{"id":5905,"date":"2015-10-08T14:56:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T21:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=5905"},"modified":"2015-10-08T14:56:52","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T21:56:52","slug":"identity-perceptions-and-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/identity-perceptions-and-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity, Perceptions, and the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Introduction<\/u><\/p>\n

How is our self perception and the way we see and interact with others affected by the spaces we inhabit? And, how are the spaces we inhabit affected by our social perceptions? These are the very questions that professor Gill Valentine sets to explore in her book Social Geographies.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/u><\/p>\n

Throughout nine well-organized chapters, Valentine interacts with the views of many authors to show how the spaces we inhabit\u2014from our own bodies to our nations\u2014have a reciprocal relationship with our social perceptions and interactions. Our social identities\u2014gender, race, class, and sexuality\u2014are influenced by our spaces, and our spaces are influenced by our social identities. The common thread throughout the book is the human need for identity, belonging, and significance, and how their pursuit results in complex repercussions such as stereotypes, segregation, and discrimination.<\/p>\n

Reflection<\/u><\/p>\n

I enjoyed reading the book, even though at times it was hard to discern if Valentine was simply quoting a view or agreeing with it. Each chapter opened a new world of diverse topics that engaged my mind in many directions. As I reflect on my reading, I can say that my experience with Social Geographies can be summarized in three words: engaging, concerning, and inspirational.<\/p>\n

First, the reading was engaging because it covered lots of relevant topics like home and city life, immigration, ethnicity, globalization and the new roles of communication technology. All of these topics are relevant for my ministry at Ethnos Bible Church and also touch on my personal experience as an immigrant. When the author says that for some, \u201cmigration represents, hope, excitement and the possibility of forging new homes, identities and lifestyles\u201d (318) she captured well the way I felt when I left Chile at age 18 to serve in church planting in Mexico City. That feeling remained when I later moved to the United States to pursue further education. For me, living in different countries was always accompanied with a sense of excitement of discovering new horizons. Yet, Valentine also captured the other side of the migration experience very well when she said, \u201cthe loss of a sense of home or roots and the feeling of being adrift can be profound.\u201d (318) This phenomenon is part of the experience of a third-culture person. Having lived in different countries, cultures, and languages, we have different homes yet we are never really at \u2018home.\u2019 We become a combination of cultures, functioning with a mix of cultural practices that create a profound change in how we experience life. On a different note, since the author described the impact of so many inhabiting spaces, I wonder if a new edition of the book should explore how cars have also become part of our social geographies. Depending on the context, people can spend about 2 to 4 hours a day driving, and the types of cars they drive also determine the way people think of themselves and perceive others. Who knows, maybe that topic will be chapter 10 in the new edition.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the reading was concerning because the author portrays the decline of the family unit and devotes significant attention to the topic of gender identity from a humanistic point of view. I was surprised by the amount of time the author spent talking about lesbian issues as well as by her equating homosexual issues with race or ethnic minority issues.\u00a0\u00a0 Even though it is not always clear if she is simply quoting authors on the topic or agreeing with them, there are many assertions that I disagree with based on my Judeo-Christian worldview. Apparently, for Valentine both gender identity and sexual identity are social constructs that are not inherent to the person. Thus, \u201cThere are not coherent \u2018natural\u2019 categories: man\/woman\u201d (22) and \u201cThe body can never be understood as a pure, neutral, pre-social form onto which social meanings are projected. It is always a social and discursive object.\u201d (23) Also, \u201cThere is no \u2018real\u2019 or original identity behind any gender performance.\u201d (23) In other words, gender \u201cidentities are fragile and unstable fictions.\u201d (23) Because I believe that God created man and woman in his image, I do not believe that gender or sexual identity are \u2018unstable fictions.\u2019 Deeper than a question of identity, I see gender issues as a question of design. So, rather than being a topic rooted on sociology or biology, I see it as an issue of theology. I was also surprised by Valentine\u2019s claim that believing that AIDS originated in Africa is a racist argument. As documented by virologist Dr. George Shaw, the international scientific community that researched the virus concluded that AIDS had originated in Congo, when chimpanzee passed the virus to humans. This assertion has nothing to do with racism but with scientific research. Frontline studied the topic in \u201cThe Age of AIDS\u201d\u2013 a very good two-part documentary that was broadcasted in 2006 and can be seen online at http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/aids\/view\/.<\/p>\n

Finally, the reading was also inspirational. Valentine reminded me of the deep human need for identity, meaningful relationships, and significance. As a theologian I believe that none of these needs can be completely satisfied by human standards because they were meant to be truly satisfied by God. Echoing the words of prophet Jeremiah, I believe that all of these attempts to be defined by our social identities are simply \u2018broken cisterns.\u2019 Jeremiah warned Israel, \u201cMy people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.\u201d (2:13). These broken cisterns result in stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and segregation. Consequently, one of the important tasks that I must have as a pastor is to disciple people so they can derive their identity from Christ, and start seeing themselves and interacting with others from God\u2019s perspective first. Perhaps then, our churches will no longer be infected by the same illnesses of prejudice and discrimination that wound so many lives.<\/p>\n

The author informs us, \u201cIn challenging dichotomies, geographers are increasingly imagining a \u2018somewhere else\u2019\u2026. These different conceptualizations of space represent ways of thinking about the world which focus on \u2018the production of heterogeneous spaces of radical openness.\u2019 \u201d (6-7). I ask, what is that \u2018somewhere else’ imagined by some geographers? Where is the place where people are no longer treated with prejudice, where each person is valued for whom they truly are, where they feel embraced and given a context to be relevant in true community? Where is that \u2018paradoxical space\u2019 characterized by heterogeneous spaces of \u2018radical openness?\u2019 I believe that God imagined this place before geographers did, and entrusted it to us to nurture it. This place is the church\u2014a place where identity is no longer defined by broken human standards, and where diversity is celebrated. And therein lies my inspiration. As a pastor, I have the desire to nurture Ethnos Bible Church to be a multilingual, trans-cultural, and multi-generational community where we love God and serve Him with devotion. Doing so may require for me to learn a lesson from the success of malls and the different imaginings of British national identity. According to Valentine, malls owe their success to \u201ctheir organizational intelligence and spatial strategies\u201d (232) and different imaginings of British national identity seek to create \u201cspaces of connection that offer new possibilities of sharing in difference through interaction.\u201d (298). In order to create spaces of connection in the church where \u2018new possibilities of sharing in difference through interaction\u2019 will indeed require for me and my leadership team to develop \u2018organizational intelligence\u2019 and \u2018spatial strategies.\u2019 That is the very reason why I started the DMin in Leadership, and Valentine has just inspired me to pursue this path with more determination.<\/p>\n

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Introduction How is our self perception and the way we see and interact with others affected by the spaces we inhabit? And, how are the spaces we inhabit affected by our social perceptions? These are the very questions that professor Gill Valentine sets to explore in her book Social Geographies. Summary Throughout nine well-organized chapters, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"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":[689,636,688,638],"class_list":["post-5905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ethnos-bible-church","tag-gill-valentine","tag-pablo-morales","tag-valentine","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5905","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\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5905"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5913,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5905\/revisions\/5913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}