We talked about the projects left for us to accomplish on the disc golf course project that is now entering its second year when Brett asked,
What do you think about leaving Florida State out of the College Football Playoffs?
While working on a tee pad, we discussed the angles to consider the decision. We both concluded the best decision was made for college football as a product. Dating to the marriage of ESPN and the SEC, college football has always been heading to be product over sport.
One of the arguments to include a one-loss Alabama team over an undefeated Florida State team looked back at the Crimson Tide’s progress since losing to Texas. It is not that Florida State fell apart. Few could see how Florida State could compete for points without its starting quarterback. But Alabama’s recent play was arguably better than Florida State’s. It was an argument from recency.
Recency?
What have you done for me lately?
When my brother, Paul, texted a group about the Florida State decision, he used recency. He is younger and would say he is more handsome and smarter, too. But he is not so young that I should have missed using the word recency for the sentiment: what have you done for me lately?
Just this morning, I was talking with our Youth Pastor, Laura, on our way to pick up food for our Food Pantry. We have been discussing how to help young people grasp what it means to be made in the image of God in a world where identity is the buzzword. Incidentally, we have been addressing the same thing with parents of younger children in my Sunday Bible Study Group.
It so happens that I have been re-reading On the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius. Our Monday Crackers & Grape Juice online class is working through the book for the Season of Advent. Jason reminded us on Monday of C.S. Lewis’s admonition to read old books. That is, Lewis wrote an introductory essay to an edition of On the Incarnation and made the case that we tend to look for the most recent books written by and for the church to the neglect, even omission, of those books written by people who lived more near Jesus’ day.
Recency Bias
Point taken. I am a recovering bibliophile. I love books. I recall taking in a Scholars in Residence week at my Seminary in the late 1990s. So struck was I that I had missed out on current theological and philosophical trends that I committed to find ways to be more aware. You could say I had FOMO.
Reading old books, that is, books like Athanasius’s On the Incarnation, was not emphasized in my seminary training. Maybe it is that our form of Protestantism wanted only to read Protestant writers/figures. We did not discuss Church Fathers, Desert Fathers, or any other group outside our SBC forebears and their tangential relationship to Reformers and Radical Reformers except as historical markers.
We have a recency bias.
Not Academic
Pick up a copy of On the Incarnation. It was not written for academics. Athanasius was a deacon who believed the Incarnation demonstrated that God would not, and did not, sit idly by while his Creation devolved into corruption brought by death. Before he became Bishop of Alexandria, he determined that the Good News of Jesus was Good News because God did something in, for, and with the world that would lead and will lead to a final rectification of all things.
Too many think these old books are for smart people.
These texts may well be better than looking for that book that fits,
What have you written for me lately?
I like reading stuff which has stood the test of time.