I appreciate that… I read your blog because it encourages me to ask questions and to challenge and to try and think outside the box.

Jerry, I think I read a bit into the person who sent Jordon an email… and I reacted in a defensive way.

Jordon, I think in many ways your critic is kind of right, have you posted on the church five times in 2008?

Of course blogging and any kind of media has a certain aspect of opinion projection. I think of Instapundit and there is a belief system there that has boundaries and even in Christianity, there are boundaries of what you believe and don’t believe.

It’s an interesting topic.

I don’t think that the person who questioned me was wrong either. I disagreed a bit in that I don’t think discussion in the church is a professionally lead conversation but others disagree. I don’t know if either one of those beliefs is rigid or not. I do know I have a different idea of the Kingdom than others but again, that is in flux as I grow older.

Karl Barth wrote with some certainty before he backed away from it and wrote Church Dogmatics and Karl Rahner suggested that one write often while young so one has something to laugh as I grow older.

Even my own thinking has radically changed in the last decade.

I don’t know what I would do if I was in Brian’s situation but I don’t think he is doing it to sell out.

Laws are made and enforced in order to restrict social and individual behavior. Restrict is the operative word and a perfect description of what rigid beliefs do. You adhere to them because you think they are fundamental truths. You then impose, and project, them on others.

The enforcer of any law is also subject to upholding it, even though this does not always happen. In dictatorships, for example, those who enforce the law usually consider themselves ‘above it.’ Their purpose is to use it to rule over others, manipulate them, and reap personal benefits.

Rigid beliefs are not much different. You may think that you are ‘above’ your own rules, “I am in charge of this firm and it is others who need to respect me,” etc. In this way you resemble a dictator, but with one difference. When people do not abide by your rigid beliefs, you are deeply affected.

You rant and rave, raise your blood pressure, and maybe gain a victory by imposing your beliefs on others. In the meantime, your health and happiness is jeopardized. In this way you are slave and ‘victim’ of your own dictates.

It is possible to ‘make’ someone treat you in a way you deem polite. For example, it is a commonly held belief that “children should respect their elders.” Very often, when children are ‘made’ to act respectfully, they will rebel. The minute the parent’s back is turned they will say, or do, something disrespectful. The parent’s rigidity then achieves the antithesis of its aim. In this way, the type of respect given is not heartfelt and spontaneous, but artificial. The behavior they show you, and the feelings they have for you, will be in conflict.

Your rigid beliefs are a double blind. On the one hand, if your child does not act respectfully you consider it a slight. It pushes your “buttons” about being an effective parent who is in control. In turn, it is pushing their “buttons” about respect.

These will have evolved from the feedback and indoctrination you have given them. The connotation has nothing to do with true respect, which is an expression of compassion. Instead their “buttons” will be derived from the connotation that “people have power over me” and this means, “I am a powerless,” “I am weak.” Consequently, every time you enforce respect they will perceive the need to rebel. Their “buttons” require them to deflect the negative connotations respect triggers about themselves.

The child has now learned how to act towards you and learned how to feel about him/herself. Actions resulting from this indoctrination will never be from the heart, but from the head, and it’s “buttons.” They can now only show you ‘masks’ of respectfulness, all the while increasing the size of their “buttons” around the concept.

When rigid beliefs about manners are imposed on others, they will always lead to the antithesis of what you want. They disallow others to express themselves in their own unique way. Whether they rebel or succumb to your wishes, they are acting as a result of the pressure of your beliefs.

The particular ways in which respect manifest are incidental. There is no one way that is going to suit everyone. However, when acts of respect arise from the heart, you cannot go wrong. Any action arising from the heart is not distorted by beliefs, but spontaneous. These actions are in tune with your true nature. Even if they are misinterpreted, they can never be ‘wrong.’

I Enjoy reading your blog and can sense that your frustrations will only be your greatest strength in your journey of faith!

By the way I was in Toon last week and picked up a copy of ‘divine nobodies’ at McNally Robinson for $3.99… I think there was 3 copies left… You can find them in the ‘Christian Bargain’ rack, right by the music magazines!

Peace.

Right now, millennials are generalists and their connections aren’t single links, it’s more a case of overlapping matrices. Millennial emergents have a sense for all the elements – a millenial with seminary strengths will overlap with one with marketing strengths. But both will see the importance of the other, and figure out how to connect. They won’t dismiss the other for a perceived weakness in the palette of emerging pieces, they will include them for the strengths in the rest of the palette.

A lot of aging X’ers have fears that the millennials will push them out. They did not have the same environment their silent counterparts had, two generations earlier. Cheap oil and houses, stable jobs, good schools and a stable structured society for building relationships helped the silents. The X’ers did not get that; perhaps the Millennials can pull them together, just as the Boomers pulled the Silents into the Civil Rights movement.

Millennials aren’t like Boomers, they don’t have a “Don’t trust anyone over 30″ mindset. They want to include seminary/non-seminary and pastor/non-pastor types. X’ers – don’t deal yourselves out.

I’ve been meaning to comment that the posts about your work with the poor have been helpful and I hope they continue. I think the case could easily be made that those outside the traditional boundaries of church ministry- people who often have dedicated themselves to the poor- have historically had significant things to say to the church. In a landscape of professional ministry it is so important to hear from those who return from work smelling of “dog, cat, and human urine”.

BTW, people telling you what to write about, or not, on your blog is a good thing. It means they are engaged, but of a different opinion…that is a good thing, no?

and so appreciate you being my blog god-father

relevance..feh