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I was talking with a friend the other day about how, we tend to demonize people, and groups to position ourselves and reinforce what we believe, or want others to. We use straw men in arguments and polarisations and misrepresentations.
For example, if I am a Liberal Democrat I say ‘Tory’s are always….’ fill in the blanks. If I am a republican I talk about all democrats as ‘those liberals’. If I am into the emerging church I can talk about the ‘modern church is all…’, or ‘evangelicals are…’, whilst people critiquing the Emerging Church movement will say ‘Those people don’t believe in truth’. You fill in the blanks.
When people are imprisoned, they are often given numbers instead of names, as the beginning of the process to dehumanize them. And we engage in the same, when we talk about people and groups in these depersonalising ways. Once we talk about people as less than human, it’s easier to do and say things that are hurtful with no conscience. Just like in the TV series ‘The Prisoner’ people read/hear these demonisations and say ‘I am not a number’.
A phrase I heard that sums this process up is ‘comparing our best with their worst’. Why do we do it, and what it is in within us that needs to do it. And how many times have I done it? Sigh, God please forgive me.
So we take a stereotype of something at it’s worst and compare it with our best. We declare the modern church as bankrupt, and our church form we favor as the universal norm, we find the things about church we dislike and say everyone hates them, and in doing so resort to dehumanizing the groups we refer to. Then we take these ‘worst’ things and talk about the things that are our ‘best’.
Lets stop, and be more humble, and generous and subtly nuanced.
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Will Samson has a blog that I scan daily, and rely upon. Will is able to survey blogdom and he regularly gives a timely heads up and interpretation of so many things I don’t have time to scan.
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The BBC are running a video report online about the growth of USA mega churches, using Joel Olsteen.
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Churches based in enormous venues such as stadiums have become America’s latest religious phenomenon.
Congregations in the ‘mega-churches’ can number in the tens of thousands. David Willis reports from Texas.
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I just found this via Stephen Shields. This is a transcript of talk by N.T Wright, from Seattle Pacific University, May 2005. Also here as pdf.
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I have been learning to touch type, or rather unlearning and re-learning. I spend so long on a keyboard that I can touch already but with three fingers on each hand. Kind of like learning golf then being told your stroke needs to be unlearned to get better.
As Mavis Beacon takes me through the pain of this unlearning/re-learning, I realized today that I don’t just need to learn to touch type, but I need to learn to write. I was handwriting a card, and got cramp in my hand. The only time I write now is when I sign something. And now we have the chip and pin card security system for credit/debit cards, I am in danger of losing the ability, or opportunity to write at all, ever.
Also my handwriting has always been awful, and reminds me of something from a psycho CSI are trying to track down. I am the product of starting one school that taught joined up writing/italics and moving across town to another school that taught the opposite. Coupled with the psychological traumas of being a teenager, and the relief of getting onto computers to take me away from my horrible scrawl, the result is that I cannot write.
What are the consequences of bad handwriting? It has been deemed a breach of human rights for people not to be able to read handwriting when people write things about you. But the one that bothers me the most is that I love receiving hand written cards. When people take the time to make cards and hand write and say kind things, it is the most wonderful thing in the world for me.
And I can’t reciprocate. I try, but when I have finished I fear that when they see my card they will miss my kind words, wondering which kid/psycho scrawled on the card.
I think I need some lessons from Conrad Gempf, who can write in multiple, and beautiful fonts by hand.
So how is your handwriting, do you write, can you write, are things getting worse for you?
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I got to know Dwight Friesen, when he e-mailed me to tell me he was on the doctoral programme I was but a year ahead. I got to meet Dwight at Tim Keels place, which was wonderful. His writing has helped me tremendously and he has been so helpful being the guinea pig for the first year of the course I am on. Watching him graduate gave me encouragement to get up early and keep writing.He has a great blog, with regular thoughts and writings, and a superb disseration if you want to hassle him for a copy.
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Just launched, and late to the table when Skype has the voice over IP market, and there are other open IM clients out there. But this one is based on Jabber, with the goal of connecting everyone with everyone, one app to IM everyone, and using XML protocols google can squeeze more advertising revenues via IM, and your other information.However, no mac version as yet, and the abilities of Jabber have not been enabled in it yet, so you can’t yet use it to connect to everyone, despite their goals. For a review and analysis go to bbc.co.uk
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Faithworks Conference 2005
iChurch
Intelligent Church in the 21st Century4-6 November 2005, Eastbourne
with international speakers including
Dr Tony Campolo
Rev Steve Chalke MBE
Tim Costello
Rev Joel Edwards
Geraldine Latty
Jeff Lucas
Joy Madeiros
Ann Morisy
Rev Nims Obunge
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor
Philippa Stroud
Jim Wallis
and many others.
Continue reading »
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Whilst I have been in the USA, I have been enjoying buying Newsweek. A couple of days ago I got the latest issue, which is devoted to ‘Spirituality’ and what Americans believe. You can get some of the info here. Some great stats and analysis. One that shows the difference with the UK and Europe is of 159 million people apparently practicing Christians, with 63% connected to organised churches. Interesting in light of where George Barna sees things moving in the USA. Blogs discussing this here.
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Eric Keck is in my doctoral co-hort, and getting to know him and learn from him has been an amazing blessing. Check his blog out.How do I describe Eric? When he talks I feel like he’s like a red neck car building, beer drinking, cigar smoking yoda. He is full of wisdom, and humor, that are captivating. If you want to explore the emerging church context and what that means for hearing from God, Eric is a God send.
