#14 - Respond

So, last blog it is. This semester really flew. It's kind of sad. However, that's not really relevant.


What I really want to talk about it this project that we did. While we worked on it, I realized that I don't really agree with our opinion and neither does the premise behind our class.

Several weeks ago when Dr. Borders took us to Bear Elementary, he said that in dealing with bees he had to change himself in order to change how the bees responded to him. Thinking about that, it never once came up in the project. No one said that in order to change how we are educated and how our professors interact with us we would need to change ourselves. We are living in a society where we expect everyone to adapt to who we are and what we want. However, Jesus never once expected society to change without him first making a statement.

I look back on our class, and it gets me thinking. Jesus did not come to change society by complaining that it was flawed. He came to save it, and in order to do so, he changed himself to be like man. As a result, he has created a more profound impact upon humanity that any other human being throughout history.

We, as students, are a lazy group. Yes, some of us are hard-working, some of us really apply ourselves, some of us reach our potential. At the same time, we don't carry our own weight for the most part. If we decided to respect and cherish the academic authority that our professors have and use their acquired knowledge to expand our own, wouldn't we be better suited to progress on that instead of dumbing ourselves down? Because, who really wants to be the generation that dropped the ball?

Our teachers work hard for us. Its impossible for them to teach to each of our individual learning styles, and if they did we would still find flaws in their methods. Our education is our responsibility. They provide the information, but it is my job to connect with it. I am the one that that information is meant to help. They don't gain anything from telling me things that they already know. 

I guess what my point is that if we want to effect change, we have to start with us. That's what our project was about. That's what this class was about. That's what the gospels were about.

By Jove, I think I got it.

#13 - Disconnect

Ideally, Christianity should offend the state to be relevant. When churches accommodate to the state, they become ineffective. Christianity has become "dumbed down" so as not to disrupt society.

Where's the disconnect between the original aims of Christianity and the watered down version that has developed in modern times? How has it become a societal norm when it was intentionally designed to disrupt and change society?

#12 - A little more Jewish...

In class on Thursday, it was briefly asked how the world might be different if Jesus was considered a little more Jewish. It kind of struck me as funny, because I know that Jesus was Jewish, but I don't think about it. People like Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler, who were in a way seeing themselves as defenders of Christianity by killing equating negativity with Jew , were actually combating a fundamental principle of who Jesus was. As a result, the Jewish people have suffered through discrimination for centuries. Where would they be now if everyone considered Jesus to be just a little more Jewish?

#11 - The Divine Spark

During our class discussion on Gnosticism this week, we spoke a little about The Divine Spark. I thought it was a little odd how the two came together. So, a quick thought process outline:

 -A "divine spark" somehow made it into a select group of souls in the material universe.
- These select souls would require a redeemer to be led (with "the spark") back into the spiritual world.
- Knowledge is salvation.
- People were saved from their own ignorance, not sin. 

Did this Divine Spark give people the ability to acquire knowledge? If this spark did impart the ability to know, why was a redeemer required? Doesn't quite make sense...

All the while, I can't help but equate the Divine Spark to the All Spark. Wikipedia that. 

#10 - Language

An interesting idea was brought up in class over the last week. We started talking about the way in which our language wires our brain to think in certain ways and see the world in certain ways. It is not possible for us to communicate entirely accurate between cultures due to differences in meanings and an inability to translate exactly. This started me thinking about the story of the Tower of Babel. In earlier years, my thinking process was always that another incident of the same type could occur again if people simply learned the other languages. With this new idea of language shaping our thought processes, its seems as if a disconnect beyond just changing how to say a word occurred. With this in mind, is it ever possible that people could all be united in a common cause? If we cannot fully communicate, can we fully cooperate with each other?

#9 - Change

In class Thursday, we started planning out our project. We split into groups and started throwing around ideas and questions that we wanted to use to poll different campus groups regarding their opinions. In keeping with the original "recreating the 1st century" theme (which ironically, I think we discarded), I started thinking about how they solved issues in the first century. There weren't social networking sites, surveys, cell phones, or any other modern media that makes it so easy for us to communicate our ideas and make ourselves heard. They couldn't whip out the camcorder and record an interview with a prominent member of society. There is plenty of literature regarding the Roman Senate and the large scale government, but what other bodies were in place to take care of the mundane, day-to-day issues. If, in this course, we really want to see the world the way Jesus saw it, would it help to look at it with a perspective that we may not be as comfortable with?

#8 - Genealogy

In looking at Matthew's genealogy, it seems as if the contemporary world view is trying to portray Jesus in a poor light. Man y ancestors were promiscuous, unfaithful, or unknown in their times. He was a descendant of a collection of sexual immoral women, powerful, but corrupt kings, and people of no societal importance. How is it that this combination of ancestors was chosen to represent both Christ and David?