In the past month I have been told by somebody that each element of our Sunday gatherings is their favorite … and somebody else’s least favorite.
Passing of the Peace
Music and Singing
Prayer
Sermon
Conversation
Communion
Videos
This is fascinating to me – and I love that we can talk about it!
This is part of our life together. This is how community works. Each aspect or element connects with some and may not with another. BUT when you put it all together … that is where things become life-giving and dynamic.
As we have moved through the centuries, things have changed. Our worship communities have moved from being centered on prayer, to sacrament, to preaching … and now many are centered on music.
I am proposing that now, the rule of worship is the rule of faith.
Watch this 5 minute video and let me know what you think.
A short video (5 min) about how progressives and liberals not only believe different things than conservatives and evangelicals … but they believe them differently.
From Missions to Eschatology -they both believe different things and they hold those beliefs differently.
Those 3 create a perfect storm. But the heated environment provides a 4th element that intensifies the problem
4. Water Warmed by Media – 24 hour news and social media
These self selecting platforms create a confirmation bias, which can become an echo-chamber, which morphs into a feedback (distortion) loop when the volume is turned up too high.
The 5th and final element is a ‘spark’ that triggers the :
5. Alienated from the power to change it. Fight against resignation
In the video below I use 3 test cases: 2nd Amendment, Abortion, Policing strategies.
I may make a video just detailing those 3 and adding our voting crisis.
A State-Trooper in Georgia introduced me to the difference between ‘naked’ and ‘nekid’.
Naked is when you don’t have any clothes on. Nekid is when you don’t have any clothes on and you are up to somethin‘.
This is a surprisingly helpful distinction!
Earlier this week I saw a podcast episode humorously entitled “Nudity as a Social Construct”. I am finding this analogy equally helpful.
Every time I attempt to talk to somebody about how both race and gender are socially constructed, they want to argue about biologic (or physical) element of skin color or genitalia – things are visible to the naked-eye (as it were).
I have been looking for a third example to use as an analogy and now I have it: nudity.
See, the fact that you don’t have any clothes on is not up for debate. That is a physical reality, a biological ‘given’.
What it means in our society – or how it is interpreted – is both situational and culturally determined.
Depending on your:
geography
culture
situation
era
intention
Not having a shirt on could mean very different things. If you were a tribesman in the 1900’s in Saharan Africa, not having a shirt on means something very different than if you show up to a business presentation with no shirt on in modern-day America.
Both men have no shirt on. How that is interpreted is socially constructed.
It is situational, or location specific. Like the clothes that you wear (or don’t wear) to the beach.
I am finding this analogy a helpful conversation starter with those who struggle to understand how race and gender are socially constructed concepts and not simply biological realities.
Have you found any helpful analogies or tools to further this conversation?
I have some fun with those examples before getting into the idea of “the Law” as a much bigger concept.
When you don’t understand the poetic language in the Bible, you can do some harmful stuff with the Old and New Testament.
There is a lot of grace in the ‘Old Testament’ – God is really gracious with the People. Likewise, the New Testament has a fair number of rules and standards for holy living. So you can’t say “the Old Testament is all rules and a wrathful God while the New Testament is full of Grace and kindness”. It is not that easy.
Paul in Galatians uses ‘the Law’ as a metonym for Jewish belonging, identity, and faithfulness. We do the same thing with “grace”, the cross, and “church”.
Check out the video and let me know what you think
Bo Sanders: Public Theology 