This press release can be found at http://www.disciples.org/ccu/news/062805%20stone%20campbell.htm
Dallas -- More than 500 persons from a cappella Churches of Christ, theChristian Churches/Churches of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples ofChrist) joined in worship and communion in Dallas recently to open the 10thsession of the Stone-Campbell Dialogue team.
Representatives from each of the three streams of the Stone-Campbellmovement gathered at Skillman Church of Christ June 5-6 to explore the themeof "the way we interpret the Bible." Papers were presented by Dr. EugeneBoring, retired professor of New Testament at Brite Seminary in Ft. Worth,on behalf of the Disciples; Dr. Mark Hamilton, professor of Bible at AbileneChristian University, Abilene on behalf of the Churches of Christ and Dr.Tony Springer, professor of Church History at Dallas Christian College onbehalf of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ.
In their discussion, team members found a great deal of convergence andcommon understanding on scriptural interpretation. A small group will takeresults of this meeting to shape a draft statement for presentation nextyear toward acceptance as a "common statement on Scripture."
Dialogue team member Robert Welsh, president of the Disciples' Councilon Christian Unity, said, "I was encouraged a great deal by this 10thsession of our dialogue, both by the content of the discussion in facingwhat had been seen to be the fundamental issue separating us within theStone-Campbell family (the authority of Scripture) and by the wonderfulservice of worship that brought so many together on Sunday evening toworship and praise God, and to share in receiving the bread and cup of HolyCommunion as a sign of our oneness in Christ."
Peter Morgan, retired president of the Disciples of Christ HistoricalSociety, said, "We were able to have serious conversation withoutseparating. It was a hallelujah moment in my heart."
The team also spent important time on their idea for a 2009 "GreatCommunion Celebration" in partnership with the board of the Disciples ofChrist Historical Society. This event would mark the 200th anniversary ofthe publication of Thomas Campbell's Declaration and Address when it is hoped that thousands of Christians from across the three streams of the movement will join in celebration of the Lord¹s Supper in local communities all across North America.In preparation for the 2009 event, the Dialogue team will provide studymaterials for use in congregational settings. Disciples team member DianeSpleth, pastor of Franklin Central Christian Church, volunteered to combinedrafts of a Congregational Workbook into a document that could be tested ina few congregations before the Dialogue's next meeting.The Stone-Campbell Dialogue team will meet in Nashville on June 11-13,2006, to produce a common statement on interpretation and authority ofScripture, to finalize the Congregational Workbook and to generate ideas onhow to promote unity across the three streams of the Stone-Campbellmovement.The Dialogue is important to Disciples, Welsh said, "because it opensto us the possibility of healing the divisions within our own house, withinthe Stone-Campbell movement, as a part of our larger work and conversationsin our quest for Christian unity."
Members of the Dialogue team are:For Christian Churches/Churches of Christ: Paul Blowers, John Mills, James North,Robert Rea, Randy Snyder, Henry WebbFor the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ): Timothy James, William McDonald, Peter Morgan, Arnold Nelson, Diane Spleth, Robert Welsh, Newell WilliamsFor Churches of Christ: Douglas Foster, Carol Gafford, Gary Holloway,Gary Pearson, Charme Robarts, Jerry TaylorObservers: Victor Knowles (POEM Ministries and member of Reformation Forum) andJeff Weston (World Convention of Churches of Christ).
Friday, July 01, 2005
Friday, June 24, 2005
Ecumenism
I was asked to write a newsletter article on ecumenism for an online newsletter called The Centrist. As usual, I wrote a longer article than was requested. Here, so as not to feel that I wasted anything, is the longer article.
Kind of Ecumenical
On her way out of church, Ginger introduced me to a guest. Her guest was a younger lady—probably in her 40’s. Ginger is 82. Her friend was of a different ethnic background. “This is my friend,” she said, “She’s visiting with us today and next week I’ll be going to her church. Just to see how each other worship, you know. That’s kind of ecumenical, isn’t it?” The brief conversation took place in that hectic, right after worship shake people out the door time. I didn’t have time to respond. Yet these two women sharing in each other’s worship services—across generational, religious and cultural lines—epitomize the vision of ecumenism.
The words “ecumenism” and “ecumenical” derive from a Greek word oikoumenē which gets translated in the New Testament usually as “world” but has more the sense of all the people of the world (Arndt et al.). It also relates to a cluster of words connected to the management of a household. Ecumenism focuses our attention on the whole church’s stewardship of the whole human household.
To speak of the ecumenical movement is somewhat of a misnomer as we have inherited several ecumenical efforts. I define the ecumenical movement as the collective efforts of Christians to make visible in the world the unity Christians have in Christ. This definition has several parts. First, ecumenism is a Christian movement. Interfaith dialogue between Christians and non-Christians is vitally important (now more so than ever) but, the theological vocabulary and motivations of Christian ecumenism begin and end with Christ—his prayer that we be united (John 17) and the vision of unity inspired by the gospel. Second, ecumenism calls us to unity. Unity does not necessarily mean organizational merger. At its most basic level unity calls us to mutual recognition and respect. We may think that we are long past the days when Christians condemned one another to hell; however, religious animosity and distrust persist between believing groups. Today, this seems to break down more between religiously and politically conservatives and liberals than between certain denominations, but divisiveness is divisiveness no matter which way it slices you. Hopefully, unity progresses to more concrete forms of shared ministry. Finally, ecumenical unity is a unity achieved by Christ and is not a human work. In Christ, we have been made one (Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:11-22). That is Christ’s achievement. His achievement calls us to visibly manifest this unity as authentically as we can.
At every stage of Christian history, divisions have emerged. With each division, certain Christians have worked against disharmony and worked toward reconciliation and unity. Patrick of Ireland, though he lived before the days of real denominational divisions, did much to connect the apparent barbarians of the north with the larger church in continental Europe. During the Magisterial Reformation, Martin Bucer, former Dominican turned reformer, sought to bridge the divides between Luther and Zwingli, Protestants and Catholics and even influenced Cranmer in the production of The Book of Common Prayer. During the second Awakening of the 19th century, revivalists like Barton Stone brought together Christians from Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and restorationist Christian heritages. Peacemakers like Patrick, Bucer and Stone have much to teach us as we look to the present experience of ecumenical work.
Contemporary ecumenism is largely the product of early 20th Century efforts. Building on the foundation of 19th Century cooperative efforts, a significant step toward Christian unity emerged in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910. There, under the leadership of John R. Mott (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), the World Missionary Conference was held. The main goal of the conference was to address concerns regarding missionary work. Competition and divisiveness between Christians created distrust among non-Christians about the validity of the Gospel. So, western Christian missionaries needed to find ways to cooperate in order to fulfill their mission. Ultimately, the World Missionary Conference and other international ecumenical efforts came together in the form of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Similarly, the Federal Council of Churches formed in 1908 and became the National Council of Churches of Christ in 1950. These along with several other ecumenical manifestations continue the work of unifying the body of Christ.
Contemporary evangelicalism receives its heritage through various streams of influence (the Reformation, Pietism, Puritan movements, Restoration movements). However, the primary division between Evangelical and Mainline or Liberal denominations in America emerged in the early part of the 20th Century and largely over issues of biblical authority. Robert Webber describes the early fundamentalism--which gave birth to evangelicalism--as anti-ecumenical. Indeed, Billy Graham was heavily criticized on the right by religious leaders who opposed his cooperation with other religious groups. However, by mid-century, signs of an emerging evangelical ecumenism appeared in the formation of the National Evangelical Association, the publication of Christianity Today and the opening of Fuller Seminary (Webber).
Today at least two ecumenical streams flow through America. One stream takes in the older ecumenism represented in the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, Churches Uniting in Christ and other smaller communities and manifestations that are organized on the broadest terms possible. The other stream involves those more explicitly evangelical churches and denominations represented in things like the conservative political activism, the men's movement Promise Keepers, the publication of “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration,” (produced by the Committee on Evangelical Unity) and a host of parachurch organizations. While each of these streams continues to foster cooperation, articulate shared faith affirmations and cooperate in mission and service, the world waits to see if these two streams will ever flow together.
The mythical façade of a culture war, which ostensibly separates a moderate to progressive broad ecumenism from the political conservative evangelical ecumenism, represents nothing more than the inconsistencies between message and practice that created yesterday's divisions. A friend of mine laments the fact that some liberal Christians rush toward the opportunity to converse with people of other faiths but cannot stand to speak to more conservative members of their own faith. Similarly, conservative Christians have often preferred to work with secular political conservatives than to engage in conversation with their more liberal sisters and brothers in Christ. In short, with regard to contemporary divisions in the church, each of us has unclean lips and lives among people of unclean lips. Since we at least have that in common, perhaps we could confess our sin and revive our commitment to the whole gospel.
Ecumenical efforts tend to serve four purposes. These purposes often overlap and ought not be considered mutually exclusive. First, ecumenical manifestations (organizations, events, relationships) form in order to discuss and forge theological expressions of shared affirmations. Often these efforts seek to remove barriers that prevent full communion and cooperation. For example, a working agreement between nine denominations called Churches Uniting in Christ (the successor to COCU) seeks to aims at the mutual recognition of membership and ministry, removing some barriers that have been in place for centuries.
Similarly, some ecumenical manifestations gather to examine a shared history and to seek to reconcile branches of a movement history has divided. Both Methodists and Presbyterians reunited after divisions caused by the Civil War. Among Restorationists (churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ and Independent Christian) signs of cooperation and dialogue have also emerged.
Third, churches of different denominations often cooperate in order to fulfill a shared purpose or mission. We see this in local ecumenical organizations that create assistance programs for the poor, fund community hospital chaplaincies, organize community-wide worship services and other public religious events. Revival efforts and evangelistic crusades often work within cities through an ecumenical collection of churches. National and International ecumenical organizations have always sought to work in shared mission along with engaging in theological discussion. The World Council of Churches' latest initiative “Decade to Overcome Violence” gathers the ecumenical resources of an historic organization to move toward the global effort at peace keeping. Similarly, Church World Service which seeks to alleviate poverty and hunger world-wide emerged out of the National Council of Churches (? World Council of Churches?).
Finally, and perhaps most controversially, ecumenical efforts often form around particular political issues. Political activism among religious leaders often exacerbates divisions. Martin Marty explains, “Evangelical leaders protested all through the sixities against mainline and liberal denominations, the National Council of Church, and the World Council of Churches, for ‘meddling’ in politics, particularly on subjects of racial change and protest against the Vietnam War. Religion was to be a private affair, a matter of soul-saving and not world-changing” (Marty, pp. 472-473). The Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. was perhaps the most significant and effective ecumenical and interfaith effort in the 20th Century. More recently evangelical ecumenism has developed around abortion, prayer in school, protesting gay marriage and other issues popularly categorized as “family values.”
From my perspective, how we manage religiously motivated political differences is the thorniest challenge facing contemporary ecumenism. Religiously motivated progressive deeply believe that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of equality, justice and peace. Racism, sexism, bigotry based on sexual preference, poverty, war and environmental neglect all stand in the way of God’s vision for the oikoumenē. Religiously motivated conservatives deeply believe that God calls us to a life of purity, integrity and commitment to biblical principles. The elimination of publicly displayed religious symbols and expressions, abortion and the legalization of licentiousness all detract from this mission. My prayer is that “all would be convinced in their own mind” but not allow political differences to deny the presence of Christ in each other. People of radically opposed political viewpoints shared in the first commemoration of Christ’s death in bread and cup. Imagine a zealot and tax collector and ten others standing somewhere in the continuum between the two receiving the meal Christ first gave and gives to us. Who but Christ could unite such diversity? I say only Christ. And Christ is who we have, who we proclaim and who we follow and who calls us to be one.
What specifically needs to change? First, I think we need to learn the principles of ethical argumentation and debate. This requires that we learn to summarize the positions we disagree with in terms that their adherents find acceptable. All too often, we caricature those we disagree with setting up straw figures and knocking them down. We gain much by learning to express the positions we find problematic at their most intelligent and then delineating our disagreements with those positions.
Second, we must humanize our political disagreements. The culture war metaphor deceives us into treating those who hold differences of opinion as “enemies.” And everyone knows you don’t fraternize with the enemy. Yet, in Christ we are different members of the same body and members of a common family. Disagreements seen through these lenses are handled quite differently. They are addressed over dinner, in face to face dialogue, instead of through newspaper columns, talk radio shows, and demonstration lines.
Finally, we must keep before us the vision that ultimately we are working toward that which unites us. When I have said that to some particularly entrenched culture war veterans they have often responded by saying, “Yes, but we must unite around the truth.” By that they have implied that we unite through agreement on a set of propositions. However, biblically speaking truth is not a set of propositions it is a person—Jesus Christ. When we acknowledge the Christ that resides in each one who confesses him as Lord and Savior of the World, we create the right context for discussions of other differences.
When I asked my friend Ginger if I could use her in this article, she reminded me of her friend’s name—Hope. Hope is a vision of tomorrow’s story that involves a greater manifestation of God’s grace than we see today. It is my hope that the ecumenical momentum we gained in the 20th century will continue through the 21st century. And it is my prayer that we will learn to prioritize our political differences in relation to our unity in Christ.
Arndt, William, et al. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature; a Translation and Adaptation of Walter Bauer's Griechisch-Deutsches Wèorterbuch Zu Den Schriften Des Neuen Testaments Und Der Èubringen Urchristlichen Literatur, 4th Rev. And Augm. Ed., 1952. Chicago,: University of Chicago Press, 1957.
Marty, Martin E. Pilgrims in Their Own Land : 500 Years of Religion in America. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1985.
Webber, Robert. The Younger Evangelicals : Facing the Challenges of the New World. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2002.
Kind of Ecumenical
On her way out of church, Ginger introduced me to a guest. Her guest was a younger lady—probably in her 40’s. Ginger is 82. Her friend was of a different ethnic background. “This is my friend,” she said, “She’s visiting with us today and next week I’ll be going to her church. Just to see how each other worship, you know. That’s kind of ecumenical, isn’t it?” The brief conversation took place in that hectic, right after worship shake people out the door time. I didn’t have time to respond. Yet these two women sharing in each other’s worship services—across generational, religious and cultural lines—epitomize the vision of ecumenism.
The words “ecumenism” and “ecumenical” derive from a Greek word oikoumenē which gets translated in the New Testament usually as “world” but has more the sense of all the people of the world (Arndt et al.). It also relates to a cluster of words connected to the management of a household. Ecumenism focuses our attention on the whole church’s stewardship of the whole human household.
To speak of the ecumenical movement is somewhat of a misnomer as we have inherited several ecumenical efforts. I define the ecumenical movement as the collective efforts of Christians to make visible in the world the unity Christians have in Christ. This definition has several parts. First, ecumenism is a Christian movement. Interfaith dialogue between Christians and non-Christians is vitally important (now more so than ever) but, the theological vocabulary and motivations of Christian ecumenism begin and end with Christ—his prayer that we be united (John 17) and the vision of unity inspired by the gospel. Second, ecumenism calls us to unity. Unity does not necessarily mean organizational merger. At its most basic level unity calls us to mutual recognition and respect. We may think that we are long past the days when Christians condemned one another to hell; however, religious animosity and distrust persist between believing groups. Today, this seems to break down more between religiously and politically conservatives and liberals than between certain denominations, but divisiveness is divisiveness no matter which way it slices you. Hopefully, unity progresses to more concrete forms of shared ministry. Finally, ecumenical unity is a unity achieved by Christ and is not a human work. In Christ, we have been made one (Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:11-22). That is Christ’s achievement. His achievement calls us to visibly manifest this unity as authentically as we can.
At every stage of Christian history, divisions have emerged. With each division, certain Christians have worked against disharmony and worked toward reconciliation and unity. Patrick of Ireland, though he lived before the days of real denominational divisions, did much to connect the apparent barbarians of the north with the larger church in continental Europe. During the Magisterial Reformation, Martin Bucer, former Dominican turned reformer, sought to bridge the divides between Luther and Zwingli, Protestants and Catholics and even influenced Cranmer in the production of The Book of Common Prayer. During the second Awakening of the 19th century, revivalists like Barton Stone brought together Christians from Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and restorationist Christian heritages. Peacemakers like Patrick, Bucer and Stone have much to teach us as we look to the present experience of ecumenical work.
Contemporary ecumenism is largely the product of early 20th Century efforts. Building on the foundation of 19th Century cooperative efforts, a significant step toward Christian unity emerged in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910. There, under the leadership of John R. Mott (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), the World Missionary Conference was held. The main goal of the conference was to address concerns regarding missionary work. Competition and divisiveness between Christians created distrust among non-Christians about the validity of the Gospel. So, western Christian missionaries needed to find ways to cooperate in order to fulfill their mission. Ultimately, the World Missionary Conference and other international ecumenical efforts came together in the form of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Similarly, the Federal Council of Churches formed in 1908 and became the National Council of Churches of Christ in 1950. These along with several other ecumenical manifestations continue the work of unifying the body of Christ.
Contemporary evangelicalism receives its heritage through various streams of influence (the Reformation, Pietism, Puritan movements, Restoration movements). However, the primary division between Evangelical and Mainline or Liberal denominations in America emerged in the early part of the 20th Century and largely over issues of biblical authority. Robert Webber describes the early fundamentalism--which gave birth to evangelicalism--as anti-ecumenical. Indeed, Billy Graham was heavily criticized on the right by religious leaders who opposed his cooperation with other religious groups. However, by mid-century, signs of an emerging evangelical ecumenism appeared in the formation of the National Evangelical Association, the publication of Christianity Today and the opening of Fuller Seminary (Webber).
Today at least two ecumenical streams flow through America. One stream takes in the older ecumenism represented in the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, Churches Uniting in Christ and other smaller communities and manifestations that are organized on the broadest terms possible. The other stream involves those more explicitly evangelical churches and denominations represented in things like the conservative political activism, the men's movement Promise Keepers, the publication of “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration,” (produced by the Committee on Evangelical Unity) and a host of parachurch organizations. While each of these streams continues to foster cooperation, articulate shared faith affirmations and cooperate in mission and service, the world waits to see if these two streams will ever flow together.
The mythical façade of a culture war, which ostensibly separates a moderate to progressive broad ecumenism from the political conservative evangelical ecumenism, represents nothing more than the inconsistencies between message and practice that created yesterday's divisions. A friend of mine laments the fact that some liberal Christians rush toward the opportunity to converse with people of other faiths but cannot stand to speak to more conservative members of their own faith. Similarly, conservative Christians have often preferred to work with secular political conservatives than to engage in conversation with their more liberal sisters and brothers in Christ. In short, with regard to contemporary divisions in the church, each of us has unclean lips and lives among people of unclean lips. Since we at least have that in common, perhaps we could confess our sin and revive our commitment to the whole gospel.
Ecumenical efforts tend to serve four purposes. These purposes often overlap and ought not be considered mutually exclusive. First, ecumenical manifestations (organizations, events, relationships) form in order to discuss and forge theological expressions of shared affirmations. Often these efforts seek to remove barriers that prevent full communion and cooperation. For example, a working agreement between nine denominations called Churches Uniting in Christ (the successor to COCU) seeks to aims at the mutual recognition of membership and ministry, removing some barriers that have been in place for centuries.
Similarly, some ecumenical manifestations gather to examine a shared history and to seek to reconcile branches of a movement history has divided. Both Methodists and Presbyterians reunited after divisions caused by the Civil War. Among Restorationists (churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ and Independent Christian) signs of cooperation and dialogue have also emerged.
Third, churches of different denominations often cooperate in order to fulfill a shared purpose or mission. We see this in local ecumenical organizations that create assistance programs for the poor, fund community hospital chaplaincies, organize community-wide worship services and other public religious events. Revival efforts and evangelistic crusades often work within cities through an ecumenical collection of churches. National and International ecumenical organizations have always sought to work in shared mission along with engaging in theological discussion. The World Council of Churches' latest initiative “Decade to Overcome Violence” gathers the ecumenical resources of an historic organization to move toward the global effort at peace keeping. Similarly, Church World Service which seeks to alleviate poverty and hunger world-wide emerged out of the National Council of Churches (? World Council of Churches?).
Finally, and perhaps most controversially, ecumenical efforts often form around particular political issues. Political activism among religious leaders often exacerbates divisions. Martin Marty explains, “Evangelical leaders protested all through the sixities against mainline and liberal denominations, the National Council of Church, and the World Council of Churches, for ‘meddling’ in politics, particularly on subjects of racial change and protest against the Vietnam War. Religion was to be a private affair, a matter of soul-saving and not world-changing” (Marty, pp. 472-473). The Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. was perhaps the most significant and effective ecumenical and interfaith effort in the 20th Century. More recently evangelical ecumenism has developed around abortion, prayer in school, protesting gay marriage and other issues popularly categorized as “family values.”
From my perspective, how we manage religiously motivated political differences is the thorniest challenge facing contemporary ecumenism. Religiously motivated progressive deeply believe that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of equality, justice and peace. Racism, sexism, bigotry based on sexual preference, poverty, war and environmental neglect all stand in the way of God’s vision for the oikoumenē. Religiously motivated conservatives deeply believe that God calls us to a life of purity, integrity and commitment to biblical principles. The elimination of publicly displayed religious symbols and expressions, abortion and the legalization of licentiousness all detract from this mission. My prayer is that “all would be convinced in their own mind” but not allow political differences to deny the presence of Christ in each other. People of radically opposed political viewpoints shared in the first commemoration of Christ’s death in bread and cup. Imagine a zealot and tax collector and ten others standing somewhere in the continuum between the two receiving the meal Christ first gave and gives to us. Who but Christ could unite such diversity? I say only Christ. And Christ is who we have, who we proclaim and who we follow and who calls us to be one.
What specifically needs to change? First, I think we need to learn the principles of ethical argumentation and debate. This requires that we learn to summarize the positions we disagree with in terms that their adherents find acceptable. All too often, we caricature those we disagree with setting up straw figures and knocking them down. We gain much by learning to express the positions we find problematic at their most intelligent and then delineating our disagreements with those positions.
Second, we must humanize our political disagreements. The culture war metaphor deceives us into treating those who hold differences of opinion as “enemies.” And everyone knows you don’t fraternize with the enemy. Yet, in Christ we are different members of the same body and members of a common family. Disagreements seen through these lenses are handled quite differently. They are addressed over dinner, in face to face dialogue, instead of through newspaper columns, talk radio shows, and demonstration lines.
Finally, we must keep before us the vision that ultimately we are working toward that which unites us. When I have said that to some particularly entrenched culture war veterans they have often responded by saying, “Yes, but we must unite around the truth.” By that they have implied that we unite through agreement on a set of propositions. However, biblically speaking truth is not a set of propositions it is a person—Jesus Christ. When we acknowledge the Christ that resides in each one who confesses him as Lord and Savior of the World, we create the right context for discussions of other differences.
When I asked my friend Ginger if I could use her in this article, she reminded me of her friend’s name—Hope. Hope is a vision of tomorrow’s story that involves a greater manifestation of God’s grace than we see today. It is my hope that the ecumenical momentum we gained in the 20th century will continue through the 21st century. And it is my prayer that we will learn to prioritize our political differences in relation to our unity in Christ.
Arndt, William, et al. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature; a Translation and Adaptation of Walter Bauer's Griechisch-Deutsches Wèorterbuch Zu Den Schriften Des Neuen Testaments Und Der Èubringen Urchristlichen Literatur, 4th Rev. And Augm. Ed., 1952. Chicago,: University of Chicago Press, 1957.
Marty, Martin E. Pilgrims in Their Own Land : 500 Years of Religion in America. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1985.
Webber, Robert. The Younger Evangelicals : Facing the Challenges of the New World. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2002.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Outliners, Cardfiles and Mind Mapping Software
Back in high school, preparation for a speech or research paper usually included the creation of note cards. Each card would be linked to a source, it would have a fact or figure or quotation or explanation (supporting material for the writing or speaking project). From time to time, I have searched for technological versions of the same thing. As I write sermons, I need a place to keep the random thoughts and reflections as well as research I find on the sermon topic. I am an avid WordPerfect user as well I use EndNote which is a database bibliography creator. EndNote was an answer to prayer several years ago. It is extremely valuable and very helpful. I highly recommend it. However, I needed something that would work quickly to store random thoughts and then allow me to organize those random thoughts.
- Cardfiles and Outliners
CorelCentral Cardfile–The cardfile program that came with WordPerfect Office Suite functions like a small database. Folders can be created with specific fields that belong to each card. Plus card specific fields can be added. The cards are sorted alphabetically and cannot be re-ordered in outline format. The cards to not insert into wordprocessors easily even though it happens to come in a wordprocessor office suite. - AZZ Cardfile–AZZ Cardfile replaces the old Microsoft Cardfile. It was easy to add notes randomly. However, the notes are stored alphabetically. It would allow for graphics to be added to each note as well, the notes could be formatted (with bold, outline, etc). www.azzcardfile.com
- WhizNotes–WhizNotes is a free cardfile program that can be downloaded from http://www.yestersoft.com./ It is quick and simple. The cards cannot be formatted. It does not allow for graphics to be added. It does cut and paste in and out quickly. It is very basic.
WhizFolders–WhizFolders Pro replaced WhizNotes. It is much more versatile. Each card can be formatted. They can contain graphics. The notes themselves can be easily organized into an outline form. The individual cards and the whole outlines can be imported into a wordprocessor easily. So far, it seems to do everything I was looking for a card file to do. www.whizfolders.com - TexNotes–TexNotes is the most attractive and colorful of the notecard/outline programs I have looked at. It has a lot of functionality. But, in some ways I think it has too much functionality. It could easily replace your wordprocessor but that makes it less convenient for making quick and easy notes. www.gemx.com
- MaxThink–MaxThink is essentially an outline. It did seem to have some functionality that doesn’t come with the built-in outline functions in Word or WordPerfect but did not come with the card function that I was looking for. www.maxthink.com
- NoteMap–NoteMap by Casesoft is an outlining program designed specifically for lawyers (as all of Casesofts software is). As an outliner it is exceptional but it did not come with the card function I was looking for. http://www.casesoft.com/
- Keynote–Keynote is a freeware software program from http://www.tranglos.com/ It has a good functionality. It allows for the creation of cards and the cards can be outlined within the program. However, once the outlined structure is created it takes a bit of work to export it into a word processor. It allows for limited types of graphic files to be entered. .btm, .gif, etc. The look is fairly straightforward.
Mind Mapping Software
Mind mapping software create mind schemas or maps. Again, think about writing class in Jr. High or High School The central topic is placed on a page and then nodes are drawn from it. There are several programs which do this. These are helpful brainstorming tools. The key is to have enough keyboard shortcuts to make the process of brainstorming as quick as it is supposed to be. I looked at these a couple of years ago and decided to purchase Microsoft Visio instead of any of the programs explicitly dedicated to mind-mapping. Like most things Microsoft, Visio does a lot of things but its broad versatility means it doesn’t do specific functions as quickly or as complexly as I’d like.
- Inspiration–Inspiration is targeted for kids writing programs; however, there is a whole community of folk who use it for business application. www.inspiration.com
- Mindgenius– www.mindgenius.com
- Mindmanager–Like most of the other brainstorming, mind-mapping software, Mindmanager is primarily geared for business applications. It seemed to be the most versatile in terms of project management though not necessarily the best if you wanted to produce interesting mind-maps with pictures and the like www.mindjet.com
- ConceptDraw–Concept Draw comes with a project organizer, a draw program and a mind map program that work well with each other. www.conceptdraw.com
Ultimately, I decided that the programs I really found most useful Mindgenius and Mindmanager were both prohibitively expensive.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
On the Subject of Language
I recently cut the following paragraph out of a sermon. The sermon was on Galatians 2:1-10. The thesis statement of the sermon was, “We are defined more as Christians by the free choices we make than by the set rules we follow.” Looking at the text, I came to believe that I needed to emphasize choices concerning the poor Galatians 2:10. So, while the paragraph expressed the concept it wasn’t terribly germane to the biblical text. But, I’m fond enough of the paragraph to include it here.
Several years ago, people debated political correctness. Do you remember that? People wanted us to learn new terminology–less abrasive, less historically tainted and derogatory terminology. On the one side of the debate stood those who said, certain terms and images that we have used to describe certain groups are offensive. We ought to change those terms to be less offensive. On the other side of the debate stood those who insisted that we could not make rules and certainly could not make laws governing a person’s speech. I seemed to hear more from the opponents of political correctness than I did from the proponents of political correctness. There were spoofs like Political Correct Bedtime Stories that retold familiar fairy tales using exaggerated politically correct monikers. I’ll admit that for practical purposes I agree with the second group. We cannot legislate what people say or how they say it. But I always had a problem with the tone that this group took. Their tone implied that it shouldn’t matter. They said, in effect, we ought to call another group whatever we feel like calling them because we are free to do so. My opinion is that because we are free, we ought to use our freedom in the most constructive manner possible. Because we are free, our speech does not reflect the rules we follow but the values we hold. If you believe that people are irrelevant, if you believe that their backgrounds and histories do not matter, if you believe that people’s lifestyles, ethnicity or gender disqualifies them from respect, then by all means please continue use bigoted, racist and sexist language because the rest of us would like to know where you’re coming from. If, on the other hand, you truly value the basic dignity of each human person, you might want to consider the way your language reflects that value.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Example of the Power of Dialogue
In a recent Atlantic Monthly article www.theatlantic.com, Stephen Budiansky writes about a particular interrogator named Sherwood Moran.
Moran 1: "
Moran 1: "
Marine Major Sherwood F. Moran, the report's author, noted that despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subjects. They were nice to them.
Moran was writing in 1943, and he was describing his own, already legendary methods of interrogating Japanese prisoners of war. More than a half century later his report remains something of a cult classic for military interrogators. The Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association (MCITTA), a group of active-duty and retired Marine intelligence personnel, calls Moran's report one of the "timeless documents" in the field and says it has long been "a standard read" for insiders."
Monday, May 09, 2005
Patience--Dialogue Part 3
Patience in dialogue refers to patience with the dialogue process. If a person commits to dialogue, they commit to humbly learning from their dialogue partner. Such learning takes time. To begin with, we must learn how a person thinks. Each of us learned to think in certain ways. Mechanics learn to think in ways germane to mechanics. Poets learn to think in ways germane to poetry. These two ways of thinking are not the same. Even if the mechanic and the poet speak to one another about something other than their area of expertise--say religion or politics--they continue to speak as a mechanic or as a poet. Since they are following different rules of thought, they may not initially understand one another. For them to truly enter into dialogue. They must either learn to think as the other does. The poet must learn the rules of thought which the mechanic follows. OR they must learn a new way of thinking that is particular to their subject matter.
I see this frequently in religious work. Ministry involves learning to think according rules of theology, biblical studies, pastoral care, ethics, and practical theology. Each of these sub-disciplines have their own assumptions and rules and they have difficulty speaking to each other sometimes. For a minister who has attended seminary, some of these patterns of thinking become second nature. But we work in churches where we do not communicate often with people who share these patterns of thinking.
Once we've learned to share patterns of thinking with our dialogue partners, then we must learn about the actual subject at hand. For example, I may know the rules of theological thinking but if someone wants to discuss the writings of Paul Tillich with me, I'll have to learn about Paul Tillich. Patience is required to both learn and re-learn patterns of thinking and then processing the actual material.
Another place where patience is required is in the area of persuasion. Ethical persuasion is committed to persuading people on the merits of argument. It is very hard to truly persuade someone. It is much easier to manipulate or coerce people than to persuade them. In manipulation, a person intentionally uses social-psychological cues the induce behavior. For example, when buying a car, the car dealer will attempt to get your own car key from you as quickly as possible. This becomes a subconscious cue that you are relinquishing your car to them and getting a new one. Even before you have been persuaded to buy a new car, they try to manipulate you to buying a car--the actual number of manipulative techniques used by car sales people is too large to catalogue here. People resort to manipulation and coercion because they lack patience with persuasion.
In the first instance, we cultivate the patience to learn OR patience with ourselves and how quickly we can come to understand things. In the second place, we cultivate patience with other and how quickly we can influence them. There is of course a final context in which patience is involved. Patience with the relationship. Just as we are trying to learn, our dialogue partners are trying to learn. Just as we are trying to influence them, they are trying to influence us. Dialogue requires a mutual willingness to expose ourselves both to learning and teaching, persuading and being persuaded. Or as in the line from the Peace Prayer by St. Francis, "To be understood as to understand." Along the way, we risk becoming angry, getting hurt, mishandling intimacy and a host of other things that can go wrong in relationships. Impatient people take one mistake as unacceptable and withdraw from dialogue. Patient people know that dialogue may take several wrong turns before reaching the hoped for destination. Obviously, there are relationship which simply need to end. They become mutually destructive beyond repair. But more often than not, patience in dialogue will yield a fruitful outcome.
I see this frequently in religious work. Ministry involves learning to think according rules of theology, biblical studies, pastoral care, ethics, and practical theology. Each of these sub-disciplines have their own assumptions and rules and they have difficulty speaking to each other sometimes. For a minister who has attended seminary, some of these patterns of thinking become second nature. But we work in churches where we do not communicate often with people who share these patterns of thinking.
Once we've learned to share patterns of thinking with our dialogue partners, then we must learn about the actual subject at hand. For example, I may know the rules of theological thinking but if someone wants to discuss the writings of Paul Tillich with me, I'll have to learn about Paul Tillich. Patience is required to both learn and re-learn patterns of thinking and then processing the actual material.
Another place where patience is required is in the area of persuasion. Ethical persuasion is committed to persuading people on the merits of argument. It is very hard to truly persuade someone. It is much easier to manipulate or coerce people than to persuade them. In manipulation, a person intentionally uses social-psychological cues the induce behavior. For example, when buying a car, the car dealer will attempt to get your own car key from you as quickly as possible. This becomes a subconscious cue that you are relinquishing your car to them and getting a new one. Even before you have been persuaded to buy a new car, they try to manipulate you to buying a car--the actual number of manipulative techniques used by car sales people is too large to catalogue here. People resort to manipulation and coercion because they lack patience with persuasion.
In the first instance, we cultivate the patience to learn OR patience with ourselves and how quickly we can come to understand things. In the second place, we cultivate patience with other and how quickly we can influence them. There is of course a final context in which patience is involved. Patience with the relationship. Just as we are trying to learn, our dialogue partners are trying to learn. Just as we are trying to influence them, they are trying to influence us. Dialogue requires a mutual willingness to expose ourselves both to learning and teaching, persuading and being persuaded. Or as in the line from the Peace Prayer by St. Francis, "To be understood as to understand." Along the way, we risk becoming angry, getting hurt, mishandling intimacy and a host of other things that can go wrong in relationships. Impatient people take one mistake as unacceptable and withdraw from dialogue. Patient people know that dialogue may take several wrong turns before reaching the hoped for destination. Obviously, there are relationship which simply need to end. They become mutually destructive beyond repair. But more often than not, patience in dialogue will yield a fruitful outcome.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Listening--Dialogue Part 2
Dialogue requires two sets of skills: Interpersonal skills and intellectual skills. The interpersonal skills make it possible for the relationship to be maintained in order for dialogue to occur. The intellectual skills are the cognitive abilities to engage the subject matter. Obviously these two set of skills overlap however, I think it’s helpful to divide them and discuss each set. The interpersonal skills I would identify are: listening, patience, authenticity, and inclusion.
Listening comes in different forms. We listen for different reasons and attend to different things. Empathic listening occurs when a person listens in order to offer support to another person. Much of the listening I do as a pastor is empathic listening. Frequently, when I make hospital calls someone will ask how the person I visited was doing. If they ask me to report too much of the medical data, they find I’m not a wealth of information. In these days of privacy, I don’t really like discussing another’s person’s medical condition anyway. But, truth be told, the listening I do at hospitals is not geared toward people’s physical condition. I am listening to see if they are feeling in control of their circumstances or feeling powerless. Powerlessness is a prominent feeling in hospitals. If it sets in, it can delay a person’s recovery and frustrate them long past the hospital stay. Similarly, I’m listening for the ways that the illness affects the person’s self-perception. For some people a hospital stay is a stark reminder or their mortality. Issues of life and death become important. For others, a hospital stay is a necessary means to an end. Still others find it a helpless intrusion on the plans they have made. My responses to a person have a lot to do with whether they are fearful, hopeful or frustrated (or any of the varying emotions a person may encounter in the hospital). The point is, empathic listening listens for the emotional and spiritual state a person is in.
Second, we listen for information. Listening for information occurs whenever we need to know something—directions on how to get somewhere, a customer’s orders, the material for the test. Empathic listening and listening for information can often interfere with each other. If I’m supposed to be listening empathically and I stress getting the facts straight, I’ll probably end up frustrating the person—people who are struggling are frequently incoherent with regard to facts. Similarly, if I’m concerned with the feelings of the person giving me an order for a purchase, I may end the conversation by having them repeat the information they gave me which will leave them feeling frustrated—prompting another round of empathic listening.
Finally, we listen to assess the legitimacy of a person’s ideas. This is called critical listening. Critical listening need not be adversarial. It doesn’t need to be combative. However, it does need to happen whenever someone seeks to persuade us. Stephen Toulmin, in his book Uses of Arguments indicates that an argument contains a claim (what the persuader is trying to get people to believe or do), data (the facts and/or generally accepted chunks of information) and warrant (the logical link between the claim and the data). Critical listening is listening to understand the claim being made, the data provided for the claim and the warrant connecting them. In practice, arguments contain several interlocking sets of claims, data and warrants. Similarly, people trying to persuade other people are not always clear about what is their claim or their data or their warrant. Critical listening seeks to identify each of these in the mind of the listener.
Critical listening should ask more than, “Do I agree or disagree with the claim?” The best critical listening examines the quality of the data, the acceptability of the data and the logic that links the two. Several years ago, Apple computers were priced significantly higher than IBM compatible computers (this was during the day when we actually referred to computers as IBM compatible). I was shown two editorials—one in favor of Mac’s and one in favor of IBM clones. Both articles used the same data—Apple’s cost more than IBM’s et al. However, the one favoring the Macs said, “You get what you pay for.” While the other saw the price as being an argument against the Apple—same data, different claims, different warrants. The critical listener considers the merits of the whole argument.
We identify the type of listening that occurs in order to respond to each situation with sensitivity and effectiveness.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Ending Divisiveness Part 1
What’s to be done with the divisiveness in American politics and political discourse? One answer is to join the fight, steak out a claim and shout down one’s adversaries—fight fire with fire. Another answer is to simply accept that “everyone’s entitled to their opinion” and not engage. But another approach is the concept of discussion as a civil and healthy interaction of ideas. Discussion can take two forms: dialogue and debate.
In dialogue, people engage in a free-flow of ideas. With dialogue people can think aloud or may not completely believe in the idea that they express at any given point. The parties open themselves up to change their own minds. In debate, people assume fixed ideological positions and engage opposing viewpoints with refutation and rebuttal. They seek to influence the opinion of a listening audience.
People generally prefer the term dialogue. Debate sounds adversarial and it should. Debate is adversarial. Debate is not mean-spirited, disrespectful, undisciplined and irrational. So much of what occurs on the shout down shows and talk radio programs would not meet my definition of debate. In her helpful book, The Debate Culture, socio-linguist Deborah Tannen criticizes the mental constructs that seeks to turn every intellectual pursuit into a competitive exercise. Not every question has two sides. Some have more and some have less. Though I agree with many of her observations, I still think debate serves a useful function if people understand it.
The purpose of debate is to provide a rigorous examination of ideas so that an audience can make up their minds. True debaters—from high school debate tournament teams to advocates before the Supreme Court—are actors in a drama in pursuit of truth. Their positions are constructions. That’s not to say disingenuous or fabrications. But the conventions of debate involve people taking positions and holding those positions for the duration of the debate. The goal is to provide as intelligent an engagement of the ideas as possible allowing observers of the debate (juries, judges, audiences) to make up their minds about what to believe and how to act. Debate, it should be kept in mind, is an intellectual methodology. Debate is a performed act of dialectic.
The differences between dialogue and debate deserve consideration that I will not give here. I will assert that there are times for debate and times for dialogue and leave it at that. I’m more interested in what makes dialogue and debate possible—the prerequisites of genuine discussion.
In dialogue, people engage in a free-flow of ideas. With dialogue people can think aloud or may not completely believe in the idea that they express at any given point. The parties open themselves up to change their own minds. In debate, people assume fixed ideological positions and engage opposing viewpoints with refutation and rebuttal. They seek to influence the opinion of a listening audience.
People generally prefer the term dialogue. Debate sounds adversarial and it should. Debate is adversarial. Debate is not mean-spirited, disrespectful, undisciplined and irrational. So much of what occurs on the shout down shows and talk radio programs would not meet my definition of debate. In her helpful book, The Debate Culture, socio-linguist Deborah Tannen criticizes the mental constructs that seeks to turn every intellectual pursuit into a competitive exercise. Not every question has two sides. Some have more and some have less. Though I agree with many of her observations, I still think debate serves a useful function if people understand it.
The purpose of debate is to provide a rigorous examination of ideas so that an audience can make up their minds. True debaters—from high school debate tournament teams to advocates before the Supreme Court—are actors in a drama in pursuit of truth. Their positions are constructions. That’s not to say disingenuous or fabrications. But the conventions of debate involve people taking positions and holding those positions for the duration of the debate. The goal is to provide as intelligent an engagement of the ideas as possible allowing observers of the debate (juries, judges, audiences) to make up their minds about what to believe and how to act. Debate, it should be kept in mind, is an intellectual methodology. Debate is a performed act of dialectic.
The differences between dialogue and debate deserve consideration that I will not give here. I will assert that there are times for debate and times for dialogue and leave it at that. I’m more interested in what makes dialogue and debate possible—the prerequisites of genuine discussion.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Moral Leadership
The challenge of moral leadership is convincing people to do what they ought to do while protecting their freedom to do otherwise.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Protesting Speakers and Other nonsense
I just finished reading Harvard Rules by Richard Bradley. It describes the first three years of the presidency of Larry Summers, Harvard's current president. It's mainly a fairly stingy indictment of Summers. Sort of an academic and political soap opera. Well written, well documented and a lot of fun--if you like hearing about such crazy events (which I do).
Anyway, I was surprised at the number of times Bradley describes the Harvard students and faculty protesting a controversial speaker. It seems to me that if a speaker that you find objectionable is scheduled to speak on campus, the last thing you would want to do is public protest their speech. First, it draws attention to the speech. Second, protestors don't look intelligent anymore. Mobs are mobs and they all look stupid. But most of all, it seems that you have a greater chance of refuting a person's lunacy if you let them speak and then critique their speech with logic and argumentation. Persuasion is more effective when the inferior argument is heard, understood and then shown to be inferior than when it is merely shouted down.
I think the same is true of teaching abstinence versus teaching about other forms of contraception. I believe in teaching abstinence. However, I disagree with those who would like to teach abstinence and abstinence alone. It's more effective to put show the superiority of abstinence over contraception. Abstinence is 100% effective in preventing Sexually Transmitted Diseases (assuming that abstinence includes all forms of sex). Contraception will vary in its effectiveness. Condoms are good and the pill does nothing to reduce the risk of an STD. But, nothing comes close to the 100% effectiveness of abstinence. Similarly, in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence is 100% effective. No form of contraception can touch that. Emotional problems associated with sexuality are a bit trickier to put percentages to. However, the emotional repression that might occur with an abstinent lifestyle is preferable to the emotional problems that emerge from sexual promiscuity.
My point here is not to argue about abstinence though I'm willing to defend what I just said. My point rather is to say that if a person is truly concerned about what is right then they ought not oppose so vigilantly the expression of what is wrong. By trying to shout down opponents only adds to their credibility. Calmly giving them the freedom to express their ideas and then intelligently showing the superiority of one's position is much more persuasive.
Anyway, I was surprised at the number of times Bradley describes the Harvard students and faculty protesting a controversial speaker. It seems to me that if a speaker that you find objectionable is scheduled to speak on campus, the last thing you would want to do is public protest their speech. First, it draws attention to the speech. Second, protestors don't look intelligent anymore. Mobs are mobs and they all look stupid. But most of all, it seems that you have a greater chance of refuting a person's lunacy if you let them speak and then critique their speech with logic and argumentation. Persuasion is more effective when the inferior argument is heard, understood and then shown to be inferior than when it is merely shouted down.
I think the same is true of teaching abstinence versus teaching about other forms of contraception. I believe in teaching abstinence. However, I disagree with those who would like to teach abstinence and abstinence alone. It's more effective to put show the superiority of abstinence over contraception. Abstinence is 100% effective in preventing Sexually Transmitted Diseases (assuming that abstinence includes all forms of sex). Contraception will vary in its effectiveness. Condoms are good and the pill does nothing to reduce the risk of an STD. But, nothing comes close to the 100% effectiveness of abstinence. Similarly, in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence is 100% effective. No form of contraception can touch that. Emotional problems associated with sexuality are a bit trickier to put percentages to. However, the emotional repression that might occur with an abstinent lifestyle is preferable to the emotional problems that emerge from sexual promiscuity.
My point here is not to argue about abstinence though I'm willing to defend what I just said. My point rather is to say that if a person is truly concerned about what is right then they ought not oppose so vigilantly the expression of what is wrong. By trying to shout down opponents only adds to their credibility. Calmly giving them the freedom to express their ideas and then intelligently showing the superiority of one's position is much more persuasive.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Being Funny
Yesterday, I watched Lewis Black addressing the radio and television correspondents awards dinner on C-SPAN. He was trying very hard to be funny. I've always thought that stand up comedians made poor after dinner speakers. True, after dinner speaking is meant to be entertaining--hopefully funny. However, the setting doesn't work for the type of one-line, quick banter jokes told by the typical stand-up comedian. After dinner speeches are leisurely walks where as stand up comedy is generally a sprint. The audience had consumed enough alcohol to laugh louder than they ought to at his jokes. But as I soberly sat on my sofa, I could tell--it wasn't that funny. But I applaud his effort and the effort of anyone who goes out on a limb and tries to be funny in public--on demand.
Trying to be funny on demand is one of the riskier feats attempted by speakers. Trying to be funny and failing is embarrassing by itself. Trying and failing at anything in public is embarrassing--ask people who go out of the first round in a slam dunk contest. But you also have the embarrassment of having people know you're uncool--like when you wear the out-of-style clothes or admit to liking a musician everyone else think stinks. By the way, I've never understood really why Michael Bolton is ridiculed but Neil Diamond is hip. When you think something is funny and say it out loud suddenly people know you thought something was funny that really wasn't. You've not only failed in public, but you've also displayed that you're not cool.
Most of the humor I attempt comes from the pulpit. Pulpits are safe places to attempt humor. They're safe because no one really expects sermons to be funny. They expect them to be boring. So even if my attempts at humor fail, people generally appreciate the effort to liven up an otherwise boring experience. It's also safe because people will generally give a courtesy laugh or two. Of course, eventually people get to know pastors and will eventually tell them that they are not really funny. They either whisper it conspiratorially to a minister as if to be helpful or else blurt it out in public simply to be annoying. Hint to people who feel they must tell a minister that he or she is not funny: We already know! If we were successfully funny and cool enough to know it, do you really think we'd be ministry?
Trying to be funny on demand is one of the riskier feats attempted by speakers. Trying to be funny and failing is embarrassing by itself. Trying and failing at anything in public is embarrassing--ask people who go out of the first round in a slam dunk contest. But you also have the embarrassment of having people know you're uncool--like when you wear the out-of-style clothes or admit to liking a musician everyone else think stinks. By the way, I've never understood really why Michael Bolton is ridiculed but Neil Diamond is hip. When you think something is funny and say it out loud suddenly people know you thought something was funny that really wasn't. You've not only failed in public, but you've also displayed that you're not cool.
Most of the humor I attempt comes from the pulpit. Pulpits are safe places to attempt humor. They're safe because no one really expects sermons to be funny. They expect them to be boring. So even if my attempts at humor fail, people generally appreciate the effort to liven up an otherwise boring experience. It's also safe because people will generally give a courtesy laugh or two. Of course, eventually people get to know pastors and will eventually tell them that they are not really funny. They either whisper it conspiratorially to a minister as if to be helpful or else blurt it out in public simply to be annoying. Hint to people who feel they must tell a minister that he or she is not funny: We already know! If we were successfully funny and cool enough to know it, do you really think we'd be ministry?
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Guilt
A friend of mine once said, "Guilt is a completely worthless emotion." She, like me, had grown up in a conservative denomination and wrestled with a heightened sense of guilt. Many contemporary writers seemed to have joined the assault on feeling guilty. Several books including some of my favorites have joined the anti-guilt ethos of the day. The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning to name just one.
Indeed, the problems with perpetual guilt feeling are numerous. Guilt cheats happiness and frequently impedes spiritual growth. But I wonder if guilt doesn't need to be re-examined. When I was a boy, Sunday School teachers were fond of making the distinction between conviction (being convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit) and guilt. The conviction of the Holy Spirit remains until we have repented. Guilt remains whether we repent or not and often we feel guilt for things that we really ought not feel guilty about. Building on those early thoughts, I thought I would try to make a few other observations clarifying the difference between guilt and conviction.
DISCERNMENT--Discernment is a process of spiritual decision making. It involves our own intelligence in conversation with scripture, tradition and the faith community of which we are a part. When you experience feelings of guilt try to locate the source of the principle you feel you have violated. For instance, many people feel guilty for being late for an appointment. Where do we get the idea that being late is a bad thing? Primarily, we get it from our culture. To say that doesn't mean its OK to be perpetually late. There are many advantages for being on time to things. It is, after all, a show of respect to the person with whom you have an appointment. But, there's nothing particularly godly about punctuality or ungodly about being late. Once you have identified the location of the principle, rate the offesne of terms of its real seriousness. We often feel guilt that is out of proportion to the offense.
EXAMINE--Is the thing that's nagging at you really your fault? If so, what specifically is your fault? Often times people take actions or make statements that upset other people. They will try to apologize when they realize that another person's feelings were hurt. Yet, we cannot control other people's feelings nor assume responsibility for them. We must know what we believe to be the ethical and sensitive way to communicate something and try to communicate in ethical and sensitive ways. If we have done that and people are still offended, it may not be our fault.
CHOOSE A DIRECTION--Confessing sins to God is a good first step; however, we often need to try to repair the relationship that has been hurt by our sin. Along these lines, we have to make a choice. We should reconcile where possible and apologize when necessary. At the same time, we need to ask whether trying to address the hurt wouldn't raise more pain than relieve. It's all very difficult. But ultimately we should learn from our offense and seek to correct our past mistakes with our future actions.
Indeed, the problems with perpetual guilt feeling are numerous. Guilt cheats happiness and frequently impedes spiritual growth. But I wonder if guilt doesn't need to be re-examined. When I was a boy, Sunday School teachers were fond of making the distinction between conviction (being convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit) and guilt. The conviction of the Holy Spirit remains until we have repented. Guilt remains whether we repent or not and often we feel guilt for things that we really ought not feel guilty about. Building on those early thoughts, I thought I would try to make a few other observations clarifying the difference between guilt and conviction.
DISCERNMENT--Discernment is a process of spiritual decision making. It involves our own intelligence in conversation with scripture, tradition and the faith community of which we are a part. When you experience feelings of guilt try to locate the source of the principle you feel you have violated. For instance, many people feel guilty for being late for an appointment. Where do we get the idea that being late is a bad thing? Primarily, we get it from our culture. To say that doesn't mean its OK to be perpetually late. There are many advantages for being on time to things. It is, after all, a show of respect to the person with whom you have an appointment. But, there's nothing particularly godly about punctuality or ungodly about being late. Once you have identified the location of the principle, rate the offesne of terms of its real seriousness. We often feel guilt that is out of proportion to the offense.
EXAMINE--Is the thing that's nagging at you really your fault? If so, what specifically is your fault? Often times people take actions or make statements that upset other people. They will try to apologize when they realize that another person's feelings were hurt. Yet, we cannot control other people's feelings nor assume responsibility for them. We must know what we believe to be the ethical and sensitive way to communicate something and try to communicate in ethical and sensitive ways. If we have done that and people are still offended, it may not be our fault.
CHOOSE A DIRECTION--Confessing sins to God is a good first step; however, we often need to try to repair the relationship that has been hurt by our sin. Along these lines, we have to make a choice. We should reconcile where possible and apologize when necessary. At the same time, we need to ask whether trying to address the hurt wouldn't raise more pain than relieve. It's all very difficult. But ultimately we should learn from our offense and seek to correct our past mistakes with our future actions.
Random Thoughts
I think better when the space I'm in is uncluttered.
Too many interruptions intrude on communication. I should make bracketed comments sparingly.
I may have to learn to write more directly on the fly.
Too many interruptions intrude on communication. I should make bracketed comments sparingly.
I may have to learn to write more directly on the fly.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Rilke
Currently I am reading Ranier Maria Rilke’s poems that have been selected, translated and commented upon by Robert Bly. I don’t know enough about poetry to evaluate Rilke’s literary merit. His poetry seems to verge on obsessively introspective. But, I have become enthralled by one poem—“Der Schauende” translated “The Man Watching” by Bly. I don’t know what copyright laws apply here so I want reproduce the total poem here. The poem begins by the describing the changes to the earth which come through storms, wind and weather. He then shifts to assessing our human experience.
“What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we could let ourselves be dominated
as things do by immense storm
we would become strong too, and not need names.”
He makes reference to Jacob’s wrestling match with the angel though he speaks of wrestling matches as though it occurred more than once and with more people than Jacob. He suggests that Jacob grew, became strong and sought growth not through the mastery of the world but through the submission to the divine elements that confronted him. The final lines of the poem: “This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, /by constantly greater things.”
Two thoughts occurred to me as I read and re-read this poem. First, that Rilke identifies not only with nature but also with a particular biblical character. It seems that identification with biblical heroes does not occur as much anymore. Nor, does it seem that we really want any heroes. Have we lost a sense that ancient myths stand in our place? That we can fight our battles through them. Win with them. Lose with them. Struggle and renew the struggle with them? Have we lost our ability to choose a mythical hero to be our hero? Have we lost it because so many were violent? Or that too few were women? Or because all were flawed? We lap up at the pools of scandals but do not want even the scent of one on us. So we deny heroes. Deny them because to say, “I am of Paul” is forbidden. Forbidden by Paul, yes, but with qualifications. Forbidden also by ourselves. Forbidden by our surroundings that believe the secrets people hide disqualify the virtues people wear.
Can our ship tossed about by life’s wind and waves not be Noah’s Ark? Can we not see bush’s burn or be guided by clouds Do people no longer leave nets simply at the sound of a voice? Can I not wrestle with the angel along side Jacob and in wrestling grow stronger.
The other thought that occurs to me concerns the idea of submission. Rilke’s poem suggest submission to divine or noble purposes. Read with a certain masculine lens, the whole suggestion of being defeated to grow stronger is anathema. We master, overcome, triumph, manage and manipulate. Yet Christ’s call is precisely the call to be “defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.” In particular, to be conquered decisively by God which is a metaphor for submission to God’s will. We can fill our lives pursuing the goals we set for ourselves and manage to accomplish little of merit or we can allow God’s vision for us to overwhelm and guide us and move forward in growth.
“What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we could let ourselves be dominated
as things do by immense storm
we would become strong too, and not need names.”
He makes reference to Jacob’s wrestling match with the angel though he speaks of wrestling matches as though it occurred more than once and with more people than Jacob. He suggests that Jacob grew, became strong and sought growth not through the mastery of the world but through the submission to the divine elements that confronted him. The final lines of the poem: “This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, /by constantly greater things.”
Two thoughts occurred to me as I read and re-read this poem. First, that Rilke identifies not only with nature but also with a particular biblical character. It seems that identification with biblical heroes does not occur as much anymore. Nor, does it seem that we really want any heroes. Have we lost a sense that ancient myths stand in our place? That we can fight our battles through them. Win with them. Lose with them. Struggle and renew the struggle with them? Have we lost our ability to choose a mythical hero to be our hero? Have we lost it because so many were violent? Or that too few were women? Or because all were flawed? We lap up at the pools of scandals but do not want even the scent of one on us. So we deny heroes. Deny them because to say, “I am of Paul” is forbidden. Forbidden by Paul, yes, but with qualifications. Forbidden also by ourselves. Forbidden by our surroundings that believe the secrets people hide disqualify the virtues people wear.
Can our ship tossed about by life’s wind and waves not be Noah’s Ark? Can we not see bush’s burn or be guided by clouds Do people no longer leave nets simply at the sound of a voice? Can I not wrestle with the angel along side Jacob and in wrestling grow stronger.
The other thought that occurs to me concerns the idea of submission. Rilke’s poem suggest submission to divine or noble purposes. Read with a certain masculine lens, the whole suggestion of being defeated to grow stronger is anathema. We master, overcome, triumph, manage and manipulate. Yet Christ’s call is precisely the call to be “defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.” In particular, to be conquered decisively by God which is a metaphor for submission to God’s will. We can fill our lives pursuing the goals we set for ourselves and manage to accomplish little of merit or we can allow God’s vision for us to overwhelm and guide us and move forward in growth.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Brother Lawrence's Prayers
Centuries ago, a little book entitled The Practice of the Presence of God, surfaced. Its author was a monk named Brother Lawrence. It is a helpful devotional book about seeking to find God’s presence in even the most mundane activities. Scattered throughout the book are several short prayers that can be prayed throughout the day.
Prayers from Brother Lawrence’s
The Practice of the Presence of God
Lord, I will never be able to do that if You don’t help me.
I can do nothing better without You. Please keep me from falling and correct the mistakes I make.
My God I am all Yours; do what You will with me
Lord, I am all Yours. God of Love, I love You with all my heart. Lord, use me according to Your will.
Lord, I love You with all my heart.
My God, since You are with me, and since, by Your will, I must occupy myself with external things, please grant me the grace to remain with You, in Your presence. Work with me, so that my work might be the very best. Receive as an offering of love both my work and all my affections.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Day Before Easter
Holy Week has long been the most important week of my annual spiritual journey. The Saturday of Holy Week--Holy Saturday--seems an appropriate time to begin this web journal. I welcome you to share in my journey. I pray that you find yourself growing in faith, hope and love. I pray that you know the power of Resurrection this Easter and for many Easters to come.
Grace and Peace
Grace and Peace
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