justindetmers.com

by Justin Detmers, GRTS 7/29/10

In Luke’s Gospel, Luke was writing after carefully researching the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth for the explicit purpose providing a consecutive order of events so that Theophilus would know the “exact truth” of the things he was taught; this goal is clearly stated in the prologue (Luke 1:1-4 NASB). In his writing, Luke recorded many parables, which are extended similes that are easy to remember. Of these, perhaps one of the most renowned is the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is located in Luke 10 just after the sending out and joyful return of the 72.

It is imperative to be considerate of the immediate context of the parable; v25-37 records Jesus communicating to an expert in the Law who, “stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ (NASB, v25).” Interestingly, after being questioned by Jesus, the lawyer gives a correct answer; he appropriately responds to his own question with scripture (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18). Darrell Bock comments, “The lawyer is confused, even though his answer is correct, because he still thinks that eternal life is earned rather than received in the context of a love relationship with God.” However, as we soon learn, just because the Pharisee transmitted the right reply didn’t mean that his heart and life had been transformed to be right before God. (Luke, 197)

In His brilliance, Jesus exposed a profound dimension of the heart by telling the famous parable. Grant R. Osborne discusses the provocative dynamic of this teaching device by noting that parables communicate in such a way that is, “indirect and demands that the hearer react. It does not appeal to the mind as much as the whole person.” (Hermeneutical Spiral, 293)
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FOOD, INC.: Movie Trailer – Funny blooper videos are here

Though some aspects of the film are subjective (and thus debatable), one cannot deny the countless objective aspects, such as externalities, obsolescence, and so on. May this clip help you rethink your consumption:

For additional thoughts and an expanding dialog, please devastate the obvious …

Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind. ~Austin O’Malley

A half truth is a whole lie. ~Yiddish Proverb

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything. ~Mark Twain

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“Wrath is the love of justice perverted into the desire for revenge and for the injury of someone else; justice is the proclaimed motive for every manifestation of wrath.”

- Henry Fairlie

“When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”- Bishop Dom Helder Camara

“Washing one’s hands [of the struggle] between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”- Paulo Friere

As I eluded to before, it’s not uncommon to see an apathetic/individualistic/fatalistic attitude about solving structural problems, especially when (because) one isn’t directly and negatively affected. So, allow me to prod a little more…and just in case the red scare is still in effect: I affirm that a planned/controlled economy is a disaster for a plethora of reasons.

Disclaimer aside, the market is a fallen entity and pregnant with moral considerations. We mustn’t look at it too simply and miss an entire ethical dimension, that would be like calling a cube a square.In God’s economy, everyone matters, not just profit motive. The CEO’s, those who hold stock, the consumers, those in US, those over “there”, the man, the little guy, and even labor.

Everyone matters.

So, are there additional questions to ask besides, “how can I get goods and services (that I mostly don’t need in the first place) as inexpensively and efficiently as possible?” The following video asserts that to say “no” would be shortsighted and self-oriented, privileging abstract principles over real people.

Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc. (Album Crossfade)

Those who lean right tend to focus on personal holiness issues. Lefties tend to focus on communal justice issues. We can peg ourselves on one extreme if we a) care about one type and not the other and b) think true morality is simply an ‘either/or’ instead of a ‘both/and’ when dealing with individual & corporate issues. The God of the Bible is portrayed as ‘both/and’, Jesus was ‘both/and’ — so, shouldn’t we be as well?

My experience and reading of culture tells me that evangelicals often have a largely individualistic view of morality & ethics, sometimes reducing the inquiry almost exclusively to matters of personal holiness. What it means to be good or bad usually goes like this: “I don’t cheat on my taxes” or, “I told a lie” or, “I have sex in the correct ways”. I agree, but let me push back…

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What is gossip?

Bringing someone into a situation/giving them information when they aren’t part of the problem or the solution,

sin,

not going directly to the person(s) in question with your concerns to confront them or ask a question to assess the reality of a situation,

none of your damned business,

spreading a rumor under the guise of ‘asking for advice’ or ‘pray for so-and-so because…’,

behind the back,

often in concert with assumptions,

damaging,

& not without consequence.

CLICK HERE for the an excellent picture/analogy about the nature of gossip.

Rage Against The Machine – Born Of A Broken Man

My friend sent me a link to a NY Times story…hard to imagine:

“Racially segregated proms have been held in Montgomery County — where about two-thirds of the population is white — almost every year since its schools were integrated in 1971. Such proms are, by many accounts, longstanding traditions in towns across the rural South, though in recent years a number of communities have successfully pushed for change. When the actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for last year’s first-of-its-kind integrated prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi, his home state, the idea was quickly embraced by students — and rejected by a group of white parents, who held a competing “private” prom…”

READ MORE…

The Avett Brothers – The Ballad Of Love And Hate

I don’t get philosophical too often on my blog because I know it bothers or bores most people…to make up for it, I’ll soon return to short & funny clips. Anyway, I’ve done only a little reading lately (job hunt), but it has none-the-less been excellent. When I came across the following by Christian Smith, I said to myself, “Oh snap! This must be posted”. Modern snobbery seems to be unaware of the fact that rationalism/empiricism (and the things that have been constructed from these) are imperfect and insufficient; absolute and universal knowledge is elusive. In the end we really are dealing with being (un)confident of the things we know in part and hope for.

“For centuries, many Western thinkers have tried to identify a universal and certain foundation for human knowledge. Various movements within the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century “Enlightenment” in particular sought to specify an authoritative foundation of knowledge not based on the revelation, faith, and tradition of Christianity. Instead this project sought to identify a strong foundation for knowledge that would be secular (non theistic), universal (applicable to all people despite their differences), and indubitable (irrefutable and certain). One way to understand philosophical epistemology since Rene Descartes is a story of of repeated unsuccessful attempts to identify this kind of foundation of human knowledge. Like the would-be champions who sought to become the first to be able to draw the fabled sword from the stone and so become king, many philosophers have ventured to identify this prized strong foundation of knowledge on which the rational. universal, modern social order could be build. In each case, however, other philosophers always stepped forward to demonstrate why their attempts at this secular, universal, indubitable epistemology did not work.

As a consequence, what we have come rather decisively to see in recent decades is that this epistemological project itself is fatally flawed and that all such attempts to discover a universal, indubitable foundation of knowledge have failed and necessarily will fail. Strong foundationalism is dead. Its quest has come up empty-handed. There is no secular, universal, indubitable foundation of knowledge available to us humans.

What we have come to see is that, at bottom, we are all really believers. The lives that we live and knowledge we possess are based crucially on sets of basic assumptions and beliefs, about which three characteristics deserve note. First, our elemental assumptions and beliefs themselves cannot be empirically verified or established with certainty. They are starting points, trusted premises, postulated axioms, presuppositions, — “below” which there is no deeper or more final justification, proof, or verification establishing them. In philosophical terms, these beliefs and commitments may be “justified,” but they are not “justifiable”. Rather, they themselves provide the suppositional grounds on which any sense of justification, proof, or verification for a given knowledge system are built.”

Here’s a great article…

“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group”

- Peggy McIntosh 

White privilege & racism…are whites really those that suffer from (reverse) racism?

Because of a time crunch, I had to leave a conversation that I wanted to finish…it was about whether or not white privilege/racism is real. I used to think this was truly a non-issue, viewing the world through my white middle-class lens.

After I watched the documentary, The Color Of Fear, I was humbled. The premise of the film is a group of men of different ‘races’ all gather in one room to talk about race. In short time, the middle class white guy begins to argue that the men of color are mistaken, their perceptions are off base…he doesn’t listen. Basically, his perception should be everyone’s reality.

The Color Of Fear, tutoring at the Black Child & Family Institute, and other volunteer work has helped me realize that I (and my ‘race/culture’) don’t see racism as problematic or a reality, because for me (us)…it isn’t a problem. My dominant group doesn’t have to deal with it, so the group’s views of oppression which are normalized can be easily narcissistic; blind or sometimes even blaming people of color for victimization.

Here’s a clip…and if you’re white & really want to disagree with what I’ve said; I would hope you’d watch the documentary (Go to video to go in EL) and talk to poor minorities first.