{"id":4043,"date":"2015-02-14T02:10:15","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T02:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=4043"},"modified":"2015-02-14T02:12:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T02:12:12","slug":"causing-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/causing-harm\/","title":{"rendered":"Causing harm?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our modern lifestyle is moving at a pace in which people\u00a0often find it difficult to have and maintain healthy social structures.\u00a0Bauman, in <em>Collateral Damage<\/em>, examines social inequality and the implications, or cost to humanity. We should, and must, intentionally consider the choices that we make and how they impact others. As we consume more, we don\u2019t always consider the downstream impact. I believe that people want to do the right thing by others, but we have become complacent to the dangers of our lifestyles. As a society, we have placed value on <em>things<\/em> over human lives. Bauman states, \u201cWe now need to extend the issue of inequality beyond the misleadingly narrow area of income per head, to the fatal mutual attraction between poverty and social vulnerability, to corruption, to the accumulation of dangers, as well as to humiliation and denial of dignity.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bauman uses the term \u201ccollateral casualty\u201d as he explains that marginalized people, or those living in poverty, are more susceptible to suffer from disasters.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Consider the pace at which we buy and throw away technology &#8211; somebody has to deal with the trash and pollution caused from this. Causes International reports that \u201cLarge amounts of e-Waste are sent to China, India and Kenya where lower environmental standards and working conditions make processing e-Waste more profitable. It is reported that 80% of all Asian children have elevated levels of lead in their systems.\u201d <a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In a 2014,<em>The Guardian<\/em> ran an article about a UN report on climate change. The article indicated that people who do the least to cause climate change, the poor and weak, are at the greatest chance to be negatively impacted. For example, poor villagers in the Philippines were forced to deal with the aftermath of the 2013 typhoon and storm damage.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In NYC there is so much garbage shipped from the rich to poor areas that children suffer from asthma and other environmental disorders.\u00a0 Yet, garbage sent through these areas has not decreased.\u00a0<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This list could go on and on\u2026 Jeremiah 2:7 says, &#8220;I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.&#8221; Too many people sit in their comfortable world, aware that our consumer driven society hurts vulnerable people and defiles God\u2019s creation. Yet, many Christians are unwilling to sacrifice their way of living to start making significant change. We read the news and when disasters happen, we pray for those involved. It isn\u2019t enough!<\/p>\n<p>Just this week, I received a newsletter from a local church that has decided to do good\u00a0in their community. They\u00a0are spreading a little love with valentine gifts that they will distribute through the community. What good will this do when some of the people in their community can hardly buy food and pay their utility bills? My first thought was, \u201cwhat a sad waste of time and money\u201d. What would happen they made their ministry decisions with the welfare of others in mind? Maybe they would spread love by passing out real food or gas cards instead of valentine\u2019s candy. We fool ourselves every time we buy a little gift to cheer a friend or even write a check for a good cause. \u201cShopping becomes a sort of moral act (and vice versa: moral acts lead by way of the shops). Emptying your wallet or debiting your credit card takes the place of the self-abandonment and self-sacrifice that moral responsibility for the Other requires.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Would we even know how to take care of each other in a world without money?<\/p>\n<p>The world\u2019s issues can\u2019t be fixed by money or prayer alone, rather we must start doing the right thing and making the right choices as a society on a broad and signficant scale. Change won\u2019t be driven by governmental action, politics, nor economic systems. In fact, it\u00a0is difficult to even articulate the changes needed given the modern liquid society in which we are immersed. Bauman\u2019s case for change is well founded, and I agree that it will take \u201ca lot of good will, dedication, readiness for compromise, mutual respect and a shared distaste for any form of human humiliation; and, of course , a firm determination to restore the lost balance between the value of security and that of ethical propriety.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a> I have to ask myself if this is a feasible expectation. Is this the world we can expect to live in until Christ returns? What is our responsibility, as Christian leaders, to push for change in the face of such obstacles? Do we give up and succumb to the ways of the world? Do we all become tree huggers and sacrifice all of our worldly goods to save others? There aren\u2019t simple answers to these questions. Yet, we must ponder our individual responsibility to the greater issues and what we can do to reflect Christ in our day-to-day actions and decisions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Bauman, Zygmunt (2013-04-18). Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age (Kindle Locations 430-432). Wiley. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causesinternational.com\/ewaste\/e-waste-facts\">https:\/\/www.causesinternational.com\/ewaste\/e-waste-facts<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2014\/mar\/31\/climate-change-poor-suffer-most-un-report\">http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2014\/mar\/31\/climate-change-poor-suffer-most-un-report<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> http:\/\/www.euro.who.int\/__data\/assets\/pdf_file\/0003\/78069\/E93670.pdf<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> Bauman, Zygmunt (2013-04-18). Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age (Kindle Locations 1506-1508). Wiley. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> Bauman, Zygmunt (2013-04-18). Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age (Kindle Locations 1388-1390). Wiley. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our modern lifestyle is moving at a pace in which people\u00a0often find it difficult to have and maintain healthy social structures.\u00a0Bauman, in Collateral Damage, examines social inequality and the implications, or cost to humanity. We should, and must, intentionally consider the choices that we make and how they impact others. As we consume more, we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"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":[63,484],"class_list":["post-4043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bauman","tag-dawnel-volzke","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043","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\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4046,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions\/4046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}