tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3607868382826798272024-03-13T02:51:18.171+02:00Wesleyan PsychologyAn Exploration of Psychology Shaped Through a TraditionRonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-66540459237863901672011-06-09T18:38:00.003+02:002011-06-10T17:20:46.270+02:00Whatever happened to integration?Whatever happened to integration? <br />
By Paul Jones and Ron Wright<br />
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Confession time. Much of the literature on the “integration” of psychology and Christianity that we read ends up leaving us dissatisfied. While this perhaps can be marked up to our joint neurotic and critical tendencies, we wonder if there might be other factors at work. Our experience of frustration and dissatisfaction is perhaps similar to that of a conversation where people talk past each other or in parallel to each other. Like conversations where this dynamic occurs, it seems like getting to know the particularity of the other person (and ourselves) assists in creating a more rich, thick, dynamic conversation. We want to suggest that perhaps this type of dynamic is also needed within the larger field of integration. That is, perhaps the process of "integration" begins through a confessional stance of owning one's particularities and peculiarness. To be more specific, we wonder if coming to grips with our (and others’) epistemological, psychological, and theological assumptions might provide a way to enrich and deepen conversations around the relationship of theology and psychology. <br />
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In the first part of this series we will begin to address issues of epistemology by asking the questions: Which reality? Whose knowledge? We envision these questions as inviting dialogue around how we know what is “out there” and the differences between an epistemology influenced by modern, Enlightenment notions of truth, versus an epistemology influenced by postmodernity, constructionism, and hermeneutics. <br />
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Throughout this series we want to address these issues more fully and to invite responses into this dialogue. So join in! Perhaps it is time for all of us to become more confessional.<br />
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P.S. Whatever happened to integration? will also be the theme of the annual conference of the Society for the Study of Psychology and Wesleyan Theology (SSPWT) in March 2012 in Nashville, TN. Stay posted for more information!Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-73120526112220626732008-04-25T15:49:00.003+03:002011-06-10T17:06:48.556+02:00Gabriel and the Vagabond<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><object height="350" width="425"><param value='http://youtube.com/v/y4cjCuUQUwI' name='movie'/><embed height='350' width='425' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' src='http://youtube.com/v/y4cjCuUQUwI'/></object><br />
More of my new man crush...<br />
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What does it mean for us to whisper "hope" to others? What is the connection between hope and the future? How is hope impacted by imagination?</div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-26825035695007959492008-04-11T21:56:00.004+02:002011-06-10T18:13:08.739+02:00Foy Vance Live - Indiscriminate Act Of Kindness<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><object height="350" width="425"><param value="http://youtube.com/v/uL8A-b9XZaI" name="movie"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://youtube.com/v/uL8A-b9XZaI" height="350" width="425"></embed></object><br />
A sign of an imagination informed by theology?</div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-3293296255815499662008-02-04T17:03:00.002+02:002011-06-10T17:12:16.069+02:00What should a Christian imagination look like?<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 100%;">“You can sing about the Light, or you can sing about what you see because of the Light. I prefer the latter.” ~ T-Bone Burnett</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“I would rather be told an R-rated truth, than a G-rated lie” ~ Ken Gire, author of <i>Reflections on the Movies: Hearing God in the Unlikeliest of Places</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m going to be honest with you…I find that blatantly “Christian” music/books/art (to clarify, let’s just say that by this I mean anything one would usually find in one’s local Christian bookstore) is often just a matter of “singing about the Light” over and over (to use T-Bone’s great image) or just another avenue for “evangelizing” which after a while becomes trite and shallow. My frustration is not that I don’t think this stuff has its place, it’s that this has such a monopoly on what the evangelical Christians I know sing, listen to, read, and look at (perhaps this is an unfair generalization, but it does seem to accurately describe the folks I interact with daily). I’ve been wondering what effect this seemingly one-dimensional approach has on us? So here are my questions that I would love to hear your thoughts on:</div><div class="MsoNormal">What does it mean for a Christian to have a "Christian imagination"? What is the role of the imagination for living the Christian life? What is its role in the arts? What should the "Christian arts" (if we want to argue that there should be such a thing) look like? What would the purpose be for them?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-17382511793051543302008-01-31T21:00:00.002+02:002011-06-10T18:14:27.839+02:00Revealing who we are, what surrounds us, and what we hope for:<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: bold;">Apocalyptic playlist 2007</div>“a.poc.a.lypse – a disclosure regarded as revelation” ~ Webster’s Dictionary<br />
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“The prophet was an individual who said No to his society, condemning its habits and assumptions, its complacency, waywardness, and syncretism. He was often compelled to proclaim the very opposite of what his heart expected.” ~ Abraham Heschel, The Propehts<br />
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Here are the songs that I found most revealing from 2007 about the human condition, the forces we are caught up in, and our deepest yearnings. Feel free to comment or post your own “apocalyptic” songs.<br />
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10. We’ve Got Everything – Modest Mouse<br />
A nice reminder that part of human nature is to believe that we know more than we do and we are REALLY confident about what we (don’t) know (see the overconfidence phenomenon and the research around belief perseverance in any General Psychology textbook). While it’s not quite the Christian virtue of humility, perhaps lyrics like the following move us closer? “We've got everything, we've got everything, we've got everything down to a science, so I guess we know everything”.<br />
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9. Who Do You Love? – Ted Leo and the Pharmacists<br />
“But who do you love? Who do you love? Who do you love? And so goes the most of our freedom of speech: we live for the city, we work for the beach.<br />
And when the weekend seems to be just out of reach, just make the most of what you’re paid, dear. Your love’s a ghost, and that’s why we’re delayed here.”<br />
Seems like Jesus put this in a different form, “you cannot love both God and mammon”, and while this song doesn’t seem to be some deep profession of faith, at least it is asking the right question.<br />
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8. The Trumpet Child – Over the Rhine<br />
The lyrics speak for themselves…enjoy:<br />
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The trumpet child will blow his horn<br />
Will blast the sky till it’s reborn<br />
With Gabriel’s power and Satchmo’s grace<br />
He will surprise the human race<br />
The trumpet he will use to blow<br />
Is being fashioned out of fire<br />
The mouthpiece is a glowing coal<br />
The bell a burst of wild desire<br />
The trumpet child will riff on love<br />
Thelonious notes from up above<br />
He’ll improvise a kingdom come<br />
Accompanied by a different drum<br />
The trumpet child will banquet here<br />
Until the lost are truly found<br />
A thousand days, a thousand years<br />
Nobody knows for sure how long<br />
The rich forget about their gold<br />
The meek and mild are strangely bold<br />
A lion lies beside a lamb<br />
And licks a murderer’s outstretched hand<br />
The trumpet child will lift a glass<br />
His bride now leaning in at last<br />
His final aim to fill with joy<br />
The earth that man all but destroyed<br />
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7. Bodysnatchers – Radiohead<br />
Nobody reminds us of the forces that surround us which have the potential to take us over more than Radiohead has done throughout their career. This is just a fantastically creepy and paranoid song reminding us that our “selves” are often not totally our own.<br />
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6. Innocent bones – Iron and Wine<br />
Perhaps the most gently sung roundhouse kick to the face of the past year, asserting that platitudes don’t cut it when one looks at all of the suffering in the world. The best line in the song? “There ain’t a penthouse Christian wants the pain of the scab, but they all want the scar. How every mouth sings of what it’s without, so we all sing of love”<br />
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5. The Prayer – Bloc Party<br />
A great song exposing our narcissistic desires in a culture where charisma, charm, and being noticed rules…titling the song “The Prayer” was just genius!<br />
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Lord give me grace and dancing feet<br />
And the power to impress<br />
Lord give me grace and dancing feet<br />
Let me outshine the moon<br />
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Is it so wrong to crave recognition?<br />
Second best, runner-up<br />
Is it so wrong to want rewarding?<br />
To want more than is given to you?<br />
Than is given to you<br />
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Tonight make me unstoppable<br />
And I will charm, I will slice<br />
I will dazzle them with my wit<br />
Tonight make me unstoppable<br />
And I will charm, I will slice<br />
I will dazzle, I will outshine them all<br />
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4. The Picture – Son Volt<br />
First off, Son Volt’s album “The Search” was my favorite album of the year. Second off, connecting mercy to the end of the journey is beautifully done, but for now, the picture is dirty. Here are the lyrics:<br />
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Hurricanes in December-earthquakes in the heartland<br />
Bad air index on a flashing warning sign<br />
Bound for trouble-the picture is dirty<br />
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We'll know when we get there<br />
If we'll find mercy<br />
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Flotsam and Jetsam in charge of the agency<br />
Where truth gets twisted in danger of dissolving<br />
When war is profit and profit is war<br />
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We'll know when we get there<br />
If we'll find mercy<br />
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Certified minds exacting a toll<br />
Trying to fit a square block in a round hole<br />
A heart of darkness facing 1000 bloodshot eyes<br />
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We'll know when we get there<br />
If we'll find mercy<br />
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3. Temptation of Adam – Josh Ritter<br />
So in J.R.’s world the Garden of Eden is now found in a missile silo where the temptation is whether or not to destroy the world for the exclusive love of the other because of uncertainty about whether that love could survive elsewhere…what a fantastic allusion!<br />
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2. Intervention – Arcade Fire<br />
As the band has noted, their album “Neon Bible” is a critique of faith, but one done by people who have not given up on faith. Some stinging lyrics include:<br />
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Been working for the church<br />
While your life falls apart.<br />
Singing hallelujah with the fear in your heart<br />
Every spark of friendship and love<br />
Will die without a home<br />
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Ouch…but do we need to hear this and take it to heart?<br />
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1. Apartment Story – The National<br />
I see this as a biting critique of American life, plus it’s really catchy!<br />
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Be still for a second while I try and try to pin your flowers on<br />
Can you carry my drink I have everything else<br />
I can tie my tie all by myself<br />
I’m getting tied, I’m forgetting why<br />
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Oh we’re so disarming darling, everything we did believe<br />
is diving diving diving diving off the balcony<br />
Tired and wired we ruin too easy<br />
sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave<br />
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Hold ourselves together with our arms around the stereo for hours<br />
While it sings to itself or whatever it does<br />
when it sings to itself of its long lost loves<br />
I’m getting tied, I’m forgetting why<br />
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Tired and wired we ruin too easy<br />
sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave<br />
but I’ll be with you behind the couch when they come<br />
on a different day just like this one<br />
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We’ll stay inside til somebody finds us<br />
do whatever the TV tells us<br />
stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz for days<br />
We’ll stay inside til somebody finds us<br />
do whatever the TV tells us<br />
stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz<br />
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so worry not<br />
all things are well<br />
we’ll be alright<br />
we have our looks and perfume<br />
<br />
stay inside til somebody finds us<br />
do whatever the TV tells us<br />
stay inside our rosy-minded fuzz<br />
so worry not<br />
all things are well<br />
we’ll be alright<br />
we have our looks and perfume onRonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-55828604950765831982007-03-24T15:17:00.001+02:002011-01-04T18:11:01.956+02:00The way of the Spartans vs. the way of the Cross: Some Lenten reflections on the movie “300”<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbUowDZc9D4LfoyPq-5ac0HjBeDFYwgTDYDpRuGq_OgfiUhQL2Hgt-jCcNNw5HM_ZdeAz-byXGW-pUMG9pr29vYsaY3k7Qk97ncsEegUskVId8swJWmt_nQpxkAMccQ-dWASMVLd6Ho79Z/s1600-h/christ-cross.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5045480002085644018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbUowDZc9D4LfoyPq-5ac0HjBeDFYwgTDYDpRuGq_OgfiUhQL2Hgt-jCcNNw5HM_ZdeAz-byXGW-pUMG9pr29vYsaY3k7Qk97ncsEegUskVId8swJWmt_nQpxkAMccQ-dWASMVLd6Ho79Z/s320/christ-cross.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" /></a><br />
“300” is an action-packed stylized rendition of Frank Miller’s graphic comic book of the same name. While the movie is getting all kinds of acclaim for the “cool” way it is shot (which does bring to life the graphic comic book character, I will admit), I am going to be a contrary voice on this aspect of it. For me, it felt like I was watching a video game which created an unhelpful distance between me and the story. The plethora of violence was easy to step back from because it was so obviously computerized and unrealistic (which is part of the point of the way it is shot, I know). The question that I wondered about regarding this aspect of the movie was, “is this a good thing that I am able to view violence in this distant of a manner?” I was struck by the contrast between the manner in which I “watched” (as an outsider unaffected by the acts of violence) “300” and the manner in which I felt like I participated in and was horrified by the violence in “Saving Private Ryan” where the cinematography did not allow the viewer to escape to any safe distance.<br />
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This led me to reflect about the moral worldviews that are perhaps behind the two films. Both films, in many ways, seem to lead the viewer to ponder the question of what is worth fighting for and the manner in which freedom and liberty have been won through the lives of warriors who were willing to die. For me, “300” left me with a sense of the inevitability of violence and that it is just the way things are, thus the distance created through the manner it was shot helped to only reinforce this notion (in existential terms, it did not face us with the reality of the abyss). On the other hand, “Saving Private Ryan” opened up questions about the horror and awfulness of violence, as well as a more authentic empathy and respect for the experiences of those who fought in WWII. The “in your face” cinematography of Spielberg allowed for a questioning of whether this is the kind of world we wanted and truly forced us to stare into the abyss of violence.<br />
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In the midst of this, the Church is currently observing the Lenten season and while I admire the way that Spielberg attempt’s to display the sacredness of life in the middle of violence, I cannot help but think about the ways that violence and power are often presented as the only solution to the problems of life, evil, and oppression and the manner in which the Cross stands as a radical, and hardly followed, alternative. The finest and most profound moment of “300” for me was when Xerxes meets King Leonidas for the first time. During their conversation there is a creepy moment where Leonidas has his back turned to Xerxes and Xerxes puts his hand on Leonidas’ shoulder and in a soft, seductive voice begins to list all of the things he will provide for Leonidas in terms of wealth and power if only Leonidas will bow down to him. My thoughts immediately went to Satan’s temptation of Christ in the wilderness and how this was a beautiful symbolization of the creepy and seductive way in which temptation occurs. While both Leonidas and Christ say “NO” in no uncertain terms to this temptation, the manner in which they go about resisting and fighting oppressive power is totally opposite. (As a side note: I am not one to cite Wikepedia, but I find it interesting that in the entry for Leonidas, a descendant of Hercules, it is mentioned that as part of the story of Sparta an oracle had prophesied that Sparta would be saved through the death of one of her kings…a descendant of Hercules. This brings even more of a strong oppositional viewpoint between the manner in which Leonidas “saves” Sparta through fighting with violence to his death and Christ’s fighting with love to his death). Leonidas and his soldiers meet violence with violence and die in gallant and honorable fashion in the face of overwhelming odds. Christ, alone, meets violence with love and forgiveness and dies a humiliating death on a cross reserved for thieves and the dregs of society. Which worldview are we most convinced of? When I look around at the evangelical church (my context) I’m not sure that we reflect the way of the Cross as much as we do the way of the Spartans. And I’m not sure we can have it both ways like many in the evangelical church desire…there is something that seems really out of whack when we can read in “Wild at Heart” about the fatherly advice for a young boy to push another boy down when they are being picked on and view that as a good, Christian, male response. While I thought the whole WWJD? phenomenon was quickly turned into a commercial enterprise, it does seems like it is a question we might want to occasionally ask ourselves, particularly when I want to place my boot up alongside someone’s grill.<br />
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When I’m honest, I’d rather go down like Leonidas (and Peter) with a sword in my hand, but my conviction that love does overcome evil leads me to now see this as another way that I am in need of transformation. Actively loving and suffering is much more difficult and it forces me to fall back into the absolutely terrifying experience of <em>trusting</em> that God really is the One who overcomes evil with love, death with life, and the closed past with the open future.Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-52638989270096337842007-03-18T21:09:00.003+02:002011-06-10T18:13:36.823+02:00The Empty Self Meets Satan<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><object height="350" width="425"><param value='http://youtube.com/v/4QkV-AoF2cI' name='movie'></param><embed height='350' width='425' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' src='http://youtube.com/v/4QkV-AoF2cI'></embed></object><br />
What I love about Wilco is their ability to "name" the powers that consume us (pun intended). Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the evangelical church has that same ability to illuminate the "powers and principalities"...thank God for Wilco and their faithfulness in reminding us that the road to Hell is shiny and often involves insatiable desires to shop. Check out this brilliant video interpretation of Wilco's song "Hell is Chrome" (It reminds me a little bit of Radiohead's video for "Fake Plastic Trees")!</div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-77041440843310580752007-03-18T16:11:00.001+02:002011-06-10T17:12:49.632+02:00I am not a machine!<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><object height='350' width='425'><param value='http://youtube.com/v/1nMHGyR_i8g' name='movie'></param><embed height='350' width='425' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' src='http://youtube.com/v/1nMHGyR_i8g'></embed></object></p><p>Wolf Parade's video for "Modern World". A protest against the dehumanization of modernity...Martin Buber where are you?</p></div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-78266260018998608662007-03-10T19:29:00.001+02:002011-06-10T17:13:52.143+02:00Is there anything beyond me? : Implications of American language games (H & S)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4vkUMVMsVHPz7VnB5uhlP7MAQa9_pMGRls3WUIk_SjA9byNOhwTNLjrmXpuETbeDW0miS0CBAuE3G5l36riGSivMWbLxuJ8u6lJNiiIezQabz7YaSJFvkVNTpSjV_wbyVSjC2Ib99C_IU/s1600-h/Habits+of+the+heart.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040350474685889314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4vkUMVMsVHPz7VnB5uhlP7MAQa9_pMGRls3WUIk_SjA9byNOhwTNLjrmXpuETbeDW0miS0CBAuE3G5l36riGSivMWbLxuJ8u6lJNiiIezQabz7YaSJFvkVNTpSjV_wbyVSjC2Ib99C_IU/s320/Habits+of+the+heart.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
<div>Now that we have made it through the empiricists, rationalists, romantics, and existentialists and the manner in which they were all reacting to streams of thought in each of the other traditions, let’s step back and begin to examine some of the implications of their understandings of reality and human nature. The two primary streams we are going to trace out are the empiricist-inspired utilitarianism (which Gergen calls “modernism) and romantic-inspired expressivism (which Gergen calls “romanticism”) which are the guiding frameworks to much of our language today.<br />
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Utilitarianism assumes that people are primarily self-interested and hedonistic (attempt to gain pleasure and avoid pain). The goal, or the good life, in this framework is to find the greatest amount of pleasure for the least amount of pain. The manner of finding the greatest good is to enter into a rational calculus of costs/benefits analysis that will reveal the outcome. This is what underlies Gergen’s emphasis on modernism’s “form follows function”, that practicality (e.g. finding the balance between pleasure/pain or in this case cost and functionality versus aesthetic beauty) trumps everything else. If you read Ch. 2 in Gergen, he does a nice job tracing out the history and effects of modernism. Romanticism on the other hand, as a reaction to the empiricist’s and rationalist’s emphasis on rationality and “machine” metaphors, focuses on the uniqueness and “natural” impulses that lay deep within the individual and provide animation and passion for life. Here the greatest good is to live a life full of expressive feeling and passion that does not bend to the force of some type of rational calculus. Expressing one’s “true” “deep” “inner” self is what gives life meaning (e.g. think about Robin William's character in "Dead Poets Society" and the philosophy of "carpe diem").<br />
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While Gergen sees modernism as usurping the role of romantic constructions of the self, I find his analysis a little too linear here. Instead I think what we see is that both traditions work their way into the language and manner in which we understand ourselves and that both rely on a common understanding of the solitary individual that is the final arbiter of morality (here I am relying on an argument made by Robert Bellah and his colleagues from their book “Habits of the Heart”). Gergen’s conversational examples at the beginning of Ch. 2 give us a sense of the way that we all use these two traditions in our own day-to-day language. Here is where Bellah and his colleagues come in. They were interested in the primary “language games” that American’s used and the implications of those languages on how Americans understood things like civic duty, marriage, religion, and friendship. They concluded from their analysis of interviews with over 200 middle-class Americans that there were four “language games or moral traditions” being used by Americans. Two of these were pushed to the fringe and two were predominant. The moral traditions that they saw as not being used by many were what they termed the “biblical” tradition and the “republican” tradition. The biblical tradition displayed a commitment to the traditions and authority of the bible, whereas the republican tradition displayed a commitment to the community and the nation state (e.g. JFK’s quote, “ask not what your country can for you, but what you can do for your country"). What is common to both the biblical and republican traditions is a belief and a language that views authority or morality as being outside the individual and which commands the individual’s obedience.<br />
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The two predominant moral traditions that informed American’s understandings of the world and themselves were termed “utilitarian individualism” and “expressivist individualism”. As you can guess, utilitarian individualism reflected a language focused on benefits to self while expressivist individualism reflected a language focused on one’s feelings and expression of those feelings. Think about the way these latter two moral traditions inform us…how often do we enter into some type of cost/benefit analysis about whether we should take this class or be friends with this person? Or, how often do we make decisions just because it “feels right” or like people because of the way they make us feel inside? The problem that Bellah and his colleagues point out is that there is no way to understand commitment within these language systems. Why should we vote or participate in civic life if there is no tangible benefit to us or if the costs outweigh the benefit? Why should we stay in a marriage where we are not benefiting more than what we are “paying” into the marriage? Why should I stay in a marriage if I can’t express myself fully or feel like my “deep” feelings are brought out? We can even see how these two moral traditions impact Christianity. Should we continue with a ministry if it is not “effective”? What if I don’t feel “spiritual” during my time with God? Can we “worship” if there isn’t praise and worship music to create the right kind of “feelings”?<br />
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What I find illuminating about this analysis by Bellah and his colleagues is how much our language is influenced by individualistic assumptions that begin to effect the way we can understand relationships and commitments to things that may not necessarily benefit us in the tangible ways these traditions demand. What the biblical tradition does is to provide a language and understanding of reality that allows us to move beyond ourselves. I understand my marriage differently when I don’t describe it or think about it in terms of benefits or the opportunity to express myself, but as a sacrament that is to reflect the covenant that God makes with humanity (however hazy this reflection may be). This allows a “thick” “rich” descriptive language that shapes my reality different. Faithfulness rather than effectiveness becomes the goal and suddenly fidelity, patience, love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace enter into the relational picture in ways that utilitarian and expressive language cannot make room for because of the limits of radical individualism. I hope this makes sense and helps you as you read Gergen and attempt to make sense of this material.</div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-10234832708129677412007-03-07T21:32:00.000+02:002011-06-10T17:14:32.543+02:00Unabashedly pro-human, but are Christians even paying attention? Or, we don’t need to exegete the culture, the culture just needs Jesus<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilF0ZE7YpnjHrGFFpVH7fpczhUmTLE2gsBrSgvRh6leTG0Q6B2Txjpe6rOYRt4gmemOwgWPKFmcO-9O8JjMTBobCXku1X2S0NX3g2rEU17Od1cQYN6Nvcqsm_Iv0QrX3vTo3_fA696H6LZ/s1600-h/jackie_earle_haley11.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039269514021860114" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 142px" height="153" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilF0ZE7YpnjHrGFFpVH7fpczhUmTLE2gsBrSgvRh6leTG0Q6B2Txjpe6rOYRt4gmemOwgWPKFmcO-9O8JjMTBobCXku1X2S0NX3g2rEU17Od1cQYN6Nvcqsm_Iv0QrX3vTo3_fA696H6LZ/s320/jackie_earle_haley11.jpg" width="257" border="0" /></a> ...Or, how Hollywood is reminding Christianity of it’s convictions, Or, Ron has too much time on his hands in Romania, Or, Why does Sufjan Stevens do this?<br /><br />One of my favorite professors at Fuller Theological Seminar (who also happened to be the president), Richard Mouw, had this way of weaving into all of his classes the theme of the need for Christians to “exegete the culture”. He would use the Apostle Paul’s example on Mars Hill in Athens, where Paul wanders around the city noting the religious symbols and statues and uses that to than build a bridge to his audience as he tells them about God, as the prototype for this type of cultural exegesis. He would talk about Madonna in class (so much so that this became a joke as we would wait for the next Madonna reference) and how interested he was in the questions her music brought up and why her music seemed to resonate with so many. He didn’t agree with the answers she gave, but he totally took her and the questions she was asking seriously. His understanding of exegeting the culture totally reframed the manner in which I watched movies and TV, listened to music, and read books. This stance forced me to <em>listen</em> carefully to the questions and issues that pop culture is wrestling with and attempting to answer and has made watching movies and TV, listening to music, and reading books so much more enriching and provoking.<br /><br />Which brings me to a triumvirate of movies which Christians may write off (because there is lots of cussing, sexuality, and disturbing material), but they do so at their own peril and to their own detriment. The movies are American Beauty, Magnolia, and Little Children and the questions they are asking are central for Christians. These three movies provide a biting and existentially rich critique of American cultural life and the hollowness that it brings, as well as a move towards finding humanness in all. In the midst of awful, but human, subject matter these films display empathically the flaws of the characters so that one can still see them as human. What each movie exposed were my own tendencies to write people off…I didn’t like Kevin Spacey’s objectification of a teen-age cheerleader, Tom Cruise’s misogyny, nor Jack Earle Haley’s sexual interest in children…but what each movie did was portray these awful displays as profoundly human, as something that could be empathized with (which is different from a blind “acceptance”) and, ultimately, as saying something about each of us. In portraying the characters in this light it seems like there is a wrestling with the question of whether we can ever write someone off. Our culture (including unfortunately the Church) seems to lend itself to a type of categorizing that can be deafeningly isolating and dehumanizing and these movies seem to illuminate and name that dynamic. There seems to be something profoundly Christian about this reframing that refuses to let categories and dehumanization reign. It reminds me of a poor Jewish man who saw humanity in Samaritans, prostitutes, the crippled, and the demon possessed and the life and healing that flowed in the breaking down of all these categories. There are bridges to be built…but is anyone listening?Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-8115496448046055102007-02-28T20:22:00.000+02:002011-06-10T17:14:48.432+02:00So you think empiricism and rationalism are dead?: New faces for an old argument (another H & S post)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh60zTML4TcdYhHV7SIvz4Ih1hP6_nevW8N4dwcBuLFDkUFaRBdmQ1fyYGKnFhPHAKxlKvSUc6BPfeRfz9lw5y_7W5_KMb7lA-tDxtdoNN07sCZBoqKMj7C4Ir1VeVG1AxDPLOG4DaEMQab/s1600-h/pinker+blank+slate.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036653369195906466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh60zTML4TcdYhHV7SIvz4Ih1hP6_nevW8N4dwcBuLFDkUFaRBdmQ1fyYGKnFhPHAKxlKvSUc6BPfeRfz9lw5y_7W5_KMb7lA-tDxtdoNN07sCZBoqKMj7C4Ir1VeVG1AxDPLOG4DaEMQab/s320/pinker+blank+slate.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Some folks might wonder why a psychology major would have to take a class like History and Systems of Psychology…I mean, seriously, what do these old philosophers have to do with contemporary psychology? Well, in a word, everything. Let’s take as an example, the great intellectual throw down between empiricism and rationalism. Empiricists (think John Locke, James Mill, Julien de La Mettrie) believed that humanity was born a “blank slate” and everything that came to populate the mind was a matter of experience. Here we see experience acting on the mind like a stamp on clay. The mind, for the empiricists, was passive and acted in an automatic manner. Thus, associations became the primary mechanism for how humans learned things (hmmm…I wonder what famous psychologist was influenced by this understanding of humanity? Can anyone say, “humans are complex pigeons”?).<br /><br />The rationalists, on the other hand, were skeptical that the mind was so passive. They understood that some type of psychological activity occurred between sensation and perception (again, I hope you are seeing that this in some ways is really just a continuation of Bacon’s idea that “biases” impact our interpretations of the natural world…hence his “idols”). This type of action and analyzing of sensations were understood by the rationalists to reflect innate capacities of the mind…that is, humans are definitely not born “blank”. This is where my lame attempt at a funny dialogue between Locke and Kant in the powerpoint lecture comes in. For Kant, how could an empiricist come up with the category of “all”? Humans have not experienced “everything” they can, yet they have this category. Kant thought this reflected some type of innate mental structure (category of thought) which operates on sensory data and impacts our perception and understanding of that data.<br /><br />This argument never really got “won” by either side. Instead what we have seen throughout the history of psychology is that both streams of thought continue on and both have had their “moments of glory” with various figures in psychology. Currently, we might talk about the inheritors of these two schools as still having the same old argument (and one which we are studying somewhat obliquely in our focus on “the self” throughout this semester). On the one hand we have the inheritors of some of the empiricist legacy, the social constructionists (like Cushman and Gergen). In their arguments, we can get a sense of their empiricist legacy. Both Cushman and Gergen deny that there is such a thing as human nature, therefore, it is humanity’s “embeddedness” within a cultural milieu that totally shapes the self. Do you see the connection? They, too, believe that humans are born “blank slate” and that cultural and historical experience are the totality of who we are as “selves”. On the other side of the fence are the inheritors of the rationalist legacy, the evolutionary psychology camp (like Steven Pinker, David Buss). Pinker wrote a book in the past few years (he was at Kenyon two or three years ago speaking…he was really good!) entitled “The Blank Slate” in which he uses an argument from evolutionary psychology and its research to blow up the old empiricist assumptions of humans being born a “blank slate” (you will need to read the book yourself to judge whether you think he is successful at this or not). Evolutionary psychology is similar to the rationalist’s argument in that humans are born with innate evolutionarily adaptive capacities (“modules” in the brain to use their lingo) that impact the way humans interpret data and behave. Of course, it is important to remember that between these two extremes there is a lot of ground! This is part of the fun of this argument…figuring out where you stand in this centuries old debate! </div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-3115750528141460362007-02-27T20:17:00.000+02:002011-06-10T17:15:54.131+02:00Lamenting modern existence: A soundtrack for Kenneth Gergen’s “The Saturated Self” (A post for my History and Systems students)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gaXLums_Ot1S2_mLnaXbYaiPfqyVqmCPlXJQFmo-1lX5Wl1m-7vohcTLd3zvKq4GRLzkw8C3ZF-g4aiXGaxcfIaIXYjYw53AMIgSLzYH5IxTTbAdCPkh3SNn9onVXQnNAzsEFWHsx1GC/s1600-h/Cake+-+Pressure+Chief+album.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036282176647349650" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 205px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 190px" height="235" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gaXLums_Ot1S2_mLnaXbYaiPfqyVqmCPlXJQFmo-1lX5Wl1m-7vohcTLd3zvKq4GRLzkw8C3ZF-g4aiXGaxcfIaIXYjYw53AMIgSLzYH5IxTTbAdCPkh3SNn9onVXQnNAzsEFWHsx1GC/s320/Cake+-+Pressure+Chief+album.jpg" width="252" border="0" /></a><br /><div>"No Phone" ~ Cake from “Pressure Chief”</div><br /><div>No phone No phone</div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div>No phone no phone</div><div><br />Ringing stinging</div><div>Jerking like a nervous bird</div><div>Rattling up against his cage</div><div>Calls to me thoughout the day</div><div>See the feathers fly</div><div><br />No phone No phone </div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div>No phone No phone </div><div>No phone no phone </div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div><br />Rhyming chiming </div><div>got me working all the time</div><div>Gives me such a worried mind</div><div>Now I don't want to seem unkind</div><div>But god (it's such a crime)</div><div><br />No phone No phone </div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div>No phone no phone</div><div>No phone No phone </div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div>No phone no phone</div><div><br />Shaking quaking</div><div>Waking me when I'm asleep</div><div>Never lets me go too deep</div><div>Summons me with just one beep</div><div>The price we pay is steep</div><div>I've been on fire</div><div>And yet I've still stayed frozen</div><div>So deep in the night</div><div>My smooth contemplations will always be broken</div><div>My deepest concerns will stay buried and unspoken</div><div>No I don't have any change but here's a few subway tokens</div><div><br />No phone No phone </div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div>No phone No phone </div><div>No phone no phone </div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div>No phone no phone</div><div>No phone No phone </div><div>I just want to be alone today</div><div>No phone No phone</div><div><br />I was listening to Cake’s “Pressure Chief” album today on the tram and realized that this album expresses the anguish and lamentation that living in our current times can bring with it and which Kenneth Gergen sees as the death throes of an old construction of the self. Gergen, a social psychologist, tracks the dissolution of the cohesive and unified self in his book “The Saturated Self”. What is happening to the unified self, you ask? Well, for Gergen the answer lies in the technological environment that bombards us with stimuli and potential relationships. Two hundred years ago people could grow up and die without ever leaving a 20 mile radius. There were a finite amount of relationships one could have (given the lack of mobility and new people one might meet) and one knew one’s obligations within those relationships. This is contrasted with the amount of relationships one can enter into now given the technology that we have. For example, I am in Romania making new friends and teaching a class because I got on an airplane, yet I can still talk to family and friends back home on the phone or by email or by blog. I am even “teaching” a class on-line because technology allows me to stay connected with students and I could, if I so desired, get on the internet and “chat” with various and multiple people from around the world.</div><br /><div><br />For Gergen, the now infinite (apparently) amount of relationships we can enter into because of technology “saturates” us and creates a multiplicity of self-experience, a fragmenting of the self if you will. Gergen calls this “multiphrenia” and contrasts this with the construction of the unified and cohesive self during the modern time period. What people have been used to is a solid and singular sense of self-experience which allows one to “believe” that there is a true and knowable essence to one’s self. With technological saturation, however, all this is thrown up for grabs and one begins to question whether there is a “true” essence to one’s self. It is through the music of Cake that I began to reflect on the pain and anguish of this transition and the impact of technology on us. On “Pressure Chief” one can hear and feel the existential awfulness of the effects of technology on human relationships and ourselves. What I find interesting is that Cake seems to make this into a moral question for us to reflect on, “is all of this technology a good thing for humans?” and seem to answer it in the negative. Gergen, on the other hand, does not seem too concerned (at this point in the book) about the morality of it all. In fact, he seems to celebrate this deconstruction of the old, as the new construction of the self opens up possibilities for new understandings of reality (this makes it sound too linear, when in actually the new realities of technology construct a new sense of self which feeds back into our sense of reality). The question for us in this class, is similar to Cake’s question, “is technology good for us?” and “is multiphrenia something to be celebrated?”. At this point, give “Pressure Chief” a listen to and experience the deep existential concerns that are brought up. Perhaps this would be a good backdrop to reading Gergen…a reminder that some folk’s celebrations are other’s despair.</div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-360786838282679827.post-37384863598184556922007-02-25T19:05:00.001+02:002011-06-10T17:18:47.580+02:00Endings and beginnings: A Lenten-influenced first word<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViPP5jTsqJXTBnFL84iEtQRSEtKORnrzRop66neLfy3afSVrDCghuqv4Qw-mXm_qAu97W8mrOeQyP4voilucQfLIFPU0BMX85n-3P9nCoxKzhY_SUSZ24wFzl85sPPbLCcEKbU9A4FK-K/s1600-h/Descent+into+hell+icon.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5035521095557596546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViPP5jTsqJXTBnFL84iEtQRSEtKORnrzRop66neLfy3afSVrDCghuqv4Qw-mXm_qAu97W8mrOeQyP4voilucQfLIFPU0BMX85n-3P9nCoxKzhY_SUSZ24wFzl85sPPbLCcEKbU9A4FK-K/s320/Descent+into+hell+icon.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" /></a><br />
<div>When I chose the title for this blog, I’m going to be honest, I was just trying to come up with a catchy name. I was in the middle of a “man crush” on Josh Ritter’s music and was reading Walter Brueggemann’s book “The prophetic imagination”. Brueggemann had an excellent analysis of the manner in which empires create a sense of the “eternal now” (the powerful belief system that there is nothing better that is ever going to come along) and Ritter’s song “Like Leaves and Kings” struck me as a wonderful reminder that arrogant assumptions about the permanence of things (e.g. Francis Fukuyama’s argument that we are at the end of history and that liberal democracy and capitalism are the final resting places) are incorrect and reflect a misguided hope.<br />
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But before I could get too smug and laugh at the misguided beliefs of “people like that” I was reminded that I, too, attempt to create a sense of permanence about myself. I live my life as if there will be unlimited tomorrows with little sense that my life will come to an end. I all too easily say “goodbye” to friends and loved ones with the assumption that, of course, there will be another “hello”. I let time and my schedule dictate my life while telling myself that there will be good “relational quality time” later on. This is where Lent punches me in the face. From Ash Wednesday where I am reminded that it is from ashes that I came and to ashes that I will go, to Good Friday where I see God the Father forsake God the Son to death, I am reminded that all things must fall.<br />
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In the little English-speaking Anglican church I am attending in Bucharest our pastor spoke of sin as anything that separates us from God, while salvation is that which brings us back into relationship with God. When we say that Jesus was without sin, we are meaning more than that Jesus never had a sinful behavior, we mean that Jesus was always in right relationship with God the Father through God the Holy Spirit. It is this solidarity with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit that Jesus is constantly tempted to abandon during his life. During the Lenten season the Church begins to contemplate on the multitude of ways that we, individually and corporately, are not in right relationship and solidarity with God. As I reflected on the patterns in my life that keep me from right relationship with God I began to yearn for an ending of those things. Those patterns that had established themselves as “permanent” and “just the way that I am” began to come into view as something else that needed to fall. And this is the terrifying part about Lent, because when things end we want to control and know what will begin. Christ’s passion in the Garden of Gethsemane becomes our own...endings aren’t often experienced as pure delight (even if they are the ending of negative things) and are more often experienced as anguish. Christ was so convinced about God’s promises and life that he went to the cross and experienced God-forsakenness trusting God to bring about something new. My hope and prayer for my brothers and sisters in Christ and myself during this Lenten season is that we will enter into the terror of “endings” and trust in the God of beginnings no matter where that leads.</div>Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11733887337396638942noreply@blogger.com1