Sacred Cows and burgers

“Sacred cows make the best hamburger” Mark Twain

“Christian Faith and Reason are Mutually exclusive.” This was the first premise that I saw refuted using clearly defined critical thinking. My friend Ed Bowen took Comparative and Contrastive thinking and refuted the premise that Reason excluded the Christian Faith and vice-versa. It gave names to how I already thought and also called me out on my dominant way of thinking.

I’m a naturally combative Contrastive thinker.  I’ll test the validity of someone’s beliefs and assertions by first seeking to find a weak spot that can be falsified. I’m considered and self-nominate as an open minded person only because I am unconditionally willing to embrace any new idea that can be proven to be reasonably sound, through repeated stress testing, even if that means a full 180 degree conversion to how I used to think or what I once held sacred. The downside for anyone trying to get me to embrace a new idea is that they must endure an intense battering of their idea.

 

I think one of the great gifts of being a high school drop-out is that formal education and the educational tools that follow in its wake came into my life at a comparatively late date. So as a 41 year old discovering the names Comparative and Contrastive Thinking, for the well worn tools within my intellectual toolkit, I relish the subtle nuances that are held within such delicate and delicious identities. It’s as if two old comfortable work colleagues unexpectedly decided to formally introduce themselves and their lineage.

In the next 4 weeks Ed will explain how these two darling thinking tools use Coherent Consistency; Corresponding Consistency, Compatible Consistency and Comprehensive Consistency in evaluating ideas.

The reason for the Mark Twain quote (that came to me via White Collar) at the start is that accepting Reason and it’s rather tawdry bedfellow Apologetics as a interwoven part of my Christian faith has sent a well loved sacred cow to the butcher. While I feel a lingering sense of nostalgic loyalty for the beast, I’m finding my intellect’s saliva-gland unusually stimulated by the idea of the new type of burger being prepared for lunch!

So my poorly used teachers of Apologetics finally have a new convert. I'm willing to accept their right to be part of the discussion on what constitutes a compelling world view or spiritual idea.

What sacred cows have you sent to the butcher lately?

Triple-braided Cord



Ecclesiastes 4:12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is
not easily broken.

I made a conscious decision when I began this blog to work hard to ensure it was not incomprehensible to those outside my own world-view of Christianity. I eschewed Christian insider language and the temptation to assume the beliefs and behaviors I hold dear are universally held. I have other venues and platforms to speak in the insider's language of Christianity and have places where those of my own world-view congregate to read or hear what I believe and how I behave because of my deeply held convictions stemming from my world-view.

But in writing in that other place I sent out an idea that I feel belongs here as well despite the danger it may be incomprehensible to those outside Christianity. So if this sounds like gibberish to you, please excuse the lapse, but I hope I can transcend the sub-cultural linguistic and intellectual barriers between world-views and communicate a concept that I believe exists in many places under many guises.

I spend my life devoted to helping late adolescents become inter dependant adults. Many feel the largest challenge is helping them see that their spiritual identity in this journey to adulthood is as essential as the physical or emotional aspects of their growth. But in many ways I believe the greater challenge is the belief that their goal in becoming adults is to become independent not inter dependant.  Among those who believe my world-view there is a growing sense of individualism that is reaching pandemic proportions.

Ecclesiastes is one of the wisdom books in the Christian Bible and in the text I quoted it speaks of the benefits of community, of accepting the burden and the advantages of being inter dependent on others. It brings safety in numbers but also the constraining aspects of being responsible for others.

I confess it isn’t only the younger generation who reach for independence in our new age of self-orientation. I see in myself and my peers a growing trend to be self-reliant; to be wearied of waiting for others to catch up or to find myself unhealthily straining beyond my capacity rather than admit weakness or vulnerability by calling out for help from those beside me. I’m 41 and in that time I’ve too often accepted the need to look after me and mine rather than binding myself to community that may limit my own dreams or desires. Then I bemoan the fact that the young men and women I walk with are reluctant to tie themselves to communities of inter dependent adults!

 The sacred texts that I follow in my Christian world-view demand an approach of inter dependence and self-denial for the common good. Yet I find myself to be far too independent and far from willing to accept the limitations and vulnerabilities of being tied to other adults in a constraining community of diverse ideas and goals.

 I’m certain other world-views extoll the virtues of selfless giving to the communal good of humanity and the other inhabitants of this planet. But despite the many exhortations from a multitude of divergent world-views I’m shocked by the reluctance we in the western world have to give ourselves to others in inter dependent commitment.

 My old mentor and leader back in Northern Ireland repeatedly reminded me that a person can only lead and teach others to the limit of their own reach and place. Before I can extoll the virtues of inter dependence to young men and women perhaps I should revisit my own willingness to be tied by a triple braided cord!