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emotional intelligence and the harvest
Emotional intelligence matters when it comes to spreading the gospel. Jesus had it. When he saw the crowds he felt compassion for them because they were harassed and downtrodden, like sheep without a shepherd. He had the emotional intelligence to look past all the things that might have annoyed or angered him about the crowds, and saw them instead in a sympathetic, yes, empathetic, light. The culture war approach to Christianity, so prevalent in the church today, ruins our emotional intelligence and understandably makes the crowds fearful of the church–no wonder they are staying away in droves. No wonder the growingest sector of religious affiliation is “nones” and I don’t mean “nuns.”
Being right or sounding right or treating Christianity like it’s primarily a “belief system” rather than a way of life, has blinded the church to her lack of emotional intelligence. Our emotions do two things: they move us to do things and they can be felt by others. Our words are one thing, our feelings are another, and people detect our feelings more powerfully than our words. All this talk of “hate the sin and love the sinner”? People feel the hate and the love doesn’t stand a chance.
So let’s pay attention to our feelings, just for this post. How do we feel about entire groups of people who stay away from church in droves?
How do we feel, for example, about people who have different political views? People tend to treasure their political views and take them personally. How would you feel about bringing yourself and your views into a setting in which you expected them to be met with, at best, polite-unspoken hostility?
How do we feel, for example about people who are part of the gay community? Many in the church are so caught up in the debates about gay marriage and so tuned in to media voices filled with contempt toward gays. Is it any wonder that that the church mirrors the emotions that go with the debates and the media voices? Are these the emotions that empower us to share good news the way Jesus shared his gospel of the kingdom with the sheep (of his pasture) who were harassed and dejected in his eyes, and made him feel deep compassion? Jesus has a heart of love for people that we can barely comprehend. I’m talking about his love. Do our feelings mirror his heart?
Or lets’ take the feelings that ooze out of the church surrounding science and scientists. Say the words, “climate change” or “evolution” or “stem cell research” and what feelings are evoked within the church? Not thoughts, not opinions, not convictions, not beliefs–feelings.
The feelings of say, of a cornered racoon? Or a threatened porcupine? How effective are such feelings for announcing good news?
How do we feel about any group of people when we don’t know very many of them personally? How do we feel about any group of people when we simply fail to give them the benefit of the doubt like we give ourselves and people we know well?
I suspect that this post might generate comments that are focused on the beliefs surrounding various “issues.” But this post isn’t about the issues, per se, or the beliefs surrounding them. Just the feelings. And just the feelings in relation to the impact the feelings have on our capacity to spread the gospel to people who are on the outside of faith looking in.
Duh, we need a little emotional intelligence in order to do our job.
Tags: emotional intelligence, feelings, gays, gospel, harvest, Jesus, liberals, scientists
August 10th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I feel broken…both sides have loud voices…damned if we do–damned if we don’t…I think I have to find my own way, with the broken.
August 10th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Gem, I think that’s where you’ll have the best chance of finding Jesus.
August 10th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I agree that it is important for the church to be compassionate towards others and to accept all like Jesus did. However I do believe in the biblical concept of love then teach. Rather many of us would like to not pay attention to the authority of God. There are rules in the bible to be instilled in our lives so we can grow in our relationship with God and those around us. There is a big difference between accepting everyone and tolerating everything. For instance you mentioned many of the culture war debates, I believe it is apart of Jesus’ ministry to accept all people based on whatever their beliefs are, but then teach them what the bible says- the ultimate authority of God. It is important for us to be strong in our faith and moral values so we can instill those in others. I’m sure most people would agree that the emotional issues such as climate change, evolution, and stem-cell research tend to cause more division in churches. For myself I stand with Jesus and I am led by the Holy Spirit to know where God stands on these concerns and align myself accordingly. I feel accessing the Holy Spirit is essential for any church to lead it’s flock in the right direction.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Maybe it helps to actually know folks from these ‘unwelcome’ groups.
I have friends or acquaintances who are gay or agnostic, muslim or ‘none’.
Knowing such folks, actually having genuine friendships with them (not as ‘projects’ but based on real common interests / values) makes it much harder for me to automatically dismiss them.
I think this is similar to, for example, a parent who discovers his child struggles with gay feelings. It’s all a political issue until soomeone you love makes the issue personal.
I don’t mean I have necessarily changed my views on the issues (homosexuality is a still a sin, agnostics and Muslims still need Jesus), but it has certainly changed my approach to the people involved to a point where my love for them calls me to understand them and to look at my own life’s pet sins (laziness, sexual immorality, judgmental attitudes) before I even think of pointing to the speck in their eye.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
My experience has been this…
Motivated by love for Jesus (not compassion for the lost) I take my first steps to bringing the gospel to a lost person. As I spend time with them, being an honest friend, showing genuine interest, asking questions, and listening, my heart widens to that person. Then I find myself motivated by concern, compassion, perhaps even love for the person.
I don’t think that a Christian automatically has deep compassion for the lost. I don’t think we naturally feel anything for the lost. But I think if we let Jesus make our heart more like his, the compassion grows. And I believe that he changes our heart this way only as we step into the lives of those who don’t know him. This is what he did afterall!
August 10th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I met with a woman yesterday whose husband threatened to kill her. Like, kill her dead.
Something I’ve seen happen a time or two in 30 years in my work. Not a joke. I visited this woman’s church for other reasons. After the worship, I “felt” moved to go to her. Felt moved to talk with her. Felt moved to pray with her. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know any facts. Just a feeling. Me feeling of a Feeling.
She didn’t know me. From the moment we started praying, she broke in tears. A steady stream. And a steady stream of confession. Confession of facts. Nobody could pipe her . Thank God, nobody tried. Her brothers and sister in church – in the pews – stood by and loved her. She poured. Hard, ugly, stinking facts from last week. Facts of abuse. Physical abuse. Death threats.
I don’t give a damn what anybody says. The woman needs a judgment. And judgment and a restraining order. My sister needs a judgment. My sister-in-hell needs a hard core judgment. From a hard core judge. A kick-ass judge.
Today, she gets one. A done deal.
Mr. Religious-Hubby who attends the same church can work out his relationship with Jesus – in jail. I’ll go see him there. Like I do many of my clients.
As the woman prayed and cried, she “felt” guilty.
Her emotional intelligence told her that she was worthless, because she has been abused.
Her emotional intelligence told her that God abandoned her.
Her emotional intelligence told her that she was cursed because other, nice, good, Christian women have better lives, but she is abused.
Her emotional intelligence told her that she did not match the hip-chic, slick images of the “Christian woman,” with perfect air-brushed blonde hair, on the cover of “Charisma” magazine.
This woman’s emotional intelligence sentenced her to hell. And death.
I reminded her of the emotional intelligence of Naomi. I reminded her of the biblical woman, Naomi., the woman-from-hell. The same Naomi who told her religious friends back in Israel – ‘don’t call me Naomi (“happy”), but call me, Mara (“bitter”). That’s emotional intelligence. Call me bitter. Dammit. Because of real life ruin. And hell. And God never – ever – never punished Naomi for Naomi’s raw emotional honesty. God kinda rewarded Naomi for her emotional honesty – made her part of the lineage of Jesus. Not a bad place to be.
The woman yesterday got the point. The woman became Naomi’s bitter-in-truth sister. She let it rip. Raw. Buckets.
This woman yesterday worked her way to healthy emotional intelligence – finding Permission to get a judgment and get a restraining order against an abusive church-going husband, a husband who would cram “Jesus forgives” semons down her abused throat.
The woman got a new emotional intelligence – breaking a cursed one. With her friends loving her alongside – right in the pews. And going to court with her today.
From the pews to court. That’s emotional intelligence.
Thank God.
One thing I’d say about emotional intelligence. Never – ever – treat this as a game. Never – ever – open up someone’s heart of raw emotions: not unless you’re willing to stay nearby, not unless you’re willing to stand and take the spill of raw emotions that really, really, really comes out. And splatters all over you.
And if you do this, then don’t be afraid of judgment. It’s an act of love. Protecting God’s children. No more religious talk, “oh, hello Ms. Blessed-Happy-Naomi. Don’t judge! If you really open someone up in the raw of emotion, beware of saying too quickly, “Jesus says forgive.’” No counsel like, “go back and take some more abuse. Get killed.” Which is exactly what we do to others when we paralyze them with the emotional guilt of demanding that they forgive, really because we cower and we fear judgment.
Yes, the husband needs a change of heart. Yes, he needs conversion from the inside out. No, jail and a judgment can’t give this conversion to an abusive husband. Yes, a judgment will make this husband feel condemned. But it’s pollyannaish, emotionally immature “Church-ianity” that cowers from judgment in the trenches of real life. The husband had many chances. Many chances from the Spirit. And like other abusive husbands, he keeps begging for more chances. While he keeps abusing. Yes, he still needs more chances of grace. He needs the Spirit inwardly.
But, God does not let his children – this woman – take abuse forever.
The husband can work out his next few chances with Jesus. In jail.
Maybe I’m wrong. All wrong. If so, God please stop the judge from judging.
For now, I have no apologies for judging him. Any real man wouldn’t have it any other way. Not when he grows up. Not when he gets his own adult version of emotional intelligence – and becomes a man.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Jim, I think you may have misunderstood my post. I am am Apostles Creed believing Christian. Jesus warned about hell, presumably because he was aware of a real danger to real people. I believe that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of our life. I read the Hebrew prophets thunderings regarding judgment and believe these to be inspired words. I was not speaking about the legitimate need for courts or police forces or armies or of stopping crime. I was just speaking to the narrow issue of the role of feelings toward those perceived as outside groups play in our capacity to do our job, which is to announce good news to people who need as much as we do. I’m glad you were there for the woman. I think your feeling of anger toward her husband is completely understandable.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
~
Ken, perfect response. I love your blog. And you have a graceful and considerate balance and feel-for-things. I love reading here.
In fact, I envy your balance. And that’s a fact.
I did about four years’ post-grad research using hard core statistical study of Christian (and other) ministers in the U.S., who acted and still act as judges in concrete, practical cases, as authorized by various state versions of the Uniform Arbitration Act.
Many of these cases are un-reportable to the general public because of confidentiality inside the case-facts cases themselves, despite the fact that these same cases involved waivers for the purpose of scientific empirical/statistical studies, in order to learn just how ordinary pastors really do apply theology in order to make practical judgments, inside real-life cases. Thousands of cases, really.
One feature indicated in the data of these concrete cases is the really, really weird feature that more than half of the pastors (more than a ‘random’ number of pastors, more than 50/50 of the pastors) experienced a literal melt-down in making final judgments, because of a deer-in-the-headlights paralysis in halting like Buridan’s ass in between mercy and judgment.
This finding was totally counter-intuitive. And a surprise. The paralysis for pastors was systemic and population-wide amongst the pastors, and worse, this paralysis fit the model of “catastrophe” ( tractable to catastrophe mathematics).
One wider feature of this really weird finding about pastor-paralysis in making concrete judgments in real-life cases, was in the fact that pastors did better in making judgments in concrete cases when the pastors were asked to judge cases by theological-neutral (non-theological) criteria: like judging whether a church-member was guilty of breaking a contract (say, commercial contract), and then what remedy should owe for a breach of contract –- and to do this judgment without trying to apply theological considerations. Strange – theology gets in the way.
Without boring you with the data as to why theology itself messes up practical judgment, I’ll just say that my rant above is really addressed at large to the general population (population sample in general) of Christians who too suffer the same paralysis of equivocation in judgment-making.
My comments were not personal to you.
And my heart is still on fire for that sister, yesterday too.
In my case, I cop to the same horrible alternation and horrible goof-ups in my own life and emotions (my emotional retardation, 50% of the time) when I too have been asked to judge cases, to judge in-house church cases, inside local churches that suffer conflicts. I’d like to say that I have the wisdom of Solomon in every case. I don’t. I’m just as often like Balaam: too dumb, too blind, too stupid, and too bent-on-my-own agenda, that I botch judgment, just like any other man. Which is exaclty why these kinds of case judgments should be made in a panel of two or three other brothers and sisters too, mature ones who can, and who do lay the wood to me. And to each other.
And this two-by-four between the eyes peer review of my work by mature brothers and sisters is itself another form – of judgment.
Somewhere, over pizza and beer – and with the Spirit moving hard and heavy on all of us – we work it all out. And get it “together.” A miracle, really
Truth: I’m too stupid and biased to do the work of judging all alone, without hard-core judging brothers and sisters, bringing me the wood … for which, I’m thankful.
Your lead post is true: hitting on excesses of judgment … mea culpa!
August 10th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
p.s.,
Cheers to the Apostles Creed: over the Nicene. It’s a part of my personal statement of faith too; but, I’m a charismatic-quasi-Quaker, quasi-Vineyard, quasi Calvary don’t-know-what-I’m-going-to-be when I grow up: except the Spirit is intimate, the fruits are real, the charismatic gifts rock, and loving God will all our mind too, means hearing the Spirit says through all the sciences as much as through each other. Though, like you said, it’s not the paper stuff of paper creed and paper confessions that really cuts it – except for giving us paper cuts. The real stuff is on the streeeeeeeeeeeeeets …
Peace
August 10th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Amen, Ken.
The “lost” have plenty enough folks telling them what they are doing wrong.
We should focus on telling them what Jesus did right for them.
Jim, you did a good thing for the woman. Let the judge worry about the husband. That is baggage you don’t need any more than does the abused wife.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:55 am
ACtually, lost is a great word to ponder when thinking about this issue of feelings. There are two different sets of feelings that can be conjured by this word, “Lost”. Sometimes the word “lost” conveys contempt. AS does the word “depraved.” But the word can also evoke empathy–the feeling a parent has of a child who is lost at the store. REmember what it was like when you were a kid and got lost at the grocery store and had to ask someone tell you find your parent? That feeling.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Anger is tricky, isn’t it? I become angry with a person because of the hurtful things that person has done or is doing to someone else. Or to me. That seems reasonable. I become angry at a group of people because of some threat I imagine they pose: mortgage derivatives traders, for example. And this anger seems sort of abstract. Sort of. Oh, I don’t know. Manufactured. Since I don’t know one derivatives trader. Some anger seems useful and justifiable. Other anger seems false and misleading. But I think anger can be distinguished from judgment. And God’s judgment can be distinguished from the judgment of a court. And my judgment of others as if I were God can be distinguished from both of these.
Emotion. A guide to behavior. But a fallible guide, particularly when the emotions are anger, jealousy, spitefulness, vindictiveness, lust, arrogance, slothfulness, cruelty, greed or feverish acquisitiveness, and so forth. So these states are tricky. These emotional states.
But then there is love. Which is an emotion, definitely. A powerful emotion. But it is also a state of being. And a loving state of being is incompatible with most other emotions, except for peacefulness and maybe a certain form of bliss.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Readers, listen to “belfry” above. Some wise bats flying around in his.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I remember that a Christian brother in Christ, a white guy and his wife, asked me and my wife to attend church with them in Montgomery, Alabama. We had gotten to know each other well and had become close friends. So, I was happy to accept his invitation to worship with him and his wife. Inside the church, it never dawned on me that there was no one else in the congregation that looked like me. After the service, this woman searched me out and looked at me in what I thought was a puzzling if not hateful way. She said, “Why are you here? Are you with the NAACP?” It might have been a great message that was preached from the pulpit that Sunday, but from that moment on, all I remember was that woman’s accosting and affronting interaction with me. It’s my experience that Christians are as intolerant and exclusive as any other group. However, we don’t have an excuse, because Christ taught us to “do unto others as [we] would have them do unto [us] . . . love one another as [Jesus] have loved [us]” It’s a bit strange that many of us see our differences before we recognize what we all have in common in Christ. Did Christ not see the Samaritan woman at the well as one of his flock? I imagine that it was “emotional intelligence” that prompted Jesus to speak to her when in fact in was against all the social norms of the time to do so. Jesus teaches us a great lesson when he took time to talk to the women at the well.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Regarding use of the word “lost.” I think some people are truly “lost” in a sense, but I don’t care for the word as a group label. The way religious leaders refer to “the lost” or “the unsaved.” (I don’t care for “unchurched” either). I’d think that basic human respect and kindness would dictate that, if we use labels, we use labels that are acceptable to the ones being labeled. I’m not sure anyone would put a check next to “Lost” on a survey of religious preferences. So non-Christian or non-religious works fine.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Hmmm. I guess I got my hopes up from the last post that we would stop judging one another and then I find that we’re still doing it in this post. I guess I misunderstood the context. We can JUDGE evangelicals, but we can’t judge any other sin.
Belfry, I believe anger motivates us to make justice happen. God gets angry and He never sins in His anger. When we get angry from someone trafficking a child for sexual exploitation, that anger motivates us to do something to stop it. Anger is a beautiful emotion when stewarded well.
August 12th, 2009 at 8:30 am
happylad, I don’t think the post singles out evangelicals. I’m off the e_________ word for a while, not off grappling with things that affect the church, including me, as jaime notes above.
August 12th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Someday I hope to found in the presence of Jesus. What does that feel like? When we study the life of Christ, there were many around him that felt many different things. There were people arguing and debating the issues surrounding him. There were people angry at him. There were people angry at others who thought they understood Jesus better. There were people that thought he would topple Rome and had feelings of conquering and conquest. And then there were the broken. What does it feel like to be around those that are broken in his presence? And when we are, are we recruiting them for all of our agendas, or mending up the brokenness. When I listen to all the chatter, mine included, I wonder what does it profit the broken? What does it profit Jesus?
August 12th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
My blather (then my question): My blathering-bias is that judgment and judging ourselves and judging each other (hard core peer review) is biologically innate, hard-wired, inescapable, God-given, and 100% healthy both clinically and theologically, and that it’s 100% dysfunctional to eschew judgment – please judge me, because I judge you – the trick is getting it right, “righteous judgment.” No small p’nuts. God – not me – let none of Samuel’s judgments fall to the ground. Convergence. Conscilience. Integrity. That’s my riff. And I’m sticking with it.
Now, what I’m really here for.
I’m having my Catholic moment today. Since groups qua group-prejudice through emotional bias is part of the good topic of the day hereabouts – this hard-core charismatic quasi-Quaker near-fundie is having a Catholic moment – sympathy, neigh, empathy for Roman Catholics – (today, no more “the pope is the whore of Babylon,” thank you very much, e-word, evangelical-Luther), but today, empathy in light of how New Atheists are treating Catholics, with Meyers’ faux-science ripping Catholics for their “little, petty, narrow minded god.” And on. It’s not logical, my empathy. I just feel it. Am grooving with the feel.
In honor of the feeling – I’m looking for help here with a Brother Lawrence or other Catholic mystic quote (medieval, methinks), a semi-famous quote from the mystic-theologian who incorporated into mysticism the idea that God must uphold the world in every moment, in every breath, by continuous divine intervention. It’s a bit of a sidebar; but, I just can’t find the name and quote by any mode of search – anyone here know? To keep my emotional intelligence on this catholic high …
August 12th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Happylad, in me, anger does crowd out love. For that reason, I consider it tricky. I distrust whatever crowds out love.
Justice. What do you mean by justice? Is this God’s own justice? Or is this justice as determined by a court somewhere? Or is this your own justice, as determined by you?
Let’s get rid of trafficking and sexual exploitation and cruelty and hunger and suffering and oppression. I’m all for that. And to the extent that we need anger to motivate us to do something effective about these things, well okay. But why is this necessary? Why isn’t love the emotion that motivates us?
August 13th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Jim: refreshing candor: “My blathering-bias is that judgment and judging ourselves and judging each other (hard core peer review) is biologically innate, hard-wired, inescapable, God-given, and 100% healthy both clinically and theologically, and that it’s 100% dysfunctional to eschew judgment – please judge me, because I judge you – the trick is getting it right, “righteous judgment.”
Yes, I think it is biologically innate….and to recognize it rather than deny it is healthy. Too many of us deny that it exists in us. But the teaching of Jesus and Paul both seem to me to have a much stronger emphasis on “Judge not” (because there is One who is judge and he is standing at the door, so to speak) rather than, “judge between yourselves when there is a dispute” (the oft quoted counsel of Paul in 1 Cor. 6. I’m amazed at how often people who are deep into the bible end up objecting to the emphasis in Jesus and Paul on it not being our job to judge. I’m grateful to you for pointing out how counter-intuitive that command is–how shocking. On the quote, can’t come up with other than the mystic author of Hebrews, who says he “upholds all things by the word of his power.” Sounds like it might be deCaussade, the 19th century (I think) jesuit–Sacrament of the Present Moment: God being present IN each moment of time.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Help me get this right. What I seem to be hearing here is that I can’t judge the gay couple next door to me, but I can judge the evangelical couple next door if they don’t believe that man is to blame for global warming? Am I getting the gist of it?
August 13th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Gosh Happylad…you must know that I have many pastor friends who are skeptical about the science that says humans are adding to the warming of the planet, dear friends and many of them. I’m kind of the odd man out on this issue in terms of many of my colleagues. I’ve been outspoken in this blog about the lean that I see in parts of the church that I think are cultural rather than biblical on this issue and that affect the way we regard the issue.. But how a person asseses the science of a complex issue like climate change isn’t something I want to hold against them personally, or exclude them from friendship or involvement in the church. Of course I can disagree and state my reasons. I don’t think you’re saying that when Jesus and Paul said (and emphasize), “Judge not, lest ye be judged” that there was never any application or that the church at large has no problem in the unauthorized judgment department.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Ken, thanks for another thoughtful and gently challenging post.
I attended an awesome and distant Vineyard last night and got too blessed to feel my normally inveterate self!
Vineyard, a sweet musical interlude interrupting my regimen of silence with Quaker friends a few blocks away. A very good Vineyard blessing on top of another blessing from a dear Catholic priest referring me to the Catholic mystic, Julian of Norwich (this woman rocks), and now you, recommending deCaussade – a new one for me.
I’m to mellow to be worth a stink.
Well, a little stink: I’ll just say for now that I’ll reserve a tender-hearted, deeply respectful, and probably a limited and narrow disagreement with a few lines of reasoning hereabouts regarding the valences on whether we should or should not judge. And how. I really don’t have the answers. The topic of judgment is nearly impossibly large. I do agree with those here like Belfry and yourself who labor to point out our emotional bias in judgment, especially in our judgments against out-groups, and how our petty judgments damage the very groups that God wants to reach. You probably know that an oceanic amount of empirical research about emotional bias is underway in economics (econometrics), punctuated painfully because Greenspan confessed in Congressional hearings that our fundamental philosophy of a rational market and of rational corrections in the market is a philosophy flawed to its very rationalistic core.
We’re emotional creatures. I agree with you and Belfry and others here who want to call attention to our emotional bias in theology and in our petty judgments. I’ll take another stab at a gentle argument in favor of the convergence between human and Divine judgment on this earth at a later time – I’m feeling too mellow to get rational here. And I have cases to do ….
Thanks for deCaussade …
August 13th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Maybe, like the evangelicals you criticize for being known only for being against abortion and gay marriage (your take), you have so relentlessly criticized your fellow evangelicals that some of us (happylad, me) only hear criticism of evangelicals from you, even when you’re not trying to criticize. Of course, this isn’t fair to you. Just as it isn’t fair to evangelicals who become known for those two issues but in reality care about much more. Or, perhaps you just can’t help yourself. Your antagonism toward your straw man evangelical is so intense that you fight against him even when you think you aren’t.
Your blog above repeats many of the things I’ve read on here for months. All previously aimed at evangelicals.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Brian (and Happylad), Though I think my post wasn’t aimed at evangelicals in particular–the problem in reaching those outside effectively is something that the whole church in the U.S. isn’t doing well at–I do think you and I have a different discernment about what some of the challenges that we face today in reaching the harvest are. I do think there’s something wrong with the net we’re fishing with. They are not catching enough fish. I don’t mean growing churches, but catching fish who are not already identified as Christian fish. I think we pastors have a dual responsibility: to do our best to positively work in our local churches (I think we’d all agree on that, and I have high regard for your efforts) and to reflect on what isn’t working more broadly, and as we have opportunity to speak to that. Of course, we’ll all see a somewhat different angle on what that might be based on our setting, backgroud, biases, and perhaps what we’re given by the Spirit to see. I suppose we just have to do our best to listen to each other and respond, including saying “I don’t see what you see.” One of the things I see is a polarization around the question of whether there is a legitimate need for internal critique. I lean, obviously, in the direction that there is. It seems to me the lean of Jesus in the gospels. Judgment begins with the household of God, an extension of the teaching of Jesus and Paul that we shouldn’t focus our judgement on others but on ourselves. Taking the beam out of our own eyes. I think you perceive my criticisms of where we’re at in reaching the harvest and why as judging others, and I perceive it as judging ourselves. Thankfully we both love Jesus and have more in common that not. Thanks for your patience with me and my perspectives. You’re obviously still listening and I’m honored that you haven’t just removed my blog from your bookmark bar!
August 17th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I am surpised at the anger and hate I hear in your voices, Brian and Happylad. My perception is that Ken has been way too defferential to you and other Evangelicals in this blog. Way too kind. Way too gentle. Way too solicitous. Way too understanding. Way too willing to turn the other cheek. I feel like you illustrate for all of us some of the ways anger and hate can get in the way of our following Jesus.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Ken, I’m swamped with all this.
Another good worship yesterday at a Vineyard. Today, the demons are back in the “there be demons” edges of our maps.
I’m arguing with too many interlocutors (out of my control) on my blog, saying it’s not quite the götterdämmerung-time of the twilight of the irrational gods in the U.S., just yet. We’re still quite irrational fideists in our public policies of out trust in our econometric god-of-the-rational-market.
As to your thread about biased judgment, a forumite on my blog argued that God suffers an econometric Pareto effect, as you have said here about our irrationalism, because if God speaks to redistribution (say in current healthcare policy debates: say, our hostility v. out-group immigrants running up social costs), then the fundamental axiom of welfare economics still applies (Pareto), in that someone always gets hurt.
And if God does not speak, then someone gets hurt too: left as slaves in Egypt.
Screwtape never had as clear an exemplar as the demon-Pareto in training. No answers from my corner at the edge of the universe café.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
“I become angry at a group of people because of some threat I imagine they pose: mortgage derivatives traders, for example”
I trade in mortgage derivatives from time to time. Mostly commercial, but sometimes residential.
I have a spread position right now matter of fact.
So, if you’re looking for something a little more tangible to direct your hatred, I’ll volunteer.
BD
PS Besides I’m SOO popular with the rest here, I probably wouldn’t even notice a little countervailing wind…
August 21st, 2009 at 6:35 am
great thoughts ken…i really appreciate this…
August 21st, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Jim….
What???????????????????
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Ken, I agree and coming from a Fundamental Conservative Christian Church to yours has been a breath of fresh air, like how church should be, I feel
I have always felt more compassion toward those “outside” the circle than I agreed with those inside the circle and I am glad that someone is validating how I feel. The reason I feel this way is because my sister calls herself an agnostic, my uncle is gay, many in my family are drug addicted, and my friends in other religions are scared to talk to christians because they are concerned they will be eaten alive! I have too many people in my life who are “on the outside,” and I feel like they need someone to listen, not judge, and love them. Then when you have built a relationship you can get into the deeper spiritual conversations which can lead others to Jesus. I feel like we just push people away and that there is no way they will ever get to know that YES GOD DOES LOVE YOU even though most people are saying your a going to hell. So then they don’t try to explore our God and experience His truth. I think God loves the one going to hell just as much as the one who will sit to HIS right. I do think there is a place for “street witnessing” but the majority of our conversion success will be in demonstrating our walk and less about our talk.