No response for the Steve Nash interview? Come on this is 'history in the making'. The soon-to-be three time MVP. Just amazing.
So I was thinking. I know some are saying, "Really Paul, you have another thought or opinion?" Kelly and I are thinking of traveling overseas this summer to work with the Youth in a church. Every time I travel to different areas I find the same issues in and outside of the building of the church, which have to do with our American ideals, or our American culture. We sometimes skip over the fact that almost everyday for twelve straight years, I stood up and saluted a flag, in which I "pledged" allegiance to. Is this important to discuss or not? I have really been studying the human makeup lately, and I am starting to realize that we become whatever it is that we follow.
The contribution of the social justice movement is incredible, but I also think that it needs to move beyond simply social justice, primarily in how we relate to one another. Are we still doing social justice from an individualistic perspective? I am not separating the physical implications of social justice from the spiritual implications as many have done, but I want to integrate them, since "I am a spiritual, physical, intellectual being."
For example, scripture talks about the love between spouses in a marriage, and the apostle Paul uses this illustration in regards to Christ and the church. What does that mean? Does that mean that the allegiance that I have towards my wife is the same as Christ to the church? Or does he actually mean that we should be relating to one another the same way that Christ related to us, and he uses the illustration of marriage to do that? Meaning should the starting point be 'the church', and marriage is the illustration, not the other way around.
Maybe I am too idealistic, but when books such as, Theology for the Community of God by Stanley Grenz say that we can not be truly human outside of community, because, 'it is within community I come to know myself as an individual, through identity formation, by the telling of personal narratives.' I love those statements because of their truth.
7 comments:
Paul, I love the final quote you mentioned -- that it is only within community that we can truly come to know ourselves. Like you say, it is sooo true. (I also wanted to post on your blog since I know you're checking every ten minutes to see if someone commented.)
I have also found that, despite its truthfulness, that statement is rarely lived deeply. Yes, even in Christian community. There are a myriad of reasons for this, obviously, but I find that it always has a lot to do with how self-centered we are! We are more concerned with what people might think of us that with actually challenging someone in a loving way. We are afraid to let serious things about ourselves out of our mouths because they're painful, and we want to avoid that. We disagree with others yet never go deeper into the argument because we don't know how to have conflict. We have community for the sake of community and never actually do anything. Just a few examples...
In my own life many of these have been true, my comfort reigns over all else, unfortunately. Real knowing of oneself does occur in real community, but is the knowing of oneself really even the goal? I think not, and that's the self-centeredness that trips us up: we unite around the knowing of things and not around the loving of things.
A united community that moves in love will forge deeper paths together and individually, opening channels long forgotten inside people. A community like this requires real depth of character, integrity, and a willingness to be laid bare before others. I have heard people say things like, "real community is messy," and those cliche statements drive me crazy! I don't even know what people mean when they say, "real community." I am often frustrated by that.
What is community, what is church... I get sick of those questions very quickly because we end up spending more time indulging the never-ending question than actually doing anything! Aahhh! I should probably just start my own blog and stop this insanely long response... :)
--dmp
I am sure you think that i love disagreeing so let me begin with an agreement. I am 100% behind the idea that we are community minded people. There are people that think they can be loners but that is not how God created us to be. Did he send any of the disciples out alone? No, he always sent them out in pairs and that is what Paul did after Christs' ascendion. We got a lot of wacky ideas from Liberty but one really good one that i got from one of the prof's is that God's political structure is not communism but communalism. That has always stuck with me because in communism people are forced to share with one another but with communalism people give of their things to share. Much like the first church did. Wouldn't it be great to move and love each other in that fashion! Something that has really impacted me lately as you know is this finacial class that Angela and i are taking. What i have learned is that as long as i am in debt i am enslaved to that rather than being able to freely give to others. While i have two mortgage payments, a car payment, a 2nd mortgage, and other debts, i am enslaved to them rather than to Christ. I would, of course, say that i am a slave to Christ first but really, i cannot move freely to help others because i am chained to these debts. That has been very convicting because i have always thought of home debt as being a necessary evil. It can be justified but is that how God wants us to live? "Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law." Romans 13:8. i say this not to point fingers at anyone but myself. Angela and i are taking our finances very seriously and are fighting hard against our debt to make sure that we are not slaves to anyone but Christ so that we can be those community minded people that God called us to be. Anyone want to join me?
DMP: thanks for the blog post, because yes, it is true I check it a lot, but it is every 'fifteen' minutes. :)
Conflict is so difficult, because I think that we have been taught for so long that Jesus is about peace. We have a huge dualistic world view so that it is hard for us to see that Jesus is about peace, so that we are able to conflict, without actually destroying other people.
I notice that I hesitate from disagreeing, because I don't know how to have disagreements, or to present what I think in a manner of respect for others.
I totally agree with you that a community that moves in love requires a real depth of character, integrity, and a willingness to be laid bare before others.
The split between the public and private domains of our lives, do not interact well with community. Boundaries are important so that I don't have to live the private and public life, which is in all senses usually impossible anyways.
I do think that, (I won't say 'real community', but community is messy), because life is messy. We try to order life, which ends up making us hard, cold, indifferent to the lives of other people. I really appreciate the response. Thanks.
Troy, thanks for the post. I also think that communalism is the word which describes Christian community, not communism, because we as Christians are 'inviting people to participate in the rule and reign of God's kingdom in the earth, manifest in Christ.'
This is not a forcing of our attitudes and beliefs about community onto others, but a proclamation of a new way of living, a new way of being. That is why it is so important to live in community, because it is where I become truly human, and find my personality.
Humans can not exist outside of community. We need only look at babies and children to understand how important the social aspect is to humans.
At some point during our lives, culture tells us, "Ok, you need to stop making friends and being social, and start to become an adult, it is time to grow up." I found that this is usually right after college graduation. :)
I appreciate your thoughts, and thanks for the word, "Communalism", which I believe is important.
I love Paul Pace
your number 1 fan
paul,
off the subject (and the serious side of things) but i just wanted to know if you knew what year it was???
two thousand SABEN!
jen blackwell
Jen Blackwell,
Really, let's be serious, Alabama, or Bama as it's supposedly called by the late Bear Bryant hasn't had a really great running back since Forrest Gump played for Bama in the 60's.
Instead of Bama spending all that money to bring in a new football coach in Nick Saban, they should have invested in some sort of design on their football helmets instead of a plain number. Maybe then players would be excited to play football. I think that a giant crimson wave (tide)the helmet would be great. LOL.
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