Human flourishing

Review: Against the Machine

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image of "Against the Machine" by Paul Kingsnorth

Against the Machine

Against the Machine, Paul Kingsnorth. Thesis (ISBN: 9780593850633) 2025.

Summary: An account of the rise of techno-capitalism and the threat it poses to humanity and to the Earth.

“What Progress wants is to replace us.

“Perhaps the last remaining question is whether we will let it.”

That stark concluding heading and sentence in a chapter titled “What Progress Wants” stopped me dead in my tracks. It explained the urgency behind Paul Kingsnorth’s cultural and historical analysis in Against the Machine. He believes the advance of what he calls “the Machine,” the culturally embedded expression of techno-capitalism marks the death of a culture, threatens humanity, as well as the earth.

Kingsnorth refers to himself at points as a Luddite. But these are not the stark ravings of a mad man. Rather, he offer a thoughtful piece of cultural analysis drawing upon a range of voices from Simone Weil, Lewis Mumford, and Jacques Ellul and many others. But first, what does he mean by “the Machine”? This statement captures the essence:

“This then is the Machine. It is not simply the sum total of various individual technologies we have cleverly managed to rustle up–cars, laptops, robot mowers, and the rest. In fact, such ‘technics’, as Mumford calls them, are the product of the Machine, not its essence. The Machine is, rather, a tendency within us, made concrete by power and circumstance, which coalesces in a huge agglomeration of power, control, and ambition” (p. 37).

In part one of the book, Kingsnorth explores our need for roots and how the Machine has uprooted us from both nature and culture. Our “culture wars” are symptomatic of that rootlessness, Part two traces how the Machine evolved, particularly in the “disenchantment” of Enlightenment science, the rise of the cosmopolis, and the driving force of want.

Part three lays out the aspects of life Machine culture is eroding. He contrasts four “P’s” of traditional culture with four “S’s” of Machine culture

Past. Where a culture comes from vs.

Science. Where we come from, a non-mythic story.

People. Who a culture is. A sense of being ‘a people.” vs.

The Self. Who we are. The highest good is the self.

Place. Where a culture is. Nature in its local, particular manifestation vs.

Sex. What we do. A means of sacral pleasure and affirmation of individual identity (“sexuality”).

Prayer. Where a culture is going. Its religious tradition, relating to God or the gods. vs.

The Screen. Where we are going, both as distraction and interface for a post-human reality.

Finally, part four turns to the choice we face. He argues that the way of seeing that he calls “The West,” that gave birth to the machine must die. He calls for a kind of asceticism, either “cooked” (moderated) or “raw” (radical) with regard to technology. However, he doesn’t entertain “a two-edged sword” view. The Machine, as he’s construed it is destructive of both humanity and culture. He doesn’t believe we can escape the Machine, but he calls for a different vision that once again embraces the four “P’s” of past, people, place, and prayer. He speaks of building alternative communities in language reminiscent of Ron Dreher’s The Benedict Option. In his home in western Ireland, he is attempting to live out his ideas.

I had a couple responses as I read. Firstly, I was struck by his references to Weil, Mumford, and Ellul. He really wasn’t saying anything they had not already said, only chronicling how their ideas had played out. My generation was reading these thinkers fifty years ago–at least a few of us! I wonder why we didn’t pay them heed!

Secondly, it is interesting to me that Paul Kingsnorth is a recent convert (2020) to Christianity. His vision of the “two ways” starkly delineates the idolatry of techno-capitalism that leads to death and the four “P’s” that lead to life. His book, I believe, is a prophetic word to Christians as well as the wider culture caught up in the captivities of a dying culture, epitomized by the Machine. Will we turn back to what he calls “the eternal things” or will we let the Machine replace us?

Review: Pauline Theology as a Way of Life

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Pauline Theology as a Way of Life, Joshua W. Jipp. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023.

Summary: A study of Paul’s theology as an invitation to a flourishing life through participation in Christ, observing parallels and contrasts with both ancient philosophy and modern positive psychology.

The language of human flourishing may be found wherever one turns. That is not surprising since it is a matter of perennial concern to understand how one might live well. Joshua W. Jipp makes that the focus of a study that seeks to understand how both ancient philosophy and modern positive psychology have articulate how humans may be said to flourish. He then asks the same question of the theology of Paul showing both parallels and distinctives. In fact, Paul engaged the philosophies of his day, identifying both points of contact and the more excellent way of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is our task today, addressing how the received truths of scripture speak to the important concerns of the day.

The first part of the book attempts to extrapolate some basic principles of human flourish of ancient philosophy and positive psychology in turn. Ancient philosophy recognized the necessity of a supreme good that offers both a model and rationale for a good life. It identified virtue, coupled with wisdom is central to the enjoyment of a good life. In the good life appropriate emotion must be aligned with virtuous action. Philosophy also addresses human nature and the puzzling aspect of why we do not always do the good we know. Finally, such philosophy must be all encompassing, addressing our relationships in society and the place of adversity as it relates to human flourishing.

Similarly, positive psychology focuses not on illness but on living well. Jipp summarizes positive psychology in five theses that parallel his summary of ancient philosophies:

  1. Positive psychology is devoted to helping people flourish.
  2. People flourish when they use and actualize their character strengths.
  3. Flourishing requires good relationships in all spheres of life.
  4. Adversity can make important contributions to human flourishing.
  5. Flourishing requires practices and exercises.

One of the interesting parts of this chapter was the summary of the Virtues in Action (VIA) study and the list of virtuous character traits clustered around six: wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

The latter part of the book, then, considers Pauline theology with regard to human flourishing and in conversation with these other two. Jipp begins with the idea of transcendence. He proposes that in Paul, the goal of human existence, the supreme good is to share in the life of God through the person of Christ. This addresses the supreme human predicament, death, allowing us to live in resurrection hope. The moral life is rooted in the transformed mind in Christ through which we experience God’s life. This gives us the capacity to think, feel, and act as we ought as we are in union with Christ and empowered by his Spirit. Union with Christ unites us with his people, his body, his family, and his temple. This brings unity in diversity. Jipp explores the implications of this in Paul’s teaching on slaves, celibacy, marriage and the status of women. As such, the church visibly embodies Christ’s love and hospitality. Finally, we flourish in Christ through disciplines, practices, and exercises that position us to grow in the knowledge of Christ and the enjoyment of God.

What Jipp offers is an account of Paul’s theology that shows God’s intent that we flourish in Christ, growing in moral character, in community with his people and through spiritual practices. Much of this parallels both ancient philosophy and positive psychology, but what sets the Christian account apart is the empowering work of Christ aligning thought, emotion, and action, and offers an account of loving relationships that transcend divisions and bring diverse peoples together.

It does seem to me that what Jipp draws from Paul is shaped, at least in part, by his engagement with the other two systems. I wonder if Jipp would have articulated this theology of human flourishing in Paul in the same way if he had first pursued this study, and then engaged the other two. That said, Christian theology is often characterized as a constraint on human flourishing, a confinement on human freedom, and on the realization of the good life. This articulation of “positive” theology (though not apart from addressing the realities of sin, suffering, and death) offers resources for Christian engagement with interested spiritual seekers who may have considered both philosophy and positive psychology and still haven’t found what they are looking for.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Agents of Flourishing

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Agents of Flourishing, Amy L. Sherman. Downers Grove: IVP Praxis, 2022.

Summary: An outline of how Christians may pursue Christ’s redemptive mission in six areas of cultural life, encompassing the whole of life.

Years ago, I listened to Gary Haugen, the founder of the International Justice Mission, an effort responsible for the release of thousands of women and children from human trafficking, discuss the breakthrough insight that led to his efforts. He was wrestling with the question of why God permitted so many injustices in the world when he felt God turning the question around and asking, “why do my people permit so many injustices to continue in the world?”

Amy L. Sherman believes that the redemptive mission of Jesus is intended not simply to bring personal redemption from sin but also bring God’s shalom, God’s flourishing into every dimension of life. And she believes that God’s way of bringing this about is through his people, and in the context of this book, through local congregations working within their own communities.

Sherman follows a model developed by the Thriving Communities Group’s “Human Ecology Framework” that identifies six spheres of cultural life that must be healthy for a community to be healthy. They are:

  • The Good: Flourishing in the Realm of Social Mores and Ethics
  • The True: Flourishing in the Realm of Human Knowledge and Learning
  • The Beautiful: Flourishing in the Realm of Creativity, Aesthetics, and Design
  • The Just and Well-Ordered: Flourishing in the Realm of Political and Civic Life
  • The Prosperous: Flourishing in the Realm of Economic Life
  • The Sustainable: Flourishing in the Realm of Natural and Physical Health

Six of the chapters of this book articulate a basic theology for each of these spheres discussing God’s creational intent, the malformations that the fall has introduced, the ways redemption re-forms this and how Christians have contributed to that re-formation in history and challenges in our current context. For example, under “The True” the creational intent includes our design to be learners, the goal of which is to know God and his purposes in the world, that parents are the first “teachers,” that Jesus affirms education, that God teaches us much beyond religious matters, and that common grace means that God desires all to achieve a broad-ranging knowledge. Sherman discusses the malformations of modernity and post-modernity and educational inequities. She then cites the contribution of Christians to making books in the codex form, to literacy, to scientific inquiry, to establishing schools and the early universities, and in the promotion of secondary and university education in the black community. Two challenges she identifies are the anti-intellectualism in many evangelical quarters, even the suspicion of learning, and the withdrawal of evangelicals from public schools, sadly in some cases, when schools were integrated.

Many books stop here. Sherman goes further in offering case studies of what churches have done in their communities to pursue each of these six initiatives. She discusses instances of churches pursuing the good by strengthening marriages, the truth by partnering with public education, the beautiful by investing in the arts, the just and well-ordered through restorative justice and reconciliation, the prosperous by redeeming business for the community good and using assets to build assets, and the sustainable by fighting environmental health hazards and addressing food desserts.

One of the most inspiring stories for me was that of two churches in a low income area of Los Angeles plagued by petroleum drilling operations that failed to provide health protections that would be standard in richer communities. They prayed, they collected information about health impacts, demonstrated publicly and built media awareness while working with city officials, attending public hearings, resulting in enhanced safety requirements that led the drilling company to decide to cease drilling and clean up the site.

What I love about this book is that it moves beyond a broad and biblically grounded vision to examples of how churches have had a redemptive influence in their communities in each of these area–churches across the country. In the concluding chapter, she outlines the steps church leaders can take for similar engagement in their own communities. The language of flourishing crops up in almost everything I read these days. The difference in the case of this book is that it shows how ordinary believers working together have pursued flourishing in a variety of ways that contribute to healthy communities. This work doesn’t gain the notice that scandals and political alliances do. But it pursues the common good and commends the gospel of the kingdom. In my book that is far better than media prominence!

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Thriving With Stone Age Minds

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Thriving With Stone Age Minds, Justin L. Barrett with Pamela Ebstyne King. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: An examination of the ways evolutionary psychology and Christian faith intersect in understanding what sets us apart as human beings and how human beings may thrive.

Many of us from strong Christian backgrounds grew up with suspicions about anything with the word “evolution” in it. Likewise, those from scientific backgrounds often dismissed Christian faith’s ability to add to our understanding of what it means to be human. The authors of this work contend that the insights of each may enrich and enlarge the other and, together may contribute to the thriving of human beings.

Evolutionary psychology reveals that in addition to our physical distinctives, we are distinguished by exceptional sociality, expertise acquisition, and self-control. Interesting enough, these qualities map onto many theological understandings of what it means to be in the image of God. We are made for relationship with God and others, we have a capacity to acquire knowledge of and modify our world, and we are volitional, acting or refraining from acting toward some end.

Yet we often fail to thrive. Evolutionary psychology distinguishes between nature and niche. What is remarkable about us is how we may modify our niches with our capacities to relate, know, and self-control. Yet we often do so in ways that outstrip the capacities of our “stone age” minds to adapt. It is particularly striking around the question of purpose. At one time, the answer to the question of what do you want to be when you grow up was simple: alive. Now, it is far more complex, and yet answering this question is key to thriving.

The authors go into more depth on each of the three distinguishing makes of human evolutionary psychology. We learn how all of us “mindread” in social relationships, the various biases that shape learning, and how we learn to emotionally regulate. This latter chapter notes the role religion has played in emotional regulation and self control and wonders about the implication of the decline of religion in a society.

The authors draw evolutionary psychology together in a final chapter on telos. They explore what it means to love on a species level–beyond our own tribe, what it means to love God and care for creation, the purposes of family, community, and church, and our own purpose–all part of thriving. Awareness of nature and niche also shapes our thriving toward our telos. We recognize our nature’s strengths and weaknesses without viewing them rigidly. We recognize that our nature can widen the gap between us and our niche, or close it. We neither widen the gaps for those who follow nor close them such that those who follow have no occasion to stretch or grow.

The authors, I felt, made a strong case for why evolutionary psychology and Christian faith need not be in conflict. Each may enrich the other in understanding what it means to be fully human, fully alive–thriving in our world and with each other. They actually explore and flesh out what is often assumed, what it means to be creatures in the image of God, how we are creaturely and yet distinct from all other creatures. In recent years, the “warfare” between science and faith often has seemed its fiercest in the social sciences. A work like this suggests that neither the science nor the faith offer occasion for war but rather enriching commerce with each other. There may be other reasons for warring, but the substance of both science and Christian faith offer grounds for peaceful exchange. Could it be that our fights are unneeded?

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Reading for Human Flourishing

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Matthias_stom_young_man_reading_by_candlelight

Young Man Reading By Candelight, by Matthias Stom — Holland, Public Domain

Last week, I reviewed a new book, Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Dr. Francis Su. Yesterday afternoon, I had the chance to facilitate a conversation with him. One of the observations I’m thinking about from his presentation was that we often talk about math in terms of educational success and job skills. Rarely do we talk about how math answers to deep human desires and cultivates the virtues that enable us to flourish. It occurs to me that we often talk about reading in similar ways to math: important to educational success and good jobs.

No question that this is true. But I wonder if that is all we focus on, we miss some of the things that foster flourishing readers–children and adults who not only can read, but find that reading makes us more fully human. Reading connects to deep human desires and cultivates virtues, as does math.

“Tell me a story.” Human beings are story-shaped creatures. We love stories–hearing them, telling them, living them and making sense out of our lives through stories. Some of the very best stories have been written down in books, and we often find ourselves within those stories.

Reading fosters imagination. The words on the page become images in our minds, so powerful and real, that we are often disappointed that movie adaptations are not nearly as good as the story we’ve imagined. Imagination enables us to envision what is and what could be, and to capture the imaginations of others.

I learn to empathize with those whose experiences I may not have shared. I am neither a woman nor a person of color or a resident of any number of countries. I will never fully understand the experience of any of these. But reading their narratives with a openness to their lived experience  can help me understand a little better, or at least show me how much I don’t know, which is also progress.

Reading builds human connection, whether between a parent and child, or two friends who discover they both like a particular writer or series of books and love to talk about them together. Sometimes our differences in taste are interesting. Why someone liked something that left us cold or vice versa can be offer insight into ourselves or others.

Sometimes we have genuine questions about something we just don’t understand, whether it is the history of our home town, how to repair our car, or the fabric of the cosmos. Reading can enrich our understanding of our world, and empower us to engage more effectively with it.

Reading causes us to reflect on the human condition. What is admirable? What is despicable? And what kind of person do I want to be? How have people faced adversity? What makes the difference between those who become bitter and those who become better?

And lest we get too serious, reading can be fun. Silly rhymes can make us laugh. Stories can amuse us and bring us joy.

I wonder whether in the press to pass standardized reading tests, our children may miss the opportunity to discover these humanizing aspects of reading, that also make reading deeply satisfying. I also can’t help but wonder if parents and educators who are in touch with these deeply human longings and weave them into their practice will educate more highly motivated readers.

 

 

Review: Mathematics for Human Flourishing

/ rtrube54 / 6 Comments

0569e4e1b4786e93a5b457eb58f2bb99 (1)

Mathematics for Human Flourishing, Francis Su, with reflections by Christopher Jackson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019.

Summary: An argument for the value of mathematics in all of our lives through meeting our deep desires and cultivating virtues helping us and others to flourish.

I have to admit approaching this book with both fascination, and a bit of trepidation. I was curious for how the author would demonstrate that math fosters human flourishing. And I was afraid that the book would reveal the deficit in my rusty math skills, that it would be a discussion of inside baseball, with me on the outside, as it were.

Francis Su sets us at ease from the earliest pages. He introduces us to a correspondent friend, Christopher Jackson and to Simone Weil. Jackson is in prison for armed robbery, connected with drug addiction, who won’t be released until 2033 at the earliest. Simone Weil was the younger sister of famed number theorist, André Weil. Simone Weil once said “Every being cries out to be read differently.” As it turns out, Jackson runs circles around most of us in his knowledge of advanced subjects in mathematics, and Weil loved mathematics, and more than held her own with her brother’s circle of friends.

Su’s appeal in this book is that we read others, and perhaps ourselves differently when we think of mathematics. For too long, he contends, we have left math to the whiz kids who can solve problems quickly and the eccentrics. For many of us, math is either irrelevant or a memory of shame. He contends we are all mathematicians, and all teachers of math and invites us to read ourselves, others, and the practice of mathematics differently.

His contention is that mathematics fosters human flourishing. We flourish as we develop certain virtues, and our pursuit of virtues is aroused by basic desires or longings. Longings like that of exploration, such as how to explain the gaps in the rings of Saturn. Or the longing for meaning, such as the stories we may use to make sense of the Pythagorean theorem. There is play, particularly as we explore the interesting patterns we find in math, engaging in inductive inquiry, and deductive reasoning to explain what we find. We come up with shortcuts, and try to figure out why they work. We long for beauty, and discover it in the sensory beauty of a fractal, the wondrous beauty of an elegant equation, the insightful beauty of the dualities in math (multiplication and division, sine and cosine), and the transcendent beauty when we realize that math can explain the world. We long for permanence and truth and find these in mathematical ideas that do not change.

Math cultivates virtue as we struggle. Su gives the lie to the whiz kid who comes up with the quick solution. Real creativity in math involves struggle, the failed solutions that lead to a novel way of seeing the problem that yields the solution. Math’s power may be coercive or creative. The creative use of power multiplies math’s power in the lives of others rather than showing oneself to be powerful. Math can be used to include or exclude and may be a source of either justice or injustice. Math can be a source of freedom–particularly if it is coupled with justice and extend welcome to all. When this happens, mathematics creates good communities, not ones that exclude those who don’t “measure up.” Math sees everyone as capable of discovery in math. Suddenly, you have a group of people engaged in joyous discovery.

Above all, Su believes that love is the ultimate virtue in math as in all things. This is not merely the love of math, but the love of people that believes “that you and every person in your life can flourish in mathematics.” One of the beauties of this book is that Su models this in the respectful way he engages Christopher’s questions and desire to learn math. It is evident that he sought Christopher’s advice on the book, and includes in each chapter one of Christopher’s reflections. At the end of the epilogue, an interaction between the author and Christopher, Su mentions that Christopher will share in the book’s royalties.

When you read this book, I suspect you will agree that Francis Su is the math teacher we all wish we had. He reminded me of one high school teacher, Mr. Erickson, who made math fun, and was not above engaging in dialogues with his invisible friend Harvey during class. Su helps us to discover the fun in math by including math puzzles in each chapter. He offers hints or solutions to each in the back, but I was reminded of the math puzzles I used to delight solving in Mr. Erickson’s class, and as a kid. I found myself wanting to find some math books and brush up my math. He got me curious about the mathematical realities I could do well to pay more attention to, like trying to make sense out of the analytics on a website and what the patterns mean, or the correlation between voting percentages and incarceration patterns.

I wonder if others will have this reaction and if in fact that is the author’s intent. Even teachers can lose their “first love” of math, and lose touch with the desires that math aroused in their lives. Might renewal come with remembering, remembering ourselves as we consider the student before us,  allowing that remembering to shape how we teach? Su does us a valuable service in awakening us to the ways we flourish through math, motivating us to share with others the abundance we have discovered, even as Christopher now teaches other inmates the math he has learned, flourishing even more as he does so.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.