{"id":17810,"date":"2018-05-25T18:34:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-26T01:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17810"},"modified":"2018-05-25T18:34:58","modified_gmt":"2018-05-26T01:34:58","slug":"the-bees-have-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-bees-have-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bees Have It"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion<\/em>, Jonathan Haidt recounts his seemingly sudden rush of patriotism that overcame him directly after 9\/11. According to Haidt, a self-described liberal professor at UVA, this was incredibly foreign to him, and felt like a bit of a betrayal to his liberal \u201ctribe.\u201d[1]<\/a> This is how he opens his dialogue about the human desire to be a part of the group and the triggering of what he labels the \u201chive switch.\u201d[2]<\/a> All of this relates to the part of Haidt\u2019s theory that I find most intriguing \u2013 the theory that humans are 90% chimp and 10% bee.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

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Haidt\u2019s ideas about why humans are divided by politics and religion rest deeply on the ideas of evolutionary natural selection, hence the whole chimp thing. He provides well-reasoned information for \"\"<\/a>how evolution has brought humanity from primate to personhood, with a few lingering attributes. In fact, his entire premise of humanity\u2019s self-interest is carefully constructed on the idea that we descend from primates and, in observing chimpanzees, we see the similarities between our selfishness and theirs. There is just one thing missing from his theory \u2013 the imago dei<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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I am by no means anti-evolution. I believe there is strong scientific evidence that all of creation has evolved since the beginning. I do not believe in a literal 7-day creation, and I do not believe the first humans look like we look now. That being said, I believe that God created humanity as, well, humanity. Into \"\"<\/a>humanity God instilled God\u2019s image (the imago dei<\/em>) and humanity has been assigned the role of God\u2019s representative and caretaker of all creation. I believe our selfishness and self-interest \u201cevolved\u201d as a result of sin and brokenness because we are not God\u2019s robots. That being said, I also believe in the idea of the remaining spark of God\u2019s goodness in humanity. We are created to be God\u2019s community, but we have torn apart that community.<\/p>\n

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By neglecting the idea of the imago dei<\/em>, Haidt also neglects the idea of the Kingdom. While I find a lot of his psychological theory extremely convincing, I think he begins with an invalid presupposition. We are not selfish creations who occasionally override that selfishness to invest in community; we are created for \"\"<\/a>community and our selfishness overrides that innate desire. I think this is why people who truly believe they are serving the same God can seemingly worship very different Gods or no god at all. The glitch in our desire for community is self-interest. I love God, and I love my country, but it\u2019s easier to see positive results from my patriotism than it is to see results from my devotion to the Kingdom. Kingdom sacrifice sucks. It means I have to give time, money, stuff, and effort to people and things that may never increase my own well-being and may push me to the same margins. Patriotic sacrifice has not only its own reward, but also the reward of being honored and lauded by others. I know that sounds simplistic, but I have seen it in my own life.<\/p>\n

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Going back to Haidt\u2019s post-9\/11 patriotism\u2026<\/p>\n

When 9\/11 hit, my first response was to lament. I was broken for people who died, for the fear that would change our country, and for the overwhelming loss of our feelings of security. I was struck, however, by the way our times of prayer became patriotic rallying cries. Our weeping was replaced by songs that spoke of \"\"<\/a>America\u2019s greatness. Words of hate against our enemies fell from the pulpit, and military hymns were sung by our church choirs. Instead of \u201cturning our eyes upon Jesus,\u201d we offered our allegiance to the flag. I don\u2019t know why, but suddenly I felt my own patriotism slipping away. In this, I found myself ostracized and scoffed. I was told I was turning my back on God. I was called selfish for hating America.<\/p>\n

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The thing is, I don\u2019t hate America. I am ever-grateful that I was born here. I love so much about this country, including its incredible variety of people and geography. I have found goodness in every place I have travelled here. But America is not the Kingdom. We are not the Chosen. We have been given so much, and from us much is due.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t expect our government to right the wrongs of the world. I don\u2019t even expect our leaders to love our enemies \u2013 that\u2019s not their job. I do, however, expect the people of God to love our enemies in spite of government policies. I expect our Christian leaders to speak truth to governmental power, not cozy up to them. But again, self-interest comes in. Many of our leaders believe that aligning themselves with political power so that they can get things accomplished (I\u2019m purposely avoiding use of the term \u2018agenda\u2019 here), is more important than calling out violations of humanity that they have previously labeled immoral. On the other \u201cside,\u201d there are leaders insisting that government work according to Kingdom principles (as they interpret them) while spewing hate-filled vitriol at government leaders or people who disagree. We have chosen our hives, for better or for worse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite my disagreements with Haidt, I find his ideas for at least partial resolution to be incredibly valuable. We can come to the place where we recognize we are all part of one whole hive. We can fight like siblings, but work together to better all of creation by finding places of commonality as well as points of mutual interest and understanding. I think Christians must start this. If we are truly called to be God\u2019s representatives (and I believe we are), we must learn to put aside self-interest, ease up on nationalism, and use our blessedness to be a blessing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PS \u2013 I highly recommend that anyone interested in these ideas read Lisa Sharon Harper\u2019s books:<\/p>\n

Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican or Democrat<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Left Right & Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

And her most recent book:<\/p>\n

The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1]. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion<\/em>, (New York: Vintage Books, 2012), 9-10.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2]. Haidt, 256-284.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [3]. Haidt, Introduction, xxii.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt recounts his seemingly sudden rush of patriotism that overcame him directly after 9\/11. According to Haidt, a self-described liberal professor at UVA, this was incredibly foreign to him, and felt like a bit of a betrayal to his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"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":[1221,1262],"class_list":["post-17810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jonathan-haidt","tag-the-righteous-mind","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17810","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\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17816,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17810\/revisions\/17816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}