Joe said: “…. A view that dismissed non-Western worldviews in one sentence, particularly along with their politics, health, sense of land, etc.  We couldn’t trust them with Christianity. We see them only through a lens of social impulse and evangelism…”

So true …

Joe Said:  “Frankly, it just irks me that most western institutions have bought into a European monolithic, written, utilitarian, linear contractual approach where we think we can know the truth and the past can be discovered..we use history to prove our rightnesss.”

Soooooooo true!

Joe Said: “As for the land and nature, as a metis person struggling to explore his roots, I have no desire to worship it. I just see it somewhat more holistically now. It’s not romantic, religious, or even environmental ( as important as that is). It’s more about stewardship, and conduct, responsibility.”

And for most people, it is exactly the same.   That is my approach.  It is my contention that Man has always been tasked with the stewardship of his cosmos.  The blessing upon Adam was “Be fruitful…”  You can’t be fruitful and KILL the source of the fruit. Duh… the ground??

“… E Stanley Jones. He was reviled by evangelical thinkers, because applying the Kingdom of God was  more holistic to him…”

Of course, he is … Western Christianity has decided that it is the arbiter of the sum of God’s revelation.   I have a book that I started some years ago… (not even close to being published) called “Beware of Greeks Bearing Sound Doctrine.”  The focus of that book is how the Greek/Hellenistic worldview has so profoundly shaped our understanding of God and his intentions.  Christians are profoundly ignorant of this glaring fact.  Christianity is really a Middle Eastern religion whose roots are much closer to the holistic views of indigenous tribes.

I often marvel at western snobbery particularly as it is expressed in so many Charismatic denominations.

Joe… thanks soooo much for adding to this conversation.  Love you for it, man!

BTW: I edited your comments for readablity.  I wanted people to get what you are saying.

Of course, as an American, consent is an essential premise to the role of Government. However, it is not THE starting place.  A number of agreements must be in place before we can get the point of consent.

What happens when those executing barbaric practices refuse?

Some (African Muslim) tribes practice clitoridectomy.  The cultural logic being offered is if women do not have sexual gratification, they will be more pure and not commit adultery. So at the age of puberty, they hold a girl down and remove the offending body part.  This practice has a ‘valid’ rationalism for those who embrace the practice and they resist any effort to arrest their actions.  But the practice is barbaric, a horrific violation of a young woman.

Are those practicing female mutilation for the express purpose of marital fidelity correct? Of course not. There are other methods and philosophical foundations that end infidelity.  But until the practice is arrested and those methods and ideas inculcated into the culture… the practice continues. The culture will never consent because they see the actions as the rationalization of their internal values.

In America, now this is at the core of our greatest cultural and ethnic struggle: sub-cultures that want to exempt themselves from CONSENT when they want a given cultural expression exempted from social penalty.  When this happens, law becomes meaningless. The social contract is nothing more than pressure groups forcing other groups by the power government monopoly to put up with their specific dispensation for as possible.  The result is chaos and the United States is reaping that whirlwind.

>Shrug<

This is a dynamic tension.  This is not a one or the other answer.  Somewhere in here are principles … but at the moment, I’m not clear how to lay them out.  I know it starts with the most rudimentary value: sovereign individuality.  Past that point, I’m a bit fuzzy.

I was raised as a conservative charismaniac Christian but I couldnt deal with the manicheistic thinking in most Christian circles that we are heirs to a determined, right and wrong, binary, perfection seeking, cradle to grave ideology that puts man over creation. A view that dismissed non Western worldviews in one sentence, particularly along with their their politics, health, sense of land, etc.  We couldnt trust them with christianity. we see them only through a lens of social impulse and evangelism..

As for the land and nature, as a metis person struggling to explore his roots, I have no desire to worship it. I just see it somewhat more holistically now. its not romantic, religious, or even environmental ( as important as that is) its more about stewardship, and conduct, responsibility.

In canada we have a 300 year old term thats called honor of the Crown.. When it comes down to it, Frankly, it just irks me that most western institutions have bought into a European monolithic, written, utilitarian, linear contractual approach where we think we can know the truth and the past can be discovered..we use history to prove our rightnesss. Actually, its more about power, control, creating in-groups. the closest Ive ever come to seeking a balance is reading the writings of E stanley Jones. He was reviled by evangelical thinkers, because applying the Kingdom of God was  more holistic to him, and how he approached his missionary endeavors to india. Jones notably fostered the Indian Ashram in small group settings, engaging mutual conversation about the Indian (non-western) culture without prejudging them.  I find that his words resonate more deeply than ever amidst my passion for my own wounded Métis culture and history.

Here is Stanley Jones’ words in conclusion.
“Every nation has a peculiar contribution to make to the interpretation of Christianity. The Son of man is too great to be expressed by any one portion of humanity. Those that differ from us most will probably contribute most to our expression of Christianity.” — E. Stanley Jones , The Christ of the Indian Road, p. 204.

Here here.
The PBS website is
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/
You can watch it online!

I was raised as a conservative charismaniac Christian but I couldnt deal with the manicheistic thinking in most Christian circles that we are heirs to a determined, right and wrong, binary, perfection seeking, cradle to grave ideology that puts man over creation. A view that dismissed non Western worldviews in one sentence, particularly along with their their politics, health, sense of land, etc. We couldnt trust them with christianity. we see them only through a lens of social impulse and evangelism..

As for the land and nature, as a metis person struggling to explore his roots, I have no desire to worship it. I just see it somewhat more holistically now. its not romantic, religious, or even environmental ( as important as that is) its more about stewardship, and conduct, responsibility.

In canada we have a 300 year old term thats called honor of the Crown.. When it comes down to it, Frankly, it just irks me that most western institutions have bought into a European monolithic, written, utilitarian, linear contractual approach where we think we can know the truth and the past can be discovered..we use history to prove our rightnesss. Actually, its more about power, control, creating in-groups. the closest Ive ever come to seeking a balance is reading the writings of E stanley Jones. He was reviled by evangelical thinkers, because applying the Kingdom of God was more holistic to him, and how he approached his missionary endeavors to india. Jones notably fostered the Indian Ashram in small group settings, engaging mutual conversation about the Indian (non-western) culture without prejudging them. I find that his words resonate more deeply than ever amidst my passion for my own wounded Métis culture and history.

Here is Stanley Jones’ words in conclusion.
“Every nation has a peculiar contribution to make to the interpretation of Christianity. The Son of man is too great to be expressed by any one portion of humanity. Those that differ from us most will probably contribute most to our expression of Christianity.” — E. Stanley Jones , The Christ of the Indian Road, p. 204.

Here here.
The PBS website is
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/
You can watch it online!

Heres the words of John Ralston saul, A Fair Country, p 280:
“If we go on insisting that Canada is an expression of the West and of its its rational, Judeo-Christian tradition, we will be increasingly carried down a road with all that contains – an obsession with clarity, a fear of social complexity, a horror of overlap, a constant confusing of moral rectitude and power, a conviction that the individual must dominate the place, a tendancy to remove obstacles,, such as minorities, minority ideas, or minority languages. This linear approach makes no sense, given what Canada is.”

In Canada we are slowly recontextualizing our inspirations to the aboriginal tradition outside of Western-Euro-US thinking. This is slowly starting to occur in our churches too.

Heres another quote by Saul.” In Canada, ours is not a civilization that emerged out of the Judeo-Christian line.. if the central inspiration of our country is aboriginal, then we are not, and never have been in the European or US sense, a Christian country… This matters because in Europe and in the US, the assumption even among Marxists, agnostics and athiests is that the foundation of their world was Christian civilization.. of course, the churches played a powerful role in Canada, but if the underlying explanation for why we act the way we do is the central role of aboriginal culture, then the Judeo-Christian idea, with all its attachments, is shoved to a secondary position” … so much power in Judeo-Christian civilizations is built upon tension of living in an emotional state of fear produced by a sense of permanent psychic expulsion”

John, I’m not sure I agree with everything he is saying. I guess time will tell. but it sure makes me think deeply about the rational underpinnings of church and why they  could work hand in hand with the state to civilize the native, ( my own Metis forebears)  to break apart their historic political identities, to decimate their traditions and cultures,  to break up their holistic relationship to their place, their sense of country and all tha meant to them. it didnt fit into Lockean  European notions of land tenure, liberal democratic forms of government, and their desire to gain access to land by controlling its inhabitants. Up here, Christianity and civilization (civilizing) were entertwined.

Sauls book is a must-read.

John, Watch PBS, American Experience, We Shall Remain, episode 1, for the American twist on this… you will enjoy all the series’. It will help shape your response even more deeply than you already do.
God bless,
 

I am a Canadian who has been involved in the “shepherding movement” of the 1980s and 1990s. There are many similarities.

Tyranny subverts not only individual worth but, even with social groups that are not dominant, or part of the “majority”. You see this in how history was used to depict native peoples. For native Indian and aboriginal groups, history began to be portrayed as determined, natural, objective, monolithic, linear, (a legacy from European systems of thought) abrogating its contingent, subjective nature. We see the evolution of “other” and dependency in history. In many ways, native history was written through this lens. These ideas were based on the twin colonial pillars of separation and purity, and ran deep in our society. “We know what they deserve. we’re gonna be the ones that are gonna give it to them’ .. or “if you don’t do this, you don’t deserve that” We excluded them by saying “you are not quite there yet”

In other words, dependency became a political concept. (so too in churches!) You begin to see it in popular history, academic writings, official goverment histories. In secular and religious contexts. Natives and their historical social structures slowly began to be “represented”. The idea of the “historical Indian” was constructed.  It interacted and impacted the national consciousness. Through the noble and ignoble savage paradigms, Indians and Metis were romanticized or vilified. Both worked to subvert, commodify, distort, to view them as treaturous, or a less evolved race.

These concepts were very powerful, especially when a people who were meant to be objectified actually begin to believe it, internalize it.. “this was the way it was meant to be because they are biologically inferior to us. Their only hope is to assimilate.” A form of environmental racism ensued. ( I believe you call it a philosophical tribalism) The focus of these historians and other leaders was to justify empires’ expansion. They were needed, as traders, trappers, allies, but not wanted….they were allies, but who won the war? History couldn’t afford the dignity it was giving to the winners, enlightenment thinkers. Besides, we had a new world to settle, a new beginning. In Canada, the ignoble savage turned into paternalism; “we’ll be a father to you” … paternalism comes out of humanitarian efforts of social progress. Political concepts such as special status came out of this, the rationally based designation of indians in Canada was to “deal with them’ and subjugate. In your words, impose the fight to die on whole groups of people..

So you see, it is not only individual worth that is subsumed, subverted. We need to rethink our relationship to indigenous values such as egalitatianism (vs. equality) in the Euro/American approach) balancing individual rights and group rights, embracing complexity, the common bowl, hatrmony, I see native groups today infused with a European sense, (linear, monolitic, ) and it leads to binary thinking, elitist leadership, a collectivist approach, but what is needed amongst natives and in North American society is to reimagine polity based upon indigenous principles such as consensus, consent, inclusion.

These ideas are not romantic, they are foundational, and dare I day, Christian…..I would love to hear your thoughts on this.