my contemplations

I’m not a human rights expert, so maybe I got this all wrong. But in our context at least, I think I got it right: Does humanism and human rights have anything to do with each other? Human rights isn’t received very positively in our Afrikaner Calvinist communities. In the common tongue it’s associated with “criminal rights”, protecting criminals who actually took away worse rights from others. And this is not the religious or political right only! Now, South Africa do have the second most liberal official understanding of human rights in the world (second to The Netherlands only), so maybe people anywhere wouldn’t have been that fond of our way of doing, I don’t know, I’m just observing for now.

Humanism is not being thought of very positively either. It’s associated with atheism generally. I remember times when I’ve been talking about social justice, that Christians would say that we must just be wary that we are not “only humanising” society, instead of “Christianizing” (obviously, my own choice of capital letter probably point out that I have my biases as well). Again, this is not only the evangelicals, but steady, mainline reformed Christians who are actively searching for social justice.

So, do the church have anything to say about human rights? About humanism? My first reactions when I heard these kind of sayings was that as Christians we should at least be humanists, at least take human rights very seriously. A few years later, I still think the same things. Maybe this was the reason I found it quite interesting when a lecturer told me the other day that Barth in his theology said that we should work for the humanization of society. I actually read a paper Barth delivered shortly after WW2, but forgot about it until that comment. What I remember is a very strong Christian approach (although this was delivered at a secular converence on humanization), but a very strong voice saying that the church has something to say about humanism, about the humanization of society.

I say this still sitting within a tradition that know the evangelicals very well, and that know christendom very well, and that sometimes forget that the ideals associated with these is gone. Within this new world, what should the church do? In South Africa the government is realizing that churches actually has abilities to help with the humanizing of society which the state do not. We have an infrastructure which the state do not. And should we play this role? Yes and no…

But for today, I’ll stick with yes. Yes, we need to work for the humanization of society, and we need to do this together with humanist organization, with human rights groups, we are fighting for the same thing. We need to do what we can, in South Africa also where the are of government cannot reach. There is a no, which says that we still need to be a critical voice, although a positive critical voice, and that we should not simply become the social work arm of a government, this church-state relations have cost us dearly, but I’ll leave that for another day.

We need to be a critical voice, a voice for the voiceless, for those who cannot speak for themselves. The strangers in our land, the strangers in our neighbouring country. We need to be a voice against governments when they do not recognize peoples human rights, do not recognize the humanization of society. But on the other hand we need to work with everyone else in the common goal of humanizing society.

This post is part of the May 2008 synchroblog on human rights, and below you will also find a list of the other synchroblog contributions from a group of Christian bloggers who post on the same general topic on the same day. We also join thousands of other bloggers around the world in blogging for human rights.

Other Synchrobloggers

• Adam Gonnerman on Guantanamo Bay in the eyes of God.
• Julie Clawson on Human rights and Christian comfort.
• Steve Hayes on Human rights and Christian faith.
• Steve Hayes (again!) on Human Rights and Amnesty International.
• Alan Knox on My charade is the event of the season.
• Sally Coleman on If.
• Sonja Andrews on Human wrongs.
• Cobus van Wyngaard on Christianization and Humanization and our task in Zimbabwe.
• Janice Fowler on “Voice overs needed” (oe “Wake up — speak up”).
• Bryan Riley on Bloggers unite for human rights.
• Prof Carlos Z on A new examination of human rights.
• KW Leslie on For those who say Christians have no rights.
• Mike Bursell on Human rights (and Christian responsibilities).
• Phil Wyman on Monks to Iraq.

And for a list of some of the other “Bloggers unite” posts, click here. 

Ever since I started blogging, and even before that, I’ve tried steering as clear as possible from the term “postmodern” (or post-modern). It’s a minefield when you go out there. When I use the word I try keeping to a very general definition. I found Fritjof Capra’s A Web of Life to be one of the best definitions, although he doesn’t ever give a definition, but simply describe changes in science over the past couple of decades.

But sometimes, in ground-level conversations, we tend to be more prescriptive about postmodernism than descriptive. What I mean is that we spend more time telling people how they should think when postmodern than listening to how they think now that they are part of a postmodern generation. This typically comes out when people state, explicitly or implicitly, that postmodern is necessarily “good” and modern “bad”, and that on top of that, postmodern is what “I am”, and modern what those I differ with are.

We then hear things like all truth is relative (something which I think I agree with, wrote about it here), or that we should make room for different opinions (another thing I’m very fond of), and then try to force this into our own lives in unnatural ways. Two examples:

• I joined a discussion a few days ago, and took some friends along. In the car on the way back, I started asking about their experiences (another thing I like to do at times), and onssaid that the problems with the discussions is that there isn’t really discussion going on. Everyone would just say what they think, and even differ, and then leave it to that.
• I am currently attending a “seminar” by Roger Greenaway, an expert on reviewing. I’ve been using his model and some of his tools for reviewing for nearly three years now, and can tell amazing stories about how this has helped me. But currently I’m not that impressed with the experience I’m having. I’m not sure if it’s his fault, or the group’s, but somehow the conversation tend to get into the “let’s just get every opinion on the table and let it be”, or the “let’s get something nice to say about everyone, whether they deserve it or not” category the whole time.

This seem to be very nice, and very “postmodern”, but I think we are missing the point here. We could, for example, gain a lot from Roger’s work when using a word like “holistic” to describe postmodernism; Roger could then help us to not only listen to the logical argument going on, but also to the experiences people are having, which would help us get a more holistic view of what happened, or what is happening. Or what if we rather used a word like “relational”: I’ve written some time ago:

Truth is also relational, in relation with each other, in conversation with each other, seeing each others opinions, looking through each others lenses (as far as that might be possible), we arrive at answers.

When in conversation, differing is OK! Even arguing is OK. What’s not OK is saying that my way and my way alone may be correct. What’s not OK is saying that the logical argument I’m using must be correct because it’s logical. The physical sciences have shown over and over again that what seemed logical at one stage change when new information, or perspectives, get put on the table. So if differing, or even arguing, can help you to see things through the others eyes, through the eyes of another gender, generation, race, culture, or whatever else there might be, then maybe we need the differing, maybe we need to point out to people if there is a difference in how we see things. Not necessarily to be able to win the case, but rather to continue our search for truth and meaning relationally, rather then individually, or by only listening to certain “power” figures (whether intellectual, political, religious, or whatever might be found).

Do sharpen my thoughts on this if I’m missing the point myself…

I recieved this link from my flatmate yesterday. He obviously know what stirrs my passion! I discovered the works of Kim Stanley Robinson at about age 16, while searching through the library shelfs for anything that remotely resembled science fiction (at that stage I was actually reading Arthur C Clark). Today I’ll sometimes jokingly refer to the Mars Trilogy as my “second Bible”, because of the major influence these books have had on my thinking.

In the Mars Trilogy Robinson create a Martian society which provide a sharp critique on human society. Or actually, it is the underground society on Mars which provide the alternative for how human societies work. It was especially on economy that Robinson influenced me, but also culture, and how our cultures might develop in the future.

The Mars Society website is down right now, so I can’t check it up, but Handré, my flatmate, said that Robinson was one of the directors or something of the Mars Society. What I like about the Mars Society, and maybe it was the influence of Robinson on them as well, is that they are talking much more than technology. They are already discussion what the world order on this new world might look like. How the economy, politics, civilation and culture might work itself out when Mars gets settled

I had a couple of experiences over the last few days which got me thinking about what it mean to live in South Africa. So I think I’ll be blogging about this over the next few days. I live in Kameeldrif, it’s on the North-Eastern side of Pretoria, at the moment consisting mostly of plots ranging between 1 and 200 hectar over an area of about 15km East of the N1 North highway, and 30km North of Zambezi road (the Pretoria Cullinan road).

Kameeldrif made it into the news a few times over the past weeks, but not in the way we would have liked to make it into the news. It would seem like organized burglaries moves around the city in… well, in an organized way. This mean that for a few months a certain area will have a lot of problems, and then, I guess when they have fortifies their security enough, whoever is doing this moves on to another area. I guess I could be wrong in my analysis, but this is how I see it, and I’ve heard others make the same observation. It seem to be Kameeldrif’s turn.

It started a few weeks ago, with armed robberies at some plots, and in the last two weeks it has gotten really bad, with an armed robbery about every two days, a couple of people being shot, some killed, a woman raped in front of her child (and this happening inside a security complex near Roodeplaat dam) and many people traumatized. I had to talk to some of the kids after one of these incidents two weeks ago.

On Friday at about 00:30 myself and Handré was coming back from a 21st. When we got of the N1 at Zambezi, we saw a guy walking beside the street, I remember Handré asking why I think this guy was walking there. We saw a car standing beside the road on the Western direction of Zembezi. Next moment we heard a woman screaming, and then a taser going of again and again. We turned around, and saw people fighting in the road, as Handré drove up to them, I opened the door, not quite knowing what we’ll do, but the someone ran away when we approached, seeing that we intend to stop, and we picked up the woman.

Turns out it was her husband we saw walking, for some reason he was mad at her, and then stopped the car, and left her beside the road, and before he was 150m away someone tried to steal her handbag. Just after we again stopped at her car (we first drove away), someone elkse stopped, he was from the police, but was off duty. He looked for the thief, but he was gone. Then there was a whole mess-up with the drunk husband, and at some point the tow-in guy stopped. When he heard what happened he called the police. Within two minutes the police was on the scene.

This is what I think I want to say today. A lot of negative stories was spread about the police in the past, stopries of how they never arrive at a scene etc. I’ve experiences this myself a few years ago after a house I was watching over the holidays got robbed. But on Friday night, and from what I hear from the people in our community over the past weeks, the police is really fast in responding and helping. So, for all of you in the SAPS, thumb-up, and thanx for the things you are doing for us!

Well, I guess crime is part of the reality of living in South Africa. But my experience of the police is getting really positive. And do we help? Maybe it was stupid to actually turn around and stop at a crime scene on Friday, but how could we not stop when hearing a woman scream, knowing that something must be wrong? And so many others actually also stopped on Friday night. I hope communities are starting to look after each other again, or maybe it’s just the community in Kameeldrif.

Well, I’ll continue with some more thoughts and stories tomorrow

Went to see Juno on Tuesday and I cried laughing while still getting the feeling that this film is getting me to think, is spreading a message, that the story is opening a window onto real-life questions. Things I seldom seem to find in typical comedies. The film tell the story of a 16 year old girl that become pregnant, consider abortion, but then decide to carry the child through pregnancy and give it up for adoption. Although some have critiqued this as pro-life, Ellen Page, playing the role of Juno, deny this. Nonetheless, I think the film do open up the conversation, and also open up the possibility that teenagers can carry on with a pregnancy.

I grew up with the concept that abortion was wrong, and that was the beginning and the end of the conversation. A lot of my ideas on things have changed over the years, but in general I am still very much against it. A few weeks ago I did an exercise with some of the Engineering students in my class: After giving them a certain moral dilemma, I asked them what their gutt-feel is about how we should think about this. This was at about week 3 or 4 of an introductory course in ethics. I then let them argue their point, but they had to use utilitarianism or deontology, with the various sub-forms we taught them to make the case. The purpose of the exercise was to shoe them how they actually are using certain ways of thinking unconsciously already, and how their gutt-feel fit into the approach they would choose in the end. I guess what I’m writing is a similar exercise.

Somehow the pro-life/pro-choice argument don’t seem to work for me. Also, it seems to be an American conversation, since I haven’t found these categories working that strongly in South Africa, and we’ve also been through the whole process of legalizing abortion. Furthermore, and for once in my life I need to protect the conservatives, I’ve found it strange how documentaries such as Jesus Camp or Baby Bible Bashers portray the fight against abortion as one of the worst things Evangelicals can do. Am I missing something? What’s the big deal? OK, I don’t like the whole “you’re sinning and going the hell because the Bible tell us so” language that sometimes get used myself, but is it so wrong to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves? Isn’t that something we find with the historical Jesus as well? Isn’t one of the most outstanding features of the historical Jesus his approach to children (see for example Andries van Aarde’s Fatherless in Galilee - not for the faint of heart)? On Parchment and Pen a while ago. Micheal Paton wrote this post on a theological understanding of abortion, also saying that we cannot defend abortion theologically in any way.

Back to Juno. This movie paints a beautiful picture of teenage sex. It paints a picture of teenagers going into casual sex, but also of teenage relations that can actually be really serious. I’m not going into this controversial question today, but rather, I think the movie does something that Christians need to do to get past the pro-life/pro-choice argument. Juno opens up possibilities for pregnant teenagers. It open up the possibility that there is teenage life after pregnancy, while still living with the reality that people at school will be looking weirdly at you. It open up the possibility that there is good adoption parents out there, even if they do have mistakes and get divorced and are somewhat weird.

I guess the question is not an easy one. What do we make of a girl that gets pregnant because of rape? And with rape being such a reality in South Africa, this is the problematic part of the conversation we are being confronted with. And from a pastoral perspective, I can really understand some girls choice for abortion. The task of the church is also to fight for the defenseless parts of creation. This would also include the unborn baby. But we also have the task of fighting for the mothers who cannot see light in the dark tunnel of pregnancy, to point out new possibilities, and help them to carry it through. Hopefully this would be a little different than those standing outside abortions clinics with posters with guilt-laden messages.

I leave you with some questions:

Why is abortion considered pro-choice? Is it not more pro-adult? Saying that the needs of the adult human being are more important than that of the infant human being?

Shouldn’t the church maybe be blamed for abortion being so popular, since we have made it so difficult for girls who got pregnant, and helped create a society that really give pregnant teenagers little hope and a lot of despair?

I owe the title of the post to a book by Jürgen Moltmann and Hans Küng, but necessarily the content. Sometimes I’m really sorry for my fundamentalist friends… well, not that I really have any of those in all honesty. I guess I’m not that good at the ecumenical challenge thing. But I had many, many of them don’t really want to be my friends anymore. But this is my thoughts nevertheless.

OK, let me again start out by saying some words on what fundamentalism is. Part of the reason why I don’t have any fundamentalism friends, is because I don’t consider my conservative friends to be fundamentalists. So let this be clear: charismatics or evangelicals ain’t neccesarily fundamentalists, neither are those without theological education, and fundamentalists ain’t those who think Paul wouldn’t have approved even of monogamous homosexual relationships, or that drinking beer is bad. Yes, fundamentalists isn’t even those who think the earth is 6000 years old, that the great flood covered mount Everest, or that Moses wrote down the whole Pentateuch (including the part describing his own death). Granted, some of these characteristics and groups or characteristics do largely overlap with fundamentalists, but when writing this I do not equate them.

I like Dominic Crossan’s destinction between literalism and fundamentlism in the second half of this video. In summary: literalism is taking everything in the Bible that could be taken literally literally. Fundamentlism adds that if you don’t take it literally, your not a Christian, and suggesting that maybe it shouldn’t be taken literally, makes you an anti-Christian. So, I have friends who are literalists, but who can still say: “we are open for conversation, although we warm you that chances are really slim that you’ll change our minds”. Even within this more narrow definition of fundamentalism I also had some friends who I have to label fundamentalists.

Now, I’m sorry for these people, and for many of the literalists as well, because they really have a hard time in theological conversations, especially when talking to university trained theologians. Not necessarily a hard time defending their statements, but a hard time being liked, a hard time being taken seriously, and sometimes also a hard time being considered as part of the conversation… even the church. It’s really funny, how people would want to get rid of the fundamentalists by throwing them out… this act would kind of ring a bell… this act would be reacting against something by doing things in a very similar fashion to that which you are reacting against, not true?

It was this website (yougoingtohell) which again got me thinking about this. The easy thing would be to throw these kind of people out of the church. The easy thing would be to tell the Muslims in the middle-East that George Bush is a fundamentalist, and therefore not a Christain. The reality is that if ever I get to a Muslim community where the kids were killed in the war, I’ll have to say: “I’m sorry for what other Christians have done”. In Heart of Christianity Marcus Borg (one of the people fundamentalists would like to see in hell) say that at the heart of faith you’ll find “God, Bible and Jesus”. And at the heart of fundamentalist faith you find basically the same things, although interpreted differently.

Now this is the difficult part. Your fundamentalist neighbour who might considered you non-Christian because of whichever reason (and trust me, many of them have a loooong list of reasons they could possibly use), is a Christian. You cannot rid yourself of John 17, and maybe we should stop throwing John 17 at the fundamentalists (although it would be nice if they read it) and start living John 17. Yes, I know it’s difficult, and many times when we try we are thrown out, but I think you catch my drift.

Monasticism, Systems theory, Sustainable Development… how could these help us to form a vision of intentional communal living for a post-modern, globalized, hyper-technological age? What’s been on my mind the past year or so, and more and more pressing the past few months, is how would intentional communities with young working professionals look like. Not full-time monastic experiences, but simply living for those in full-time jobs, or maybe studying.

After reading Blue Like Jazz, and especially after listening to Roger speaking on neo-monasticism a while ago, I started asking myself where my ideas on communal living was formed. I think I can again trace it back to one of my second bibles, the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The ideas of especially Arkady and the Hiroko group (seldom do you find direct access to Hiroko herself, rather you see what she has formed by looking to those around her) was my first introduction to communal living. Without knowing what this will do to me, I then had a five year communal living experience in a University residence called Taaibos. And somewhere through taking part in the Emerging Church conversation ideas started forming…

Neo-monasticism, Systems theory and Sustainable Development, three concepts which I know very little about, but which I think together might help provide a vision for intentional communal living. Sustainability prod us into the question, into considering communal living, it also might help us find the intentionality in what we are doing. Systems theory help provide us with a way of approaching the question that might result in sustainability, and linking into the monastic tradition open an age old tradition of intentional living up to us.

Sustainable development, or sustainable living, concerns the question how we should live, how we should develop, so that this could continue, also in generations coming. The concept usually concerns ecology, but I think also looking at it psychologically and physiologically might help. It was, however, the ecological and economic perspectives of sustainability which first made me think about communal living. The question is simple: Is it sustainable to have everyone living as a nuclear family in a 200 square meter home with a dog and a cat? I think not. Not only Robinson, but also other Sci-fi writers probably helped me ask this question, because in sci-fi living in some form of communal setting is quite common: think about space ships or living underground after some nuclear war for example. But sustainability had more to say for intentional living. In intentional communities we need to rethink how we live, do we live in harmony with the ecology around us? Can we do something to lessen the human footprint on ecology? Can we create a culture that is ecologically friendly? Touching on ecology, psychology and physiology: How does our diet look? In intentional communities we need to intentionally look into this aspect of life. Are the networks we are in sustainable psychologically, would be another important question. This goes both ways, some communal settings can turn sour, which means that we did not have a sustainable way of living in relation to others, but the extreme individualism where we do not link up with those living around us I believe is not sustainable either. In community we need to find this sustainable way of living. Also physiologically, is the way we treat our bodies sustainable. Yes, our bodies will die, but are we killing ourselves unnecessarily?

Within Systems theory you find the well-known concept that the whole is more than the sum of its parts; this needs to be true in communal settings. Especially when working with professionals working while living in community. We need communities which do not drain more energy from people than they give to people. I envision a system of a minimal commitment therefore. This would mean that we have a commitment when living intentionally, and this commitment we need to take seriously, whatever exactly it might be. But it need to be a minimal time commitment, the community shouldn’t attempt at taking as much as possible in terms of time from this within the community. Rather, the community should give time, intentionally help those within it to manage their time in a healthy manner. Some of this time would intentionally go into the communal part of the community, but this I think should be mostly around the practice of eating together, a practice which can be considered important from a psychological view, but, for Christians, also follow in the way of Jesus.

Neo-monasticism I understand the least of all, so I’m sure others participating in the synchroblog will give better definitions. I add this because I think intentional living for professionals, centering on a sustainable lifestyle, could learn from the monastic tradition, and might do so more easily by learning from the neo-monastic movements. The community needs to help each other to form positive life patterns, disciplines which will result in a healthy lifestyle. For many these would include spiritual disciplines, and has a lot to learn from the mystic tradition, but could include more, also a strong intellectual emphasis, for example, when working with professionals.

These three things I believe can form part of the foundation for a healthy intentional community for young professionals.

And for interest sake, if you know of any communities like this in the Pretoria-Joburg area, do leave a comment.

Also check out these great bloggers on monasticism:

Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Beth at Until Translucent
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Jonathan Brink at JonathanBrink.com
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Bryan Riley at at Charis Shalom
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations
Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings
David Fisher at Cosmic Collisions
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian