W. Davd Phillips

Changing Culture: The Perils of Idealism

David Phillips — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:42:36 +0000

I am continuing to work through the book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davidson Hunter.

One the face of it, there is significant merit to the emphasis on ideas, the individual and to personal piety. Filtered through the legacy of German idealism, however, problems occur. The image this perspective offers is of culture, somehow, free-floating in the ether of consciousness. Change consciousness and one changes culture. But are ideas, values, and worldviews singularly important to cultural change? Is rational consistency the best way to resist worldviews different from one’s own and the most effective way to persuade others?

Idealism misconstrues agency, implying the capacity to bring about influence where that capacity may not exist or where it may only be weak. Idealism underplays the importance of history and historical forces and its interaction with culture as it is lived and experienced. In addition, idealism ignores the way culture is generated, coordinated, and organized. Therefore, it underrates how difficult it is to penetrate culture and influence its direction. As well, idealism mistakenly imputes a logic and rationality to culture where such linearity and reasonableness does not exist but rather contingency and accident. It communicates the message that if people just pay attention, learn better, be more consistent, they will understand better the challenges in our world today. If they have the right values, believe the right things, embrace the right worldview, they will be better equipped to engage those challenges. If they have the courage to actually jump in the fray and there choose more wisely and act more decisively, they will rise to and overcome those challenges and change the world.

There is a great irony in this perspective. One the of the great virtues of the worldview approach to culture is its rejection of dualism – the division between secular and sacred, public and private, objective and subjective; the idea that the truth of Christianity is really only religious truth, relevant to one’s personal life but mostly irrelevant to other spheres of life. But here is the irony: the idealism expressed in the worldview approach is, in fact, one manifestation of the very dualism its proponents are trying to challenge. Idealism reinforces that dualism by ignoring the institutional nature of culture and disregarding the way culture is embedded in structures of power.

In sum, idealism leads to a naive perspective about the nature of culture and its dynamics that is fatal. Every strategy and tactic for changing the world that is based on this working theory of culture and cultural change will fail.

To be serious about changing culture, the first step is to discard the prevailing view of culture and cultural change and start from scratch.

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The Benefit of Pain

David Phillips — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:04:59 +0000

I set out to accomplish a simple task: rotate my tires. They needed it, and I can do those kinds of things. In fact, I enjoy doing those things. My dad is a mechanic and I grew up rebuilding engines, and changing oil, and bleeding brakes. There were even some jobs he would let me do on my own for others, which I really enjoyed and for which I got paid. My first car was a repo we bought from the bank. My dad and I changed out the old diesel engine, bought an engine & transmission from the junk yard, and rebuilt it. I miss the way that carburetor would open up when I pressed it to the floor!

On this day, however, I ended up hurting my back. I thought it was just a muscle strain, but as the week went on it got worse. Finally, one night I was on the floor and I rolled onto my back, feeling a lump on the lower right side of my spine. This, combined with the top of my right foot feeling asleep, got me nervous. So off to the emergency room we went. It was a case of sciatica.

However, sciatica is a symptom of something else. An MRI showed that I have a bulging disc pressing against the sciatic nerve which is causing pain down my entire leg and into my foot.

While the vicodin helps dull the pain slightly, pain has been part of my body for at least a month now. So in the mindset of never letting a crisis go to waste, I began thinking about the value of pain. Pain is a useful part of the human body. It sends us messages about our body. We don’t like pain, but pain has a role in our lives and one that we need to consider.

Pain lets us know something is wrong.
I have had this pain in my foot for several years. It randomly wakes me up at night, throbbing and burning and tingling for between 1 to 3 hours. Then it will go away. It might happen at 11 pm, 2 am, or 4 am. It doesn’t care that I might have to get up early or that I really needed some sleep or that I had just fallen asleep. Late last year, when I finally decided I couldn’t live with the pain any more, I went to the doctor. I’ve had all kinds of tests, blood work, and name-brand medication prescribed to me, and this pain shall not be deterred. I set out on a new exercise routine about 8 weeks ago, and I discovered the more I exercised, the less this pain attacked me. However, my back was hurting more and more and a pain returned down the right leg. And then I decided to rotate my tires.

Pain, lets us know that the body is not functioning properly. All pain is an indication that something is wrong either in the body or the mind. Many times our pain is a result of injury the body has received. I tore my ACL in my knee playing football. My father eliminated part of his index finger in a freak table saw incident. At other times, it’s caused by a virus or bacteria and we get sick at our stomachs.

Pain can also be a result of age or wear and tear on the body. Eventually, joints wear out and we can get arthritis. These days, trading that old, worn out knee or hip joint, for a shiny new metal one is fairly common. It reduces the pain or eliminates it altogether.

Some pain, however, is a result of emotional issues. There has been a whole science developed around the physiological affects of psychological issues called psychophysiology. While psychophysiology was a general broad field of research in the 1960s and 1970s, it has now become quite specialized, and has branced into subspecializations. For example, Social Psychophysiology, Cardiovascular Psychophysiology, Cognitive Psychophysiology, and Cognitive Neuroscience.

Psychologists are interested in why we may fear spiders and physiologists may be interested in the input/output system of the amygdala. A psychophysiologist will attempt to link the two. A psychophysiologist may look at how exposure to a stressful situation will produce a result in the cardiovascular system such as a change in heart rate, change in blood pressure, or a stroke. It is this perspective of studying the intersection of mind and body that makes psychophysiologists most distinct.

Stress can cause muscle tension, be a contributor to cancer, and result in weight gain, diarrhea, ulcers, insomnia, or narcolepsy. Broken emotions cause us to self-medicate in some way, often resulting in addictions that destroy the health of the body.

It is when we move past the symptoms that we can discover the source of our pain. It could be as simple as the MRI showing a bulging disc into the nerve tract that is causing pain. But it could be something more. It could be that the stress that reveals itself in the shoulder muscles is a result of an insecurity or emotional unhealthiness that results from fear.

When we have this pain, we can either ignore it or do something about it.

Q4U: What pain exists in your life? Are you willing to explore the emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational elements of your life to discover what is really at issue? You might find that Holy Rewired would be helpful in helping you uncover your feelings, thoughts, and actions.

What Hinders Christians from Changing the World?

David Phillips — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:32:30 +0000

I am continuing to work through the book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davidson Hunter.

To share the Gospel is to share the gift of life; the making of disciples is foundational to the Christian faith. And peoples’ lives do change profoundly when they receive the gift of grace – their attitudes and behaviors are transformed and, in turn, they can and often do have a positive effect on those around them. In a similar vein, no one would deny that law, public policy, and politics are worthy vocations for Christians to pursue. The pursuit of justice and righteousness in these vocations can give glory to God and provide great service to many. Finally, social movements oriented toward moral reform have done enormous good in the past and still do in the present. But do they change the world? The answer is both yes and no; but mostly no. Cultures simply do not change in these ways, or at least no in the way people think they do.

In a previous post, I described how getting people to have the right the heart and mind, the right values and worldview, was the prevailing way to change culture. However, if culture were simply about hearts and minds, then the influence of various minorities – gays and Jews, for example – would be relatively insignificant. And Christians would have enormous influence in shaping law, public policy and social strategy. But this is not the case.

The advocates of the dominant strategies of cultural change all tend to agree, in effect, that the reason Christians do not have more influence in shaping the culture is that Christians are just not trying hard enough, acting decisively enough, or believing thoroughly or Christianly enough. The issue for them is that Christians need to be more committed. They need to embrace more fully the Christian worldview. The burden of responsibility and action resides with the individual Christian and it is up to them to be better and do more to change the world.

The problem is twofold. First, Christians just aren’t Christian enough. Christians don’t think with an adequate enough Christian worldview. They are fuzzy-minded. They do not pray enough, and they are lazy in their duties as believers. In the same way, there are not enough people who do fully embrace God’s call on their lives, praying, understanding, and working to change the world.

But is this it?

The Real Problem
The real problem of this working theory of culture and cultural change and the strategies that derive from it, originate form a tradition deep in Western thought. This tradition reaches back to Plato, though it finds its most modern and powerful articulation in the German Enlightenment – the philosophical thinking of Immanuel Kant, Gotthold Lessing, Johann Gottfgried Herder, Johann van Goethe, Friedrich Shiller, and Georg Hegel. It is idealism.

Idealism is a principle and tradition in metaphysics that maintains that something “ideal” or nonphysical is the primary reality. It isn’t as though nature or the material world doesn’t exist or isn’t important, but what has greater ontological significance and is certainly prior to nature and the physical are ideas – in short, the “mind”. We know this, say advocates, in part because material reality cannot be known independent of the conscious and knowing self. Physical objects are just pale imitations of the idea and ideals that represent them. If this is so, then it is ideals that move history.

There are two elements of idealism that have created a distinctly American and Protestant version of it. Woven into idealism is the element of individualism, the view that the autonomous and rational individual is the key player in social change. The tradition of individualism is actually much broader as it reaches down from the Protestant Reformation into its more contemporary secular manifestations, as a principle and tradition in epistemology and ethics in which the unique, unrepeatable person is seen as the primary cause and beneficiary of action. Linked with this is another element, Christian Pietism, the view that the most important goal in life is having one’s being right before God. Theologically, there is nothing exceptional to this, but as an element of a working theory of culture, that is different. In this, pietism is sympathetic to idealism in the way that it extends idealism into the realm of the religious, spiritual, and supernatural conceptions of reality. Mind and spirit are fused. For the Christian, pietism is a natural link to both idealism and individualism. But in the end, the larger source of the problem with the prevailing view of culture and cultural change is idealism.

21 Century Enlightenment

David Phillips — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:43:55 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo

Matthew Taylor explores the meaning of 21st century enlightenment, how the idea might help us meet the challenges we face today, and the role that can be played by organisations such as the RSA.

A Common View of Culture

David Phillips — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:30:26 +0000

While the percentage is declining, USAmerica is still a nation that largely identifies itself as Christian. Despite having a predominately Christian self-identification, we have a decreasing expression of Christian ethics. Many would be repulsed by our claim to be a Christian nation because of the disproportionate amount of violence, sexual promiscuity, greed, and other unchristian behaviors. In a country where the majority of people are against abortion or homosexual marriage, USAmerica is a country that is on the former is entrenched in law and the latter is on the way to becoming part of the USAmerican culture.

Why the disparity in identification and culture? One answer could be that Christians have misunderstood what culture is and what is required to change culture. Let’s begin to explore culture and what it takes to transform culture.

There are many opinions about culture, but there is one predominant understanding of culture in the public arena. This view is reflected by politicians and by people of all faiths. The substance of this view can be expressed this way: The essence of culture is found in the hearts and minds of individuals, what are typically called “values.” Values are mere preferences: inclinations toward or conscious attachment to what is good and right and true. Culture is manifested in the ways these values guide actual decisions we individuals make about how to live. In this view, a culture is made up of the accumulation of values held by the majority of people and the choices made on the basis of those values.

A slightly more sophisticated version of this is found in the view of those who speak of “worldviews.” A worldview, as Chuck Colson has defined it, is “the sum total of our beliefs about the world, the ‘big picture’ that directs our daily decisions and actions… [it] is a way of seeing and comprehending all reality.” In this way, Christianity is not just a set of doctrines and beliefs and the values based on those doctrines and beliefs, but a wide-ranging and all-inclusive understanding of the world. Christianity is thus a worldview in competition with other worldviews. Though driven by ideas, worldviews exist primarily in the hearts and minds and imaginations of individuals and take form in choices made by individuals. As Colson puts it, “Our choices are shaped by what we believe is real and true, right and wrong, good and beautiful. Our choices are shaped by our worldview.” In this light, he can conclude, ” history is little more than the recoding of the rise and fall of the great ideas – the worldviews – that form our values and move us to act.” “If we are going to succeed in restoring a moral influence in American culture,” he says,” we nee to “cultivate a Christian mind” and “live out a biblical worldview”.

The resulting argument becomes this: If we are going to change our culture for the better, we need more and more individuals possessing the right values and the right worldview. When this happens, more and more people will make better choices and culture will become virtuous. As Colson argues, “A virtuous society can be created only by virtuous people, whose individual consciences guard their behavior and hold the accountable.” And so he poses the question directly: “How can we redeem a culture?… from the inside out. From the individual to the family to the community, and then outward in ever widening ripples.” Change the values of the common person for the better and good society will follow in turn.

It is this implicit view of culture that motivates certain communities of Christians, especially evangelicals, to focus on evangelism as their primary means of changing the world. Evangelism is not only a means of saving souls but of transforming individuals and, in doing so, changing culture. The logic behind this position is the belief that the problems society faces can be traced back to a loss of spiritual vitality and moral conduct. Whatever the sin is, the unhappy truth is that people have lost their moral bearings. Only by changing the hearts of individuals who engage in such acts or who sanction them, then, can real headway b made in stepping back from the precipice of social degeneration. The logic goes this way: if people’s hearts and minds are converted, they will have the right values, they will make the right choices, and the culture will change in turn.

Q4U: Do you agree with this understanding of culture and change? What is your understanding of culture and cultural change?

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Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 PDT

McKnight interviews McLaren

David Phillips — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:30:16 +0000

Scot McKnight interviewed Brian McLaren at Q Chicago, discussing issues such as McLaren’s “provocative ambiguity,” consistency (or lack thereof) in his writings, whether he is a universalist, and his paradigm shift in understanding the biblical narrative.

Some have noted that McClaren was a bit condescending to McKnight. What are your thoughts on this conversation?

You can watch the entire interview, below.

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New Features and Opportunities

David Phillips — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:15:44 +0000

If you have visited the site recently, you noticed a new look. If you visit the site now, you will also notice a mailing list sign-up form on the left side of the site. I am going to create a member’s only area with some posts available only to those who sign up for the monthly newsletter. But I’m not merely trying to get your email address. Nope, I am not doing that at all. I’m not sure what I would do with your email address anyway. What I’m actually going to do is give you something for signing up.

I am going to start offering posts only available to people who have a password. That password will only be found in the monthly newsletter. I will also be offering, from time to time, a free book. Instructions on obtaining that book will be detailed in the newsletter.

The first book will be 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam. I have recently completed an interview with her and that will be a member’s only post. I also have an interview lined up with Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, and who recently spoke at the Willow Creek Leadership Conference. That might be a free book give away. I’m thinking that a free copy of Len Sweet’s new book Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There may be a free book give away.

To gain access to these posts and giveaways, simply signup for the newsletter.

Note: you will only be able to get one free giveaway per year.

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Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 PDT

Zizek on Charity and Cultural Capitalism

David Phillips — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:17:51 +0000

In this short RSA Animate, philosopher Slavoj Zizek criticizes charity and what he calls “cultural capitalism”—think TOMS shoes or Fair Trade coffee—as remedies that only perpetuate an immoral economic system.

Very provocative and well reasoned.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

Evangelism through social capital

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Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:00 PDT

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Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:00 PDT

How to Migrate Your Entire Google Account to a New One

A Powerful Nudge in the God Direction

David Phillips — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:16:00 +0000

Len Sweet, in his classic, imagery-intensive writing style provides the church the best understanding of evangelism as discipleship I have ever read. Indeed, Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There may be the most important book on evangelism you will ever read. Without question.

I’ve read a lot of Len’s books; some I loved, some I liked, and there may be one or two I didn’t care for. His new book, however, may just be the most important book he has written to date.

Nudge is a mixture of evangelism and semiotics. What is semiotics? “Semiotics is the art of making connections, linking disparate dots, seeing the relationships between apparently trifling matters, and turning them into metonymic moments.”

The Greek word for signs is semeia (from which we get semiotics). The world is ruled by signs. And we all do semiotics, whether we know it or not. Waiting on tables is semiotics, with every interaction an exchange of visual and verbal markers. For instance, the crumpled up napkin in the plate? A sign that we are finished with our meal.

Semiotics is a Jesus word. In fact, Jesus told us to learn and do semiotics. He said in Matthew 16:1-4:

Some Pharisees and Sadducees were on him again, pressing him to prove himself to them. He told them, “You have a saying that goes, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.’ You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—why can’t you read the signs of the times? An evil and wanton generation is always wanting signs and wonders. The only sign you’ll get is the Jonah sign.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

We are directed to learn to read the signs of the times and the handwriting on the wall. God’s hand is still writing on walls today and evangelists are people with red-sky-at-morning sensitivities.

The “signs of the times,” Sweet says, are “the signs of the Spirit’s activity in the world. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because it could not read the signs: ‘You did not recognize the time of your visitation.’” Nudgers are those who can connect signs and their significance.

Nudge is the “invitation to move beyond church-centric Christianity to a holistic, omnipresent theology of the signified reign of God.” If God can speak through a burning bush, through plagues of locust, through Balaam’s ass, through Babylon, through blood on doorposts, through Peter, through Judas, through Pilate’s jesting sign hung over the head of our Lord, and through the cross itself, then God can and will speak through art deco architecture, abstract expressionism, classic literature like Virgil’s Aeneid, mass media, disease, Disney, hunger, Twitter, etc. The question is never, “Is God using this?” Rather, the question is, “What is my/our invitation upon hearing?”

The prophets were semioticians. In fact, the prophets were often signs themselves as God used them to demonstrate his love (Hosea marrying Gomer), his displeasure, and his judgment. They also interpreted God’s activity through the signs (Daniel’s handwriting on the wall).

Nudge is not an attempt to build a theology of semiotics. It is to remind Christians that Christianity is a symbol system; a semiotic network of stories and images, rituals and concepts, embodiments and enactments. The key to any symbol system is the semiotic ability to read signs.

By nudging, evangelists are constantly scanning the environment (religious, cultural, economic) for evidences of divine activity. Nudge is helping other people see the activity of God in their own life, manifesting Christ in a moment of mutual knowing. Nudging is the natural consequence of being with someone in a moment and wishing them to join you in recognizing a God-moment. Sometimes that recognition results in “bringing in the sheaves.” But nudging is primarily about planting seeds.

Evangelists nudge the Jesus in people to sit up and take notice. Everyone is created in the image of God, and in nudging, we help people divine activity of God in their life.

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Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:00 PDT

The Animated Drive: Images of Motivation

David Phillips — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:09:37 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

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Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 PDT

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Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 PDT

W. Davd Phillips

Changing Culture: The Perils of Idealism

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The Benefit of Pain

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What Hinders Christians from Changing the World?

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21 Century Enlightenment

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A Common View of Culture

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McKnight interviews McLaren

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New Features and Opportunities

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Zizek on Charity and Cultural Capitalism

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A Powerful Nudge in the God Direction

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The Animated Drive: Images of Motivation

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Links for 2010-07-29 [del.icio.us]

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