Television Fame

"After I had appeared on Thames Television's evening news discussing my fourth book, I was greeted excitedly by one of the counter staff at my bank with, 'Oh, I saw you on telly last night!' She had seen me at least once a week for a couple of years and never mentioned having read anything of mine. Now, after five minutes' chat on the screen, I was somebody famous. Television fame, I learned, meant being famous not for actually having done anything but just for being on television." (Guy Playfair, The Evil Eye [London, England: Jonathan Cape, 1990], 21)

Apologetics And Psalm 102:18

I've occasionally written about Biblical passages that are relevant to apologetics, but are often neglected in that context. Another one to consider is Psalm 102:18: "This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord." The focus on God is good, it reflects the value of writing (which has become more important as a result of factors like the rise in literacy in the modern world and modern technology), and it reflects the value of benefiting people we aren't interacting with face to face ("a people yet to be created") in relationship with a God we don't see face to face. The passage is valuable in our cultural context, given the derogatory, dismissive comments so many people make about writing, especially writing on the internet, and any interaction with other people that isn't face to face.

The Written Sources Behind The Opening Of Luke's Gospel

Two of the biggest misconceptions people have about Christmas issues are that there wasn't much interest in Jesus' childhood in the earliest decades of church history and that whatever information circulated on the subject prior to the gospels of Matthew and Luke was only disseminated orally. An effective way of addressing both of those misconceptions simultaneously is to focus on the sources Luke cites in the first few verses of his gospel.

The invention of writing

Christopher Hitchens had a stock objection to Christianity. He recycled this objection in multiple debates. He'd rehearse the antiquity of man on conventional dating schemes, then point out that for most of human history, God did nothing to prevent human suffering, and then, 2000 years ago, he intervenes in a Third World backwater.

As I've pointed out before, that objection reflects his theological ignorance. The purpose of the atonement was never to eliminate suffering, but to make it possible for God to justly forgive sinners.

But there's another issue. According to current archeological information, writing was only invented about 5000 years ago, in the ancient Near East. Suppose the atonement took place 70,000 years ago. There'd be no written record to copy and disseminate knowledge about that event. Writing is a medium of mass communication. Until the advent of writing, it would be impossible to accurately preserve and widely disseminate a public record of the atonement. And not coincidentally, the site of the atonement is also the site where written languages first evolved. Moreover, pictograms are ambiguous. It took longer to develop alphabetic writing systems. 

Early, Non-Extant Documents On The Resurrection

The early Christians had a lot of information we don't possess today that's relevant to Jesus' resurrection and other subjects. Few people would deny that Paul communicated some information orally that he didn't write in any of his extant letters, that James knew more about the resurrection appearance to him than what's described in 1 Corinthians 15:7, that the gospel authors only wrote about some of the information they had rather than all of it (John 21:25), and so on.

But it's often asserted or implied that the additional information the early Christians had in such contexts was communicated orally rather than in writing to an inordinate degree. We're told that oral communication is less stable than written communication, that memories and oral traditions wouldn't have held up well over the few decades that passed before the gospels were written, and so forth.

Responses to such objections often take the form of arguing for the reliability of the unwritten transmission of the information in question. Memory is more reliable than the critics suggest. The ancient cultures under consideration had developed sufficient methods for preserving information orally. The gospels should be dated earlier than the critics date them. Etc. Those responses are good as far as they go. However, we need to be careful to not concede too much about the alleged lack of written sources in these contexts.

The ethics of ghostwriting

i) Lately, the practice of celebrity megachurch pastors using ghostwriters has come under scrutiny. Is ghostwriting unethical? There are two parties to the transaction. As a rule, I think it's unethical for the client not to credit his ghostwriter or collaborator. 

Ghostwriting is sometimes defended where there's no expectation that the speaker or the named author is the actual author. For instance, we don't expect airhead movie stars to write their own biographies. We don't expect presidents to write their own speeches. We don't expect famous comedians to write all their material.  

ii) However, this isn't quite analogous to ghostwriters. We often know who presidential speechwriters are, viz. Ben Stein, Peggy Noonan, Ted Sorensen, William Safire. Likewise, Woody Allen wrote material for Sid Caesar. 

iii) Debates over the ethics of ghostwriting tend to focus on the ethics of using a ghostwriter rather than being a ghostwriter. What about the moral status of the ghostwriter himself? Is his line of work  dishonest? 

From what I've read, ghostwriting can sometimes serve the same purpose as pseudonymity, in cases where a writer must conceal his identity for his own safety. Take political dissidents writing in a closed society. 

iv) However, in cases where it's unethical to use a ghostwriter, is it unethical to be a ghostwriter? Doesn't his cooperation make the ghostwriter morally complicit in the misconduct of his client?

That depends. There's a difference between doing wrong and being wronged. Now, cooperation can involve complicity in wrongdoing–if I'm helping someone wrong others. Say I'm the getaway driver for a bank heist.

But let's take a different comparison. I'm a coal miner. I live in a company town. I have to shop at the company store, which overcharges the customers–adding to the company's profit margin. Say it makes customers buy on credit, which comes out of their paycheck. They never get ahead. 

I'm not doing wrong by shopping there. rather, I'm being wronged by shopping there.

But I don't have a real choice because I can't afford to quit my job. 

By shopping there, I participate in the company's exploitation. I'm complicit in wrongdoing in that convoluted sense. But that doesn't make me the wrongdoer. Rather, I've been forced into an untenable position. The company left me with no better options. So that's what I'm stuck with. 

v) Likewise, ghostwriting can be a career-booster. It looks good on your resume to be a presidential speechwriter. Likewise, Nicholas Perrin was one of N. T. Wright's "research assistants." Perrin has since gone on to author two of his own books, and I think it's safe to say his work for Wright made it easier for Perrin to become a published author in his own right. It helps to break the ice. So it's not necessarily an exploitative relationship. 

That assumes the ghostwriter doesn't have to sign a confidentiality agreement keeping his identity a secret. 

Write music

Some writing advice from Gary Provost:

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It's like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals--sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader's ear. Don't just write words. Write music.