The Musings of an Urban Christian

An atheist co-worker of mine and I have been bantering back and forth on a book he let me borrow this week called, "Is Christianity Good for the World?" It is a summary of a tour of debates between atheist Christopher Hitchens and Pastor Douglas Wilson. I must confess I don't read a whole of atheist writings or Christian apologetics, so I haven't much anchor from which to critique this particular book. But I have four reactions to what I read:

1. First, I was a little disappointed that Hitchens seemed less interested in providing the perspective of a pure a-theist (i.e. one who doesn't believe in God) and rather came across as an anti-religionist (i.e. people with religion end up using religion to believe, say, and do bad things). I don't discount that one's critique of a God should necessarily include the beliefs and lifestyles of various people who claim to believe in Him; indeed, that is central to answering the question posed by the book's title. But Wilson presses Hitchens to justify a source and legitimacy of his morality, and Hitchens spends too much time on offense (pointing out hypocrisies in different religions) and not enough time on defense (laying out how moral standards can logically emerge from a worldview that does not include any deity in it). ***

2. Second, I was a little disappointed that Wilson fell back on what I consider to be trite arguments about why God exists. When he wondered aloud how anyone could doubt God's existence, on account of natural wonders or the intricacies of the human body, I personally don't see those as useful proofs to the non-Christian of the God of Christianity (although, obviously, we who are Christians believe that God made the world and humans, and marvel at Him for it) but rather to some sort of Supreme Being above us, which people may or may not interpret to be the God of the Bible. To me, this line of thinking is very Western in nature: here is evidence about divinity, divinity must equal the God of Christianity, therefore here is evidence about the God of Christianity. The faithful Jews of the Old Testament and the earliest believers in the New Testament would not necessarily have made these casual causalities; rather, they understood that while they believed their God to be THE God (of Creation, of history, and of judgment), they understood that theirs was a particular narrative and themselves a particular and peculiar people.

3. Third, I enjoyed the back and forth on the subject of morality, although I wondered if there wasn't other ground to cover under the umbrella of the overall topic of whether Christianity is good for the world. Hitchens seems to define morality as the sum of human activity, ever evolving over time; and the introduction of a deity only soils that progress, given how much evidence we have of religious people advancing dubious ethics. Wilson presses Hitchens on how a moral code could be without an ultimate source, and how one can possibly use words like "good" and "evil" when ethics can be claimed to advance over time. Again, for me the Christian narrative is that of a God who has written His law onto the hearts of man, and who then holds man accountable for his life response. This seems a far easier approach to understanding human behavior than to build a position based on the non-existence of any sort of deity; and nothing Hitchens argued convinced me otherwise.

4. Fourth, the book was too short (although, at 67 pages, it made me feel good, as I was finally able to finish something in a reasonable time period). I wished for more coverage on the question at hand. Even for someone like me who is a Bible-believing Christian, it is not so easy of a question. Even at our best, when we are doing good deeds and defending the marginalized and seeking justice, we are not always doing "good," at least as defined by the world. The Christian mission calls us to join in God's movement all over the world to draw people to Himself, and in many cultures, proselytization and conversion are illegal and even punishable by death. Saying no to the world's ways and yes to following Jesus can divide families, cause parents to lament their children's ways, and leave even the most anchored believer feeling very much isolated and ostracized. I interpret Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15, about how we are of all men most to be pitied if there is no resurrection, to mean that on this side of glory, the fact that we live out the consequences of the Christian narrative means that we endure a lifestyle that we would not necessarily choose if we did not believe that it would lead to exultation on the other side of glory. In summary, I finished the book wanting to hear more about what Hitchens and Wilson both might say about whether Christianity, if lived out according to the Book, is actually good for the world.

Anyway, the book, and my conversations with my co-worker, have been stimulating to say the least. I emerge with respect for the position of an atheist; although I am saddened because it is missing life's most important element, if people want to believe in no god and live out those consequences, they are free to. And I emerge with a deeper sense of what it is I believe, and what that should necessarily then mean as it pertains to how I live that out. Ultimately, I do believe that Christianity is good for the world, and, with God's help, I hope to see and be more of that in my lifetime.

*** To be fair, I suppose I was guilty of presuming a certain line of thinking from Hitchens, and, not reading, was thrown off and was too inflexible to adjust to what he was actually trying to say. My preconceived notion of what is the most defensible argument of the atheist is that life is nothing more than evolution: the fact that we have survived and evolved to the present means we have necessarily embedded in us a sense of protection and propagation of the species. This presents a reasonable alternative explanation for an innate moral code, other than a religious person's explanation, which is "my God made us, and infused us with that sense of right and wrong." Hitchens doesn't go that route, but instead critiques religion for enabling behavior that is clearly out of bounds, based on what he considers to be moral; but then he somewhat weakly defines "moral" as "whatever we have agreed on and evolved to over time." I am unconvinced that this is a defensible position, but I probably glossed over it too much since I was expecting something else from Hitchens.

Yesterday morning I played hooky from work for an hour to attend an open house for our neighborhood school, in advance of Jada’s kindergarten registration in a couple of months. A lot of University City’s upswing, at least in real estate terms, can be attributed to the introduction of this K-8 school, which is newly renovated and supported by the University of Pennsylvania to the tune of $1,000+ extra per student per year, plus student teachers from Penn’s education school.

In addition to this good public elementary school option bidding up house prices, it has also led to an increase in the number of families with school-age kids who have moved into the school’s catchment area. Because kindergarten is not required in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and because the School District of Philadelphia only mandates that you be allowed to attend your neighborhood school from first grade on, there is always a line on the first day of kindergarten registration. You can bet that I will be there bright and early that morning, with all my paperwork and then some, to make sure Jada gets her spot for Fall 2010.

But back to the present. The tour was interesting on a number of fronts. For one, the school reflects both the diversity of our neighborhood, as well as the ways in which that diversity has changed over time in response to rising real estate values. Minorities seemed to make up higher proportions in the higher grades than in the lower grades, and those in the lower grades tended to be more East Asian, South Asian, or Middle Eastern rather than African or Latin American. Tellingly, of the parents on the tour, only three of fourteen were minority: an African-American man, a South Asian woman, and me.

I personally liked what I saw, in terms of learning environment and teaching approaches, although others seemed more critical and unmoved. I saw orderly classrooms, neatly arranged desks and cubbies, and lots of independent exploration in small groups rather than one large group activity. And I saw a nice range of activities, from the basics like reading and math to other things like computers, music, and gym.

I had to chuckle when the tour guide stressed the importance of parents dropping their kids off in the courtyard and then leaving, so that the kids and teachers could come together, bond as a class, and enter their classrooms as one, as opposed to parents wanting to shepherd their kids all the way to their classes and seats. Of course, Amy and I have had many years of experience dropping our kids off and quickly fleeing the premises, so the school will have complete buy-in on their philosophy from us two on this one.

It was particularly fun to bump into two sets of kids of friends of mine, both from church. When you have a church that tends to draw from its surrounding neighborhood, and a school that only draws from its surrounding neighborhood, and that neighborhood does lots of kid-friendly things, it makes for a lot of easy overlaps in relationships and friendships. Yet another nice aspect of where we live. I’m sure we will end up making friends with other neighbors besides our church friends who live near us, such as our old Clark Park buddies who we don’t see as much now that we don’t go to Clark Park as much, as well as other nearby residents who we just haven’t gotten a chance to intersect with yet.

So, pending I have my act together in terms of paperwork and lining up on the right day, we’re in good shape as far as nine years’ worth of public school education: two blocks from our house, diverse student body including lots of our friends’ kids, and solid educational product thanks in part to Penn’s resources and bodies. And, after paying for pre-school for so many years, it’ll be nice to take a break and instead divert some funds towards college savings. When Jada and Aaron hit high school age, circa 2019 and 2021, if we’re still in Philly, here’s hoping we’re in similarly good shape in terms of public options that are high-quality and close by.

But that’s obviously a long ways off. More immediately, I’m thankful we are so nicely set up, and increasingly glad we bought where and when we did. This is particularly resonant as friends of mine who have kids my age are having tough conversations about where they want to send their kids to school or if they want to move to change their choices: in some cases, it is about moving out of the city altogether, and in some cases, it is about whether it is worth it to move into our neighborhood. Imagine that: the place I first knew for its endless row of vacancies and “for sale” signs, where a popular professor was stabbed to death on the sidewalk during a robbery gone bad, is now a place people are moving into for the sake of their kids.

The fact of the matter is that schools matter when it comes to where families live, and many of the most committed city dwellers don’t want to impair their kids for the sake of their own crusades, principles, or dreams, if in fact sending their kids to the neighborhood school will mean a sub-par educational experience or an unsafe environment. Our kids will have experienced both good and bad settings in their short lifetimes when they enter kindergarten; I feel fortunate that for the ensuing nine years, they’ll have a good setting, and I wonder what can be done so that other families are in the same good situation that we are.

Here's a thought-provoking article about the importance of race in economic growth: "China's Race Problem." It's become popular to speak of the end of the American hegemony, what with jackrabbits like India and China racing up the economic ladder with breathtaking growth rates. But, despite its many foibles, America remains without peer in its diversity and inclusivity: however vivid our racial problems, they only underscore that we can and do try in this arena. Contrast that to the relative homogeneity of other otherwise promising nations, or, alternatively, the absolute ethnicity-based divisions that rend entire other nations.

One can easily debate whether the extended run of America may indeed be coming to an end soon. And it is similarly possible to consider whether or not such an end would be a good thing for the world. What is clear to me is that there is competitive advantage in multiculturalism, and those nations who advance will be those who foster it, finding a healthy balance between shunning heterogeneity and being riven by it.

Here's a belated repost of a comment I left on a colleague's blog, concerning the notion of "brain drain," and particularly a Christian perspective on labor mobility versus commitment to place.

***

Nicholas, thanks for pointing me in the direction of your blog post. Pride of place is important, and every community should strive to be as welcoming as possible to as many different kinds of people as possible. However, I have no problem with people moving around, even if it means you have vast disparities between high-agglomeration places and low-agglomeration places. In fact, from an economic development standpoint, I think it is important to not discourage either mobility or clustering, and rather to figure out ways to encourage both: mobility makes for more efficient labor markets (connecting people looking for work with places where that work is needed), and clustering has an exponential effect on productivity in today’s knowledge economy (the top 100 metro areas in the US account for 12 percent of land area and 78 percent of GDP).

We are finishing up some work for a part of the Commonwealth called the Pennsylvania Wilds. Some of the most beautiful nature in all of the US are located in these 12 counties in the north-central part of the Commonwealth. But relative geographic isolation has proven to be a huge disadvantage as we have shifted from a manufacturing-oriented economy to a mechanized and information-based one: these 12 counties account for 23 percent of the Commonwealth’s land area but only 4 percent of its population, 2 percent of its income, and 0.2 percent of its GDP.

That doesn’t mean these places aren’t viable places to live and work; far from it, as many who do so do so out of choice, and enjoy an incredibly rich quality of life. People can choose to live and work wherever maximizes their happiness, and some choose relatively rural places. But when their kids decide they don’t particularly like that lifestyle, and want to go somewhere more urbanized, where there is more economic, social, or educational opportunity, that may be a loss for that rural place (in terms of that young person’s talent and intellect being exported to some other part of the world) but it is a gain for that young person. If it wasn’t a gain for him or her, he or she wouldn’t move away.

Now sometimes, someone decides to return to a place that’s struggling; pride of place has caused him or her to forgo a more attractive lifestyle somewhere in order to return home to make it better. This is very commendable, and it should be particularly common for Christians of all people, given our willingness to practice “downward mobility” for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Consider Nehemiah, who pined for a Jerusalem that was now in disrepair, or Moses, who preferred to suffer with God’s people over all the riches in Egypt. So there is obviously nothing wrong and in fact very much right about people who decide to come back home to a place that the modern economy has largely passed by. But neither is there anything wrong with people making choices to participate in that modern economy, and in doing so find more opportunity to make their maximum contribution to society via their talents and the ways in which aggregating those talents with the talents of others makes for even more productivity.

Today is Orphan Sunday, a fact I was alerted to when I read a touching post by Pastor John Piper's wife, Noel, at the Desiring God blog. In it, Ms. Piper recounts her own adoption journey, deciding with Pastor John when their kids were in their teens that they wanted to adopt trans-racially.

I was particularly moved by a significant moment in Mrs. Piper's intersection with the issue of adoption. She visits an orphanage in Asia and is overcome with sadness as she gets to know little girls who have been abandoned in every sense. Home from that trip, and with these precious little girls on her mind, she gets a call from an agency about adopting an African-American baby.

Their story ends well. But I scarcely need to tell you that there are far more orphans than families willing enough to adopt them to actually go through the arduous administrative, emotional, and financial process. The Orphan Sunday website quotes an estimate of 143 million orphans in the world today. This is a staggering number, the need amplified when you consider the common causes of being orphaned - war, famine, AIDS - and the common reasons parents decide to abandon the babies they've brought into the world - a preference for sons, or an inability to care for someone with physical disabilities.

Amy and I did not adopt out of some enhanced urge to "save children." We cannot have kids biologically, but wanted to have kids, and we got lots of help along the way in the process of adopting both Aaron and Jada. So when I think of how we became parents, the dominant theme isn't of us sacrificing, it is of us being richly blessed.

But one lasting mark of being a parent of adopted kids is that I am more sensitized to the kinds of things you might read on the Orphan Sunday website or that Mrs. Piper shared in her recounting of their adoption process. 143 million, to me, becomes an even more overwhelming number, because for me it is not just a big, impersonal figure; rather, it represents little Aarons and Jadas, whose lives are precious, and yet many of whose development trajectories will fall far short of the joy and purpose that could have been actualized.

What drives Orphan Sunday, and what drives Pastor and Mrs. Piper, is a God who has special concern for the orphaned among us, and who cares about what sort of concern we will have for them. And so I invite you to join with me in praying today for those orphaned in this world, and for a worldwide Christian community to be mobilized in response to both the need and the call.

Here's my quarterly update on new things I've been working on at work since the last update on August 5 (you can read past posts for my ground rules on these quarterly updates):

* Helping a municipality to figure out its land use, regulatory, and programmatic strategies related to encouraging urban agriculture

* Helping a local film society to decide which theater renovation option will help it clear enough funds to pay off its debt obligations

* Helping a private developer to quantify the local impact, in terms of jobs and tax revenues, of a proposed mixed-use development in a distressed municipality, for the purposes of receiving a federal subsidy

* Helping a local government develop a messaging campaign to inform its citizenry about the economic benefits of a particular economic development tax incentive program

* Providing economic policy counsel to a local legislative body, with particular emphasis on pensions and taxation

When SEPTA went on strike earlier this week, I thought I had my bases covered. The first day would not entail any trips I couldn't easily do on foot, and the second day I would ride my bike to work, dropping Jada off on the way in, and using my two wheels to get to all of my Center City meetings.

Of course, why have things go according to plan when you can have them not? Jada and I left the house right on schedule for me to get her to school and leave myself plenty of time to slowly make my way to my first meeting at 8:45 without breaking too much of a sweat. Only halfway from home to school, Jada started laughing and saying, "The bicycle is making a funny noise, Daddy!"

In fact, the rear tire axle had come loose from the frame, causing the tire to rub up against the side of the frame and essentially rendering the bicycle un-pedalable. In front of Jada, I kicked the tire a few times and let out a few expletives. I lugged the whole contraption, with Jada still in it, to the gas station across the street, hoping they'd be kind enough to let me borrow a wrench set to do a quick fix. They informed me they didn't have a wrench set. How can a gas station not have a wrench set?

I tried calling Amy, not quite knowing what my Plan B was at the time, and of course my phone mysteriously pooped out mid-call. So I was back to figuring out a way out of this mess on my own. I headed another block to the Pep Boys, and lucked out in that a nice worker commandeered me a ratchet set and helped me have at the bike. Jada watched from the corner of the garage as we wrestled the wheel into place, me losing a suit button in the process.

Finally, we were able to pop the tire off, jam it back into its rightful place on the frame, tighten the bolts back up, and confirm that it would hold and not rub up against the frame and make that "funny" noise that had caused Jada to laugh. Wonder of wonders, the bike seemed fixed. I hurriedly and gratefully shoved a crumpled-up ten-dollar bill into his hand, popped Jada back into the seat, and burned rubber out of there to her school.

After a hasty drop-off, I knew I'd have to violate several traffic laws and push the bounds of my physical strength to make my meeting. I crossed the Spring Garden Bridge and jetted down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway towards my meeting at 13th and Walnut. Let me tell you what a rush it was to zip by cars creeping forward, although my exhilaration was tempered by a need to make sure none opened their car door in front of me.

When I got to City Hall area, I started to get into trouble, as previously distinctly painted bike lanes and consistent signal patterns soon gave way to utter chaos. In one instance, I narrowly avoided being clipped by an over-eager driver who pulled out several seconds before the cop who was directing traffic gave his side the OK to go. In another instance, I had to slam on the brakes because the driver in front of me couldn't decide which lane he wanted to be in, so he just decided to stop suddenly right in between the two.

I finally reached my destination, right on time, but ended up being five minutes late because I could not for the life of me find a bike rack or street sign to lock my ride to within a block of the place. This lack of bike parking would be a running theme to my day, as three more meetings downtown necessitated having to find parking three different times, and for only one of them was I lucky enough to find something immediately.

My ride home in the dark was even more harrowing. I took extra care at each intersection, which meant a lot of starting and stopping: hard to get back going with a full day's worth of papers in my work bag, and lactic acid build-up in my out-of-shape legs. At one point, I was racing past a line of cars queueing up to cross the Spring Garden Bridge when another biker suddenly came at me perpendicularly - he was trying to dart his way through the stopped traffic - and he crashed into my back wheel. We both mumbled apologies for not seeing each other and were quickly on our respective ways.

Once I got Jada, the real fun began. (If you consider near-death experiences fun.) Her weight in the back made things very wobbly, and pitch black darkness combined with massive traffic and no bike lanes made for a lot of dicey moments. But finally we did get home, my heart stopped racing, and all was calm again. And, for all of the adventure of the day, I considered myself lucky that I didn't have to find myself stuck inside my car in the midst of massive stop-and-go traffic. All the same, I'm hoping the SEPTA strike will be over soon; I'm not sure how many times in a row I can cheat death like this.

If you hadn't heard, the Philadelphia region's transit authority went on strike a few hours after the end of Game 5 of the World Series, the last contest the Phillies will host in 2009. A few hours later, all heck broke loose with Tuesday morning's commute.

However you feel about SEPTA management or SEPTA labor, the result of this labor stoppage should give you some indication as to the importance of the SEPTA system on the region's economy. I was fortunate to not have any off-site meetings yesterday, and to be able to walk Aaron to school and walk myself to work. But en route, I noticed vastly more car traffic than usual, and all of my co-workers who normally drive recounted commutes that were four or more times longer than usual. Needless to say, this did not make for happy people; indeed, not only did I notice more cars, I also noticed more stressed faces and I heard more honking.

I could not help but imagine if this would be the norm if Philadelphia lacked a transit system, or if its system wasn't as vast as it is. Of course, that is in fact the norm in some cities; I can hardly fathom it.

My co-workers who usually SEPTA either walked, cabbed, or biked. If the strike continues, I myself will be using my two-wheeler to get to meetings downtown. So here you have the benefits of Philadelphia's denseness and multi-modality: people can still get around, albeit in a clunky, inconvenient way.

But the mass of cars and the general disarray that resulted from this temporary unavailability of our transit system should serve as a vivid reminder of how much our region depends on the SEPTA system. Some may morbidly joke that that doesn't bode well for us. But it should also remind us of the importance of investing in that system, so that it can continue to serve our mobility needs. I'm not sure what the solution is to labor and management squabbles, so we may ever have to hold our breath come contract negotiation time. But it has only taken one full day without SEPTA for me to be thankful that, save for the occasional labor dispute, we have a system like SEPTA to get around.

Yesterday morning could not have been more mundane for the Huang household. I woke up, prayed and read the Bible, sped through Game 5 of the World Series while exercising, got the kids set up for a half-hour of watching Wall-E on DVD (courtesy of our Netflix subscription), fed them an eclectic breakfast of Fruity Cheerios, yogurt, granola, cantaloupe, fruit juice, and a children’s vitamin, and got their jackets and shoes on. Amy drove Jada to her school, and Aaron and I walked to his, stopping by the polling place down the street to cast our vote for one of the more low-key November elections in recent memory. (The only major races were for District Attorney and Controller.)

Yet as I make my way through this week’s Economist, and stay on top of the morning paper as well as updates from Reuters, I cannot help but marvel at how foreign the paragraph above would be for so many in the world. Poor economic policies, natural disasters, and military strife make a breakfast of cereal, juice, and fruit an impossible luxury for hundreds of millions. Expressing one’s religious beliefs through prayer and study of a holy text are acts worthy of punishment or even death in a surprising number of countries in the world. And far too many citizens, particularly of Arab countries, cannot count on a fair election, safe access to cast one’s vote, or educational opportunities for their sons and (particularly) their daughters.

And so it feels good to feel glad for yesterday morning. And I am reminded to pray that more and more around the world can have the luxury of such activities becoming mundane in their communities and countries.

In a recent post, Stephen Dubner calls this "the greatest question ever asked":

You state that your book is based on one fundamental assumption about human nature: people respond to incentives. Which is another way of saying that people are basically selfish. Take someone like Jesus Christ. What was his “incentive” to go on the cross?

Here are my favorite answers from those who commented to the post:

#24 - Answer: eternal joy. Hebrews 12:2. "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

#42 - There are no economics in heaven. Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. Because scarcity exists, incentives exist. Jesus’ promise - the promise of heaven - is the end of scarcity and an eternity of abundance. Jesus’ choice, then, was between ruling a world of scarce resources and completely transforming it into a world of abundance.

Just as I had noted earlier this week that no one sins out of duty but rather out of a misguided calculation that the act offers some benefit, no one lays down his life or makes any lesser sacrifice except for a greater return. For some, it is loyalty, for others, it is patriotism, and for still others, it is glory.

It may seem strange to consider among Jesus' motivations such drivers as "joy," "exaltation," and "abundance," but the Bible is clear that Jesus did in fact make a conscious choice, and bore inconceivable cost and pain, so one must in fact ask the question about what incentivized Him. For we who follow Him are to similarly count the cost, believe in the benefit, and carry our own crosses.

Adults - We need a vacation! Amy powered through her clinical rotations in the Philadelphia prison system, served as a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding, started studying for her boards which are next month, and stayed on top of house management and the kids' school and medical issues. Lee was sick for the most of the month, slogging through work assignments, his firm's 30th anniversary celebration, his board's annual fundraiser, and his church's annual budget and personnel evaluation processes.

Kids - October meant celebrating Jada's fourth Gotcha Day. She continues to improve her verbals as a result of her new school. Aaron's big milestone was learning how to go pee-pee in the potty. This month brought lots of opportunities for Jada to dress up as a black cat and Aaron as a sheep: at Boo at the Zoo, at Please Touch Museum, at our neighborhood's annual parade, and at a Halloween party we hosted later that evening.