It's curious how artists are often able to describe realities with far fewer words than scholars. What takes a scientist or a historian hundreds of pages takes a lyricist or poet just a few lines or stanzas.
It's also curious how sometimes an outsider's take better captures the reality of insiders. A little critical distance, a little objectivity, helps a lot. Clarity and enlightenment ensue.
In a combination of both of these tendencies, the late postmodern novelist and atheist, David Foster Wallace, said something remarkable about us all when he unexpectedly characterized us as "religious." In a famous commencement address, Wallace said, "Everybody worships." Here's the full context of that comment.
Everyone is Religious
"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship-be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness." Excerpted from This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace
The bucket seems pretty large for what Wallace might count as something we worship. It could be any of the things we might traditionally imagine like the institutional or historic capital "R" religions. Or it could be something like going to the mall, as James K. A. Smith has argued. Or sports fandom. Or sundry other things.
What if we have a religious relationship with our work?
In the 1960s, a Senate Committee issued a prediction that by the year 2000, Americans would only work 14 hours per week. There was significant hope increased automation and efficiency would mean that Americans could enjoy more leisure. It would be the first time in human history that a population so large would be working so little.
Perhaps much to our chagrin, the Committee's prediction never came true. In fact, it now seems rather silly. In our workaday world, it's difficult to fathom how someone could have imagined such a leisurely future. In contrast, many of us would claim we work more than we ever have. Even our own personal devices are a leash to the workplace, with e-mails, text messages, alerts, and calendars calling out to us at all hours.
Work and Worship
Writing in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson laments that so many younger workers have grown up in a world that recommends finding meaning and one's purpose in their job. Americans even use religious language to talk about it. Our jobs are our "callings." And when we talk about callings, the most common synonym that immediately comes to mind is "job," so ingrained in our imagination is this way of thinking.
Thompson suggests, following David Foster Wallace, that our jobs have become like altars, places of worship. They command our ultimate allegiance. We often hope to find a sense of deepest fulfillment from our work. We bow to our job like a god. Thompson calls this new religious impulse "workism."
Before workism, there was the culture of "total work." The early 20th-century philosopher Josef Pieper, writing in Germany just after WW II, expressed deep concern about how work had taken on a religious dynamic. The "total work" world is what produces workaholics, Pieper thinks.
His concerns are the kind that give us pause. In trying to describe how we imagine working as a normative feature of our existence (everybody should work [hard]), Pieper helps us to wonder why. Why is a "normal day the working day?" Or similarly, he wonders why we imagine vacation as "time-off" as if the "on" of our existence -- the normal way of things -- is to think of ourselves as always working. That the workaday world has such an influence on us to shape our imagination of daily existence in this way is why Pieper refers to our culture as one of "total work." Work is totalizing in its effect on our imagination. It's nearly impossible to think outside of it.
We've made "work" the center of our universe. Well, perhaps better, work has unwittingly become the center of our universe, without our having asked for it. Pieper's thought helps us see all the other words and ideas that orbit closely around it. In fact, he suggests, our whole lives seem to orbit around work. Our early years of getting an education are preparation for the workforce. "Retirement" has to do with that period of life that's "after" our working period.
A Place for Leisure
But it wasn't always this way. Pieper's discussion of work comes in a strangely titled book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture. What makes the title strange, at least to our ears, is that we often think of "leisure" in the same way that we think of laziness. Both are forms of "not working" and, therefore, they're often thought of synonymously. Leisure does have a positive connotation, often referring to some kind of relaxation and even fun. But again, Pieper's concern is that we are defining relaxation and fun in the same vein as we think of "time-off."
To illustrate the power of Pieper's point -- that we live in a culture of total work, or that work is totalizing in that it so powerfully shapes our imagination -- consider why the title of his book sounds so strange. If we hear the word "leisure" and one of the first synonyms that comes to mind is "laziness," why is our take so negative? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that leisure, in its association with time-off, connects laziness to a lack of productivity. And productivity seems to be the highest value in the total work world, according to Pieper.
This should be no surprise in a world so famously defined by the Protestant work ethic, a term many of us have heard, even if we're unaware of its source. The great sociologist working at the turn of the 20th century, Max Weber, bequeathed to us this term in the title of his book The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Yet it's perhaps that "spirit of capitalism" that plays the more important role in our reflection. For Weber argued that the highest good in a culture of total work -- a culture of productivity -- is profit. The more profit the better. And how is profit achieved? Greater and more efficient productivity.
I think Pieper is right. It's hard not to imagine our life without reference to work. It's true for me, and I know it is for many others. I also think that, because Pieper is right, David Foster Wallace is also right. We allow work to have so much importance that it takes on a religious significance. It becomes an altar where we worship, whether we realize it or not, whether we consider ourselves religious or not.
Affording work a place of religious significance is exactly what Thompson argues in The Atlantic. Framed between David Foster Wallace who says that everyone worships and Josef Pieper who says that we live in a culture of total work, Thompson's claim that we look to our work to find meaning and purpose -- even thinking of our work as our life's calling -- should be no surprise. Workism is one of the new religions of 21st-century Americans.
Purpose Beyond Your Job
Yet, perhaps you've found yourself at one time or another wondering, "What more is there?" While we can all find certain kinds of satisfaction in our work, it's not always like that. There are days when we drag ourselves out of bed and coerce ourselves into showing up, whether you work in your living room, a laboratory, or on the factory line. Dissatisfaction easily creeps in.
An ancient monk speaks to us from days long gone, telling us our feelings of dissatisfaction are quite valid. Martin Luther would be just as troubled as Pieper concerning how we conceive of work in our time. His thinking about work is helpful for those of us caught up in the religion of workism in two different ways. First, he advises us to think of work in a manner that includes much more than only our jobs. Second, when work is so broadly understood, we can go on to imagine how we might discover purpose and meaning within a cosmic framework, one that transcends the mere workaday world.
In the first sense, Luther points out the presence of lots of other kinds of work in our lives. Work isn't just where you make a living and earn a paycheck. You're working when you're changing your children's diapers and seeking to raise them well. You're working when you're obeying the laws of your society, which aim to bring security and peace to you and your neighbors. You work when you watch out for your neighbor's home or pets while they're away, lend them a tool, assist in a project that you have the skills to help with, or volunteer for any number of sundry opportunities in your community. In short, following the words of Jesus, Luther thinks of work so broadly because he imagines it as a fulfillment of what it means to "love your neighbor as yourself" (see Mark 12:31). Work, from Luther's point of view, is always understood as a form of serving others.
In the second sense, work is caught up in something much larger than just the work itself. Work has a cost, to be sure. It's not always easy, fun, or fulfilling. And it has to be done whether we like it or not. But it has great benefits, too. Our work, viewed through Luther's lens, is connected to the activity of God Himself, the One who created and sustains all things. In fact, your work, the labor of your hands, feet, mind, and voice, is the very energy that God uses to accomplish His own work of caring for all of creation -- humans, most especially. So even the most mundane and routine things, like changing diapers, voting, mowing the lawn, and getting dinner on the table, make a difference in the world that is good for us all. Seeing work this way makes it meaningful and purposeful not from our own perspective or that of others, but from God's. He sees you and uses you. The activities of your life are caught up in something bigger than yourself.
Jesus once said, "Man does not live by bread alone" (see Matthew 4:4). I say that humans cannot find purpose from a job alone. Jesus continued, saying that we live only from the very Words of God. As a corollary, our lives are only purposeful because our Creator puts us to use.
Luther's biblical understanding of work helps us transcend workism. If you've found yourself wondering if there's something more than just work, something more to life than just drawing a paycheck and living toward retirement, Luther says, unabashedly, yes! Religion then, ironically enough, matters to our work, even if our work should not be our religion. Luther would say Thompson's view is a bit short-sighted, a bit too narrow. Rather, you honor God in your work because your work inevitably brings about benefits for your neighbor. And God cares for you through their work, too.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
The Perilous Frontier of ME: Why "You Do You" Always Fails Us
An Unexpected Journey
Here's a familiar story many of us learned in our American history classes. The main characters are pioneer explorers Lewis and Clark. Their task was to find a waterway to the Pacific Ocean. Their journey begins on the Mississippi River. The journey ends where the Columbia River, which now forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington, meets the saltwater of the ocean.
The explorers were 15 months into their journey. Portaging their canoes, they were about to crest the highest ridge they had yet encountered. Having made camp for the night, the explorers dreamed with excitement about what they believed they would discover the next day. Flowing down from the crest of the ridge would be a gentle descent toward the shores of the Pacific. Or so they thought. The next morning revealed a surprising and unexpected reality.
Keep in mind that Lewis and Clark, along with their fellow explorers, only knew the lands of the Eastern United States. Broad, flat plains. Navigable waterways. Unintimidating mountain ranges. As they departed for their journey west, there was no reason not to expect more of the same.
So they were unprepared for what they did see. And it terrified them. Ahead was no gentle plain, no ocean shores. Instead, they faced the eastern foothills of one of the most terrifying and deadly mountain ranges in the Western world: the Rockies. Yet rather than turn back, they leaned into their charge to find a way to the Pacific. Abandoning the assumption about waterways leading to the nation's western shore, they left behind their canoes, knowing they could later make more. They made friends with those they met -- natives for whom this new frontier was nothing other than home -- who would lead and guide them toward their ultimate destination.
Suddenly making it up as they went, negotiating each new circumstance one at a time, the leadership writer Tod Bolsinger says Lewis and Clark learned how to "canoe the mountains."
Facing New Frontiers, but Unprepared
Like me, if you grew up playing Oregon Trail, you too are unprepared for the terrain you face today. Yet ours is not navigating the formidable frontiers of new territory. Ours is a social frontier, one we never expected and for which we lack the training to navigate. In fact, we might even say the training we did receive has in many ways been detrimental.
By "training," I mean something simple. Playing Oregon Trail, we learned not just about geography but also, however subtly, about independence and a kind of rugged individualism. To make your way in the world, you had to look out for yourself. Much of the formation we experienced in our education encouraged this, too. "Think for yourself," we were told. In the present time, we say to one another with a hint of vivifying encouragement in our voices, "You do you" (implying that we will do the same). We may have heard from time to time about the vice of selfishness, but it's difficult to deny that many of our experiences in life emphasized and even taught us habits of self-focus. The number one person you need to be concerned about is yourself. Your own success should be your primary goal.
Life in the midst of a what feels like a never-ending social crisis is difficult to navigate if we simply seek to serve ourselves and meet our own needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic requires us to navigate a world full of other people who may or may not carry the virus (any of us could have it, too), and so we seek to prevent further transmission by wearing masks, washing our hands, socially distancing, and staying home. Well, some of us do. And this presents a challenge. There's vast disagreement about how to behave, inconsistent observance of medical guidance, disagreement about whether the guidance is valid, and deep suspicion and mistrust of others, perhaps most especially the so-called authorities and experts. If "you do you" and so does everyone else, how do we move forward united?
There's more than a pandemic shaping our social frontier. Think of the unrest over racial tensions. An election year characterized by vitriol. Contempt and anger fueled by the "outrage-industrial complex" of the 24-hour news cycle and bots that capitalize on social media algorithms. The loss of work, the loneliness of isolation, anxiety about the present and the future, the fog and the boredom of working from home, the longing for a hug from loved ones who are frail or far away, and so much more.
Formation Gone Wrong
Our training was not for this kind of world. Ironically, perhaps our own formation has created it. Living solely for oneself, we might say, has produced the conditions we now experience. Autonomous individualism pits me against you, us against them, and leaves us at a loss for how to move forward with a sense of togetherness that is derived from anything more than anger and a wandering eye looking for whoever is to blame for this hell in which we feel trapped and hopeless.
Even seeking to blame others, whether people, systems, or institutions, is indicative of just how difficult it is for us not to think first of ourselves -- someone did this to me; it cannot be my fault.
If we are to find any help out of this self-myopia, it might be found in the most unlikely place. The mirror. How, you might ask, can a mirror, with all of its self-referential power, help me to escape the grip of an exclusive interest in my own needs, my own concerns, my own self?
A Hard Look at Ourselves
There's a lesson to be learned from the response given to an inquiry sent to British intellectuals in the early 20th century. G. K. Chesterton was a journalist and essayist. He was one of a number of distinguished thinkers to whom The Times, a British newspaper, sent this question: "What's wrong with the world?" Chesterton is said to have written the shortest response, saying something like this: "Dear sirs, In response to your question, 'What is Wrong with the World?,' I am. Yours, G.K. Chesterton."
What if we adopted Chesterton's posture? What would it mean if we began not by pointing the finger of blame away from us but, in a reasonable and humble manner, toward ourselves? What if we answered, "What is wrong with the world?" by thinking first of ourselves and our own self-seeking, instead of the problems of others?
Of course, in a time in which we prize positive mental health and self-care, this approach could be rejected as just too damaging and brutal. Why cause more harm by thinking about our failures? Yet, it is meant only to recognize, like St. Augustine, that just as there are parts of the world that we do not like but cannot do anything about, so also are there things about ourselves which we do not like but can do nothing about.
The Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had good reasons to point the finger of blame. He was unjustly imprisoned for challenging an unjust social system. Yet, he looked first in the mirror, recognizing his weaknesses. His time in the Russian gulags generated deep reflection, after which he admitted, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
Solzhenitsyn's question is obviously rhetorical. None of us are willing to destroy a piece of our own heart. So we must turn elsewhere to deal with the evil we experience.
Moving Toward Selflessness
In his brief account of the life of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and often considered while she was alive one of the most radical activists in the American church, David Brooks suggestively wonders if Day was just a little crazy in his The Road to Character.
"Day was unusual, maybe even perverse, in that she sometimes seemed to seek out suffering as a road to depth. She probably observed, as we all do, that people we call deep have almost always endured a season of suffering, or several such seasons. But she seemed to seek out those seasons, and to avoid some of the normal pleasures of life that would have brought simple earthly happiness. She often sought out occasions for moral heroism, occasions to serve others in acts of enduring hardship."
"Who would intentionally seek out suffering?" we're meant to wonder. Brooks' account of her life seems remarkably out of place, especially in our time when suffering is usually treated as a problem to be solved, something in need of a cure. Yet Brooks continues, assuring us that Day is not out of her right mind, saying,
"She was not a trapped animal compelled to suffer by circumstance; she ardently chose suffering. At each step along the way, when most people would have sought out comfort and ease -- what economists call self-interest or what psychologists call happiness -- she chose a different route, seeking discomfort and difficulty in order to satisfy her longing for holiness. She wasn't just choosing to work at a nonprofit institution in order to have a big impact; she was seeking to live in accord with the Gospels, even if that meant sacrifice and suffering."
The way Day lived was grounded in a particular story, a mission.
Facing the frontier of the brutal West in search of the shores of the Pacific, driven by President Jefferson's commissioning to seek a route for travel and commerce, Lewis and Clark "canoed the mountains," in part by seeking wisdom from those for whom that land was native territory, home. There is wisdom we can receive from others who've suffered difficult roads.
Dorothy Day, and the other figures about whom Brooks writes, offer images of wisdom for our time. We are not quick to choose suffering. Yet, in all our myopic concern for ourselves, there is a part of us -- a part of our hearts as Solzhenitsyn would say -- that longs to make a difference, that longs to live otherwise and meaningfully, to feel a part of something that connects us to others.
Day points us in that direction. She sought to live in accord with the Gospels. In those ancient accounts, we meet a man named Jesus who lived His life entirely for others, even to the extent that He let Himself be killed that others might live. His followers recorded these words, which give us a sense of Jesus's philosophy of life.
"Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done" (Matthew 16:24-27).
This is far from our contemporary saying, "You do you." Yet Jesus doesn't merely leave these words for us as a command or some point of reference against which we judge ourselves as a failure. Rather, He calls to you and me and promises to help us do it. For those who follow Jesus, who reflect on their own lives realizing that there are things about themselves that they do not like but can do nothing about, Jesus gives grace, helping us to see that what we think is impossible, is very much possible.
These words of encouragement from one of Jesus's greatest known followers, St. Paul of Tarsus, show us the way: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus ... for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose" (Philippians 2:3-5; 13).
Jesus invites us. Let us venture into our social frontier by taking stock of what we see in the mirror, asking God for help, and letting Him use us to make a difference in the world, through the same care and compassion that drove Him to give His life for us. Perhaps living our lives for others might truly be the wisdom (and revolution) we need.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Here's a familiar story many of us learned in our American history classes. The main characters are pioneer explorers Lewis and Clark. Their task was to find a waterway to the Pacific Ocean. Their journey begins on the Mississippi River. The journey ends where the Columbia River, which now forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington, meets the saltwater of the ocean.
The explorers were 15 months into their journey. Portaging their canoes, they were about to crest the highest ridge they had yet encountered. Having made camp for the night, the explorers dreamed with excitement about what they believed they would discover the next day. Flowing down from the crest of the ridge would be a gentle descent toward the shores of the Pacific. Or so they thought. The next morning revealed a surprising and unexpected reality.
Keep in mind that Lewis and Clark, along with their fellow explorers, only knew the lands of the Eastern United States. Broad, flat plains. Navigable waterways. Unintimidating mountain ranges. As they departed for their journey west, there was no reason not to expect more of the same.
So they were unprepared for what they did see. And it terrified them. Ahead was no gentle plain, no ocean shores. Instead, they faced the eastern foothills of one of the most terrifying and deadly mountain ranges in the Western world: the Rockies. Yet rather than turn back, they leaned into their charge to find a way to the Pacific. Abandoning the assumption about waterways leading to the nation's western shore, they left behind their canoes, knowing they could later make more. They made friends with those they met -- natives for whom this new frontier was nothing other than home -- who would lead and guide them toward their ultimate destination.
Suddenly making it up as they went, negotiating each new circumstance one at a time, the leadership writer Tod Bolsinger says Lewis and Clark learned how to "canoe the mountains."
Facing New Frontiers, but Unprepared
Like me, if you grew up playing Oregon Trail, you too are unprepared for the terrain you face today. Yet ours is not navigating the formidable frontiers of new territory. Ours is a social frontier, one we never expected and for which we lack the training to navigate. In fact, we might even say the training we did receive has in many ways been detrimental.
By "training," I mean something simple. Playing Oregon Trail, we learned not just about geography but also, however subtly, about independence and a kind of rugged individualism. To make your way in the world, you had to look out for yourself. Much of the formation we experienced in our education encouraged this, too. "Think for yourself," we were told. In the present time, we say to one another with a hint of vivifying encouragement in our voices, "You do you" (implying that we will do the same). We may have heard from time to time about the vice of selfishness, but it's difficult to deny that many of our experiences in life emphasized and even taught us habits of self-focus. The number one person you need to be concerned about is yourself. Your own success should be your primary goal.
Life in the midst of a what feels like a never-ending social crisis is difficult to navigate if we simply seek to serve ourselves and meet our own needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic requires us to navigate a world full of other people who may or may not carry the virus (any of us could have it, too), and so we seek to prevent further transmission by wearing masks, washing our hands, socially distancing, and staying home. Well, some of us do. And this presents a challenge. There's vast disagreement about how to behave, inconsistent observance of medical guidance, disagreement about whether the guidance is valid, and deep suspicion and mistrust of others, perhaps most especially the so-called authorities and experts. If "you do you" and so does everyone else, how do we move forward united?
There's more than a pandemic shaping our social frontier. Think of the unrest over racial tensions. An election year characterized by vitriol. Contempt and anger fueled by the "outrage-industrial complex" of the 24-hour news cycle and bots that capitalize on social media algorithms. The loss of work, the loneliness of isolation, anxiety about the present and the future, the fog and the boredom of working from home, the longing for a hug from loved ones who are frail or far away, and so much more.
Formation Gone Wrong
Our training was not for this kind of world. Ironically, perhaps our own formation has created it. Living solely for oneself, we might say, has produced the conditions we now experience. Autonomous individualism pits me against you, us against them, and leaves us at a loss for how to move forward with a sense of togetherness that is derived from anything more than anger and a wandering eye looking for whoever is to blame for this hell in which we feel trapped and hopeless.
Even seeking to blame others, whether people, systems, or institutions, is indicative of just how difficult it is for us not to think first of ourselves -- someone did this to me; it cannot be my fault.
If we are to find any help out of this self-myopia, it might be found in the most unlikely place. The mirror. How, you might ask, can a mirror, with all of its self-referential power, help me to escape the grip of an exclusive interest in my own needs, my own concerns, my own self?
A Hard Look at Ourselves
There's a lesson to be learned from the response given to an inquiry sent to British intellectuals in the early 20th century. G. K. Chesterton was a journalist and essayist. He was one of a number of distinguished thinkers to whom The Times, a British newspaper, sent this question: "What's wrong with the world?" Chesterton is said to have written the shortest response, saying something like this: "Dear sirs, In response to your question, 'What is Wrong with the World?,' I am. Yours, G.K. Chesterton."
What if we adopted Chesterton's posture? What would it mean if we began not by pointing the finger of blame away from us but, in a reasonable and humble manner, toward ourselves? What if we answered, "What is wrong with the world?" by thinking first of ourselves and our own self-seeking, instead of the problems of others?
Of course, in a time in which we prize positive mental health and self-care, this approach could be rejected as just too damaging and brutal. Why cause more harm by thinking about our failures? Yet, it is meant only to recognize, like St. Augustine, that just as there are parts of the world that we do not like but cannot do anything about, so also are there things about ourselves which we do not like but can do nothing about.
The Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had good reasons to point the finger of blame. He was unjustly imprisoned for challenging an unjust social system. Yet, he looked first in the mirror, recognizing his weaknesses. His time in the Russian gulags generated deep reflection, after which he admitted, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
Solzhenitsyn's question is obviously rhetorical. None of us are willing to destroy a piece of our own heart. So we must turn elsewhere to deal with the evil we experience.
Moving Toward Selflessness
In his brief account of the life of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and often considered while she was alive one of the most radical activists in the American church, David Brooks suggestively wonders if Day was just a little crazy in his The Road to Character.
"Day was unusual, maybe even perverse, in that she sometimes seemed to seek out suffering as a road to depth. She probably observed, as we all do, that people we call deep have almost always endured a season of suffering, or several such seasons. But she seemed to seek out those seasons, and to avoid some of the normal pleasures of life that would have brought simple earthly happiness. She often sought out occasions for moral heroism, occasions to serve others in acts of enduring hardship."
"Who would intentionally seek out suffering?" we're meant to wonder. Brooks' account of her life seems remarkably out of place, especially in our time when suffering is usually treated as a problem to be solved, something in need of a cure. Yet Brooks continues, assuring us that Day is not out of her right mind, saying,
"She was not a trapped animal compelled to suffer by circumstance; she ardently chose suffering. At each step along the way, when most people would have sought out comfort and ease -- what economists call self-interest or what psychologists call happiness -- she chose a different route, seeking discomfort and difficulty in order to satisfy her longing for holiness. She wasn't just choosing to work at a nonprofit institution in order to have a big impact; she was seeking to live in accord with the Gospels, even if that meant sacrifice and suffering."
The way Day lived was grounded in a particular story, a mission.
Facing the frontier of the brutal West in search of the shores of the Pacific, driven by President Jefferson's commissioning to seek a route for travel and commerce, Lewis and Clark "canoed the mountains," in part by seeking wisdom from those for whom that land was native territory, home. There is wisdom we can receive from others who've suffered difficult roads.
Dorothy Day, and the other figures about whom Brooks writes, offer images of wisdom for our time. We are not quick to choose suffering. Yet, in all our myopic concern for ourselves, there is a part of us -- a part of our hearts as Solzhenitsyn would say -- that longs to make a difference, that longs to live otherwise and meaningfully, to feel a part of something that connects us to others.
Day points us in that direction. She sought to live in accord with the Gospels. In those ancient accounts, we meet a man named Jesus who lived His life entirely for others, even to the extent that He let Himself be killed that others might live. His followers recorded these words, which give us a sense of Jesus's philosophy of life.
"Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done" (Matthew 16:24-27).
This is far from our contemporary saying, "You do you." Yet Jesus doesn't merely leave these words for us as a command or some point of reference against which we judge ourselves as a failure. Rather, He calls to you and me and promises to help us do it. For those who follow Jesus, who reflect on their own lives realizing that there are things about themselves that they do not like but can do nothing about, Jesus gives grace, helping us to see that what we think is impossible, is very much possible.
These words of encouragement from one of Jesus's greatest known followers, St. Paul of Tarsus, show us the way: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus ... for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose" (Philippians 2:3-5; 13).
Jesus invites us. Let us venture into our social frontier by taking stock of what we see in the mirror, asking God for help, and letting Him use us to make a difference in the world, through the same care and compassion that drove Him to give His life for us. Perhaps living our lives for others might truly be the wisdom (and revolution) we need.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
You're an Elitist, Even If You Don't Know It
It's unfashionable these days to cheer for elitism. It's more honest to admit however, that in not cheering for elitism (or shaming people who do), one simply joins the ranks of a different elite.
Before I explain, let me tell a story.
Don't Forget to Think About College
It's only been a few years since I've been doing it. My wife and I regularly, but subtly encourage our oldest daughter to think about going to college. We'll soon begin doing the same with her younger sister. We try not to put too much pressure on the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I've known enough "grown-ups" who still don't have answers to that question. Nevertheless, we do try to orient her toward a future that includes education on the horizon for quite some time. After that, she'll likely embark upon some kind of career, whether full- or part-time, and probably take some time to raise kids of her own.
Long ago now, my own parents started me down this same path. By the time I was in high school, I was on the college-prep track like most of my peers. Going to college seemed to be a no-brainer. It was just assumed in my family that I and each of my siblings would go to college immediately following high school, earning at least a baccalaureate degree.
Sometimes Learning Is No Fun
While I was in high school however, I hated school and dreaded the prospects of further study. While I was a decent student, I was sick of mathematics, bored with English, disliked reading, and abhorred writing. I intended to start college as a music major so I could at least do something I loved. I'm a drummer. I studied percussion. Of course, I still had to slog through general education courses, including math and English. But studying something I loved mitigated my full-on desire not to be in school.
Then something happened early on in my college career. I had a transformative experience unrelated to school. It was really something quite spiritual. And in the midst of it all, I realized I had stumbled upon something that I found utterly fascinating, something that pretty much changed the trajectory of my entire life.
I suddenly went from being someone who hated reading and writing to very quickly enjoying both. This was especially the case as I began to read in areas like philosophy, psychology, and Christian theology. All these areas were quite new to me, but I devoured almost everything I could find to read that helped me to adjust to the new way I now saw the world.
Before finishing my baccalaureate degree, graduate school was already on the horizon for me. That was a grueling four more years of rigorous academic and professional training.
Then, as if I were a glutton for punishment, I embarked upon doctoral studies. Seven more years later, I was finally done with formal education. Looking back on my former disposition toward school as a teenager, by the time I was done with post-secondary education, I had been in school for 29 years of my life (pre-school to PhD). If you would have asked me in high school, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined choosing to further my education for that long. And looking back, I know I wouldn't have if it were not for that transformative spiritual experience.
What does any of this have to do with elitism?
Well, at least two things.
Let me get at those by means of another story. Hang with me. It'll all come together. I promise.
Connecting the Classroom to the World
While I was in graduate school, my goal was to teach. Toward the end of my studies, I began submitting job applications. My first job was teaching religion at a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest.
Not long after beginning this work, I quickly realized that I was often teaching people who were very much like I was in the earliest days of my college career. Often, my students didn't want to be in the gen-ed courses I was teaching. Like me, they were sick of math and didn't like writing.
Toward the end of their four years, however, they began to think about what would come next. At this point, they were well-acclimated to the college experience and knew how to engage well in class. Remembering my own prior experience and disposition toward college motivated me as a teacher to conduct my courses in such a way that every student could take something useful away. I didn't need them to buy into everything that was on the syllabus. They didn't have to believe the religious material we were studying in order to earn an A in my courses. But I wanted them to be able to articulate how the things we studied mattered in the real world.
We often talked about current events, social attitudes, and why people behaved in the ways that they did. Religion, perhaps surprisingly, intersects all these areas in deep and penetrating ways.
During the years I taught, the environment of higher education more and more became one in which a great deal of emphasis was put on concerns like diversity, equity, and other issues related to social justice. These are important matters and, as a result, they'd spark important and challenging discussions. One of them had to do with elitism. We talked about it in my classes, what it meant, and how we should think of it.
Since leaving the university setting for a different but not completely unrelated career field, I've noticed that the concerns of the university for the last half-decade have more and more come to be the concerns of our culture at large. Elitism included.
Often, elitism is denigrated. Considered negatively, elitism is bound up with conceptions related to the abuse of power. We tend to think of those who have power as those who are prone to corruption for the sake of maintaining and bolstering their power, while limiting access to their ranks at the same time. This is the fashionable view I alluded to at the beginning. To the extent you adhere to this and stand against elitism, you rank with those who believe their views are more righteous than others, constituting a new elite.
Elitism and Power
We don't have to think of it that way, however. Elitism, to be sure, is related to power. Yet, it's possible to consider elitism and power from a positive perspective, too.
I'm an elitist. And so are you. We can make that statement simply by taking stock of some of our experiences, our credentials, our skills, our certifications, and more. If you have a high school diploma, that matters in our society. Certain rights and privileges are yours as a result of finishing high school.
The same is true if you have further education, like one or more college degrees.
Perhaps you've earned a unique title, like reverend or doctor.
Maybe you've achieved a certain military rank, like sergeant or you serve as "honorable judge so and so of the 9th Appellate Court." Or perhaps you hold a public office of some sort, like representing your neighborhood as an alderperson.
You might be a respected athletic coach, or have any number of certifications, like in exercise instruction or graphic design.
Perhaps you're a grandparent and give advice to new parents. Or you've retired from 30 years in the same career and consult within your area of expertise.
We could list so much more. In a word, we're talking about "achievements." And we live in a world where achievements of this sort have consequences, earnings rights, privileges, authority, power.
The basic idea is that you -- whoever you are, whatever your age in life, however much experience you have, whatever your credentials -- you know some important things, other people recognize that you know them, and thus you have a certain kind of power. You can influence others, teach them, or speak as an expert or with positional authority.
Not all power is equal of course, but we all have some. And that makes us elitists. Because we expect that people with power have the agency to use that power. And we will all use it. This then, is the basic understanding of what it means to be an elitist. Elitists are simply those who have power -- perhaps by means of credentials like a degree, a title that confers positional authority, or a certain amount of years of experience or special training -- and we expect others to recognize this power and defer to it in appropriate ways. As agents who can leverage our various kinds of power, we can use that power for good or ill.
As I discussed elitism with my students, helping them to see for example that their college degrees afforded them a kind of power, ranking them within a certain class of elites (i.e. college graduates), I also challenged them with these questions.
What will you do with your power?
Is your power for you? Or is it for others?
Will you use it to advance yourself or advance others?
Will you lay it down if it becomes necessary?
Thinking of power and elitism in these ways follows in the footsteps of Jesus. People generally have a positive view of Jesus. Perhaps this will prompt us to reconsider thinking of power and elitism from His perspective.
Let me be honest, however. Christians -- those who claim to follow Jesus - have not always followed Jesus when it comes to power. History shows in embarrassing and atrocious ways that Christians have often acted only for their own self-interests, while simultaneously claiming to be people for others.
We can explain this by saying that Christians, too, are merely human. But this does not justify it.
Rather than pointing to Christians, it's better to point to Jesus to think about how to handle the power we have. After all, He claimed to be the Son of God. But it was said of Him that He laid down all of His power, taking on the form of a servant instead, and finally giving His very own life for others (see Philippians 2.5-11). Rather than using power for selfish gain - and He was presented with many opportunities to do so - He chose a posture of powerlessness. Ironically, His powerlessness became the most powerful force of all, opening a future of hope for everyone who would follow Him.
It was that same powerlessness that transformed my life early in my first year of college. It was during that time that I met Jesus. Looking back, it seemed like a complete accident. I mean, I hadn't been looking to become religious. In fact, while not militantly opposed to religion, I still had some pretty serious objections. I thought of and described myself as an atheist. But in the end, it seems, I was powerless against God's haunting pursuit of me. And He changed everything about my life.
Meeting Jesus is like encountering the greatest kind of power you can imagine, rendering you in that moment into a powerless mess. It's then that Jesus uses His power for you, raising you to a new life that can be lived in His power and for others. This is the beginning of understanding what power is for -- not for ourselves, but ultimately for others. Hence the questions to my students about how they will live out their elitism, what they will do with their power.
Knowing that the power of God is the power by which we live, all other powers and privileges which we enjoy can be aimed outward, for the benefit of others, always empowered by the work of God through us for them.
So, my elitist friend, how are you going to use your power?
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Before I explain, let me tell a story.
Don't Forget to Think About College
It's only been a few years since I've been doing it. My wife and I regularly, but subtly encourage our oldest daughter to think about going to college. We'll soon begin doing the same with her younger sister. We try not to put too much pressure on the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I've known enough "grown-ups" who still don't have answers to that question. Nevertheless, we do try to orient her toward a future that includes education on the horizon for quite some time. After that, she'll likely embark upon some kind of career, whether full- or part-time, and probably take some time to raise kids of her own.
Long ago now, my own parents started me down this same path. By the time I was in high school, I was on the college-prep track like most of my peers. Going to college seemed to be a no-brainer. It was just assumed in my family that I and each of my siblings would go to college immediately following high school, earning at least a baccalaureate degree.
Sometimes Learning Is No Fun
While I was in high school however, I hated school and dreaded the prospects of further study. While I was a decent student, I was sick of mathematics, bored with English, disliked reading, and abhorred writing. I intended to start college as a music major so I could at least do something I loved. I'm a drummer. I studied percussion. Of course, I still had to slog through general education courses, including math and English. But studying something I loved mitigated my full-on desire not to be in school.
Then something happened early on in my college career. I had a transformative experience unrelated to school. It was really something quite spiritual. And in the midst of it all, I realized I had stumbled upon something that I found utterly fascinating, something that pretty much changed the trajectory of my entire life.
I suddenly went from being someone who hated reading and writing to very quickly enjoying both. This was especially the case as I began to read in areas like philosophy, psychology, and Christian theology. All these areas were quite new to me, but I devoured almost everything I could find to read that helped me to adjust to the new way I now saw the world.
Before finishing my baccalaureate degree, graduate school was already on the horizon for me. That was a grueling four more years of rigorous academic and professional training.
Then, as if I were a glutton for punishment, I embarked upon doctoral studies. Seven more years later, I was finally done with formal education. Looking back on my former disposition toward school as a teenager, by the time I was done with post-secondary education, I had been in school for 29 years of my life (pre-school to PhD). If you would have asked me in high school, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined choosing to further my education for that long. And looking back, I know I wouldn't have if it were not for that transformative spiritual experience.
What does any of this have to do with elitism?
Well, at least two things.
Let me get at those by means of another story. Hang with me. It'll all come together. I promise.
Connecting the Classroom to the World
While I was in graduate school, my goal was to teach. Toward the end of my studies, I began submitting job applications. My first job was teaching religion at a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest.
Not long after beginning this work, I quickly realized that I was often teaching people who were very much like I was in the earliest days of my college career. Often, my students didn't want to be in the gen-ed courses I was teaching. Like me, they were sick of math and didn't like writing.
Toward the end of their four years, however, they began to think about what would come next. At this point, they were well-acclimated to the college experience and knew how to engage well in class. Remembering my own prior experience and disposition toward college motivated me as a teacher to conduct my courses in such a way that every student could take something useful away. I didn't need them to buy into everything that was on the syllabus. They didn't have to believe the religious material we were studying in order to earn an A in my courses. But I wanted them to be able to articulate how the things we studied mattered in the real world.
We often talked about current events, social attitudes, and why people behaved in the ways that they did. Religion, perhaps surprisingly, intersects all these areas in deep and penetrating ways.
During the years I taught, the environment of higher education more and more became one in which a great deal of emphasis was put on concerns like diversity, equity, and other issues related to social justice. These are important matters and, as a result, they'd spark important and challenging discussions. One of them had to do with elitism. We talked about it in my classes, what it meant, and how we should think of it.
Since leaving the university setting for a different but not completely unrelated career field, I've noticed that the concerns of the university for the last half-decade have more and more come to be the concerns of our culture at large. Elitism included.
Often, elitism is denigrated. Considered negatively, elitism is bound up with conceptions related to the abuse of power. We tend to think of those who have power as those who are prone to corruption for the sake of maintaining and bolstering their power, while limiting access to their ranks at the same time. This is the fashionable view I alluded to at the beginning. To the extent you adhere to this and stand against elitism, you rank with those who believe their views are more righteous than others, constituting a new elite.
Elitism and Power
We don't have to think of it that way, however. Elitism, to be sure, is related to power. Yet, it's possible to consider elitism and power from a positive perspective, too.
I'm an elitist. And so are you. We can make that statement simply by taking stock of some of our experiences, our credentials, our skills, our certifications, and more. If you have a high school diploma, that matters in our society. Certain rights and privileges are yours as a result of finishing high school.
The same is true if you have further education, like one or more college degrees.
Perhaps you've earned a unique title, like reverend or doctor.
Maybe you've achieved a certain military rank, like sergeant or you serve as "honorable judge so and so of the 9th Appellate Court." Or perhaps you hold a public office of some sort, like representing your neighborhood as an alderperson.
You might be a respected athletic coach, or have any number of certifications, like in exercise instruction or graphic design.
Perhaps you're a grandparent and give advice to new parents. Or you've retired from 30 years in the same career and consult within your area of expertise.
We could list so much more. In a word, we're talking about "achievements." And we live in a world where achievements of this sort have consequences, earnings rights, privileges, authority, power.
The basic idea is that you -- whoever you are, whatever your age in life, however much experience you have, whatever your credentials -- you know some important things, other people recognize that you know them, and thus you have a certain kind of power. You can influence others, teach them, or speak as an expert or with positional authority.
Not all power is equal of course, but we all have some. And that makes us elitists. Because we expect that people with power have the agency to use that power. And we will all use it. This then, is the basic understanding of what it means to be an elitist. Elitists are simply those who have power -- perhaps by means of credentials like a degree, a title that confers positional authority, or a certain amount of years of experience or special training -- and we expect others to recognize this power and defer to it in appropriate ways. As agents who can leverage our various kinds of power, we can use that power for good or ill.
As I discussed elitism with my students, helping them to see for example that their college degrees afforded them a kind of power, ranking them within a certain class of elites (i.e. college graduates), I also challenged them with these questions.
What will you do with your power?
Is your power for you? Or is it for others?
Will you use it to advance yourself or advance others?
Will you lay it down if it becomes necessary?
Thinking of power and elitism in these ways follows in the footsteps of Jesus. People generally have a positive view of Jesus. Perhaps this will prompt us to reconsider thinking of power and elitism from His perspective.
Let me be honest, however. Christians -- those who claim to follow Jesus - have not always followed Jesus when it comes to power. History shows in embarrassing and atrocious ways that Christians have often acted only for their own self-interests, while simultaneously claiming to be people for others.
We can explain this by saying that Christians, too, are merely human. But this does not justify it.
Rather than pointing to Christians, it's better to point to Jesus to think about how to handle the power we have. After all, He claimed to be the Son of God. But it was said of Him that He laid down all of His power, taking on the form of a servant instead, and finally giving His very own life for others (see Philippians 2.5-11). Rather than using power for selfish gain - and He was presented with many opportunities to do so - He chose a posture of powerlessness. Ironically, His powerlessness became the most powerful force of all, opening a future of hope for everyone who would follow Him.
It was that same powerlessness that transformed my life early in my first year of college. It was during that time that I met Jesus. Looking back, it seemed like a complete accident. I mean, I hadn't been looking to become religious. In fact, while not militantly opposed to religion, I still had some pretty serious objections. I thought of and described myself as an atheist. But in the end, it seems, I was powerless against God's haunting pursuit of me. And He changed everything about my life.
Meeting Jesus is like encountering the greatest kind of power you can imagine, rendering you in that moment into a powerless mess. It's then that Jesus uses His power for you, raising you to a new life that can be lived in His power and for others. This is the beginning of understanding what power is for -- not for ourselves, but ultimately for others. Hence the questions to my students about how they will live out their elitism, what they will do with their power.
Knowing that the power of God is the power by which we live, all other powers and privileges which we enjoy can be aimed outward, for the benefit of others, always empowered by the work of God through us for them.
So, my elitist friend, how are you going to use your power?
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
We Are Not Our Plans
David Brooks recently observed that moments of suffering help us to realize that all of us think we are "our plans." Our lives and identity are shaped around what we are planning for ourselves and our futures. Most of the time we take this for granted; we don't think about it. But moments when our plans are thrown into question and our expectations are dashed, these are the times when we come face to face with the link between our identity and our plans.
For seven years, I was a university professor. During one memorable semester, I had a student-athlete who suffered a significant injury with one of the core muscles that moved her hip. She was a basketball player and had played basketball for much of her life. Her college experience revolved around her role on the basketball team, including her tuition, since she was studying on an athletic scholarship. Yet, all at once, she was unable to play and had to sit out for the rest of the season. Medical professionals were unsure about the best approach to take that might lead to healing. It was unknown if she would be able to play again.
Her injury completely threw her off. Suddenly, she was asking questions like "Who am I?" and "What now?" The disruption of her plans raised questions about her self-understanding. Previously, she always had an answer. "I'm a basketball player. Basketball is my life." Yet, when she couldn't play anymore, the limited view that "basketball is life" was suddenly felt at the deepest level.
Obviously, there was more to life than basketball. Of course, this was already something that she knew in a tacit way. But up to this point in her life, she didn't have to think about it. Basketball was always there. And presumably it would always be there. But now she was pressed to face a reality, a future, that didn't align with her plans. And effectively, it called her very identity into question.
If we are not our plans, what are we? Perhaps we are our opportunities. But this sort of answer has to be contextualized and specified for two reasons. First, not all of us have (or will have) the same opportunities. Second, we're not talking about a pie-in-the-sky idea like imagining the "world as our playground" as if our opportunities are unlimited. The conditions and contingences of our opportunities are numerous, making opportunities limited for all of us. Nevertheless, we all have some.
In the midst of what appears to be the disintegration of our plans, we are presented with an opportunity. We are offered a chance, as it is often said in the business and political world, to pivot. Imagine pivoting, which is an athletic move turned metaphor, as the sort of re-orientation that maintains an anchor point. In the athletic move, one foot remains planted, while the other foot moves and turns the body in a different direction, from which a new move will commence. So, our plans are gone, but if we retain an anchor, a pivot point where we are still rooted firmly in place, we can rest a little and retain a confidence. While our plans are no longer in play, our identity may not be as threatened as it often feels like it is. This is part of what it means to say that we are not our plans.
Another former student found a way to pivot. She had entered college to be a nurse, believing for most of her life that nursing was her future. However, she didn't make it through the gauntlet that is chemistry, one of the most rigorous gatekeeping mechanisms for students who are pursuing a variety of professional medical degrees. While her experience was crushing in the short term, she didn't quit. Rather, after a brief period of grief, she ended up finishing her degree in English, writing an undergraduate thesis that was one part memoir, one part guide about her journey into this new opportunity. In other words, she left some notes for others on what she learned about how to pivot.
In the midst of our current pandemic crisis, there are countless people who have had their plans exploded in surprising and devastating ways. Many students have had their proms cancelled. High school and college graduations -- some of the biggest milestones of life -- have gone digital. Sports seasons have abruptly ended. Jobs have been lost and many more who are just entering the job market have no idea what the future holds. Major world events and traditions are cancelled because people cannot gather. Investments and financial stability are upended. Many of the vital non-profits that serve a vast array of social needs are now suddenly facing significant risk. Some long-established businesses are even calling it quits after just a few weeks.
But we are not our plans. Our identity runs much deeper than what we were planning to do tomorrow, next week, or next year. And that means we have an anchor from which we can pivot. Yet, not all anchors are as stable as others.
If your anchor is chasing the American Dream -- a good job so you can make money, find success, marry an attractive spouse, have beautiful children, buy all the best stuff, and make yourself the envy of everyone, all for the sake of being happy -- that anchor may have just disintegrated before your eyes. This may be especially true if you're a Millennial.
If your anchor has always been looking inside of yourself and following your heart, marching to the beat of your own drummer, you doing you -- perhaps your anchor seems to have evaporated in a flash. After all, it's likely your plans emerged out of what you believed you found in your heart. And the passion behind those plans, however real it feels, may be looking for a new target.
So how do we anchor ourselves to something we can be confident in? How do we known which direction to face and what opportunities to pursue when we have to pivot? None of us have trained for this. We're unprepared. But we want to move forward in hope, and with as much confidence as possible.
Perhaps the suffering we're feeling gives us the chance to recognize that the "promises" of the American Dream aren't really the promises we were told they were. Sadly, we were misled.
Even more, perhaps the promises of finding your authentic self and your true passions by looking inside yourself are also turning out to be a letdown. The wisdom of the ages, from philosophical and religious traditions across world history have warned us of this. But our present cultural situation stubbornly encourages us to focus almost solely on ourselves and our own happiness. Our ears are closed to hearing alternatives -- except when we face a crisis.
Years ago, I had a conversion experience. Subsequently, all the plans I had for how I imagined my life would go either disappeared or were radically reoriented. Things I thought I would never do or would never be interested in became the very things I found myself doing and digging into with an almost insatiable vigor. A new anchor emerged in my life, and it's been there ever since.
That anchor was a Person, and His Name is Jesus. Meeting Him was something I had intentionally tried to avoid over the years. Yet it seemed to happen by accident. I wasn't in the middle of a crisis at the time, but meeting Him seem to cause one. I had to figure out who I was now, once I came to know my identity not by looking into my heart, but by knowing that He thought of me as His child. His influence over the shape of my life was tumultuous for my original plans. But it's been a grand adventure ever since, and remains so as I write these words.
The two things that I've learned about Jesus are these: He's the most stable anchor that I know of and, when pivoting, He's always a point of reference for where I should aim myself. He's never let me down. One of the best parts about knowing Jesus is that my own plans can take a back seat. And to the extent that I've been successful at releasing my plans (or when I've faced challenges and have had to re-orient), I find myself always a part of a bigger set of plans than I ever could have imagined, even when things aren't always clear. It's like He wants me here, part of this thing, this movement that's bigger than myself, and through which I've experienced more fulfillment than I think I would have if I had it all my way.
We're not our plans. But with Jesus, our plans can easily be reshaped to align with His. Perhaps we'll never achieve the American Dream that way. Perhaps we'll have to make some radical shifts. He doesn't promise it'll be easy, or that it won't at times be painful. I'm glad for that, because He's honest that life isn't always going to make us happy. Yet, when our identity is no longer rooted in our plans but instead anchored in Jesus, we can be content, fulfilled and joyful, come what may.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
For seven years, I was a university professor. During one memorable semester, I had a student-athlete who suffered a significant injury with one of the core muscles that moved her hip. She was a basketball player and had played basketball for much of her life. Her college experience revolved around her role on the basketball team, including her tuition, since she was studying on an athletic scholarship. Yet, all at once, she was unable to play and had to sit out for the rest of the season. Medical professionals were unsure about the best approach to take that might lead to healing. It was unknown if she would be able to play again.
Her injury completely threw her off. Suddenly, she was asking questions like "Who am I?" and "What now?" The disruption of her plans raised questions about her self-understanding. Previously, she always had an answer. "I'm a basketball player. Basketball is my life." Yet, when she couldn't play anymore, the limited view that "basketball is life" was suddenly felt at the deepest level.
Obviously, there was more to life than basketball. Of course, this was already something that she knew in a tacit way. But up to this point in her life, she didn't have to think about it. Basketball was always there. And presumably it would always be there. But now she was pressed to face a reality, a future, that didn't align with her plans. And effectively, it called her very identity into question.
If we are not our plans, what are we? Perhaps we are our opportunities. But this sort of answer has to be contextualized and specified for two reasons. First, not all of us have (or will have) the same opportunities. Second, we're not talking about a pie-in-the-sky idea like imagining the "world as our playground" as if our opportunities are unlimited. The conditions and contingences of our opportunities are numerous, making opportunities limited for all of us. Nevertheless, we all have some.
In the midst of what appears to be the disintegration of our plans, we are presented with an opportunity. We are offered a chance, as it is often said in the business and political world, to pivot. Imagine pivoting, which is an athletic move turned metaphor, as the sort of re-orientation that maintains an anchor point. In the athletic move, one foot remains planted, while the other foot moves and turns the body in a different direction, from which a new move will commence. So, our plans are gone, but if we retain an anchor, a pivot point where we are still rooted firmly in place, we can rest a little and retain a confidence. While our plans are no longer in play, our identity may not be as threatened as it often feels like it is. This is part of what it means to say that we are not our plans.
Another former student found a way to pivot. She had entered college to be a nurse, believing for most of her life that nursing was her future. However, she didn't make it through the gauntlet that is chemistry, one of the most rigorous gatekeeping mechanisms for students who are pursuing a variety of professional medical degrees. While her experience was crushing in the short term, she didn't quit. Rather, after a brief period of grief, she ended up finishing her degree in English, writing an undergraduate thesis that was one part memoir, one part guide about her journey into this new opportunity. In other words, she left some notes for others on what she learned about how to pivot.
In the midst of our current pandemic crisis, there are countless people who have had their plans exploded in surprising and devastating ways. Many students have had their proms cancelled. High school and college graduations -- some of the biggest milestones of life -- have gone digital. Sports seasons have abruptly ended. Jobs have been lost and many more who are just entering the job market have no idea what the future holds. Major world events and traditions are cancelled because people cannot gather. Investments and financial stability are upended. Many of the vital non-profits that serve a vast array of social needs are now suddenly facing significant risk. Some long-established businesses are even calling it quits after just a few weeks.
But we are not our plans. Our identity runs much deeper than what we were planning to do tomorrow, next week, or next year. And that means we have an anchor from which we can pivot. Yet, not all anchors are as stable as others.
If your anchor is chasing the American Dream -- a good job so you can make money, find success, marry an attractive spouse, have beautiful children, buy all the best stuff, and make yourself the envy of everyone, all for the sake of being happy -- that anchor may have just disintegrated before your eyes. This may be especially true if you're a Millennial.
If your anchor has always been looking inside of yourself and following your heart, marching to the beat of your own drummer, you doing you -- perhaps your anchor seems to have evaporated in a flash. After all, it's likely your plans emerged out of what you believed you found in your heart. And the passion behind those plans, however real it feels, may be looking for a new target.
So how do we anchor ourselves to something we can be confident in? How do we known which direction to face and what opportunities to pursue when we have to pivot? None of us have trained for this. We're unprepared. But we want to move forward in hope, and with as much confidence as possible.
Perhaps the suffering we're feeling gives us the chance to recognize that the "promises" of the American Dream aren't really the promises we were told they were. Sadly, we were misled.
Even more, perhaps the promises of finding your authentic self and your true passions by looking inside yourself are also turning out to be a letdown. The wisdom of the ages, from philosophical and religious traditions across world history have warned us of this. But our present cultural situation stubbornly encourages us to focus almost solely on ourselves and our own happiness. Our ears are closed to hearing alternatives -- except when we face a crisis.
Years ago, I had a conversion experience. Subsequently, all the plans I had for how I imagined my life would go either disappeared or were radically reoriented. Things I thought I would never do or would never be interested in became the very things I found myself doing and digging into with an almost insatiable vigor. A new anchor emerged in my life, and it's been there ever since.
That anchor was a Person, and His Name is Jesus. Meeting Him was something I had intentionally tried to avoid over the years. Yet it seemed to happen by accident. I wasn't in the middle of a crisis at the time, but meeting Him seem to cause one. I had to figure out who I was now, once I came to know my identity not by looking into my heart, but by knowing that He thought of me as His child. His influence over the shape of my life was tumultuous for my original plans. But it's been a grand adventure ever since, and remains so as I write these words.
The two things that I've learned about Jesus are these: He's the most stable anchor that I know of and, when pivoting, He's always a point of reference for where I should aim myself. He's never let me down. One of the best parts about knowing Jesus is that my own plans can take a back seat. And to the extent that I've been successful at releasing my plans (or when I've faced challenges and have had to re-orient), I find myself always a part of a bigger set of plans than I ever could have imagined, even when things aren't always clear. It's like He wants me here, part of this thing, this movement that's bigger than myself, and through which I've experienced more fulfillment than I think I would have if I had it all my way.
We're not our plans. But with Jesus, our plans can easily be reshaped to align with His. Perhaps we'll never achieve the American Dream that way. Perhaps we'll have to make some radical shifts. He doesn't promise it'll be easy, or that it won't at times be painful. I'm glad for that, because He's honest that life isn't always going to make us happy. Yet, when our identity is no longer rooted in our plans but instead anchored in Jesus, we can be content, fulfilled and joyful, come what may.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Perpetual Long Division
If you were gripped with fear when you read that title, don't worry. We won't be talking about mathematics here.
Rather, a different kind of division is our concern. Social division.
Just last week I saw a Twitter post from a person I really respect. He is the editor of a reputable Christian magazine and has a significant following. I've never agreed with him on everything. But he often has helpful insights, and I appreciate his magazine.
His post made me cringe with embarrassment. How can I associate with a person who thinks like this? And then it made me mad. These sorts of posts are the reasons that people don't take us seriously, and even more, the reasons why we are accused of hypocrisy and judgementalism. In just a few words, he demonstrated the very kind of social division that I'm talking about.
In the 1860s, our society was well-divided over a significant issue -- the abolition of slavery. It led to the Civil War, pitting virtually half of the country against the other half. That's an extreme example of social division.
One hundred years later, we can see social division of a similar sort still at work. In the 1960s, various civil rights issues divided the public, but not in such a disastrous fashion as to lead once again to civil war. From a historical perspective, some advances were made to heal those rifts. Yet, we are all well aware that some matters from that time continue to fester.
Judging from the recent number of books, articles, and other commentary on the topic of social division, one might reckon that it's presently worse than ever. We regularly see the word "polarization" invoked as if we're radically divided and our society is falling apart. But if we consider the Civil War as a standard, things are clearly not that bad.
Perhaps what makes us feel particularly divided at the moment is just how much more aware we seem to be about the various vehement disagreements that cause social division. These phenomena garner easy attention across a variety of media. Some even claim that virtual environments like Twitter are toxic because of the intensity and prevalence of viciousness and vitriol exhibited between users of the platform. The post I read on Twitter was filled with the kind of anger that the platform easily turns into a contagion.
Our attention is drawn to what appears to be the ongoing fragmentation of our society into smaller and smaller groups, often referred to as "tribes," whose very existence is in part understood through the lens of enmity. To have an enemy is, oddly, a unifying experience.
Think of it this way: my tribe and your tribe disagree at a fundamental level and maintain an ongoing banter of criticism, castigation, and shame. In fact, these efforts sustain our existence as tribes, giving each a sense of identity. This trickles down to the tribe's "members." My participation in the tribe helps me know who I am, what I'm for, what I'm against, and feeds my need for a sense of community. My tribe helps me feel like I'm part of something. "We" have united against "them."
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that we derive a sense of "righteousness" from our membership in a tribe. For example, your tribe's cause may offer the feeling that you are on the "right" side of history. Those who don't agree with you are considered evil, sick, maybe even something less than human. For the sake of achieving righteousness and justice, perhaps your tribe comes up with arguments to commit violence against those who disagree -- or seek to eradicate them altogether.
Humans tell stories to themselves about themselves. It helps us understand who we are. Tribes do something similar. They often have a story about a kind of loss or damage to something they believe is sacred. The late 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called this "ressentiment," borrowing a French term that includes what we mean by "resentment" in English, but also includes a sense of loss, a claim of damage, along with anger and rage. Tribes feel ressentiment. For example, the two most visible tribes we can point to in American culture are the right and left (or conservatives and progressives, respectively). Each tells a story about harm to America, blaming the other tribe for that harm. Both see themselves as victims, and the fault belongs to the other group.
While the specific harms always vary, each tribe goes on to develop a plan of action to address their unique problem. That action plan involves, at least in part, efforts to leverage all available mechanisms of power to advance their cause. The mechanisms might include politics or litigation using rhetoric and arguments. Or they might include shaming and defamation using various kinds of media. Tribes try to prevent or subvert the efforts of other tribes.
In our present moment of pandemic, we see these sorts of behaviors generated by the loudest disagreements that are getting public attention. Do we stay locked down or reopen? Do we surrender some of our freedoms and privacy for the sake of contact tracing? Should we wear masks, or is this a violation of personal autonomy? These and other concerns generate arguments that devolve into shouting matches, and worse, contempt for the other.
Let it be said for the record that no one is innocent when it comes to social division. Whether we actively participate in the arguments or not, all of us have moments when we simply don't understand another's perspective to the extent that we are willing easily to dismiss them right along with their perspective.
And writing as a Christian, I must admit that I too am guilty of this at times. It's easy to do because thinking is hard. Conversations that might achieve mutually beneficial goals, probably deriving from some kind of compromise, are harder still. I'm guilty of taking the easy route -- thinking poorly of others and better about myself. This move is the exact opposite of what Christians are called to do: "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3). Contempt of others can certainly make us feel good as well as righteous, but in the end neither is good nor helpful.
What could be a better way? The Bible offers an image that may help.
From the very beginning, the Bible teaches that all humans are made in the image of God. This means there is something we all have in common, something that is the same about all of us. And this sameness transcends our differences. That is, as a first priority, we ought to see each other through the lens of this sameness. Whatever differences we have are contingent, and thus secondary.
I had to check myself the next day after I read that post on Twitter. It had stuck with me. I was still angry, embarrassed, and frankly, disgusted. And judging by the comments, so were a lot of other people. I could have joined in the reactionary attack. Twitter makes it easy. But I don't know the guy personally. He's probably as well intentioned as many other people whom I've disagreed with, including people I love, like my parents, friends, and even my wife. Because I can easily see the image of God in them, it causes me to treat them differently, allowing our differences to be secondary. Thinking about this, I realized that I shouldn't have been so judgmental about the person who was posting something I disagreed with on Twitter.
Some consequences flow from the fact that humans are made in the image of God that we can articulate in the form of guiding principles aimed at healing our social division. We can each apply them in our own lives.
First, it is a category mistake to equate people with their ideas. That guy on Twitter said something I disagreed with, but I had to remember: people are NOT the positions they support, the ethics they practice, the religion they belong to (or don't), or the politics they adhere to. These things are contingent, and throughout a person's life, they may change. If people have something fundamental in common -- that we are created in the image of -- we are able always to discuss, debate, and critique ideas, perspectives, and convictions, all while seeking vigorously to avoid making ultimate judgments about the person. After all, who are we do say that we are ultimately right, and therefore righteous, while others are evil or sick? How can we have certainty about these ultimate judgments?
This leads to a second principle. If we cannot have certainty, we need to practice a kind of "epistemic humility." Perhaps this is especially important in a time of pandemic. That is, if we know anything at all, we know that we don't know everything. I'm certainly not right about everything, and I don't think that guy on Twitter was right either. As humans, there are limits to our knowledge. Furthermore, we are well aware that certainty about almost everything is inaccessible. New information and new experiences change our perspectives all the time. None of us can see with a "God's-eye-view." We are fallible, prone to mistakes, bias, and over-confidence. Our claims concerning what we believe is right ought to be supported with the best information we have. And we should exhibit a proper confidence about our convictions, yet one that retains an openness to further conversation, learning, and even being questioned, such that we may learn we are at times, wrong.
To get at our next two principles, we should take a step back from experiences we have with other people who have different perspectives and consider our own reactions when we run into disagreement. As we noted above, our participation in tribes unites us against common enemies. Yet, considering our human sameness means we need to rethink what it means to have an enemy. In fact, Jesus teaches that we should "love our enemies" (see Matthew 5:44). Instead of being against, we are called, in an odd and nearly impossible way, to be for our enemies. In light of the earlier example from the beginning of the Bible, Jesus is at least saying here that we ought to love all other humans because they bear the image of God.
It would be difficult, however, to argue that Jesus is saying love, in this sense, equals something like affirmation. That is, the Christian call to love is not necessarily a call to affirm. So we have our third principle: love does not equal affirmation. If people are made in the image of God, that doesn't mean I have to agree with or affirm everyone's ideas on Twitter (or elsewhere).
Affirmation is something we all desire. I think this is part of the reason we post things on social media platforms like Twitter and others. But there are very good reasons why we should not always receive affirmation. Parents and children know this well. There are behaviors and ideas that my parents did not affirm, like lying or disrespect or the belief that I should always get what I want. But this did not mean they did not love me.
If (and when) we are wrong, it may actually be a loving gesture when someone disagrees with us in an effort to help us gain a better understanding. So, love does not equal affirmation. It is another category mistake to expect complete affirmation from people who love us. We should embrace this understanding in order to chasten our expectations when interacting with others who share different perspective.
As a corollary, we should also embrace the principle that disagreement does not equal hate. From a biblical perspective, if Jesus was able to love everyone perfectly (which Christians claim He did), how should we understand His disagreements with others that are recounted in the brief biographies about Him in the Bible? Certainly, we should not assume that He hated those with whom He disagreed. Rather, He sought to correct them for the sake of their own understanding and flourishing. While I wish Twitter were a place where civil discussion existed, the platform isn't made for that. While I could have joined in heaping negativity at the guy whose post I disagreed with, that would have served no helpful purpose in achieving a better perspective. People don't change their minds because of contempt from others. Love, empathy, compassion, and doing the hard work of having difficult discussions is what we should be up to.
These principles are commendable. If our world needs anything right now, it's for people to find ways to see themselves and others through the lens of sameness rather than difference. Healing social division begins here.
I make this argument as a Christian, using Christian reasoning. But I'm well aware that I and many other Christians have failed in this regard. Call us hypocrites. I'll own this label until my dying day.
But that's why I stick close to Jesus. He continues to prod me -- sometimes gently, sometimes in ways that feel chastising -- to prioritize others in the way that He prioritizes you and me. You and I are so important to Him that He gave His life for us. So how can we let our fallible arguments or the causes of our groups and tribes -- even our own need to feel "righteous" or affirmed -- become the hill upon which we make our stand? Jesus died upon a hill. But it wasn't just for you or for me. And it definitely wasn't because we are righteous. Rather, He gave His life because all of us fall short and all of us need His redemption.
Jesus reveals there is a sameness which unites us with every other human. And He opens a space for us to move forward, no longer in perpetual division but together in love. Let's walk with Him.
How has your social media experiences been lately? With all the voices out there going in all directions, it's easy to get burned out with opinions and all the hyped-up rhetoric. How do you use social media? Do you have any special websites or blogs you like to spend time reading. If so, please share.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Rather, a different kind of division is our concern. Social division.
Just last week I saw a Twitter post from a person I really respect. He is the editor of a reputable Christian magazine and has a significant following. I've never agreed with him on everything. But he often has helpful insights, and I appreciate his magazine.
His post made me cringe with embarrassment. How can I associate with a person who thinks like this? And then it made me mad. These sorts of posts are the reasons that people don't take us seriously, and even more, the reasons why we are accused of hypocrisy and judgementalism. In just a few words, he demonstrated the very kind of social division that I'm talking about.
In the 1860s, our society was well-divided over a significant issue -- the abolition of slavery. It led to the Civil War, pitting virtually half of the country against the other half. That's an extreme example of social division.
One hundred years later, we can see social division of a similar sort still at work. In the 1960s, various civil rights issues divided the public, but not in such a disastrous fashion as to lead once again to civil war. From a historical perspective, some advances were made to heal those rifts. Yet, we are all well aware that some matters from that time continue to fester.
Judging from the recent number of books, articles, and other commentary on the topic of social division, one might reckon that it's presently worse than ever. We regularly see the word "polarization" invoked as if we're radically divided and our society is falling apart. But if we consider the Civil War as a standard, things are clearly not that bad.
Perhaps what makes us feel particularly divided at the moment is just how much more aware we seem to be about the various vehement disagreements that cause social division. These phenomena garner easy attention across a variety of media. Some even claim that virtual environments like Twitter are toxic because of the intensity and prevalence of viciousness and vitriol exhibited between users of the platform. The post I read on Twitter was filled with the kind of anger that the platform easily turns into a contagion.
Our attention is drawn to what appears to be the ongoing fragmentation of our society into smaller and smaller groups, often referred to as "tribes," whose very existence is in part understood through the lens of enmity. To have an enemy is, oddly, a unifying experience.
Think of it this way: my tribe and your tribe disagree at a fundamental level and maintain an ongoing banter of criticism, castigation, and shame. In fact, these efforts sustain our existence as tribes, giving each a sense of identity. This trickles down to the tribe's "members." My participation in the tribe helps me know who I am, what I'm for, what I'm against, and feeds my need for a sense of community. My tribe helps me feel like I'm part of something. "We" have united against "them."
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that we derive a sense of "righteousness" from our membership in a tribe. For example, your tribe's cause may offer the feeling that you are on the "right" side of history. Those who don't agree with you are considered evil, sick, maybe even something less than human. For the sake of achieving righteousness and justice, perhaps your tribe comes up with arguments to commit violence against those who disagree -- or seek to eradicate them altogether.
Humans tell stories to themselves about themselves. It helps us understand who we are. Tribes do something similar. They often have a story about a kind of loss or damage to something they believe is sacred. The late 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called this "ressentiment," borrowing a French term that includes what we mean by "resentment" in English, but also includes a sense of loss, a claim of damage, along with anger and rage. Tribes feel ressentiment. For example, the two most visible tribes we can point to in American culture are the right and left (or conservatives and progressives, respectively). Each tells a story about harm to America, blaming the other tribe for that harm. Both see themselves as victims, and the fault belongs to the other group.
While the specific harms always vary, each tribe goes on to develop a plan of action to address their unique problem. That action plan involves, at least in part, efforts to leverage all available mechanisms of power to advance their cause. The mechanisms might include politics or litigation using rhetoric and arguments. Or they might include shaming and defamation using various kinds of media. Tribes try to prevent or subvert the efforts of other tribes.
In our present moment of pandemic, we see these sorts of behaviors generated by the loudest disagreements that are getting public attention. Do we stay locked down or reopen? Do we surrender some of our freedoms and privacy for the sake of contact tracing? Should we wear masks, or is this a violation of personal autonomy? These and other concerns generate arguments that devolve into shouting matches, and worse, contempt for the other.
Let it be said for the record that no one is innocent when it comes to social division. Whether we actively participate in the arguments or not, all of us have moments when we simply don't understand another's perspective to the extent that we are willing easily to dismiss them right along with their perspective.
And writing as a Christian, I must admit that I too am guilty of this at times. It's easy to do because thinking is hard. Conversations that might achieve mutually beneficial goals, probably deriving from some kind of compromise, are harder still. I'm guilty of taking the easy route -- thinking poorly of others and better about myself. This move is the exact opposite of what Christians are called to do: "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3). Contempt of others can certainly make us feel good as well as righteous, but in the end neither is good nor helpful.
What could be a better way? The Bible offers an image that may help.
From the very beginning, the Bible teaches that all humans are made in the image of God. This means there is something we all have in common, something that is the same about all of us. And this sameness transcends our differences. That is, as a first priority, we ought to see each other through the lens of this sameness. Whatever differences we have are contingent, and thus secondary.
I had to check myself the next day after I read that post on Twitter. It had stuck with me. I was still angry, embarrassed, and frankly, disgusted. And judging by the comments, so were a lot of other people. I could have joined in the reactionary attack. Twitter makes it easy. But I don't know the guy personally. He's probably as well intentioned as many other people whom I've disagreed with, including people I love, like my parents, friends, and even my wife. Because I can easily see the image of God in them, it causes me to treat them differently, allowing our differences to be secondary. Thinking about this, I realized that I shouldn't have been so judgmental about the person who was posting something I disagreed with on Twitter.
Some consequences flow from the fact that humans are made in the image of God that we can articulate in the form of guiding principles aimed at healing our social division. We can each apply them in our own lives.
First, it is a category mistake to equate people with their ideas. That guy on Twitter said something I disagreed with, but I had to remember: people are NOT the positions they support, the ethics they practice, the religion they belong to (or don't), or the politics they adhere to. These things are contingent, and throughout a person's life, they may change. If people have something fundamental in common -- that we are created in the image of -- we are able always to discuss, debate, and critique ideas, perspectives, and convictions, all while seeking vigorously to avoid making ultimate judgments about the person. After all, who are we do say that we are ultimately right, and therefore righteous, while others are evil or sick? How can we have certainty about these ultimate judgments?
This leads to a second principle. If we cannot have certainty, we need to practice a kind of "epistemic humility." Perhaps this is especially important in a time of pandemic. That is, if we know anything at all, we know that we don't know everything. I'm certainly not right about everything, and I don't think that guy on Twitter was right either. As humans, there are limits to our knowledge. Furthermore, we are well aware that certainty about almost everything is inaccessible. New information and new experiences change our perspectives all the time. None of us can see with a "God's-eye-view." We are fallible, prone to mistakes, bias, and over-confidence. Our claims concerning what we believe is right ought to be supported with the best information we have. And we should exhibit a proper confidence about our convictions, yet one that retains an openness to further conversation, learning, and even being questioned, such that we may learn we are at times, wrong.
To get at our next two principles, we should take a step back from experiences we have with other people who have different perspectives and consider our own reactions when we run into disagreement. As we noted above, our participation in tribes unites us against common enemies. Yet, considering our human sameness means we need to rethink what it means to have an enemy. In fact, Jesus teaches that we should "love our enemies" (see Matthew 5:44). Instead of being against, we are called, in an odd and nearly impossible way, to be for our enemies. In light of the earlier example from the beginning of the Bible, Jesus is at least saying here that we ought to love all other humans because they bear the image of God.
It would be difficult, however, to argue that Jesus is saying love, in this sense, equals something like affirmation. That is, the Christian call to love is not necessarily a call to affirm. So we have our third principle: love does not equal affirmation. If people are made in the image of God, that doesn't mean I have to agree with or affirm everyone's ideas on Twitter (or elsewhere).
Affirmation is something we all desire. I think this is part of the reason we post things on social media platforms like Twitter and others. But there are very good reasons why we should not always receive affirmation. Parents and children know this well. There are behaviors and ideas that my parents did not affirm, like lying or disrespect or the belief that I should always get what I want. But this did not mean they did not love me.
If (and when) we are wrong, it may actually be a loving gesture when someone disagrees with us in an effort to help us gain a better understanding. So, love does not equal affirmation. It is another category mistake to expect complete affirmation from people who love us. We should embrace this understanding in order to chasten our expectations when interacting with others who share different perspective.
As a corollary, we should also embrace the principle that disagreement does not equal hate. From a biblical perspective, if Jesus was able to love everyone perfectly (which Christians claim He did), how should we understand His disagreements with others that are recounted in the brief biographies about Him in the Bible? Certainly, we should not assume that He hated those with whom He disagreed. Rather, He sought to correct them for the sake of their own understanding and flourishing. While I wish Twitter were a place where civil discussion existed, the platform isn't made for that. While I could have joined in heaping negativity at the guy whose post I disagreed with, that would have served no helpful purpose in achieving a better perspective. People don't change their minds because of contempt from others. Love, empathy, compassion, and doing the hard work of having difficult discussions is what we should be up to.
These principles are commendable. If our world needs anything right now, it's for people to find ways to see themselves and others through the lens of sameness rather than difference. Healing social division begins here.
I make this argument as a Christian, using Christian reasoning. But I'm well aware that I and many other Christians have failed in this regard. Call us hypocrites. I'll own this label until my dying day.
But that's why I stick close to Jesus. He continues to prod me -- sometimes gently, sometimes in ways that feel chastising -- to prioritize others in the way that He prioritizes you and me. You and I are so important to Him that He gave His life for us. So how can we let our fallible arguments or the causes of our groups and tribes -- even our own need to feel "righteous" or affirmed -- become the hill upon which we make our stand? Jesus died upon a hill. But it wasn't just for you or for me. And it definitely wasn't because we are righteous. Rather, He gave His life because all of us fall short and all of us need His redemption.
Jesus reveals there is a sameness which unites us with every other human. And He opens a space for us to move forward, no longer in perpetual division but together in love. Let's walk with Him.
How has your social media experiences been lately? With all the voices out there going in all directions, it's easy to get burned out with opinions and all the hyped-up rhetoric. How do you use social media? Do you have any special websites or blogs you like to spend time reading. If so, please share.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Changing the Mind of a Sheep
I like historical fiction: books, movies, TV. I especially like the kind that has a plot based on some kind of shadow agency, secret society, or cabal that is mysteriously at work in the story, yet lurk in the background. The Illuminati. The Culper Ring. The Trilateral Commission. All kinds of stories include groups like these meddling in world events, often for the sake of power. The identity of the participants in such groups is usually almost entirely unknown. The stories often play with a little bit of true history to create grandiose plots in which the fate of all humanity is at stake. They're fun reads.
Of course, I think they're fun because they're imaginary. Historical fiction is just that -- fiction. It doesn't claim to be anything else.
Deepfakes, Conspiracy Theories, and Extremism
Distinguishing fact from fiction is getting more and more difficult. I'm worried about the further development of deepfakes, for example. Deepfakes -- from "deep learning" and "fakes" -- are videos in which people appear to be saying things they never actually said, built by artificial intelligence (AI) computers using images and recordings of the speaker, mashing them together into coherent and convincing fictions that masquerade as fact. They're very hard to recognize, and they're getting harder. In fact, they've already been playing a part in global-political shifts and experts are concerned about their further disruptive capabilities.
Conspiracy theories are another example of the difficulty we have separating fact from fiction. Much like historical fiction, conspiracy theories try to explain the existence of factual realities using highly questionable evidence (but only if one is willing to raise the questions). For example, pandemics are often accompanied by conspiracy theories. Psychologist Stephen Taylor notes that, "Disease outbreaks are commonly the subject of conspiracy theories, especially when the nature of the disease is poorly understood." Taylor describes some of the theories that arose during the Bubonic Plague in the 1500s, the Spanish Flu in the early 20th century, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the end of that century.
We don't usually think about it this way, but beliefs, such as believing a deepfake or a conspiracy theory is true, are most often the sort of thing that are "caught" rather than, say, chosen. Stanley Fish describes coming to have a belief like catching a cold-rather than having beliefs or a cold, we're "had" by them.
Fish demonstrates this by sharing a story about an old NPR episode. There it was reported about a former member of a eugenicist extremist group. The group believed, among other things, that people with "defects" like cleft palates ought to be "put into special colonies or otherwise dealt with." When asked what "changed his mind" the person did not offer reasons, arguments, or evidence. Instead, he offered a narrative. He told a rather personal story, describing how, in fact, his own daughter was born with a cleft palate. As a father who loved his daughter, he suddenly realized he was caught up with the wrong beliefs and the wrong crowd.
Again, it wasn't reasoned evidence or arguments that accounted for his prior belief, nor his immediate rejection of that belief. It was an experience that could only be accounted for by a story. He didn't deliberate and weigh evidence. In both respects, his beliefs just seemed to happen to him, similar to catching a cold.
Think for Yourself?
We'd like to imagine ourselves as these incredibly thoughtful and deliberative creatures who don't believe anything without weighing the evidence first. In the old adage, we're the kind of people who "think for ourselves." But in fact, most of our beliefs have come to be what they are because of persuasion of various sorts. In fact, group pressure is perhaps strongest. When everyone around us seems to believe a particular thing, it's hard not to believe it too, if only because we don't want to be excluded. Yet we don't really deliberate in making that choice. Rather, it just seems to happen. Instead of thinking for ourselves, we end up thinking with others.
Group pressure is sometimes called herd or mob mentality. One place mob mentality affects us is online. Some have recognized and lamented this reality. Algorithms strongly influence our news feeds, delivering to us pieces that others read who share a similar algorithmic profile. So even if we don't know the mob we're a part of, the "omnipotent" internet treats us like a member and delivers content we'll like, all the while letting us believe we're in control of what we consume.
Social media does the same. But it goes further in encouraging us to actively participate in a mob. When we log on, we're asked what's on our mind. We are encouraged to read, share and hashtag the same things as our friends. This experience can be so overwhelmingly influential that we start to believe that's the only way to think. The only positions to advocate for and support are the ones the mob approves. A kind of "orthodoxy" quickly develops. And if you disagree, you're labelled a heretic.
The member of the extremist group faced a conundrum when having to choose between committing to the orthodoxy of his group or his role of loving father to his daughter. In choosing his daughter, we should recognize that he lost a strong connection to a community in which he probably found belonging, identity, and meaning.
We see this about many issues: racial, ethnic, political, environmental, sexual, gender, guns, speech, and more. The arguments boil down into zero-sum games. If you're not completely and fully for one side, you're ostensibly for the other. No conversation, no debate. Silence is violence, yet sometimes you're just told to shut-up. Your only option seems to be to listen and fall in line or live as a kind of outsider.
Sometimes falling in line with the mob is relatively trivial. I used to live in the Pacific Northwest. IPA beers are all the rage there, and that's what all my friends were drinking. I can't stand IPAs, so I didn't drink them. And while my friends might harass me for not liking their favorite style of beer, I was never at risk of losing their friendship.
At other times, falling in line with the mob is dangerous. Group pressure can lead to some very poor choices. The pressure of the group to remain faithful to the mob above all else begins to cost the loss of other social relationships. We experience fracturing and societal breakdown as people take sides, polarizing, and imagine those who are outside their groups as enemies.
All of this is frustrating and exhausting for at least two reasons.
Frustration and Exhaustion
First, the realities that people are arguing about are very important to many of us, and oftentimes people's lives are at stake. This is true for the ongoing racial tensions, the disagreements about whether to wear masks in public, and many other significant concerns.
Second, when the arguments function like a zero-sum game, there is no room for debate, discussion, or even slowing things down to learn more. Profoundly complicated issues get over-simplified. Emotion and reaction predominate. Confusion arises about the goal. Fruitful progress stagnates.
DO SOMETHING is often the passionate appeal. But "what" and "why" remain tremendously difficult to answer.
In the cartoon series Charlie Brown, there is a recurring scene in which Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Over and over again, Charlie lines up for the kick and just as he is about to kick the ball, Lucy pulls it up and out of the way, causing Charlie to fall onto the ground. Various iterations of this scene recur, sometimes with Lucy promising not to pull the ball. In one scene, she even signs a contract committing not to pull the ball. Yet, just as Charlie is about to kick it, Lucy inevitably pulls it anyway despite the contract.
Many people want to do something about the troubling issues of our time, especially those involving concerns of social justice. In a zero-sum game, over and over again well-intentioned people are told that they need to do something. Still, the very things they do -- even when they are doing something in line with the voices they've been listening to -- their actions are derided as not enough or in fact the wrong thing. Like Charlie Brown, those who try often experience Lucy metaphorically pulling the ball.
Exhaustion and frustration.
Perhaps people who want to help -- who want to do something -- are captive to a mob mentality much like the man with the daughter who had a cleft palate. And the factual truth of the matter begins to reveal itself when efforts to help and bring about change are met with rejection, silencing, and ostracism.
Covidiots and Sheeple
During the present pandemic, the debate about how best to helpfully behave for the sake of others has led to two unique labels. There's the COVIDiot (from COVID + idiot), a derogatory term used for those who do not follow the health and safety guides set forth amid the pandemic. There's also the "sheeple" (from sheep + people), a term that's actually in the dictionary due to its regular use over the last few years. Sheeple is another derogatory term that refers to people who mindlessly follow the crowd. The term is often used in the phrase "wake up sheeple," evoking the idea of being "woke," but applied in a new way in light of the coronavirus crisis. Getting "woke" in this sense seems to mean one of two things (leading to a rather ironic confusion): either you wake up and realize that following the public health guidelines is for everyone's good, OR it means you should claim your independence from the authorities who can't tell you what to do, like wearing a mask in public. We're facing group pressure in two different directions here.
In the Bible, the word for "sheep" is used more than 400 times. We learn that sheep are followers. They do what other sheep are doing, often to their own detriment. They have a herd mentality. They will follow the mob off a cliff. Sheep need someone to protect them from these dangers, a guide to keep them safe, a trustworthy voice to which they can listen.
Shepherds are the corollary image for sheep in the Bible. Shepherds were those who protected the sheep, lead them away from danger and toward safety as well as sources of life, like food and water. Shepherds were familiar to their sheep. Like many animals who develop relationships with humans, sheep find the voice of a shepherd to be trustworthy and comforting. Sheep follow their shepherd because they know their shepherd cares for them.
Who Are You Gonna Follow?
At some point, we all have to recognize that we're caught up as part of some mob. Maybe it's the mob that's actively dividing us. Maybe it's the mob that's criticizing that mob. Maybe it's the mob that's feeling helpless to make a difference because of frustration and exhaustion, resigned and giving up. And perhaps it's a mob that I haven't discussed yet -- the apathetic mob, who just doesn't care. Indeed, perhaps we've all been a part of each of these at some time or another. If we are "had" by our beliefs, and therefore caught up in a mob mentality without being aware of it, we can draw a striking conclusion:
We're all sheep then. And we all need a shepherd.
The Bible describes us well in this regard, saying, "All we like sheep have gone astray." (See Isaiah 53:6.)
Yet, this is not the last word. It's only the first one. If we have all gone astray and need a shepherd, where do we find one? Jesus says of Himself, "I am the Good Shepherd" (John 10.11a). Jesus says of His sheep that He knows them, and they know Him. They listen to His voice. He goes on to talk about more sheep who are not yet a part of His flock but will be, united under His leadership. We need a shepherd these days. Our world is in turmoil. Lives are at stake. A pathway forward and toward unity is not possible without the leadership of the Good Shepherd.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Of course, I think they're fun because they're imaginary. Historical fiction is just that -- fiction. It doesn't claim to be anything else.
Deepfakes, Conspiracy Theories, and Extremism
Distinguishing fact from fiction is getting more and more difficult. I'm worried about the further development of deepfakes, for example. Deepfakes -- from "deep learning" and "fakes" -- are videos in which people appear to be saying things they never actually said, built by artificial intelligence (AI) computers using images and recordings of the speaker, mashing them together into coherent and convincing fictions that masquerade as fact. They're very hard to recognize, and they're getting harder. In fact, they've already been playing a part in global-political shifts and experts are concerned about their further disruptive capabilities.
Conspiracy theories are another example of the difficulty we have separating fact from fiction. Much like historical fiction, conspiracy theories try to explain the existence of factual realities using highly questionable evidence (but only if one is willing to raise the questions). For example, pandemics are often accompanied by conspiracy theories. Psychologist Stephen Taylor notes that, "Disease outbreaks are commonly the subject of conspiracy theories, especially when the nature of the disease is poorly understood." Taylor describes some of the theories that arose during the Bubonic Plague in the 1500s, the Spanish Flu in the early 20th century, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the end of that century.
We don't usually think about it this way, but beliefs, such as believing a deepfake or a conspiracy theory is true, are most often the sort of thing that are "caught" rather than, say, chosen. Stanley Fish describes coming to have a belief like catching a cold-rather than having beliefs or a cold, we're "had" by them.
Fish demonstrates this by sharing a story about an old NPR episode. There it was reported about a former member of a eugenicist extremist group. The group believed, among other things, that people with "defects" like cleft palates ought to be "put into special colonies or otherwise dealt with." When asked what "changed his mind" the person did not offer reasons, arguments, or evidence. Instead, he offered a narrative. He told a rather personal story, describing how, in fact, his own daughter was born with a cleft palate. As a father who loved his daughter, he suddenly realized he was caught up with the wrong beliefs and the wrong crowd.
Again, it wasn't reasoned evidence or arguments that accounted for his prior belief, nor his immediate rejection of that belief. It was an experience that could only be accounted for by a story. He didn't deliberate and weigh evidence. In both respects, his beliefs just seemed to happen to him, similar to catching a cold.
Think for Yourself?
We'd like to imagine ourselves as these incredibly thoughtful and deliberative creatures who don't believe anything without weighing the evidence first. In the old adage, we're the kind of people who "think for ourselves." But in fact, most of our beliefs have come to be what they are because of persuasion of various sorts. In fact, group pressure is perhaps strongest. When everyone around us seems to believe a particular thing, it's hard not to believe it too, if only because we don't want to be excluded. Yet we don't really deliberate in making that choice. Rather, it just seems to happen. Instead of thinking for ourselves, we end up thinking with others.
Group pressure is sometimes called herd or mob mentality. One place mob mentality affects us is online. Some have recognized and lamented this reality. Algorithms strongly influence our news feeds, delivering to us pieces that others read who share a similar algorithmic profile. So even if we don't know the mob we're a part of, the "omnipotent" internet treats us like a member and delivers content we'll like, all the while letting us believe we're in control of what we consume.
Social media does the same. But it goes further in encouraging us to actively participate in a mob. When we log on, we're asked what's on our mind. We are encouraged to read, share and hashtag the same things as our friends. This experience can be so overwhelmingly influential that we start to believe that's the only way to think. The only positions to advocate for and support are the ones the mob approves. A kind of "orthodoxy" quickly develops. And if you disagree, you're labelled a heretic.
The member of the extremist group faced a conundrum when having to choose between committing to the orthodoxy of his group or his role of loving father to his daughter. In choosing his daughter, we should recognize that he lost a strong connection to a community in which he probably found belonging, identity, and meaning.
We see this about many issues: racial, ethnic, political, environmental, sexual, gender, guns, speech, and more. The arguments boil down into zero-sum games. If you're not completely and fully for one side, you're ostensibly for the other. No conversation, no debate. Silence is violence, yet sometimes you're just told to shut-up. Your only option seems to be to listen and fall in line or live as a kind of outsider.
Sometimes falling in line with the mob is relatively trivial. I used to live in the Pacific Northwest. IPA beers are all the rage there, and that's what all my friends were drinking. I can't stand IPAs, so I didn't drink them. And while my friends might harass me for not liking their favorite style of beer, I was never at risk of losing their friendship.
At other times, falling in line with the mob is dangerous. Group pressure can lead to some very poor choices. The pressure of the group to remain faithful to the mob above all else begins to cost the loss of other social relationships. We experience fracturing and societal breakdown as people take sides, polarizing, and imagine those who are outside their groups as enemies.
All of this is frustrating and exhausting for at least two reasons.
Frustration and Exhaustion
First, the realities that people are arguing about are very important to many of us, and oftentimes people's lives are at stake. This is true for the ongoing racial tensions, the disagreements about whether to wear masks in public, and many other significant concerns.
Second, when the arguments function like a zero-sum game, there is no room for debate, discussion, or even slowing things down to learn more. Profoundly complicated issues get over-simplified. Emotion and reaction predominate. Confusion arises about the goal. Fruitful progress stagnates.
DO SOMETHING is often the passionate appeal. But "what" and "why" remain tremendously difficult to answer.
In the cartoon series Charlie Brown, there is a recurring scene in which Lucy holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Over and over again, Charlie lines up for the kick and just as he is about to kick the ball, Lucy pulls it up and out of the way, causing Charlie to fall onto the ground. Various iterations of this scene recur, sometimes with Lucy promising not to pull the ball. In one scene, she even signs a contract committing not to pull the ball. Yet, just as Charlie is about to kick it, Lucy inevitably pulls it anyway despite the contract.
Many people want to do something about the troubling issues of our time, especially those involving concerns of social justice. In a zero-sum game, over and over again well-intentioned people are told that they need to do something. Still, the very things they do -- even when they are doing something in line with the voices they've been listening to -- their actions are derided as not enough or in fact the wrong thing. Like Charlie Brown, those who try often experience Lucy metaphorically pulling the ball.
Exhaustion and frustration.
Perhaps people who want to help -- who want to do something -- are captive to a mob mentality much like the man with the daughter who had a cleft palate. And the factual truth of the matter begins to reveal itself when efforts to help and bring about change are met with rejection, silencing, and ostracism.
Covidiots and Sheeple
During the present pandemic, the debate about how best to helpfully behave for the sake of others has led to two unique labels. There's the COVIDiot (from COVID + idiot), a derogatory term used for those who do not follow the health and safety guides set forth amid the pandemic. There's also the "sheeple" (from sheep + people), a term that's actually in the dictionary due to its regular use over the last few years. Sheeple is another derogatory term that refers to people who mindlessly follow the crowd. The term is often used in the phrase "wake up sheeple," evoking the idea of being "woke," but applied in a new way in light of the coronavirus crisis. Getting "woke" in this sense seems to mean one of two things (leading to a rather ironic confusion): either you wake up and realize that following the public health guidelines is for everyone's good, OR it means you should claim your independence from the authorities who can't tell you what to do, like wearing a mask in public. We're facing group pressure in two different directions here.
In the Bible, the word for "sheep" is used more than 400 times. We learn that sheep are followers. They do what other sheep are doing, often to their own detriment. They have a herd mentality. They will follow the mob off a cliff. Sheep need someone to protect them from these dangers, a guide to keep them safe, a trustworthy voice to which they can listen.
Shepherds are the corollary image for sheep in the Bible. Shepherds were those who protected the sheep, lead them away from danger and toward safety as well as sources of life, like food and water. Shepherds were familiar to their sheep. Like many animals who develop relationships with humans, sheep find the voice of a shepherd to be trustworthy and comforting. Sheep follow their shepherd because they know their shepherd cares for them.
Who Are You Gonna Follow?
At some point, we all have to recognize that we're caught up as part of some mob. Maybe it's the mob that's actively dividing us. Maybe it's the mob that's criticizing that mob. Maybe it's the mob that's feeling helpless to make a difference because of frustration and exhaustion, resigned and giving up. And perhaps it's a mob that I haven't discussed yet -- the apathetic mob, who just doesn't care. Indeed, perhaps we've all been a part of each of these at some time or another. If we are "had" by our beliefs, and therefore caught up in a mob mentality without being aware of it, we can draw a striking conclusion:
We're all sheep then. And we all need a shepherd.
The Bible describes us well in this regard, saying, "All we like sheep have gone astray." (See Isaiah 53:6.)
Yet, this is not the last word. It's only the first one. If we have all gone astray and need a shepherd, where do we find one? Jesus says of Himself, "I am the Good Shepherd" (John 10.11a). Jesus says of His sheep that He knows them, and they know Him. They listen to His voice. He goes on to talk about more sheep who are not yet a part of His flock but will be, united under His leadership. We need a shepherd these days. Our world is in turmoil. Lives are at stake. A pathway forward and toward unity is not possible without the leadership of the Good Shepherd.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
The Meaning of a Single Hug
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a 20th-century martyr. He was killed for his involvement in a conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler. Prior to his death, he was in Nazi custody for more than two years. Bonhoeffer was a pastor but served most actively as a teacher before his arrest. He spent a majority of that time at Tegel prison in central Berlin. Not far away was the home where he spent much of his youth and where his parents still lived.
While confined in Tegel prison, Bonhoeffer, alongside his fellow prisoners and the general population of Berlin, had to withstand the fear engendered by the sound of air-raid sirens followed by intense bombings of the city by the Allies. After one of these dreadful events, Bonhoeffer wrote a letter to his parents reflecting on the emotional experience of having to endure the bombing while also being concerned about their wellbeing.
While Bonhoeffer's experience is not directly correlated to our ongoing endurance of a worldwide pandemic, it's his separation from loved ones that is significant for our consideration. He writes in a portion of that letter to his parents in his Letters and Papers from Prison.
"It's remarkable how we think at such times about the people that we should not like to live without, and almost or entirely forget about ourselves. It is only then that we feel how closely our own lives are bound up with other people's, and in fact how the center of our own lives is outside of ourselves, and how little we are separate entities. The 'as though it were a part of me' is perfectly true, as I have often felt after hearing that one of my colleagues or pupils had been killed. I think it is a literal fact of nature that human life extends far beyond our physical existence."
In our present circumstance, it's widely reported that people are experiencing "Zoom fatigue" while we're all quarantined and "working from home." Connecting to one another and enduring "meetings" via the myriad assortment of video-conferencing apps is, while helpful, also incredibly exhausting.
To be sure, we certainly have a better situation than someone like Bonhoeffer, who was confined away from his family and close friends, with virtually no access other than letter writing. He was eventually able to see his fiancé, but never often, and only for moments at a time while under incredibly strict supervision. Yet, in our time of social/physical distancing, we are all getting a very real glimpse at why solitary confinement is such an awful kind of punishment.
Perhaps you're not that isolated (neither am I). But if you're feeling exhausted and lonelier than you think you should (after all the Zoom meetings and FaceTime chats), you're not alone.
Perhaps one way of describing why we're feeling so exhausted is that we are having to tolerate the absence of one another's presence. Or, to put it another way, we experience the presence of their absence -- their physical absence which creates a distance that we cannot un-feel. However helpful FaceTime and Zoom and e-mails and phone calls are, what we really want is the presence of our friends, family, and co-workers.
We're becoming somewhat desperate to gather again, to commune (the basis of community), even to touch one another. Perhaps this is because we're made for this kind of human relationship. The digital and the virtual serve a purpose, but they leave us feeling vastly incomplete, even in a way, empty. We need embodied contact with others. It meets our basic needs and contributes to our good health (conversely, loneliness is detrimental). If these natural outcomes tell us anything, they tell us that at the very core of our being, deep in our human nature, profound and intimate contact with other people is critical to our existence.
About two years ago, my family was sitting in church. It came time for the children's message delivered by the minister. A picture came up that showed Jesus hugging a little child. We had seen this picture before, but this time my daughter said to me, "Daddy, I want a hug from Jesus." Now, I'm a trained theologian, and even have a degree in philosophy, yet I wasn't immediately sure how to answer my daughter. But I gave it a shot.
I told her that her desire for a hug from Jesus is something that everyone gathered with us wants. Every Christian wants a hug from Jesus. It would be an amazing thing. But I went further and tried to tell her something rather complicated from a theological perspective. I wasn't sure if it would work. I told her that whenever she wanted a hug from Jesus, all she had to do was ask for a hug from another Christian. Thinking like a theologian, I had in mind something St. Paul said in one of his letters, found in the Bible. He wrote, "It is no longer I who live, but (Jesus) Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20b).
Paul was thinking about the fact that followers of Jesus come to do the things that Jesus does. And if anything, Jesus loved people. And He did so unconditionally. So who wouldn't want a hug from Jesus? Especially if it would be that kind of hug -- one where you knew that no matter who you were, what deep dark secrets you kept, or whatever terrible thing about yourself that you worried would cause rejection of something found out -- Jesus would hug you authentically and with unconditional love in spite of it all. The same often seems to work for children -- people are often freely willing to give them hugs and express care and compassion to them unconditionally.
Right now, I think we could all use a good hug. Probably more than one. I long for the day of many hugs, when we're finally released from this captivity.
To want a hug from another person is nothing more than to acknowledge our interconnectedness and our interdependence. We need each other, and we cannot survive without one another. The embrace of a hug offers us the experience of being seen, recognized as worthy of such an embrace. The gifts of a hug from those we love offer glimpses of the embrace of God's love. It's not uncommon to imagine that such connections with the divine love of God come through extraordinary means. Nevertheless, God has chosen other ways to show love to us. Rather than expecting some miraculous, extraordinary experience, the love of God comes to us through the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday.
The embrace of a loved one or close friend is also and always a glimpse and experience of the love of God for you. You can be certain of this because God created us for human connection and community. And because He chose to use other humans to show us such love. I know of no other way for us to feel completely and totally loved, affirmed, and accepted than through the continued love of those closest to us. Through them, we have a mysterious window into God's unfathomable love for us.
Maybe that's why we miss each other so deeply in this time of separation. We weren't made for this sort of experience. We were made for flesh-and-blood community with one another. We were made not for the absence of presence, not the presence of the absence of people we love, but for the richness and fullness of life that comes from the physical proximity and more often the touch of an embrace of our closest friends and loved ones.
If you're missing hugs these days (like I am), we wait together in hope. The sweet embrace of a hug from my friends and distant family is something I anxiously anticipate.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
While confined in Tegel prison, Bonhoeffer, alongside his fellow prisoners and the general population of Berlin, had to withstand the fear engendered by the sound of air-raid sirens followed by intense bombings of the city by the Allies. After one of these dreadful events, Bonhoeffer wrote a letter to his parents reflecting on the emotional experience of having to endure the bombing while also being concerned about their wellbeing.
While Bonhoeffer's experience is not directly correlated to our ongoing endurance of a worldwide pandemic, it's his separation from loved ones that is significant for our consideration. He writes in a portion of that letter to his parents in his Letters and Papers from Prison.
"It's remarkable how we think at such times about the people that we should not like to live without, and almost or entirely forget about ourselves. It is only then that we feel how closely our own lives are bound up with other people's, and in fact how the center of our own lives is outside of ourselves, and how little we are separate entities. The 'as though it were a part of me' is perfectly true, as I have often felt after hearing that one of my colleagues or pupils had been killed. I think it is a literal fact of nature that human life extends far beyond our physical existence."
In our present circumstance, it's widely reported that people are experiencing "Zoom fatigue" while we're all quarantined and "working from home." Connecting to one another and enduring "meetings" via the myriad assortment of video-conferencing apps is, while helpful, also incredibly exhausting.
To be sure, we certainly have a better situation than someone like Bonhoeffer, who was confined away from his family and close friends, with virtually no access other than letter writing. He was eventually able to see his fiancé, but never often, and only for moments at a time while under incredibly strict supervision. Yet, in our time of social/physical distancing, we are all getting a very real glimpse at why solitary confinement is such an awful kind of punishment.
Perhaps you're not that isolated (neither am I). But if you're feeling exhausted and lonelier than you think you should (after all the Zoom meetings and FaceTime chats), you're not alone.
Perhaps one way of describing why we're feeling so exhausted is that we are having to tolerate the absence of one another's presence. Or, to put it another way, we experience the presence of their absence -- their physical absence which creates a distance that we cannot un-feel. However helpful FaceTime and Zoom and e-mails and phone calls are, what we really want is the presence of our friends, family, and co-workers.
We're becoming somewhat desperate to gather again, to commune (the basis of community), even to touch one another. Perhaps this is because we're made for this kind of human relationship. The digital and the virtual serve a purpose, but they leave us feeling vastly incomplete, even in a way, empty. We need embodied contact with others. It meets our basic needs and contributes to our good health (conversely, loneliness is detrimental). If these natural outcomes tell us anything, they tell us that at the very core of our being, deep in our human nature, profound and intimate contact with other people is critical to our existence.
About two years ago, my family was sitting in church. It came time for the children's message delivered by the minister. A picture came up that showed Jesus hugging a little child. We had seen this picture before, but this time my daughter said to me, "Daddy, I want a hug from Jesus." Now, I'm a trained theologian, and even have a degree in philosophy, yet I wasn't immediately sure how to answer my daughter. But I gave it a shot.
I told her that her desire for a hug from Jesus is something that everyone gathered with us wants. Every Christian wants a hug from Jesus. It would be an amazing thing. But I went further and tried to tell her something rather complicated from a theological perspective. I wasn't sure if it would work. I told her that whenever she wanted a hug from Jesus, all she had to do was ask for a hug from another Christian. Thinking like a theologian, I had in mind something St. Paul said in one of his letters, found in the Bible. He wrote, "It is no longer I who live, but (Jesus) Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20b).
Paul was thinking about the fact that followers of Jesus come to do the things that Jesus does. And if anything, Jesus loved people. And He did so unconditionally. So who wouldn't want a hug from Jesus? Especially if it would be that kind of hug -- one where you knew that no matter who you were, what deep dark secrets you kept, or whatever terrible thing about yourself that you worried would cause rejection of something found out -- Jesus would hug you authentically and with unconditional love in spite of it all. The same often seems to work for children -- people are often freely willing to give them hugs and express care and compassion to them unconditionally.
Right now, I think we could all use a good hug. Probably more than one. I long for the day of many hugs, when we're finally released from this captivity.
To want a hug from another person is nothing more than to acknowledge our interconnectedness and our interdependence. We need each other, and we cannot survive without one another. The embrace of a hug offers us the experience of being seen, recognized as worthy of such an embrace. The gifts of a hug from those we love offer glimpses of the embrace of God's love. It's not uncommon to imagine that such connections with the divine love of God come through extraordinary means. Nevertheless, God has chosen other ways to show love to us. Rather than expecting some miraculous, extraordinary experience, the love of God comes to us through the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday.
The embrace of a loved one or close friend is also and always a glimpse and experience of the love of God for you. You can be certain of this because God created us for human connection and community. And because He chose to use other humans to show us such love. I know of no other way for us to feel completely and totally loved, affirmed, and accepted than through the continued love of those closest to us. Through them, we have a mysterious window into God's unfathomable love for us.
Maybe that's why we miss each other so deeply in this time of separation. We weren't made for this sort of experience. We were made for flesh-and-blood community with one another. We were made not for the absence of presence, not the presence of the absence of people we love, but for the richness and fullness of life that comes from the physical proximity and more often the touch of an embrace of our closest friends and loved ones.
If you're missing hugs these days (like I am), we wait together in hope. The sweet embrace of a hug from my friends and distant family is something I anxiously anticipate.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Forget #YOLO and "No Regrets"
The past matters, even if it doesn't define you.
A few years back, there was a massive forest fire near where I was living and working in the Pacific Northwest. Friends of mine had to evacuate their home for weeks while emergency responders fought the fire. The fire burned a major section of forest along a scenic riverway, closing down stretches of highway and rail lines for long periods. Even the river itself was closed to marine traffic for a time. Ash from the fire fell for days where I lived. It took three months to fully contain the fire. Nearly 50,000 acres burned.
The fire started because a teenager who was hiking with a group of friends lit fireworks off the side of a ridge during one of the driest summers on record for the area. Burning anything of any sort was legally banned at the time. The consequences of that single firework totaled more than $36 million.
"Every day I think about this terrible decision and its awful consequences," said the Vancouver, Washington, boy. "I know I will have to live with my bad decision for the rest of my life."
Living with our bad decisions is another way of talking about regret. Yet, regret is a rather unpopular topic. We tend to avoid it.
Andy Root works with young people, and he trains others who do the same. In a recent book, he pointed out that more than previous generations, young people seem not to experience much regret. "#YOLO" (short for "you only live once") is their way. #YOLO sounds like a combination of carpe diem ("seize the day") and pop-psychology advice that tells us not to dwell on the past. After all, the past is the past. We can't change it. So we might as well move on.
I'm all for seizing the day and living in the moment. Ancient wisdom offers the same advice, since we don't know what tomorrow holds. For example, the Bible advises us to walk not as unwise, but as wise, for the days are evil (see Ephesians 5:15-16). We're warned to pay attention, be thoughtful, and watch out for danger. This requires a vigilance that's attentive to the moment.
Still, I find it rather difficult to focus on the here and now. It's as if there is a piece of me that is always waiting for some better time to arrive. Whether that's unlocking the achievements and privileges that come with age -- waiting for parenting to get easier.
When I was a teenager, I did something I regret. Due to the context in which I grew up, it took a few years for it to really hit me. I realized that I used a racial slur against a fellow musician in a high school class. To be honest, I was really impressed by her and we performed in all the same ensembles. My comment was senseless, meant to be a joke, and honestly, meant most of all to impress people around me.
Moments later a friend came to her defense, telling me I had made the other girl cry. Her rebuke quickly reminded me that my parents raised me to be better than this. As a result, I've always had a rather high guilt complex about such things. So I immediately pursued reconciliation. I apologized to her about my comment immediately. She accepted my apology, but the damage had already been done. I couldn't take my comment back. The memory of it lingers. The senseless hurt I caused occasionally returns to hurt me back in the form of regret.
Because of experiences like this in which I experience real regret -- whether about things serious or more trivial -- I struggle to connect with the sentiment of #YOLO and the "no regrets" attitude that accompanies it. While I do not share the sentiment, in his book Souls in Transition, sociologist Christian Smith argues that a "no regrets" attitude is nevertheless prominent among emerging young adults (perhaps I'm just a decade too old).
He puts it this way: "Despite often smarting from hard lessons learned, most of the emerging adults who were interviewed explicitly denied feeling any regrets about any of their past decisions, behaviors, or problems. Reinforcing their widespread feeling of optimism about the future, most of the survey respondents -- including many of those with miserably depressing histories and current problems, as well as those who seem to take full responsibility for their own mistakes and stupidities -- insisted that the past was the past, that they learned their lessons well, that they would not change a thing even if they could, that what's happened is part of who they have become, and that they have no regrets about anything at all."
In the next line, Smith transitions to an observation that suddenly seems to include me again, saying, "many emerging adults also appear, we think, to harbor regrets about the past even when they deny that they do. They clearly do not want to see themselves as having regrets, even though they also get angry with themselves about mistakes and continue sometimes to be haunted by problems from the past."
Haunted. That's me. And I suspect it's also the teenager who accidentally started the forest fire.
I was teaching university students when the forest fire occurred. We were in the early weeks of the fall semester taking up questions of the meaningfulness of life. It was hard to ignore the smoke that choked the valley where many of us lived. The ash gracefully falling from the sky gently rested upon windowsills and parked cars.
I remember one of our discussions coming to rest briefly on the subject of the forest fire and the young man who was responsible. "What was he thinking?" a student wondered. I answered by saying that he probably wasn't thinking much at all, due the developmental stage of his teenage brain. While true, I added a bit more nuance. I told them that I could totally relate to what he probably did think: "How cool would it be to light fireworks off the side of the ridge?!?" Aside from perhaps trying to impress his friends, as someone who has always liked playing with fire, I could relate. But what he clearly wasn't thinking about was the bigger picture: the consequences, the illegality of burning, the danger of throwing fireworks without knowing where they'll land, the risk at which he was putting others (the fire trapped 153 other hikers for up to a day).
Yet the consequences that followed, both the visible ones like burnt trees along roadways and barren mountainsides, and others like a massive unpayable fine and nearly 2,000 hours of community service, are hard to look back upon and not elicit feelings of regret, especially for a rather thoughtless choice. Similar for me are the memories of that young woman's tears.
Perhaps one reason that people avoid regret is practical. What can you do about the past? Pretty much nothing. So let's just move on already.
Another reason might be psychological. Dwelling on past failures can affect one's mental health. Regret can sink us. We spin ourselves into a deep depressive slump whenever we're caught up in the spiral of focusing on our past mistakes.
Still, it's appropriate to recognize that those mistakes don't define us, even if they're part of our story. But they do contribute to our identity at least in terms of a memory from which we can learn and make different decisions in the future.
Jonathan Malesic writes powerfully about how we can lean back on our regrettable decisions and actions. He suggests that, "No regrets" sounds great on TV and shares well on social media because we equate decisiveness with importance and control. But to live proudly without regret is to ratify your own idiocy, to take unjustified self-satisfaction in your existence. Your past actions made you who you are, sure, but maybe who you are isn't so great. Without regret, you have no way to reckon with that.
Malesic goes on to suggest that mistakes might be the best sort of teacher. Here's something I can resonate with. Most of the mistakes I've made, once I've realized they were mistakes -- whether they were simple errors on an exam or damage done to personal relationships -- I've usually not made them again. The lesson learned looms almost ever-present. As Malesic says, "Regret allows us to enter into an ethical relationship with who we have been in the past ... Even the person you were a moment ago can seem alien to who you are now, given a sufficiently consequential decision separating the one from the other."
Looking back on that young man who started the forest fire or my experience with the young woman, it's easy to think, "Who would do such a thing?" Well, clearly in the latter case, I did. But my own disgust with myself is powerful. It maintains a haunting control over who I want to be in the future precisely because I remember what I've done in the past.
Nevertheless, such memories do not dominate my life or overly color my self-perception. Rather, they play a role alongside the identity I've received from outside of myself, not the one I can create by looking in the mirror. My identity comes from my Creator, and He calls me His child. I'm His child because He has, despite all my feebleness and failing, redeemed my life. In His eyes, He sees not my past (nor my proneness at times to relive and repeat it). Rather, He sees me as one for whom it was worth sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die so that I might not have to. My Creator even promises to forget my past mistakes (see Psalm 103:12). Forgiveness provides a freedom that allows me to keep going.
That gives me hope knowing that moving forward in life, I'll likely still do and say things I wish I could take back. Having learned some lessons in the past, however, I pray that I am the slightest bit wiser so that I might mitigate the damage. Malesic seems equally hopeful.
Paradoxically, the way to live confidently isn't to banish regret and look only to the future. The challenge is to act, informed by reflection on past mistakes and ready to regret the decision later. It's to realize that there are worse things than regret. Learning to regret well makes you humble in the face of the consequences your actions will have for a person -- your future self -- who remains something of a stranger. So act with circumspection and humility, and be ready to earn reproach.
What regrets are haunting you? How do you let them play their role of forming you for the future without dominating your sense of self, stimulating inappropriate guilt? How is the gift of God's forgiveness effective for you in tempering feelings of regret in a culture that says, "No regrets"?
Written by Chad Lakies
Looking back at one's past is a difficult thing as we've all blown it a time or two. Sometimes our blunders have cost us -- and others -- dearly. For some helpful perspective on the matter, check out the Men's NetWork's video Bible study, Regrets, Reality, Restoration. It looks at the stories of four people who have dealt with regrets in their lives, and how they encountered the hope that God gives us all to move on through a difficult past.
You can check it out by clicking here.
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
A few years back, there was a massive forest fire near where I was living and working in the Pacific Northwest. Friends of mine had to evacuate their home for weeks while emergency responders fought the fire. The fire burned a major section of forest along a scenic riverway, closing down stretches of highway and rail lines for long periods. Even the river itself was closed to marine traffic for a time. Ash from the fire fell for days where I lived. It took three months to fully contain the fire. Nearly 50,000 acres burned.
The fire started because a teenager who was hiking with a group of friends lit fireworks off the side of a ridge during one of the driest summers on record for the area. Burning anything of any sort was legally banned at the time. The consequences of that single firework totaled more than $36 million.
"Every day I think about this terrible decision and its awful consequences," said the Vancouver, Washington, boy. "I know I will have to live with my bad decision for the rest of my life."
Living with our bad decisions is another way of talking about regret. Yet, regret is a rather unpopular topic. We tend to avoid it.
Andy Root works with young people, and he trains others who do the same. In a recent book, he pointed out that more than previous generations, young people seem not to experience much regret. "#YOLO" (short for "you only live once") is their way. #YOLO sounds like a combination of carpe diem ("seize the day") and pop-psychology advice that tells us not to dwell on the past. After all, the past is the past. We can't change it. So we might as well move on.
I'm all for seizing the day and living in the moment. Ancient wisdom offers the same advice, since we don't know what tomorrow holds. For example, the Bible advises us to walk not as unwise, but as wise, for the days are evil (see Ephesians 5:15-16). We're warned to pay attention, be thoughtful, and watch out for danger. This requires a vigilance that's attentive to the moment.
Still, I find it rather difficult to focus on the here and now. It's as if there is a piece of me that is always waiting for some better time to arrive. Whether that's unlocking the achievements and privileges that come with age -- waiting for parenting to get easier.
When I was a teenager, I did something I regret. Due to the context in which I grew up, it took a few years for it to really hit me. I realized that I used a racial slur against a fellow musician in a high school class. To be honest, I was really impressed by her and we performed in all the same ensembles. My comment was senseless, meant to be a joke, and honestly, meant most of all to impress people around me.
Moments later a friend came to her defense, telling me I had made the other girl cry. Her rebuke quickly reminded me that my parents raised me to be better than this. As a result, I've always had a rather high guilt complex about such things. So I immediately pursued reconciliation. I apologized to her about my comment immediately. She accepted my apology, but the damage had already been done. I couldn't take my comment back. The memory of it lingers. The senseless hurt I caused occasionally returns to hurt me back in the form of regret.
Because of experiences like this in which I experience real regret -- whether about things serious or more trivial -- I struggle to connect with the sentiment of #YOLO and the "no regrets" attitude that accompanies it. While I do not share the sentiment, in his book Souls in Transition, sociologist Christian Smith argues that a "no regrets" attitude is nevertheless prominent among emerging young adults (perhaps I'm just a decade too old).
He puts it this way: "Despite often smarting from hard lessons learned, most of the emerging adults who were interviewed explicitly denied feeling any regrets about any of their past decisions, behaviors, or problems. Reinforcing their widespread feeling of optimism about the future, most of the survey respondents -- including many of those with miserably depressing histories and current problems, as well as those who seem to take full responsibility for their own mistakes and stupidities -- insisted that the past was the past, that they learned their lessons well, that they would not change a thing even if they could, that what's happened is part of who they have become, and that they have no regrets about anything at all."
In the next line, Smith transitions to an observation that suddenly seems to include me again, saying, "many emerging adults also appear, we think, to harbor regrets about the past even when they deny that they do. They clearly do not want to see themselves as having regrets, even though they also get angry with themselves about mistakes and continue sometimes to be haunted by problems from the past."
Haunted. That's me. And I suspect it's also the teenager who accidentally started the forest fire.
I was teaching university students when the forest fire occurred. We were in the early weeks of the fall semester taking up questions of the meaningfulness of life. It was hard to ignore the smoke that choked the valley where many of us lived. The ash gracefully falling from the sky gently rested upon windowsills and parked cars.
I remember one of our discussions coming to rest briefly on the subject of the forest fire and the young man who was responsible. "What was he thinking?" a student wondered. I answered by saying that he probably wasn't thinking much at all, due the developmental stage of his teenage brain. While true, I added a bit more nuance. I told them that I could totally relate to what he probably did think: "How cool would it be to light fireworks off the side of the ridge?!?" Aside from perhaps trying to impress his friends, as someone who has always liked playing with fire, I could relate. But what he clearly wasn't thinking about was the bigger picture: the consequences, the illegality of burning, the danger of throwing fireworks without knowing where they'll land, the risk at which he was putting others (the fire trapped 153 other hikers for up to a day).
Yet the consequences that followed, both the visible ones like burnt trees along roadways and barren mountainsides, and others like a massive unpayable fine and nearly 2,000 hours of community service, are hard to look back upon and not elicit feelings of regret, especially for a rather thoughtless choice. Similar for me are the memories of that young woman's tears.
Perhaps one reason that people avoid regret is practical. What can you do about the past? Pretty much nothing. So let's just move on already.
Another reason might be psychological. Dwelling on past failures can affect one's mental health. Regret can sink us. We spin ourselves into a deep depressive slump whenever we're caught up in the spiral of focusing on our past mistakes.
Still, it's appropriate to recognize that those mistakes don't define us, even if they're part of our story. But they do contribute to our identity at least in terms of a memory from which we can learn and make different decisions in the future.
Jonathan Malesic writes powerfully about how we can lean back on our regrettable decisions and actions. He suggests that, "No regrets" sounds great on TV and shares well on social media because we equate decisiveness with importance and control. But to live proudly without regret is to ratify your own idiocy, to take unjustified self-satisfaction in your existence. Your past actions made you who you are, sure, but maybe who you are isn't so great. Without regret, you have no way to reckon with that.
Malesic goes on to suggest that mistakes might be the best sort of teacher. Here's something I can resonate with. Most of the mistakes I've made, once I've realized they were mistakes -- whether they were simple errors on an exam or damage done to personal relationships -- I've usually not made them again. The lesson learned looms almost ever-present. As Malesic says, "Regret allows us to enter into an ethical relationship with who we have been in the past ... Even the person you were a moment ago can seem alien to who you are now, given a sufficiently consequential decision separating the one from the other."
Looking back on that young man who started the forest fire or my experience with the young woman, it's easy to think, "Who would do such a thing?" Well, clearly in the latter case, I did. But my own disgust with myself is powerful. It maintains a haunting control over who I want to be in the future precisely because I remember what I've done in the past.
Nevertheless, such memories do not dominate my life or overly color my self-perception. Rather, they play a role alongside the identity I've received from outside of myself, not the one I can create by looking in the mirror. My identity comes from my Creator, and He calls me His child. I'm His child because He has, despite all my feebleness and failing, redeemed my life. In His eyes, He sees not my past (nor my proneness at times to relive and repeat it). Rather, He sees me as one for whom it was worth sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die so that I might not have to. My Creator even promises to forget my past mistakes (see Psalm 103:12). Forgiveness provides a freedom that allows me to keep going.
That gives me hope knowing that moving forward in life, I'll likely still do and say things I wish I could take back. Having learned some lessons in the past, however, I pray that I am the slightest bit wiser so that I might mitigate the damage. Malesic seems equally hopeful.
Paradoxically, the way to live confidently isn't to banish regret and look only to the future. The challenge is to act, informed by reflection on past mistakes and ready to regret the decision later. It's to realize that there are worse things than regret. Learning to regret well makes you humble in the face of the consequences your actions will have for a person -- your future self -- who remains something of a stranger. So act with circumspection and humility, and be ready to earn reproach.
What regrets are haunting you? How do you let them play their role of forming you for the future without dominating your sense of self, stimulating inappropriate guilt? How is the gift of God's forgiveness effective for you in tempering feelings of regret in a culture that says, "No regrets"?
Written by Chad Lakies
Looking back at one's past is a difficult thing as we've all blown it a time or two. Sometimes our blunders have cost us -- and others -- dearly. For some helpful perspective on the matter, check out the Men's NetWork's video Bible study, Regrets, Reality, Restoration. It looks at the stories of four people who have dealt with regrets in their lives, and how they encountered the hope that God gives us all to move on through a difficult past.
You can check it out by clicking here.
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
Does Pornography Kill Love?
Have you ever come across pornography on the internet when you weren't looking for it?
You're not alone. Some 70-plus percent of teenagers encounter porn online by accident. The internet's anonymity and accessibility has led to a flood of pornographic production and consumption in our society. In 2001 it was estimated there were 70,000 porn websites; by 2005, there were 4.2 million. More pornographic videos are streamed online than the combined traffic of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Given pornography's wide reach, we must talk about it more frequently, and examine it more critically.
The point of this article is to discuss some Christian thoughts on porn -- and to go deeper than "We think it's bad." Jump ahead if you want to get straight to the Christian part. But if you don't know much about the porn industry, keep reading, because it's worth understanding porn's reach and impact first. We'll briefly look at the industry from three perspectives: people who make porn, people who consume porn, and porn's wider societal effects.
Actors & Producers
In a celebrity-praising culture such as ours, the adult entertainment industry is sometimes seen as a route to mainstream acting, and the glamorous lifestyle that appears to come with it. However, most adult entertainment industry actors achieve neither a long-term career (most work in the industry for only 6-18 months), nor fame, or long-term wealth. In fact, a UCLA study found that 1 in 4 adult industry workers have been exposed to a sexually transmitted infection (STI), and that many more were exploited in other ways by industry producers or directors.
You can listen to some of their stories by clicking here and watching the two videos.
As these stories demonstrate, even a "successful" career in pornography is often deeply distorted and damaging. Another famous porn star has said that she would never let her children enter the adult industry. And, most tragically, not everyone in a porn film is there because they have freely chosen to be. Consider the words of Linda, one of America's first "porn stars," who was not only coerced into making pornography, but then also forced to promote the industry that she had been forced into:
"That hurt me a great deal, too. To have to be interviewed and say that it (doing porn) was 'wonderful,' that 'it was the greatest thing, everybody should see it.' I didn't feel that way at all. I was just like a robot. I was told what to say, and I said it because if I didn't I was beaten brutally." Linda "Lovelace" Boreman
There is growing consensus that the increase in porn consumption is tied with the growing problem of sex trafficking and forced sexual exploitation. That reality should cause us all to reconsider what exactly porn is and what it is doing to us.
Consumers
Psychologists have only recently begun to study the consequences of habitual online porn consumption. While the findings are still emerging, some things are clear:
 Online pornography is addictive for many users. Psychologists have shown that porn addicts' brains show similar patterns to those of people with drug addictions.
 Habitual porn consumption is associated with decreased relationship satisfaction, insecurity, and lower overall sexual satisfaction.
 When someone who is married starts accessing porn, the chances of that couple getting a divorce double.
 There are signs that the widespread use of online pornography is leading to higher rates of sexual dysfunction among young men.
Far from being harmless, watching porn hurts individuals and relationships.
Society
The health community is growing increasingly concerned about the wider effects of pornography. One of the reasons for this is that the average age of first exposure to online pornography is 11-12, so for many young people, porn is the first introduction to sex. Remember, 12 is just the average, so just imagine an 8-year-old coming across hardcore porn by accident. One of the many problems with this is that the most popular and most viewed porn films are verbally and physically violent towards women -- and a recent study linked porn consumption with significant increases in sexual aggression. Even for those who do not become more aggressive, pornography is "acting" and as such is a terrible education about what sex between two consenting and trusting adults is really like.
Finally, the casual observer can't help but note the "pornification" of our culture: from twerking to barely clothed advertisements for hamburgers, sexualized advertising is everywhere now. This sends a terrible message to young people: "Your physical presentation determines your value."
Some Christian Thoughts
These realities, apart from any religious convictions, should make us all concerned about pornography, and more critical of the impact it is having on everyone involved -- from producers to consumers, and especially on teenagers and children.
What can Christianity add to this conversation? Pornography is a gruesomely twisted cousin of sex, so let's start there.
"And God saw that it was good."
Despite what you may have heard, the Christian Scriptures are incredibly positive about the deep beauty and mystery of human sexuality. The first command given to Adam and Eve was to "be fruitful and multiply" (see Genesis 1:28), that is, to make children through the pro-creative act of sex. The first time Adam sees Eve, he essentially cries, "At last!" and launches into poetry, praising the beauty of his wife.
If that were not clear enough, there is an entire book of the Bible that celebrates the joys and challenges of sexual love between husband and wife (see Song of Songs). The passages of this book are playful, evocative, and celebratory about men's and women's bodies and the beauty of marital love. In the New Testament, Paul teaches that a husband and wife are to give their bodies to one another in mutual enjoyment and delight (see 1 Corinthians 7:3-4). For Christians, sex is an incredibly good and powerful thing.
Porn Is Not Love
The trouble is that, like all good and powerful things, sex is exploited and abused. If you read Song of Songs, you see that the pursuit of sex within marriage is a lively, risk-filled endeavor between two people. Traditionally, there is a long road to arrive at that point: dating, holding hands, staying up all night talking, and a first kiss are all steps along the delicate and gradual path of developing a relationship with someone else. Ultimately, a healthy, life-giving relationship is based upon love -- sacrificing your own needs, wants, and desires for the sake of the other person.
Porn is the exact opposite of all of this. Instead of being uniting, it is isolating. Instead of being gradual, it is fast. Instead of being based around sacrificing for another person, it is nothing more than self-gratifying self-pleasure. Porn is not connection; it is consumption. When it comes to true love, porn is the ultimate lie. True, good, and healthy sex doesn't come in front of a screen, but rather through sacrificing yourself for another person's benefit and pleasure.
The Image of God
Christians believe that all people are made in the "image of God" (see Genesis 1:27). This means that all people are to be treated with the highest standard of respect, love, and dignity. If we turn to porn, we are reducing people to sexual objects to be consumed -- a set of features to gawk at rather than a whole person who is someone's son or daughter, brother or sister, neighbor or friend.
Many Christian organizations work to bring that message to those inside the pornography industry. One group, XXX Church, goes to porn conventions and passes out "Jesus loves porn stars" T-shirts, because the truth is, Jesus does! As individuals and as a society, we should, too. We should refuse to exploit and objectify people for our own pleasure. Instead, we should pursue the beauty and challenge of real love in our real lives.
If you want to make a difference:
 Do not buy in to pornography simply because "everyone is doing it." Consider its deeper effects on producers, consumers, and our society.
 If you are a parent, talk with your kids about pornography before they accidentally encounter it online -- because one day they will. Discuss pornography with your teenagers, letting them know it is not a realistic portrayal of what sex is.
 If you struggle with pornography, seek help -- there are many organizations dedicated to helping individuals or couples break their pornography habit.
 If you are in the pornography industry, know that there are Christians and others who will care about you and will work with you to help you exit the industry.
Chances are we've all been impacted by pornography, sad to say. You can let us know what you think about this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
There are online resources to help better understand and deal with pornography. Here are a few:
You can get there by clicking here.
You can get there by clicking here.
You can get there by clicking here.
You can get there by clicking here.
You're not alone. Some 70-plus percent of teenagers encounter porn online by accident. The internet's anonymity and accessibility has led to a flood of pornographic production and consumption in our society. In 2001 it was estimated there were 70,000 porn websites; by 2005, there were 4.2 million. More pornographic videos are streamed online than the combined traffic of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Given pornography's wide reach, we must talk about it more frequently, and examine it more critically.
The point of this article is to discuss some Christian thoughts on porn -- and to go deeper than "We think it's bad." Jump ahead if you want to get straight to the Christian part. But if you don't know much about the porn industry, keep reading, because it's worth understanding porn's reach and impact first. We'll briefly look at the industry from three perspectives: people who make porn, people who consume porn, and porn's wider societal effects.
Actors & Producers
In a celebrity-praising culture such as ours, the adult entertainment industry is sometimes seen as a route to mainstream acting, and the glamorous lifestyle that appears to come with it. However, most adult entertainment industry actors achieve neither a long-term career (most work in the industry for only 6-18 months), nor fame, or long-term wealth. In fact, a UCLA study found that 1 in 4 adult industry workers have been exposed to a sexually transmitted infection (STI), and that many more were exploited in other ways by industry producers or directors.
You can listen to some of their stories by clicking here and watching the two videos.
As these stories demonstrate, even a "successful" career in pornography is often deeply distorted and damaging. Another famous porn star has said that she would never let her children enter the adult industry. And, most tragically, not everyone in a porn film is there because they have freely chosen to be. Consider the words of Linda, one of America's first "porn stars," who was not only coerced into making pornography, but then also forced to promote the industry that she had been forced into:
"That hurt me a great deal, too. To have to be interviewed and say that it (doing porn) was 'wonderful,' that 'it was the greatest thing, everybody should see it.' I didn't feel that way at all. I was just like a robot. I was told what to say, and I said it because if I didn't I was beaten brutally." Linda "Lovelace" Boreman
There is growing consensus that the increase in porn consumption is tied with the growing problem of sex trafficking and forced sexual exploitation. That reality should cause us all to reconsider what exactly porn is and what it is doing to us.
Consumers
Psychologists have only recently begun to study the consequences of habitual online porn consumption. While the findings are still emerging, some things are clear:
 Online pornography is addictive for many users. Psychologists have shown that porn addicts' brains show similar patterns to those of people with drug addictions.
 Habitual porn consumption is associated with decreased relationship satisfaction, insecurity, and lower overall sexual satisfaction.
 When someone who is married starts accessing porn, the chances of that couple getting a divorce double.
 There are signs that the widespread use of online pornography is leading to higher rates of sexual dysfunction among young men.
Far from being harmless, watching porn hurts individuals and relationships.
Society
The health community is growing increasingly concerned about the wider effects of pornography. One of the reasons for this is that the average age of first exposure to online pornography is 11-12, so for many young people, porn is the first introduction to sex. Remember, 12 is just the average, so just imagine an 8-year-old coming across hardcore porn by accident. One of the many problems with this is that the most popular and most viewed porn films are verbally and physically violent towards women -- and a recent study linked porn consumption with significant increases in sexual aggression. Even for those who do not become more aggressive, pornography is "acting" and as such is a terrible education about what sex between two consenting and trusting adults is really like.
Finally, the casual observer can't help but note the "pornification" of our culture: from twerking to barely clothed advertisements for hamburgers, sexualized advertising is everywhere now. This sends a terrible message to young people: "Your physical presentation determines your value."
Some Christian Thoughts
These realities, apart from any religious convictions, should make us all concerned about pornography, and more critical of the impact it is having on everyone involved -- from producers to consumers, and especially on teenagers and children.
What can Christianity add to this conversation? Pornography is a gruesomely twisted cousin of sex, so let's start there.
"And God saw that it was good."
Despite what you may have heard, the Christian Scriptures are incredibly positive about the deep beauty and mystery of human sexuality. The first command given to Adam and Eve was to "be fruitful and multiply" (see Genesis 1:28), that is, to make children through the pro-creative act of sex. The first time Adam sees Eve, he essentially cries, "At last!" and launches into poetry, praising the beauty of his wife.
If that were not clear enough, there is an entire book of the Bible that celebrates the joys and challenges of sexual love between husband and wife (see Song of Songs). The passages of this book are playful, evocative, and celebratory about men's and women's bodies and the beauty of marital love. In the New Testament, Paul teaches that a husband and wife are to give their bodies to one another in mutual enjoyment and delight (see 1 Corinthians 7:3-4). For Christians, sex is an incredibly good and powerful thing.
Porn Is Not Love
The trouble is that, like all good and powerful things, sex is exploited and abused. If you read Song of Songs, you see that the pursuit of sex within marriage is a lively, risk-filled endeavor between two people. Traditionally, there is a long road to arrive at that point: dating, holding hands, staying up all night talking, and a first kiss are all steps along the delicate and gradual path of developing a relationship with someone else. Ultimately, a healthy, life-giving relationship is based upon love -- sacrificing your own needs, wants, and desires for the sake of the other person.
Porn is the exact opposite of all of this. Instead of being uniting, it is isolating. Instead of being gradual, it is fast. Instead of being based around sacrificing for another person, it is nothing more than self-gratifying self-pleasure. Porn is not connection; it is consumption. When it comes to true love, porn is the ultimate lie. True, good, and healthy sex doesn't come in front of a screen, but rather through sacrificing yourself for another person's benefit and pleasure.
The Image of God
Christians believe that all people are made in the "image of God" (see Genesis 1:27). This means that all people are to be treated with the highest standard of respect, love, and dignity. If we turn to porn, we are reducing people to sexual objects to be consumed -- a set of features to gawk at rather than a whole person who is someone's son or daughter, brother or sister, neighbor or friend.
Many Christian organizations work to bring that message to those inside the pornography industry. One group, XXX Church, goes to porn conventions and passes out "Jesus loves porn stars" T-shirts, because the truth is, Jesus does! As individuals and as a society, we should, too. We should refuse to exploit and objectify people for our own pleasure. Instead, we should pursue the beauty and challenge of real love in our real lives.
If you want to make a difference:
 Do not buy in to pornography simply because "everyone is doing it." Consider its deeper effects on producers, consumers, and our society.
 If you are a parent, talk with your kids about pornography before they accidentally encounter it online -- because one day they will. Discuss pornography with your teenagers, letting them know it is not a realistic portrayal of what sex is.
 If you struggle with pornography, seek help -- there are many organizations dedicated to helping individuals or couples break their pornography habit.
 If you are in the pornography industry, know that there are Christians and others who will care about you and will work with you to help you exit the industry.
Chances are we've all been impacted by pornography, sad to say. You can let us know what you think about this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
There are online resources to help better understand and deal with pornography. Here are a few:
You can get there by clicking here.
You can get there by clicking here.
You can get there by clicking here.
You can get there by clicking here.
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