The Newcomer's Guide to the 2015 Tour de France

( Map from the TdF homepage)

France! Wine! Paris! Bikes!

The 2015 Tour de France starts this Saturday, meaning that anyone who you live with / work with / share a bed with, etc., that cares about cycling will be engrossed in cycling TV and blog coverage (steephill.tv) so deeply that they might as well be auditioning for the “A Beautiful Mind” sequel. They’re going to talk your ear off about yellow jerseys, cadence, breakaways, and “top GC contenders,” whatever that means. They’ll assume you know everything in this video (youtube.com), use foreign words that you don’t understand, and correctly pronounce names like “Zdenek Stybar.” 

You want to be excited with them, but you have a problem - you have no idea what goes on in the weird world of professional cycling beyond “isn’t that what Lance did?” How can you join in the conversation? How can you feel included in all of the chatter, speculation and excitement? How can you hope to pronounce everything correctly? 

That’s where I’m here to help! I want to give you some conversational shortcuts so you can appear to be (and hopefully really become) interested in what is going on, because, once you get the hang of it, pro cycling is really interesting. So this guide comes in two parts - but it won’t be a “casual cycling fan’s guide,” because there are already lots of good ones (freewheelingfrance.com) that do that. You can read those, too! 

This guide will take you through a crash course in what the Tour is about, and then give you a few questions to ask in casual conversation with your cycling fan friends so that you look like you know what you're talking about. 

Off we go!

Part 1 - Questions you may have about the Tour

Some of the legends of the Tour

Why is it called a “Tour,” and how do I know who wins?

You would think something called a “tour” would be about touring a place and seeing the sites - not so with the Tour. The Tour is a series of races through French (and sometimes not French) towns, countryside, and mountain passes. When you think of a “race” you usually think the winner is whoever gets from A to B the fastest, but the Tour isn’t like that. 

The winner of the Tour is the guy who has the fastest (so, shortest) average time across all 21 races, or “stages,” of the Tour.  This can be confusing for those new to watching the Tour, because it means that it’s possible for someone to win the Tour without winning even one of the 21 stages (like the American, Greg Lemond, did in 1990). The racer with the fastest average time during the tour wears the famous yellow jersey (or maillot jaune (pronounced “MAH-yo JAWn,” with a soft "j"), and the racer wearing yellow on the final day is the overall winner who wins bunches of cash and prizes and endorsement gigs.

Why is the Tour hyped so much?

Why is the Daytona 500 hyped so much when it’s just another auto race around an oval? Tradition. Legacy. Heritage. Story. The Tour is about the narrative of the race - the struggle and glory of individual efforts day after day. The Tour is more than a bike race - it’s a rolling parade, media extravaganza, and World Cup all rolled into one. Advertisers, journalists, fans, and the casual public all come out to both create and experience the spectacle. Crowds line the mountains to see the pain on the riders faces as they strain to breath and pedal at the same time. 

Cycling in France is sort of like baseball in the US - you don’t have to follow the sport, but it’s part of your national heritage that you get to participate in. The Tour is where legends are made.

It starts in the Netherlands?!

Yup! Sometimes the Tour starts in another country; last year it started in Britain. Don't worry, though, it always ends in Paris!

Is every man racing for himself?

Nope! Professional cycling, and especially stage racing, is a team sport. If you look at the backs of the racers, you’ll see numbers pinned onto their jerseys. These numbers stay constant throughout the Tour, and let you know what team each rider is on. There are usually 22 teams of 9 riders each, for a total of 198 riders. 

Numbers will then range from 1 to 219;  #1 will be worn by last year’s winner, Vincenzo Nibali (“veen-CHEN-zoe NEE-buh-lee”), and the rest of his team (Astana) will be numbered 2-9. So you have the winner’s team, and then you have teams 1-21; the “#1” of each team is assigned to the team leader, the strongest racer on the team, and means that they’re easier to identify - #11, 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, etc. are the respective leaders of teams 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. 

The other eight men on the team work for their leader - getting him food and water, pacing him up hills, providing a draft to shelter him from the wind, and offering their bike/wheel if he should crash or get a flat tire.  Racing for 21 days is really hard, even with a couple rest days sprinkled in, and quite a few of these support riders (called domestiques (“doh-mess-TEEKS”), if you care) will drop out before the Tour is over. This is expected. 

Also, not all the team leaders are expected to be able to win the tour - most teams are just riding the tour because of the thrill and prestige of it, and for the high exposure it nets their sponsors.

What’s a “peloton”?

Pronounced “PELL-uh-ton,” it’s French for “small ball” and refers to the largest bunch of cyclists racing. Sometimes there are smaller groups who try and breakaway for a winning move (you can learn about breakaways in this video (youtube.com)), and you’ll hear the race announcers refer to “the breakaway” being chased down by “the main peloton.”  

Why do all the jerseys look so wild/dorky?

Let’s go back to the NASCAR analogy, because I think that’s really helpful. NASCAR exists to publicize sponsors, and so does the Tour. In fact, the Tour started as a marketing gimmick for a newspaper (the paper was printed on yellow sheets, hence the yellow jersey). 

Just like how NASCAR cars are painted with the the sponsors colors and graphics (called “livery,” after the clothing that old-timey rich people would provide for their servants), so too do the livery of sponsors show up on cycling jerseys and shorts. Such livery is usually brightly colored, both to highlight the sponsor and to easily tell teams apart on TV; cycling races are often filmed from a helicopter, and bright, obnoxious colors and patterns make it easier to tell who’s who. 

If you watch cycling year after year, it soon becomes really easy to identify riders at a glance because teams often use the same “kit” year after year; veteran fans will know that pink/blue is Lampre (“LAMP-ray”), red/black is BMC Racing, neon yellow/blue is Tinkoff Saxo (“tink-OFF SAH-kso”), white/red is Katusha (kah-TWO-sha), and blue/black is Team Sky (“sky”). 

Also like NASCAR, fans are more tied to individual riders than they are to title sponsors; Jeff Gordon fans root for him whether he’s in  #24 Dupont car or not, and likewise fans of Fabian “Spartacus” Cancellara don’t really care that he now rides for Trek Factory Racing instead of Team CSC. You can learn what each sponsor sells / does here (inrng.com).

Why are the bikes so ugly?

Hey, you noticed! The bikes are ugly because they are shaped to be aerodynamically efficient - to cut through the wind as smoothly as possible. Aerodynamics is a big deal in cycling, and so you see aerodynamic bikes, wheels (the thick rims and even solid discs sometimes seen), helmets, clothing and even shoe covers! For a pro racer, fighting the wind alone for even an extra two minutes can be the difference between winning or losing the Tour.

Who're the favorites to win, and how do I pronounce their names?

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Pro Team, light blue kit), last year’s winner, is certainly a top choice. Other contenders are Chris Froome, the Brit on Team Sky who won in 2013, Alberto Contador (“KON-tah-door”), the Spaniard with Tinkoff Saxo, winner in 2007 and 2009, and Nairo Quintana (“NYE-row keen-TAH-nah”), the tiny Columbian riding for Movistar (“MOW-vee-star,” navy kit with neon green letters), the runner-up in 2013. 

If you want to wash the stale Lance taste out of your mouth by rooting for America, the hopeful is Tejay van Garderen (“TEE-jay van-GUARD-wren”) from BMC who was both 5th overall and the fastest rider under age 25 in the 2012 Tour.

Hopefully that gives you some idea of what is going on. More technical stuff can be found in this article (inrng.com). On now to Part 2 and questions you can ask your cycling friends during Tour season to keep from feeling left out!

Jerseys help you tell teams apart!

Part 2 - Questions to ask of the Tour

"Who's in yellow?"

This is just asking, “Who’s winning right now?” The yellow jersey can be worn by many different racers over the course of one Tour, depending on who’s fast on a particular day or who made a lucky move. The early stages of the Tour are usually flat and easy for the fast sprinters, so a sprinter might be in yellow for a few days. Once the race reaches the mountains, however, the sprinters usually lose the jersey, never to get it back. The yellow jersey can jump around a lot, like in the 1987 Tour when eight different riders wore it.

"Who's the top GC contender at the moment?"

GC stands for “general classification,” the fancy term for “overall winner.” Unlike the sprinters, GC contenders are the guys actually favored to win the whole Tour - Nibali, Froome, Contador, Quintana, etc. Top GC contenders are usually good in the time trials (the races against the clock) and the high mountain stages. Most TV news wrap-ups will include not just the winner for the day, but also the positions of the GC hopefuls.

"How is Romain Bardet and/or Thibaut Pinot doing?"

Remember what I said earlier about baseball? The Tour is a big deal for the national pride of France, and so as you would expect, there is a lot of pressure placed on the French riders. Ignore the fact that a Frenchman hasn’t won the Tour since 1985: just know that where the highest-placed French rider stands is a matter of some interest. 

The French hopefuls this year are Romain Bardet (“row-MAIN bar-DAY”), riding in the brown/white of Ag2r (“Ay-gee-two-are”), and Thibaut Pinot (“TEE-bow PEE-know”), who was third last year and rides in the blue/white for FDJ (“Eff-dee-jay,” sometimes referred to by the full name Française des Jeux, or “frahn-SAY dey-JOOR”). 

"Who won on Bastille Day?" (If it is after July 14th)

Bastille (bas-TEEL) Day is the day of French Independence, and every French rider in the peloton wants to win on that day. Again, think back to the legend, the drama, the story of the race.

"What do you think about including cobbles again this year?"

Racing over cobbles is a cycling tradition going back like 100 years or so, but cobbles are usually reserved for the one-day, A-to-B races in the spring, called Classics. Hitting cobbled roads at 30mph+ is hard on cyclists, and the guys who train to win stage races can be fragile people. Last year, Chris Froome abandoned the whole Tour after crashing on a cobbled stage. With cobbles comes drama: Who will soldier through them? Will anyone crash out? Will the the GC contenders play it safe, or attack?!

"When's the next mountain day?"

The mountain stages are the days when the GC really gets shaken up and the potential for drama is high. These are the days to watch!

The 1998 race leaders, suffering up a mountain

"Has anyone's Di2 quit on them yet?"

Di2 (“dee-eye-two) is cycling shorthand for electronic gear shifting, first introduced by Shimano (“she-MAH-noh”) in 2009. Little, battery-pack-powered motors in the derailleurs shift the chain from gear to gear. It’s progress, sure, but sometimes the wires pop loose or something else bad happens, and when it does, the racer is stuck in one gear until their mechanic gives them a replacement bike. 

Sometimes you see replay footage of some poor chap struggling up a mountain in way too high a gear, and fans who can’t afford the $1500+ price of electronic shifting for their own bikes will poke a little fun.

"What do you think about doping in cycling?"

There’s lots of speculation about this, but no one really knows anything for sure. This is a good question to ask if you feel your cyclist friend needs to talk for a long time but you don’t want to listen, because they will go on and on.

"Did you know that Sean Kelly never won a Tour?"

Like most sports fans, cycling fans are not above being full of useless knowledge, stats, and facts, and this fact can be yours. The Irishman Sean Kelly (“Shawn” Kelly) raced from 1979-1994 through the heat, wind, and rain, and into the halls of cycling legends. 

Think of him as the “Iron Man” Cal Ripkin, Jr. of cycling. He often attacked with no teammates around him, eschewed using “clipless” pedals and shoes until one year before retirement (almost ten years after they were introduced), and yet won basically everything that was worth winning, except the Tour. 

I’ve never heard anything bad about him, which makes him a sure bet for a winning conversation topic with any cycling fan. If you’re watching any of the races on Eurosport, he’s the commentator with the thick Irish accent. Some of his legend-ness can be viewed here (youtube.com)!

Summary

The three weeks of the Tour doesn’t have to be intimidating for anyone. On the contrary, they can be a time of learning, cheering, speculating, and watching history be made. Who knows, you might even get into a heated argument over some trivial issue, like real sports fans do!

Any more questions? Things I didn't cover? 

Feel free to ask them in the comments below!

Sean Kelly, killing it in the 1988 Tour

_DZ

Chivalry on the Dodgeball Court

(From the Commons)

A few weekends ago, I played dodgeball for the first time in ten years. You know the game - where you get to throw rubber balls at high velocity towards unsuspecting faces - that is being phased out of elementary schools because of its violence. My Saturday morning was filled with a bunch of (mostly) twenty-something-year-old guys maintaining no-holds-barred chaos, and it reminded me of all the great elementary recesses on the playground spent hurling little green balls at friends and enemies alike. It was a time when accurate aim was as important as academic success. But as I was running around in my headband, tank-top and short shorts, frantically ducking, dodging, and counterattacking, now with fifteen more years of life experience, I was reflecting on how playground dodgeball taught me life lessons that I still rely on.

C.S. Lewis penned a great essay called “The Necessity of Chivalry”, in which he said that a knight was a man who was both “fierce to the nth” and “meek to the nth.” A good knight knew his manners while banqueting with the royal ladies, and yet could cooly dual-wield battle axes in the gate of his castle as the invaders approached, ready to cleave barbarian limb from torso. A properly chivalrous man - that is, a true knight - needed both fierceness and meekness. More than that, he needed to be able to embody the extremes of both at the appropriate times instead of straddle some Aristotelian Golden Mean (wiki); acting macho 24/7 makes one perpetually brutish, while erring the other way produces effete doormats. 

What does this have to do with dodgeball? 

Playground and PE dodgeball was invariably co-ed, and one of the qualities that a good game of dodgeball teaches young boys is the tact to treat others respectfully, according to their ability. Some unwritten rules kept everyone in line: 

• Don’t throw hard at girls. 
• Throw the softer balls at the girls if you have a choice. 
• Girls who (hopefully accidentally) get hit in the head, stay in. 
• If a girl throws a ball at you, work to dodge rather than catch it, because catching it will get her out. 
• If you have two balls, give one to the girl next to you so she can defend herself. 
• If some chump opposite dares to hide behind the girls on his side, it’s your whole team against him.

It was honorable for us boys to play like this, and the girls seemed to appreciate our efforts to include them while keeping them safe. Along with this code of meekness  - the “rules of the banquet hall” - was the code of the battlefield. Dodgeball is like war, after all, and it’s a great game for boys because it respects different skill levels. Is it fair to call it a playground equalizer? Being able to throw a ball hard was one thing; being accurate was another. Both of those skills were on par with being able to catch anything that came to close to you. Having a cannon of an arm wasn’t everything; if you could take a rocket to the chest and hold onto it, you were a god for the rest of the afternoon. 

(Another one from the Commons)

Size differences were equalized, too. Bigger boys might be forced to try to catch balls that the smaller and/or more flexible ones could dodge, and a team needed those different members, like how it says in the Bible, “the body does not consist of one member but of many...The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” Every knight needs a squire or two!

Dodgeball was also a lesson in humility. Lots of balls are all flying at once, coming from every direction, and there were times when I was so focused on heavy artillery that the most diminuitive effort from the shy guy in the corner would bounce off me! There’s no point in making a fuss over it - “all’s fair in war” and all that. The tough guys were naturally the most targeted, and it was the aim of every boy to guide his orb into the nose of the class powerhouse. This taught tact, too. Being an honest loser was as important as being a valiant attacker.

Tough guys or not, dodgeball illustrated that people of all different body types and abilities were valuable to a team. Attitude mattered more than ability. You could have the strongest arm on the playground, but if you had no discretion as to how hard you threw and at whom, you were a jerk. Girls and boys were different, and there was honor in treating boys and girls differently. As dodgeball games are increasingly discouraged or banned in school recesses across the country, I can’t help but wonder if we are losing something that teaches boys how to be chivalrous - how to be respectful when appropriate and fierce when appropriate. Lewis knew what he was talking about.

(As an aside, the recent Fallon Fox controversy highlights this loss well. There’s nothing honorable in how Fox is acting, but it’s generating publicity. Female opponents are hesitant to speak out because any publicity in professional fighting is good news for the viewing numbers. Someone needs to admonish Fox back into acting honorably, but that is isn’t the focus of this post.)

_DZ

Favorite Things in Life: Bookstores

I took a trip to my favorite bookstore today. I hope you have a favorite bookstore; life is too short to spend it browsing the stacks of mediocre establishments that only stock Haynes manuals, Steele novels, cookbooks, and old comics. You owe it to yourself to find a favorite bookstore near you, even if it has to be an antique store or something.

Mine is across the street from a park, wedged between a high-end vintage clothing store and a curio shop that fills its windows with hundreds of gaudy necklaces, brooches, earrings; all arranged to make a killer Instagram account, if only the owner could be bothered. You could almost miss it if it didn't have a book rack out front populated with books that no one would (or could) miss. All of the fraudulent scholarship and poor taste in Britain seems to have ended up in one place: titles like Subliminal Socialism in The Children's Television Workshop: 1980-1985, Windows ME for Dummies or The Ultimate Guide to Reiki - Vol. 2. Books useful, I suppose, for art projects, or a chuckle, but not much else.

A veil of incense parts as you walk through the door. If you close your eyes, it's easy to imagine the smoke coating the floor like dry ice on a stage. Of course, they stopped burning incense in the late 90s, but the bookshelves still ooze it. The shopkeeper peeks at you from behind a small hatch above a counter; underneath the counter is, of course, a bookshelf, and the wall above the hatch is plastered with dog-eared concert handbills in various fading colors. The counter itself is piled so high with books and papers that it could double as a professor's desk, which it very well could be.

The second thing you notice is the music pulsing throughout every floorboard and bookcase. A slow, pulsating wave that pervades your subconscious, drowning your emotions in a syrup of synthetic sounds. It's drug music, for sure, but not drug music in the flower-happy, "Everything"-begins-with-an-"E"-type of technoball, or the feedback-laden-stoner-sludge-metal variety. This is the "let's-take-our-homemade-instruments-and-herb-to-the-woods-for-a-weekend" flavor of organic beats and drones. Quivering mushrooms caps, overturned. This is the rhythmic reverberations and hull creakings of a wooden cargo hold floating on a dark sea . This is the music that ripples the glass of the display case that holds the rare books. On offer today is the two-volume Around the World on a Bicycle - first edition, published in 1887 and bound in a lovely, dusty military green. No doubt it houses the musty smells and memories of myriad armchair adventurers, and it can find a home in your collection for a mere four-hundred-pounds-sterling.

Bounce upstairs past the science fiction (there's only ever one guy in the science fiction room, but the room is never empty; I think they have a sign-up sheet), politics and sociology, and poetry sections (which I browse for haiku anthologies and works by Derek Walcott), and turn left once you reach the shelf filled with old technical and engineering manuals. The center island in this room is made out of four waist-high bookshelves arranged in pairs back-to-back; like magnets, they repel the bookshelves lining the walls into their places. Oh, don't trip over the stool with the store name carved and lacquered into it; instead, move it around if you need to reach the higher shelves, filled to the ceiling with tomes of military history, natural history, art and architecture, local history, and literature. Two laps around the room and I'm cradling a stack of books spanning multiple and seemingly mutually exclusive interests; an eclectic assortment covering Japanese package design, selective works of Gregory of Nyssa, the history of mechanical timepieces, and a hardback edition of Beowulf. Illustrated, too! I already have a paperback, of course, but this is such a good deal.

The stairs going back down are so narrow that two girls on their way up have to wait at the landing while I teeter down with my unearthed treasures. My stack only just fits on the counter, and the smiling man wraps up the books in discreet brown wax-paper bags, as he always does, meaning that I, again, leave the shop looking like I just bought pornography. I wander back across the street towards the park, on the lookout for a cozy bench that the sun has been warming all day, especially for me.

_DZ

Helmets, Freedom, and California Law

1980's track helmet
(Photo from whatisabicycle.tumblr.com)

Much commotion was raised on the Internet over the weekend about the proposed “mandatory helmet law” in California (source). Opinion, as always, is divided - they don’t call helmets a “wedge issue” for nothing! Bicycling magazine has given air to both sides so to maximize pageviews, while others have advocated to quietly concede this round. Snarky blogger have, of course written snarky blogs. Meanwhile, I think it’s important to point out that there should be a difference between helmets being a good idea, and helmets being required by law. As helmet makers know better than anyone, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

That said, this finger-pointing and fear-mongering is not entirely unexpected, chiefly because safety is an emotionally touchy issue, but also because there’s an awful lot of money to be made by marketing a safety product. If cycling can be made to look dangerous, there is money to be made. Car companies and public transit benefit from reduced cycling ridership, helmet manufacturers benefit (slightly) from increased helmet sales, and the largely superfluous cycle of product “development” and output of “new” products from the cycling industry gets a booster shot. Everyone wins!

Well, everyone except the consumer. And bike-share programs. And people who rely on a bicycle for work commutes and general transportation. And anyone who wants to look like a normal person instead of an enthusiast who wants to look and perform like Lance minus the performance-enhancing drugs. Well, with the drugs, actually, but his drugs are called “aero helmets,” “bespoke wheel solutions,” and “carbon fiber.” Basically, whatever ($400 helmet) Neo-Lance can buy to give him an advantage over his poorer or less-dedicated neanderthal of a neighbor who still shifts with (ugh!) cables. 

"My coach showed me how to get more aero!"
(Photo from Cervelo)

But I digress. 

Of course, first Neo-Lance goes to his local bike shop to look at helmets before he buys one online. Bike shop employees don’t always want to push helmets, but for liability reasons they have to. Some customers are interested in helmets and want a good one that fits them well. Others just want something to keep them safe. But not everyone wants to spend the $30-60 for a helmet, and I don’t think that they need to. If they want one for personal comfort or need to meet race eligibility, shops stock them. What helmet law does is effectively tack a premium onto an already-expensive bike.

As some of the above linked-to articles have pointed out, helmet laws are particularly harmful to bike-share programs. New York’s CitiBike system, Minnesota’s NiceRide, and London’s Boris Bikes are brilliant and popular, and are possible partly because you don’t have to carry your helmet to the nearest bike kiosk. I used the NiceRide system for two seasons, and one of the things I really liked about it was that I didn’t have to carry the usual cycling combo of lights/lock/helmet with me. I could cycle downtown with just a small bag or backpack, and then cycle back home at the end of the day. I used NiceRide to commute, choosing to reduce the wear-and-tear on my own bikes. I even used it to plan dates!

NiceRide kiosk
(photo from TCDailyPlanet)

The issue at stake here is one of personal freedom. There are already several laws in place in various states that require bicycles to have reflectors, and certainly most bicycles sold in the US are required to have reflectors attached at point of sale. Some states go even further, requiring lights. Minnesota has already crossed that line, mandating front and rear lights on all bikes ridden at night. This is ostensibly in the name of “safety,” but how far can that argument be pushed? The “safety” argument is a favorite one for liberals because it is so elastic. A front and rear light on a bike increases safety - this is true. But surely two front lights and a rear one will increase safety more? What about three front lights, again all in the name of safety? Common sense revolts at the idea, yes, now, but common sense is a pliant opinion. Sooner or later the pliancy is tested, which brings us back to the California bill that sneaks in “reflective clothing” amidst its call for mandatory helmets. (Like helmets, I am all for riding with lights at night. Lights are awesome. Laws requiring lights are not.)

Give them an inch and they will take two inches, and when challenged will say that your yardstick is not the official one. If the government, any government, mandates helmet use today, what will they mandate next? Shin guards? Keirin body armor? The nature of a law is that it is enforceable, initially, in this case, by a modest fine, but ultimately, in all cases, by imprisonment, which is restriction of freedom. California, like Australia and New Zealand, wants to be in the position to potentially imprison people for not wearing a bicycle helmet.

Think about that. 

Looks pretty normal and law-abiding to me!
(Photo from Civia Cycles)

I’ll say here again that my argument is separate from the issue of whether or not wearing helmets is a good idea. It is, especially for children. When I was in elementary school, I had a head-on bike collision with one of my friends. I was wearing a helmet, but had a pretty bad headache nonetheless. Kids who lack basic bike-handling skills need protection. 

In addition to benefiting kids, helmets are also great idea for racers. I have crashed in multiple races, track and cyclocross, each time going over the bars, and each time wearing a helmet. The governing body of cycle racing, the UCI, made helmets mostly mandatory for the Tour de France in 2003 and fully mandatory in 2005. Before that, the Tour riders had the option to abstain, except when they ventured into Belgium, where helmets were legally required. And USA Cycling, the governing body in the US, includes this rule in their handbook:

1J1. Helmets.  At all times when participating in an event held under a USA Cycling event permit, including club rides, any rider on a bicycle or motorcycle shall wear a protective, securely fastened helmet that satisfies the standards specified in USA Cycling Policies. "Participating in an event" means riding a bicycle in the vicinity of a race at any time between the beginning of registration and the last awarding of prizes, but does not apply to riding rollers or stationary trainers in order to warm up. (Source, p.41)

Thank goodness that you can stay bare-headed on your rollers.

All this, I’m sure, is very lucrative for helmet manufacturers. When every racer needs a “regular” helmet (which, as I hinted at above, is a single-use item and must be replaced after a crash) for general riding and an “aero” one for time-trialling, that adds up quickly. As an aside, the mandatory use of an helmet for TTs and triathlons is an interesting issue because the risk of injury is, in theory, greatly reduced during a TT, since you are alone on the course. (I say “in theory” because no amount of helmet can compensate for the notoriously poor bike-handling skills of most triathletes.)

While it is true that an aero helmet has dramatic aerodynamic advantages over a regular helmet, we don’t know if it offers any advantage over a bare head or cloth cap, and we don’t know that because the official rules of any race now say that you must wear a helmet.  Since “not wearing a helmet” isn’t an option in competition, nobody cares if “not wearing a helmet” makes you faster. After all, no R&D lab will spend lots of money on wind tunnel testing to prove the superiority of something from which they profit exactly zero dollars.

Stephen Roche, c.1987 - Greg LeMond comes later (Photo from Wikipedia)

Advocates will point to pros like Greg LeMond and his aero helmet that he wore in his final winning 1989 Tour de France TT, but he was also using aerobars. Aerobars (debatably legal at the time) were a huge advantage, and everybody knew it. But in order to find out if the helmet gave any advantage, you would have to run the TT again without the helmet. Yes, later TT champions like Miguel Indurain also wore aero helmets, but we don’t know if that was because they provided a significant advantage (over, say, a backwards cycling cap) or because, as the top time trialist in the world, companies marketing aero helmets were paying him top dollar to use them.  I challenge anyone to find a picture (warning: NSF helmets) of Marco Pantani, the 1998 TdF winner though a notoriously poor time trialist, riding with an aero helmet. You’d think he’d want every advantage he could get. Before it was mandatory to wear helmets in time trials, not everyone did.

There's Lemond

So while helmets are now de rigueur in the racing peloton and the lonely time trial, they needn't be in daily life. The great thing about the bicycle is that it is so versatile: it can be raced at 30mph, ridden around town at 15mph, or used to haul kids and groceries at 7mph. These are different activities that deserve to be treated equally. To lump the commuter in with Neo-Lance and say that they both fit under the “recreation” umbrella is a gross confusion of categories, and when met with that confusion we should pause and give just reflection, as if our garage was about to charge us for Porsche-quality brakes on our Civic because “they both can go 100mph.” No. Most Civics will never brave those waters, just as most cyclists simply want to get from A to B in a sensible manner. And yes, I will continue to wear an helmet when riding at night, dicking around at Theo Wirth, or commuting in winter.

Racing in the winter so, yes, helmet is on.

By imposing helmets, through law, on the general cycling public and thus erecting unnecessary barriers to entry, we risk decreased ridership, a heavy-handed flattening of the wonderful diversity of the cycling populous, and an imposition on general freedom for lovers of freedom everywhere. If you never leave home without your helmets, great! If you make your kids wear theirs, even better! If you BMX or mountain bike, by all means have two helmets! Again, my point in all of this is that this is a freedom issue. Competitive cyclists submit to helmet requirements because they want and choose to compete. Those of us who spend most of our cycling time not wearing spandex should retain our freedoms. The less the government interferes with our commute, the better.

_DZ

The Inevitability of the Fifty Shades of Grey Movie

(via IMDB)

As the Fifty Shades... movie is set tempt teenagers everywhere this Valentine's Day, just over a month away, I want to share a passage from a novel I read recently, Michel Houellebecq's Platform, in which the plot revolves around the idea of mainstream European sex tourism to Asia. Here, the main character explains the attractiveness of the scheme, given the state of society nowadays. 

"Offering your body as an object of pleasure, giving pleasure unselfishly: that's what Westerners don't know how to do anymore. They've completely lost the sense of giving. Try as they might, they no longer feel sex as something natural. Not only are they ashamed of their own bodies, which aren't up to porn standards, but for the same reasons they no longer feel truly attached to the body of another. It's impossible to make love without a certain abandon, without accepting, at least temporarily, the state of being in a state of dependency, of weakness. 

"Sentimental adulation and sexual obsession have the same roots, both proceed from some degree of selflessness; it's not a domain in which you can find fulfilment without losing yourself. We have become cold, rational, acutely conscious of our individual existence and our rights; more than anything, we want to avoid alienation and dependence; on top of that we're obsessed with health and hygiene: these are hardly ideal conditions in which to make love. The way things stand, the commercialization of sexuality in [Asia] has become inevitable. Obviously there's S&M too. It's a purely cerebral world with clear-cut rules and a prior contract....Organized S&M with its rules could only exist among a cultured, cerebral people for whom sex has lost all attraction. For everyone else, there's only one possible solution: pornography featuring professionals; and if you want to have real sex, third-world countries."

- Michel Houellebecq, Platform, p.244

Platform was published in 2001, and this year Fifty Shades... is coming to the big screen, meaning that Houellebecq is something of a doomsday prophet. I don't agree with his "only possible solution," obviously, but I think his diagnosis is close to the mark. Unrelated to Platform but still on topic, Pastor Doug Wilson wrote an article a couple years back, when Fifty Shades... was first published, and he summarized the problems of the book like this:

Now someone might want to intervene in these our enlightened times and say that [sado-masochistic relationships] are all a matter of personal choice. Of course, he might hasten to add, bondage and degradation and torture are bad if you are not dealing with volunteers. But if such a course is mutually chosen... well, who's to say and all that? 

The first concern is that if you create a world defined by the excitement of breaking taboos, then how is an insistence upon "mutual agreement" anything but the creation of the final taboo? And if there is no standard outside the mutually-expressed desire to play this game of destroy-the-woman, then there is no standard that will condemn somebody who decides to start playing this game for reals. It is dangerous to play rape in a world with real rape. In short, don't start what you can't finish. 

But the second thing is that people do not arrive at the moment of such an emotional/relational choice with a clean slate. There are many women who accept men into their lives who treat them like dirt (and sure, they technically choose it), but they got to this point because their entire outlook and view of themselves was shaped by fathers who treated them like dirt, or that neighbor boy, or that leering uncle, and they most certainly didn't choose that. So do we seriously want to maintain that kicking a woman when she is down is not a problem provided she has previously been so battered and discouraged that she has stopped trying to get up? Of course not. And the fact that an abuse-prepping catechism like this one clearly appeals to millions of women is grand news for predatory (straight-toothed) men everywhere.

Is this the movie that some teens are going to watch to learn how to kiss+ ? The fact that society will tolerate a (notoriously poorly-written) book trilogy and accompanying movie, and that the producers of said movie once stood before potential financial backers and said, "Yes, we are confident that this movie will make money," is a scary thought.

_DZ

Highlights from Derek Walcott's Odysseus

I just finished reading Derek Walcott's stage adaptation of Odysseus, that he wrote back in 1990. Here are some highlights.

EURYLOCHUS
Her [Circe] music's pounding with the odours of rutting. 

ODYSSEUS
Perfumes won't dispel it. 

EURYLOCHUS
Her rooms are grunting pens. 

ODYSSEUS
Still, give it to our enchantress, she knows one thing. 

EURYLOCHUS
What? 

ODYSSEUS
That brothels aren't just sailors' dreams, but all men's. 

EURYLOCHUS
Not mine. 

ODYSSEUS
All. 

EURYLOCHUS
Don't yield, sir, you have a wife and son. 

ODYSSEUS
At the back of all men's minds is a rented room.

----

EUMAEUS
Look at these puddles lying like shield in the sun 

ODYSSEUS
Reflecting clouds and phantoms. Our passing travail. 

EUMAEUS
Aye. Our shadows slide over them, and then we're gone. 

ODYSSEUS
The earth is still swaying.

----

ODYSSEUS
For one glimpse of her [Penelope] my heart might lose all reason. 

DEMODOCUS
But why her, man? Is her patience now a legend? 

ODYSSEUS
Because I once held such a woman. And our son. 

DEMODOCUS
There is only one thing that I can compare her to:
She is like a green pine that never sways on its hill, 

Whole leaves repeat the swaying of burly water
Rooted in its cleft, not sea-grape or forked myrtle 

Is as steadfast. Twenty years after Troy's slaughter,
As a green pine will make a castle of herself 

This pine will feed no man's fire with crackling boughs
Or nestle his vows, as other branches, swallows, 

But on her height, in a meadow of cold flowers,
She has weathered a siege even longer than Troy's.

----

ODYSSEUS
O when this racked body slid down astounding seas... 

PENELOPE
When I'd kneel down like an olive, rooted in prayer... 

ODYSSEUS
When the spray blinded me, till I lost faith in tears... 

PENELOPE
When no sail startled the olive tree, year by year. 

ODYSSEUS
The sea still shakes in my body, can you hear it? 

PENELOPE
The sea is quiet and all you trials are done. 

ODYSSEUS
Keep me embayed in your arms, your harboring heart. 

PENELOPE
Take root my pine, my shade, my patience's pardon.

_DZ

Haha, Haikus

I carry around a notebook with me in which I write down haikus. Most of them are pretty rubbish, but practice does help make them better. I find that, most of the time, I end up in rather whimsical territory, which means that, given the restrained and refined history of the haiku, where poets aim to convey a rich sentiment or experience as elegantly and with as few words possible, my contributions often feel something like a Mario Cipollini skinsuit amidst a peloton of people playing by the rules.

Here are a few from my notebook that I thought I would share with you.

sent from my iPhone
hence may contain some words that
unattended for

A reference to autocorrect shenanigans, obviously.

I wonder if I
can write a poem about
my black-and-white socks

Yes, I can.

softer hands holding
me, hopelessly beautiful
but I never asked

Somebody, somewhere.

we moved away from
solitary apartments
and threadbare towels

Upward mobility!

fat tires revolve
crushed rock harmonizes with
my contented sigh

The joys of riding on crushed limestone trails.

man is appointed
to die once and face judgement
so it goes, he says

Kerouac was hard-hearted?

silvery blue tones
gracious curves on the fretboard
fingers flying up

Devin Townsend used D'Addario strings because they sound "more silver and blue and less.....purple."

hands on a glass door
soft face weeping in sunlight
love stands on the porch 

Somewhere between the paintings of Hopper and Pearlstein.

drip drip drip drip drip
jazz gig in a urinal
thunderous applause

Admittedly juvenile, this one is redeemed by being able to read the first line in whatever meter you want. Jazz, man.




_DZ

Michel Foucault or Max Ernst?

There have been quite a few times when, while reading a book, I have no idea what I'm actually reading. The prose just doesn't make sense. This usually happens in either books filled with philosophy or art criticism. And so, here I present to you passages of prose, and you have to tell me if the author is writing about Foucault or Ernst. Enjoy.

"The educational folly of grown-ups was no match for the mind of the boy."

Foucault or Ernst?

His work is "a long exploration of transgression, of going beyond social limits, always inseparably linked to knowledge and power."

Foucault or Ernst?

"[He] employs highly specific and identifiable techniques of manipulation and combination. Because his work is the result of conscious thought, and yet allows chance to operate, it possesses a whole variety of meanings."

Foucault or Ernst?

"[In covering the development of his work,] it would be inappropriate in a study of this nature to engage in detailed analyses of individual works."

Foucault or Ernst?

One major work "was not a conventional work of history, making sweeping generalisations without sufficient particular argument, and that [he] clearly 'thinks in allegories.'"

Foucault or Ernst?

"'Shouting, swearing, spewing,' he wrote later, 'gets you nowhere. There's no point either in trying to wrap yourself up in contemplation.'"

Foucault or Ernst?




_DZ

On Being Sick in England

So these last few days (like 6), I've been sick, which isn't too surprising because everyone gets sick now and again. But this time was different, because this time I'm in England (see below).

Since childhood is the prerequisite for adulthood, and everyone gets sick when they're a kid, most people have the whole "getting sick" thing pretty down to a science. You know what the symptoms are, how you should deal with them, and what "getting better" feels like.

During this whole "childhood" phase, how your parents treat you when you are sick has a big influence on how you cope with sickness. (Duh). This is always a great thing to talk about with international students, because most peoples' stories and methods seem really natural to them and really bizarre to everyone else.

For example, to treat a cold when I was younger, I used to snort salt water through my nose to try and clear my sinuses. It may have worked, but I don't do that anymore. Now I take showers, because covering yourself in hot water is a great way to loosen up mucus (second only to spicy Chinese food). The bonus of showers is that you feel clean and fresh afterwards, instead of the usual clammy-sick-grossness that sets in after 20 hours of being curled up and coughing under multiple blankets.

By the time you "strike out on your own" and go off to college/get a job/pay for your own blankets, you have a pretty good idea of what helps you ward off a cold. I'm positive that a good part of this is the placebo effect or a logical fallacy or both, ("I feel better when this happened, so that must make me better") but some of it is probably backed up by legit science (mainly the "take drugs" part).

I'm all for drugs, but that can be overdone, too. I had a flatmate who was (probably) addicted to NyQuil, and once dated a girl who would take 10-12 Advil or aspirin at a time. She just gobbled up those nummiform tablets like they were Skittles.

So anyway, if my brother or I were ever laid up, my mom would stick to a fairly standard regimen of Foods That Help Fix Colds. This list included:

• Applesauce (plain - none of that flavored stuff loaded with sugar)
• Toast
• Vitamin-C-rich fruits
• Sprite
• Orange juice
• Chicken noodle soup (Campbells) 
• Jell-O (preferably shaped like NASCAR cars)
• Plain rice (or flavored rice soup)
• Cheerios and apple juice (my parents didn't think having dairy when sick was a good idea)

So this is what I learned to eat to fix a cold. Looking back now, it's amazing that my mom could even get most of that stuff over in Japan, yet I never remember a time when I was sick and there was no (fill in the blank). As I got older, some stuff went off the list (toast, Cheerios and apple juice) and some stuff came on (Kosher baby dill pickles, Gatorade/G2). 

Fast-forward to last week, and I'm sick. To deal with it I think I need: drugs, lots of liquids, applesauce, Jell-O, chicken noodle soup, dill pickles, and fresh fruit. What do I discover instead?

--American applesauce doesn't exist here. Seriously. What the Brits call "apple sauce" is basically thick, cold apple pie filling-like jam that you add to pulled pork sandwiches. This is great in its appropriate context, but a poor substitute for proper applesauce, which you can basically drink when you need to and soothes your throat like nothing short of ice cream can.

--The British don't have a very strong Jell-O tradition. Instead what they have is "jelly." Hartley's is a popular brand. Somewhere in sweetness between Jell-O and grape jelly (sandwich spread), it comes in little containers the about size of a double-shot glass. This size is surprisingly OK, because with how sweet it is there is no way that I could pound it down like I do real Jell-O. Don't even try to look for Jell-O molds, either. A huge disappointment.

--Chicken noodle soup seems not to be high on the list either, since the supermarket I shopped in only has two facings of Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup, and no Classic Chicken Noodle (or Double Noodle!). I probably could have looked for some other type of chicken noodle soup, but I'm really suspicious of imitation soup, because one time aliens broke into my house and replaced my Campbells with Cub's/Walmart's/Target's generic stuff (either that or I was poor, which was probably more likely) and I had to deal with that generic garbage soup for one flu session. Who knew that an extra 30-cents-a-can could make that much difference? That experience ranks up there on my list of Worst Soup Experiences Ever. 

--And the pickles! Oh, the pickles. I finally found the pickles on the second-to-bottom shelf of the "Oils, Sauces, and Spices" aisle, and to my dismay there were only four (four!) options: super tiny& sweet, gherkins in sweet vinegar, gherkins in sour vinegar, and sweet sliced hamburger pickles. Really, I wanted none of these. I especially dislike sweet pickles (they offer all the looks of being a good pickle and then disappoint to mightily), so I had to settle for the sour ones. These were another huge disappointment. I can usually eat 1/3 to 1/2 a jar of pickles in a sitting (combine that with any Campbells soup and you have a lunch where sodium levels are through the roof!), so I was expecting to do the same this time with these, but I could barely finish three pickles. Just terrible.

Quality gets worse as you move from right to left

What the British ARE very good at is hydration. The juices are generally good quality, and thanks to a very widespread drinking culture, good-quality mixers are everywhere. I mixed some premium apple juice with fizzy lemon-lime water and the result was amazing! It was like ambrosia for sick people.

(Not pictured: Me, bursting with strength)

There was plenty of fresh fruit to be had as well, and I had my fair share of figs, bananas, and mikans. I also had a glass of wine, which I'm sure took the edge off of...something. Britain has plenty of drugs, too (thanks NHS!), so finding ibuprofen wasn't a problem. 

Getting sick is not great - I don't recommend it. However, as you've probably gathered, I recommend it even less if you're me living in Britain. I think that's the moral that we can all learn here. The other moral is that when child version of you gets sick, make sure your mom rehabilitates you with foods that are available always and everywhere. Bread. Potatoes. Rice. Water. Milk. Grass. Rubber. Bark. Sears catalogs. All the boring stuff that you already (might) eat anyway.  Or you could just never travel. Or you can choose to never get sick. These are all potentially valid options. Meanwhile, while you are considering those options, please ship me crates of kosher baby dill pickles and applesauce. Thanks.

_DZ

God's Grace is Not a Ferrari

God says that his grace is a free gift, both the one-time act of justification and the continuing sanctification through the Spirit. He also says that His Spirit is like an eternal spring of water, founting inside of us, that provides sustenance for daily life. My interest today is whether we as Christians actually take that to heart in day-to-day activities. Do we think we only need a certain amount of God’s grace on a day to day basis, after which we can manage life on our own?

We use lots of items every day, and some are more useful than others. Economists have a term for how useful something is, called “marginal utility.” Connected to this is the idea of “diminishing marginal utility,” which is what I’m more interested in. Let me explain. Imagine that I offer to give you a Ferrari worth mega dollars, with only one string attached: you cannot sell it or give it away- it stays with you. You like your Ferrari and are very grateful for the gift, driving it around, zooming about the countryside, showing it off. It’s brilliant. You’ve never been happier in your whole life. But what if I offer to give you three more Ferraris, with the same caveat - only you can drive them. Now what do you do? Sure, you like your Ferrari and all, but you can only drive one at a time (already expensive in and of itself), and you can’t sell the extras for money or give them to friends as gifts. What about if I offer to give you seven more cars? Ten more? You wouldn’t know what to do with all of them, and you’d turn my offer down. This is what I mean by diminishing marginal utility. The usefulness of an item (the Ferrari, in this case) diminishes as you acquire more of them. Value of an item is not just limited to what it’s “worth,” but also by your ability to use it.

My concern is that too often I treat God’s grace like an Ferrari: one is really nice, but what would I do with more? A little bit of grace is nice for justification and adoption and one-time occurrences like that, but wouldn’t more grace just complicate things? I can only handle so much on my plate. ‘Me relying on God for strength in daily tasks is one thing, but there’s no need to get too crazy and help lead that church ministry, talk to that person about Jesus, memorize parts of the Bible, or give money to world missions,’ we say. We’re tempted to minimize grace offered for sanctification and growth in Christ, because we only have so much time. It would be God like directing cars to someone who would turn around and stash them in a garage. We’re already plenty busy.

But I think that when God prompts Christians to do something, we need to do it. That inkling feeling (from the Spirit within us) to talk to the new person at church; that recurring thought to send money to your missionary friends in Asia; your wife’s suggestion to invite the new couple across the street over for dinner: these (and myriad others) are all things that God might prompt you to do. You know these are good things, but you say in your heart, “I don’t want to, because what if that goes somewhere? What if that new person wants to talk longer, or the couple across the street wants to come over more often? Where am I going to find the time for that? And what if I need that money for problems in the future?”

In a way, this is thinking about the future without God, and there is a problem with that: it disobeys God. Part of loving Him “with all our heart, soul, mind and strength” (Mark 12:30) is using our resources to do what he tells us, when he tells us to do it, because when he tells us to do something, he promises to provide the grace necessary to do it (2 Cor. 12:9). We need to include God as we think through the future, assured that he will act for our eternal good (Rom 8:28) and equip us for the good works that he prepared for us ahead of time (Eph. 2:10).

Grace is not like a Ferrari because grace has no diminishing utility. If God, through the promptings of the Spirit, offers us more grace, we will be able to use that grace for good works. There is no disconnect between how much we have and how much we can use - it won’t just sit in a garage, collecting dust. God didn’t call us to a little bit of life in Him - he called us to abundant life, and so we, in faith, should ask God to give us more than we could ever hope for or imagine so that we receive the privilege of adding to the work of His kingdom. God promises that we will be able to use what he offers us, if only we gladly receive it. So, the next time the Spirit prompts you to do something, step out in faith and receive the empowering grace of God, confident that He will use it for your joy and His glory.

_DZ

Sheffield: First Impressions

Tuesday morning I arrived in Sheffield, UK, where I will be living for the next year. As soon as I got settled I took the opportunity to walk around town and see the sights. One of the first things I noticed was that, apparently, no one cares if you park on the wrong side of the street!

This is a two-way street.

I think the speed bumps are fairly common here as well. Then, as you walk along the sidewalk, you see these delightful little postboxes.

As well as these phone booths. It's refreshing to see a phone booth that does not have the phone ripped out of the wall. This one takes coins and cards!

I love seeing advertising in the wrong context. Here, for example, if you have a mobile that can snap a picture of a QR code, you're probably not looking for a phone booth.

(I can't wait to find out more about ice cream)

 Another thing I noticed was how the streets were labeled. In Japan they are not really labeled, and in America they are labeled with signposts on the corner. But in Britain, they are labeled either with a proper free-standing sign, like this:

Or with a sign pasted onto the side of a building, like this:

There is no way that any property owner in America would let the city post a permanent street sign on the side of their building. 

_DZ

A Response to "The Abolition of Sacrifice"

Today, Tyler over at The Supernatural Gospel published a post about the part that sacrifice played in the Old Testament and how the idea of sacrifice should be understood by Christians today as members of the New Covenant of Jesus. His view of sacrifice is negative and summed up in his statement, “...just because something is in the Law doesn’t automatically make it good. Sacrifice is a case in point.” The general narrative of his post tracks sacrifice as something that God created as ”a concession to man’s guilt and bloodlust,” and that “sacrifice under the Old Covenant was to provide an outlet for human violence and to fulfill the human need to feel free of guilt and have a clear conscience.” Basically, ancient man felt guilty sometimes, and to appease that guilt he made sacrifices to deities. God, despite not needing sacrifices, chose to condescend to this base part of human nature and set up a sacrificial system in Israelite culture to give the Israelites a way to assuage their guilt. It was supposed to be a way to let us feel like we are right with God, because God loves us and wants us to be right with him. 

Tyler connects this to the cross by saying that, “[t]he cross didn’t deal with God’s sin consciousness, as if he was hindered from relating with us because of sin. It dealt with our sin consciousness (Hebrews 10:1-3). It doesn’t free God from a need to punish; it frees us from a guilty conscience.” The cross was thus the perfect “liberating device” in showing humanity that they were already in good standing with God. Even when we killed His Son, Jesus, He still loved us. The God portrayed here seems to be a fluffy bundle of love, and the Bible as a history book that keeps pointing us towards that. But is that biblically accurate?

As a fellow Christian, I aim to be gentle in critiquing Tyler’s post. His message that God loves us and sent His Son to die for us (for our benefit) is biblical and glorious. However, I strongly disagree with Tyler's presentation of sacrifice, not just because I think that his biblical exegesis (how he interprets the text) is deficient, but also because his interpretation of the sacrificial significance of the cross, the most pivotal event in human and world history, is biblically off the mark. This post aims to give a more rounded view of the biblical idea of sacrifice, how it relates to God, and how the OT practice of sacrifice is fulfilled in the propitiatory death of Jesus.

First off, let’s avoid a reductionistic view of sacrifice. There are many different types of sacrifices in the OT, including but not limited to, “the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering, and the peace offering” (Lev. 7:37).  Not all of these are restitutive; some are for thanksgiving and others are for ceremonial cleanliness. Tyler is right in saying that God doesn’t need our sacrifices (Job 22:2; Ps. 50:8-12; Acts 17: 24-25), but I want to add that God likes them. One of the repeated phrases in Numbers when talking about sacrifices is “an aroma pleasing to the Lord” (15:3, 7, 10, 13-14, 24, 18:17, 28:2, 6, 8, 13, 24, 27, 29:2, 6, 8, 13, 36). When King David prays to thank God for His blessings, he sacrifices “1,000 bulls, 1,000 rams, and 1,000 lambs, with their drink offerings” (1 Chron. 29:21) and blesses the Lord Almighty, along with all Israel. And God likes it. When Solomon dedicates the temple (1Kg. 8), he sacrifices even more animals, and God likes it. So I have trouble with Tyler’s statement that “God never wanted our sacrifices, even under the Old Covenant.” God absolutely wanted our sacrifices: He likes them. So keep in mind that not all sacrifice is atonement for sin.

But some is. When I talk about "sacrifice" now, I am specifically referring to the type that is meant as a payment for sin. Theologians call this "penal substitutionary atonement," and it means that Christ was sacrificed and suffered in our place and absorbed the divine wrath meant for our sins. Human sin is an offense against God and God alone (Ps. 51:4), so much so that the character and nature of God defines what sin is and is not. 

God, as an infinite being, has an infinite number of positive attributes, including infinite wisdom, justice, and holiness. When he says something it comes to pass, and when he moves to act that action is accomplished. When he gives Israel a command or a law (or The Law), it is infinitely pure, perfect, and righteous and any infraction against it is infinitely grievous. In addition, Jesus (Matt. 5:17-18) and David (all of Ps. 119, for starters) both affirm the goodness of the Law, so I have trouble with Tyler’s statement that “just because something is in the Law doesn’t automatically make it good.” Everything that comes from the hand of God is good (Gen 18:25; Ps 71:19). Remember, too, that this is the nation to which God proclaimed: 

“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;  and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:4-6).

Sacrifice was a response of gratitude to work that God had both already accomplished and was continuing to perform, namely the choosing of a sinful people to be His holy nation. It was a reminder to the nation of Israel that their sin was terrible; that offending an infinitely holy God is deserving of infinite wrath. Animals had to be killed continually (Num. 28:3) because Israel forgot daily. But God, ever gracious and merciful, was waiting until the time was right to submit Himself to the constraints of time and space, pain and suffering, for the sake of His chosen people.

Tyler is right when he says that the animal sacrifices of the OT were eternally ineffective. The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin (Heb. 10:4). What God set up as a physical ceremony was supposed to prompt a spiritual softening of the heart and a love for God (1 Sam. 15:22; Prov. 21:3; Isa. 1:11-13, 16, 17; Jer. 7:22, 23; Mic. 6:6-8). It is good, therefore, that animal sacrifice is not the end of the story, but rather a type (an event in history that points forward to a greater reality) of Christ.

Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross is the greatest expression of love in human history (Rom 5:8). 

Christ took the Father’s wrath for us, in our place (1 Jn 2:2, 4:10), and this penal substitutionary atonement is effective in reconciling us to God (2 Cor. 5:18, 19; Col. 1:20). This reconciliation is necessary because we sin and God hates sin, as I have pointed out above. When Tyler says that “[t]he cross didn’t deal with God’s sin consciousness, as if he was hindered from relating with us because of sin,” he is in direct contradiction to what Paul makes very clear in Romans, namely that Christ’s blood sacrifice was necessary in order for God to be just in forbearing former sins (3:25) and our believing in the efficacy (Heb. 10:14) of Christ’s work on the cross saves us from divine wrath (5:9). 

Why is this good news for us? Why should we care that Christ, in living a perfect life and dying a horrific death, proved the Father just and righteous while reconciling us to Himself? Because of who God is - a Being of infinite beauty and creativity and goodness. By nature we hate God (Eph. 2:3, Rom. 3:12) and separate ourselves from the splendor of His beauty, creativity, and goodness. Believing that God will reconcile us to himself with no concern for his own holiness, and that Christ’s death is just a brightly lit billboard showing us that, is a massive undercutting of God’s infinite holiness. Without bloodshed, God would not be infinitely just, and we could not trust Him. Apart from Christ’s death, glorification, and eternal intercession on our behalf (Heb. 7:25), there is an infinitely wide chasm between us and God. The wicked have no part in life with God.

The cross is also the assurance that God is for us. The word sacrifice means “giving up something that is valuable for the sake of other considerations.” If Christ is God (which he is) then He shares in the eternal beauty, justice, love, and holiness of God. So when Paul says in Romans 8:31-32 that, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”, he is reminding us that God loved His elect so much that He temporarily subjected His son to the wages of sin, even through Jesus was perfect, to redeem them. I am amazed by the reality that God would do that for a people He chose for Himself.

Christians aim to love God because He first loved us - not the other way around. There is nothing we did to merit that love and favor - it is a gift (Eph. 2:8-9), and there is no sacrifice that we can give to make God love us more. God loves us because He wants to, and the life and death of Christ proves that. The main motivating urge for me to write this was that I believe that Tyler’s presentation of sacrifice and the cross makes that divine gift of love and favor smaller and cheaper. It is like replacing silver with chrome or diamonds with glass. The entire Bible, both Old Testament and New, forms a cohesive story showing not only who God is and what He is like, but also how He works through history to draw a people to Himself. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross should enlarge your heart to love God more abundantly according to His standard of love and not what we as humans think love should be. Sacrifice is part of God's plan throughout history, and we should humbly worship in response.

_DZ