I have recently been convicted by both God and some mentors on this point. You see, I have been part of a leadership team for a Vineyard church plant for the past three and half years in a community that is ~80% LDS. From the very beginning we adopted a “love everyone” method of evangelism as we didn’t want to get into theological debates with the people – we just wanted them to have an encounter with the Living God.

Yet even with that “center-set sounding” methodology, I found myself more concerned about people attending the church plant then following the Living Lord. Deep inside I wanted the LDS people to stop attending their ward and start going to the Vineyard. Seeing how the LDS church has some serious theological issues, I figured I was “justified” in wanting them to “switch over.”

However, God began to hit me over the head with a 2×4 these last few weeks – telling me that all I’m suppose to do is show them Christ. He will take care of the rest. If He wants them to separate themselves from the LDS church, he will do it. If He wants them to stay inside the LDS church, then they will. That is His choice, not mine. (Note that this approach is similar to the “Christian Muslim” approach used in Islamic counties.)

This is the hard part of the center-set theology, you have to let God direct the people – which is very, very hard to do when you are trying to plant a church! =?

Brings to mind how Paul says we ‘only know in part’.

An issue we can run into as believers is an over-emphasis on our own knoewledge and supposed ‘wisdom’.

It’s fine to cite studies and new psychological discoveries, but I think we must never forget that we are still at our very core, broken, sinful beings and should never rely too strongly on our own wisdom.

I think the Bible says our hearts are very deceitful. Many cults seem to be started by well intentioned folks that seem to think they found some new way to serve God and that they have some ‘new’, previously unknown wisdom others lack.

So I think we need to be careful and what Jim mentions is a good reminder.

Joao

Exactly! Which is why I mentioned objective measures, like the Implicit Association Test (IAT), to reveal our horrible and lightening-fast prejudices. The IAT uses neurological time intervals to catch us.

How to apply these neuroscience facts to this discussion?

Painfully.

The idea that we can use Heibert’s set theories to test our own biases is wrong because our real biases are much deeper and faster than we can cognitively catch by using any mathematic set theory. We can think that we have learned something from Heibert. Until an objective test (usually through pressure in relationships or in our environment) forces our deep bias to surface. Otherwise, we are just ignorantly and unwittingly using Heibert and set theory to fake ourselves out. By “thinking” we are checking some deep bias.

A case in point. Heibert and his beloved set theory stuff was deployed later by Fuller Seminary exactly as a counter-measure against John Wimber. Heibert was enlisted to confirm a theological bias against Wimber’s signs and miracles! Heibert was used against Wimber (if I understand this history correctly) to bring more “balance” (ah, how we enlist “balance” to confirm our bias!) to signs and wonders, and to appease those who were offended by Wimber’s own bias.

In addition, for all his talk about checking our cultural biases, there were many western cultural biases which Heibert himself refused to check and put aside. Starting with his beloved western biblical literalism. Heibert never did embrace a robust Augustinian view of scripture. Which would have been one proof that Heibert’s western cultural bias of biblical literalism had been checked. Alas.

It’s impossible for us to check the kinds of deeper and faster cultural biases that Heibert calls us to check.

The neuroscience study you cited is one among many evidences for how we are enslaved by biases, while thinking we are smart enough to check them!

On the other hand, the Spirit can use any concept – including set theory – as a mechanism to check our bias. As a part of a larger discipleship of correction. What we cannot do, the Spirit can. So the burden is on Ken to express in clear terms the kind of bias-check which Ken feels impressed on him through this form of discipleship. And to express in clear terms the new nets he feels impressed ought be the replacements.

This may be off topic, but the above hints at how our brains can be affected by cultural norms and what we choose to accept as reality.

I am having a heck of a time wrapping my brain around a centered set mentality. I seem to always drift back to bounded set. It’s an effort to force myself to think centered set.

For example, when I see someone who is outside my bounded set group of believers (unrepentant homosexual, pro-choice, political liberal, muslims, atheists) I automatically (apparently in 170 milliseconds), place them in the ‘unbeliever’ category.
As I say this though, as far as sharing Jesus’s message, wouldn’t we need to make this differentiation in order to actually decide to share the gospel with someone? I mean we have missionaries choosing to go to, say Afeganistan, precisely because they have made the ‘judgment’ that the Afghans are generally outside the Christian bounded set and need to be invited in.

So I am now back to bounded set thinking.

You know, car repair is much simpler than this…..

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/opinion/13brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

David Brooks writes about social cognitive neuroscience. One paragraph in particular stood out to me in terms of this discussion.

“Many of the studies presented here concerned the way we divide people by in-group and out-group categories in as little as 170 milliseconds. The anterior cingulate cortices in American and Chinese brains activate when people see members of their own group endure pain, but they do so at much lower levels when they see members of another group enduring it. These effects may form the basis of prejudice.”

i think the relational-aspect found in centered-set theory with regards to new nets is terribly important…we have to get this and do it.

We are from time to time persuaded to think logically. In a radically logical fashion. But this method unfortuneately misses that our predominately meaningful method of being is relational.

Logic bows to love. And love bows to nothing else but itself.

Heibert’s main reason is that the Greek worldview in general is focused on the “essential nature of a thing” going back to Plato, etc. [Platonic forms, etc] whereas the Hebrew worldview is much more relational, in comparison. Bounded set follows the Greek worldview (western worldview) and the centered set follows the Hebrew worldview because a thing is more defined by relationship than by essential nature.