"Inside conservative evangelicalism, selected stories and myths of America are both reinforced and treated as a proxy for theological beliefs. A great deal of my own pilgrimage of faith has been marked by an unlearning of the story of America I had been taught."
Good work. I appreciate this. One question raised for me… learning the “truth about America” requires, to some extent, questioning received facts, and doing your own research. What would you say to the person who equates what conspiracists do, with the, shall we call it deconstruction, that we’ve had to do? Maybe better, what’s the positive epistemological ground that needs to replace that of conspiracism?
For me, that positive ground was primarily the liberating recognition enacted by a Christianity that does not endorse received, constructed histories. I think that gave rise to, for me, a “re-cognition” to stories told about America from below or beyond. If I took another crack at that sentence, I’d probably flesh it out with this in mind. I do have a less static “truth of America” in mind, as there can never be a single, totalizing authorized account as I understand it!
Hmm, I’ll have to give this some thought! I do think Christian faith witnesses to the God who makes this sort of recognition possible? But as far as conceiving of that recognition as a sort of static ground, I’m not sure. I’m recalling non-Christians who have certainly developed testimony on America apart from the grammar of Christian witness. I owe you a drink next time our paths cross!
Too many of these 'Christians' seem to create their Creator’s nature in their own fallible and often angry, vengeful image. They will, for example, proclaim at publicized protests that ‘God hates’ such-and-such group of people. (One wonders how the Divine actually feels when observing all of this extreme theism and theological insanity?)
Often being the most vocal, they make very bad examples of Christ’s fundamental meaning/truth, especially to the young and impressionable.
Christ was viciously murdered largely because he did not in the least behave in accordance with corrupted human conduct and expectation — and in particular because he was nowhere near being the angry and sometimes even bloodthirsty behemoth so many theists seemingly wanted or needed their Creator and savior to be and therefore believed he’d have to be.
This is great, Jared! I only recently was able to name one of the things that was so tiring in my evangelical upbringing. The constant vigilance that looked for evil in everything... based on association! It was as if we needed to know who the facts benefited before we could deem them safe and true, whereas whatever nonsense our favorite people said could just be blindly trusted.
Christ’s nature and teachings even left John the Baptist, who believed in him as the savior, bewildered by his apparently contradictory version of the Hebraic messiah, with which John had been raised. Perhaps most perplexing was the Biblical Jesus’ revolutionary teaching of non-violently offering the other cheek as the proper response to being physically assaulted by one’s enemy. The Biblical Jesus also most profoundly washed his disciples’ feet, the act clearly revealing that he took corporeal form to serve.
Perhaps some ‘Christians’ even find inconvenient, if not plainly annoying, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the New Testament’s Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s God.
But for many of us, Godly greatness need not be defined as the ability to destroy and harshly punish, as opposed to the willingness and compacity for compassionate forgiveness, non-violence and humility.
Once again they are employing the tactic they were claiming to fight - indoctrination. It seems every tactic conservatives have taught their adherents to fear in the evil Left is the very thing they have planned to employ all along.
A mentally as well as physically sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. The wellbeing of all children needs to be of great importance to us all, regardless of whether we’re doing a great job with our own developing children.
Mindlessly ‘minding our own business’ often proves humanly devastating. Yet, largely owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, however, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or (the even more self-serving) ‘What’s in it for me as a taxpayer?’
... I believe that to possibly proactively avoid invasive State removal of children in cases of dysfunctional familial situations, we should be willing to try something unconventional to prevent future dysfunctional family situations: Teach our high school students the science of how a child’s mind develops and therefor its susceptibility to flawed or dysfunctional daily environments, notably in family life.
Rather than being about instilling ‘values’, such child-development science curriculum should be about understanding, not just information memorization. It may be an alternative to the dysfunction seemingly increasingly prevalent.
When I asked a Canadian teachers union official whether there was any such curriculum taught, he unfortunately immediately replied there was not. When I asked the reason for its absence and whether it may be due to the subject matter being too controversial, he replied with a simple “Yes”.
This strongly suggests there are philosophical thus political obstacles to teaching students even such crucial life skills as healthy parenting through understanding child development. But what troubles me is, how teaching this would be considered more controversial thus a non-starter than teaching sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum, as is already taught here.
... Although society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, it can educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those intending to remain childless.
"Inside conservative evangelicalism, selected stories and myths of America are both reinforced and treated as a proxy for theological beliefs. A great deal of my own pilgrimage of faith has been marked by an unlearning of the story of America I had been taught."
Good work. I appreciate this. One question raised for me… learning the “truth about America” requires, to some extent, questioning received facts, and doing your own research. What would you say to the person who equates what conspiracists do, with the, shall we call it deconstruction, that we’ve had to do? Maybe better, what’s the positive epistemological ground that needs to replace that of conspiracism?
For me, that positive ground was primarily the liberating recognition enacted by a Christianity that does not endorse received, constructed histories. I think that gave rise to, for me, a “re-cognition” to stories told about America from below or beyond. If I took another crack at that sentence, I’d probably flesh it out with this in mind. I do have a less static “truth of America” in mind, as there can never be a single, totalizing authorized account as I understand it!
For sure. So the epistemic ground would be—at the bottom of it all—a properly grounded Christianity?
Hmm, I’ll have to give this some thought! I do think Christian faith witnesses to the God who makes this sort of recognition possible? But as far as conceiving of that recognition as a sort of static ground, I’m not sure. I’m recalling non-Christians who have certainly developed testimony on America apart from the grammar of Christian witness. I owe you a drink next time our paths cross!
I appreciate the topic. You’ve got my wheels spinning!
Too many of these 'Christians' seem to create their Creator’s nature in their own fallible and often angry, vengeful image. They will, for example, proclaim at publicized protests that ‘God hates’ such-and-such group of people. (One wonders how the Divine actually feels when observing all of this extreme theism and theological insanity?)
Often being the most vocal, they make very bad examples of Christ’s fundamental meaning/truth, especially to the young and impressionable.
Christ was viciously murdered largely because he did not in the least behave in accordance with corrupted human conduct and expectation — and in particular because he was nowhere near being the angry and sometimes even bloodthirsty behemoth so many theists seemingly wanted or needed their Creator and savior to be and therefore believed he’d have to be.
This is great, Jared! I only recently was able to name one of the things that was so tiring in my evangelical upbringing. The constant vigilance that looked for evil in everything... based on association! It was as if we needed to know who the facts benefited before we could deem them safe and true, whereas whatever nonsense our favorite people said could just be blindly trusted.
Christ’s nature and teachings even left John the Baptist, who believed in him as the savior, bewildered by his apparently contradictory version of the Hebraic messiah, with which John had been raised. Perhaps most perplexing was the Biblical Jesus’ revolutionary teaching of non-violently offering the other cheek as the proper response to being physically assaulted by one’s enemy. The Biblical Jesus also most profoundly washed his disciples’ feet, the act clearly revealing that he took corporeal form to serve.
Perhaps some ‘Christians’ even find inconvenient, if not plainly annoying, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the New Testament’s Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s God.
But for many of us, Godly greatness need not be defined as the ability to destroy and harshly punish, as opposed to the willingness and compacity for compassionate forgiveness, non-violence and humility.
Once again they are employing the tactic they were claiming to fight - indoctrination. It seems every tactic conservatives have taught their adherents to fear in the evil Left is the very thing they have planned to employ all along.
A mentally as well as physically sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. The wellbeing of all children needs to be of great importance to us all, regardless of whether we’re doing a great job with our own developing children.
Mindlessly ‘minding our own business’ often proves humanly devastating. Yet, largely owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, however, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or (the even more self-serving) ‘What’s in it for me as a taxpayer?’
... I believe that to possibly proactively avoid invasive State removal of children in cases of dysfunctional familial situations, we should be willing to try something unconventional to prevent future dysfunctional family situations: Teach our high school students the science of how a child’s mind develops and therefor its susceptibility to flawed or dysfunctional daily environments, notably in family life.
Rather than being about instilling ‘values’, such child-development science curriculum should be about understanding, not just information memorization. It may be an alternative to the dysfunction seemingly increasingly prevalent.
When I asked a Canadian teachers union official whether there was any such curriculum taught, he unfortunately immediately replied there was not. When I asked the reason for its absence and whether it may be due to the subject matter being too controversial, he replied with a simple “Yes”.
This strongly suggests there are philosophical thus political obstacles to teaching students even such crucial life skills as healthy parenting through understanding child development. But what troubles me is, how teaching this would be considered more controversial thus a non-starter than teaching sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum, as is already taught here.
... Although society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, it can educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those intending to remain childless.