I haven’t had much to say lately, and for once it wasn’t because I was all that busy. I just … well, I didn’t have much to say.

But on a weekend getaway I dived into a little pop culture, and if that doesn’t give you something to think about — and have fear and dread about — nothing will. These days I start to feel that though we may not be coming to the end of THE world, we’re coming to the end of A world — the end of an age, the shift from one paradigm to another.

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Elastic Science

I watched a show last night on the History Channel called “The Quest for the Lost Ark” and was floored by its bad science. I’m not scientifically-minded and wouldn’t usually put things in those terms. But what I was seeing was so blatantly illogical that there are no other words for it.

The bookish British scholar-host — whose name really was Professor Tudor Parfitt — purported to be out to discover new things about what had happened to the Ark of the Covenant. But in his exploration, he took text from the Bible to be factual at some times and fictional at others — regarding the same book as a creditable and discredited source — with no explanation for the inconsistency.

For example, early in the program, Parfitt — billed by the History Channel as “the global quest-detective” — used the Biblical text from Exodus as a source of information about the Ark. But after sketching out the description of the Ark from Exodus, Prof. Parfitt puzzled over how the Ark could’ve been covered with gold when the Israelites were in a region that doesn’t have any. I waited for him to provide the obvious, OBVIOUS answer from the Bible — that Exodus says not just once but three times that the Israelites plundered the Egyptians and took away gold and silver from those who had once enslaved them.

I waited in vain. The answer that a fifth grade Sunday school pupil would’ve been able to give was utterly lost on Parfitt and the other three scholars he flew around to interview. Instead, they concluded that since there was no gold in the desert, the authors of the Biblical account must’ve have been mistaken. They further speculated that Biblical authors probably made up the description of the Ark and didn’t know what it actually looked like. Later on, Parfitt postulates that there were two Arks of the Covenant, based on no more evidence than trivial discrepancies in the descriptions at two places.

It isn’t that these sorts of programs trample unapologetically on Biblical truths — we’ve all come to expect as much. It’s that they don’t even play by their own rules. A certain brand of scholar appears totally comfortable with weaving together an amalgam of science and religion which does no credit to either. This is popular science, to be sure. I have no idea what actual scientists are up to these days. But if they’re half as willing to pitch their own methods in the hopes of cobbling together an attractive narrative, we’re all in a lot of trouble.

In the February issue of “Wired” magazine, these uber-geeks came up with a list of the things that sucked, and they included Science itself (HERE). So why in the world would these guys who worship at the altar of all things bright, beautiful, technological and atheistic say that science sucked? Why, because it shows us how stupid we are. Or rather, how stupid unscientific people are. Or both:

“…those same cortexes that invented science can’t really embrace it. Science describes the world with numbers … and abstractions… But our intractable brains evolved on a diet of campfire tales. … Evolution gave us brains that crave certainty, with irrational fears of crashing in an airplane and a built-in weakness for just-so stories about intelligent design.”

But what if those who want to see science trump ‘just-so stories’ borrow liberally in order to overcome this drawback? If science, which doesn’t believe in God, uses the concept of God in order to get people out of the churches once and for all, what would be the result? Science might be discredited (if they got caught), but religion — which is loathed by many of these scholars — might be finished off altogether. I think they might be willing to take the chance.

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Oprah-ology
I’m just getting sick of Oprah. I admit that before I say anything else. Not that she’s a bad person; I just don’t feel like she and I have a lot in common and so I don’t care all that much what books she reads or who she votes for.

And that’s starting to matter, because Oprah is no longer a woman with a show. She’s now a phenomenon with a following, and she has been for some time. Who else could have a glossy, monthly magazine named after them — and not the whole name, mind you, just the first initial of the first name, which might be trademark patented any day now? Who else could have bookstores and publishers falling into line whenever a book is recommended?

And now Oprah’s going to doctor our soul. According to an article in USA Today, Oprah’s been feeling our pain. “I speak a lot to my audience even more after the show than during it,” she says, “and I know a lot of people are seeking spiritual enlightenment and encouragement.”

That might not seem like a very original observation, but that’s okay. Even if others have said it, they haven’t done anything about it. But Oprah’s got a Plan. She read a self-help book called “The Power of Now” and decided that America needed classes on the internet to study up on the book’s golden principles.

“Winfrey calls the book ‘a wake-up call for the entire planet, one reader at a time. It helps us to distance ourselves from our egos, … and open ourselves to a higher self.’”

Oh no, not the higher self. The people I know with the biggest egos are addicted to self-help books, because they just LOVE finding their higher self. The higher the self, the easier it is to maintain an inflated sense of pride and consider other selves unimportant. God forbid a person would turn in their need for spiritual enlightenment and encouragement to the Christian narrative of sin and redemption. Much better to buy a book, attend Oprah’s series of ten 90-minute sessions to find out how to “focus on the importance of being aware of the present moment.” Brilliant.

Oprah is humble about having driven sales of this book through the roof (Oops, sorry. I forgot the ironic quotes. She’s “humble” about it):

“I knew people would respond to something that could make their lives better. That’s what I do: I’m in the better-life business.”[gag. choke. Sorry, couldn’t help it. Don’t mind me.]

“I’m just hoping to have a successful class and that we don’t blow out the internet.”

So when Oprah tells people to come to class, the World Wide Web better be up to the task.

Like I said, I’m not a fan. But I could be a whole lot more in her favor and still think there’s something wrong with this. When did Oprah’s influence begin extending beyond cultural bric-a-brac? When did she start offering to throw her arms around the problem of sin and fallenness? And why on earth, if these matters concern her so, doesn’t she call them by their rightful names? Using a book full of fortune-cookie aphorisms to address the sin of pride is like using a new toothpaste to try to cure your own cancer.

And the O isn’t just asking America to come to class. No, she’s also going to start redefining the way we give to charity. She’s got a reality show that’s going to pit teams against each other in a competition to see who can help the most, and then She (capital ’s’ intentional) is going to give the winners a million dollars. And let me guess: there will be LOTS of tears. Buckets of them. The O may just cry herself. We’ll all of us — ALL of us — be washed in this mega-million-dollar baptism of tears.

I don’t even have enough vocabulary to go into all the problems I have with this. But the biggest problem I have with Oprah is that more people don’t have a problem with Oprah. That’s the simplest I can put it.

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Whocares for President in ‘08

Conservatives are screwed. No matter who wins the Democratic primary, we’ll be looking at a candidate who is decidedly liberal. And since McCain will almost certainly win the GOP nomination, we’ll have a Republican candidate who hasn’t missed a single chance to let conservatives know how much he dislikes them.

That’s not based on a lot of new information. It just seems like the way this particular freight train is headed, and perusing any news network you like confirms that the momentum is favoring Obama. And whether that translates to a November victory for the Democrats or not, conservatives will lose and liberals will win.

So what’s the result? Well, those that I know that are liberal will have reason to rejoice. Obama seems likely to win, and he’s very personable and well-spoken. More to the point, he seems like he’ll advance every liberal program ever conceived, taking money from all those filthy profiteers in Big Business and making sure that it goes to poor people and sad people and makes them happy. And those who, like the reporter from the Boston Globe, have gone on for 8 years ‘hating George Bush with the heat of a thousand suns’ can begin to cool the heck down and get on with their lives. That would be a good thing.

I wish I could share the happy dance, but I doubt I can. Liberalism marginalized Christianity to a dangerous low in the ’70s and then had to back off in the ’90s when a new generation of conservatives found some advocates in the government. It was a breath of fresh air, but it lasted just about as long. It would be great to think that the lovely ideas about a beneficent state running things with charity and fairness for all could be taken up again without any more secularization. I wish I could join liberal Christians who feel that the expanded agenda of the left will effectively target social problems that have been with us since recorded history, all without interfering with the power of the Church to try to reach people and change their lives with the universal truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But those would seem to be unreasonable expectations. As C. S. Lewis noted, the State and the Church are adversaries — if one wins, the other will lose. And he would’ve known, since the handwriting was probably already on the wall in England sixty years ago. In Europe and Northern Europe, liberalism has gone ahead virtually unchecked and the results for the Church are plain to see.

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Sorry to put such a long face on it. It may just be my nature. Or I may be wrong to put these things together and get a baaad feeling about how the next couple decades will go.

Like I said, not the end of THE world, just the end of A world.