Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Oops
I really should pay more attention. I've already posted the last post. But, I changed a couple of things and it's better, so I'll leave it. Maybe the accidental repetition means something?
Ellul as fatalist?
I posted this elsewhere already, but it seemed like a good follow up. I am becoming more and more convinced of the foolishness of our cleverness if it isn't proceeded by an acknowledgment of God. Acknowledgment can be as simple as recognizing presence. Ancient and simple disciplines lead toward a fluid automatic recognition of God's presence.
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"The stream of political, military, and social necessity is so overpowering that superhuman strength is required to struggle against it. No asceticism or exercise of human power can overcome it—only the holiness that comes from God. And although the power is given to overcome it, there is no way of escaping it."
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.
Some have called Ellul a fatalist. On the basis of the above statement we cannot call Ellul fatalist. There is a way to overcome; "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of Ellul's statement. 1. If it seems impossible, it must be. 2.Therefore, Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one. 3. Therefore Ellul must be fatalist.
We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.
Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling.
Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's already active moving, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.
To use these good things properly their use must follow God's already active moving in here and now. To follow God's moving here and now we must have some idea of, well, where he's moving. To have some idea of where he is moving we must lay down our busy cleverness long enough to sense his moving. Then we must follow and we must stay close.
An intimate loving relationship with our Creator must be in place before we engage in our own clever creative acts. A sense of his moving must be in place before we use our tools and techniques. It's our relationship to him and a sense of his already moving here and now that places our creative capacity in its proper context.
Now we arrive at the most difficult thing for those of us in a highly technological and self sufficient milieux; we must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us be in relationship with God. We must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us stay close to God's moving.
How do we stay close to God's moving? We stay close through ancient Christian disciplines: prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fast, feast, celebration and worship. It is that simple and that difficult.
Our tools and techniques can't come fist. Simple ancient Christian disciplines come first. If our tools and techniques can come first then our own cleverness comes first; and if our cleverness comes first we don't need God,
So here's my question, what if our practice of simple Christian disciplines has become so complicated that we need our cleverness to navigate our practice of simple disciplines? Hasn't our cleverness preempted the orienting purpose of our simple disciplines? Isn't that part of the reason we think Ellul is a fatalist?
========================================
"The stream of political, military, and social necessity is so overpowering that superhuman strength is required to struggle against it. No asceticism or exercise of human power can overcome it—only the holiness that comes from God. And although the power is given to overcome it, there is no way of escaping it."
~Jacques Ellul. The Meaning of The City.
Some have called Ellul a fatalist. On the basis of the above statement we cannot call Ellul fatalist. There is a way to overcome; "holiness that comes from God." The problem is in our reading of Ellul's statement. 1. If it seems impossible, it must be. 2.Therefore, Ellul's "solution" is an impossible one. 3. Therefore Ellul must be fatalist.
We doubt the available practicality of God's power. What does God have to do with flat tires, bank machines, elevator music, broken calculators, electric wires, high chairs, low latency, wide area networks and deep analysis? We simply don't believe it.
Believing is doubly difficult for us to do. We first must hold onto God, but we must simultaneously let go of the very thing we are struggling against, our innate desire to take things into our own hands, our numbers, statistics, plans, techniques, methods, our way of doing things, our technological self reliance. Alphabets, watches, spread sheets, statistics, streets, roads, cars, buildings, our self constructed image, time, economic imperatives, our self proclaimed comfort, entitlement, security. We don't want to let go of all those good things that seem so compelling.
Surely God uses those good things? Surely, he does. But to be used, they must be used at the behest of God's already active moving, not at the behest of our spirit of taking things into our own hands.
To use these good things properly their use must follow God's already active moving in here and now. To follow God's moving here and now we must have some idea of, well, where he's moving. To have some idea of where he is moving we must lay down our busy cleverness long enough to sense his moving. Then we must follow and we must stay close.
An intimate loving relationship with our Creator must be in place before we engage in our own clever creative acts. A sense of his moving must be in place before we use our tools and techniques. It's our relationship to him and a sense of his already moving here and now that places our creative capacity in its proper context.
Now we arrive at the most difficult thing for those of us in a highly technological and self sufficient milieux; we must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us be in relationship with God. We must acknowledge the inability of our tools and techniques to help us stay close to God's moving.
How do we stay close to God's moving? We stay close through ancient Christian disciplines: prayer, study, meditation, solitude, fast, feast, celebration and worship. It is that simple and that difficult.
Our tools and techniques can't come fist. Simple ancient Christian disciplines come first. If our tools and techniques can come first then our own cleverness comes first; and if our cleverness comes first we don't need God,
So here's my question, what if our practice of simple Christian disciplines has become so complicated that we need our cleverness to navigate our practice of simple disciplines? Hasn't our cleverness preempted the orienting purpose of our simple disciplines? Isn't that part of the reason we think Ellul is a fatalist?
A Way Forward?
We should be concerned about social injustice. We should be concerned about technological progress and its impact on the environment, on morality, on ethics. We should be concerned about the impact our cities, the suburbs and media are having on our health, head and hearts. But it isn't enough to expose.
In light of our concerns we should also be finding a new way forward, even if it is tentative, stumbling in the dark. What good is exposing injustice if we don't find justice. What good is diagnosing a chronically ill heart if we don't also find something to make it healthy.
Is it possible to stumble in the dark wisely?
In light of our concerns we should also be finding a new way forward, even if it is tentative, stumbling in the dark. What good is exposing injustice if we don't find justice. What good is diagnosing a chronically ill heart if we don't also find something to make it healthy.
Is it possible to stumble in the dark wisely?
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