Self-Imposed Isolation

I occasionally recuse myself from the socialness of Facebook, sometimes for months at a time.  Part of it's that I just get tired of the same three posts (be outraged by this!  look at how cute this is!  ME ME ME!), but part of it is that I just don't feel all that connected anymore to some people with whom I am supposed to be 'friends'.  Not actually seeing some of these people in the flesh for over thirty years will do this to you, I guess.

So this weekend not far from where my parents live there is a big Church of Christ event (actually on their website everything is church of Christ, and if you are part of this fellowship you know why, but that's for another post).  We are going to be at my parents' house this weekend because they are getting ready to move and we want to say our goodbyes to the house I grew up in, check out the new house, and basically try to be helpful however we can.  We have legitimate reasons for me to say that I'm too busy to attend the church event this weekend, but the reality is that I'm just not that interested.  It's not that I think the speakers are bad, or the topics are bad (though there does seem to be a bit of the 'the one true church is us' within it), but I just feel numb to much of it these days.  I've never been one to go just for the networking angle of it, and considering how far out of the normal circle I am now, I can count on one hand the number of people I would probably actually know.

And it's not just this.  When I read the Christian Chronicle (our 'Church of Christ newspaper'), I don't feel the connection with other churches like I used to.  I don't really have a desire to go back to some of our college lectureships, and many of the books written by our people or the issues I have thought long and hard about just don't appeal to me anymore.  Now, the local church here?  Absolutely...I am passionate about our little group here.  The Word of God in Scripture?  Daily I want to know more, and Scripture is never-ending in what it does to me.  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  I want to know Christ, be filled with the Spirit, and be in covenant fellowship with the Father.  And the church universal, with its variety and even sometimes its mistakes?  More and more I feel drawn to it.  I love its history and its traditions and for all its faults I know that God's kingdom is doing great things both here and around the world.

But there is a part of me that feels like I am going the way of some of my dear friends who grew up in Churches of Christ.  They left for non-denominational churches, Christian churches, and other similarly Bible-centered churches.  They didn't leave Christ, but somewhere along the way they decided that the foolishness and the same three issues were no longer palatable to them anymore.  I don't think I could ever leave at this point...for all our problems, this is my home and my heritage, and I love this little local church and all of God's people here.  But the periphery?  Not so much.

Adulthood and maturity is in part about expanding options and also narrowing down options.  Years ago I gave up college football because I developed an interest in soccer.  I rarely watch pro sports on TV these days, as I'm more interested in what my kids are doing.  Maybe it's the same thing with the church universe around me...I just don't have time for some of these things anymore.  Those things are not bad things, but life changes.  Shouldn't I be more excited about what the future holds than what the past binds me to?  I'm not casting aside everything...but I am being more selective about what I hold onto.  And I think this is a good thing.

Being Right

Today an old college friend of mine posted onto Facebook one of those White Conservative Male whine articles about how unfair everything is against Trump and his cronies.  I have no sympathy for any of these people, but that's not what this is about. 

Instead, it's a confession that I simply can't shut my own mouth when I need to stay silent.  At the end of the day, the foolishness of this article is likely apparent to anybody not delusional, and those who are delusional and will lap it up won't be convinced by anything I say. 

Yet I still had to say something.  I justified having to give somebody a piece of my mind.  I had to convince them of how Right I think that I am.  This is pure arrogance, but my failure as a Christian is sometimes still so shocking that it requires me to confess my failures. I don't know that I will really learn from this...but maybe being conscious of these things will help me in the future. 

Self-righteousness and me

In my daily reading today I read this: "Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.  Your heart knows that many times you have yourself cursed others."  (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22 ESV)

I know I have read this many times, and even have taught it a few times over the year, but wow...this really hit me hard.  Just as Jesus told his followers in the golden rule to treat others as they would want to be treated (Matthew 7:12), so here we are reminded about the power of cutting others some slack.  Do people treat us and say bad things once in a while?  Sure...but don't take it to heart.  You yourself say terrible things and treat others bad also!

There are so many applications here:
-When I am driving and somebody cuts me off, I want to flip them the bird and pound on the steering wheel.  But when I (mistakenly) do this, do I expect them to give me the benefit of the doubt?
-When I hear a bad sermon that seems to play fast and loose with God's word, I may condemn and hate the preacher.  But when I (mistakenly) do this, do I say that people shouldn't judge me too harshly?
-When after a long day my wife is not in a good mood I get frustrated that she is so cranky.  But when I (not-so-mistakenly) do this, am I hoping that others will cut me some slack?

So often these days I hear somebody talking about how badly they have been treated by others...but then they think nothing about treating others badly.  Why are we so hypocritical?  Why do we think we are exempt from the rules of social behavior?

The Teacher knew about this many years ago.  May I finally learn it from him.

Booing Brownback

Recently there was a storm of outrage about Governor Brownback being booed at the WSU/KU game.  How dare people boo the governor!  Why, it's disrespectful and hateful.  I've seen more than a few of my conservative friends up in arms about this.

And while I think some of the comments were funny (such as, 'how can he root for these teams when he's just as soon cut off funding for their schools'?), I agree at least in principle with what the frustration...leaders should be respected and prayed for.  As a Christian, I should seek to pray for leaders I agree with and leaders I don't.

But I can't help but laugh when, living in the most red of red states, there is this outrage about Governor Brownback when he has been booed.  President Obama, and most Democrats, can only hope to get off with booing from most Christians.  

Will Christians repent for the hateful and slanderous things that have been said about Obama, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, and the like through most of my lifetime?

Will Christians turn off Fox News when 'fair and balanced' means little more than a token defender of the President while their hosts make endless and unsubstantiated allegations about him and his political allies?

Will Christians stop gleefully listening to hour upon hour of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the like, who are little more than hatchet men who know that their mostly 'Christian' audiences love to hear mocking and salacious attacks on their political enemies?

Living in a red state, I can guarantee that it takes a lot more 'courage' and 'boldness' to speak against the poor policies of Brownback, the Koch brothers, and their political allies than it does to complain about the President and the federal government.  Everybody does the latter...almost nobody does the former.  Especially at church, when many of my fellow Christians feel that tea partyism is equivalent to Christianity.

So I agree...what happened was distasteful.  But until I hear 'Christian' people start to  be more proper and righteous with their words (and not behave like 'spoiled brats' as one writer said...conservative Christians live with far more of a delusion of entitlement than anybody I know, but that's for another time), I'll not really take those complaints seriously.

Things That Annoy Me #3: "I care by supporting a cause without having to really do anything substantive..." (aka the ALS ice bucket challenge)

Half-Brother to TTAM #19: Letting your life and your likes be dictated by fads.  

It started about a week ago.  In my facebook and twitter feeds and on internet news sites I noticed that people were having buckets of ice water poured over their heads.  At first, it was just athletes and celebrities.  But in just a week it's spread to everyone.  Random people are being nominated to have buckets of ice water poured over them.  Everybody's doing it.

What is it?  Something called the 'ALS ice bucket challenge'.  I know...it's a fundraiser for ALS, and to raise 'awareness' of ALS.  In the past day I've seen probably 25 people do variations on this theme, all because they support the cause.  They care.

But here's the thing...what is ALS?  Would half the people who have taken this challenge really try to figure out what ALS is?  Has their knowledge of ALS increased because of this?  What are some ways their ability to cope with ALS has increased in the last week?  How many have chosen to take this cause up until at least Labor Day?  I'm assuming (since nobody has really explained what ALS is as part of their challenge) that ALS refers to what is sometimes called  Lou Gehrig's disease...a nasty disease in which one's body wastes away, named after the famous Yankee first baseman.  It's awful, and I wouldn't want to get it.  I support wanting it eradicated.

But, beyond raising money (something I haven't really seen anybody really doing, though one friend of mine says they have raised $31 million...but this week?  Month?  For who?), how do you really care?  How do you show your support for this?  Again, I have learned nothing even as supposedly my awareness is supposed to be raised.  How do I detect that I (or somebody I know) is coming down with this?  How should I help somebody who has this?  Where do I even give money to help researchers?  What kind of treatment options are being explored?  In all these posts, nobody has explicitly said anything about this.  Instead, they've had buckets of ice water poured on them.  And that does, what?

The reality is that this kind of 'caring' happens all the time.  Click a button on facebook, and you show your support.  That's it.  Want to get rid of an African child slaver?  Watch a Kony 2012 video!  Want to show how much you hate breast cancer?  Watch the NFL as they wear pink socks for a month!  Want to hate some other kind of cancer?  Buy a cheap plastic wristband!

Awhile back a friend got really interested in how Christians were being persecuted, particularly in North Korea.  He printed out a form letter written to the North Korean dictator and wanted me to sign it.  It contained allegations that I had not investigated.  It pledged to 'do everything I can to let the world know' of his actions.  I read the letter, not knowing much about what was going on, but had I signed it, it told Kim Jong Un that I meant business!  I am certain that all these identical form letters has left Kim shaking in his boots.

I know...I'm a harsh, unfeeling bastard.  I really am.  I must not care because I am questioning the intentions of a lot of people who think themselves well-intentioned.  I am asking whether people will actually do something substantive about things that they suddenly now have gotten interested in, or whether they are just being sheep that are trying to make themselves look good and supportive.

But maybe it's time that we start trying to do something real and genuine, rather than just do something that is full of empty symbolism.  You really want to show that you care?
-Go and find somebody with ALS or Alzheimer's or dementia and meet their caregivers.  They're probably exhausted, because those diseases (and many others) are brutal not just on the one who has it, but those who take of them.  Why not give them a break?  Agree to sit with the person for a few hours so they can go shopping or out to dinner with a friend.  If you're really brave, agree to sit up with the person for an entire night so that their spouse can get a good night's sleep.
-Ticked off about African dictators who kidnap kids?  Go an volunteer to be a soccer coach or a Big Brother or a Sunday school teacher at your church.  Actually get to know and support kids where you are, especially those who don't have good parental figures in their life.
-Angry about how certain religious minorities are being treated in other parts of the world?  Get to know a religious minority where you live.  Show them that Christians here in mid-America don't hate them just because of the color of their skin or the way that they speak or the god that they worship.  Show them genuine love, rather than sharing on facebook some article about how all Muslims are obviously terrorists.

It's time we did more than just be supportive.

It's time we did more than just tell people how much we care.

It's time we stopped with all this symbolic crap, and did something real.

What Is Extremism?

I'm currently reading an interesting book from the library called American Extremists, by John George & Laird Wilcox (Prometheus, 1996).  Basically it's a brief history of many of the far-right and far-left extremist groups in the United States, from communists to John Birchers.

What really caught my attention, though, was a section on trying to identify if one can be considered 'extremist'.  In it the authors give 22 general characteristics, and as I was reading I started thinking about not only others whom I think a bit loopy, but also myself.  Am I an extremist in how I criticize others?  "If it's a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed."  (Kahlil Gibron, 1923).
On most of these I will just list the headings, but I will make other notes in italics that are mine, and quote interesting things the author says about some of the points.
1. Character assassination.
2. Name calling and labeling.
3. Irresponsible sweeping generalizations.  "The sloppy use of analogy is a treacherous form of logic and has a high potential for false conclusions."
4. Inadequate proof for assertions.  How many emails are written each day that people forward on assuming they are true?  "They tend to project wished-for conclusions and to exaggerate the significance of information that confirms their beliefs while derogating or ignoring information that contradicts them."
5. Advocacy of double standards.
6. Tendency to view opponents and critics as essentially evil.
7. Manichaean worldview.  There is no middle-ground, everything is absolute.  Thus, your candidate is wholly evil, mine is wholly good.  
8. Advocacy of some degree of censorship or repression of their opponents and/or critics.  "Extremists would prefer that you listen only to them."
9. Tendency to identify themselves in terms of who their enemies are.
10. Tendency to use argument by intimidation.  How much do we do this in the church?  Quickly when somebody says something we don't like, we threaten their position or seek to kick them out of the church.  
11. Use of slogans, buzzwords, and thought-stop cliches.  Like, 'Freedom is not Free!'?
12. Assumption of moral superiority over others.
13. Doomsday thinking.  (Whatever problem they predict), "it's just around the corner unless we follow their program and listen to their special insight and wisdom, to which only the truly enlightened have access.  For extremists, any setback or defeat is 'the beginning of the end'."
14. Belief that it's okay to do bad things in the service of a 'good' cause.  "Defeating an 'enemy' becomes an all-encompassing goal to which other values are subordinate.  With extremists, the end justifies the means."
15. Emphasis on emotional responses and, correspondingly, a de-emphasis on reasoning and logical analysis.
16. Hypersensitivity and vigilance.  See my previous post on John Waddey, who saw himself as the sole guardian against the heretical barbarians at the gate.
17. Use of supernatural rationales for beliefs and actions.
18. Problems tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty.  "The more laws or rules there are that regulate the behavior of others--particularly their 'enemies'-the more secure extremists feel."  Particularly, when it comes to many Christians, there is a need to be able to interpret every Scripture within a particular framework.  To deny the ability to do this makes many, many people nervous.
19. Inclination toward 'groupthink'.  "Groupthink involves a tendency to conform to group norms and to preserve solidarity and concurrence at the expense of distorting members' observations of facts, conflicting evidence, and disquieting observations that would call into question the shared assumptions and beliefs of the group.  Right-wingers (or left-wingers), for example, talk mostly to one another, read only the material that reflects their own views, and can be almost phobic about the 'propaganda' of the 'other side'."  It is remarkable to me that the same people who continually think of the news media as having a liberal bias will only listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox News.  Anything else is to be ignored.
20.  Tendency to personalize hostility.
21. Extremists often feel that the system is no good unless they win.  "For example, if they lose an election, then it was 'rigged'.  If public opinion turns against them, it is because of 'brainwashing'....The test of the rightness or wrongness of the system is how it has an impact on them."
22.  Extremists tend to believe in far-reaching conspiracy theories.