Odious Stereotyping
When people straighten others in jackets of one stereotype or another it is too often for purposes of demeaning others and advantaging self. I am as guilty as anyone in odious stereotyping for I have grown up in the common culture in which it prevails.
The truth is that every person is nuanced in beliefs; and even though all may be culturally inclined toward stereotypical belief, everyone deep down has moments of openness to newness beyond habituated sameness. This counter tendency is also present in human nature; in other words, CONVERSION remains the CONSTANT of personal/ social REDEMPTION.
I admit to having qualities that may fit me in categories of what some might call “ultra liberal” and “left winger”, even though I think of myself as conservative and traditional.
I am “conservative” in the sense of being fiercely defensive of equal personal moral responsibility in the conservancy of nature, ecology, and the individual rights of everyone — not just “individual” rights but of personal/ social responsibility.
I am “traditional” in the sense that I believe this conservancy is precisely what Old Testament Covenant was about and what the life and legacy of Jesus Christ, Christian morality, are about.
It is my belief that the abuses of patriarchal politics (dominion culture) and imperial theology (the religion of guilt and fear) are counter-productive to Christian (universal) morality and evolutionary (transformational) consciousness. Those who yet cling to the politics of patriarchal culture and the theology of imperial dominion act adversely against common sense and the teaching and exemplification of Jesus Christ.
From the informed perspective of Postmodernity it seems very clear that patriarchal politics (Church and State) and dominion theology fail the test of conservancy and the authentic tradition of Christian Faith, of universal, cultural, moral responsibility.
Universally, people of good faith can and need to move cultures toward conservancy politics and other-sensitive religion. This is the challenge of Thomas Berry’s GREAT WORK, the human challenge of sustainable existence on Earth.
You are at your best here
You are at your best here Sylvester. I join with you and I think I even understand you.
Sylvester, thank you for
Sylvester, thank you for this brilliant commentary. Some of the things I especially like:
1. The clever play on the word "straitjacket"--turning it into an active verb that emphasizes how we want to put people in jackets in order to straighten them;
2. The recognition that we often put people in jackets to straighten them in order to advantage ourselves;
3. The insight that the willingness to engage in constant change/conversion is built into us naturally: it's how we grow, how we develop, how we cope with a world that becomes more complex the longer we live in it;
4. And so, religious conversion can never be separated from psychological and emotional conversion: holiness truly is wholeness;
5. The insistence that "traditionalists" have often abandoned and betrayed the tradition they claim to own uniquely; there is nothing at all traditional about much of the theology that passes itself off as traditional today. Fundamentalism, as a movement within the Christian churches, dates from the start of the 20th century.
Thanks for keeping us thinking through the brilliant pieces you post.
William D. Lindsey