The Human Predicament: Sickness or Boundedness

The Human Predicament: Sickness or Boundedness?


Imagine that you wake up one morning in your bed, and you are sick. You have a headache, and you are lightheaded. You have a scorching fever, your stomach is violently upset, and you feel like you might vomit. You are so weak and in so much pain that all you can manage is to roll off the bed and crawl toward the bathroom. You realize that even accomplishing the most basic of tasks today will be beyond your capabilities.

The next day, imagine that your illness is gone, but now you wake up physically bound in multiple ways. Your hands, your wrists, your elbows, your knees, your ankles, and your feet are all tied together - not in a painful way, but it almost completely prevents you from moving. All you can manage is to wiggle yourself off the bed and along the floor. Just like the previous day, you realize that accomplishing even the most basic of tasks will be impossible.

Two days. Two different ways of being incapacitated. Two different ways of being rendered less than a fully functioning human being. Sickness, or boundedness. Which one of these is the better way to think about the human predicament?

The Christian faith, like virtually every belief system, is built on the notion of the human predicament. It assumes that there is some problem, some deficiency, something about our lives and our world that is not what it should be.

Christians explain this problem through the story of Adam and Eve. What was originally an idyllic, innocent existence is spoiled when the first humans ignore God's command and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Since then, humans have faced the predicament of being born into this "sinful" condition, and we have struggled mightily to know how we might be delivered from it.

Which brings us back to those two days I asked you to imagine. By and large, Christians have viewed this predicament like the first day. We are born into a world where we and everyone around us are sick with sin. We have inherited the disease that first entered the world with Adam and Eve, and we continue the problem through our own disobedience.

Many of our classic hymns reflect this notion of sin as sickness, such as "There Is A Balm in Gilead" - where the saving work of Christ is repeatedly referred to as a healing ointment for the sin-sick soul. This perspective assumes that there is not only a predicament to the human situation, but that there is dysfunction - that we are doing something wrong and must be cured of our waywardness.

When we see our problem as sickness to be healed, it causes us to look for where the sickness resides - which leads us into negative attitudes of judgment and condemnation. Both with ourselves and toward others, we frame individual behaviors in terms of healthy and unhealthy, right and wrong, or even good and evil. And we see larger systems and the world as a whole in term of brokenness.

But let's look at our human predicament like that second day - when we didn't wake up sick, but rather bound up and tied together. What if, instead of being born with a congenital disease called "sin," we are born with chains that limit us - that do not need healing, but that need to be untied and unbound? How does this shift change the way we look at ourselves, at one another, and at this human predicament that we share? Does it lessen our negative tendencies toward judgment and condemnation, and instead increase our positive tendencies toward growth and freedom? In a world full of people destroying one another over notions of right and wrong and good and evil, is an orientation toward freedom instead of healing the more peaceful and compassionate path?




 

Knowledge, Truth, and How To Avoid A Snake

As I see it, there are five modes people use to discern knowledge and truth. They roughly correspond to different different movements in human history.

1) Pre-awareness (Pre-history) Knowledge that does not require cognitive process or education. Like fear of snakes.

2) Reliance on authority (Pre-modern) We believe something because it is affirmed by a trusted authority figure or institution. "This is true because _______ says it is true."

3) Rationality (Modern) We believe something because we have considered all the facts available and made a logical and objective evaluation. "This truth should be apparent to anyone who thinks clearly about it."

4) Contextuality (Postmodern) We arrive at our beliefs as best we can based on our own experiences, but concede that others might arrive at different truths from their own perspectives. Truth emerges from the conversation between different perspectives. "My understanding of truth is no more or no less valid than yours."

5) Deconstruction (Post-history) Truth and knowledge are seen as illusory, as human constructs that have little to do with what is really real. All cognitive understanding is suspect and categories that were once assumed to absolute are challenged and rejected.

In many ways, the fifth mode comes full circle to the first mode - only with an awareness of the other modes and their illusory nature. In the fifth mode, the other modes can be used as tools when useful, and set aside when not useful.

Many folks might consider the fifth mode as part of postmodernity, but I think it's important to delineate them. To see truth as contextual,and to completely deconstruct the concept of knowledge and categories, are vastly different experiences.

In fact, we would likely consider someone in the fifth mode to be mentally ill - which  would certainly be consistent with modes of knowledge that medical practices tend to use. The diagnostic manuals that psychiatrists use are based on a combination of logical experimentation (mode 3) and the passing along of knowledge through schools and publications that have been vested with authority (mode 2).

And that's a good thing. We need for our doctors to be getting their information from tested and reliable sources, just as we need them to make evaluations using the most objective thought processes possible. I would be inclined not to go back to a doctor who was operating in the fourth mode, as if my opinion on how to treat a disease was just as qualified as hers.  And I certainly wouldn't see a fifth mode physician who told me that they had deconstructed and rejected most of what they learned in medical school.

The key to this system of modes is that all of them are useful tools, but none of them are absolutes. Take the fear of snakes, for example. That is purely a first mode type of knowledge. If I'm walking across my backyard and happen upon a copperhead, I'm heading the other direction before I have time to think about it - it's a process that happens away from the cognitive center of the brain, and which has allowed humans to avoid deadly predators since prehistoric times.

Imagine if I happened to be born without this instinctive fear, as some people are. When I see that snake, I would have to rely on another mode of knowledge to tell me to back away. I could remember how my mother had warned me about snakes when I was a child - a second mode authority-based response.

Or, I could rationally process what I know about snakes.  They tend to strike when surprised, and this one looks like it's poisonous because of the marks on its back - a third mode logic-based response.

Or, I could think back on previous experiences I've had with snakes, like how much it hurt when I was a teenager and got bit by a non-poisonous snake. And I could remember others' experiences - like that kid at camp who got bit by a water moccasin and had to go to the emergency room, or that snake-handling preacher in West Virginia who recently died from a rattlesnake bite - a fourth mode contextually-based response.

Or, I could totally deconstruct the situation. I could think about the fact that my eyes are processing light and sending signals to my brain, and that my brain is processing those signals and determining that it was a copperhead. And I couldn't question whether my brain was getting it right - whether that really was a poisonous snake.

And in the process, I could question the whole reality that I'm perceiving. Am I really standing in my backyard, or am I just lying on an operating table somewhere with a scientist manipulating my brain - a classic science fiction concept and a fifth mode response.

With any of modes 2 to 5, by the time the knowledge that this is a dangerous snake found its way to the part of my brain that responds by thinking "Run!", I likely will have been bit. But thanks to my automatic first mode, non-cognitive response, I'm able to retreat to safety.

In the same way, each of the modes has specific times they are useful. Telling a young child not to step into the street requires second mode knowledge to be transferred. Figuring out why you computer crashed is a third mode activity. An Interfaith dialogue on peace needs fourth mode communication to be fruitful. And writing a groundbreaking piece of music that establishes a whole new genre is pure fifth mode.

No one mode is superior to another, and we don't go through life trying to move through them in a neat progression. But as we mature, we do successively acquire the ability use higher and higher modes.

Some fields, such as medicine and architecture, demand a certain level of absoluteness that is offered by reliance on authority and rationality - with

Keeping Up With The Yadevs (How American Materialism Compares With the World's)

(Another repost from 2007 from my old blog "Discipline for Justice")

The Yadevs are a middle-class family of six from Ahraura, India. The book Affluenza shows a picture of the Yadevs in front of their home with everything they own:

1 small house (probably about 500-600 square feet), 3 beds, 4 blankets, 3 paintings with frames, 3 duffel bags (full of clothing), 1 chair, 4 large gourds, 5 small gourds, 1 ladder, 1 bicycle, 2 large baskets, 4 frying pans, 5 cooking pots, 6 small cups, and the clothes on their backs and shoes on their feet.

 

My family (The Mosses) are a middle-class family of four from South Carolina, USA. This is a list not of everything we own, but of everything we got rid of in a recent spring cleaning:

3 small baskets, 3 dish drying racks, 1 water filter w/ pitcher, 1 teapot, 1 water bottle, 1 medium canister, 4 storage jars, 1 wooden spoon, 2 storage racks, 1 cheese slicer, 1 small bucket, 2 tea pitchers, 1 Etch-a-Sketch pen, 1 colander, 10 small storage bowls, 3 coffee mugs, 6 cooking bowls, 4 dinner plates, 12 baskets, 5 tote bags, 5 pillows, 6 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of slippers, 1 baking tray, 15 children's books, 3 pairs of baby shorts, 6 pairs of baby shoes, 3 baby hats, 3 onesies, 1 bib, 1 wine rack, 2 jigsaw puzzles, 2 purses, 1 cup, 3 sponges, 3 paintbrushes, 3 pictures with frames, 2 cookbooks, 1 vase, 1 flashlight, 3 bottle openers, 34 baby toys, 1 computer mouse, 4 stuffed animals, 2 computer games, 1 telephone, 2 TV trays, 2 blankets, 2 lamps, 1 spatula, 13 compact discs, 16 VHS movies, 1 infant pillow, 1 video baby monitor, 1 backpack, 1 stool, 1 suit, 5 dress shirts, 1 pair of shorts, 1 world map, 3 books, 4 t-shirts, 1 pair of jeans, I pair of pants, 2 bras, 1 headband, 1 pair of gloves, 2 baseball caps, 3 neckties, 3 pairs of socks, and 7 coat hangers.


Yadev total possessions:  70   
Moss total possessions thrown out:  244 
 
(Even after our spring cleaning, our stuff still filled up a house 3 times the size of the Yadevs'.)

Update: This photo essay published by Peter Menzel in 2013 shows the possessions of families from around the world. It reinforces what I learned about American materialism from doing this post.

Then he told them a parable: The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, "What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?" Then he said, "I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry."

But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

- Luke 12: 16-21

Shopper's Paradise or Consumerist Hell?

(Republished from my old blog, Discipline for Justice - July 2007)

It was an ordinary Tuesday afternoon when the epiphany struck. I was driving on Broad Street in Richmond, Virginia. What had once seemed like a shopper's paradise revealed itself as a consumerist hell.

Miles on end of strip malls, home improvement warehouses, and chain restaurants, with no coherence or strategic planning. Nightmarish traffic on the street and in the parking lots. Space for pedestrians and bicycles nonexistent. Worst of all, endless signs and billboards, each one trying to get noticed by being larger and louder.

Most disturbing, however, was what I did not see. Virtually nothing was appealing to the eyes. Nothing incorporated the natural beauty of our creation or reflected the amazing potential human beings have for creativity and design.

Instead, in service to the relentless pursuit of profits and consumption, we have produced this sprawling, soulless, utterly unappealing mess. And not just on Broad Street, but on nearly every street in every city and town in the country. As I hurried back to the refuge of my seminary campus, I muttered to myself, "We can do so much better than this."

Aesthetic catastrophes like Broad Street are just one symptom of a culture that is squandering its abundance. Despite amazing technological advances, we are missing out on the creative and ethical possibilities that lay before us.

Do we really want to be remembered for our strip malls, our bloated highways, and our endless patches of concrete and asphalt? For our decaying urban centers, our exclusive gated communities, and our 3000 square-foot homes on 1/2 acre lots? For our love affair with fossil fuels and plastic, and for our literal mountains made out of garbage?

Since the economic boom that followed World War II, we have launched ourselves into a materialistic feeding frenzy. Signs now indicate that the frenzy is becoming a death spiral. Our habits of gross over-consumption, which all but the oldest generation take for granted, cannot and will not last.

In addition to the ugliness of our commercial sprawl, we face a growing gap between rich and poor; the uncertain future of our financial systems; and the shameful injustices of our health care and educational systems - not to mention the psychological and spiritual chasm that overly commercialized children and adults are being pushed into. But despite the many warning signs, most Americans seem unaware and unconcerned about how far out of balance our lifestyles have become.

Economist Juliet B. Schor reveals the depth of our collective denial:

"Consumerism as a way of life is so ingrained, it's hard to recognize within us and around us. it is, in the now-famous words of George Orwell, 'the air we breathe.' Like air, it's everywhere, we're dependent on it, and perhaps most importantly, until it's really dirty, it cannot be seen. We experience consumer society as something natural. But it's not."

Now more than ever, people of faith and social concern are called on to be a voice of sanity and reason within this culture of frenzied consumption; to lead modest and disciplined lives that foster humility and sustainability; and to seek alternatives to the commercial monstrosity that we find on Broad Street and so many other streets.

Five Resolutions for the New Year

1. I resolve to develop a new habit that takes me out of my familiar work pattern.

It's too easy for ministry to fall into predictable patterns, only to be occasionally interrupted by an unexpected crisis. My resolution seeks to find more positive surprises in ministry by shaking up the established routine. I might make pastoral visits in the morning, not the afternoon; or take Mondays off instead of Fridays; or make a point of sitting on the steps in front of the church for at least two hours a week to interact with whoever walks by. Anything that opens space
for the Spirit to move in new and unexpected ways.

2. I resolve to find a new way to be a sheep, and not a shepherd.

In ministry, we become accustomed to leading. It is our job, after all. Almost any time we're involved in a church activity, people are looking to us to be in charge. Which sometimes means that we forget how to follow. We forget what it means to be the sheep we are expecting others to be. My resolution, therefore, is to find one activity where I am just a face in the crowd. Perhaps I'll volunteer to be an assistant Little League coach, or will join an online Bible study. Anything where I can just show up and follow along.

3. I resolve to dialogue more with those of a different political perspective than mine.

These days, it seems that the left and right sides of the political spectrum live in completely different worlds. It's quite possible for us to never talk with anyone outside of our own partisan bubble, or to only do so by hurling anger and insults. In the past couple of years, I have developed a few relationships on Facebook where I can have civil conversations across the political divide. It can get passionate, but we strive to keep it respectful. And most importantly, we seek not just to "win" the argument, but to find some sort of common ground that can move the conversation forward. My resolution is to intentionally develop several more of these relationships, as I believe they are the key to our nation overcoming this partisan warfare that is having so many detrimental effects.

4. Instead of helping people in need, I resolve to connect people that help people in need.

In every community, there are plenty of people who are working in various ways to do compassionate ministries. Usually, the challenge is not getting people motivated to help, but in coordinating those who are already trying to do something. This is an urgent need in my town, so I am resolving to spend my outreach efforts in 2014 on working with the Ministerial Association and other civic groups to come up with some sort of directory of services. I hope this coordinating effort will point out some of the holes in our area's safety net - which can then be addressed.

5. I resolve to revive an old area of interest that represents my youthful ideals.

 It is inevitable that as we grow older, some of our strongly held beliefs about life are tempered by the realities of actually living life. But sometimes in our path toward wisdom and maturity, we can get sidetracked into jaded cynicism. Which is why, as we move throughout our adult lives, it is important to occasionally resurrect some of those forgotten passions.

Soon after I was ordained, I developed a strong interest in writing about consumerism and the needs for Christians to live disciplined lifestyles that promote economic and environmental justice. It was the culmination of an ethic that I had been developing throughout my time in college and seminary. I published a blog and even a short series of magazines on the subject - but it seemed it was not the right time for the church to hear the message.

2014, however, might find a more receptive faith culture. So, as my final and most exciting resolution, I am going to revive my work in a new and updated format. My first step will be to republish some of my old work on this blog - and then to evaluate what has and has not changed in the last decade. It should be fun!


Have a Happy New Year, y'all!

Unhelpful Myth #1: The Church Is Dying

(No one disputes the fact that Christianity in America is declining numerically. Enough has been written about this already, and I don't have anything to add to the conversation except to point out some unhelpful myths that this shrinking reality is producing. These myths are causing undue anxiety and are preventing us from embracing the wonderful new things God is bringing out of this situation.) 

Myth #1: The Church is Dying.

All we have to do is take a look at national trends in membership, or how young people occupy our pews so sparsely compared to gray hairs, or how few baptisms we're performing compared to funerals - and it seems logical to predict that the once-great Protestant church in America will be no more in 50 years or so.

But if we broaden our historical view and reject the impulse to compare today's church to the "glory days" of 1960. And if we take an approach that is more Biblical than business-like in how it defines success, then we will see that despite the steadily declining numbers, the church is far from dying.

From it's very beginning, the story of God's people is about growing and contracting. It's a steady pattern of great numerical strength in one era, followed by a difficult time of winnowing and transition, followed by startling new growth in the next era. Surely we are not the first people in that long history to feel the burden of being called to faithfulness in a time when God is shrinking us. Surely we are not the first to feel the grief of something great coming to an end, and then to transfer that grief to think that God's people and perhaps even God himself are dying.

But we can take great comfort and hope that this is not the first time we have faced decline, and that The Holy Spirit will surely bring us back in a way that is both surprising and glorious. Just ask the great prophets of the Old Testament who lived through the loneliness and isolation of exile, but somehow mustered the hope to write the beautiful words that pointed toward the coming of Christ. Surely, their faith and hope can convince us that our difficult period is not about the church dying, but rather about it getting smaller and then reemerging as something new.

But if we are convinced we are dying, and if we succumb to the anxiousness that precedes anticipated death, then we will not be receptive to new things. Our eyes will be dimmed, and our hearts will focus only on what we are losing, not on what can now be gained.

It's just as Isaiah 43:18-19 proclaims:

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

Moving Beyond "Us vs. Them"

 

In the 1980’s, a catchy ad campaign emerged from a beer company. The premise was simple. Two groups of people would shout back and forth the two features of the beer the company wanted us to remember:

“Tastes great!”

 “Less filling!” 

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

As the campaign gained steam, the debate began to spontaneously emerge at sporting events. A couple of people would start the shouting, and it would spread like wildfire until it was half of the stadium versus the other half:

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

Less filling!”

The willingness of so many people to jump into the debate was a brilliant source of free advertising, and also a good lesson in crowd psychology. Many of the folks who were shouting never drank that brand of beer and had no actual opinion on the two choices set before them. It was just something fun to do at the ballgame. The debate could have been Mickey Mouse vs. Donald Duck, and people would have joined in just as gleefully.

The point is this: People are drawn to a clear “us vs. them” argument, and will readily conform to the two choices that are presented  – even when those choices are not very relevant or useful. It happens all the time in our national politics.

Conservative vs. liberal. Democrat vs. Republican. Socialism vs. free market. Gun control vs. gun rights. Pro-life vs. pro-choice.  Pro-Israel vs. Pro-Palestine. And so on and so forth. Every election, every issue, and every movement is forced into an oversimplified “us vs. them” duality where people can make their choice as easily as they decided whether to shout “Tastes great!” or “Less filling!” It’s a process which engages and inflames the American people against one another, but which does no justice to the amazingly complicated political and cultural landscape we find ourselves inhabiting.

As a result, we end up shouting at one another about which party is to blame for a manufactured government shutdown; or over a proposed gun control law that will do nothing to address our real problems with violence;  or over a new health care law that leaves untouched the fundamental structures of a broken system. And we eagerly jump into these largely irrelevant debates using the simple categories that are presented to us:

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

Unfortunately, it’s not much different in the church. As Christians move into a 21^st-century reality that is complicated, uncertain, and somewhat frightening, we find ourselves falling into the same types of “us vs. them” struggles.

Many of these struggles revolve around the “liberal vs. conservative” division that has defined the last few centuries of Protestant history. Most recently, this conflict has erupted around the issue of LGBT ordination, and its reality is a complicated mix of theological, cultural, political, and historical forces.

There are a lot more than two ways to think about the issue, depending on one’s context and personal experience. A conversation that is helpful and moves the issue forward will be sensitive to the multiplicity of perspectives and will not devolve an “us vs. them” shouting match.

Too easily, however, the conversation is about “those who love gays vs. those who hate gays,” or “those who believe in the Bible vs. those who don’t.” It’s a reductionism that inhibits the discovery of creative solutions, and it is reflected in the way church governing bodies tend to discuss issues - with a “for” microphone on one side and an “against” microphone on the other.

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

But beyond the hot-button political issues such as LGBT rights, the church falls into the “us vs. them” mentality on topics of the general future of the church, topics for which a simplistic duality is the least helpful way to think about things. Here’s an example:

In the last year, an emotional debate has erupted in the Presbyterian Church (USA) about changes being made to the medical and pension plans offered to clergy. The Board of Pensions, in response to rising medical costs and other pressures, announced that it would be ending the practice of fully covering all dependents. Essentially, this meant that younger clergy and smaller churches would be shouldering the burden of the changes. After an intense and focused outcry, the Board modified its change, reducing some of the additional burden, but not all of it.

What was telling about the controversy was not the details of the proposed changes, however.  It was the nature of the debate that ensued. It got quite polarized and quite ugly as insults like “uncaring, out of touch, and whiners” were hurled back and forth. Is was a clear reflection of the larger generational conflict happening in our culture.

And even though I strongly believe the changes are unfair to younger clergy, I am also disappointed that the conversation devolved into an “us vs. them” dynamic. There are many complicating factors to the Presbyterian pension situation, and there are multiple points of view that all have valid contributions to make.

Perhaps if we could set aside the compulsion to divide into warring factions, we would find that the ultimate answer to our pension woes is not found in an “us vs. them” debate about how we tinker with the current system. Perhaps we are being called to set aside the dualities that color our perceptions, and to seek to create together a very different sort of system. But because we are so programmed to line up on opposite sides of the river and throw rocks at one another, it is often difficult to get past the two simplistic categories that first present themselves.

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

It’s a lot of fun to do this at a baseball game.  But many of us have long since grown weary of trying to move forward in our nation and in the church in this fashion. There is another way.