{"id":26204,"date":"2020-03-02T16:32:57","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T00:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=26204"},"modified":"2020-03-02T16:32:57","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T00:32:57","slug":"sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/sanctuary\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanctuary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Coddling of the American Mind<\/em> is one of those unique books that isn\u2019t afraid to take a look a trends in culture and call them out their inconsistencies.\u00a0 Haidt and Lukianoff expound upon three untruths that have infiltrated the American mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Untruth of Fragility: \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t kill you makes you weaker.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: \u201cAlways trust your feelings.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The Untruth of Us vs. Them: \u201cLife is a battle between good people and evil people.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Together, these three untruths have plunged the world of academia into chaos where professors and students are afraid to speak their minds for fear of repercussions.\u00a0 The authors talk about \u201csafetyism\u201d, which \u201crefers to a culture or belief system in which safety has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a>\u00a0 The central argument is that the need to keep oneself safe has become the primary idol of our culture, which in turn has created a generation of young adults who have difficulty coping with the realities of the world.<\/p>\n<p>The Untruth of Fragility is one that is not relegated to the United States.\u00a0 This untruth is one that permeates Hong Kong society to the point where I cannot help but gawk at times.\u00a0 For example, last year I was asked to come up with a Halloween activity for students for a lunch time activity.\u00a0 I found some Halloween tongue twisters, made a worksheet, and had them laminated for the activity.\u00a0 However, the teacher in charge approached me and asked me to make sure the corners were rounded because they were afraid the students would hurt themselves on the \u201csharp\u201d corners.\u00a0 I was flabbergasted, but complied (some battles aren\u2019t worth fighting).\u00a0 Several weeks later I cut myself on a sharp laminated corner; something I didn\u2019t inform my colleague about.<\/p>\n<p>While this is a silly example, the problem goes much deeper.\u00a0 The notion that ideas can be considered so dangerous that we need to insulate ourselves from them is truly unsettling.\u00a0 I would go so far to say that it\u2019s intellectual genocide.\u00a0 <strong>A safe space should be one where people can come to openly dialogue with one another; not isolate oneself from ideas.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There is a popular YouTube series on the channel called \u201cJubilee\u201d called \u201cMiddle Ground.\u201d\u00a0 The whole idea of Middle Ground is to debunk the Untruth of Us vs. Them.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Episode titles such as \u201cCan Trump Supporters and Immigrants See Eye to Eye?\u2019 or \u201cCan Israelis and Palestinians See Eye to Eye?\u201d bring people from both sides into a room where they are asked a question or a statement.\u00a0 If the person agrees with it, they will come to the middle of the room where both sides will dialogue with one another.\u00a0 After they have had their say, those who disagree will come and share their thoughts.\u00a0 The point of the experiment is to show that both sides have more in common with one another than one would believe otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Of the three untruths, the Untruth of Us vs. Them is the one I find most relevant to my own context and what I see popping up on social media.\u00a0 We have a problem where when people do not agree with us, we tend to demonize them or to view them as the \u201cOther.\u201d\u00a0 For the last half year, I have seen this unfolding before my eyes with the situation in Hong Kong.\u00a0 Police and Protestors have demonized the other to the point where people will ask you if you are \u201cBlue\u201d or \u201cYellow\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Restaurants are branded as Yellow or Blue; those that are Yellow have seen a spike in business with the hope that doing so it will provoke more people to join the side of the protestors.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It is in the midst of this that I ask the question, \u201cWhere is the church\u2019s role in reconciliation?\u201d\u00a0 After talking with my friends who are pastors in Hong Kong, they have mentioned how tricky it is because there are people in the congregation who fall on both sides of the spectrum.\u00a0 To come out and support one side while condemning another would be to ostracize the others.\u00a0 But at the same time, refusing to acknowledge or help people process the turmoil isn\u2019t helpful either.\u00a0 <strong><em>It is in this context that I think designating the church as a safe place to engage in dialogue is critical.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During our London Advance, I was struck by Jeremy Crossley\u2019s story of St. Margaret\u2019s and how the church became a space for the bankers to be engaged, even though they were looked down upon.\u00a0 Since then, I have wondered what it would look like for the churches of Hong Kong to actively open their doors to the police and the protestors saying, \u201cThis is a place where you can be loved.\u00a0 This is a place you can call sanctuary, a place where you can find rest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The word \u201csanctuary\u201d is defined as \u201ca place of refuge and protection.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Historically, the church sanctuary acted as a place of refuge to those who were fleeing criminal charges.<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a>\u00a0 One can see this represented in the opening scene of Disney\u2019s 1996 animated film <em>The Hunchback of Notre Dame.<\/em>\u00a0 When Judge Frollo is chasing Quasimodo\u2019s mother through the streets, his mother arrives at the church doors, banging on it and calling out, \u201cSanctuary!\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today, in the midst of political turmoil the church should be actively pursuing a role in the reconciliation of differing parties.\u00a0 It should be a place where it is not \u201cus vs. them\u201d but a rather a place that says, \u201cIn Christ, we are one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, <em>The Coddling of the American Mind, <\/em>New York: Penguin Books (2018), 3.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Ibid., 29.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Link to Jubilee\u2019s Channel: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/jubileeProject\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/jubileeProject<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> In Hong Kong, to be \u201cBlue\u201d means that you do not support the recent protests while being \u201cYellow\u201d means that you do support them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/hong-kong\/politics\/article\/3035914\/not-michelin-guide-hong-kong-restaurants-branded-yellow-if\">https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/hong-kong\/politics\/article\/3035914\/not-michelin-guide-hong-kong-restaurants-branded-yellow-if<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sanctuary\">https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/sanctuary<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> For a very broad overview,&lt; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sanctuary\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sanctuary<\/a> &gt; is helpful.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=R-XONxvdq4Y\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=R-XONxvdq4Y<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Coddling of the American Mind is one of those unique books that isn\u2019t afraid to take a look a trends in culture and call them out their inconsistencies.\u00a0 Haidt and Lukianoff expound upon three untruths that have infiltrated the American mind: The Untruth of Fragility: \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t kill you makes you weaker.\u201d The Untruth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"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":[1214,1535],"class_list":["post-26204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-haidt","tag-lukianoff","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26204","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\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26205,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26204\/revisions\/26205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}