Replying to LO26860 --
Dear Organlearners,
I will have to reply to my own reply to Andrew, but I hope you will not
mind.
Andrew wishes for dialogue how the "doing of the knowing" of a person
relates to the "traditions" of that person's society on the other side of
the relation.
I will also reply with the Saturday editorial column of local newspaper
Beeld published in Afrikaans. On Saturday it has a religious section which
is managed by Andre van Niekerk. The commentary below refer to 23 June
2001. I hope Rick will allow it. I have tried to translate it as
faithfully in English as I can, but you know how terrible my English is.
Allow me a little bit of history to get the context please. Here in South
Africa we had the situation that most theologists of the three main church
denominations among the Afrikaans people "sanctified" the ideology and
policy of apartheid on "biblical grounds". This created the "tradition of
apartheid". Apartheid became dismantled and now these theologists have to
confess that they were wrong. This is extremely confusing to ordinary
church people. Some of the latter now want to know what is the new
"tradition" of the church which they then can follow faithfully. Others
want nothing do do any more with "tradition". But in the end, nine out of
ten cannot say what was wrong with apartheid then or what is right now
with the new ideology.
THEOLOGISTS AS CONDUCTORS
There is a world wide resistance against traditional institutions.
This, together with turning away from rational religion, lead to
distrust in theologists whom have to investigate religious sources
and articulations scientifically.
Since the modern age with its stress on the capacities of the human mind,
the Bible has been analysed like lawyers would interpret laws. The
"correct" formulations for the understanding of the Bible was in earlier
times a priority for the church. For this purpose the philosophical
concepts of such times then gave entry to hte theological discussions.
We understand now better that Bible Books are not judicial documents which
have to be explained in terms of carefully formulated statements. Faith
has little to do with jurisprudence, but much with art. The Bible Books
are like musical compositions. Their "truth" cannot be proven like the
"truth" of a musical composition. The biblical stories and confessions
like music make not only impact on the (analysing) left brain, but
especially on the (artistic) right brain.
Should a person understand the biblical accounts on God and humankind in
judicial and philosophical terms, it becomes cold dogma and for most
people boring. But when a person hear these accounts in harmony with other
contrasts, they become striking once again. As your emotion changes, your
reception of stimuli on the right brain changes. Just like in music, the
grandeur of the Gospel's passages surpass the person's reception of it.
Bible writers are like the great composers. They were inspired under
specific conditions to create music. Some of their creations were so
magnificent that they excelled by far the meanings of their own time. The
Bible writers made "music" which would become universal. It speaks to our
hearts even though we are living in completely different times.
Theologists are the conductors of this music. They interpret these
composers and keep their music alive for us. The telling f the one need
not to be identical with those of the others. Also, one telling is not
necessarily "wrong" and the others "right", although dissonant
interpretations may occur.
The "Medieval Babes" have a whole new diction of classical pieces. Their
exceptional diction still honour the composer's original work and make the
music popular once again. Should a conductor or musician even dishonour a
composition or interpret it wrongly according to your taste, the original
composition stays unscathed.
Theologist Moltmann conducts such that we not only hear God in the
triumphant marches of life, but especially so in the requiems of our
suffering. Freedom theologists awake us with the shrill sounds of sinful
structures and power interests hidden under piety. Recently three America
theologists came to fix our attention on the cultural circumstances in
biblical times so that we can understand the messages of the Bible better.
We do not have to sing the Gospel the same. But the interpretations of
theologists remain necessary so that we do not undo the message of the
Gospel with our own kind of rap.
Andre van Niekerk -- Beeld 23 June 2001
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I will refrain from making any comments on the commentary above, but
merely give it through for your own contemplation. However, I have
commented a lot in the past on apartheid and why it was wrong in my
opinion. I have not done it on scriptural grounds, although I can do so. I
have done it in terms of irreversible self-organisation and the seven
essentialities of creativity, especially wholeness. If you wish to
question me on my opinion (but not the commentary above), please do so.
If you wish to question me any further on the "doing of the knowing" of a
person in relation to the "traditions" of that person's society, please do
so and I will try to formulate my own thoughts as carefully as possible.
Like Andrew I consider it as a very important issue in the dynamics of
society and any other organisation for that matter.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.