The Crossroads of Christianity and Culture

The last post outlined one major reason that academics are biased - they remain true to the methods necessary to attain the goal of understanding reality. But that is only part of the story. Another part, and a source of considerable misunderstanding even in academia, is that in the 20th century both the emerging social sciences and the established physical sciences became politicized . This doesn’t mean that they became partisan. Rather scientists recognized that maintaining a stance of neutral objectivity toward the subject of their research and its effects was fundamentally immoral.  Bear in mind that the vast advances in chemistry and physics of the late nineteenth and early 20th century were almost immediately weaponized in two world wars. No scientist could escape the moral dilemmas posed by having their work used for the  destruction of human life on hitherto unimaginable scales - even if the ultimate goal was victory over tyranny or the defense of other human lives....

Of course they, just as pastors are biased, corporate leaders are biased, union organizers are biased and you, dear readers are biased. Any person or organization that is engaged in purposeful activity is biased, because purpose  demands bias. It demands focusing on some things and ignoring or even putting aside other things. A football player or a basketball player who is trying to win is biased against the views of sportswriters, fans in the stands, and possibly even his or her fellow teammates if they discourage him from staying focused on winning. And what about the classroom? Well when I teach about cross-cultural communication in a MA seminar I’m biased against viewpoints that deny the existence of cultural difference or maintain naive views of language. A class focused on preparing leaders for complex cultural organizations isn’t going to waste its time on freshmen linguistics. Or, to use another example, a class on wastewater management engineering isn’t a likely place to r...

Yesterday a Facebook post told the story of a United Methodist pastor whose license was revoked for performing a same sex marriage.  http://wlos.com/news/offbeat/chattanooga-pastor-fired-for-officiating-same-sex-wedding I quote the story directly " She said that her commitment to be their pastor meant that she should be with them through this day." If you follow stories like these you’ll note that this theme “commitment to be their pastor” is quite common. Pastoral commitment to a same-sex couple demands being pastor at their wedding.  Let’s look at another story. “Two big churches seek to leave denomination.”  http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/2-big-churches-seek-exit-from-denomination Again a quote, "Lead pastors of both churches expressed frustration with the denomination’s intensifying homosexuality debate, calling it a “distraction” from ministry.” And Rev. Bryan Collier, “we can reach even more people for Christ if we weren’t distracted by this argument.” ...

At a recent dialogue I again encountered a phenomena that one sees frequently in Christian circles. At issue was what Jews and Christians understand by the idea of God as Father. I was talking about Christianity and a well known Orthodox Rabbi was talking about Judaism.  When time came for Q&A a person in the audience proceeded to read a text from the Christian Old Testament, the part the Jews call the Torah, and then told the Rabbi that because the text says that the children of Israel were afraid (the scene is at Sinai) then Jews must be afraid of God.  No amount of persuasion could convince this person that Jews interpret the text differently, that the Talmud and not merely the Torah is a critical part of a Jewish consciousness, and that the rabbi wasn’t just being obstinate. If the rabbi's understanding of Judaism was different from what the scripture clearly said about Judaism then the rabbi must be wrong. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. You’ll see what wa...