General thoughts on the Facebook timeline design

Posted on December 16, 2011 by jeremy

Facebook released their new timeline design this week to the masses. For the most part it’s nice and clean if not slightly cluttered but the emphasis on photos gives it an immediate appeal.

I do have two major problems though.

1. Wasted Space

Right below my “cover” I have feature boxes. One is for “Friends” and then immediately below that is a larger box for “Friends”. Redundant.

I also have a feature box for photos which shows a small preview of the last image I’ve uploaded which happens to be my profile picture which is featured almost immediately beside the “Photos” box. Clutter.

2. Hard to Follow

The timeline metaphor is nice. It makes sense and is easy to understand. However, by placing the timeline entries on alternating sides of a central line it makes it hard to follow. We are trained to read (especially websites) in columns and jumping back and forth is disorienting.

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Esther and the Deadly Dilemma Part 1

Posted on December 1, 2011 by jeremy

Esther and the deadly Dilemma was a five part series that I taught at unedited spirituality in the fall of 2011. I’m hoping over the next few months to convert my notes into something readable.

you can find the audio of the teaching here

Part 1: Context and Characters

An important part of the journey towards maturity is the push to make sure our faith is defined by more than just the obvious answers. There’s a beauty in exploring the popular texts in the scriptural story but then are moments where we reach through the surface into the depths of the text to discover something new, something forgotten, and perhaps something surprisingly transformational.

This is often my experience when I reach back into the Old Testament narrative books and it’s exactly what we encounter in the story of Esther. A somewhat small story about an isolated period of Jewish history that, if we allow, has significant implications for our faith journey today.

All of the books in the Bible are fascinating in their own way. Their content and their context and what they’re trying to say about God and humanity is worth exploring. Esther, however, is an odd text. For one, it’s a book in our Bible that doesn’t mention or reference God… at all, which is unexpected.

It’s also one of two books in our Bible named after a woman and that’s puts Esther in somewhat rare territory. There’s no need to pretend that the Bible is not a heavily male dominated book. It just is. Anything less than that acknowledgment smacks of hiding our head in the sand. It was written in heavily male dominated cultures, by largely culturally biased authors (strike that men), who generally did not see women the way we do today. Now, I’m not defending that and I don’t think the bible is necessarily defending that, it’s just a fact of the history.
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The Colossian Hymn 1:15-20

Posted on July 31, 2011 by jeremy

originally written for the course NT605 Pauline Literature, July 29, 2011, Ambrose University

The Colossian Hymn

The colossian hymn from the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Colossea has been the centre of considerable theological reflection. In fact copious amounts of metaphorical ink continue to be spilt even in this digital age in pursuit of this sections origins and intent. Colossians itself remains a focal point both for its centrality in early Christian christology and its disputed place within the pauline corpus. For this reason, whether authentically pauline or otherwise, the colossian hymn, as illustrative of a pre-existing christological statement, represents, for the modern reader, a unique opportunity to glimpse within the development of Christian thought beyond an exclusively pauline influence. This paper will attempt to place the writing of the Colossian letter contemporary with Paul, frame the larger context and intent in the writing of the letter and then explore within that intent the colossian hymn as a preexisting hymnic passage giving us insight into the christological development in the early church, illustrative of both the multiplicity of theological influences and the consistency with later developed orthodox christian thought. The scope of this paper will not extend into the broader theological implications of the passage beyond early Christian christology.

The authorship of Colossians is worthy of discussion not in that a conclusion confirms or denies the letter’s significance but in that our understanding of the letter’s origin helps us to draw conclusions about the development of Christian thought within the early church. If the letter is Pauline it seems to signify a development within Pauline thought that, depending on dating, implies a non-linear evolution in Paul’s theology. While this conjecture may seem odd, it could be argued that this simply represents a more natural perspective on Paul. Human thought rarely evolves in a unilinear fashion^[1] and static picture of Paul’s theology would simply not be appropriate^[2]. While it is clear that Paul provides the foundation for much of early Christian theology^[3], if the letter to the Colossians can be demonstrated to be outside the Pauline corpus it would seem to signal that the early church was developing along several interacting steams of thought. Despite this multiplicity of influences, rather than dissolve into factions, the Christian cult managed to integrate those streams towards a cohesive perspective that provided a platform for future theological development. This perspective has valuable implications for modern discussion.
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