A theater in west end of London staging the musical “An American in Paris”. But on a Sunday it is used by a church known for their professional staging of services. In the heart of secular post-Christian London with security checks and bag searches on entry. The whole scene is filled with the juxtaposition of differences. I was in a meeting, part of a panel evaluating the work of some scientists. The sessions were somewhat adversarial. The scientists were, not surprisingly, sensitive of critique; the panel wanted to do their job but not offend. For myself it was a case of how to empathize with the scientists to understand how they received my comments and critique. I tried to stand in their shoes.
Jesus had a shoe fetish - he understood what the world looked like from other people's shoes. Many Christians do not love different shoes. To stand in another’s shoes you need to be willing to entertain a perspective alien to your own. That does not mean agreeing with it, but to take the risk of understanding what your faith looks like from a different viewpoint. The church needs a shoe fetish, most especially the chair-sitting general members. Without this, the church will become increasingly isolated in this relativist post-Chrsitian society. Without a shoe fetish, Christians cannot effectively engage with those outside the church If you resist doing this, you risk becoming a bigot. Think about what this means. It is not simply knowing the position statements of another, it is to try and really understand what the world looks like if you were to hold the position of another. That is hard. It takes practice. It requires a strength beyond simple reasoning. It requires empathy. This is dangerous to do, because if you are already uncomfortable in your own shoes you might find the shoes of another extremely comfortable. You might be tempted to give up your own Christian shoes. Try the shoe fetish challenge: you, a Sunday-attending Christian are sitting at a dinner table with the following three people. Engage them in a conversation that is effective at moving them to a place where they may be willing to consider Jesus as something they need to think about. Case #1
Try a role play in your imagination. I suggest many Christians would have one of two reactions to the dinner discourse. They may bury any conversation on religion and steer the discussion back to safe spaces. Alternatively, they will become defensive and reduce their contribution to hard-line binary statements, and as a result communicate an attitude of judgment. There are three issues I see about standing in another’s shoes. 1. Motivation What is the motivation for the average Christian to try and stand in another’s shoes? For many I suggest there is little motivation. It is threatening, difficult, and unsettling to look critically at one’s own faith from the position of someone who denies your faith – especially if your personal faith is not strong. However, if one desires to effectively communicate then one needs to develop a relationship with a different pair of shoes. That requires taking a risk, for how can I have a relationship that’s real if I am not willing to try see things from their point of view? I need to understand what my faith looks like to someone who rejects it, and who believe they are right. This goes into emotions beyond reason. The motivation we're needing is a genuine desire to bring something true and relevant into the other persons context. 2. Skills and competency The church does little to help their members understand how to lovingly engage in a non-condemnatory way. Jesus was a master at getting into a situation and steering it to a point where he could say something like “Neither do I condemn you, now go and sin no more”. The skills to stand in another’s shoes requires, of course, conversational ability, but beyond that it requires empathy, discernment, compassion, a listening ear, a commitment to wrestle with ideas, a willingness to examine one’s own conditioning, a slowness to jump to conclusions, and a patience to hear someone out. At the heart of furthering a discourse is the ability to pose questions (look at Jesus with the prostitute, the woman at the well, the rich young ruler). If you are unable to construct a probing question to unpack a conversation, you end up either making unsubstantiated statements that polarize, or staying so passive that the other person’s position dominates. Posing questions is a skill that dynamically adapts to an evolving conversation. One can have a library of useful questions, but in the dynamics of a situation these have to be shaped to the context. For example, faced with a statement “sex is simply pleasure”, one might open with a response such as “Hmm, what consequences do you think flow from that?” I think many church goers might instead respond with something like “Sex outside marriage is sin”, by which you have just passed judgment and condemned the other person, and so built a barrier to further conversation. 3. Theology. This is one of those words that scare many Christians, but one way to take it is “know what you believe and why, and what that belief means in the context of real world issues”. Paul says he would become whatever he needed to become in order to reach others for Christ. He was not saying his belief and faith was relative and malleable. Rather, that he would do whatever he needed to do in order to stand in the shoes of another so that he could relate with them. Paul’s willingness and desire reflect the prior two points; he had deep motivation for standing in the shoes of another, and he had the strength and ability to do so without danger to his own faith. I don’t know when I last heard a church teaching on how to do that, or how to become that. There’s so much more to consider, but think about this. Who did Jesus revile and condemn? Those who used God’s name for their own ulterior purposes. Think of the traders in the temple, and the pharisees who saw others as lesser beings. For everyone else he was driven by compassion; he did not condemn but pointed the way forward in their unique context. He did so starting from the place where they were standing. He stood in their shoes. Jesus has a shoe fetish. So did Paul. So did Peter. So do ... I?
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You have two ears and one voice, because you should listen twice as much as you speak - or so the saying goes. Right? I disagree; this seems to be one of those sayings that parents use to manipulate children - on one level communicating something simplistically sensible, but in doing so stripping away all other meanings.
We have two ears because we live in a cloud of voices, and we need two ears to discern direction and source in the confusing clash of sounds that clamor for our attention. We have one mouth so that we present a single voice back to others, enabling them to identify us as the speaker. Imagine being in a cocktail party with one ear and two mouths. We would have no means to identify who was making which voice, and as we speak in stereo we would merely add to the babble and confuse others. Metaphorically, its the same for all of our life. We live in a communication-enabled world with "voices" from all directions. We speak into this clamor with a singular plaintive voice. If we cannot identify source and direction, how could we ever build relationship. Speaking and listening are about as basic one can get to the elements of existing. We are relational to our core; to suppress either listening or speaking is to commit violence. We need to be able to express our inner selves. We need someone to listen ... actively. Loneliness, possibly the biggest illness in the world today, is a disease of silence. The voice of any individual is a distillation of a deep and multi-layered complexity that lies within. With practice I can listen someone's voice tell a story, and see the multi-hued meanings layered in the simplicity of the words; all those unspoken messages that the speaker implies, or is too fearful to actually voice. It takes trust to voice something. It takes trust to listen to someone voice an inner thought. For both individuals are changed by the expression and the listening. This has two implications for how we live our lives. First, no single voice can speak everything. No one ear can listen to all that is being said. This means that we must build a varied set of relationships in which we speak and listen. A spouse is closest to being a complete partner in this, but hard as it may be to say it, a spouse is not enough, for each individual is finite. And as each speaker-listener relationship is built on trust, so we must encourage and enable those closest to us to build relationships of trust. If we do not, we are not a friend. Second is the fact that our speaking and listening is where we grow in understanding, where we build the skills to think, consider, and expand our awareness and perceptions. More often than not this interaction takes places through stories. Not simple stories as many might shallowly think of as a light novel or anecdote, but stories of rich texture that are rooted in our nature and experience. They don't even always have to be true, they could simply be stories that exist in our mind yet are as real an expression of the person inside as any actual account of events. Much of Jesus' speaking comprised made up stories ... parables ... but they were as real an expression of who he was at his core as any actual event. Some listeners may even have thought the parables to be true. These captured an essence of wisdom that needed to be spoken whether the listener understood them to be real events or not, because at their root they encapsulated the nature of an individuals body, mind and soul, delivered in truth. My mind thinks of two things as I dwell on this idea. First is that the Bible tells stories, it speaks with one voice. Of course the stories have strands and threads that weave to make a tapestry, a picture of horrors and delights, promises and pain, beginnings and ends. But it is a singular story woven out of the strands of time. Like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it holds a depth and breadth that discloses new mysteries on every reading - but much bigger and better. Second the Bible listens. Odd, isn't that? But think about what listening means; . Listening is not simply detecting sounds, but filtering these sounds into cascades of meaning that drip like paint onto a canvas, and create an image of a story which stands alongside the experiences of the listener. In this way the congruences and contrasts stand out starkly and invite comment; further comment by the speaker, or response from the listener. The Bible is masterful at providing that counter story to compare our own against, it is a good listener if we have the courage to speak in it's presence, its responses are as sharp as flint yet comforting as a warm blanket on a cold night. Our stories are not comic books; our stories are a manifestation of an inner reality. Without active listeners, the stories dissipate into a vacuum, slowly emptying the soul of the speaker. There is no discussion, no testing of ideas, no refining of gold. An active listener receives, filters, and gives back the counterpart to fill the voids of confusion and mis-understanding. Stories told in relationship are the relationship being worked out in the stories; all as real as the inner nature we each carry. These are the vehicles for transporting the wisdom of experience, providing checks and balances to ground those free floating ideas we put up like balloons. It does not require clever language, complicated words, or higher education. As Richard Feynman noted it is about knowing something versus only knowing the name of something. As in a city, we know our lives through the trust-relationships that enable a community, where we ferry our goods and services from one to another. Like a city, this is best built on a bedrock of truth and trust.
I have taken to keeping my tablet with me (it has a really great stylus with natural writing capability) so that I can write to myself when I start getting bored. It happened again this morning - for much the same reasons as I last wrote about - so it was useful. My mind ambushed me by linking seemingly unconnected events: an overheard conversation (he said "I want to hold your hand"); how Salieri describes Mozart's uses of singular instruments to bring out an ethereal beauty (in the video above); listening to the genius of Mark Knopfler communicate a rich spectrum of emotions through the marriage of musical and lyrical phrases (try the videos below). These were suddenly transformed into metaphors for my weeks experience: a series of surprise turning points catalyzed by single words, images, or actions that caused new meaning to leap from the backdrop of daily noise.
I have been struck by how a singular addition can turn the mundane into something startling. Achieving this requires that three things come together. First, knowing the right piece to add; be it a word, a gesture or look, a brush stroke on the canvas of a situation, or a tone that elevates noise into music. Second is finding the right place to insert this into the landscape; not adding a Lego block to a jigsaw puzzle, or paint to music, but finding the right context. For a word in the wrong conversation is simply another raindrop among many that leaves everyone feeling damp. Third is timing; play a note at the wrong time and at best it will be unheard, at worst we create discord. Some people think words communicate, and that more words communicate more. Perhaps that's why we talk a lot, as if adding more words somehow adds more meaning. There are many forms of communication where this happens, yet most often what creates real impact is the transient insertion, and if we don't pay attention we might miss it altogether. Its a little bit like a painter laying down a wash colour on the canvas with the general features using broad brush strokes to create the colour tones. Then with a few bold, fine strokes a key feature is detailed ... a few discrete lines added against the wash of the backdrop and suddenly the picture's meaning is given visibility, communication has happened. Or in music. This morning I listened to a 7 piece band. They were competent, although some might say the drummer had a heavy foot and was far too wedded to his cymbals. The two rhythm guitarists laid down a rhythm that was, well, solidly rhythmic. The bass guitar had insight on the value of spaces in music. But overall it was somewhat of a wash of sound. Then, during a song sung in Xhosa, out of the blue the keyboardist played this startling, stand out, jazz-like piano line with his right hand and layered it beautifully on top of the song. Suddenly I felt the music had communicated. There is always the backdrop; the familiar, slowly changing broad-brushed themes that set out a landscape which all too quickly becomes easy to ignore. It is then the responsibility of the communicator to write the particulars of their message onto this landscape. It needs only a word, one painted line, or a musical phrase that stands out from the noise, and the task is successful. Many seem to communicate only on the level of the background wash while hiding in the aggregate of the masses because they are either too fearful, too ignorant, too unthinking, or too uncaring to create that one brush stroke, introduce the brief jazz phrase, or bring that singular addition that makes meaning of the wash of the generic and repetitive. To add the distinctive which brings meaning is not achieved through quantity, it is not even merely about quality. To add the distinctive requires us to see where an addition can shape new meaning out of a backdrop of the familiar. It saddens me that so much of what is called communication is merely another layer of wash on top of all we've already had: in todays world the masters of the distinctive are being drowned in the expanding noise of the mundane. Some may say it is my responsibility to change my attitude so that I can find a nugget of meaning in the generic wash of repeats. And so it is, and so I do; in my mind I can and do take the backdrop and add for myself new strokes of distinctiveness. But what about those who have taken on the mantle of communicators, yet spend their efforts (re)describing the backdrop? To the leaders of the church I would ask: "How are you taking people out of the landscape and teaching them to stand as pinpoints of bright distinctiveness, individuals who have a strength and depth of understanding to add that singular piece of meaning which helps us all take the next step?" The first time the word "church" is used is when Jesus said, "... I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out."[MSG] Sunday morning in church I sometimes get bored. Recently, more often than not.
Oh, there are bright points, but also moments of being bored. How ever did I get into this position? I've been a Christian for a long time, and my assurance grows every year that this is the Truth - this is not a question of doubt, yet on occasions I'm finding church boring. The church I attend is vibrant, full of young people, a diverse racial demographic, competent music, orthodox (if overly verbose) teaching, proactively engaged in the community through health and legal clinics, tackling the pains caused by gentrification, and so much more. What else could one possibly expect from a community of Christians? So why do I get bored? I know many will say "Examine yourself, for how could the topic of an infinite God engaged with a fragile human ever be boring?" Good question, but its not boredom with God. Of course my moments of boredom is my responsibility. Point taken, critique accepted. Maybe I should be more engaged, and with enough will and effort I can escape the moments. However, personal responsibilities do not negate the value of examining factors that are independent of my internal inadequacies. There is much to be learned about how to address personal responsibilities by exploring the external context. What really strikes me as a key trigger is this: when I'm bored by church it is often because the voice of the church never advances beyond the simplistic. Bear with me as I try and explain that. I am occasionally reminded of CS Lewis' comment about church songs, which he "... considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music." However, over time he came to see the conceit of that view and realized that "... as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit." Of course this didn't change the fact that it was still "fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music" ... it was more a realization that this didn't really matter, and one is humbled from one's arrogance. OK, so there's a lesson to be internalized. However, I think there is another side to the issue; its about the boredom of never progressing beyond the obvious. Imagine a marriage where the relationship forever stayed at the stage of superficial chit-chat on a first date. While in a zone of security there is no risk, but there's no growth either. God is not just a known quantity to be boxed, he's an infinity of dangerous depth. Here's an idea I've been playing with, a metaphor if you like: Really simple things are only seemingly simple, and the more simple they seem the less likely they are to be merely simple. Like gravity: really simple things are often the most difficult things to understand. Not far from where I live there are a group of massive granite boulders on the shore. I first encountered these as a young teenager and was quickly enchanted; they were the size of houses, butting against each other, shaping a weird landscape, and I was amazed. But quickly, with visit after visit, they became simply big boulders, and as I grew older I would find myself instead exploring the surrounding landscape (which included a nudist beach ... strong competition for just big boulders!) One day a friend taught me that if I searched hard enough, I could find the occasional garnet in the boulders - a gemstone. And so my fascination was renewed and before long I was examining each boulder wherever I could reach. In time the garnets lost their shine. Then, when I was studying I did a geology course and discovered details about the composition of granite, about the feldspar, biotite, muscovite, and once again my attention refocused on the boulders. But that too became familiar ... once you've identified feldspar, then its, well, just more feldspar. Until I was reminded about the tectonic history of the boulders, and how they were once magma that forced itself through the earths crust with tremendous heat and pressure, creating strange zones of interaction with the pre-existing rock, distorting and shaping all that it touched. And again I saw the boulders anew; the same old big round simple rock, but now with much deeper understanding. Its an obvious metaphor, but each renewal of fascination was not merely through acquiring facts, but by how a new understanding shaped a poetry of image and meaning that ignited my intellect, emotion, and imagination. Simple things have deep poetry waiting to be discovered. Of course church is not this metaphorical boulder, church is merely a place where together we explore the boulder, sharing the poetry of the boulder. So when I'm bored by church, what's missing? It's the "poetry of boulders". What I seem to hear in many churches is language like "look at the big boulders, isn't it a nice boulder, look how large it is, isn't the boulder grand". Now of course there's strong value in repeating the obvious, because we can be quick to forget. But again and again the music goes thump thump with regular monotony, the cymbals crash with each and every beat, the guitar strums a three chord rhythm, the piano plays 10 fingers all the time, the backing harmonies are more than backing, the lyrics repeat "I love how big this boulder is, this boulder is so big", and the sermon follows in the same vein with an intellectual level that target those already entering through the doors. I'm sorry, but that can get boring: "God is a creative God, and he created us to be creative" So what do I mean when I say we're missing the poetry of meeting together? I mean that we're falling short in the creativity of our gatherings because we expend most of our efforts on serving the spiritually young. As a result our creativity is contained, and our equipping for engagement with complex contexts outside the church is undermined. The poetry of a moment, be it perceived by any of our five senses, reveals a music inside the simple, condenses the verbose to the essence, stir the emotions, engages the intellect, and enables our intuition to leap to deeper meaning. A boulder is poetic when, with our senses attuned and our intellect trained, we see new depths to simplicity and stand amazed. The embedded garnets sparkle, the rock crystals create a visual feast and excite the touch, and the story of power and influence on the environment is apparent. That which was once simply seen as a large mass now evokes a richness of detail and depth that gives meaning beyond being. And such is my frustration with Church. Yes, Christ is rightly conveyed, but day after day in the same way with little effort to explore the next depth of simplicity. I long to wrestle with what Jesus means in my context; to explore with others and understand how he intrudes into this relativistic society of fluid sexuality, into a me-driven culture of egotistical self-serving politics. Just as granite was once a hot magma forcing its way through the crust of the earth, changing the surrounding rock, metamorphosing new minerals, how does Jesus become the force in a conversation with a post-Christian vegan atheist, or with an angry agnostic, or redirect the mutiny of disillusioned Christians (to pick up only some of my experiences)? To live in this context requires us to experience the poetry of Christ that illuminates our life and stimulates our creative capacity. Yet too often the church refrain is only a nursery rhyme. There are many possible forms of expression that capture the poetry of Christ. When I read Chesterton, I see a music of the mind. When I listen to songs such as Saturn my eyes and ears light up with a yearning for the depth of God. Likewise there are churches that are the exception to the rule (which of course, only serves to highlight the fact that there is a "rule"). When I hear a sermon that has layers of meaning, each attuned to the many stages of maturity among the audience, I am moved and emboldened. These examples and so many more touch the depths of the simple. Please, lets find the poetry in our services once again. Let the drummer learn that the beat left out is the loudest of all, the guitarist that there is a slow development to a song so much slower than the beat, and the lyricist learn the power of language, that repetition is not the only way to impact, how simple words in creative combinations can reach into all generations. Let our preachers build skills of layered meaning, of metaphors and pictures to paint an image that may be grasped in an instant yet mulled over for a day. May our teachers gain understanding of basic pedagogy, that sometimes "less is more" so that those listening can internalize the seed for more desire. I will, of course, continue to engage. I will rejoice when someone sees the boulder for the first time, but I will lament if many years later those same people can only say like a child "its such a nice big boulder". Lets learn to be poets once again. Poets of prose, vision, music, motion, and action. I had two momentary relational fails this morning: one conversation got fouled in anger, the other in silent sulks. Not a great start to a Saturday - and of course as a participant I cannot claim innocence in either. However, I found it interesting to think about the relative (in)ability of people to discuss in different contexts (especially about events such as Trump, the Charlottesville riot, and remembering Marikana).
How we engage in discourse is rooted in our identity and our perceptions of the identity of others. This can often lead to fractious engagements when we make presuppositions, fail to recognize blind spots, are unwilling or unable to see how we may be misinterpreting others, or how we may be misconstrued by others. Fast conversation is seldom rational. Perhaps our biggest blind spot is our chronological arrogance that inhibits us realizing how much we are a product of our own culture, time and experience, and are culpable of unrecognized offenses. Anyone who says they're not vulnerable to this is delusional. For example: on the topic of removing the statues of those who are offensive to today's values, one person tweeted "Challenge: name five historical figures from mid 19th century or earlier who wouldn't be considered extremely racist by modern standards". The overt intent of the tweet is clear: that the figures of a past era were simply products of their culture - men of their time, with the subtext that we shouldn't condemn them for their racism. Well, of course we're all a product of our time, and that should be intrinsic to our hermeneutics. But that position is also a blind spot of gigantic proportions. As others said in responses to the tweet, "It genuinely doesn't occur to these guys that you could put up statues of black people", and "I also loathe the [argument for] 'men of their time.' My ancestors hated being enslaved at that time, just as any white person would have." [Going off topic for a moment: Personally, I think the core of the issue around statue removal is (a) how to convey the full character of those being represented by the statue so that we don't glorify the reprehensible, and (b) how to erect statues to remember the human excellence of those in the minority or who live hidden among the powerless. Hiding history is to fall into that terrible trap where those who forget history are doomed to repeat it; we need to communicate the nuance of history as best possible without the skewed epistemology of our own identity.] So back to identity, and of course labels. Labels refer to identity and denote a perceived value. Yet we are selfish creatures, and so the first reaction to a label is to evaluate it through our own epistemology and assess what value or threat it holds for us. Label a bottle of water as "poison" and we would choose to die of thirst. Give a thirsty man a bottle of poison that was labeled "spring water", and he would quickly die. Labels do not accurately convey value, and we fail to recognize that at our own peril. For example, you read the news and you see "Republican", "Liberal", "Progressive", "Right wing", "Evangelical", "White", "Black" - these are labels of connotation that generalize, and all generalizations are wrong (think about the paradox of that!). If labels are weak at conveying real identity, what makes up identity? Identity can either define your values, or your values can define an identity. The former results in values that are fluid and impermanent. For example, you may be attracted (for whatever reason) to a particular perspective and take on an identity using the commonly associated label. Maybe you think abortion is ok, same-sex marriage is good, and minority rights should be protected. Suddenly you're "a liberal" or some such term, and you are swept along, modified and captured by that movement. Likewise I suspect many get lost in the dark hole of the alt-right equivalents in much the same way. As I quoted in the prior blog post, discussion used to be "I think A, and here is my argument", but when identity is allowed to determine values it takes on the form of "Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B" - we allow the unexamined epistemology of our adopted identity to determine everything. This is the alt-right, and the cultural evangelical, the liberal and the patriot of whatever political persuasion, when they all accept that "the epistemology of my adopted identity causes me to be offended when you disagree". The alternative is to seek Truth before identity, because (as best you can understand) it is true, and to allow that to define your identity. You may end up being labeled by others as something which is an uncomfortable fit, but your identity is not being defined by the label. If anything, your value-defined identity has the power to change the meaning of the label. A closing thought on how this relates to Christianity; it is my sense that the majority of western Christians have allowed a "evangelical" identity of personal preference to define their values. It is only a minority that say "here is what I believe to be a true value system, and these are my reasons for believing it", and then allow that to define their identity (and this applies to Catholics, Jews, Moslems, atheists, Republicans, Democrats, liberals ...). When we allow reasoned and examined belief to define individual identity, we get our martyrs and unsung heroes. When we adopt an identity in order to give us our values, we end up with statues to the powerful. The epistemology of our identity will draw us toward one, and repel us from the other. The recent Charlottesville rally/riot shines a spotlight on nothing new. This is not to diminish in any way the deep tragedy it represents. Moreover, seen in the context of a nuclear tweeting Trump this event gives a new urgency for deeper discussion about the growth of tribalism in western nations - W.E.I.R.D. nations. WEIRD nations are the Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democracies (although possibly the depth of the education and the robustness of the democracy is somewhat open to debate). I'm no expert on tribalism; I'm sure there are many who are more qualified to unpack the issues. However, one aspect is clearly apparent: when a threat appears, and as fears grow, so people retreat to the safety of their tribe. Tribal behavior makes people defensive of personal preference, fosters prejudice, cultivates mob mentality, encourages group think, and suppresses debate while repressively acting against any dissenting voices. Such tribalism is rooted in fear. I grew up under apartheid and am acutely conscious of this human character (even under post-apartheid society this ever-potential tribalism continues to haunt the culture of South Africa). Professed liberalism flourishes in cultures of comfort but quickly vaporizes when the comfort zone is eroded. It takes a special foundation of morals, and a courage of compassion, to sustain a position of ethical equity while under personal pressure. It is perhaps no wonder that "real Christians" are so often at the forefront of protecting individual rights - and I'm not referring here to cultural-Christians who seem to comprise the bulk of WEIRD nation "evangelicals". (If you can get your hands on a copy, read "The Passing Summer - A South African's Response To White Fear, Black Anger, And The Politics Of Love " by Michael Cassidy). There is one redeeming fact about secular liberalism; is encourages self-critique and tolerance of diverging ideas (but it falls at the hurdle of absolutism). Christians who live out their faith (as opposed to "Christians" protecting their culture) are rooted in a compassion for others, and unlike any other religion also encourage self-examination and critique. The only real difference between a secular liberal and a faith-alive Christian is that the former holds to relativistic morals while the latter roots morals in the absolute values of love and justice in a relationship with God (one cannot divorce love from justice, they are the two sides of the same coin - this is another way secular liberals often fail in moral logic). If tribalism is an inherent trait of human nature, and if escaping it requires a courage of moral strength, then that route is through dealing with fear. From the mass movements of Nationalism down to the bilges of the alt-right and individual racism, it is fear that corrodes any residual compassion and leaves behind a bitter protectionism. Fear is a response to insecurity, and for the secularist insecurity reduces to being about the erosion of their material context. The challenge remains: am I living in submission to a fear that causes me to retreat into protectionism, or do I have foundations that compel a voice of compassion despite personal circumstances, and lead me to invest in the two-sided coin of love and justice? A personal silence on the "Charlottesvilles" of this age is a tacit consent for all such actions. If you're a church-goer, I wonder if your service this Sunday made reference to any of the recent "Charlottesvilles" that occurred around the world? We're losing our ability to debate tough issues. Mark Lilla notes in his book “The Once and Future Liberal” that “... classroom conversations that once might have begun, I think A, and here is my argument, now take the form, Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B. This makes perfect sense if you believe that identity determines everything [tribalism]. It means that there is no impartial space for dialogue. White men have one ‘epistemology,’ black women have another. So what remains to be said?” Sadly I suspect that secular liberal relativism is overall weak and divided, and that as it seeks to counter the anger of tribal tyranny from a fear-ridden alt-right, it will fail unless the moral absolutism of a living Christianity finds its voice in society. As I was once told: "find your confidence [identity] in Christ" (not in religion). [Afterthought: the evangelical vote for an unethical Trump, the Brexit panic, and all such laager-mentality actions, are similar reflections of tribalism rooted in a fear of losing identify.] |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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