relics

museum, hospital, or ? [pt. 2]

The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.

In the first part, I expressed my dislike of both the museum of saints and the hospital for sinners analogies.

so what are some alternatives?

The other "place-oriented" alternatives that come to mind are personal ones. This means that they might work for me, but you may have a very different experience of the same kind of place and thus, it may mean nothing to you or in fact have negative connotations.

These often depend on a personal experience that might mean the world to the person who experienced it, and very little to others, as it is especially hard to capture and describe those magical things that make the experience what it is.

Consider a night with friends at the pub. Some only associate this with excessive drinking. Others think of hanging out with friends to watch the game. For me, it meant spending time with others in a context of acceptance, honesty and trust, regardless of what we talked about.

Many churches have small groups, and these can be amazing for some, boring for others, and downright toxic for a few. The same could be said for most other place-oriented analogies. So what else is there?

museum, hospital, or ? [pt. 1]

The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.

The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.

After hearing this saying in a recent sermon, I realized I don't like "hospital for sinners" anymore than I like "museum for saints".

But first, here's what the point of this saying seems to be: Rather than the church being for those who are perfect and do not need to change anymore, the church is for those who need God and His healing.

As Fr. Peter Daly said, "A broken world needs a place to bring its spiritual injuries. We need an emergency room more than a courtroom. We want healing more than judgment."

More on this perspective from the National Catholic Reporter.

I get that. That makes sense. So what's there not to like?

For starters, I don't like hospitals.

In fact, I don't think most people like hospitals.

And I'm not sure if people who are not part of a church culture think of themselves as sinners. (Do those who are in a church culture think of themselves as sinners? Or are sinners "the people out there?")

But more than that, while all analogies break down at some point, this one breaks down very quickly. Here's a little destruction for your day:

A hospital is run by professionals.
Professionals are not sick like you.
Professionals know what's best for you.
They prescribe medications and treatments.
They focus on the problem, not the person.
They usually don't care about the rest of your life.
There is no personal relationship between you and them.
The other patients are simply that, other patients.
There is little or no relationship between you and the other patients, unless you are in long-term care.
Once you are better, you leave, hoping not to have to come back.

And then there are bigger words, like power and privilege.

Hospitals are built on them.
And therefore, hospitals are othering.

No thanks.

---

[part 2]

[republic of outsiders, by alissa quart]

"Republic of Outsiders is about the growing number of Americans who disrupt the status quo: outsiders who seek to redefine a wide variety of fields, from film and mental health to diplomacy and music, from how we see gender to what we eat. They include professional and amateur filmmakers crowd-sourcing their work, transgender and autistic activists, and Occupy Wall Street’s “alternative bankers.” These people create and package new identities in a practice cultural critic Alissa Quart dubs “identity innovation”: they push the boundaries of who they can be and what they can do, even turning the forces of co-optation to their benefit.

In a brilliant and far-reaching account, Quart introduces us to individuals who have created new structures to keep themselves sane, fulfilled, and, on occasion, paid. This deeply reported book shows how and why these groups now gather, organize, and create new communities and economies. Without a middleman, freed of established media, and highly mobile, unusual ideas and cultures are able to spread more quickly and find audiences and allies. Republic of Outsiders is a critical examination of those for whom being rebellious, marginal, or amateur is a source of strength rather than weakness."  (source)

I learned a lot from this book. Not life-changing stuff, but about the people who live in this world, some of whom have ideas that have never crossed my mind and who make choices for their lives that I didn't know people were making. I also learned new terms which are not yet in common usage. Take, for example, "counterpublics:"

[Michael] Warner's term can be used to describe both the neurodiverse and many of the other renegades in this book who frequently turn to writing as a tool for expression and resistance. He sees these groups as creating their own fictions to counter the supreme fiction of the majority group, which is never the true monolith so may imagine it to be. According to his theory, what we usually call the public sphere is based on exclusion, and excluded groups are assigned lesser status. "Counterpublics" attempt to correct this, Warner says. The notion of a "public" is a social fiction, the "normal," and it becomes the frame for our lives. Counterpublics, such as the Mad Priders and all the others in this book, carve out separate spaces through writing in particular, through a strong message that people in the broader public may not have heard before and that could potentially change and shape minds.

(p. 21)

While it was an interesting read, I probably won't read it again -- so I'm glad I got it from the public library.

[if people can learn to hate...]

[white christmas]

From my company's Christmas e-card Generator, with a message from me:

p.s. because we just merged with another company, I have no idea who is in charge of this...

p.p.s. Found out who designed the e-card generator. He told me the name of the graphic designer, who is in another country. I emailed the following to her on December 5th.

Hi _____:

I emailed _____ yesterday about the great e-card generator that he built. I really like the interface – easy to use, and fresh compared to the usual e-card sites.

The graphic design, which I understand you created, looks really sharp too – professional and yet warm and friendly. And the red half-transparent triangle nicely ties in with the red that is common at Christmas time too.

I do have a question. I’m with the new division, __________, in Canada. Our country is quite multi-cultural and in fact my own family is multi-racial. I was wondering if you could provide a second choice of graphic which, in terms of the people shown, better reflects our diversity?

Best regards,

Rob

* I welcome comments from readers on the card, the wisdom of writing (or not), the contents of my email, etc.

jesus confirms the plan

[pure scum by mike sares]

"An exhilarating faith life is a tricky business. But ask anyone who's sought after it--from the founders and members of Scum of the Earth Church in Denver to the apostle Paul, from whose letters the church took its name--and they'll tell you it's worth it. In Pure Scum Mike Sares, pastor of Scum of the Earth, takes us along a faith journey, telling the story of how a pretty normal, middle-aged guy met and became friends with Reese Roper and other members of the band, Five Iron Frenzy, and got hoodwinked by FIF and the Holy Spirit into pastoring of a vibrant church full of artists and skater punks. For anyone--pastor, church leader or plain old Christian--who wants to share the amazing grace of God with the "left-out" and "the right-brained," Mike's story will show you what this kind of exhilaration looks like, and more importantly, what it costs. It's a tricky business, but it's worth every step and misstep."        (source).

From the reviews I had read, I expected this book to be amazing. It was certainly interesting, but unlike jesus freak and  fall to grace it did not pull me onward. Instead, I had to push through it. Maybe the writing style just didn't work as well for me. However, I include it here in any case because it is about a church that embraced others in ways which are far too rare, and that made it worth reading.

russian lgbt = my neighbour

When Jesus was crucified, the Roman authorities put up a sign which read, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews". The religious authorities protested, wanting the sign to say that this was Jesus' claim, as they did not follow him nor take him as their king. (John 19:19-20).

Today, the sign could well say something like "Jesus, Lover of Russian Queers" or "Jesus, Lover of Ugandan Homosexuals."

Outrageous and offensive? Probably, but not anymore than "King of the Jews" was.

And maybe such a sign wouldn't happen, as those who use words like queer and homosexual tend to be in favour of Jesus, and would not write both on the same sign.

But if it did appear, this version of the sign would be protested by some of today's religious people for a different reason. While they would agree that Jesus is their king, they don't follow Him. At least not to the margins, the outcast, the dispossessed, the oppressed. And there would be disagreement as to whether Jesus even loves LGBT people of any sort, let alone Russian or Ugandan LGBT people.

Ironic and sad, isn't it? Has Jesus' love not really conquered hate after all? Or perhaps those of us who follow Jesus need to follow Him in standing with men and women at the margins, standing up for those who are oppressed and downtrodden, no matter how great or small the divide between us seems ....

Who is my neighbour? My answer is clear:

ha #5

For those of you who don't read the Russian script, here's the Russian law spelled out in plain English:

Propaganda is the act of distributing information among minors that 1) is aimed at the creating nontraditional sexual attitudes, 2) makes nontraditional sexual relations attractive, 3) equates the social value of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations, or 4) creates an interest in nontraditional sexual relations.

This might seem innocuous to some persons who would like to restrict the amount of information about sexuality that is available to minors, but its lack of definition means that people can readily be charged or arrested under this law for all kinds of things. Not only that, but anti-gay violence has increased in Russia since the law was passed, making Russia a hostile place for those in sexual minorities.

Not only that, but some American evangelical pastors, feeling they've "lost the culture war" in their own country, are promoting oft-extreme anti-gay laws in other parts of the world. Google it and see....

[touching strangers]

For six years, photographer Richard Renaldi has been working on the "Touching Strangers" project, where he asks complete strangers to pose as couples, friends or family members, and takes their portrait.

Many of the portraits show a surprising degree of comfort, even though the people in them have never met before.

And some speak of feeling connected to the other person, based on this shared experience. 

Interesting, how little it can take to connect people to one another — no matter how different, yet how rarely we connect.

Read an article "New York photographer turns strangers into friends" Link

Check out Richard's book Touching Strangers.

faceless

Do we see other people as faceless?

What preconceived ideas do we have as to what constitutes a person and what does not?

Google seems to have some ideas about it. Here's that it said when I uploaded my choice of profile photo:

the homeless are not human

If you haven't heard about the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC for short), here's a quick explanation followed by the disturbing results of an experiment:

According to Psychology Today, the mPFC "activates when people do things that involve perceiving and relating to other people, such as recognizing and distinguishing between faces and empathizing." This means that it activates for your mother and your partner, but it does not activate when you see the sandwich your mother made for you or the sweater your partner gave you (no matter how tasty the sandwich or lovely the sweater).

In their experiment, researchers Lasana Harris and Susan Fiske showed pictures of specific groups of people and measured the response of the mPFC. Here's what they found:

Images of all other groups besides the homeless activated the mPFC. This suggests that the homeless are not recognized as human relative to other groups. They actually are perceived, at least in this area of the brain, more like objects, such as tables.

(source)

The cartoon above is suggesting that Jesus' mPFC was malfunctioning, as he saw the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, as people. Of course, it wasn't malfunctioning -- he was correctly functioning in seeing everyone whom God has made. So the questions I have are:

• If the study was done among the religious in Jesus' day, would it have had similar results?
• If this study had includes homeless persons among the subjects, would their mPFC activate when shown images of homeless people? (I'd assume "yes," but there could be other variables involved).
• Some non-homeless people do see homeless people as people. Why is this different for them?
• Can we use our mPFC as an excuse for ignoring some people?

Some words from Jesus:
 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’" Matthew 25:37-40 NIV


Read more about mPFC studies.

[enemies are our neighbours]

Jesus said,

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:43-45 NIV

"Opus Prize and UN Nansen Award winner Marguerite Barankitse, known as "Maggy," witnessed the murder of over 70 people in Ruyigi, during the civil war between Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Burundi. Maggy responded by founding Maison Shalom (House of Peace), “I am a tutsi woman. Before the war began I already had seven adopted children, four hutu and three tutsi." (more...).

In this short video and several others at Works of the People, she shares about loving others, particularly those who have committed horrible crimes....

Watch more at Works of the People.

loving strangers

"I used to think that the greatest command in the Bible was "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." I was wrong. Only in one place does the Bible ask us to love our neighbour. In more than thirty places it commands us to love the stranger. Don't oppress the stranger because you know what it feels like to be a stranger--you were once strangers in the land of Egypt. It isn't hard to love our neighbours because by and large our neighbours are people like us. What's tough is to love the stranger, the person who isn't like us, who has a different skin colour, or a different faith, or a different background. That's the real challenge. It was in ancient times. It still is today."

Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks (quoted on pp 101-102 of Just Hospitality).

In Jesus day, weren't strangers simply people you were not acquainted with? In the Jewish towns and villages, there would have been the people you knew, and the people you didn't know. And for the most part, while the latter were strangers, they weren't particularly strange. There would have been exceptions, of course. Some lepers may have seemed pretty strange as a result of deformation and loss of limbs. Those possessed by demons would have been strange. But generally, most strangers looked fairly normal.

In one famous story, Jesus tells of a despised foreigner -- a Samaritan -- helping a stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the road side. There were significant religious differences between them, but otherwise, not that much was strange about the stranger. Jesus told this story of loving a stranger, in response to someone asking, "who is my neighbour that I'm to love?"

Fast forward to today. For the conservative person, there's a whole world of strangeness out there. Goths and punks, transgender people and drag queens, and much more.

But one thing hasn't changed: God's love for everyone, no matter how strange someone might seem to us.

Read True Biblical Hospitality: Loving Immigrants, Strangers, and Enemies at sojo.net.