Hello Friends,
I ran across a fantastic website a while ago that I just had to share with you.
http://www.geocities.com/savageparade/poj
In it, the authors condense (cliff-notes style) the book "The Politics of Jesus" by John Howard Yoder. This book, if you haven't already heard of it, really took North American Christianity by storm. I highly recommend putting the book on your "to-read" list. (Along with the work Yoder was criticizing, "Christ and Culture" by R. Niebhur.) But knowing the way things are, I have found this outline to do nearly as good a job at expressing the message of the book as the book itself.
Now, if only they could make a cliff notes version of me....
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Welcome friends
I want to offer some information on this blog, and how to use it, and then, have fun in this digital sandbox of peace and justice insight sharing.
1. In the interests making our dialogue available to greater numbers of people, people who may run across this long after we've finished reading/thinking about the book, I have enabled Search engine indexing. I have, however, blocked access to only registered users, but still, take some care. Try not to use last names, list information you wouldn't want (insert person who you wouldn't want) to see. I don't think you're all stupid, but I need to mention it as well: Don't put out your email address, or any other address for that matter. Web Spiders crawl all over the place and will stick your email into their junkmail lists.
2. (I feel dumb having to say this) Be respectful of people not only in the negative sense (don't say bad things) but also in the positive sense (i.e. words of affirmation, encouragement, etc.). Sowing justice starts now, so let's make sure we understand people's viewpoints as if they were not that different than our own, even if they are. You never know how close some people are to the truth of Justice and peace. Alienation just drives folks away.
3. Try to offer feedback for people. Because we're not in a room all together, you may find yourself thinking, "did anyone actually read that?" If we were meeting together, you'd be able to look at them, and if their eyeballs weren't rolled back in their heads, you could assume that people heard you. Otherwise, you're pretty much in the dark about what people think, or even if they're thinking at all. So drop a quick comment on everything you read. Even if you don't really have much to say, just say, "Good thought. Don't have much to say."
4. Don't worry about getting a chapter "spoiled" by reading posts about chapters you haven't read. It's not like the book is a novel, where people are wondering, "What's going to happen to Jane and Lady Fairfax?" The point is not to read the words so much as glean insight from them. Usually the latter requires the former, but not always. In addition, some scientist somewhere once said "I merely stand on the shoulders of giants." Reading on your own is often like trying to see over the trees while having both feet firmly planted on the ground. But it shouldn't have to be that way. We can make so much more progress if we piggy-back off of each other's thoughts. Just last night, for example, I made an observation about Aristotle in ethics class, and some other guy continued my line of thought until he had come up with a new argument for the existence of God. That sort of thing doesn't happen every day, and neither I by myself, nor he by himself could have reached that conclusion alone. We needed each other's ideas to form our own, and I myself am quite flattered that I could have had such a role in his genius.
5. Finally, visit often. Don't just visit after you finish a chapter. It may very well be that other people post things between the time when you start a chapter and finish it, so you might be able to get cool information about that chapter before you read it.
With that, I leave you guys to happy postings, hope all goes well for the next month or two as we learn about peace, justice, and how we can make it happen.
Pax,
Ben
1. In the interests making our dialogue available to greater numbers of people, people who may run across this long after we've finished reading/thinking about the book, I have enabled Search engine indexing. I have, however, blocked access to only registered users, but still, take some care. Try not to use last names, list information you wouldn't want (insert person who you wouldn't want) to see. I don't think you're all stupid, but I need to mention it as well: Don't put out your email address, or any other address for that matter. Web Spiders crawl all over the place and will stick your email into their junkmail lists.
2. (I feel dumb having to say this) Be respectful of people not only in the negative sense (don't say bad things) but also in the positive sense (i.e. words of affirmation, encouragement, etc.). Sowing justice starts now, so let's make sure we understand people's viewpoints as if they were not that different than our own, even if they are. You never know how close some people are to the truth of Justice and peace. Alienation just drives folks away.
3. Try to offer feedback for people. Because we're not in a room all together, you may find yourself thinking, "did anyone actually read that?" If we were meeting together, you'd be able to look at them, and if their eyeballs weren't rolled back in their heads, you could assume that people heard you. Otherwise, you're pretty much in the dark about what people think, or even if they're thinking at all. So drop a quick comment on everything you read. Even if you don't really have much to say, just say, "Good thought. Don't have much to say."
4. Don't worry about getting a chapter "spoiled" by reading posts about chapters you haven't read. It's not like the book is a novel, where people are wondering, "What's going to happen to Jane and Lady Fairfax?" The point is not to read the words so much as glean insight from them. Usually the latter requires the former, but not always. In addition, some scientist somewhere once said "I merely stand on the shoulders of giants." Reading on your own is often like trying to see over the trees while having both feet firmly planted on the ground. But it shouldn't have to be that way. We can make so much more progress if we piggy-back off of each other's thoughts. Just last night, for example, I made an observation about Aristotle in ethics class, and some other guy continued my line of thought until he had come up with a new argument for the existence of God. That sort of thing doesn't happen every day, and neither I by myself, nor he by himself could have reached that conclusion alone. We needed each other's ideas to form our own, and I myself am quite flattered that I could have had such a role in his genius.
5. Finally, visit often. Don't just visit after you finish a chapter. It may very well be that other people post things between the time when you start a chapter and finish it, so you might be able to get cool information about that chapter before you read it.
With that, I leave you guys to happy postings, hope all goes well for the next month or two as we learn about peace, justice, and how we can make it happen.
Pax,
Ben
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