debate

Well, the great car debate that I posted about last week is over ... actually, it's been over for almost a week but I just didn't get around to taking pictures until this morning.

We went with the Fit. It's the perfect urban car in that it's small and mobile which is great for parallel parking, it's environmentally friendly with the low emissions and the 30+ miles a gallon it gets in the city, and works well for the family because it's very roomy inside, has a great safety rating, and is a Honda so, in about 17 years, we'll be able to hand the keys over to Robbie so he can take it to college.

It's been quite a week here at the Burnham house. Between the twitter feeds and flickr pictures I think most of you know that last Friday (8 days ago), Anita and Robbie were out and about in the car when a Ford F150 plowed into them from behind. Luckily traffic was moving slowly at the time so the actual impact speed wasn't too severe, but it was enough to total our car, give Anita some nasty whiplash, and throw our past week into a frenzy.

One of the big questions we've been dealing with is what to do on the transportation front. At the moment (and for another week), we're covered with a rental car that's been provided by our insurance company (and will, ultimately, be paid for by the other guy's insurance). However, after that, while we can borrow something in the short-term, we'll need to get a replacement (as city folk, we only had one car).

At first I thought about just getting something that will run for a few years and get us around. But then I thought back to the last time I did that and remembered how much money I spent keeping the car running. In the end, it was like flushing cash down the toilet.

So I though maybe we should consider getting something that would last us for a while. Part of this included debating what we needed from a car. Here was our list:

• We want something small. Why? We live in the city and parking can be hard to come by. The smaller your car, the more parallel parking spaces you have available to you.
• We want something reliable. When we say, "We're going to have the car for awhile." We're talking, if at all possible, 10-20 years (although, it might be Robbie's car for college in those latter years).
• Since we're going to have the car awhile, we need something with lots of legroom in the back seat. After all, if Robbie stays in the 97th percentile on height, he'll blast past the 6' mark during his teen years.
• We want something that gets good gas mileage. Gas is expensive and using too much of it is rough on the environment. Enough said.
• Safety matters. If we get hit again, we'd like everyone to walk away again.
• Cost also matters. I'm a pastor. Anita teaches part-time. We have a child. All that put together means that, while we're not broke, we don't have an abundance of extra cash either.
• We live in Colorado, so how it handles in bad weather matters. This means front or four wheel drive is necessary and upgrading tires is very likely.

Now, some of these things go well together. Small and good gas mileage are a natural fit. However, other things on that list are somewhat contradictory ... like small and safe or small and rear legroom. However, we think we might have found the answer. The Honda Fit Sport.

Any thoughts or other suggestions?

"Christian participation in public debate requires the use of language, argumentation, and strategies that -- according to Scripture itself -- are most appropriate and effective for interaction in the public realm, where God's Word is not regarded as authoritative."

According to an email I received last night, this is the key sentence in a new document that the CTCR (Commission on Theology and Church Relations) of the LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) is publishing.

The impetus for the document that contains this quote was a resolution from the Wyoming District at our last Synodical Convention that suggested a previous CTCR document on discussing cell stem issues in the public sphere wasn't strong enough on Scriptural argumentation. This sets the stage for the interesting question of how Christians should engage in debate with those who aren't Christians ... or on what basis Christians of different stripes should debate.

It reminds me of a recent discussion I had in a string of comments with a Roman Catholic guy from New Zealand in response to a YouTube clip. Much like Luther almost 500 years ago, I said, "Let's talk based on what we supposedly agree on, the Bible." He said we can't understand the Bible without the Councils. I suggested that's why we have something else we agree on, the Creeds. He was willing to move towards the Early Church Fathers, but again, those guys vary as much in their decrees as the Councils so it's really a matter of which one you want to pick to make your argument. The point being, unless you're standing on common ground, fruitful discussion is never going to happen. The same is true when Christians talk in the public square. The 10 Commandments don't carry any weight. Neither does the rest of Scripture. To make an argument based upon a chapter and verse turns you into background noise.

So, how should Christians talk in the public sphere? I think the CTCR nails the answer. We begin in private and allow Scripture to shape our thinking, but we then carry over those thoughts into the empirical realm, find evidence from a publicly authoritative source that affirms our beliefs and challenges the beliefs of those on the other side of the debate. The result is Scripture remains normative for us and we have creditable arguments in public.

As a tangent, this plays into evangelism as well, where you can find a publicly authoritative source to speak the Law before introducing the Bible as the only authoritative source when it comes to the Gospel.