Thursday, July 15, 2010
Interview with Professor Danny Carroll
We had a great time last night with special presenter Dr Danny Carroll, who is Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Denver Seminary. Below is an interview we did after the Questions Group....would love to get any thoughts you may have on the interview or hear any thoughts on what he had to say during the Question Group itself if you were there last night...
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I have received a number of emails and comments about Wednesday's Question Group. Some were thrown off a bit by the question we are asking, "Is God Good?", and what Dr. Carroll talked about which was the Christians response to Immigration in light of the Old Testament's teaching on the "foreigner". Most of us (me included!) are more comfortable thinking about God's goodness in theological/theoretical terms rather than the dealing with the "particularity" of God's goodness. In other words, I would much rather think about how God is good than actually leave my air-conditioned house and show God's goodness to someone in need. I think that is the challenge Dr Carroll issued us: God's goodness is not just theoretical but is expressed in concrete actions, especially to those who are most vulnerable...the poor, the needy and the foreigner.
ReplyDeleteIn his novel "The Way We Live Now," Anthony Trollope wrote:
ReplyDelete"To a man not accustomed to thinking there is nothing in the world so difficult as to think. After some loose fashion we turn over things in our mind and ultimately reach some decision, guided probably by our feelings at the last moment rather than any process of ratiocination - and then we think that we have thought. But to follow out one argument to an end, and then to found on the base so reached the commencement of another, is not common to us."
One of the things I thought about during the discussion was how much we are guided by our feelings, especially concerning political hot-button topics like immigration reform. Dr. Caroll's opening statements are correct that the news media has often spun the debate into a defensive "border" posture, or a posture of emotive fear, rather than a posture of well-reasoned dignity and respect toward our fellow humans. Our actions and postures flow from our beliefs, and if we are to adopt a posture of concern, understanding, and respect (or, in the words of our current president, "mutual understanding and mutual respect") toward those who appear foreign to us, it seems necessary to reflect on what beliefs we ought to adopt to support such a posture.
Trollope has a good point. It's too bad that our discussions begin saturated with emotion prior to ratiocination. Rather, we ought, as Dr. Caroll sub-textually demonstrated, rationally decide what to believe first from the texts concerning God's beliefs and posture toward us (as well as from human history), to then test the belief with our interactions with others, and finally to build onto that well-thought and tested belief our greater political stance.