"In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity" -Peter Meiderlin (1600s), a Lutheran pastor.
The above quote always appeared on the bulletin of the church I attended during my college years, and I've often appreciated it. I was reminded of the quote today listening to a conversation at work. On the surface, like the discussion I heard, the quote sounds very agreeable, yet it also can be so trite and noncommittal.
Don't hear me wrongly, I still do like the quote, and I think it can remind me of some important principles. But, I'm afraid that a main reason I like the quote is that I so often settle for the non-confrontational approach--the easy way and the surface agreement. It's a great quote if agreeing on the essentials was easy, but, of course, that's the most difficult part. And, stretching the quote and the analogy a bit, as I enjoy friendships with others, will I be happy to simply quote the easy lines for surface agreement and shallow friendship, or will I challenge myself, and them, to wrestle with those essentials.
(I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I've been thinking about this all day and finally decided I just had to write it out.)
Monday, September 24, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Art, pleasure, and purpose
There was a small news story last week highlighting that the coming fall TV schedule will contain more sexuality explicit scenes than in past seasons, and that in fact (no big surprise), TV shows and culture in general is significantly more explicit than it was 15 years ago. According to the story,
“This escalating emphasis on explicit scenes as well as themes is the result of seismic changes already rocking Hollywood and the larger society…the competition for market share in a spiraling world of entertainment choices, the mainstreaming of pornography, and the explosive growth of an unregulated Internet.”
Then, again later this week, as I’ve been mulling all this over, I saw another article similarly themed…
"I do think that general attitudes about nudity are becoming more relaxed, but these changes take time, which is why there's still mixed responses," said Paul Levinson, communication and media professor at Fordham University. “We as a society are finally growing up and it's a healthy thing," he said.
REALLY??
The stories bothered me because I was left wondering, where will this stop?” And, WILL it stop, or will TV and our culture simply become more and more explicit? As a man and as a father of children who are growing up in this world, I’m concerned. I feel strongly that this sex-hyped culture (it’s a worldwide-culture as far as I can tell) in which we live is wrong, yet I’m so often at a loss for how to put words to this.
There is a small book by Ravi Zacharias that I picked up several years ago, part of his “Great Conversations” series, that speaks to these issues of sensuality in culture. The book, titled, “Sense and Sensuality” is a (fictitious, need I say?) dialogue between Oscar Wilde, Jesus, and Blaise Pascal on the topic of art and the singular pursuit of pleasure.
As I re-read the short book, several quotations stood out clearly to me:
“Nothing profane can ever be beautiful”
“Beauty at its best is Holy”
“In seeking pleasure, you pursued the body and lost the person. You sought the sensation and sacrificed the individual. In pursuing the sacred, you exalt the person and the sensation will follow. In pursuing sensuality, you exalt the body and profane the person…
…living becomes senseless.”
“This escalating emphasis on explicit scenes as well as themes is the result of seismic changes already rocking Hollywood and the larger society…the competition for market share in a spiraling world of entertainment choices, the mainstreaming of pornography, and the explosive growth of an unregulated Internet.”
Then, again later this week, as I’ve been mulling all this over, I saw another article similarly themed…
"I do think that general attitudes about nudity are becoming more relaxed, but these changes take time, which is why there's still mixed responses," said Paul Levinson, communication and media professor at Fordham University. “We as a society are finally growing up and it's a healthy thing," he said.
REALLY??
The stories bothered me because I was left wondering, where will this stop?” And, WILL it stop, or will TV and our culture simply become more and more explicit? As a man and as a father of children who are growing up in this world, I’m concerned. I feel strongly that this sex-hyped culture (it’s a worldwide-culture as far as I can tell) in which we live is wrong, yet I’m so often at a loss for how to put words to this.
There is a small book by Ravi Zacharias that I picked up several years ago, part of his “Great Conversations” series, that speaks to these issues of sensuality in culture. The book, titled, “Sense and Sensuality” is a (fictitious, need I say?) dialogue between Oscar Wilde, Jesus, and Blaise Pascal on the topic of art and the singular pursuit of pleasure.
As I re-read the short book, several quotations stood out clearly to me:
“Nothing profane can ever be beautiful”
“Beauty at its best is Holy”
“In seeking pleasure, you pursued the body and lost the person. You sought the sensation and sacrificed the individual. In pursuing the sacred, you exalt the person and the sensation will follow. In pursuing sensuality, you exalt the body and profane the person…
…living becomes senseless.”
Sunday, September 9, 2007
A rich perspective....
This is a cross-post from the other blog that I keep (http://publichealth-faith.blogspot.com/). My apologies to those of you who read both, but since most do not and since this is relevant to this blog, I thought I'd paste this particular post here also. The post flows out of thoughts I have had that come from a recent series of messages I have heard at the church we attend....
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-Do you earn more than US$30 per month? In 2004, almost 1 billion people in the world lived below the international poverty line, earning less than US$1 per day ($365 per year). 19% of the people living in the world’s developing nations (Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe) were living on 1$ per day or less.
-Approximately 85% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (some of the most populous places on the globe) earn less than US$32,000 per year. 90% earn less that US$42,000 per year. ($32,000 and $42,000 are the median income of women and men, respectively, in the US).
-Do you have health insurance? In 2004, the vast majority, 80%, of people living in developing countries had to pay for health care out of their own pocket.-Do you have regular access to safe water? In 2006, 1 billion people did not have access to safe water.
-Do you regularly use the Internet? In 2005, 9% of people in developing countries had access to the Internet—15% of people in the world (all countries) had access.
-Do you have 2 days off of work each week?
-Do you get paid, at times, for doing nothing? (paid holidays, vacation time, sick leave)
-Do you spray drinking water on your lawn?
Many of us do not feel rich, but we are indeed rich in comparison to many/most people in the world. As I have been recently challenged by messages in the church I attend, if we are rich (and if you are reading this, you probably are), we need to be rich. To be rich toward others and to be rich in doing good.
And then this final verse (from 1 Tim. 6), ...."in this way (that is, by doing, by being rich in good deeds, by being generous)....they may take hold of the life that is truly life."
(The data above come from the United Nations' recent global health report entitled, "The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007." It's a worthwhile read and is essentially a report card on how the United Nations, and their partners, are doing at improving the health and well-being of people globally.)
---------------------
-Do you earn more than US$30 per month? In 2004, almost 1 billion people in the world lived below the international poverty line, earning less than US$1 per day ($365 per year). 19% of the people living in the world’s developing nations (Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe) were living on 1$ per day or less.
-Approximately 85% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (some of the most populous places on the globe) earn less than US$32,000 per year. 90% earn less that US$42,000 per year. ($32,000 and $42,000 are the median income of women and men, respectively, in the US).
-Do you have health insurance? In 2004, the vast majority, 80%, of people living in developing countries had to pay for health care out of their own pocket.-Do you have regular access to safe water? In 2006, 1 billion people did not have access to safe water.
-Do you regularly use the Internet? In 2005, 9% of people in developing countries had access to the Internet—15% of people in the world (all countries) had access.
-Do you have 2 days off of work each week?
-Do you get paid, at times, for doing nothing? (paid holidays, vacation time, sick leave)
-Do you spray drinking water on your lawn?
Many of us do not feel rich, but we are indeed rich in comparison to many/most people in the world. As I have been recently challenged by messages in the church I attend, if we are rich (and if you are reading this, you probably are), we need to be rich. To be rich toward others and to be rich in doing good.
And then this final verse (from 1 Tim. 6), ...."in this way (that is, by doing, by being rich in good deeds, by being generous)....they may take hold of the life that is truly life."
(The data above come from the United Nations' recent global health report entitled, "The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007." It's a worthwhile read and is essentially a report card on how the United Nations, and their partners, are doing at improving the health and well-being of people globally.)
Friday, August 31, 2007
Missions, cultural influence, and the Bible
The latest edition of Scientific American Mind describes new research that points out the powerful and frequently hidden influence that culture has on the way our brains perceive the world around us. The study of culture and cross-cultural communication/interaction, especially as it relates to missions, is a topic I have long been interested in.
Certainly it's nothing new to learn that culture impacts the way we interact with the people around us, but I have been thinking more on this topic lately with a new book that I recently finished, recommended to me, titled "Postmission." The book is a collection of essays written by Gen-Xers who are leaders in various mission organizations. And, through their essays, the book attempts to provide a vision or perspective of what missions could look like in a postmodern world.
It's the central premise of the book that I find so interesting, and compelling at times, even if I'm not sold completely on their perspective. But, the central premise of the book is that missions today has been heavily influenced by Modernism and that many of the "classic" values (even central tenets) of missions today are more cultural than Biblical. This certainly is not the first book on the subject, but it's the first that I have read specifically authored by Xers, and it's the first I have read to cast such a wide culturally-influenced net over missions. (Not a great sentence, but hoping you understand it). The book also spends many pages describing the differences between Gen-Xers, Boomers, etc, and how the two can learn to work better with each other, specifically in the context of missions--there are some helpful and very practical examples.
Overall, the book is a useful read, although my one negative critique of it is that the authors tend to focus heavily on the positive aspects that Postmodernism can lend to missions and conversely, a negative outlook on what Modernism has done for missions. They do not provide much of a balanced and thoughtful response on the strengths and weaknesses of the two and their contributions and limitations to missions-thinking.
Nonetheless, asking how Modernism has affected missions is a valid and intriguing question. A few observations made by the authors (actually, points they take from other missiologists, but find compelling to what they are also arguing):
"Reason supplanted faith as a beginning point for Christians and for missionaries."
"Christians came to believe that all problems were solvable, pushing God to the margin."
Certainly it's nothing new to learn that culture impacts the way we interact with the people around us, but I have been thinking more on this topic lately with a new book that I recently finished, recommended to me, titled "Postmission." The book is a collection of essays written by Gen-Xers who are leaders in various mission organizations. And, through their essays, the book attempts to provide a vision or perspective of what missions could look like in a postmodern world.
It's the central premise of the book that I find so interesting, and compelling at times, even if I'm not sold completely on their perspective. But, the central premise of the book is that missions today has been heavily influenced by Modernism and that many of the "classic" values (even central tenets) of missions today are more cultural than Biblical. This certainly is not the first book on the subject, but it's the first that I have read specifically authored by Xers, and it's the first I have read to cast such a wide culturally-influenced net over missions. (Not a great sentence, but hoping you understand it). The book also spends many pages describing the differences between Gen-Xers, Boomers, etc, and how the two can learn to work better with each other, specifically in the context of missions--there are some helpful and very practical examples.
Overall, the book is a useful read, although my one negative critique of it is that the authors tend to focus heavily on the positive aspects that Postmodernism can lend to missions and conversely, a negative outlook on what Modernism has done for missions. They do not provide much of a balanced and thoughtful response on the strengths and weaknesses of the two and their contributions and limitations to missions-thinking.
Nonetheless, asking how Modernism has affected missions is a valid and intriguing question. A few observations made by the authors (actually, points they take from other missiologists, but find compelling to what they are also arguing):
"Reason supplanted faith as a beginning point for Christians and for missionaries."
"Christians came to believe that all problems were solvable, pushing God to the margin."
"Missionary outlook and practice has become infused with rationalism--pragmatic thinking...and reasoning through which methods and techniques have come to drive mission theology and strategy."
"The church and mission became captive to the philosophy of progress--to the idea of the imminent global triumph of Christianity."
Most people would agree that our own culture affects the way we interact with others, but that fact takes on a whole new, deeper, and personal meaning when I begin to more closely examine how what I think and how I think has been affected by Modernism and by the culture in which I live. The book even describes that how I understand and interpret the Bible is affected by my culture (read "Honor and Shame" by Roland Muller for an excellent and more academic treatment of that subject--a book I highly recommend), which I, in the past several years, have only begun to consider.
I'm not sure the best way to end this. I suppose I simply wanted to write these thoughts down because, as one who has been and remains personally involved in missions work, they are things that intrigue and challenge me. The more I consider it, the more I realize how my cultures (the secular American culture and the Christian culture) affect, even in nearly imperceptible ways, how I view and think about the world around me. Yet, those nearly invisible influences can have a profound affect on my own faith, on my ability to connect with others, and on the lives and faith of those I meet.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Getting lost and then....well....
huhh????We passed this church cemetery as we were lost one recent weekend looking for a library in our new town and we did a double-take. Seems like a fairly stern warning....
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Is Diversity Worth It?
In case you have not yet heard the latest about Harvard professor and noted political scientist Robert Putnam, his newest research on diversity is not optimistic. I have not actually read the study, but here is how the Wall Street Journal reports it today....
----------
"Now comes word that diversity as an ideology may be dead, or not worth saving. Robert Putnam, the Harvard don who in the controversial bestseller "Bowling Alone" announced the decline of communal-mindedness amid the rise of home-alone couch potatoes, has completed a mammoth study of the effects of ethnic diversity on communities. His researchers did 30,000 interviews in 41 U.S. communities. Short version: People in ethnically diverse settings don't want to have much of anything to do with each other. "Social capital" erodes. Diversity has a downside.
Prof. Putnam isn't exactly hiding these volatile conclusions, though he did introduce them in a journal called Scandinavian Political Studies. A great believer in the efficacy of what social scientists call "reciprocity," he wasn't happy with what he found but didn't mince words describing the results:
"Inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television." The diversity nightmare gets worse: They have little confidence in the "local news media." This after all we've done for them.
Colleagues and diversity advocates, disturbed at what was emerging from the study, suggested alternative explanations. Prof. Putnam and his team re-ran the data every which way from Sunday and the result was always the same: Diverse communities may be yeasty and even creative, but trust, altruism and community cooperation fall. He calls it "hunkering down."
----------
(that was only a short excerpt, but you can see a similar story here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c4ac4a74-570f-11db-9110-0000779e2340.html (as of 8/16/07)
The finding are really not all that surprising--human nature is to want to be with those who are similar to us. We want to stay in our comfort zones. Getting to know the person down the street who looks different or talks different or lives differently is not easy, is not comfortable, and is sometimes not even very popular. But God knows (I don't mean that lightly) that sometimes we are not our very best until we live differently, until we go against the flow, until we do what feels at first strange.
Perhaps it is up to us, those with a Biblical faith, to show the world that diversity in community is possible, is needed, and is even essential. It's clear that it won't be easy, but ease is not what we are called to.
----------
"Now comes word that diversity as an ideology may be dead, or not worth saving. Robert Putnam, the Harvard don who in the controversial bestseller "Bowling Alone" announced the decline of communal-mindedness amid the rise of home-alone couch potatoes, has completed a mammoth study of the effects of ethnic diversity on communities. His researchers did 30,000 interviews in 41 U.S. communities. Short version: People in ethnically diverse settings don't want to have much of anything to do with each other. "Social capital" erodes. Diversity has a downside.
Prof. Putnam isn't exactly hiding these volatile conclusions, though he did introduce them in a journal called Scandinavian Political Studies. A great believer in the efficacy of what social scientists call "reciprocity," he wasn't happy with what he found but didn't mince words describing the results:
"Inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television." The diversity nightmare gets worse: They have little confidence in the "local news media." This after all we've done for them.
Colleagues and diversity advocates, disturbed at what was emerging from the study, suggested alternative explanations. Prof. Putnam and his team re-ran the data every which way from Sunday and the result was always the same: Diverse communities may be yeasty and even creative, but trust, altruism and community cooperation fall. He calls it "hunkering down."
----------
(that was only a short excerpt, but you can see a similar story here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c4ac4a74-570f-11db-9110-0000779e2340.html (as of 8/16/07)
The finding are really not all that surprising--human nature is to want to be with those who are similar to us. We want to stay in our comfort zones. Getting to know the person down the street who looks different or talks different or lives differently is not easy, is not comfortable, and is sometimes not even very popular. But God knows (I don't mean that lightly) that sometimes we are not our very best until we live differently, until we go against the flow, until we do what feels at first strange.
Perhaps it is up to us, those with a Biblical faith, to show the world that diversity in community is possible, is needed, and is even essential. It's clear that it won't be easy, but ease is not what we are called to.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Many months, many changes....
I have decided to pick this up again after 7 months....2,600 miles, new state, new culture, new job, new church, new climate....
There have been a lot of changes in my family's life since I last wrote, but we are doing well. We are learning to make the South our home. We sure miss the Northwest and our friends and church there, but God has shown us, on more than one occasion, that this has been the right move for us.
One of the tougher aspects of the move has been getting to know people...
If you have ever walking into a church and walked back out (for 5 weeks) without having one person say something other that a quick "hello" to you, I understand how you feel. We think we may have found a church, and after 5 weeks there is a lot we like. But, it bothers me that, after 5 weeks, we still have not had anyone ask if we are new or strike up a conversation. We've been thinking we may just need to be the initiators. But, something about that bothers me. It bothers me that there may have been people sitting just behind or to my side in my previous church that I did not take the time to stop and take an interest in. Whether it's right or not, having friends at church and feeling like people there care about me/my family is important. We hope to meet someone at this church soon. And, I hope to not ever forget these first few weeks, and to make sure I take a personal interest in the "strangers" I see around me at church in the future.
There have been a lot of changes in my family's life since I last wrote, but we are doing well. We are learning to make the South our home. We sure miss the Northwest and our friends and church there, but God has shown us, on more than one occasion, that this has been the right move for us.
One of the tougher aspects of the move has been getting to know people...
If you have ever walking into a church and walked back out (for 5 weeks) without having one person say something other that a quick "hello" to you, I understand how you feel. We think we may have found a church, and after 5 weeks there is a lot we like. But, it bothers me that, after 5 weeks, we still have not had anyone ask if we are new or strike up a conversation. We've been thinking we may just need to be the initiators. But, something about that bothers me. It bothers me that there may have been people sitting just behind or to my side in my previous church that I did not take the time to stop and take an interest in. Whether it's right or not, having friends at church and feeling like people there care about me/my family is important. We hope to meet someone at this church soon. And, I hope to not ever forget these first few weeks, and to make sure I take a personal interest in the "strangers" I see around me at church in the future.
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