{"id":35295,"date":"2024-01-29T09:11:43","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T17:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35295"},"modified":"2024-01-29T09:35:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T17:35:21","slug":"the-hero-within-and-cultural-bound-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-hero-within-and-cultural-bound-prisons\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hero Within and Cultural Bound Prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were many directions that I could go in writing my post this week.\u00a0 I saw the role of the leader in Joseph Campbell\u2019s work, for example, \u201cThe Call to Adventure\u201d and \u201cSupernatural Aid.\u201d[1]<\/a>.\u00a0 I also cannot watch television or movies in the same way due to looking for these concepts imbedded within.\u00a0 However, there were a couple thoughts that really stuck with me.<\/p>\n

The Hero Within <\/strong>\u201cI am that hero!\u201d proclaims Larry-Boy in Phil Vischer and David Mullen\u2019s song titled Larry-Boy.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 A statement that, I believe, down deep inside, many of us wish we could proclaim about ourselves.\u00a0 Who among us love to watch the movies and television shows involving a hero, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, and even the Incredible Hulk.\u00a0 There is a reason why DC Comics and Marvel Comics have made millions over the years starting off with comic books to the fast-paced adventures seen in today\u2019s movies.\u00a0 I believe we watch them, because down deep inside of us is a yearning in some way to identify with them.\u00a0 Perhaps you, like my wife are not into the superhero movies, but enjoy a quest like Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee in J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings<\/em> or Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy in C.S. Lewis\u2019 The Chronicles of Narnia.\u00a0 <\/em>Joseph Campell writes \u201cThe hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human form.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 He goes on to say \u201cThe hero has died as a modern man; but as eternal man\u2014perfected, unspecific, universal man\u2014he has been reborn.\u00a0 His second solemn task and deed therefore . . . is to return to us, transfigured, and teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed.\u201d[4]<\/a> \u00a0As a leader, I want to be like Frodo, return from a heroic quest and be able to sit down and teach others what I learned.<\/p>\n

Cultural Bound Prisons <\/strong>After reading Joseph Campbell\u2019s The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em> and listening to segments of a 6 part video series in which Bill Moyer interviewed Campbell a couple years before Campbell\u2019s death, I found myself wondering how many Christians, would say that Campbell is blasphemous, that he would include stories from the Bible in his collection of mythology.\u00a0 However, I found Bill Moyers’ comment to Campbell interesting.\u00a0 In the second video in which Campbell discusses the power of myth Moyer says.\u00a0 \u201cThe interesting thing to me is that far from undermining my faith, your work in mythology has liberated my faith from the cultural prisons from which it had been sentenced.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 How often do we put God in a box that we have built using our own cultural biases about what God can do, who God is and even who God can use for his purposes.\u00a0 Camacho said \u201cEverything begins with our view of God.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 The God of the Bible must be appropriately translated; John Walton argues that to truly understand the Bible, we must not only translate the textual language but also the culture to whom the text was written[7]<\/a>\u00a0 I appreciate Walton as he expresses his interpretations of the Bible as propositions.\u00a0 By using the word proposition, Walton leaves room for the fact that despite all the research he has done, he could still be wrong.\u00a0 This is a great frame of mind, one that most people should have when they argue any belief.\u00a0 Kathryn Schulz talks about the stipulations of the \u201c\u2019Cuz It\u2019s True Constraint\u201d[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Schulz states that in our minds, \u2018cuz it\u2019s true\u2019 \u201capplies only to our own beliefs\u201d, however, she points out later on that \u201cour beliefs are really beliefs once removed.\u00a0 Our faith that we are right is faith that someone else is right.\u201d[9]<\/a>\u00a0 I like this, especially as I work college students, getting them to try to form their own belief system.\u00a0 Many of them are still resting on their parent’s faith and belief system.\u00a0 Walton states that we call something a myth because what is stated doesn\u2019t fit our personal beliefs for how God or the world works.\u00a0 But we must remember that what we call mythology \u201cwas a real description of deep beliefs\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Walton argues that because of scientific theory and explanations for how the world was created and works, for some, our Christian beliefs are mythology.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Why do I bring this up?\u00a0 As we study leadership from a global perspective, we must consider how our cultures have shaped our ideas of what leadership looks like.\u00a0 We need to truly be open to hearing and digesting what others have to say about leadership and not just spit it out claiming it to be some sort of blasphemy or mythology.\u00a0 Let us be open and willing to possibly be freed from our own cultural prisons as we listen to the deep beliefs of others.<\/p>\n

Now, if you will excuse me, after reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em> and listening to Bill Moyers’ interview Campbell, I need to lie down on a couch and share all my dreams with a Freudian or Jungian psychoanalyst. Maybe I will discover a hero deep inside me just waiting to be released.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> [1] Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em> 2 ed. (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1973), 36<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>. Nicole C Mullen, vocalist, \u201cLarry-Boy\u201d by Phil Vischer and David Mullen, released April 11, 1997, track 13 on VeggieTunes 2<\/em><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Campbell, 19.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Campbell, 20.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Kino Lorber, \u201cJoseph Campbell and the Power of Myth – Ep. 2: ‘The Message of the Myth’\u201d, August 23, 2022, 30:48 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Aee5DJ9DSwU&t=1849s<\/a><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Camacho, 50.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One<\/em> (Downers Grove, Inter-Varsity Press, 2009).<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010).<\/em><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Schulz, 109, 141.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Walton, 12, 13.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Walton 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were many directions that I could go in writing my post this week.\u00a0 I saw the role of the leader in Joseph Campbell\u2019s work, for example, \u201cThe Call to Adventure\u201d and \u201cSupernatural Aid.\u201d[1].\u00a0 I also cannot watch television or movies in the same way due to looking for these concepts imbedded within.\u00a0 However, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"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":[3023],"class_list":["post-35295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-campbell","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35295","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\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35295"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35332,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35295\/revisions\/35332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}