Author Archives: David Jackson Lohnes

Faith

Presuppositions that Frame my Examination of the Scriptures

The following points were first written in May of 2015 for a group of dear friends with whom I was working through some questions related to the Christian faith of my childhood and early adult years. Beginning in my early-mid 30s, for the first time in my life I began to seriously question the veracity and authority of the Bible. These points are an output of that process of questioning. (DL, Sept. 6, 2021)

What follows is an attempt to frame the starting point from whence I begin an examination of the Scriptures. These points should be taken as a provisional and ad hoc distillation of thoughts I’ve been a long-time forming. I am happy to see them challenged or accepted as suits the reader.

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Thoughts

Sehnsucht

Note: This is a lightly edited version of an e-mail I sent on May 10, 2015. The concept of Sehnsucht was originally introduced to me by a dear friend (Gloria Repp) some years prior. Since writing this I have experienced what I only know how to describe as a kind of emotional burnout. The glimpses described her stopped. Whether from aging, emotional trauma, or some other cause I do not know. Nevertheless, it feels a bit like a part of my brain–the emotionally imaginative and hopeful part–has burnt out. Hopefully not forever. (DL, Dec. 4, 2022)

Sehnsucht is a German word. It means “longing.”

But it represents something more than that English word conveys. It is a very difficult concept for me to explain, but it’s a very important one, for it a key to my secret heart, my secret longing. In Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis uses the word “Joy” in a special way. It’s a feeling he would get at certain unexpected moments while reading or walking in the countryside or listening to music. More than happiness, more than jollity, it’s like for a moment he would get a feeling or a glimpse of something deeper, more real, more perfect than this world. He would be taken beyond this world for a moment and filled with wonder; he would be surprised by joy. And those glimpses of joy begat a longing for joy, a longing for the perfect, a longing that led him to search for it in literature and music and philosophy till he found it in Christ. That longing for joy, for the perfect and complete, could be called sehnsucht,

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Politics

Facebook Discussion on Cake Baker Rights

Notes: This series of Facebook comments took place on a post on the wall of a gay friend that I believe was related to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law passed by Indiana to prevent government from substantially burdening the free exercise of religion. The law, which arose in part as a reaction to the Colorado Masterpiece Cake Shop case, passed into law the day of this thread. I engaged in response to another commenter who’s content was acerbic and anti-gay. This series of comments is a good example of the kinds of discussions with strangers I had on Facebook when I was most involved with the platform. The consistent failure to actually change any minds through all this engagement (as evidenced here) is one of the reasons I ultimately left the platform. I posted on the same topic in a comment on another thread a few days later. (DL, June 14, 2023).

[Commenter 1 Name Redacted], I hesitate to engage you simply because I’m not sure it’s going to get us anywhere profitable, but silence can be its own form of complicity, so . . .

1) The formulations “degenerate minority” and “degenerate sexual deviant” are not an indicator of an open minded clear thinker. Your expression is dismissive and muddy. It basically comes across as bombastic namecalling. Perhaps you could have written something like: “You shouldn’t get extra rights at my expense simply because of your race or your sexual preference.” In this way you could have made the same point without unnecessarily raising the temperature level of the conversation and offending many of the people you’re ostensibly trying to dialog with.

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Thoughts

Morality Presupposes Transcendence

Note: This series of Facebook comments began as a response to someone I’ve forgotten on a friend’s post that I’ve also forgotten. Through all my decade plus of spiritual doubt, I never lost confidence in—and still have never lost—the observation expressed in this post that without a transcendent reality beyond the material universe, there can be no rational basis for the concepts of Good an Evil. I only have my part of the exchange. Summary comments have been added for clarity. (DL, June 13, 2023).

What the quote [OP’s Name Redacted] posted addresses is a fundamental flaw with philosophical materialism. If there is no reality beyond the matter of this universe, then talking about good and evil is meaningless.

States of matter cannot be good or evil. They are simply configurations of atoms. A supernova doesn’t have moral quality, neither does an avalanche. Both are simply matter in motion.

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Politics

The Importance of an Open Marketplace

Note: When Mike Pence signed Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act on March 27, 2015, the news made the rounds in my Facebook circle, and I participated in a couple of threads on the topic. This short comment echoes some of the main points I had made a few days earlier in a longer discussion. (DL, June 14, 2023).

I had this discussion earlier on another thread, and I’ll repost some of what I said here:

I subscribe to the concept of the social contract. As members of a freely self-governing society, we undertake certain commitments to one another. In essence, we willingly agree to give up some of our autonomy in exchange for the benefits and protections of combined effort.

In regards to the public marketplace, I accept rules regarding fair and equitable trade for all in exchange for police protection, protection from unfair competitive practicies by more powerful competitors and banks, easy access to my customers and suppliers provided by the public transportation infrastructure, and (crucially) free access to the market myself regardless of my beliefs.

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Faith

On the Historicity of Genesis

Note: Like many of my peers (but unlike many of our parents or many of our children), I have made a lot of Facebook comments over the years. The writing is often unpolished, but they nevertheless offer excellent snapshots of what I was thinking at a particular time and how I articulated those thoughts for a particular audience in a particular context. This comment was made on the post of a friend who shared without comment a Gospel Coalition article entitled, “Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods.” It is an in-progress moment in the decade-long unwinding of my evangelical faith. I have cleaned up a number of typos from the original comment. (DL, Sept. 13, 2021)

My thoughts based on my understanding of various things:

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Thoughts

The Biological Roots of the Self

Note: This post was originally a comment in a Facebook thread, the context of which has been totally lost to me. It was written 2-3 years into the my journey into spiritual doubt. While I don’t remember the Facebook thread that provoked the comment, I do remember the origin of the line of thought. Through casual conversations with my boss at work, I came to realize that almost everything I consider ‘me’ is rooted in genetics and circumstance. ‘American.’ ‘Male.’ ‘White.’ ‘Verbal.’ ‘Analytical.’ ‘Nerdy.’ ‘English-speaking.’ Once my brain and body are stripped away and Earth and all its cultures are left behind, what is left of me that is actually ‘me’? Even if we are resurrected after death as the Bible teaches, what would be left of us that was recognizable? This is another item that as I inhabit the life of faith I have to simply set aside as beyond knowing. (DL, June 13, 2023).

Is there any part of your consciousness that will survive the destruction of your brain?

Pointers to the answer:

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Technology

Why I’m Leaving Facebook

Note: I first made the decision to leave Facebook and migrate my content to this site in 2014. It would be seven years after that decision before I actually got the blog set up in September 2021 and started moving content over. I left Facebook permanently in May 2022. Looking back, I still entirely agree with the rationale below (although I came to like the Messenger app as the best part of Facebook and hardest thing to leave in the end). I have not missed Facebook or the interactions I had there. (DL, June 13, 2023).

After many months of consideration, I have decided to begin the process of disengaging from Facebook.

The primary reason is that I’ve become increasingly dissatisfied with the way FB manipulates users: curating our news feeds, constantly inserting ads and links to third-party content, giving priority to paid posts, etc. I have ceased to feel like what I see on FB every day is an honest reflection of my friends’ activities and interests; it isn’t. It’s a revenue stream optimized by FB for me to get me clicking on things that aren’t first-and-foremost about my friends, but rather about making FB money.

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Poetry

What is a Star?

What is a star?

The gleam above me in the night?
It isn’t really in the sky.
It is in fact behind my eye,
triggered by a beam of light
that struck a nerve and touched my brain.
A wave of such and such a height
has stroked the synapses of sight—
a process I cannot explain.
But nonetheless the star I see
rotating on the neural plane
by memory can be called again.
(It’s shining still inside of me.)
If eye and brain are not a star,
and neither is a memory,
then neither can the gleaming be.

—David Lohnes
July, 2014

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Politics

My First Thoughts on Transgenderism

Note: Ten years ago I wrote this as a Facebook post because I wanted to speak clearly and publicly in response to the then new (at least, it felt new) but growing cultural trend of normalizing transgenderism as a means of overcoming or negating biological reality. In the intervening decade, though the irrationality of the transgender movement has become increasingly accepted in our society, my views have not changed. If I wrote the post today, I would likely seek to moderate the tone somewhat, but the ideas themselves I still embrace. I post this here now out of a commitment to speaking the truth as I see it, even though I believe I may someday suffer professional or other repercussions for holding these views. Such are the times in which we live. Following the note itself are a selection of my comments from the discussion thread that followed the original Facebook post. (DL April 20, 2023)

I dislike provoking ill feelings in others, but with Bradley Manning’s transgender announcement today and the subsequent pronoun shift in the media coverage, Wikipedia, etc. regarding him, I feel like it’s time for me to say something clear about my position on transgenderism.

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