{"id":35506,"date":"2024-02-02T21:50:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T05:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35506"},"modified":"2024-02-02T21:50:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-03T05:50:02","slug":"kryptonite-agendas-and-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/kryptonite-agendas-and-exploration\/","title":{"rendered":"Kryptonite, Agendas and Exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat does the Lord Require of Me? But to do Justice, and to Love Mercy and to Walk Humbly with our God.\u201d Micah 6:8<\/em><\/p>\n

Kryptonite<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a weakness\u2026an Achilles heel, and I\u2019m willing to admit it today: I suck at arguing! I found myself on edge as I read Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and respond to the Political Culture<\/em> by Matthew R. Petrusek, it brought me to a place of anxiety of knowing that in my gut I\u2019m not on the same page as the author on a lot of what he said, and it takes me back again to the inner dialogue of why I am here?\u00a0 But yet, it convinced me that what I needed most from this book was to recognize the value of arguing.\u00a0 It is an election year in USA, and this is when I \u201cretreat and take shelter \u201c[1]<\/a> as Petrusek notes as one of the ways we engage the world.\u00a0 I\u2019m using it in an opposite way as I use it to disengage from politics, but it is a helpful strategy for me and here\u2019s why.\u00a0 I just know what I know and trust my gut instincts\/holy spirit in observing and knowing what is true for me.\u00a0 When I read this book, I want to instinctively rail against it as I find myself in alignment of a lot of what he is saying about ideologies, but feeling frustrated because this book has taken all of them to the extreme versions of them and I do not consider myself an extremist by any measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you discover they are not going to leave you alone and are intent on joining their cause (or else), it becomes clear that there are only four options to respond: You can run. You can submit. You can bloody your knuckles. Or you can craft a better argument and make your case boldly.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m going to work off this quote in several ways, first of all back to my kryptonite: crafting a better argument and making my case boldly.\u00a0 I do not have time or energy to do that for this book this week.\u00a0 Inspectional reading does not give me the opportunity to \u201ccraft a better argument for disagreeing with this book\u201d, so my chaplain, find the middle ground heart can acknowledge that my kryptonite is revealed, and perhaps that is what this book has taught me as I engage the world as a Doctor of Leadership.\u00a0\u00a0 I have to encounter so many patients in my context who project their thoughts and beliefs on me just based on being a person of faith.\u00a0 I literally have to take deep breaths when I walk in certain patients\u2019 rooms because I know they\u2019ll have a news station blaring that I cannot stand, and yet, I meet them there.\u00a0 My vocational ministry is agenda \u201cless.\u201d\u00a0 I do not evangelize and that is what makes a Chaplain different than a pastor.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Petrusek mentions in the aforementioned quote \u201conce you know they won\u2019t leave you alone\u2026.\u201d[3]<\/a> Is in my experience the very moment our relationship with others is not fractured, as now one side or both sides have not sniffed out the \u201cagenda\u201d to the relationship. It seems to me (in my inspectional reading) that Petrusek has an agenda to make our political atmosphere more in line with Christian ideals so that they may receive Christ.\u00a0 I often don\u2019t have a reply to people\u2019s political alignment as I choose to keep the person\u2019s dignity first and foremost in my mind and choose love, this is how I keep my cool even within my close family members. RELATIONSHIP IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ME THEN AGREEMENT, and that is where I will always stand.\u00a0 My family members argue they vote according to their faith, and I vote according to my faith, Same God, Same Jesus, very, very different voting record.\u00a0 \u201cBut to do Justice, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with my God\u201d[4]<\/a> this is my agenda, and though the author is advocating for bold advocacy, I believe that courage also looks like love the other, I choose love.\u00a0 I believe we can have a President who is Christian but not a Christian President.<\/p>\n

Exploration<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe more I contemplate these times, when we truly are giving birth to a new world view, the more I realize that our culture is presently journeying through chaos. The old ways are dissolving, and the new has not yet shown itself. The old ways are dissolving, and the new has not yet shown itself.\u00a0 If this is true, then we must engage with another differently, as explorers and discoverers\u201d[5]<\/a>.\u00a0 I resonate with this statement as a true way to be in relationship with each other without agenda is to be an explorer, asking open ended questions and discovering something in the other person we may have misjudged or been biased towards.\u00a0 Most of us play detective instead, we have made up our minds about an ideology or political leaning or belief and we therefore look for evidence to back up our original thoughts and biases.\u00a0 When training resident assistants at a Christian college in Chicago, part of our training was playing loud music in the hallways, we had loud Christian music, loud pop music, loud country and loud rap and hip hop.\u00a0 This exercise brings out our bias because a real life encounter for our RA\u2019s was making sure people were abiding to communal living and realize, that they were far less likely to ask someone to turn down their music if it was a song or style they liked\u2026it didn\u2019t seem loud, but encountering a style that is often played loud and has a wall-rattling bass is easily determined as loud and therefore confront.\u00a0 As you can guess, many times this was true among racial diversity lines.\u00a0 If we decided that other\u2019s ideologies are all wrong, how do we not become biased to people who believe this way, and ask them to turn their back from their framework to accept ours?\u00a0 I am out of time to lay them out, but the last chapter of Petrusek\u2019s book has some helpful ways to argue.\u00a0 In summary they are: \u201cTry to Avoid attacking \u201cbad People\u201d, ask sincere questions, seek clarity not simplicity, be disposed to learn something new, be a happy warrior, don\u2019t be afraid of courage, don\u2019t compromise the faith to gain a (temporary) ally, be ready to make strategic retreats and take shelter\u201d.[6]<\/a> Now I\u2019m not sure in the context of this authors intent I agree with all of these, but I will continue to wrestle and to assume the best in this author, and turn to \u201cinquiry and wonder\u201d[7]<\/a>on who he is, why he may be saying these things, and how I can argue with courage and perhaps one day shake off my Kryptonite, and probably admit I am not an evangelical!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Petrusek, Matthew R. Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture.<\/em> (Illinois, The Word On Fire Institute, 2023) 454.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 19.<\/p>\n

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

[4]<\/a> Micah 6:8<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Wheatley, Margaret. Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a New World. <\/em>(San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2006), 191.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Petrusek, Matthew R. Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture.<\/em> (Illinois, The Word On Fire Institute, 2023) 446-454.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Palmer, Parker. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. (<\/em>San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2008). 281.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat does the Lord Require of Me? But to do Justice, and to Love Mercy and to Walk Humbly with our God.\u201d Micah 6:8 Kryptonite I have a weakness\u2026an Achilles heel, and I\u2019m willing to admit it today: I suck at arguing! I found myself on edge as I read Evangelization and Ideology: How to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"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":[2707,2489,2997,345],"class_list":["post-35506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-palmer","tag-dlgp02","tag-petrusek","tag-wheatley","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35506","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\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35507,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35506\/revisions\/35507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}