Hotel Prices, Headship, and Hyperstimuli
Here’s your weekly roundup of everything I’ve curated or created online, April 1–6, 2024.
Thought-Provoking Content
Food Sales Are Telling Us Canada Is Getting Poorer At An Alarming Rate by Sylvain Charlebois:
According to Canada's Food Price Report 2024, the recommended monthly expenditure for a healthy diet per individual is $339. Currently, the average monthly spending stands at $248.
Gillette Hotel Prices Surge Ahead of International Pathfinder Camporee on Adventist Today:
Anyone who understands the difference in population density between south-eastern Wisconsin and north-eastern Wyoming could anticipate that hotel capacity would be limited relative to the demand—especially with the Sturgis rally happening at the same time—and prices would skyrocket. Frankly, I think this is a good thing because it will reduce the number of adult ‘Adventist groupies’ who go to this event for the social scene and not because they are benefiting the young people.
What I object to, however, is hotels cancelling advance bookings and forcing people who re-reserve their rooms at higher rates. That makes me wonder whether CYE should look for a different venue in five years
What Does “Head” (Kephalē) Mean in Paul’s Letters? Part 8: Ephesians 5:23 by Preston Sprinkle in Theology in the Raw:
Interpreting kephalē as conveying (redefined) authority not only makes more lexical sense, but it also contains more explanatory power of Paul’s rhetorical movement in the passage."
The Voegelin-McLuhan Correspondence edited by Cameron McEwen in The Voegelin View:
For the gnostic there are no autonomies in art, life, politics or anything else. A Christian cultivates these things as particular disciplines having a limited importance. There are it seems, no such limits in the gnostic world. Everything is everything else.
Massive ‘Ocean’ Discovered Towards Earth's Core by Andy Coghlan in New Scientist:
A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans has been discovered deep beneath the Earth’s surface.
High Culture and Hyperstimulus by Cameron Harwick:
A chasm will open between those willing to take pleasure in AI generated stimuli – that is, to appreciate audio, visual, or textual stimuli as such, and those unwilling to do so. The latter will seem ascetic and pretentious; the former, pitiable and compulsive.
How Do LGBTQ+ Students Fare at Christian Colleges? It’s Complicated. by Justin Dyer and Jenet Erickson in Christianity Today:
For LGBTQ+ students at non-religious universities, the rate of suicidal thoughts varied by approximately 20 percent depending on whether or not the students were religious. For LGBTQ+ students at evangelical universities who participated in religious activities, that rate dropped to just 6 percent. However, for LGBTQ+ students at evangelical universities who did not participate in religious activities, the rate jumped to a staggering 34 percent—about one in three.
An Utterly Misleading Book About Rural America by Tyler Austin Harper in The Atlantic:
It would be like undertaking a book-length study demonizing Irish people, refusing to define what you mean by Irish, and then drawing on studies of native Irish in Ireland, non-Irish immigrants to Ireland, Irish Americans, people who took a 23andMe DNA test that showed Irish ancestry, and Bostonians who get drunk on Saint Patrick’s Day to build your argument about the singular danger of “the Irish.” It’s preposterous.
Instead of reckoning with the ugly fact that a threat to our democracy is emerging from right-wing extremists in suburban and urban areas, the authors of White Rural Rage contorted studies and called unambiguously metro areas “rural” so that they could tell an all-too-familiar story about scary hillbillies.
Music
Like an arrow, arrow
You don’t miss what you aiming for
Sometimes tension is the way you show
In your hands I’m an arrow
More on the songwriter here.
Well Moses stood on the Red Sea shore
And smote' the water with a two by four
Pharaoh's army got drowned
O Mary don't weep
This song alludes to exodus/resurrection typology.
Fragment
On Cremation
A handful of church members approached me with questions along the lines of, Is it permissible for Christians to be cremated? How much should we spend on embalming and caskets? Or even, should we repatriate the body?
The short answer to these questions is that the Seventh-day Adventist Church does not hold that Christians should practice any particular way of returning their deceased to the dust (see here).
But not wanting to just take the church's word for it—nor should they—they then ask, But what does the Bible say? This requires a somewhat longer answer.
The ancient Israelites considered a good burial to be that which allowed one's bones to rest with those of one's descendants and ancestors (Joshua 24:32, 2 Samuel 21:14, 2 Kings 13:21, contrast with 2 Kings 23:18). This could be accomplished via partial cremation, leaving the bones intact (1 Samuel 31:12–13). Great kings might be memorialized by large ceremonial fires (2 Chronicles 16:4, contrast with 21:19), but these were not for the purpose of cremation. By the time of Christ, the bones of family members were collected and placed together in ornate stone boxes called ossuaries (likely referenced by Jesus, Matthew 23:27).
The Bible commands us not to leave up the bodies of those who are hung to death for their crimes (Deuteronomy 21:23), but otherwise commands no burial rituals. Therefore, we are at liberty as stewards of the resources God has given us to dispose of dead bodies in a manner that honors them according to our customs, just as the ancient Israelites did according to theirs.
God will bring back all the dead via resurrection, regardless of where their bodily remains reside (Revelation 20:13). This means that our final resting places in this world are temporary in view of the opportunity to live on the New Earth with God forever. While we need to make adequate preparations for burial, how much more should we be preparing for the life to come!
On Teaching the Sabbath School Lesson
When I teach the Sabbath School lesson I have the class read aloud a major Bible text referenced in the study guide as a literary unit (sometimes up to a chapter at once, if required). Then, we discuss it based on questions I have prepared that guide the class through the discourse of the passage. Next, I ask questions that are application-oriented, if the applications have not already been made. Finally, we move onto the next major text.
I rarely reference the study guide. I teach the Bible. People are hungry for the word.