What effect does the rate of technological change have on our institutions?

[Mustaphile]

I'm 53 now, and I definitely feel like I'm living in a world that is moving very fast. The rapidity of change is so fast, it is hard to envision what the future holds or how to integrate change.

This has become an interesting theme for me to ponder.

Religious ideas have been maintained across the centuries through institution and organization. I've come to appreciate the balance between tradition and progression. Tradition gives us stability across generations. It offers us security, safety and, utility.

Progressive forces, on the other hand, regenerate tradition when it becomes ineffective in the face of a changing environment.

So I guess some of my questions would be:

How ineffective are our institutions becoming in the face of rapid technological and social change?

Can we compare this to another time in history?

What are some abstractions that might find useful when wrestling with these ideas?

Lately, I've had the perception that some institutional forces are grasping to maintain control.

How do progressive forces work together with tradition to face towards a changing environment?

 

[Tolworth John]

Religious ideas have been maintained across the centuries through institution and organization. I've come to appreciate the balance between tradition and progression.

A question for you. Does the Truth ever change?
The follow on question is what is the truth?

Jesus said that he was the the Truth. He also said that he did not change.

How do progressive forces work together with tradition to face towards a changing environment?

How do progressive forces, which often deny the truth, work with concervative forces that hold to the truth?

 

[SkyWriting]

I'm 53 now, and I definitely feel like I'm living in a world that is moving very fast. The rapidity of change is so fast, it is hard to envision what the future holds or how to integrate change.

This has become an interesting theme for me to ponder.

Religious ideas have been maintained across the centuries through institution and organization. I've come to appreciate the balance between tradition and progression. Tradition gives us stability across generations. It offers us security, safety and, utility.

Progressive forces, on the other hand, regenerate tradition when it becomes ineffective in the face of a changing environment.

So I guess some of my questions would be:

How ineffective are our institutions becoming in the face of rapid technological and social change?

Can we compare this to another time in history?

What are some abstractions that might find useful when wrestling with these ideas?

Lately, I've had the perception that some institutional forces are grasping to maintain control.

How do progressive forces work together with tradition to face towards a changing environment?

Change is bad.
Change is good.

 

[Mustaphile]

A question for you. Does the Truth ever change?
The follow on question is what is the truth?

The first parts of your question concerning Truth or truth are philosophical questions that are still being debated to this day.

I don't think this is the topic for debating that particular point, although it certainly needs to be addressed. When seeking to find agreement, it is better to focus on those things which we have in common. Our shared understanding.

How do progressive forces, which often deny the truth, work with concervative forces that hold to the truth?

This question would be an example of how we can make assertions about people through identifying them with a group, rather than seeking to find out who they are as individuals, either alone or in a group.

So I would ask the question of you, what things do we hold in common?

Those are the things that will bring us together.

We both identify as Christians.

We both believe that Christianity offers hope and redemption to the lost.

Those are a few things we have in common.

 

[Mustaphile]

Change is bad.
Change is good.

Is it your habit to diminish conversation with one-liners, slogans, and jingoisms?

Change is change. It need not have any goodness or badness attendant to it.

 

[Tolworth John]

The first parts of your question concerning Truth or truth are philosophical questions that are still being debated to this day.

I don't think this is the topic for debating that particular point,

In one way yes it is a philosopical question, but in a more relevant and practical way it is the core of what you are asking.

Jesus is the truth and he represents unchanging truth so how do progessives show that Jesus and the truth he represents is unchanging.
for example Bishop Spong and his views on Jesus etc.

 

[Mustaphile]

In one way yes it is a philosopical question, but in a more relevant and practical way it is the core of what you are asking.

As I have proposed in an earlier post. First, we would need to identify what we have in common as a way of building a constructive conversation.

Let's examine your first example. Bishop Spong. I have never read Spong, but you would categorize me as a Spongian. Your categorization may or may not be accurate. We haven't yet taken the time to have a dialogue and find out who we are. The first assumption is that we have division between us. That is not really a great revelation. That is the obvious state of affairs. What is not known is what we have in common.

So let's start a dialogue. Does your church have issues with a changing world?

 

[Tolworth John]

So let's start a dialogue. Does your church have issues with a changing world?

Neither I nor the church I attend have issues with a changing world.
If by that you mean we are worried by change, but that doesn't mean that what we believe is changing because the world has changed.

John Spong claims he is a Christian yet he champions causes that historic Christianity has often fought tooth and nail against. Bishop Spong is well known for ordaining practising homosexuals, denying the bodily resurrection and virginal conception1 of Christ, and for deriving his moral code from modern human experience rather than the Bible.

That is a simple account of bishop spongs progressive views.

You are interested in promoting unity. The church I attend would not join with another church that promoted views like those above.
Before you ask yes we have been involved with different churches seeking to be active in promoting Christianity and we have been excluded from some church groups because it was deemed more important to have churches with views like spongs on board rather than churches with a concervative theology.

 

[hedrick]

The original question was technological change. I'm not convinced that technological change in itself has had serious effects. However cultural changes that are associated with them certainly have. Traditional Christianity in the US has assumed you're a member of a Church and attend regularly. People who don't are considered "Christmas and Easter Christians." This is relatively recent. Through most of US history, people were mostly Christian but also highly unchurched.

Changes in the last few decades have made it more and more difficult to convince even people who are Christians to come to church regularly. The Church simply isn't the center of our social lives anymore. These changes have hit liberal churches more than conservative ones. I suspect conservative Christians tend to live a more traditional life, as well as having more traditional beliefs. But it's affecting them as well.

One question I'm starting to propose to my church is whether it's feasible to have Christians that don't meet weekly, but who participate in specific activities that interest them, or whether people who don't are simply going to end up agnostics.

The issues in belief between conservative and liberal Christians don't seem to be directly based on technology, but more on the attitudes towards critical and scientific use of evidence. Of course technology resulted from this, so they're not unconnected.

 

[Tolworth John]

How ineffective are our institutions becoming in the face of rapid technological and social change?

The original question was technological change.

As you can see it was actually technological and social change.
Churches are, in my experience, embracing technology as they broadcast services over the net to house bound members and make services available to download.

How virtue reality will be adopted I don't know, but these toys are only usefull if people are prepared to be involved, whether that is weekly, bi weekly, monthly or what the enquirer/worshipper has to make some sort of comitment.

Strangly the comitment to weekly services is the easist to make as all others are an interuption of other nonchurch comitments.

 

[Monna]

Jesus is the truth and he represents unchanging truth so how do progessives show that Jesus and the truth he represents is unchanging.

IMHO Jesus had a very progressive attitude to people in his day. "progressive" is always relative: progress means change - and those who use it of themselves in particular always mean it as positive change. Probably the greatest "progressive" trait of Jesus as "the Truth" was the way he combined it with Grace. If you lived your life by Christ's definition of grace and truth, your life would be very progressive today - especially in our materialistic world. Especially from God's perspective.

We use truth in argumentation to win a point, to prove we are right and the other is wrong; in our judicial systems we want to get at the "truth" that so and so committed a crime, so that we feel justified in punishing him/her. Jesus, wanted us to acknowledge that the wrongs we commit are sin so that he can forgive and start healing us, - that is truth combined with grace. And the passage says that God "faithful and just" in taking this approach.

Traditions, when it comes down to it, are nothing more than our behavioural patterns. They change much more rapidly than we think. Traditions can be good or bad. Some traditions (like killing twins, or albinos, or practicing FGM ... or...) are downright evil... so holding onto traditions just because they are traditions is not really defensible.

For technology and society, read Jacques Ellul, who makes the point that the combination of globalisation and technology is leading to creation of a sort of mono-culture - displacing myriads of diverse cultures. It is so easy to see if you travel to big cities around the world and see the dominance of shopping malls and a narrowing set of brands. Wherever you go you see people walking the sidewalks with their faces buried in their cell phones, or sitting passively in front of TVs watching very similar shows... Jacques Ellul wrote "The Technological Society" and "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes."

 

[Tolworth John]

Jesus had a very progressive attitude to people in his day.

Yes he treated women as intelligent human beings with respect and dignity.

Probably the greatest "progressive" trait of Jesus as "the Truth" was the way he combined it with Grace.

Yes he was gracious in how he dealt with hurting suffering people.

But at no point did he act in a 'progressive' way towards the ten commandments, in fact in the surmon on the mount he changed the application from have we done to do we think that.

 

[Monna]

But at no point did he act in a 'progressive' way towards the ten commandments, in fact in the surmon on the mount he changed the application from have we done to do we think that.

From God's, and the truth's perspective, this is extremely progressive! He progresses from the letter of the law to the intent. And he goes from specific negatives that lead to conflicts over massives of confusing and opposing petty interpretations to two positive commandments that require taking responsibility for your intentions and actions (part of a process of maturation and growth)...and setting their application within myriads of different situations. This is progress.

The heart of being "progressive" depends on what you mean by the term itself.

 

[Tolworth John]

The heart of being "progressive" depends on what you mean by the term itself.

Read my post number 8 about the progressive views of a liberal 'christian' and you will understand what I mean by a progressive christian.

 

[Monna]

Read my post number 8 about the progressive views of a liberal 'christian' and you will understand what I mean by a progressive christian.

Do I undestand you to mean "progressive"= "lberal"?

 

[Mustaphile]

The issues in belief between conservative and liberal Christians don't seem to be directly based on technology, but more on the attitudes towards critical and scientific use of evidence. Of course technology resulted from this, so they're not unconnected.

This particular idea interests me. I spent many of my early years as a Christian struggling with institutional ideas that seemed at odds with science and critical thinking. At the same time, science was not answering questions of meaning for me. Bringing the two together has been a goal that I have pursued.

There is still a dichotomy because I think that the language used to communicate Christianity is archaic and in some respects cliched. A hope of mine is that we could over time develop new ways of telling the same stories that reveal the wisdom and deep meaning of scripture that are not at odds with the rational mind.

 

[Mustaphile]

You are interested in promoting unity. The church I attend would not join with another church that promoted views like those above.
Before you ask yes we have been involved with different churches seeking to be active in promoting Christianity and we have been excluded from some church groups because it was deemed more important to have churches with views like spongs on board rather than churches with a concervative theology.

It is important to act in ways that encourage personal integrity.

You mention that I am interested in promoting unity. I would like to see more people coming together through a dialogue. I don't think we are advancing ourselves when we refrain from interacting with those who hold opposing views. There are a lot of difficult discussions to be had, but we would improve skills at communicating and test the strength of our ideas. In isolation we can lose touch with what is real.

 

[Monna]

There is still a dichotomy because I think that the language used to communicate Christianity is archaic and in some respects cliched. A hope of mine is that we could over time develop new ways of telling the same stories that reveal the wisdom and deep meaning of scripture that are not at odds with the rational mind.

Amen. I have a very similar hope, desire, and a continuing search to find new ways of communicating truths that are far beyond "facts." We need modern parables.

As an exercise towards this... Imagine yourself having to translate the parables of Jesus into a hitherto unwritten language of people who have grown up in a city suburb of high-rise apartments (or slums if you like), no parks, no animals apart from cats, rats, dogs and pidgeons, with a no-cash economy. No TV, no radio, computers or phones. Their language has no words for creatures like sheep and lambs, lions, bears, wolves; there are words for some kinds of trees, but not olives, or figs. There has never been agriculture, in the sense of planting and reaping grains - only tubers like sweet potatoes and yams. How would you get the same messag across?

Then do it again for people who are entirely into computers, fantasy worlds of virtual reality, but also for young people who have seen thousands of animals on tv but have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy; between dinosaurs and creations of the Jurassic era, horses and cows of today, weird creatures shown in Star Wars and other Sci-Fi worlds.

 

[hedrick]

This particular idea interests me. I spent many of my early years as a Christian struggling with institutional ideas that seemed at odds with science and critical thinking. At the same time, science was not answering questions of meaning for me. Bringing the two together has been a goal that I have pursued.

There is still a dichotomy because I think that the language used to communicate Christianity is archaic and in some respects cliched. A hope of mine is that we could over time develop new ways of telling the same stories that reveal the wisdom and deep meaning of scripture that are not at odds with the rational mind.

I find that Jesus' teaching is less based on the specific period than the theology that was built up to explain it. In some ways I think the original Jewish context of Jesus' teaching is closer to us than the later Greek philosophical version.

 

[Mustaphile]

Amen. I have a very similar hope, desire, and a continuing search to find new ways of communicating truths that are far beyond "facts." We need modern parables.

I've been watching many videos on YouTube by Jonathan Pageau where he explores the symbolism in modern movies and symbolism in the Bible. He is from an Orthodox background and actually carves iconographic art as a profession. A very interesting guy. His brother is going to be releasing a book on symbolism.

Jonathan Pageau