heaven and not until Genesis 2 did God get around to creating the world in the cosmos. The heavenly-earthly distinction lead to the prizing of the heavenly over the earthly, to the eventual despise of the earthly. The actual-virtual divide is similar to the heavenly-earthly divide. In each of the above-mentioned texts, problem within the virtual reality has disastrous implications for actual reality. In Snow Crash, the spread of the Snow Crash virus that not only destroys computers but their users as well, must be stopped. For The Matrix, humanity’s freedom from bondage (in the form of a virtual reality hallucination) is sought. In Wargames, nuclear apocalypse looms due to a computer’s misconception that it is only playing a game. The virtual reality is consistently at fault: it is foolish, it binds, and it spreads deadly virus. Thus, is should be controlled, tamed, and placed under subjection so that actual reality might go on.

The parallel division has posed a threat for Christian theology. If one prizes the heavenly over the earthly, then one historically has denied the goodness of the earthly. The flesh is merely to be put under control and subjection, that things heavenly might be sought. Thus, Raymond’s recognition of Gnosticism within the hacker ethos and its literature is accurate. However, is Gnosticism a problem for the Gospel? Undoubtedly yes. In the Gnostic text “The Apocryphon of John,” the author describes a meeting between Jesus and John, son of Zebedee. Jesus is clearly identified within the Gnostic framework as the child of Barbelo, that is God Most High. Their conversation dwells mostly on cosmogony and the origin of evil. Toward the end of their conversation, it is recognized that the cosmos itself is created by a foolish divine power and thereby infused with base and evil elements. Further, in describing his incarnation, Jesus says, “I entered into the midst of their prison which is the prison of the body. And I said, ‘He who hears, let him get up from the deep sleep.’” In this work, the author teaches, through the person of Jesus, that the world that humanity perceives is a “prison” from which one must esacpe and a “deep sleep” from which one must awaken.

The themes of sleep and prison are powerfully present in The Matrix. Humanity is held in bondage and is asleep, with perceptions of an actual world (i.e., virtual reality) being fed to them. This virtual reality, this perceived cosmos is the construction and creation of the machines that enslave humanity. But, the character Morpheus is the one who is capable of calling people (notably Neo) up from their sleep to new life. With their minds being freed, they also can perceive the fullness of evil in the created world. This trend runs directly contrary to Moltmann and Lamott’s understanding of the world. When they ask, “What do I love when I love God?” they affirm their love for that which God has created. When one loves the Lord of Life, one cannot deny “the embraces, the feelings, the scents, the sounds” in favor of the disembodied “perfume which no wind disperses” or the unreal “taste [of] a food that no surfeit embitters.” Further, a disdain for the creation is a disdain for the Incarnation. When one avoids the incarnation, one also denies the reality of the suffering and actual death of Jesus by replacing them with docetic images of a Savior without scars or a Lord who merely appears to suffer on his cross of light. A gospel that denies the real suffering and death of Jesus is no Gospel at all.

Hacker literature admits a basically Gnostic framework that is clearly an impediment for the Gospel. However, are there elements that still come through the genre as authentically Christian? For example, the film The Matrix, if it is nothing else, is a story of liberation from bondage. The hero, Neo, is called up from his Gnostic sleep in order to do the same for others. The story hopes for the revival of the human race, as in their sleeping state, they are found in a massive field to serve as type of power source for the machines that enslave them. When freed, people join the rebellious band led by Morpheus in order to work for the restoration of the last human city named Zion. Themes of liberation are found throughout, with great parallel to the Exodus and other biblical stories. The rebels have only one transport throughout the movie, a ship named Nebuchadnezzar. Biblical language of freedom from servitude comes through in allusions to exodus and exile.

Liberation, as The Matrix explores it, is not one that is delivered through great human effort, but it is wrapped up in the mysterious and mythological. There is no question of choosing God or freedom exclusively. This duality, as Moltmann points out, is one modern fallacy (105). One need not pick freedom to the exclusion of the divine in The Matrix. However, its conception of the divine is much more Gnostic than orthodox Christian. So, the Biblical concept of liberation from bondage, also treated in Moltmann, finds a strong place in hacker literature.

Another theme of salvation that appears within the genre is deliverance from doom. This image is the one chosen by Snow Crash and Wargames. The theme is found in Scripture and also taken up in other Christian writing. For example, at the opening of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the protagonist, namely Christian, flees from his hometown, the City of Destruction. In order to run from the callings of his family and loved ones, he puts his fingers in his ears and shouts for salvation from the wrath that is to come. Similarly, the film Wargames, set in the midst of the Cold War era, takes up the fears of Red Scare and depicts the doom to come as nuclear apocalypse between superpowers. The young hacker protagonist is named David Lightman, cryptically a reference to Jesus, son of David, the light of the world. It is David who is the clever hacker who is capable of delivering the world from its impending doom. The destruction to come is to be caused by a military computer that is under the impression that Soviet attack is imminent. In preparation, the war computer plans what is, in its estimation, the ‘best’ response: full scale retaliation. The narrative mythology takes on Gnostic themes. The computer was created by John McKittrick, a student of the character Stephen Falken. John says that Stephen “never understood the practical uses” of his work with computers, so John took his ideas to national defense. John is the foolish creator of the ‘virtual’ world that the computer inhabits, full of falsehood and delusion. Stephen, John’s former teacher, is the one who is able to recognize the confusion and wrong, and it is David, whom Stephen sends, who is finally capable of convincing the computer of its wrongs. This pattern is inherently Gnostic, finding parallel in the cosmogony in “The Apocalypse of John,” as the ultimate creator (Stephen/Barbelo) sends and emissary (David/Jesus) to overcome the evil creation (the war computer) fashioned by a foolish and unknowing maker (John/Yaldaboth). Although there is no death, no suffering, and no resurrection, there is nonetheless a very real sense of deliverance.

In conclusion, hacker literature, arising largely in the past two decades, has shown itself to be surprisingly fecund ground for theological reflection. Although much of the reflection has not made its way to fully orthodox understandings of the Gospel, there are Biblical themes of the Gospel (liberation from bondage and deliverance from destruction) that permeate the literature. Further, it is not surprising to find such a lack of orthodox Christianity, because the community that produced the literature has no particular grounding in it nor a particular interesting in continuing it. However, the hacker community’s literature still reflects Gospel elements, while obscuring others. Thus, it will become an excellent source for the Gospel as the literature matures and as more authors with a significantly Christian background enter its ranks.

Works Cited

Badham, John. Wargames. United Artists, 1983.

Lamott, Anne. Travelling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. New York: Random House, 1999.

Moltmann, Jurgen. The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

Raymond, Eric S. The New Hackers’ Dictionary. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996. http://www.catb.org/~est/jargon

Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam Books, 1992.

Wachowski, Andy and Larry, dir. The Matrix. Warner Bros., 1999.

Wisse, Frederik, transl. “The Apocryphon of John,” The Nag Hammadi Library. ed. James M. Robinson. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990.

Cold War Video Games

Video Games of the 1980s regularly featured the Cold War. The final years of US-USSR standoff and the overlapping ascendancy of the Nintendo Entertainment System had to have produced some bizarre children right? I had been keeping a small mental list of these, but apparently MobyGames beat me to the punch.

Their list breaks down into about three categories: original games, sequels to Operation Flashpoint and licenses of Tom Clancy novels or WarGames.

As one who wasted far too much time with an NES in childhood, the Cold War acted as backdrop for any number of games. At least in the background was Soda Popinski/Vodka Drunkenski from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!!! or his doppelganger Zangief from Street Fighter II. These games mediated to American children a vision of the (former) Soviet Union as full of post-industrial drunks. Hardly a fair stereotype, but there it was.

Rather than writing paragraphs for every game, I’ll compile a list of others

1. Metal Gear: theme of East vs. West in an arms race
2. Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode: another licensed game
3. Rush’n'Attack: the title alone gives it away
4. Contra: terrorist organization acting on behalf of an alien, “Red” overlord?

I’m going to keep updating this list as ideas come along. Hopefully the stretches won’t be too hard. Post your own thoughts in the comments.

What about video games today? Some people criticized the movie 300 for comically representing the current Iraq War. Do our games also speak to current crises in comic-book style?

Sermon on communication and media

Preached on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 15, 2005. You might want the Scripture readings to go with this sermon.

Today’s reading from 1 Corinthians is the apostle Paul’s letter to the
Christians living in Corinth, a good-sized metropolitan area of the ancient
world. Large urban centers like Corinth were common in that time and so were
letters. Even though literacy was a rare skill, it was little trouble to
find a civic or military official who could write a letter for you.

The ancient postal system was a busy and alive one and loads of letters still
exist, especially ones written on papyrus preserved in the arid Egyptian
climate. I have a letter here, written by a young Greek man to his father.
This young man, named Apion, had just come of age to serve in the Roman
military. His career was probably pretty ordinary, being shipped off to a
Roman outpost and being given a new, Latin name. Here is the letter that he
wrote:

To Epimachos in Philadelphia
From Apion, his son

Apion, to Epimachos, my father and lord,

Many greetings! Before [I write] anything else, I pray for your health and ask
you to bless my sister and her daughter and my brother.

I also give thanks to the [Egyptian god] Serapis, because when I was in
danger on the sea, he immediately saved me. When we arrived at Mesenos, we
got an allowance from Casear: three gold coins. Good things are mine.

I ask you, therefore, lord and father, to write a little letter to me. Write
first about your healing. Secondly, write about my brothers. Thirdly, write
so that I can pray for you joyfully, because you raised me well (from that, I
hope to advance in the will of the gods).

Give many greetings to Capitona and to my brothers and to Serenilla and to my
friends. I sent to you my picture drawn by Euktemonos. My new name is
Antonius Maximus.

When was the last time you got a letter like that? From the ancient times up
until the past half-century or so, letter writing was the primary way for two
groups to communicate when speaking face to face was not an option. For this
letter we just read, it was for a deployed soldier to thank his father for
raising him well. In this case of our second reading today, the apostle Paul
apparently staying in the city of Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:8) and needed to reach
out to the Christians living in the city of Corinth, who were going through a
difficult time.

Now, today, the art of the hand-written letter is one mostly lost to us.
Yes, in its place, we have our cell phones, our Internet, and our satellite
radio and television networks. But in place of heartfelt , we have instead
new ways to send incoherent chatter through instant messages, new ways to
advertise Coca-Cola, and new ways to interrupt dinner conversation.

Our present information revolution was heralded to us in the nineteenth
century by none other than Karl Marx. In Das Kapital, he noted that the
telegraph, steamships and railroads would accelerate the circulation of
capital within and between nations. Following his lead, Aldous Huxley in the
last century remarked in his novel Those Barren Leaves that “cheap printing,
wireless telephones, trains, motor cars, gramophones and all the rest are
making it possible to consolidate tribes, not of a few thousands, but of
millions.” After him, a third prophet, late sociologist Marshall McLuhan,
focused on the fact that television, radio, the telephone and the jet
aircraft had woven the postwar world into a single community. This single
community he termed a “global village” where, following Huxley and Marx,
high-speed communication technology draws us together into relationships,
consolidating warring tribes by the millions into one community, one village.
Now we have seen much fulfillment of our forerunners” prophecies and we can
say along with Nathaniel Hawthorne “that by means of electricity, the world
of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a
breathless point in time.” Like physical fields such as gravity and
magnetism, where every single element in the field is in relation to every
other single element in the field, high-speed electronic communication is
capable of placing every person on the globe in relationship with every other
person, tearing down past tribal boundaries.

Now, technology has yet to deliver on these lofty promises. Instead of
global unity and community, people report that they feel increasingly
isolated and cut off from others.

So, in light of the great promises and poor delivery from communications
technology, what is the goal, the end, and the purpose of these new modes of
communication? To put it in other words, what is the purpose of human
communcation? Why do we need to talk to each other?

From ancient times, we have known that talking is the single most important
aspect of our humanity. Contemporary sociologists also point out that the
need to talk and tell stories is a primary human need, somewhere in between
food and shelter. Aristotle even defined humans as zoon logikon, that is,
animals (zoon, like zoo); animals that talk (logikon, as in logo). We are
talking animals. Without talking, we might as well be cats or dogs or fish.
So, to be a person is to talk and to talk is to be a person.

Of course, talking to ourselves just won’t do. The fact that we are talking
animals points out that we need other talking animals. Without one another,
we have no one to talk to, and we would be, in Aristotle’s eyes, degraded
from our humanity and be just animals.

The idea of our need to talk to each other took strong root in the Christian
tradition. In the book of Revelation, heaven is described as a new city of
Jerusalem, a city where mortals and angels live together, face to face, and
forever speak and sing the praises of God. This same vision persists in
Saint Augustine’s massive book, The City of God, and lives on in the allegory
of The Pilgrim’s Progress, where the main character, named Christian,
travels from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City of Zion.

So, our Scriptures and our traditions make this demand on us: we must use our
speech to unite one person to another, whether it is talking face to face,
using a cell phone, or sending an email.

But we need not just to be united, one person to another. When we rightly
use our speech, we also unite ourselves “with angels and archangels and all
the company of heaven, who forever sing God’s praise: Holy, holy, holy,
Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.” The entire cosmic order finds is unity: from us
talking animals up to the angels and even up to our heavenly Lord.

All this points to the age-old question: what is the meaning of life? Or, in
the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: What is the chief end of all
humanity? The chief end of all humanity is to enjoy God and glorify God
forever.

Our chief purpose as humans is to live lives that give glory to God but it is
also to use our speech and our talking, so integral to what God has made us,
for the same praise and glory.

But, of course, we continue to find ways to cheapen our talking, and it falls
short of God’s glorification. For example, Dante describes a part of hell as
being the city called Dis. The inhabitants of this city in hell are
heretics, people who spoke not to praise God but who spoke against God.

C. S. Lewis’s book The Great Divorce describes hell as a dreary, rainy city
that always seems to grow bigger and bigger. But it only grows bigger
because no one in the city can stand to talk to anyone else. So, they are
always moving to new houses, always trying to move further away from their
neighbors.

So the Christian tradition, from the Biblical writers down to the present
day, understands heaven and hell to be like cities. The only difference is
in how their citizens speak of God and talk to their neighbors. So, the way
that we use our communication technology in our earthly cities has heavenly
meaning. We talking animals developed a postal system that brings more junk
mail than meaningful letters. We also created email that can, in a flash, in
an instant, send spam and advertisements worldwide. We have cellular phones
that we can carry with us to interrupt dinner conversations anytime,
anywhere.

Now in Paul’s letter, he points out that the city of Corinth needs to “be
united in the same mind and the same purpose.” But, instead, they quarrel
and the problem is in their speaking. Each one says, “I belong to Paul,” “I
belong to Apollos,” “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Paul says
that they have traded unity for division, but the root of it comes in their
talking: factions are split and quarreling and can only talk about which
faction it is that they belong to.

Now, I hardly need to point out the divisions in our world. Those are
readily apparent. Everywhere I go I hear about some kind of split church or
split nation or split family. I’m sure you can find an example to work with.
But how can we actually become united in mind and purpose? Well, I think
that the problem lies in that we are ready to turn our speech from its
God-given purpose. We speak against each other and behind each other and
turn our conversations and relationships quite literally into hell. That is
to say, when we do our best to separate ourselves from one another in our
speaking, we separate ourselves from God in our living.

So, what does Paul propose that we do? He affirms the ministry that he has
been given: Christ sent me, he writes, to proclaim the Gospel. This is the
purpose of his speech: to glorify God in proclaiming the good news of Jesus
Christ. Paul’s calling is, not surprisingly, the same as the example that
Jesus himself set in the Gospel lesson this morning, “Jesus went throughout
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom.”

So, what word is it that we can speak? What word do we have that gives
fulfillment to the speech that makes us talking animals? We have no other
word than the Word of God, Jesus himself. This Word is the unity of the
divine and the human, this Word is, as we sang a few weeks ago, “God and
sinner reconciled.” This is the word that we must speak to give perfect
meaning to all our talking and all our lives. And Paul reminds us that when
we proclaim this gospel, we will be united in mind and purpose and all our
divisions will fall away. And–how much more–we will be able to lift up our
hearts and voices alongside angels and archangels and all the company of
heaven and have our speech and our lives find heavenly perfection.

>LOOK

>LOOK
Dam Base
You are at the base of Flood Control Dam #3, which looms above you and to
the north. The River Frigid is flowing by here. Across the river are the
White Cliffs, which seem to form a giant wall stretching from north to
south along the east shore of the river as it winds its way downstream.
There is a blog here.
The magic blog contains:
  A tan label

>READ
Read what?
>BLOG
Taken.
!!!!FROBOZZ MAGIC BLOG COMPANY!!!!

Hello, Sailor!

Congratulations on your purchase of a FrobozzCo Magic Blog! The blog,
[lab]oratory, observes computer science and Christian theology and finds
points of intersection between the two.

Instructions for use:
READ the entries.
COMMENT as you see fit.
GO NORTH to some other web site when you are done.
>