Transform or Transmit
If you're a minister type (i,.e, counselor, pastor, chaplain, former of any of these or hoping to be any of these, etc.) and you are looking for a safe community with an open and relational theological focus? You are welcome to join our bi-weekly, opentable.network Zoom group, Tuesday nights, April through June. I'll be facilitating the discussion. Maybe we’ll even talk about things like my post below. Our first group meets 4/16 at 7 pm CST. Email me if you’re intrested/ Oh, and it'll be a pay-what-you-can kind of format.
I was glad to contribute a sermon to a brand new book called Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God. It’s a helpful resource for folks looking to get ORT ideas into the church world.
Season eight of the jonathan_foster podcast is happening, and it's all about, you guessed it, open and relational theology. I think the season opening two episodes—first, with Andrew Davis, second, with Tom Oord and Libby Teder Hugus—are strong conversations around why, in the evolution of humanity, it’s good timing for ORT.
Conferences: Persuade, ORTcon, and Theology Beer Camp are all live and happening this year. Regarding the last conference, use FOSTERFRODO to get $25 off, and dang it if I'm not worth every dollar.
A part of the reason the scapegoating work of René Girard has made so much sense to me is because of my lived-experience.
For example, I knew it was the right thing to do to speak out against the church's lame excuses for not including gay people in all aspects of our tradition. Sometimes, I refer to my decision to officially point out their scapegoating ways as the hardest/easiest decision I've ever made.
But on the heels of that decision, what became obvious was how easy it would be to gain a crowd by stoking accusational fires and categorically labeling the church as nothing but a bunch of evil victimizers.
As angry as I was at the system's un-evolved, power-hungry behavior and its attempt at claiming the way of Christ even as they kicked people out of the way (!) … I was never interested in attempting to change sides and still try and operate by the same old playbook.
A problem for us would-be change agents is that it's easy to get people in the crowd who don't understand the very real danger of using the old playbook. (Btw, I only knew this because I was lucky enough to stumble upon Girardian thinking, and also because I had had lots of years pastoring. In other words, experience had taught me that christians on both sides of the political aisle can be fickle and and sinister😬. )
So, yeah, I gathered that there were people in my crowd who were what we might call "bad actors." These are people who understand the power of pointing out the victimizing practice but who don't seem to care much about the victim! What they seem to care about is who it is their enemy is victimizing. Then, they make sure to side with those people in order to build power and unity over against their enemy.
If you get a bunch of that kind of people in your group? It’ll compromise your efforts. It'll be impossible to recycle the scapegoating energy into a healthier energy. You'll just wind up shifting it over into your new group. "Whatever isn't transformed," as Richard Rohr says, "just gets transmitted." Honestly, I'm not sure truer words have ever been spoken.
When the conservative-types see scapegoating behavior transmitted, they're right in pointing it out; in saying, “Hey, aren’t you doing the very thing you’re judging us for?” Unfortunately, the whole thing tends to bog down at this point because often, the conservative-types can then feel justified in doing it all the more. 🤦
And the progressive-types, upon hearing the truth from the conservative-types, often press on and do it anyhow. It’s almost like the latter group is saying, “You might be right, but we don’t care. You’ve been in power too long. We don’t care if this fuels all the scapegoating; we just want you out!” 🤦
What a crazy bunch of creatures we human beings are.
The point is, there's really no "both sides of the aisle." We're all on the same side.* We know this, right? Evil is no respecter of religious, economic, national, or political alliances, and the more we give into its drive, the more perfect it becomes. I think it’s written somewhere in the book of anti-scripture that “perfect fear drives out all love.”
So, what’s the hope? Hmm, yes, that is the question. I’ve got some ideas, but how about you? How are you overcoming this problem?
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*As always, I reserve the right to talk about naming unhealthy behavior and creating boundaries. Love will invite you to see your enemy, but I do not think love requires that you put yourself in the middle of unsafe situations.