{"id":626,"date":"2013-10-17T21:06:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T21:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=626"},"modified":"2014-08-13T22:02:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T22:02:42","slug":"the-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-626 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-voice\/attachment\/627\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/tumblr_mutzyf3E9r1rcndfjo1_2501-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>\u201cWith the country (America) having been founded on exit and having thrived on it, the belief in exit as a fundamental and beneficial social mechanism has been unquestioning.\u201d (Hirschman, 274)<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">After listening to my students\u2019 presentations today in my \u201cWorld Religions\u201d class I thought about the book by Albert O. Hirschman, \u201cExit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States,\u201d and especially his idea of \u201cexit\u201d as a preferred belief as opposed to \u201cvoice.\u201d In class, each student discussed his\/her experience visiting a religious service or meeting that is not of their own faith.\u00a0 Many of my students were not raised in any particular faith and so they are curious about \u201creligious life.\u201d\u00a0 Since these students have not been raised in a particular congregation it will take a unique situation to inspire loyalty to that specific community.\u00a0 For many, their parent\/s were raised in a specific religion but decided to exit for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 Some of these reasons it seems were due to the fact that they didn\u2019t feel they had a voice in the community, or their questions\/concerns were not addressed; or perhaps they didn\u2019t feel a loyalty that required them to risk offering his\/her voice.\u00a0 Therefore, their children (my students) have never been exposed to any type of church situation.\u00a0 It was interesting to hear how my students described their \u201cfield trips\u201d to the variety of religious sites they chose.\u00a0 Some of my students explained that they felt \u201cwarm and welcomed\u201d at the church or temple and this seemed to be refreshing to them.\u00a0 One Jewish student commented that the people at the church she visited seemed to care about her.\u00a0 After a presentation where a student visited a Jehovah\u2019s Witness meeting, questions arose from the other students whether or not the believers\u2019 of this faith were allowed to question the interpretation of the Bible that was presented to them; in other words, have a voice.\u00a0 One student explained that at the Sikh gurdwara she visited the granthi suggested that she learn more about her own religion and find the connections between religions.\u00a0 She is LDS\/Mormon and seemed to find that this gave her a stronger desire to see the patterns in her own tradition.\u00a0 Without a religious family heritage how might an individual develop a strong enough loyalty that he\/she would choose voice over exit?\u00a0 This leads me back to the quote at the beginning of this writing regarding exit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I wonder how much of the lack of loyalty and the fluidity of people in and out of churches has to do with what Hirschman terms \u201cevolutionary individuality,\u201d that very American\u00a0 urge of upward mobility and exiting one group in order to go into a \u201cnew season\u201d where one might find more \u201cenlightened\u201d individuals than in the last group.\u00a0 That movement of leaving one\u2019s own group to join a \u201chigher group\u201d as one continues finding oneself.\u00a0 Is this a natural process or can it be destructive in any way?\u00a0 One of my students did not like the \u201cgroup chanting\u201d feeling of reciting the Nicene Creed while another student felt it was part of bonding the community in their shared belief.<\/p>\n<p>If my students don\u2019t feel a natural loyalty to any type of religious institution due to their complete unfamiliarity with this concept, how then might having a voice develop their loyalty?\u00a0 How do you give people voice in your context?\u00a0 When have you felt loyal enough to engage \u201cvoice\u201d instead of \u201cexit?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWith the country (America) having been founded on exit and having thrived on it, the belief in exit as a fundamental and beneficial social mechanism has been unquestioning.\u201d (Hirschman, 274) After listening to my students\u2019 presentations today in my \u201cWorld Religions\u201d class I thought about the book by Albert O. Hirschman, \u201cExit, Voice and Loyalty: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,251],"class_list":["post-626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-hirschman","post_format-post-format-gallery","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}