{"id":17349,"date":"2018-04-05T14:49:42","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T21:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17349"},"modified":"2018-04-05T14:49:42","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T21:49:42","slug":"the-church-and-collective-effervescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-church-and-collective-effervescence\/","title":{"rendered":"The church and collective effervescence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you favour CNN over Fox, or are Anglican rather than Baptist, you might be bewildered by the apparent intransigence of those who believe and vote differently than you do. Jonathan Haidt, in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, <\/em>offers compelling research that begins to unpack how well-meaning people can have such startlingly divergent viewpoints. His unsettling premise is, firstly, that intuition trumps reason, and secondly, that six foundational \u201ctaste receptors\u201d inform one\u2019s moral underpinnings.<\/p>\n

Each of these positions is supported by research based on scientific analysis of surveys with thousands of participants across many cultures. What it uncovered is that conservatives and people outside Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures rely on the six moral touchpoints of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty, whereas, surprisingly, the elite liberal group is less diverse and more narrowly focused on moralities around care and fairness.<\/p>\n

Haidt\u2019s third premise is that we are guided by more than self-interest. Instead of pursuing our own independent agendas, he uses the metaphor of bees, and claims that we also promote and uphold the interests of our group.<\/p>\n

For those people whose moral touchpoint highly values sanctity, religion is a key group identity that has resonance with our study in this program. Wherever religious group identity intersects with philanthropy is of interest to me, so when Haidt raises the issue of generosity, my ears perked up:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you believe in hell, whether you pray daily, whether you are a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Mormon \u2026 none of these things correlated with generosity. The only thing that was reliably and powerfully associated with the moral benefits of religion was how enmeshed people were in relationship with their co-religionists.<\/em> It\u2019s the friendships and group activities, carried out within a moral matrix that emphasizes selflessness. That\u2019s what brings out the best in people.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the trends we are seeing today is a growing lack of commitment to the local church, even among people who consider themselves followers of Christ. The gale force winds of postmodern deconstructionist thinking in our culture are blowing apart institutions, whipping up a lack of trust in our leaders, and pushing forward one\u2019s individuality and rights over and against the common good. These winds blow on Christians too. Haidt does not insist that believing the right things is what encourages generosity, he states that it is the enmeshment of people social relationships as a group (ie. as the church) which cultivates this virtue.<\/p>\n

Haidt, with a hat-tip to Emile Durkheim, refers to the buzz of the hive as \u201ccollective effervescence\u201d.[2]<\/a> It is the passion, joy, and solidarity that comes from collective acts of worship. Rufi et al., researchers at the University of Basque Country, go a step further than Haidt by diving deep into such religious practices to determine how interactive spiritual rituals create this sense of belonging and well-being. They analyze a group of regular attenders of Catholic mass and found:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026[B]oundaries between the \u201cI\u201d and \u201cyou\u201d fade in the minds, and as a result, new possibilities of connection emerge. This is how individuals self-expand and integrate the skills and the traits of the people they connect with, since positive emotions alter the way people relate to others. Individuals perceive themselves closer and more connected, sensing that they are the same as those who are perceived as different at any other place and time. This sense of unity experienced in the context of a positive ritual shifts the way people interact with other participants.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my field research, I\u2019m interviewing a set of wealthy and generous Christian givers. In these directed conversations with participants ranging from boomers to millennials, I\u2019m becoming more aware of a growing reluctance to attending church and fully participating in a local congregation. How will this lack of regular attendance impact generosity in the future? Lacking the support from the \u201cbee hive\u201d community identity, without regular participation in a local congregation, it seems that open-hearted generosity is likely to wane.<\/p>\n

So, how do we counter this malaise? The affirmation of the value of church attendance and the integral role of the local church as offering vitality to our communities is essential in our postmodern landscape. I\u2019ve lamented for years that my group of philanthropists could not do more for local churches as, up to now, they have mainly focused energies on parachurch ministries. However, since beginning this DMin program and being surrounded by church leaders as my colleagues (yes, I mean you), I\u2019ve felt inspired to create a new round of annual awards for local churches who are concretely benefiting their neighbours with love and service.<\/p>\n

Later this month I\u2019ll begin having exploratory meetings with some key potential partners to ramp up a series of high exposure awards for local Canadian churches that are impacting their neighbourhoods. Then I\u2019ll begin the work of raising funds from potential givers. Please pray for me and this initiative that I hope will highlight and honour the value of local congregations in Canadian communities across our land. May this collective effervescence be contagious.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion<\/em>. (New York: Vintage, 2013), 267.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Haidt, 226.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Rufi, Sergi, Anna Wlodarczyk, Dar\u00edo P\u00e1ez, and Federico Javaloy. \u201cFlow and Emotional Experience in Spirituality: Differences in Interactive and Coactive Collective Rituals.\u201d Journal of Humanistic Psychology<\/em> 56, no. 4 (July 1, 2016): 373\u201393. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0022167815571597<\/a>. Accessed on April 5, 2018.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you favour CNN over Fox, or are Anglican rather than Baptist, you might be bewildered by the apparent intransigence of those who believe and vote differently than you do. Jonathan Haidt, in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, offers compelling research that begins to unpack how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1214],"class_list":["post-17349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-haidt","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17349"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17354,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17349\/revisions\/17354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}