theo|digital

Well, I’m soft-launching my new blog here on Christmas Eve (of all times), although it’s not really new.  We know that I’ve been blogging for years over at http://chrisridgeway.blogspot.com.  It’s had several names (blog names always feel somewhat dispensable), including “To Have Mine Match” and most recently “Jesus Under Plastic.”  This time, it felt right to move to a whole new platform—so I’ve got my own WordPress 2.9 install all spiffed up now and my own new domain:   www.theodigital.com.

My domain www.chrisridgeway.net will direct here soon, and I still plan to keep personal news and family and friends with me.  But  because I’ve spent the last 1.5 years focused on the intersection of digital media ecology and theology, I didn’t want to stop when the degree did.  This name gives me a space to think and do theology as a digital native, and simultaneously try to do that in the missional conversation.

There’s still a lot of stuff not right on here (Feedburner isn’t working properly, tags aren’t correctly implemented, I have some introduction pages that I need to write, and I’m not too excited about the webcam pic on the left).  But this is good enough for now.

Also, Merry Christmas.  :)

I’m still building my new site.  If somehow you’ve landed here, feel free to check me out at http://chrisridgeway.blogspot.com.  See ya soon.

TECHNOLOGY / INTERNET

This has been happening for a while, but NY Times has a good story on how the Wikipedia effect of knowledge is hitting Google Maps.

Note the quote from TeleAtlas officials: “Most of our customers expect a level of due diligence and quality that is way more than what a community is going to put together,” said Patrick McDevitt, vice president of global engineering at Tele Atlas.

The problem for McDevitt is, the authoritative gatekeeping structure of knowledge aggregation is increasingly losing its illusion of perfect accuracy. NY Times is right: often pay-for data is missing major and minor changes, like the Burger King near my apartment that has been closed for a year but still shows up when I’m looking for a Whopper. Why is a modestly-paid van-cartegrapher that drives by your neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon more definite than the tiny efforts of your entire neighborhood? If we answer “he’s a professional”–it’s true, but isn’t it thin ground? Does a salary mean better accuracy? It probably guards against intentional pranking, but I doubt it adds a passion for detail. Extrinsic motivation (salaried map person) typically doesn’t beat intrinsic motivation (neighbor who wants their neighborhood marked right!).

The role of the “expert” either dies or is modified greatly in digital culture.

Guess that’s why Google is slowly dropping the paid data model, opting instead for local, amateur groups and reading their own street signs on Google Street View!  Guess that’s the next best thing to being there.  :)

ps – I really do hope to a have a new blog soon.  Information culture and theology still being the main lines of thought, with everything else tossed in.  Whatcha think:  aim for the holidays?  Christmas or January might be the way to go.

The first 55 pages, as I was printing it.  There are 153 pages total.

Well, it’s been a difficult road. I’ve been on a brief hiatus from the thesis for about five days—last Friday I turned in a full draft for my advisor’s editing pen. I’m afraid it’ll be rather torn up when it comes back. Instead of feeling relief as I expected, it was probably a low point, feeling like much of my 135 pages of writing was actually rather poor.

I’m feeling a little bit better now (though I haven’t gotten it back yet), although I’m acutely aware of two mental lists: one of edits in each chapter that must happen before I turn in a final draft—things like missing paragraphs, errors, footnote corrections, etc. The other is on general content—sections that I think could use an overhaul. The problem here is that this list is pretty long. I could probably edit and re-write for about a year before I felt like there was stuff here worthy of turning in.

Instead, I think I’m going to have to do the hard work of settling for something that doesn’t meet my expectations, or better put—lower some unrealistic expectations. This is my first attempt at answering a fairly complex question: how does scripture exist and work in a digital context? There are a variety of approaches, and inexhaustible list of questions, and not a few unprovable conjectures. As I hope to continue thinking about these questions for a long time, I’d rather think about this as an opening stab.

Because my advisor (who has enough responsibilities poured on him that I’m not sure how even finds time to read) doesn’t have my copy back yet, there’s not a lot I can complete from my editing lists until I get it back. Even so, I finished writing the short personal introduction today and this afternoon plan on generating a good draft of my bibliography (from Zotero) —something I didn’t include in my draft.

Final copies to readers will probably have to be done by 29 Oct around 2:30pm—Scot McKnight is only around on campus on Thursday afternoon until about this time, and I need to make sure he has enough time to read it.

First, the rhetoric on this one has me mad.  One commentator calls the award “wicked and ignorant.”  She asserts that the award is a “great and prestigious award given by liberals to liberals. NCNA–no conservatives need apply. This is the way of the world, and so what? Life isn’t for prizes.”

Good thing this is an Op-Ed and not on the news page–it wouldn’t pass fact check.  Sure, it’s okay if she doesn’t like Al Gore’s prize.  And we wonder too why Reagan never got awarded one.  But she doesn’t mention that many of the candidates are relatively neutral in political affiliation (2006 – an economist  2004 – a zoologist ), but that recipients that are political in modern decades include iconic Republican Henry Kissinger and Conservative Party David Trimble (UK) in 1998.

More importantly:

Beyond the incivility and blithe assumptions of either corruption or idiocy (the ad hominem is always unbecoming), there is a intensely forest-for-the-trees like understanding that is missing from many of the critics.  Maybe we can understand what it is by watching the short interview of Committee Member Geir Lundestad explain the award:

Interview about the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize (8 minutes)

Lundested official’s official Nobel statement includes the following:

“he has produced a new global climate”
“changing the international climate IS a concrete achievement” (emphasis his)
“we have been trying to support these ideals for 118 years”

On the objection that Obama’s award is premature:

“we have gone over these arguments… they are very obvious.” … “there are the obvious counter-arguments” “but he presents this wonderful agenda and we feel we should support him.” ” We have been over these arguments many many times, obviously”

The reality is that discourse, covenant, promise, words with intent… *are* real action. Let’s please stop saying things like “just words.” Words are real action. We believe this daily in big and small things: every time we say a wedding vow or give a hug or sign a form to volunteer at a school. In systems of nations and families and trade networks, speech-acts have a multiplying real effect. The Nobel committee understands this.

What they might have missed is that there is a portion of the public that artificially separates “words” and “action.” They’re missing it.

The surprise at the award is entirely justified. It makes sense that some would be concerned. (Nicholas Kristof represents). Many (but not all) of the awards in the past seem to be given more as “lifetime achievement awards.” But as the committee has explained, this is was not Nobel’s intent for the prize. And I hope maybe their action (which, case in point: was ‘no more’ than words), helps us unite these ideas of communication and action in more thoughtful light.

I love Mad Men, so I couldn’t pass this by. (originally saw it on Paste)

I’ve never run a marathon. There are good reasons for this. I’ve watched my friends do it, and they don’t look like they’re having fun to me. A whole lot of sweat and bananas and aching lungs and cramps. And their facial expressions. Have you ever seen a marathoner grinning as they run? Plus, when you’re training for the big day, you do this “long run” every Saturday which essentially counts as as mini pain-based rehearsal. Every weekend for months and months. Fun.

Speaking of writing a masters thesis…

I feel like I’ve been mentally training for this race for almost a year and half, and now that I’m in it, I’m pretty sure my brain has a pulled muscle. Don’t get me wrong, I actually still love the topic, which makes me think that I didn’t make the wrong choice when setting my questions. There’s something here I think I will want to continue studying and writing on for the rest of my life. (I guess I’ll admit the real running people have some sorta of the same idea–they *like* running. Weird.)

But for now, the pain is real, and though I’m tired, I’ve gotta keep the pace up as much as I can for the next weeks.

My blog remains on hiatus, sadly.

Upcoming finish lines:
16 Oct – Full Thesis Draft Due
5 Nov – Thesis Defense

phew. where’s that aid station?

On my quest to settle into a theological stream of thought that recognizes my roots in evangelicalism, but has become too uneasy with many of its claims, Vanhoozer articulates helpful thoughts. This was from my summer reading for a chapter in my thesis that surveyed some current proposals in the doctrine of scripture:

To mention the gospel and theology in the same breath is, of course, to raise the question of “evangelicalism.” So-called Evangelicals are not, of course, the only Christians interested in the gospel. Yet their self-designation signals their ambition: to be people of the gospel. …

What began as a reform movement in confessional orthodoxy has become a “movement” in its own right, complete with institutions that often simply ape their surrounding secular culture. … Practices that owe more to managerial, therapeutic, consumerist, and entertainment cultures increasingly characterize Evangelical churches, so much so that they are in danger of becoming the de facto, if not the de jure, authority for the Evangelical way of life. Jesus himself remains popular, to be sure, his cruciform way, less so.
…
Canonical-linguistic theology represents a way beyond the debilitating stand-off between propositionalist and nonpropositionalist modes of conceiving revelation, Scripture, and theology. Evangelicals have been quick to decry the influence of modernism on liberal theology but not to see the beam of modern epistemology in their own eye. The present work articulates what an evangelical theology with a postpropositionalist Scripture principle and an ear cocked to the postmodern condition should look like.

From The Drama Of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach To Christian Theology

Uh, take that St. Louis…

Chicago has overtaken the Cardinals … though not in baseball.


The city has wrenched the Guinness World Record for “most people wearing Groucho Marx glasses” from an event held by a St. Louis Cardinals minor-league affiliate in Springfield, Mo.


The sparkling new record of 4,436–now verified by Guinness–was attained July 21 during a screening of the classic Marx Brothers movie “Duck Soup” at the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival in Grant Park, the Mayor’s Office of Special Events said Tuesday. The previous record of 4,077 was set in 2007.


“We are a city of many firsts, and I hope this is one of many records yet to be broken in the City of Chicago,” Mayor Richard Daley said in a statement.  More