Monday, March 31, 2008

Monday Thoughts: "Other-ism"

I read/watched three different things this weekend that point to the same same social phenomenon--we tend to belittle the intelligence and of course value of the "out group." When we are talking about those who are "in group," we accentuate the positive and ignore the negative. When we are talking about those "out group," we accentuate the negative and ignore the positive.

No doubt I am also guilty... and no doubt you can see my myopia far more clearly than I can (thus, myopia :-). But of course, that doesn't mean we do not correctly see the stupidities of the past either.

This is the stuff of prejudice, racism, and sexism. I find a woman who does something less than intelligent and conclude, "All women are unintelligent." I find a black person who does something violent and conclude, "All black persons are violent." Meanwhile, I find a smart white male and conclude, "All white men are smart."

Three examples of "other-ism" stood out to me this weekend in reading/watching:

Anne Hutchinson
I was looking at Neil Elliott's Liberating Paul and he gave examples of how Paul's writings have been used to keep slaves in line in the South, women in line in Puritan New England, Jews in line in Nazi Poland, rebels in control in Guatemala.

The first one that stood out to me was the story of Anne Hutchinson. She ticked off the preachers of Massachusetts by meetings in her home. At these meetings, she and other women evaluated sermons, which eventually led to her trial and ultimate banishment from the colony (her family was then killed by Native Americans in Rhode Island).

It is fairly clear that John Winthrop and others who had it in for Hutchinson thought that women were by nature less insightful than men. Modern complementarians have done a good job of "cleaning up" the obvious stupidity of their ancestors. Those who used to say women shouldn't teach and shouldn't be leaders did not think that women were as intelligent and were more gullible than men.

In our day, however, this is so patently false that no one would dare suggest this in any forum where they might easily be shown a fool. So the modern complementarians, riding on the fumes of their forebears, have modified their position--it is not that women are in any way less spiritual or intelligent than men. It is, well, uh, not God's plan for them to lead. Yeah, that's it. It just isn't the way God designed things. They're equal, but just have different roles ordained by God and, yeah, that's what the Bible says too.

Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts. In an age where the naked truth that women are as smart and spiritual as men, this propped up version of the old "women are stupid and sin-laden" will evaporate away soon enough.

The Kite Runner
My wife has just finished reading this novel destined to be on future high school reading lists (sorry to my children and their friends--Harry Potter will not be on the list). So we watched the movie version last night.

There is so much in this movie to expose the "other-ism" among Christians. The movie is set first in the days before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and then in 2000 under the Taliban. The other-ism in this case deals with a boy born out of wed-lock, the same boy as a Pashtun, a girl who had slept with another man previously, a man who did not have a beard.

Certainly we as Christians do not believe that Islam understands God as well as we do. However, the things that we say from our pulpits about Islam often indicate such a wholesale ignorance it is beyond words This year especially I have heard among freshmen the idea they must be hearing in their homes and churches that suicide bombers being good representatives of all Muslims in the world.

I found a statement left on a white board in a classroom that sums it up well: "Radical Islam is to Islam in general as the KKK is to Christianity." Can you imagine how stupid we would think someone was who assumed that all Christians had the same views as members of the KKK? That's how stupid we sound to most Muslims, especially American Muslims.

The Keys to the Kingdom
The faculty reading group I'm in is reading this 1940's novel to finish out the year. It's about a Catholic priest in Scotland who lives his whole life surrounded by Christians who aren't particularly good representatives of Christ. His father dies in the aftermath of visiting a nearly Protestant town to report how many salmon he's caught that month.

A woman is raped, has a child in a place where nuns can take care of the child, is forced to marry a man in town to make the situation "right." I'm not done and others say the novel is not clear about who the rapist was, but so far I wonder if it was a priest.

This priest become missionary doesn't fit in, in part because he doesn't do things the way everyone else does. There is a certain raw value and "get along" aspect to out-group people that consistently causes him problems with the in-group.

Maybe Rodney King put it best: "Why can't we all just get along?" That doesn't mean we aren't convinced we are right about what we believe. It means that those who disagree with us are just as valuable in God's eyes as we are.

12 comments:

Angie Van De Merwe said...

There is hardly a way to convince those "others", if the "others" are convinced that they are God's ordained "chosen". And certainly, if the "others" believe that there is something that they can do to cause (earn) God to "favor" them.

Wim just sent Jerry Pattengale a video put out by a Dutch politician. It was pulled off the internet several days later, because of death threats. The video was very disturbing and was not represented by anyone other than the "others" themselves. It was not a pretty picture...The increase of Muslims in Europe has increased exponentially and has cause "confusion" when it comes to conflicts of "law". There is no doubt left according to this video that Islam's goal is world domination under Sharia law. We should all be concerned if we value freedom at all....

Ken Schenck said...

But the question then is, "Who speaks for Islam?" There are as many voices of Islam as there are voices of Christianity. Some of the most vocal --and the ones we notice--are in favor of putting Sharia law into effect. The Bush War has empowered these individuals who were heavily marginalized prior to 2003. Indeed, if the Bush administration had been of a different metal, we might have seen a real empowerment of these moderate forces after 9-11. We don't tend to notice them these days and indeed we have created a situation where they need to keep their mouths shut in many places.

It is hard for me to judge the pluses and minuses on the whole, but one major advantage of Obama as President would be the Middle East perception that America was less its enemy than it was before. The Bush administration by and large has been incapable of conveying American good intentions for the region. Everything it has done has given the opposite impression.

And as we reach the end of its tenure, I am after a long time seriously conceding that our intentions may not, in the end, have been entirely pure. Most of this time I have held out for the possibility that motives were pure but misguided. Now I hear the sound of shredding, shredding, shredding.

Angie Van De Merwe said...

We do not know all the "facts" (?) that were the deciding elements in a political decision. We all know that politicians have to balance political image (which is highly dependent on the press) with goals/ideals/values that the politician himself adheres to...it is no easy "mix" and hard to really get to the "heart of"...But, certainly we can evaluate patterns of abuse of power....Since being here in D.C. it is amazing how many "stories" we hear "differently" and how the "facts" are evaluated. That has been the real education....we all tend to "give mercy and grace" to those who are most like us...I am not saying that the war in Iraq was a "right one", but, there are many decisions made that are out of our sphere of influence....What should be our response, then? I think education is the biggest challenge...education of ourselves first and foremost and then seek to educate others...understanding our own biases....

But, I do agree that adhering to the "ultimate" does enflame and sometimes exasperate the problem that we seek to resolve...

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Ken, of course, I agree with you that "others" who differ from us are just as valuable as human beings. But, without freedom, the quality of life is diminished. Is life really worth living without certain freedoms/rights? I don't think so...for then, we are only slaves to whoever is determining the political/religious "game"...and the individual ceases to have a "voice". That is not healthy, although I agree that there are those who are more comfortable with others determining their "fate"....and believing that to be "God" (their "fate" or "lot in life")...responsible citizenry means that individuals have developed and are developing their commitments to certain convictions or values. These may differ even within the Christian community based upon many extraneous factors...that is why we need to allow liberty within "law"...and those determinations are what the political discourse is all about...

Anonymous said...

Anne Hutchinson was not tried solely for having meetings in her home. She claimed that she had the spiritual discernment to detect which preachers were in a state of grace and which ones were not. She stated that in the entire colony, only one preacher was in a state of grace. Democracy had not yet fully developed in Massachusettes, it was a theocracy. If her assertions gained a wide following, the political structure of the entire colony may have unraveled. This could have led to dire economic consequences and to incursions by Indians. I am sure Wintrop and his associates had a low view of women's abilities in all areas as compared to men. My comment is not related to the issue of women in ministry. While what happened to Hutchinson and her family was tragic, there may have been some justification for her banishment.

Anonymous said...

Greetings. I am the author of Comment #5. It was not my intention to be anonymous. My name is John Guthrie and my blog is therighthandoffellowship.blogspot.com. I have yet to figure out how to leave my name under the new section of "Choose an identity." I selected Name/URL last time, this time, I'll try OpenID, although that hasn't worked for me in the past either.

Ken Schenck said...

Thanks John, I figure that by the time I retire I will appear very informed indeed from all the learning I will have received over the years from those who are more proficient in the areas in which I dare to tread.

I was going by Elliott's presentation. He suggests that Cotton Mather might actually have been sympathetic to her and that one of her comments was that she was doing nothing different from what the men of the colony did. He said no accusation stuck until she claimed to know the things she taught directly from God.

Mr. Guthrie said...

Thanks for replying. I had to read the transcript of the trial for a Colonial History Class, but that was in 1985. I had forgotten that aspect about her having any direct relations from God leading to a guilty verdict. I do think a guilty verdict in her case was predetermined, but the way I read it, I thought her judges' major concern was she could upset the authority of those in charge of the colony. As for men doing the same as Anne Hutchinson, that may well be the case, I couldn't say. I hope I didn't come across as a "know it all."

Ken Schenck said...

I bet that would be an interesting transcript. I wonder if it is online these days. I have a colleague who has done some work with the Mary Dyer trials. You probably know she was a Quaker preacher who was put to death for refusing to stop preaching in Puritan New England just a little before Hutchinson was banished.

Always learning...

Ken Schenck said...

I think I found the transcript. Hope I can work through it later today.

Transcript of Anne Hutchinson Trial

John Mark said...

I think I have seen the video mentioned by Angie. If the Bush war was totally wrong, I don't see the connection between that and the trouble in Europe, especially in "tolerant" countries such as the Netherlands. I don't claim to know anything much about Islam, but I wonder how many true moderates there are. N. T. Wright was quoted some time ago when Muslims rioted in G. B. and said that part of the problem was that we have tried to treat the world as a hippy commune. Sorry I can't verify this. I am told that today there are neighborhoods in G. B. where you simply don't go if you are not Muslim. This was reported in the admittedly conservative World magazine just a few weeks ago. I think the "Muslim problem" in Europe predates the current war by at least 10 to 15 years. Again, I don't have proof of this, but back in the '80's I met a young man whose parents were working in Great Britian and spoke of a huge influx of Islamic people and subsequent religious influence.
On the other hand, there are many reports of Muslims coming to Christ, and we should pray for a great harvest among them.

Mr. Guthrie said...

Thanks for the link to the trascript. I was hoping to read your comments on the trial record before commenting any further, yet I know you are busy. Going through the transcript I can see that her being a woman and holding meetings in her house was one of the charges, but the judges seemed more concerned with who she was conducting the meetings with rather than the fact she held meetings at all. I think it is interesting how both sides appear. Hutchinson makes a good case for the individual conscience in matters of personal religion, yet in asserting that certain ministers were preaching a covenant of works, she comes off as a schismatic. What really surprised me was the judges' belief that to disobey them was to disobey the fifth commandment. They refer to themselves as the colinists' parents. Is this the result of early Calvinistic doctrine concerning citizens and the state? I have taken up enough space with this topic; I know this is not the main issue you wished to discuss when you posted your article last Monday.