01.31.05
Posted in philosophy at 9:16 pm by
Karen over at Kinesis asks a good ethical question about the concept of link aggregators. Specifically, she questions her placement in the group ‘Unright Christian Blogs‘.
Now, I should say from the outset that I don’t have anything against this particular blog community. It seems to me that they’re a group of folks that desire to prove that Christian and liberal are not mutually exclusive terms. I’m cool with that. Karen had a question about some of the blogs being members, here’s an excerpt:
Since posting these links, however, I have had the opportunity to read through them all and find that UCB contains links to a couple of blogs that espouse a more much conservative evangelical Christianity and overall worldview than I would have expected to find on a list which is called “Unright.” One of the blog owners in question is in the process of setting up an aggregator for evangelical Protestant women and has stated her intention to exclude those blogs that advocate a “lifestyle” contrary to Christian principles. As someone who doesn’t identify as an evangelical (in its current popular definition) and as a gay Christian I am excluded from participating in this group, but I am providing a link to her blog by virtue of being listed together in the UCB group.
I’m not going to proport that I have a solution to Karen’s problem. I really don’t. But, I do think that the situation brings to light something in the blog community that is a real danger. That danger is that blogs do have the tendency to become something of an echo chamber.
An example of such a network–to which I am a member, but do not appear on the blogroll (which I’m not complaining nor am I upset about)–is the Progressive Christian Bloggers Network. Wonderful group of blogs. I love to read each of them on the list. The only thing I’m not really certain about is placing the blogroll on my mainpage. I don’t want to honk off anyone down at the PCBN–in fact, I think that the inception of this idea is a great one.
I think, though, who you link to matters. I am pretty sure that I am of the opinion (I haven’t really thought through this all that well, and probably if cornered with good alternate arguments could change my mind) that I would prefer to be the one controlling who I link to. That allows me a few key options.
First, I can link to those with ideologies that I find consistent with the one which I espouse.
Second, I can link to those blogs with ideologies inconsistent with my own. This is just as important, I think, as point one. Thus my linking to some more conservative places (though I admit, that I, like most, am deficient in this area.)
Third, this allows me to choose carefully those blogs whom I do not link to. There are lots of crappy conservative (and many liberal, too) blogs that I think like to blow hot air rather than make any tangible difference in the world. To me, these places don’t deserve a link.
That’s the only problem I really see with community link-farms. It’s too hard to come up with a shared ideology…and if you ever are really able to attain that shared ideology, you should be concerned that your blog list is only 2 or 3 blogs or that you’re not really getting a diversity of opinions.
On the flip side, however, these lists can be communities. These communities are important things for bloggers. After all, if we all really queried why we blog, I would suspect that one major reason is the people–our friends–that we’ve met and come to a cyberworld to meet daily.
I guess if I had to make any suggestion, and I’m not entirely sure that I’m qualified to do that, I would think that the best way to move forward is to simply be aware of our proclivity toward polarity. We sometimes have the tendency to hear only those voices that it’s comfortable to hear. There’s no clear answer, I think, that I have to give in Karen’s situation, though. She raises a great point, indeed.
I’m honestly not sure what I would do in her situation. How does one respond to intolerance? Is one intolerant in return? If yes, then isn’t that simply sinking to the level of the unjust? If no, then what. Being tolerant of intolerance doesn’t seem much of an answer either.
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Posted in faith at 1:24 pm by
Brian at the faithful skeptic asks a great question about church. “Should Church be safe?” It’s a good question, really. Should church be a safe place, if so, what should church be a safe place for?
It’s an idea that really gets me thinking. I think that there’s an underlying question there that we need answer in order to truly get at the nature of the issue. That question is, “what is ’safety?’” You see, safety means a lot of different things.
Brian describes the safety of one of his fellow parishoners:
One of the people in the group said that there were a couple of key aspects of safety (I’m paraphrasing):
* The church should accept members and guests wherever they are on their journey of faith and recognize that people will always be in different places in terms of theology, worship, prayer, etc.;
* The church should accept what a person can give in terms of their time, spirit and money realizing that lives are often complicated;
* Members should be able to expect that confidences will be held, both by clergy and parishoners.
For this person safety is about tolerance of people being in different places. Brian’s definition of safety was altogether quite different, though no less valid.
My approach was that as a member of the leadership team, I need to be able to feel that I’m accepted in spite of my failures as a leader. I have a very stressful job and I don’t want church to become a place I feel guilty about attending because I’m struggling with my leadership duties.
Fundamentally, I sort of agree with both definitions of safety. Perhaps, Brian and his fellow church member describe two necessary but alone insufficient terms that compose safety. That is, alone these things don’t a ’safe church’ make. For Brian, the safe church was about feeling loved despite ones shortcomings.
Perhaps, these two concerns and desires of safety are a case of different words that describe the same emotions. I don’t know for sure. I respect what Brian and his parishoners are trying to accomplish in developing a Church that offers a ’safe place.’ I wish that the churches I’ve come in contact with were so concerned.
However, there’s a part of me that wonders–is there any such thing as a safe church? I think that, in truth, there isn’t. I’m sort of bending the definition of what Brian is talking about in terms of ’safety’ so bear with me…what’s starting to sound like argumentative, I realize really is not because we’re talking about different things. That said, I don’t believe that there really are any ’safe places.’ The concept of a safe place is one that evangelicals have been screwing up for years. In a world full of crap, no place, not even the church is safe. The evangelical belief that the church is safe while the world is not, is the concept that I recoil from.
I think that probably what Brian and his church mean by ’safety’ I would term ‘welcome.’ I think that they want a church where everyone, despite their theological state or shortcomings, is welcomed just as they are.
I suppose that I think that a Church should welcome everyone regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation, etc…and everything that implies…but it’s a place that should be safe for no one…at least according to my understanding of safe as a crutch.
Thanks, Brian, for helping me to think through this!
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Posted in politics at 11:26 am by
It struck me today that the Iraqis have one thing drastically up on us over in this country. Due to the current security situation, potential candidates for the election have been reticent to disclose their identity–and therefore, their political platform. The concern is that if they reveal their identity, they may be killed.
I propose we try this system in our country. We need to unleash some type of terrorist organization that threatens to kill any candidate that seeks election in this country. Then, what happens is come 2007, we don’t have the bevy of political candidates vying for election, or at least we only have the ones that are willing to risk their lives to get elected.
We’ll see fewer television political ads, candidates will be much quieter. In fact, wouldn’t it be great if the only campaigning we saw came when you entered the polls and saw a poster with two names and a bunch of political stances on important issues. Then, we could just choose which candidate fit our ideals best.
It would be the end to the domination of the two party system as we know it. It may sound to be a bit savage…but I think it just might work.
p.s. For anyone who was counting…happy 200th post to me.
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01.27.05
Posted in politics at 1:02 pm by
Bigbrother asked a question in the comments of the last post. It had to do with placing the blame on the president for no reason other than to find a scapegoat for the problems America faces. It is a question that we all should ask ourselves, whomever we decide is the responsible party for our social ills–the money hungry conservative upper-class, or those bleeding heart liberals. Either way, we should be critical of the reasons we cast blame on the folks we do.
If you’ve read here for a while, you probably know that I take the evangelically unpopular opinion of thinking President Bush is a lousy leader. I hold that many problems are due to the type of leadership he has instilled as President and as commander-in-chief of our military forces.
There are some things that I don’t blame the president for. For example, I don’t blame the president for 9-11. I don’t blame the current president for the economic recession that quickly followed September 11th either. I don’t think it was an inherently bad move to reduce taxes from the previously very high ‘Clinton’ tax rate during the beginning of his first term.
However, I do think that further dropping the tax rate to a point where we’re spending a foolishly large amount on defense during a time of war is stupid. If the President wants to talk about financial ‘crises’ he doesn’t need to invent a crisis like Social Security. He needn’t look that far, he can look at the ramifications of plunging this nation into a furious spiral of debt. Now, I think our tax rates are high enough, that’s not a popular opinion for a liberal; however, we also spend WAY too much on the military in this country.
That’s just one example of bad leadership on the part of the president. I think another reason that Bush is a bad leader is that he surrounds himself with people who are parrots. Bush puts people into power that will serve as his ‘Yes-men’ (and I use the term ‘men’ here because it’s largely descriptive of his appointees.) Anyone who studies leadership–as I do–will tell you that a certain degree of homogeniety isn’t bad; however, the more homogenous a group is the more prone they are to decision making errors such as groupthink. Heterogeneous groups are better at solving more wideranging topics. A good leader would know this and diversify, even if there are some difficulties to having diverse groups.
Instead, we have a president whose second term cabinet is quickly polarizing–no surprise to the left–into a group of people who nod to every word of the President…er…Karl Rove (I’m honestly not sure who’s calling the shots.)
I believe that this homogeniety in the president’s top advisors has contributed heavily to failures of epic proportions. For example, the neo-conservative agenda has been largely instrumental in supporting leaders who have displayed pro-torture tendencies. If leaders such as Donald Rumsfeld had ever really set a precedent for the ethical treatment of prisoners, it would have been much more difficult for situations like the one at the Abu-Gharib prison to happen. However, Rumsfeld failed in his duty to lead.
Bush failed in his duty to do anything about the failures of his underlings. That makes Bush a bad leader. A good leader knows how to set an example. A good leader makes their thoughts on terror and mistreatment of prisoners known. Clearly, those involved in Abu-Gharib didn’t understand the levity of their decisions.
So, when I accuse Bush of being responsible for the military behaving as though they were above the law, it is not without merit, nor without sufficient grounds.
Good leaders lead by example. By practicing what they preach. Bush leads by coersion. Bush leads by claiming allegiance to a Christian God…a God who has been notably absent from Bush’s policy of late. It would seem that impeding the growth of the homosexual agenda has now taken a back seat to the ‘crisis’ of Social Security.
President Bush used the religious right to gain re-election. Rove orchestrated yet another political victory for BushCo. So pardon me if I come off a bit negatively toward the current administration…but it seems to me that the entire administration lacks the largest prerequisite of being good leaders.
Integrity.
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01.26.05
Posted in education at 5:05 pm by
I was a college admissions counselor for 3 years. There were things I liked and things I didn’t like. All in all it was fun. One of my least favourite things was doing college fairs. There’s little I like less than parroting the same three lines of marketing over and over while parents and students are herded by your display like cattle. You start to feel like you’re one of those informational commercials that they turn on 13 inch tv’s at a homeshow…stuck on constant repeat.
Standing at one of these events, once the initial ‘woo hoo I’m a college recuriter’ stage wears off (after about 3 minutes) one starts to take notice of the spectacle that a college fair is. There are a number of types of college recruiter. There’s the sleezy ‘used car salesman’ college recruiter. This type of recruiter you can tell by their rumpled sportscoat–they’ll tell you anything you want to hear in order to get you to visit.
There’s the snotty ‘too cool to be social with other recruiters’ type of recruiter. Then there’s the bubbly/ditsy (could be male or female) Christian college recruiter…this type tries way too hard to get people to stop by their table. There are, of course, a small percentage of ‘normals.’ I’d like to think I fell into this category.
There are a number of other types of folks, the most prominent were the military recruiters. The problem I have with the military was that they didn’t play by the rules. At college fairs, there is a code of ethics to which college representatives are expected to adhere. For the most part people followed the rules.
For example, generally representatives are expected to stay behind their table, represtentatives were expected not to give away items, etc. Generally even apart from the uniforms, one could spot a military recruiter from a mile off. They’d be the ones breaking all the rules: giving away water bottles, physically making contact with kids to get them to sign up for more information at their tables.
The most troubling practice I saw these military recruiters engage in was to make promises to kids over and over that I knew they’d never be able to keep. If I had a nickle for every time some kid was told that he or she could fly an attack helicopter. It was really sad. I knew full well the kid would be scraping bird shit of a runway in Guam, but that wasn’t the story they were fed.
They’d arrive in their government issue Hummers creating quite a stir. Compared to going to college, this military was a much more entertaining proposition.
With all that said, the concept that I spoke of yesterday, of the military getting yet another leg up on the competition of college. I truly cannot fathom that the military would need more opportunity to have special rights and continue to be above the law. But, with W as commander-in-chief, I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me.
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01.25.05
Posted in education at 3:12 pm by
If you’ve been around this blog for any length of time, you probably know that I think the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act is just about the worst piece of shit legislation this country has ever seen. Recently, I was listening to NPR and I heard about yet another provision of this bill. This one sent my blood pressure through the roof. I know at the outset that this is a topic I can’t cover in one short post. I’ll deal with some thoughts today, and a few more tomorrow.
It turns out that NCLB legislation has an allowance in it that makes available all the names and telephone numbers of any student that attends a high school funded by the government monies. Essentially, then, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine recruiters are given the names of every public school attending student in this country.
I won’t go into the tactics that these recruiters use to recruit individuals into the service (at least not until tomorrow) but suffice it to say, they don’t abide by the same rules that college recruiters abide by (I know it’s true, I’ve been both a student and a college recruiter.)
I don’t know if this seems strange to others, but it does to me. After all, this year many public high schools have been mandated to remove junk food dispensing machines or pop vending machines. Much of this comes at the behest of governmental agencies. Evidently, high school students shouldn’t have the choice of easily fattening foods or drinks. Why then, is it suddenly kosher to think that for some reason these students should be capable to make a decision about whether or not they want to step out onto the front lines with bullets whizzing by their heads.
When I was 18, I shouldn’t have been making that decision. I mean, the service never really appealed to me, BUT, I also probably shouldn’t have been allowed to vote…or probably drive. I wasn’t an adult. I was easily swayed by fanciful stories of glory…I didn’t even know what true glory was.
Why is it that we allow the military first dibs on our kids but a college that wants the name and number of a student must obtain that name and number through a voluntary source.
It’s something to think about. Tomorrow, more on the questionable ethicality of some military recruiting techniques.
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Posted in fun at 12:40 pm by
That’s just about all I have to say about that.
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01.24.05
Posted in faith, culture at 10:50 am by
It’s been occurring to me that one of my biggest pet peeves is when people somehow convince themselves that a message is made up of only the words they intend to speak. Communication, unfortunately, is not a one way street. Meaning arises through communication not only through the message that is sent, but also the one that is received.
I’ll use a few examples to illustrate what I mean. Vignette one: One friend walks into a bar and sees her other friend standing there. She says to him, “What’s up, you jerk?” Friend two looks over catches her eye, then walks over to her with a big grin on his face and gives her a hug.
Vignette two: In a debate one debater says, “You don’t really understand what’s going on with Social Security.” The other debater says, “Do you really think I’m that dumb?”
In both of these situations, the speaker says something and the hearer hears something different than what the speaker says. In cases like vignette one, this is a good thing. The friend heard a greeting from his friend, he responded in kind. In cases like vignette two, it creates a misunderstanding. In that case, the hearer interpreted the meaning to be a slam on her intellect.
This kind of thing happens all the time, unfortunately. It often happens because people refuse to belive that meaning is created through a transactional process in communication. Communication is fluid. It is an oversimplification to think that communication is a simple receiver / sender process. People send a message, a message is received by a hearer and the hearer responds to the mesage they interpreted (regardless of whether that interpretation was correct or not.) Thus, the meaning of a conversation can quickly change and morph into something that neither speaker nor hearer intended–communication is fluid.
But when does this issue rear it’s head into the real world? My perception is that it happens all the time. I guess I’m too much of an optomist to think that groups like Repent America really want gays to receive the messages that they often receive from these groups. I have to believe that these groups motives (however twisted the implementation of their messages is) are as they claim. In the case of Repent America, their motive was claimed to be evangelism.
Now, clearly, there has to be some twisting of thought to understand the messages that Repent America was sending to be evangelism (as they claim that their messages were.) What that group failed to recognize (not that this was their only, or even their chief failure) was that the message they intended to send was not the same message that people were receiving.
Calling what Repent America was doing ‘evangelism’ requires a gross misunderstanding of the term ‘evangelism.’ But, more importantly, it requires a gross misunderstanding of the communicative process.
If we’re ever going to be able to share that ‘good news,’ and I think that it’s important that we do, we need to come to a better understanding of that communicative process. Either that, or abandon all hope of ever sharing a message of hope, love, and redemption. I’m voting for the former.
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01.23.05
Posted in faith, culture at 2:43 pm by
I should be typing a few pages of homework up into a completed assignment, but I got such a gem of a comment from “St. Nick”, I just can’t help but type out a few short thoughts of response.
If you didn’t read it, St. Nick (and I’ll call him/her Nick for short) posted a comment about my Repent America post. I’ve sort of gotten used to naysayer comments at this point and I take most of them in stride. In fact, I sort of just roll my eyes and chuckle now. Anyway, here it is in it’s glorious entirity (with some thoughts of mine interspersed:
So at what point to do you oppose evil in society?
At every point. I try to oppose evil in society always. That’s why I wrote that post…what those folks did was evil. They went to that rally to say that these people created in the image of God were abominations, and unless they turned from being gay they were going to hell. So, yeah, I guess I oppose that evil.
Why would you judge these people who believe the time is now?
First of all, you don’t see me heading out to Westboro Baptist Church (home of the infamous Fred ‘Fag Hater’ Phelps,) or cruising down to a Repent America rally. I grant those people the right to believe whatever the hell they want to believe in their own demonstrations. In fact, if they want to have their own demonstration in Philadelphia, on their own weekend–go right ahead. I support that.
What I don’t support is marching into a rally where the gay community is supporting those who’ve finally had the courage to tell the world who they really are (thus the name ‘Outfest’) and tell them all that unless they turn from their evil ways–they’ll burn. Essentially, the message that is sent to this community is that Philadelphia may accept you but the Church says “Fuck you.”
Sounds like you’re the one sitting in judgement.
I doubt anyone can really tell whether or not I’m sitting in judgement from a single blog entry…but, in truth, I’ve never claimed not to be in judgement. The good Lord didn’t say not to judge evil…in fact, he said to cling to what is good. Telling people that they’re going to hell because they were born with a different sexual orientation than one that is more popular…yep, I’m judging that. It’s bad.
Are conservative Christians not allowed to participate in freedom of speech?
Oh, you poor conservative ‘Christians’–one of which I am by most standards–your rights are always infringed upon. We Christians are such victims. (Nevermind that the most powerful man in the world claims to be one of us.)
Not allowed to demonstrate?
Sure we are, just pick an appropriate time and message.
Not allowed to share the public forum?
Again, there is a season for all things under the sun. And for the love of God, do you really believe that this message of the conservative Christian is not being heard? On ballots all over these United States, people cast votes to not allow homosexuals to marry. Don’t spin me some bullshit line about conservative Christians voice not being heard.
Don’t proclaim your tolerance, and then withhold it from views you find distasteful. That just makes you arrogant.
I admit, I’m intolerant of intolerance. I stand up for justice. I don’t get how that makes me arrogant. Is it arrogant to stand up for the cause of the gospel? I don’t think so…I think that it’s just what I’ve been called to do.
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01.21.05
Posted in faith, culture at 10:19 am by
As promised, I’d like to talk a bit about Repent America’s website. Frankly, the message of that site is very clear. The message is sent on the very first page. There are two sites, one for Christians one for ‘All Others.’ At the outset, this group seeks to divide.
What kind of message does this division send? Here are a few examples: “If you aren’t a Christian, you’re not as good as we are.” “If you’re not a Christian, you don’t belong.” “If you’re not a Christian, you shouldn’t be here.” “If you were a Christian, you’d believe what we believe, belittle who we belittle, and discriminate against who we discriminate against.”
The message Repent America wants us to believe is that they’re acting mercifully. They’re sending a message of mercy and grace. They’re worried about the souls of all humankind. They want us to believe that they’re desperately concerned with people who are homosexual.
With that message in mind, I would ask you to watch this video provided by the American Family Association. It is a video that documents the behavior of the ‘Christian’ group Repent America. It also documents their arrest. The video is in .wmv format and is a bit longish.
I have no words that can describe the utter contempt and disdain I have for the message of these people (Repent America)…and I think we all know that I wouldn’t restrain myself if I did have words. However, I think the heinous actions of these people transcend the ability of simple ‘foul’ language to serve as a descriptor.
They certainly failed to send a message of mercy and grace. They failed miserably…as evidenced by the cheering throng as they were arrested. If only I was there to lift my voice in chorus with the croud rejoicing over the arrest of those people.
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