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Lady_Lux
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Name: Sarah
Country: Canada
State: Alberta
Birthday: 6/28/1980
Gender: Female
Interests: Reading (voraciously), writing (occasionally), playing the piano, singing, thinking
Expertise: Reading (con)texts
Occupation: Administration
Industry: Religious Sector
Message: message me
Member Since:
4/13/2001
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| My pirate name is: Red Mary Flint  Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr! Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.part of the fidius.org network | | |
| I've decided I'll just mirror my posts on this blog, Blogger, and my Livejournal, since there are difference audiences for each (well, my Blogger site doesn't have an audience yet, per se, but it will soon). I'll mirror on Xanga because as far as I can tell, it's the only site that allows email digests of subscriptions, and since I've had a request for that (hi, Risa!), I'll keep posting here 
One of the things I've always wondered about Christianity and its interaction with the postmodern Western world is why Christianity seems to be so offensive to people, as opposed to other religions. Now, one reason is likely that because the postmodern Western world owes its existence to Christianity, probably some of the offense comes from the reaction of troubled off-spring to a parent that they find odiously embarrassing (I can't claim that analogy; it springs from the mind of one of Regent's professors [also an international economist!], Paul Williams).
But another one of my professors, Craig Gay, in his book The Way of the (Modern) World Or, Why It's Tempting to Live as if God Doesn't Exist suggests the following:
"...It is not particularly surprising to find that the Christian understanding of God's personal self-revelation in Christ - particularly as expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity - has proven offensive to modern post-Christian sensibilities. After all, Christian understanding intensifies what Kierkegaard termed 'the earnestness of existence' by quite clearly placing us in a position of having to respond to God's call. We would much rather not have been placed in this position, and in an attempt to evade our 'response-ability,' modern post-Christian thought has sought to debunk the suggestion that God could possibly have gotten so close to us as to be able to call us into personal relationship with himself."
As people living in the modern post-Christian world, we generally want to be responsible for our own self-definition, and we do not want to be held, as Gay terms it, "response-able" to God's definition for us. Modern post-Christians (as we are) are suspicious of anything that looks like it is going to take from us the freedom we believe that we need and deserve for defining ourselves. This supposed freedom to self-define results, however, in a state of anxiety that is peculiar to this age of Western society. We are anxious to be able to define ourselves for we feel constantly that our self-definition is slipping away. We are terribly afraid that if we can't make our own meanings, then we will lose ourselves. Yet our ability to make our own meaning is so tenuous and ill-grounded (for if there is no ultimate meaning in which to ground personal meaning, then how does one know that one is defining oneself effectively?) that we are constantly needing to redefine and re-establish ourselves.
To all appearances, the God of Christianity looks like an autocrat who will force a definition on our selves that we would much rather not have, we think. We will have our freedoms (to choose our own behaviour, perhaps?) taken away from us. So, we attempt to reject the God of the Bible, we attempt to argue away the possibilities of the Trinity, of revelation, of the incarnation (i.e. who was Jesus, anyway? probably just a man with some good ideas).
Gay says, "For while God's call to us in Christ opens up the possibility of true personal existence, it also calls for our decision and so leaves open the possibility that we might refuse the invitation, indeed, that we might go our own way and try to establish ourselves in some other fashion."
Generally in our world, we have gone the way of establishing ourselves in some other fashion. And when the God who suggests that this fashion is unhealthy, unfulfilled (and don't we always feel that we are unfulfilled in our own self-definitions), and incomplete, asks us to respond to Him, we attempt to argue Him out of existence.
So perhaps that's why Jesus seems to be particularly offensive to the modern mind. I really have often wondered. But I think that it's because when we offer a relationship with Jesus to the modern person, we are offering a relationship that calls for response, and that is something that the modern person doesn't want to have (they think). I wish that I had some way to communicate to people that this relationship with Jesus really isn't one that will usurp your right to self-definition, or, rather, that the right to self-definition isn't something that you would want anyway.
I don't know how organised all these thoughts were, but there they are. Please respond! 
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| Remember, all these posts are also now available on my Blogger site.
Ah, I am very far behind in my world religions study. It is the only
reading-based course that doesn't require some kind of written response
or summary, so its readings are sacrificed for the greater good. Or
something.
I am currently playing catch-up, which isn't easy
when the subject matter is the writings of the Daoists of China. China
is far too ancient a nation. Their people had way too much time to come
up with complicated ideas that I need to read in a hurry. They also
contradict themselves too often. Can somebody pass me the Daoism for
Dummies? What do you mean that would be a contradiction in terms??
Anyway,
one of Daoisms major tenets is the idea of non-action (wu-wei).
Non-action is not what it sounds like in that poor English translation.
It's more like...doing by not doing. Haha, that clarified things for
you, didn't it? Feel my pain.
The
point is that striving to get what you want is only going to make life
harder than it needs to be for you. To quote the Tao Te Ching, "He who stands on tiptoe is not steady; he who strides cannot maintain the pace."
So, maybe in pushing myself to read 40 pages of Daoist writings today,
I am "striding" instead of...strolling? Maybe a stroll through the
writings is what I need. Dang, I should have thought of that before I
skipped the world religions reading to put more time into my iconoclasm
paper...
So, that's my life today. Interspersed with abstract
Chinese thought (not just Daoism...I also read 40 pages of Confucianism
as well...) was an attempt to figure out how and when we are getting to
Galiano Island next week (yay!) and how to get rid of the infuriating
little flies in my house plant.
10 things I learned today
- The flies in my plant are not flies, but fungus gnats.
- Galiano Island is between Vancouver Island and the mainland.
- Houseplants
should not be potted in plastic pots, especially if you live in a
ridiculously moist climate like this one (people from the southern US
are now allowed to laugh at that comment about the moist climate).
- John Duns Scotus was, despite being the source of the word "dunce," actually a very smart man.
- My
father just completed his convocation from Royal Military College after
nearly 40 years of military service and an undisclosed amount of life
experience. Go Dad!
- Most people over-water their house plants (so I don't have to feel bad that I sometimes forget to water them...)
- The Chinese are an ancient and utterly mesmerizing people.
- I
would make a better Confucianist than I would a Daoist (let's face it:
I try too hard to be a good Daoist, and I actually LIKE set social
roles).
- Some people cure their plants of fungus gnats by introducing carnivorous plants into the household.
- The
real Dracula's daddy was an illustrious member of the Order of the
Dragon, an order of holy knights dedicated to keeping Islam out of
Eastern Europe. Vlad the Impaler's father was called Dracul, which
means dragon. Dracula means "little dragon."
Have a great weekend (but don't try too hard...)
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| Hi all,
It might be something of a cop-out to post a link to someone else's blog as my own blog, but I was so struck with the insight of this particular posting that I needed to pass it on to as many people as possible.
Also, as a special Xanga update, I'm sorry to say that I'm ditching Xanga -- sort of!! I imagine that I will periodically update here, but I have started another blog on Blogger that will be getting most of my attention (it will also be mirrored on Livejournal for sundry reasons).
Check it!
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