Tag Archives: humanity

War

19 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by in Humanity, Politics, Society, Theology

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What’s the deal with the emphasis on war?

We seem to have this weird fascination with war.  Politicians are always looking for wars, or at least talking about them.  We attach a great of glory to war – go to a battleground and you can feel the hallowed-ness of the ground.  The shedding of blood makes that ground a bit more sacred apparently.  But why was blood shed?

We glorify war in our entertainment.  There have been books written on this, so I won’t.

We even make sports a safer version of war.  We get statements like – warriors, gridiron battles, the offense slaughtered and routed the other team, etc.

Last week the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave talked about the future possibility of war in space and how we need a space force.

We’ve had other presidents who talked about war – from both parties.  We’ve had an ongoing war on poverty, war on drugs, war on terrorism.  Yet, these never-ending wars just go on.  They never end, they just continue to suck up resources.  We seem to be in a constant state of war – one that out lives the men who launch these wars.

The Romans worshiped Mars – the god of war.  War was good for Rome, until it wasn’t.  In war there was the opportunity to have an enemy and a scapegoat.  In war there was an opportunity to generate wealth and work.  In war there was the push for unwavering patriotism and unquestioning allegiance – wouldn’t want to be unpatriotic would you?  You might end up being seen as an enemy.

Instead of all the wars, maybe we should recognize that the only thing we get in war is death and destruction.  No one really wins.  Maybe we should try a different approach to tackling these things.

How about we try recognizing the humanity of people?  I know this method is risky.  It’s risky because it is rarely ever tried, and never fully tried.  But maybe we should give it a chance.  I know that we’ve only been trying war as a way to solve our problems for a short time – only a few millennia.  But maybe we could just pause our wars for a bit, and try a different way to solve problems.  What do you think?  Can we try it?

Scapegoat!

02 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Humanity, Society

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Humanity needs scapegoats.  At least that’s what we believe.  After every act of violence, we shout out loud and name a scapegoat.  Some times the scapegoat is foreign, as in “Islamic terrorist!!!”  And sometimes the scapegoat is domestic, as in “He had mental illness!!!”  Sometimes the scapegoat is a person and other times it is an object, vehicle, or weapon.

Scapegoats exist for us, as a society, to lay our sin on them and drive them out of society.  Having laid our sin on the scapegoat, we can wipe our hands clean and claim to have done something about the situation.

Yet, all we have done is shout and blame – blame someone else or something else.

How often do we look internally?  Most times, never.  That would be too painful.  We would have to examine what made such violence possible.  We would have to examine areas that we don’t like to touch – the immaterial, the spiritual, broken relationships.  We’d have to explore and search out what it is about our cultures that shapes people to do such things.  More importantly, we’d have to turn internally to see what it is we – yes, each one of us – does and believes that keeps the status quo in place.

It is easy to voice the words that things must change, but if we don’t start with a change of ourselves, where can the change possibly happen?  If it doesn’t begin with us, where will it begin?  Are each one of us blameless?  Are any of us sinless that we can legitimately point the finger of blame without it pointing back on us?

These acts of violence will continue because we are broken people who refuse to examine our own sins and brokenness.  These will continue because we refuse to look at our culture which embraced and encourages violence and makes a profit off of violence.  These acts of violence will continue.  And so will the scapegoating.

But it doesn’t have to.  We can choose a different path.  How about it?

 

What are the poor capable of?

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Humanity, Society

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So, if i asked you what a poor person was capable of, how would you answer?

Did your mind immediately go to a negative?  As in what crime is a poor person capable of?

Or did you start to think of all the possibilities that a poor person might have available to them to change their life?  Did you think of how lazy a poor person must be?

Or how about this – did you think about all the things that a poor person couldn’t possibly do because they are poor?

What are you basing your answer on?  Do you know anyone who is poor – or (gasp!) homeless?  By that I mean, do you know someone who is really poor or homeless by name and could easily have a conversation with them, or do on a regular basis?  As in you are essentially involved in their life and they are involved in yours?

Often we middle class folks don’t like to get involved with the poor or homeless – it messes up our lives and is messy.  Making eye contact or getting to know a person’s name might just mess up our schedules, or force us to see the humanity in someone else.  Or it might cost us something.

But here’s something another pastor told me yesterday that struck me – God has a way of messing our plans up and stirring the pot.  When we encounter the poor and homeless, it stirs the pot of comfort, of what is expected, and of what is considered normal.  Those that are different make the rest of us uncomfortable. But it is in that uncomfortableness that we have an opportunity to see why we are uncomfortable and we can grow from that.  And we can learn what it means to really help someone who is poor and homeless.

What does it mean to help someone like this – it means not making decisions for them, but to walk along side someone.  That’s no different from if someone is helping you – do you like to be told what to do?

What are the poor capable of?  Well, for one, they are capable of putting a mirror up to us so we can see the fear that we have – fear of being in their place and situation.  Secondly, they are capable of humanizing us again by giving us an opportunity to see the humanity in someone different from ourselves.

Jesus is calling…

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Humanity, Theology

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Ring, ring…

Ring, ring…

(Humanity answers the phone…)  “Hello…”

“Yeah, it’s me…Jesus.  I have a few things to tell you.  I just have to get these off my chest.”

“So, I’ve been thinking.  I’m thinking that you all have a slight problem. Ok, a big problem.  Many of you claim to be my followers.  Yet, when I look around, I’m not seeing much following going on.  I’m seeing a lot using my name and pretending to be followers going on.  You know, the whole consumerism thing going on in the West.  Yeah, that’s not something I’m really about.  Remember how I taught to give away all the stuff that got in the way of following me?  No…I’m not surprised.”

“Yeah, and about enemies.  You don’t seem to understand what I was saying.  I said to love your enemies.  Yet you seem intent on killing them.  But not with kindness…or love.  No just killing them.  I think we have a failure to communicate here.”

“Yeah and the poor, the marginalized, the persecuted, the defenseless.  Yeah, do I really need to go into detail here.”

“Oh, and you’re not going to like this one – putting country or political party above me is not my cup of tea.  We had this same problem in the past.  Just in case you haven’t learned this, no worries, you will.  The end result is always the same.  Country and party end up as something else.”

“Hello…are you still there?  Figures.  I’ll try again later.  Maybe you’ll listen.  Regardless, please hear this.  I still love you.  Even when you ignore me.  Even when you stop listening.  Even when you use my name but go on your own path.  Oh, and I’ve got you covered.  Just in ways you may not understand.”

“And for the few of you who are listening and doing your best to follow…thank you.  Keep it up.  Trust me, it’s worth it.”

“By the way, the dinner invitation every week stands. You can come to my place and you’ll be fed the best food and drink ever.  And we’ll talk about things that make you feel so very alive and ready to face the week. And of course the company will be interesting and sometimes challenging.  But like them, you’ll be my guest.”

“Talk with you again soon. Peace.”

(The call ends…)

Groupthink

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Church, Humanity, Politics, Society, Theology

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The term groupthink refers to a term from the novel “1984.”  If you have never read the book, it’s disturbing, but well worth reading.

I used the term as the title of this post because of an article I read – “Social Justice Bullies: The Authoritarianism of Millennial Social Justice” published on Medium.com.

The author tackles quite a range of thoughts and confronts something that he is observing – those that push social justice are not very tolerant of opposing viewpoints.  The author takes this to the point of claiming that social justice advocates require a new orthodoxy in thinking and that any disagreement with the new orthodoxy is cause for labeling and ostracize those that disagree with the groupthink.

The author takes on some touchy subjects.

An example of this is the so-called gender pay gap where the popular statistic is that women earn around 70% of what men earn.  The author uses information, articles in well-respected publications, and employment data to show that this gap doesn’t really exist.  But his point is not the statistics, but that the reaction to such data is one where labels are attached to a person who goes against the orthodoxy of supporting the idea of the gender pay gap, regardless of the data.  He essentially is saying – where is there room for debate?

As you read this post, I imagine there are a few reactions to this.  You might agree with what the author of the article I highlighted was saying.  You might disagree.  You might claim that the author is sexist or put on another kind of label to the author.  You might throw a label onto me for posting the article too.

The last one is the most interesting response because when you re-read my post, you’ll see that I never said what I believe about the article or the ideas within it.

Where am I going with this?  The church is no different from the rest of society because the church is made up of people.  People have a certain set of beliefs about what is orthodox and what is heretical and how to deal with those that are viewed as “heretical” or believe differently than ourselves.

The church has spent a great portion of its past denouncing those that don’t toe the line, to the point of excommunicating people, or worse, killing some.  Denominations have formed from other denominations because of the thirst to be “right” and be the holders of “right” thinking and be able to point the finger (or give the finger) to those what are deemed “heretical.”

Injustice comes in many forms – the popular forms are easy to spot.  Think racism, sexism, and anything else that you can attach -ism to.  Part of the issue is defining these terms because in many cases almost anything can become an -ism.  Which actually dilutes injustices that are occurring.  If there is injustice everywhere and all around constantly, then severe injustice is lumped in with far lesser injustices.  It becomes like a mortgage document – it discloses so much information that you never read it, and the information in it becomes worthless to the point that you sign it in the hope that you aren’t getting screwed over.

But injustice also comes in harder to spot forms as well – like when we go around labeling people who disagree with us on any number of topics and try to silence people.  We become Pharisees who see ourselves as more enlightened, more in tune with justice (however we are defining it), and better than “those” people who just don’t get it, or “those” evil people who want to bring about the destruction of the country/church/planet/etc.

I certainly don’t claim to be great at this.  I’ve sinned in this area plenty of times in my life – I have a background in politics and have done my fair share of labeling people and believing that “those” people who I disagree with are evil and trying to bring about the destruction of the country/church/etc.

But here is the Good News – We can’t stop doing this on our own.  Why is this good news?  Our human quest for orthodoxy and being right has been going on for probably as long as humans have been able to communicate with one another.  It comes down to wanting to be in control.  The first sin in the Bible was about humanity’s thirst for control.  We aren’t about to change this thirst any time soon.

But God helps us.  God doesn’t just wipe out this thirst in us because, well, how loving would that be?  Love involves freedom and error and all sorts of things, yet loving all the same.

We humans thirst for control and we find out time and time again that we don’t have it.  Only God has control – however loosely you might want to define it.  Because of God’s love for us, we can surrender the need for control.  It’s not easy, but it is possible.  We might struggle with this, but really our struggle is our own action, not God’s.

God’s love is unconditional.  We can take comfort in this.  If we still insist on labeling people, how about we label people differently – maybe something like this – Child of God.  It gives us a different perspective on how to look at people.

Control

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Society, Theology

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This is a post that has been bubbling up in me all day.  It’s gone through many variations as the day went on.  I’ll spare you the whole string of things that have gone through my head – it would take too long and it’s already midnight.  But I’m just to excited to get this out of my head not to share it.  Here’s my warning – it may not make a whole lot of sense to anyone else, so consider it intellectual playtime based on the day’s observations and seeing connections.  Having said all that, here we go.

Have you ever observed people?  I mean really observed people.  Watched them intently?  I did that today.  It was a fascinating experience.  It started when I noticed that I had typically been the one to break eye contact when a stranger and I caught each other making eye contact.

Then I started making sure that I wasn’t the one to break eye contact.  I observed how long it would be until someone broke eye contact, and what they did right after breaking eye contact.  It was really interesting.

Have you ever observed what people wear?  How about how they walk?  Or how their face looks as they walk?

I did all this and more today.  What I observed was that our entire world is caught up in the idea of control.  Now, of course, that’s a generalization, so there are whole to this.  And of course, this is not a conscious thing most of the time either.  Nor is it totally bad.  It’s just a part of the human condition.  We wear certain things to control our temperature.  We also wear certain things to control body parts.  We also wear certain things to try to influence what others think about us.

We have lights on our streets to control how much we can see.  We have phones to control our communication wants and needs.  We have police to control the peace and enforce the law.  We have government to control what we can and cannot do.  We have religions to control how we should live and what we should believe or not believe.  We have rules and regulations to control other parts of our life.  We have all sorts of things that control us and offer us an opportunity to control our surroundings.

Or at least that’s what we are lead to believe.

In reality, we control almost nothing.  I think an argument could be made that we have some control over our reactions when we become conscious of our reactions, but not until then.  We can control our emotions after we become conscious of our emotional state.

Yet, control is so important for humanity.  Without control, we feel lost.  We feel we are without purpose.  We feel fear of the unknown – the greatest fear we have.  And so we do things that give us a false sense of control – a sense of thinking we know something or we know what will happen.

But we do not have control.  The good news is that we don’t have control.  The good news is that it’s not up to us.  This can be scary, but it can also be very freeing.  It can allow us to live – truly live.  We can live in fear of the unknown, or we can live as if every moment if a gift from God.  Because God has given us this gift of life and salvation, we can then go out and live life – truly live.  We can accompany others because of the gift from God.

Control is overrated.  Control is tiring.  Control is exhausting.  Control is a lie.  God gives us everything we need.  It just may not be what we want, or what we think we want.

Good Friday

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in Family, Finland, Theology

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ImageWe had some more visitors to our neighbors yard yesterday morning.

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Today it was up to Harrisburg.  The kids colored eggs at pappy’s church while Abby and I went to pick up her birth certificate.  It was needed to apply for a passport.  On our way from the church to Vital Records, we saw some signs of Spring.

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Seeing the beautiful flowers in the midst of a concrete garden of humanity’s efforts and structure and organization is a good reminder of what Good Friday is all about.

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Given humanity’s efforts to bring everything under our control, we often forget that we are not in charge.  No matter how impressive things look, or how long we have had something in place.  We forget all too often that there are other things that have been around a lot longer.  This past winter is a great reminder that we don’t control the weather, often it impacts and alters our plans.

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Good Friday is a great opportunity to for us to wonder about God.  To see God’s vision for the world, to see the creation, to feel God’s presence.  It is an opportunity to look at death in the face and the potential of nature and how destructive it can be and to remember that out of death comes life.  A Good Friday to everyone.