Warren identified seven clusters—Stayathomia, Dixie, Greater Texas, Mormonia, Nomadic West, Socalistan, and Pacifica—that have connections and other properties in common. For example:

Mormonia

The only region that’s completely surrounded by another cluster, Mormonia mostly consists of Utah towns that are highly connected to each other, with an offshoot in Eastern Idaho. It’s worth separating from the rest of the West because of how interwoven the communities are, and how relatively unlikely they are to have friends outside the region.

It won’t be any surprise to see that LDS-related pages like Thomas S. Monson, Gordon B. Hinckley and The Book of Mormon are at the top of the charts. I didn’t expect to see Twilight showing up quite so much though, I have no idea what to make of that! Glenn Beck makes it into the top spot for Eastern Idaho.

(The connections to Twilight are likely due to the fact that the author, Stephanie Meyer, is a Mormon who acknowledges that her faith has influenced her work.)

The results of Warren’s analysis are intriguing, though probably not too surprising. Unlike areas of the internet where interaction occurs almost solely online (e.g., blog comments, forums, Twitter), Facebook connections are predominantly comprised of offline friends and acquaintances. For instance, I follow hundreds of people on blogs and Twitter but none of them include the dozens of friends from high school, college, and the military that I connect with on Facebook.

What this data may reveal is that Facebook is qualitatively different from other online media. While the others are all characteristic of the internet, Facebook appears to be an aggregate of intranets. Rather than adding to the disintegration of local communities, Facebook may simply be providing them an online presence.

The answer, obviously, is that it depends upon what kind of church we are talking about. In liturgical churches I expect introverts and extroverts fare about the same. But in non-liturgical churches they may fare differently.

Specifically, non-liturgical churches tend to be more sociable churches. So, let’s call them that. That is, there are liturgical churches and there are sociable churches. Sociable churches tend to emphasize relationality among its members. For example, a large part of the sociable church experience involves lengthy greetings (being greeted and greeting others), adult bible classes that are conversational and oriented around fellowship (e.g., in my church we sit at tables drinking coffee, eating donuts, and chatting), and the in-depth sharing of personal prayer requests.

This is not to say that liturgical churches aren’t sociable or don’t have sociable facets to them. It’s just the simple recognition that going to a Catholic mass (the prototypical liturgical experience) differs greatly from my day at church at the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, TX. My experience is heavy on the “visiting,” as they say here in Texas.

In these highly sociable churches there is an implicit theological theme that marries sociability with spirituality. That is, being sociable—visiting intensively, and being willing to “get into each other’s lives”—is highly prized. To a point, this is understandable. A sociable church is going to rely on extraverts to make the whole vibe work.

But introverts fare poorly in these sociable churches. The demand to visit, mix, and share with strangers taxes them. Worse, given that these social activities are declared to be “spiritual,” the introvert feels morally judged and spiritually marginalized. As if their very personality was spiritually diseased.

As an introvert who has always attended non-liturgical “sociable” churches, I can relate to the feeling that my lack of sociability was a sign of spiritual malaise. Fortunately, several years ago I stumbled across a quote by C.S. Lewis that has provided both comfort and a challenge: “Some people are ‘cold’ by temperament; that may be a misfortune for them, but it is no more a sin than having a bad digestion is a sin; and it does not cut them out from the chance, or excuse them from the duty, of learning charity.”

We church-going introverts often find it difficult, especially in smaller congregations, to find the right balance between being true to our natural temperament and being relational and loving to our neighbors. Its encouraging that others are beginning to recognize this struggle and that our standoffishness is not necessarily snobbery or aloofness (though at times it can be). But as Lewis noted, out natural temperament does not relieve us of our  duty to be loving and kind to our extroverted neighbors.

On a related note, Adam McHugh has written a book on this topic, Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture, that I plan to review for the Evangel blog.

The question, of course, that MacDonald has to answer is why this separation matters at all.  She answers:

The institutionalized severing of biology from parenthood affirms a growing trend in our society, that of men abandoning their biological children. Too many men now act like sperm donors: they conceive a children then largely disappear, becoming at best intermittent presences in their children’s lives.

If parental status is a matter of intent, however, not of genes, absent fathers can say: “I never intended to take on the role of that child’s parent; therefore I’m not morally bound to act as a parent.”

The separation of biology and parenthood, then, has two problematic effects:  on the one hand, it undercuts the argument that fathers have obligations to any offspring they do not conceive intentionally, further perpetuating the social problems absenteeism has caused.  On the other hand, it undercuts the complementarity that men and women have in raising children, a complementarity that MacDonald thinks can be established even at a biological level.

MacDonald realizes the muted force of her argument, as she hedges her position on the final page. But it is still an interesting line of thought.

And if it’s right, it might have significant repercussions for younger Christians who want to claim that they are pro-life while still allowing homosexual marriage.  The force of MacDonald’s piece is that she establishes a link between the technological subordination of procreation (as expressed through making procreation only valid when it is intentional) with marriage practices, arguing that, “The primary challenge to traditional notions of parenthood comes from gay conception, not gay marriage.”

The first line of argument indicates that intention alone is not the sole criterion for parenthood, a position that the pro-life community has vigorously asserted and that homosexual child-rearing has to deny. This, however, might call the coherence of simultaneously being pro-life and pro-gay marriage into question.

I say “might” because McDonald’s line of argument might also cause problems for the adoption movement, which also establishes child-rearing on a non-biological basis.  But even on that front, it’s not clear that encouraging adoption and including adoptive children as regular, normal children on the same level as biological ones makes adoption normative in the way biological children might be.  And it preserves (in most cases) the biological complementarity of a mother and father.

MacDonald’s piece is by no means conclusive, but it does move one up some important lines of inquiry that are worth reflecting on.  At the least, it offers up a few more questions for proponents of gay marriage and explains the cautiousness of social conservatives to give weigh to libertarian ideals.

Culture in America is an enchanted place where the conservative facts of life are magically transformed into liberal fantasies. In movies, TV shows, novels, even comedy routines, our intellectuals, entertainers, and other fools are busily reshaping reality into works of art through their piercing insights into what will get them good reviews and awards, and through their rich and varied experience of the café in the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

To illustrate, I’ll give you some examples. See if you can spot the difference between reality and American culture. In reality, President John F. Kennedy was a fierce Cold Warrior who twice tripled America’s military presence in the Vietnam War to try to stop the spread of Communism and risked nuclear disaster by standing up to the Soviet Union in Cuba. He was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an America-hating leftist who had once defected to the USSR.

Now, the culture: in Oliver Stone’s film JFK—nominated for Best Picture Oscar in 1991—Kennedy is a peaceful lefty contemplating a withdrawal from Vietnam. He’s assassinated by a vast right-wing cabal that includes every single person in America except for Oliver Stone. Reality, culture. Can you spot the difference?

Here’s another: in reality, Terri Schiavo was a severely brain-damaged woman who was judicially starved to death in 2005 at the request of her husband, while evangelical Christian right-to-life groups unsuccessfully petitioned to keep her alive. In the culture, a 2005 episode of Law and Order entitled “Age of Innocence” depicted a severely brain-damaged woman whose husband tried to euthanize her—until he was murdered at the instigation of an evangelical Christian right-to-lifer. In reality, evangelical Christians try to keep people alive. In the culture, they murder people. That’s a subtle one, I know—but can you spot the difference?

Read more . . .

It’s fitting that a publisher established the institution since it produced what is arguably the most influential conservative book ever published in America.

Of course, the Boy Scout Handbook is rarely regarded as being a conservative book. That probably accounts for why the Handbook has managed to continuously stay in print since 1910. If it were widely known how masterly the the book inculcates conservative values, it would, like Socrates, be charged with corrupting the nation’s youth.

Cultural critic Paul Fussell once wrote that the Boy Scout Handbook is “among the very few remaining popular repositories of something like classical ethics, deriving from Aristotle and Cicero.” Indeed, it is literally a vade mecum on virtue ethics. Consider, for example, the Scout oath:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

And then there is the Scout Motto (“Be Prepared”) and the 12 point Scout Law which includes the politically incorrect admonition to be reverent: “A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others.”

Such an earnest and irony-free worldview is naturally antithetical to the South Park-style mock-the-world moronity that pervades the culture. In a society that combines libertarian Me-ism with a liberal nanny state that suckles “men without chests,” it is not surprising that the ranks of Boy Scouts are dwindling (Scouting is down 11 percent over the last decade). But we should be cheerful that an institution where self-sacrifice and manly virtues are encouraged manages to survive at all.

Fortunately, Scouts and their handbook remain what good conservative institutions should be: deeply, irredeemably, and unapologetically anachronistic.

Apparently, advertisers get their ideas about how to market to us from watching the Ain’t-It-Funny-When-Someone-Gets-Hurt clips on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

(Via: Boing Boing)

There is no cheery optimism in Aquinas with respect to reason. The human is disordered;, one might even say we suffer a totality of depravity since not a single human capacity or function remains in the state of original justice. Yes, humans are utterly messed up, but they are still human beings, and as human beings, as rational animals, they still possess the natural law, for to lose the natural law would be a loss of humanity, actually to become a beast. Not, that is, to act bestially—humans do so—but to be a beast. And this has not happened, since original sin does not change our essence—nor could it. The basic human goods remain the same basic human goods for Adam and for Hitler, and the flourishing of human persons qua persons has not changed. But sin does change our willingness to function as we ought, as we can all attest.

There is, then, no contradiction between the natural law and original sin, at least as understood by Thomas Aquinas. The “Manhattan Declaration,” therefore, remains the declaration of cosmopolis, for insofar as the declaration is reasonable it is reasonable for all, even us sinners.

Read more . . .

(Via: Evangelical Philosophical Society blog)

Still, while the “Jesus Didn’t Tap” crowd may be numerically insignificant, it’s a prime example of the disturbing resurgence of macho Christianity. At the 9 Marks blog, Mark Mckinley lists four problems with this unbiblical fad:

1. It’s derivative and unoriginal.  It was lame when Billy Sunday was doing it 100 years ago.
2. It makes the gospel man-centered.  Coming to Jesus isn’t a way for you to deal with your daddy issues.  I get it, your dad didn’t hug you when you were little and you want to be a different kind of man.  How about you go hug your kid then?  Jesus didn’t come to help you get in touch with your inner MMA fighter.
3. Like it or not, the gospel is at least in part about weakness.  It’s about the almighty becoming weak to save us.  It’s about us being helpless and unable in our sins.  There’s no way to Christ that doesn’t start with brokenness and an admission of impotence.  Yes, Jesus is the strong man who binds the adversary, but he bound him by suffering, humiliation, and weakness.
4. It discourages and mocks godly men who aren’t macho.  There is an undercurrent of disdain in all of this.  Proponents of this testosterone Christianity can’t help but take shots at guys who wear pastels and drink cappuccino.  You might not like guys with manicures, but there’s absolutely nothing morally wrong with it.  A reserved, quiet, well-groomed man can be a good Christian.  Believe it or not.

Read more . . .

On the Sojourners blog, a blog I disagree with 99 percent politically and theologically, Eugene Cho draws our attention to an article in the New York Times on the growing popularity of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) or more commonly known as Ultimate Fighting Championship and various other leagues.

In a former life, I was a proud and militant pacifist. I would have argued that to equate Jesus with any type of struggle or legitimating of defense would have been heretical. I was wrong—and so is this position of casting Jesus into a male-affirming, machismo-injecting, repressed masculinity with capricious sport.

It has been suggested that evangelical male fascination with cagefighting is simply allowing men to tap into their inner masculinity and thus celebrated as a recovery of biblical manhood. While gender distinction and masculinity are to be applauded and upheld as biblical statutes, current attitudes amongst evangelical men suggest they have taken their divine mandate to protect and twisted it into a carnality salivating with brutality. Cagefighting and warring are not synonymous. Cagefighting is sport, drawing upon the unbridled angst of man which seeks to overwhelm his opponent through unhealthy submission (or unconsciousness). Warring is the act of protection and defense and entails, in its proper execution, honor and restraint.

Jesus was fully man and fully God. The Chalcedonian definition is two natures, one person. Let that be sufficient in all its simplicities and complexities. To propose, as one very popular evangelical preacher has done, that he could not worship a Jesus he could beat up is pure nonsense. The vision of Jesus presented as a warrior in Revelation is not sufficient evidence to base one’s desire for a combative life. Yes, Jesus was no doubt a rugged man well acquainted with the difficulties of nomadic life, but this same individual wept (John 11:35). Jesus never waged malevolent war over the grounds of blood-lust with earthly enemies; instead, he rose to challenge and combat far superior Powers which rage against each of us in constant tumult to devour (1 Peter 5:8). This enemy, interestingly, is not of flesh (Ephesians 6:12).

Am I making too much of this sport? Perhaps. But, I cannot understand the virtue of a sport which images the graphic and brutal aspects of human behavior.

I also have no idea what Johns thought about the works or what he intended by the paintings. In fact, I’ve actively avoided finding out so that his artistic intent doesn’t interfere with my own personal, peculiar interpretation. For me, seeing the Flags helps me to better see the flag.

Normally when I look at an American flag I see—an American flag. Although not consciously recognized, there is a certain semiotic understanding that the flag (a cloth with stars and stripes) is merely the signifier (the form the symbol takes) while the signified (the concept it represents) is America. Of course this leads to another level of recursion since the concept of America is also a sign that stands in for a variety of signified items, both tangible (our homeland) and intangible (our ideals).

When I look at Johns’ Flags, though, I see something different: an abstract representation of an abstract symbol that itself represents abstract concepts. In looking at the paintings I no longer see “American Flag” but see past the symbol to what it represents.

Something similar occurs when I see a flag pin on the lapel of a politician. I recognize that the pin is not merely a reproduction in miniature of an abstract symbol but is intended to convey a specific message to the politician’s constituency and to align oneself with the abstract concepts represented by the flag.

This line of thought leads me to ask, “What does it mean when Sarah Palin wears a lapel pin with two flags—for Israel and the United States?”

Palin recently wore the pin while giving her speech at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Although I had heard a lot of commentary about the speech and the convention, I hadn’t noticed this tidbit until James Joyner mentioned it on his blog. Like Joyner, I’m surprised it hasn’t received more attention. As he says,

I can’t think of any major politician who openly wears the flag of foreign power–especially to a political event. A little digging indicates that in her brief term as Governor of Alaska, she also displayed an Israeli flag in her office.

Now, I personally don’t have any problem with showing support for Israel, which is, after all, one of our allies. But openly wearing a foreign flag at political events and displaying a foreign flag in the governor’s office does beg the question of whether Palin herself feels that she might feel like she owes loyalty to two different nations–or at the very least, to the alliance of the two countries above.

Like Joyner, I don’t have a problem with a politician expressing support for an ally. But context matters. For John F. Kennedy to claim “Ich bin ein Berliner” in West Berlin was a harmless bit of silly Cold War theatrics. Had he said it in West Texas, though, it would have been perceived quite differently.

Palin’s defenders might contend that the pin merely represents support for a key ally. But if that is true, why not a pin with Great Britain or Canada? Why not Japan or Australia? (Can you imagine the reaction if the pin had included Mexico or France?) Why single out Israel at a domestic political rally? Obviously, Palin views Israel as an ally that differs in kind or degree from the others. So what, in her view, sets that country apart for special recognition?

Also, what values does the Israel side of the pin represent that the American side fails to convey? Surely, the Israeli flag doesn’t merely stand-in for either the Israeli government or the Israeli people (which are, at times, in opposition). Our flag represents not only our people and our land but our values and ideals; I would be surprised if the same is not true for the Israeli flag. But which of that country’s abstract qualities does Palin intend to align herself with by wearing the symbol?

While I share Palin’s esteem for Israel, I confess that I find it peculiar that any politician would wear the flag of a foreign country at a domestic political event. For a conservative politician to do so is especially disconcerting. Progressive politicians may embrace a cosmopolitan vision of transnationality but conservatives should not. Nor, for that matter, should we be ashamed of our localist affections or our willingness to pursue our national interest.

My fondness and respect for our allies (particularly Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Israel, Poland, and New Zealand) is equal to anyone else in America. But our allies and their interests should never be conflated with the peculiar set of people, interests, and values that is denoted by the term America. Call me a jingoistic patriot if you must, but I believe in American exceptionalism because—with no disrespect intended to our allies—America is exceptional.

No doubt Palin would agree (if she doesn’t then she needs to leave the national political stage forthwith), which makes her sartorial choice all the more curious. Perhaps she can explain why an American flag pin isn’t enough of a symbol to convey what she stands for.