Thoughts After Roaming the British Museum

This is not especially profound, I don't think.  But yesterday I roamed the British Museum all afternoon looking over different exhibits.  I went fairly quickly through it, didn't really spend a lot of time looking over things.  Part of that has to do with the fact that at a certain point a realization dawned on me, which is that everything in the museum is more or less the same!  By that, I mean there are only a handful of concepts used as to create all the different artifacts and  that the variety is merely minor variations on those concepts.  For instance, across every culture represented, any instrument used to hold water, be it a bowl or a vase or a jar or whatever, is always round.  Coffins always take on basically the same shape.  Statues always show people in more or less the same of one or two pose options.  Now, I'm not trying to take away from the magnificence of the artifacts.  It was quite an impressive collection and quite a bit of variety in the details of what was painted on the jar or what color was used or how decorated with jewels something was.  But my point is, the enormous size of the collection and the repetition of ideas that occurred in it also showed the very common set of concepts that people hold to that form the basis of all these other ideas.  Now, what that might mean, what conclusion might be drawn from it, I will save to explore on another day…

Reflections on the Effects of Technology

I was at a camp not long ago with my youth and I had reinforced to me what I have noticed in passing a few times before- That kids nowadays are entirely dependent on technology, particularly networking technology. They play games in a virtual world with people all over the world. Their social lives revolve in large part around social networking web-sites. Their source of information is form internet sites that are collectively composed by people from across the globe (and people with no particular qualifications for writing said articles, we might add). They simply cannot survive without these bits of technology, it might seem.

Now, before I get into a critique of the effect this is having on our society, let me say I am not totally exempt from this. I am typing this right now on a laptop that is connected to my blog (itself technological) via wireless internet. I have my own social networking accounts that I check fairly frequently (in fact, my Twitter is open in another tab at this very moment). My predominant mode of communication is e-mail or texting. I am very much a part of this technological world as well. But my point in saying all this still applies, I think.

Here are three detrimental effects that I believe being dependent on technology has on our society:
1) Disconnects us from reality.
2) Disconnects us from history and the broader world.
3) Disconnects us from our values and from the process of building true character.

First, we are disconnected from reality by technology. This is pretty obvious. Playing a video game that simulates a battle is not a battle. The real thing, with real bullets flying and real blood splattering across you, is not something you do for fun. But it seems like it would be to plenty of people I know who have played video games and maybe even tried to really simulate a battle by playing paint-ball or air-soft. Chatting on a social networking site is not the same thing as sitting down and having a face-to-face conversation. Yet we substitute them far too often. The virtual world is not the real world. Unfortunately, its becoming harder and harder to tell the difference.

Second, technology disconnects us from history and the broader world. We sometimes think it actually brings us closer to those things- we talk and interact with people across the globe online. But we are not entering their world and they are not entering ours. We are both entering a different world, one that isn't real but in which we both pretend to interact and live for a little while. In this world, who we are in "real life" is irrelevant. I am an expert when I write something online. And so is everyone else. I can't tell you how many times I have run across ideas and philosophies online in discussions that were discredited or disproven 80 years ago but that the author takes seriously because they are his/her "own" ideas. Or how many rumors or stories have run wild across the internet because in that world everything is plausible and nothing has to be verified or scrutinized. It simply is not in check with reality.

Third, technology disconnects us from who we really are and how we become that way. I can be whoever I want to be online. Those of you who know me probably recognize that I am tremendously more bold in writing online than I am in speaking in person (though I am probably close to being every bit as sarcastic in person as I am here). I am also much more polished and elegant. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that if you met me after reading these blogs, you might be very disappointed. And likewise, this is probably true of most people you might "meet" online. Because here, you don't actually meet the person in question, you meet the persona they have adopted for the sake of being in this virtual world. What's more, this persona can be created in about a second and a half. It doesn't have to go through all the process of developing its own character that I myself have to go through over the course of my life. It is simply a fabrication that appears instantaneously in its fully developed state.

In a lot of ways, this virtual world is much more desirable if our values are simply easy pleasure, having a good time, making ourselves happy. However, if we really want to be meaningful human beings who really care about this world and about other people, I feel like the effects of technology should be really, really alarming. In fact, I think that this technology, which represents the pinnacle of the progress of our society, is going to be in the long run the thing that destroys our society from the inside by undermining the lives and thoughts of people in the real world.

What Does It Mean to be Human?

Brief review of what I talked about last week with the youth:

Genesis puts a lot of emphasis on saying that man was made in the image of God. What that means is that man was meant to do the sorts of things God would do, particularly to rule the earth the way God would rule it. However, Adam does not complete this mission. He instead puts his loyalty in other things (and take special note that these things are not necessarily bad in and of themselves) besides God. And this idolatry leads to all kinds of evil spreading throughout the world. For the most part, men have followed in Adam's footsteps. However, Jesus Christ is said to be a second Adam, one who keeps his loyalty where it belongs and makes a way for us to follow him and be the kinds of people we were meant to be.

A unique aspect of our culture from a historical standpoint is the emphasis we put on individuals. Most cultures throughout history have been interested in how their entire society is doing in any given way (economically, politically, spiritually, etc). In modern American society, we seem intently focused on how each individual person is doing and most of the time forget that we are all part of a bigger thing than ourselves. So while this issue is certainly something worth addressing on an individual basis, I want to start by asking a bigger question. In what ways does our society seem to be following in the footsteps of Adam? What are the idols of our society? What are we more loyal to than God?

Then, the more personal question (which I'm not going to make you answer publically unless you really want to), are you personally any different from the rest of our society? Do the idols of our society hold your loyalty as well?

Deep Thinking In Practical Terms

This post is a little more academic, but I think these are important things to think about.

There are two questions that I have wrestled a lot with lately(lately meaning the last four years in the case of the first question) that I am trying to examine in slightly different lights.

The first question has to do with the nature of "salvation" or the nature of the "gospel." Are these the same things? What are we saved from? Is salvation merely a "pardon" or giving of forgiveness as it seems in many Baptist circles especially. Or is salvation a constant process of taking sacraments and doing good works to become justified in the sight of God, as Catholics seem to think. Is the point of the gospel to get us into heaven or is it to take part in something that is happening here on earth?

These questions are difficult to think through, but I'm trying to put this in a slightly different light. Instead of thinking about these questions in a strictly theoretical and theological perspective where we might debate the merits of each view and its sources of authority, I'm trying to understand the implications of these questions practically. While certainly there is a theoretical aspect to theology and to Christian belief, it seems like Christianity is also intended to be an belief system that is accompanied by a lot of action. So the question I am posing now is "what are the implications for different views on the nature of the gospel/salvation for what we do as Christians?" This is especially pertinent in terms of how we view evangelism. If the gospel is entirely a spiritual message- your sins will be forgiven and you will go live with God in heaven when you die on earth- then our evangelism will be focused on "conversion" and be much more spiritualized. This seems to fit the contemporary Baptist model especially. However, if we view the gospel as a call to participation in God's kingdom on earth (NT Wright is major advocate of this view, for example), then our evangelism will be more focused on calling people to believe in and participate in the work of the church (which will be much more humanitarian and less "spiritual"). So I've really been examining the practical side of this issue more lately and trying to understand how the practical and theoretical influence one-another.

Another related question is an examination of history and how the gospel fits into different historical contexts. For instance, the early church was in a very Jewish context that had at its center the concept of a Messiah. Christianity latched onto that by proclaiming Jesus to be this Messiah. Later, as Christianity expanded into a more Greco-Roman world, it began to adopt the philosophical context of this community by appealing to Perfect-Being Theology especially to explain the nature of God. Most of what we consider the classical theological views of God are taken from Greek philosophy and supported by scripture, rather than the other way around (contrary to the claims of many evangelicals and fundamentalists). As time progressed and the Roman empire fell a more pessimistic and "legal" framework of thinking developed and from that came the theology of Augustine that proclaimed that Christ had paid a certain penalty for our sins, one demanded to "justify" us in the sight of God. And a new view of salvation developed, one in which Christ's work is seen as taking our place and paying our penalty in order to make us perfect in the sight of a God who cannot tolerate imperfection (and yet talks to Moses as a friend, just to give us a hint of where this view, like most, does not completely represent the Biblical data). In other words, Christianity seems to adapt to address different philosophical contexts. In each of these the "tradition" has changed. The question is how does this historical development affect our views today? Should we also adapt to a new philosophical context or do we cling to tradition (a call which ironically seems most strong from fundamentalists who also reject Catholicism's canonization of tradition).

This issue become especially interesting in examining the progression of Protestant thought in the last few hundred years. Protestantism developed as a rejection of a view that had developed in the medieval church to say that by taking the sacraments we somehow obligate God to extend grace to us. I believe the protestants were probably correct in rejecting this theological development in church practice, but Protestants stayed in the same framework of thinking as the medieval church, most adopting views very close to Augustine. However, right on the heals of the Reformation came the Enlightenment, and suddenly the philosophical context of the world changed to being much more optimistic and based around the progress of man's knowledge toward triumph over the forces of the world. In this context, the stories of Christianity seemed outdated and incapable of measuring up to the rigors of academic study. From this context developed Liberalism, which attempted to accommodate Enlightenment thought and in doing so rejected the overwhelming majority of the Christian tradition and formed something radically different from any prior form of Christianity (and for this reason, it seems questionable to consider the more radical forms of Liberalism to be part of Christianity). In response to the extreme measures of Liberalism, Fundamentalism formed which made the opposite error- instead of throwing out tradition they added to it things that had never been essential aspects of the Christian tradition and made them "necessary" to being part of Christianity. Neither view seemed to really address the modernistic social context, and as a result Christianity lost a lot of credibility. Post-modernism seems to pose a similar challenge, but at the same time some very interesting opportunities for Christianity to re-engage the culture meaningfully and address the new context. The question is how this will happen and who will participate? Will more "conservative" Christians shy away for fear of change? Will more liberal Christians throw away theology altogether? Is there some-sort of balance that can be formed to address the culture and still remain essentially Christian?

Inspired By or Compatible With?

I've heard it said that the concept of separation of powers in America's political system ultimately originates from the doctrine of sin. The argument says that the founding fathers recognized man's sinfulness and so they designed a system that took that into account, whereas European systems seemed anti-Christian in that respect because they often lack a separation of powers.

I think I have a different take on this. Given that most of the founding fathers (and certainly all of the most influential ones in drafting our constitution) were not Christians by most accounts, it seems doubtful they would base such an important aspect of our government on a Christian doctrine. Its also doubtful that such a system was even intended: the constitution gives some checks between legislative and executive branches, but in my studies of history, it seems the legislature was always intended to dominate and the judiciary was never intended to play a part in the balance of power. So the current understanding we have has been the result of some political evolution in our government. The best explanation seems to be that the original system was devised as a reaction to the "tyranny" of British politics from under which the colonies had just escaped and an attempt to create a more populist government that actually functioned. Later political forces created the system we now understand. I see little reason or evidence to indicate that this was based on the Christian doctrine of sin and depravity.

That being said, it is certainly compatible with that doctrine. The system of checks and balances certainly fits to some extent with a Christian understanding of the human condition. But it seems an illogical leap to suggest that means this political institution was inspired by Christian doctrine, especially when historical evidence seems to suggest otherwise. I think there needs to be caution expressed before reading democracy or any western institution into the scriptures or out of the scriptures. They may sometimes be compatible with each other, but this does not mean that they are inspired by one another. Nor does it mean that scriptures teach democracy or support democracy. Remember, they were not written under democracy, and for the most part none of their writers had any democratic experience or knowledge. But their truths are timeless, so we should not be surprised when we find ways to make them compatible with or apply them to our culture or any culture. This does not mean this culture is what scripture teaches. Culture can change, and the application of the Bible will adapt.