As usual those who are either malicious or ignorant of the facts and the faith portray the Anglican initiative against a false backdrop of "concern about falling memberships" and "empty pews."
Yes, of course, all faiths are concerned about those who become lukewarm (whom God warned he would spit out of his mouth... not a good thing for avoiding hell) or fall from faith in total. So of course "empty pews" are a concern.
This is totally separate from "poaching" and other competitive motivations. Let's face it: politicians and the media have a total "winner and loser" "game" approach to life. So they see everything through those sooty glasses, so to speak.
Any Christian who knows the faith (and Muslims know this too about their faith) realizes, however, that sacred scriptures order unity: ONE church. Jesus himself repeatedly exhorted that Christians are one body and one global church.
So any unity efforts cannot be accused of being a "competitive" move. It has been one of the most grievous failures of Christians as a whole, generation after generation, that they have schismed and split. Trust me, God won't be handing out "belonged to best denomination" medals at a person's death and individual judgment; quite the contrary indeed.
Showing posts with label competition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label competition. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Understanding, learning to know Jesus Christ
Few things make me happier, in the moment, than teaching people about the true nature of Jesus Christ and if not actually teaching, then just conversing about him. Thinking about Jesus and talking about Jesus is like a rest after back breaking work, or having a drink of cold water after going without anything for an entire hot day. I'd like it if someday my blog could be less in proportion of the dire warnings about all the wrongs in the world, and more of this respite in the discussion of Jesus. Well, so here is the beginning of a number of blog postings I would like to compose about Jesus.
As always I have my young readers most particularly in mind. For many of you, Jesus was not introduced to you properly, and so he has had to compete in your minds with modern day figures of good or often notorious reputation, and also when you do hear about Jesus, it is like entering a movie theater when the film is already two thirds gone. You have little idea of what has actually happened, nor the context. This series will be an attempt to help you to learn to know the true Jesus and also, even if you already know about him, and have him in your heart, to understand him even better.
The first topic I'd like to discuss with you is one of the most amazing things that Jesus did in his life, which not only demonstrate his authority to speak for God to humans, but also the groundwork that he laid for expanding "up close and personal" knowledge of God from the Jewish people (the Israelites) to the rest of the world.
Most of you know that God has had an ongoing relationship with humans starting with Adam and Eve and, through their descendants, all who are faithful to him. The Israelites, however, were the section of the descendants who were chosen by God (that is why they are called the Chosen People) to not only know about God, but also to have an ongoing, daily "working relationship" with God. That is what is called the Old Covenant and also, in Bible speak, The Law. You've read in my blog posts how Moses, who was the leader and the intermediary between the Israelite people and God, actually was able to stand with God, face him, speak with him, meet with him, and receive "dictation" from him. The most well known and important of the gifts of God's knowledge that God gave to Moses is the Ten Commandments.
Here is what is really awesome about Jesus Christ.... He gave to not only the Jews, but to all people, a new Commandment, an additional one to God's list. Can you imagine that! To do so would never have occurred to the thoughts of any person who ever lived. Not even the most inflated ego king or dictator would have thought of adding a Commandment to the "list" given to the Jews. And yet this wise man, this rabboni (wise in the Law) who seemed to come from absolutely nowhere, had such obvious authority given to him by God that not only could he raise the dead and cure even the worst of illnesses, but he was empowered to add a New Commandment to God's list.
Furthermore, this New Commandment did not fall into the categories of the Ten Commandments, which are either how to worship God or what sins not to commit. This New Commandment was orders by God about how humans should treat one another.
John 13:34-5 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Jesus used the word commandment in John 13, but he repeats this same exhortation in other places in scripture, in the context of being asked questions. For example, when asked by a lawyer who approached him in order to test Jesus who is one's "neighbor" who should be loved, per God's command, Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan who has mercy on and rescues a Jew who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead. This would have been quite an astonishing parable to any Jewish listeners, because as most of you know, Jews and Samaritans were something of religious "rivals" and most certainly did not get along or mingle.
So even though Jesus focused his entire ministry only on the Jews (and thus added a Commandment to the "Jewish" Ten Commandments), notice that Jesus is placing the groundwork for Jesus speaking to "all men" (all people) and calling all to be his "disciples."
Now, young people especially, let me use some modern terms to help you to better understand. Jesus did not do an "edit" on the Ten Commandments, to add an Eleventh, in the sense that he went into the Temple and the local synagogues and added onto each scroll of God's Law his "insert New Commandment." This is because even though Jesus continually affirmed that all the Ten Commandments remain valid, Jesus was not there to "improve on" or "edit" the Jewish faith. Even though Jesus preached to Jews exclusively (although of course any and all people did follow him, approach him and listen to him), Jesus was not seeking to "fix up" the problems with the Jewish faith. Jesus was, instead, bringing a new contract with the boss, God, to the people. The new contract has, of course, retained much and one could even say most of what the old contract had, since obviously God is still God, humans are still humans, and God has the constancy of being eternal, never changing, and having the same expectations of all generations of humans. But here is what is remarkable: Jesus was not only purifying human relationships with God (to eliminate the error, hypocrisy, greed and fraud that had entered into that relationship) by bringing God's "face," through him, directly to the people, but Jesus was also "hands on" improving human-to-human sanctity.
I've pointed out the term "sanctity" a number of times recently, since I've seen that it's in modern times a poorly understood word. Sanctity is not the same as holy, consecrated, "initiated" or "extra super duper 'spiritual.'" Sanctity means that a person strives to maintain their primary focus, in their normal life, on God foremost and serving God in all ways of normal life.
So here is another example of where Jesus is using logic, showing the cascading, mutual and interlocking relationship between not only God and humans, but also how humans, through mutual sanctity, role modeled through Jesus, improve their own human-to-human relationship. Here is the chain of logic that Jesus is presenting to them:
1. Jesus says, observe how I love you, not only in general but in the details of role modeling.
2. Then apply how I am with you to how you are with each other.
3. If you do that, then you are truly my disciple.
4. All people will be able to see this for themselves (since this is not hidden ritual, etc but outward, genuine behavior).
5. Thus all people will identify each person that they see living like this as being my disciple.
6. And because "all" people will know, this is an invitation to "all" to likewise become my disciple.
Now, remember that any time that Jesus spoke, many people were around him. He was rarely alone and often mobbed by crowds eager to hear him. He stayed in individual homes, and thus when he spoke to the Apostles or disciples who traveled with him, entire families, neighbors, and other villagers would also be staying in that home and hear what he said also. So even though Jesus in a given conversation that is recorded in the scriptures might be speaking to a group of the Apostles, or a mixture of Apostles and disciples, these were not "status meetings" where the information only applied to certain "departments." All who believe in the New Covenant with God that Jesus brought AND who followed this New Commandment could be considered a disciple of Jesus, AND would be visible as such to the eyes of all the world.
Further, to better understand exactly what Jesus was saying, consider how, exactly, Jesus demonstrated his love for the disciples. It is not, as anyone who reads ANY bit of the Gospel would understand, by being affectionate, considerate, remembering their birthdays, throwing nice parties for them, giving them lots of money, and feeling groovy. How did Jesus demonstrate his love for the disciples as the scripture shows? Here are just a few ways off the top of my head:
1. He chose them, even though they were not "special" and had anything to give to him in return.
2. He introduced them, through him, to God, God as he really is, and not the way the religion had become corrupted.
3. He wanted to see them saved, their souls in heaven, in places that he promised that he would go ahead and prepare for them.
4. He patiently, and sometimes impatiently, explained to them all they could understand. As Jesus said, he didn't treat them like slaves who are just ordered to come and go, but as friends who understand what he is trying to achieve.
5. He scolded them and rebuked them on the spot when they erred.
6. He gave them many opportunities to serve God and to witness to God.
7. He gave the Apostles the ability to perform miracles in his name.
8. He gave the Apostles and disciples the right to invoke his most holy Name.
So you see, this is how Jesus loved them, so ardently that he called to them, even from less than promising backgrounds and circumstances, and brought them along to not only better know the true God that has been constantly there from the very beginning, but also to prepare in advance for them their places in heaven and to TELL them that, to PROMISE them that. How awesome is that?
So the New Commandment is the "formula" for being a disciple, a true disciple, of Jesus. This means that to be a genuine disciple of Jesus one must treat other disciples of Jesus as Jesus treated them, with the love that I describe above.
Unfortunately, the word "love" has become misunderstood in the context of what Jesus gave to his disciples, which is not surprising because one cannot understand the Bible if one does not read the Bible. You can only really understand what 1) love, as Jesus gave it, means and 2) what genuine discipleship of Jesus means, if you read the Bible, understand and accept it, ALL of it. You cannot substitute in your own mind a sound byte of Jesus hanging around, washing their feet, and being fond of them as being the template for what "love" and "disciple" means! Jesus promptly kicked them out and made them proclaim God from town to town without even a second change of clothing, no money, and no food. That kind of love few understand today but, believe you me, the previous generations, who were not so wealthy as the past several generations, understood Jesus' love (with one exception, which I will mention in a minute.)
To try to summarize it, Jesus taught them how to understand and love God even more deeply and authentically, which then raised their capacity for love. That type of love expands beyond noble love of family, love of the goodness of life, etc to sanctity, where the service of God is more important than anything and thus expands and elevates even the normal tasks, chores, challenges and disappointments of life.
Now, here is where I am sad that previous generations lost some of their deep connectivity with understanding the love that Jesus brought to his disciples, and exhorted them to have for each other. And, even more grievous, this loss has never been worse than today, the past several years, and now. Those who have been called to be disciples of Jesus have become "competitors," through churches, through sects, denominations, and through vicious misunderstandings and attacks on other disciples. There is one hell of a difference between "calling out" a fellow Christian disciple who you think is in doctrinal error, and declaring war and demonizing entire congregations, say nothing of the individual people within them. Pray tell, what part of that sounds like "That ye shall love on another as I have loved you?"
God and the Church have never left the people: the people have left God and the Church and appointed themselves their own masters, able to declare other disciples "wrong" and themselves "true."
If that was OK to do, as has, grievously happened for the past several hundred years, and is gut wrenchingly commonplace today, would not that be in scripture? Surely God, who is perfect, and Jesus, who brought the presence of God to earth, would have foreseen that and shown it was "OK" to splinter, to attack each other, rather than, as the scriptures truly show, warn most urgently against that?
Would we not have seen, for example, while Jesus lived, or at least in the time of Acts, several of the Apostles fight among each other and establish rival "denominations?" If God is so good, so all knowing, so all powerful, and includes all that people need to know in the scripture, would he have not allowed that to happen, to give it his spiritual endorsement? Would we not be reading that Phillip argued with James and so they established separate denominations and God, through Jesus or divine revelation, say that "They established separate denominations, and it was 'good.'" You ought to shudder, as I do in typing this.
(Young people, I'm not yelling at you all, LOL! I deviated in order to yell at your parents and their parents, and also to kick certain skeletons from the past who got people into this mess with their many errors from their lack of understanding and humility.)
Jesus, through the New Commandment, defined a group, a SINGLE group, of people, which are his true disciples. He stated that true disciples would be so obvious that "all" would know them. How, then, is it that we not only have denominations, but warring and scornful denominations?
I got into this rant because it is essential to understanding the scripture as it is set forth, not as people have come to imagine it to be. The two great concerns regarding imagination and hence error are 1) misunderstanding that Jesus "love" means hanging around and feeling groovy, and 2) that discipleship requires that Jesus be the role model, and Jesus role models not socially acceptable "humanitarian" endeavors but closeness to God.
So I think, to wrap this segment up, you can see how one of the ways to understand the awesome love and wonder of Jesus Christ is to comprehend both his God given authority to give humans the New Commandment, but also to understand what it really means. I've used the "time sheet" analogy before, but for new readers, here it is again. When you read the Gospels, think of what Jesus is doing as a worker recording hours on different projects on a timesheet. How much of what Jesus is doing is donating to art galleries, hanging around feeling the 'love,' encouraging believers to form separate and even warring denominations? Um, not so much, huh? Rather, Jesus' timesheet is filled with prayer, fasting, moderation, teaching, preaching and witnessing to God, punctuated by tasks such as performing miracles. Look back at the list I started above and you can see what I mean (the list of ways Jesus demonstrated his love). That's kind of like a timesheet!
Jesus demonstrated his love for his disciples, and for all men, not by encouraging them to be superior to each other and draw farther apart from each other, but by drawing closer, following his role model, to God, through each other, not in competition with each other.
No one has ever gotten closer to God, or salvation, by stepping on the back or the neck of another person, either a believer or a non-believer.
Jesus was the ultimate gift from God, not only because he went to the cross, but because he told people what to do and how to do it, demonstrating it every day of his life, and then guiding even after his death and resurrection (the calling of Saul to Paul, for example, and all that was revealed to John in the Book of Revelation).
It really is as simple as the New Commandment explains, but it is also difficult to understand, because of the clouded vision of humans, and to implement, because of the many prideful temptations of humans. I hope that this has helped to restore some of the understanding of what Jesus said (the red) and how he demonstrated with the disciples how to truly follow him (the black).
As always I have my young readers most particularly in mind. For many of you, Jesus was not introduced to you properly, and so he has had to compete in your minds with modern day figures of good or often notorious reputation, and also when you do hear about Jesus, it is like entering a movie theater when the film is already two thirds gone. You have little idea of what has actually happened, nor the context. This series will be an attempt to help you to learn to know the true Jesus and also, even if you already know about him, and have him in your heart, to understand him even better.
The first topic I'd like to discuss with you is one of the most amazing things that Jesus did in his life, which not only demonstrate his authority to speak for God to humans, but also the groundwork that he laid for expanding "up close and personal" knowledge of God from the Jewish people (the Israelites) to the rest of the world.
Most of you know that God has had an ongoing relationship with humans starting with Adam and Eve and, through their descendants, all who are faithful to him. The Israelites, however, were the section of the descendants who were chosen by God (that is why they are called the Chosen People) to not only know about God, but also to have an ongoing, daily "working relationship" with God. That is what is called the Old Covenant and also, in Bible speak, The Law. You've read in my blog posts how Moses, who was the leader and the intermediary between the Israelite people and God, actually was able to stand with God, face him, speak with him, meet with him, and receive "dictation" from him. The most well known and important of the gifts of God's knowledge that God gave to Moses is the Ten Commandments.
Here is what is really awesome about Jesus Christ.... He gave to not only the Jews, but to all people, a new Commandment, an additional one to God's list. Can you imagine that! To do so would never have occurred to the thoughts of any person who ever lived. Not even the most inflated ego king or dictator would have thought of adding a Commandment to the "list" given to the Jews. And yet this wise man, this rabboni (wise in the Law) who seemed to come from absolutely nowhere, had such obvious authority given to him by God that not only could he raise the dead and cure even the worst of illnesses, but he was empowered to add a New Commandment to God's list.
Furthermore, this New Commandment did not fall into the categories of the Ten Commandments, which are either how to worship God or what sins not to commit. This New Commandment was orders by God about how humans should treat one another.
John 13:34-5 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Jesus used the word commandment in John 13, but he repeats this same exhortation in other places in scripture, in the context of being asked questions. For example, when asked by a lawyer who approached him in order to test Jesus who is one's "neighbor" who should be loved, per God's command, Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan who has mercy on and rescues a Jew who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead. This would have been quite an astonishing parable to any Jewish listeners, because as most of you know, Jews and Samaritans were something of religious "rivals" and most certainly did not get along or mingle.
So even though Jesus focused his entire ministry only on the Jews (and thus added a Commandment to the "Jewish" Ten Commandments), notice that Jesus is placing the groundwork for Jesus speaking to "all men" (all people) and calling all to be his "disciples."
Now, young people especially, let me use some modern terms to help you to better understand. Jesus did not do an "edit" on the Ten Commandments, to add an Eleventh, in the sense that he went into the Temple and the local synagogues and added onto each scroll of God's Law his "insert New Commandment." This is because even though Jesus continually affirmed that all the Ten Commandments remain valid, Jesus was not there to "improve on" or "edit" the Jewish faith. Even though Jesus preached to Jews exclusively (although of course any and all people did follow him, approach him and listen to him), Jesus was not seeking to "fix up" the problems with the Jewish faith. Jesus was, instead, bringing a new contract with the boss, God, to the people. The new contract has, of course, retained much and one could even say most of what the old contract had, since obviously God is still God, humans are still humans, and God has the constancy of being eternal, never changing, and having the same expectations of all generations of humans. But here is what is remarkable: Jesus was not only purifying human relationships with God (to eliminate the error, hypocrisy, greed and fraud that had entered into that relationship) by bringing God's "face," through him, directly to the people, but Jesus was also "hands on" improving human-to-human sanctity.
I've pointed out the term "sanctity" a number of times recently, since I've seen that it's in modern times a poorly understood word. Sanctity is not the same as holy, consecrated, "initiated" or "extra super duper 'spiritual.'" Sanctity means that a person strives to maintain their primary focus, in their normal life, on God foremost and serving God in all ways of normal life.
So here is another example of where Jesus is using logic, showing the cascading, mutual and interlocking relationship between not only God and humans, but also how humans, through mutual sanctity, role modeled through Jesus, improve their own human-to-human relationship. Here is the chain of logic that Jesus is presenting to them:
1. Jesus says, observe how I love you, not only in general but in the details of role modeling.
2. Then apply how I am with you to how you are with each other.
3. If you do that, then you are truly my disciple.
4. All people will be able to see this for themselves (since this is not hidden ritual, etc but outward, genuine behavior).
5. Thus all people will identify each person that they see living like this as being my disciple.
6. And because "all" people will know, this is an invitation to "all" to likewise become my disciple.
Now, remember that any time that Jesus spoke, many people were around him. He was rarely alone and often mobbed by crowds eager to hear him. He stayed in individual homes, and thus when he spoke to the Apostles or disciples who traveled with him, entire families, neighbors, and other villagers would also be staying in that home and hear what he said also. So even though Jesus in a given conversation that is recorded in the scriptures might be speaking to a group of the Apostles, or a mixture of Apostles and disciples, these were not "status meetings" where the information only applied to certain "departments." All who believe in the New Covenant with God that Jesus brought AND who followed this New Commandment could be considered a disciple of Jesus, AND would be visible as such to the eyes of all the world.
Further, to better understand exactly what Jesus was saying, consider how, exactly, Jesus demonstrated his love for the disciples. It is not, as anyone who reads ANY bit of the Gospel would understand, by being affectionate, considerate, remembering their birthdays, throwing nice parties for them, giving them lots of money, and feeling groovy. How did Jesus demonstrate his love for the disciples as the scripture shows? Here are just a few ways off the top of my head:
1. He chose them, even though they were not "special" and had anything to give to him in return.
2. He introduced them, through him, to God, God as he really is, and not the way the religion had become corrupted.
3. He wanted to see them saved, their souls in heaven, in places that he promised that he would go ahead and prepare for them.
4. He patiently, and sometimes impatiently, explained to them all they could understand. As Jesus said, he didn't treat them like slaves who are just ordered to come and go, but as friends who understand what he is trying to achieve.
5. He scolded them and rebuked them on the spot when they erred.
6. He gave them many opportunities to serve God and to witness to God.
7. He gave the Apostles the ability to perform miracles in his name.
8. He gave the Apostles and disciples the right to invoke his most holy Name.
So you see, this is how Jesus loved them, so ardently that he called to them, even from less than promising backgrounds and circumstances, and brought them along to not only better know the true God that has been constantly there from the very beginning, but also to prepare in advance for them their places in heaven and to TELL them that, to PROMISE them that. How awesome is that?
So the New Commandment is the "formula" for being a disciple, a true disciple, of Jesus. This means that to be a genuine disciple of Jesus one must treat other disciples of Jesus as Jesus treated them, with the love that I describe above.
Unfortunately, the word "love" has become misunderstood in the context of what Jesus gave to his disciples, which is not surprising because one cannot understand the Bible if one does not read the Bible. You can only really understand what 1) love, as Jesus gave it, means and 2) what genuine discipleship of Jesus means, if you read the Bible, understand and accept it, ALL of it. You cannot substitute in your own mind a sound byte of Jesus hanging around, washing their feet, and being fond of them as being the template for what "love" and "disciple" means! Jesus promptly kicked them out and made them proclaim God from town to town without even a second change of clothing, no money, and no food. That kind of love few understand today but, believe you me, the previous generations, who were not so wealthy as the past several generations, understood Jesus' love (with one exception, which I will mention in a minute.)
To try to summarize it, Jesus taught them how to understand and love God even more deeply and authentically, which then raised their capacity for love. That type of love expands beyond noble love of family, love of the goodness of life, etc to sanctity, where the service of God is more important than anything and thus expands and elevates even the normal tasks, chores, challenges and disappointments of life.
Now, here is where I am sad that previous generations lost some of their deep connectivity with understanding the love that Jesus brought to his disciples, and exhorted them to have for each other. And, even more grievous, this loss has never been worse than today, the past several years, and now. Those who have been called to be disciples of Jesus have become "competitors," through churches, through sects, denominations, and through vicious misunderstandings and attacks on other disciples. There is one hell of a difference between "calling out" a fellow Christian disciple who you think is in doctrinal error, and declaring war and demonizing entire congregations, say nothing of the individual people within them. Pray tell, what part of that sounds like "That ye shall love on another as I have loved you?"
God and the Church have never left the people: the people have left God and the Church and appointed themselves their own masters, able to declare other disciples "wrong" and themselves "true."
If that was OK to do, as has, grievously happened for the past several hundred years, and is gut wrenchingly commonplace today, would not that be in scripture? Surely God, who is perfect, and Jesus, who brought the presence of God to earth, would have foreseen that and shown it was "OK" to splinter, to attack each other, rather than, as the scriptures truly show, warn most urgently against that?
Would we not have seen, for example, while Jesus lived, or at least in the time of Acts, several of the Apostles fight among each other and establish rival "denominations?" If God is so good, so all knowing, so all powerful, and includes all that people need to know in the scripture, would he have not allowed that to happen, to give it his spiritual endorsement? Would we not be reading that Phillip argued with James and so they established separate denominations and God, through Jesus or divine revelation, say that "They established separate denominations, and it was 'good.'" You ought to shudder, as I do in typing this.
(Young people, I'm not yelling at you all, LOL! I deviated in order to yell at your parents and their parents, and also to kick certain skeletons from the past who got people into this mess with their many errors from their lack of understanding and humility.)
Jesus, through the New Commandment, defined a group, a SINGLE group, of people, which are his true disciples. He stated that true disciples would be so obvious that "all" would know them. How, then, is it that we not only have denominations, but warring and scornful denominations?
I got into this rant because it is essential to understanding the scripture as it is set forth, not as people have come to imagine it to be. The two great concerns regarding imagination and hence error are 1) misunderstanding that Jesus "love" means hanging around and feeling groovy, and 2) that discipleship requires that Jesus be the role model, and Jesus role models not socially acceptable "humanitarian" endeavors but closeness to God.
So I think, to wrap this segment up, you can see how one of the ways to understand the awesome love and wonder of Jesus Christ is to comprehend both his God given authority to give humans the New Commandment, but also to understand what it really means. I've used the "time sheet" analogy before, but for new readers, here it is again. When you read the Gospels, think of what Jesus is doing as a worker recording hours on different projects on a timesheet. How much of what Jesus is doing is donating to art galleries, hanging around feeling the 'love,' encouraging believers to form separate and even warring denominations? Um, not so much, huh? Rather, Jesus' timesheet is filled with prayer, fasting, moderation, teaching, preaching and witnessing to God, punctuated by tasks such as performing miracles. Look back at the list I started above and you can see what I mean (the list of ways Jesus demonstrated his love). That's kind of like a timesheet!
Jesus demonstrated his love for his disciples, and for all men, not by encouraging them to be superior to each other and draw farther apart from each other, but by drawing closer, following his role model, to God, through each other, not in competition with each other.
No one has ever gotten closer to God, or salvation, by stepping on the back or the neck of another person, either a believer or a non-believer.
Jesus was the ultimate gift from God, not only because he went to the cross, but because he told people what to do and how to do it, demonstrating it every day of his life, and then guiding even after his death and resurrection (the calling of Saul to Paul, for example, and all that was revealed to John in the Book of Revelation).
It really is as simple as the New Commandment explains, but it is also difficult to understand, because of the clouded vision of humans, and to implement, because of the many prideful temptations of humans. I hope that this has helped to restore some of the understanding of what Jesus said (the red) and how he demonstrated with the disciples how to truly follow him (the black).
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Capitalism/Financial crisis tutorial Part 14
I need to point out, at this time, two errors that have not only crept into modern understanding of capitalism, but have become so predominant that they have contributed to the warping and destroying of genuine capitalism and replacing it with a capitalism that is "in name" only, and not in principle.
The first error is to think that capitalism means the same thing as "competition." It most certainly does not. Competition is a valid concept of capitalism that applies to the obtaining of the best price for the sales of one's surplus. For example, going back to my foundational definition of capitalism, a farmer that grows enough corn for his family and then sells the rest in the market is of course entitled to try to get the best price that he can for his corn. If his corn is better than his neighbor's corn, or gets to a market where there is no demand, that is "competition."
Competition is not, however, "negative" in true capitalism. Using that example, the sole objective of one farmer should not be to do a "beat down" of the other farmer's corn. In true capitalism the quality and demand of the product "speaks for itself." In other words, while cunning marketing and vigorous competition is of course valid and desirable, one farmer should not structure his entire corn crop in order to focus only on competing with an "enemy" competitor rather than letting the market work naturally to either reward or penalize his product. I've seen this from the inside of corporations. When corporations focus on "smashing" or "beating" the competition to the exclusion of normal product offering and development, they stop being capitalists who are both prudent and visionary and instead, use their products (and the buying and selling public at large) as protagonists in an ego and greed based "competition." So imagine that two farmers with surplus corn to sell become "enemy competitors" rather than genuine capitalists. If they are focused on each other's success or failure, they forget not only the market but their own families and the health of the economy as a whole. So suppose they are so busy trying to "beat" each other that they no longer notice that let's say a new disease has developed that threatens their corn production. They are so busy competing and manipulating market share that they do not invest in a new corn, one that may not get the "best price" in the market at first, but one that resists the threat of the new disease.
When capitalists "fight," treating their worlds as video game fiefdoms, where they are "battling" in the so called "healthy competition," they are no longer actually being competitive in a natural market. They are skewing the market to accommodate their battlefield, not to build genuine capitalism. So remember, when you hear about "competition," that refers to angling for obtaining the very best price and market share for your product, but is ultimately self destructive if competition is the be all and the end all of one's purpose. You can see this in the financial crisis. Banks started "inventing" financial products and instruments not with the healthy of the consumer, their company, their community or their country, but with the sole purpose of grabbing more money that is "out there in the market." That is like if one of the farmers decides he can make even more money by selling tainted corn. Suppose the farmer does a marketing blitz to convince the public that buying corn that is one tenth rotten is the coolest and smartest thing to do. So that farmer "beats" his rival who continues to sell corn that is one hundred percent wholesome. And then, over time, the farmer that sells 10 percent rotten corn, "grabs" a bigger and bigger share and "beats" his competitor, because he has convinced the public that buying and eating partially rotten corn is "OK." That is what much of the American "capitalist" economy has become, in analogy, in the name of "competition."
The second error that I want to point out in this edition of our ongoing tutorial is related to this first error of misunderstood and misconducted "competition," that is done for antagonistic and greed purposes, rather than balancing keeping one's focus on wholesome products AND ethics. This second error is the actual "creation" of "products" to gain money that is based totally on looting and exploitation. Trial lawyers are the example I wish to offer up here.
Lawyers offer a "service" for money. Thus they are capitalists even using our farm definition because in theory, a lawyer provides his service to his family and all surplus of his "profession" is then offered in the marketplace for cash. So I have nothing against lawyers and indeed, I even taught a little environmental law seminar in college while I was a student, and took the law boards exam when I considered career options. Further, the idea of lawyers "specializing" had well taken root when I was a student, and I considered becoming an environmental lawyer as my "specialty" (which was a totally new area at that time). So again, I have no problem with "trial lawyers" per se nor with those who narrowly specialize, such as in "product liability."
However, these "specialties" have become monstrous destroyers of capitalism, and have taken on a robotic greed of their own that is appalling and having destroyed much of genuine capitalism. Here is an example of why.
People, in general, over the centuries, do the best that they can. They do not mean to be evil and cruel, in general, so long as they are raised to be normal and loving, within a secure context of family, faith and community. Thus, people are constantly "inventing" or "discovering" things that attempt to improve the quality of life, and if that didn't happen, most humans would not be alive today. How about the first people who realized that some weird mold, for example, would be the basis for discovering the first antibiotic penicillin? I'm going to give you first a silly example, and then a deadly serious example. Suppose that trial lawyers "discovered" that some nut in a laboratory was testing "making people eat mold" and therefore sued to get that laboratory closed down? I wish I was joking but I'm not, really. Fortunately, people back in the 1930's and 1940's were not totally greedy and demented (yet). "Progress" was something that did not need explaining because it was a shared value... millions of people died from infections each year around the world because at that time there was no cure for infections. So people of course through self interest and global humanitarian interest researched medicine in order to serve the greater good, and rarely received great financial renumeration other than their paychecks. But people who make money ONLY through "conflict" (trial lawyers), would have seen the development of "eating mold" as an opportunity for some juicy suing in court, questioning whether that was "healthy" or not. So rather than being part of the community that silently praises and endorses the world, trial lawyers "look for" money making opportunities in the creation of conflict. So that is my "silly" example, but one that I think modern people can understand. Thank God product liability trial lawyers did not exist when penicillin was being developed!
Here is the serious example. Infections were a huge threat to humanity (and remain so, as cleanliness decreases and potency of infections increase), but the invention of penicillin, and its successors saved millions of lives per year. Humans at that time faced another great threat through history and that was fire. Throughout history entire cities have burned, and every community had a constant fire threat. Heat and light were both provided through the use of open flames. And so humans thought they had discovered a wonderful development when they developed use of asbestos as a fire proofing material in homes and buildings. Be assured that many lives were saved through the use of asbestos. It was one of the theoretical "human advances" when humans focused on how to figure out how to have a less fire vulnerable home, school or place of business. For decades people thought they had discovered a remarkable thing, and they had. But two problems developed over time. One was that people discovered that it was a dangerous material to work with, and that it could become a dangerous material to live with. People did not know better back then. Workers had no way of knowing, nor did their bosses and company owners, that they were breathing fibers that would later harm their health and even kill them. However, I am in complete agreement that once the medical threat was determined that everyone should have acted promptly and responsibly to mitigate and prevent it. But people are not born to be geniuses who have full knowledge of right and wrong in a flash. That's just ain't humans, folks, in case you have not noticed. Thus, there was no reason to totally demonize people who thought they were doing the right thing before the danger was discovered. But trial lawyers are experts in "revisionist history." In order to create the marketplace in which they make money (conflict), they label entire segments of well meaning society as "bad guys" who exploit "victims."
Think about it. Who can speak up for the decades of people who lived in safe housing because of asbestos? No one, obviously, because most of human history is lived, not recorded in paperwork. We don't know how many tenements in slums did not burn because they were protected in some part due to asbestos. We don't know how many factories were safer because they had asbestos. We only know that science and medicine revealed the hidden dangers of asbestos once humans had advanced to a certain point.
But modern "capitalists" no longer think in terms of this balance, because they have splintered life itself into kind of gladiator arenas in which they can make money. And so asbestos trial lawyers discovered (and created) a new arena in which they can make money, by declaring "evil doers" (asbestos providers) and "victims" (workers, genuine illness victims, and theoretical 'future' victims). Now, I'm not talking out of my hat, and I'm not pig ignorant. I had to have asbestos removed from my own home (and fell for contractors who were unlicensed and who probably did a lot of harm in their removal procedures). However, I'm all grown up and a good person and so I figure that asbestos is yet another chapter in human history where people discovered and developed a good thing, for good purposes, but as they grew up they learned of side effects that were unacceptable. That's human evolution, folks. Think of the people who first bit into the bad mold before discovering the good mold from which cheese and eventually penicillin came from. People who tried to find cures and good things for human development were not "evil" just because later research and experience shows a bad consequence for what they did. Likewise, asbestos users never set out to destroy anyone or hurt anyone; in their day they thought they were saving lives (and they did, as many potential fires were prevented).
However, I do agree that ethics dictate that once a worker becomes ill because of improper exposure, all should be done to protect him or her or their family. Companies who refused to do so without litigation are part of the problem, and thus put blood in the water that attracts trial lawyer sharks. In true capitalism a company owner who learns their product causes harm (asbestos) has to "man up" and view their product development as a dead end, and pay the financial consequences. (That's one reason why real insurance policies exist; not to "make a killing by marketing freak derivatives.") In real capitalism insurance policies exist so in case their is a huge "oh oh" and product liability, they are protected as a company from being destroyed, and the victims receive compensation.
But some trial lawyers went into the "find the asbestos and loot da money" business. All they do is sniff out use of asbestos and like truffle pigs, point out a place to litigate and sue, so they can loot money out of the situation (and even call themselves "heroes"), whether damage was actually done or not. And so we have had an unbelievable wounding of American capitalism through trial lawyers who seek up, stir up and even create conflict, in order to loot wealth out of the "crisis," whether real or contrived. And insurance companies have become part of the problem by no longer partnering with their customers to anticipate and proactively deal with inevitable product liabilities and dead ends. The whole asbestos litigation industry has been a debacle that I cannot over emphasize as a case study of where moral and prudent genuine capitalism has been totally derailed, all for the purpose of enriching the few, and victimizing the genuine victims twice. So many people have been enriched due to the "asbestos mitigation and litigation" industry that has derailed what should have been a prompt and reasonable approach to the crisis.
In a genuine, moral capitalist economy all the safeguards for bad or defunct "free market" product development would have been in place and activated. Insurance policies would have been written to do what they are supposed to do, insure, duh, not avoid helping pay out their clients when a tough situation arises. Also, a genuine capitalist company owner would promptly recognize his or her responsibility toward asbestos workers, acted swiftly and morally, AND had the security of the appropriate insurance in place, rather than put blood in the water by fighting and denying. Also, in a genuine capitalist economy, opportunities would have arisen for, yes, asbestos remediation companies (those who take the stuff out) and also for mediators and other advisers. But here is the problem. Trial lawyers should have been a last resort minority in this crisis. Instead, they "led the charge" for sheer monetary reasons. They drive, for example, the wealth of remediation companies. In true capitalism companies that alleviate asbestos should thrive because they offer a great and needed service, not because companies are held essentially at the point of a gun because of fear of the asbestos trial lawyers being sicked on them. Trial lawyers should be a "court of last resort," using their "speciality," and not the emperors of that entire segment of the economy.
I hope you have found this helpful, especially the young people, who have to rely on hearing about saner times, since they were born into these times when the "norms" are very abnormal.
Please excuse any typos or misspellings. Often I "cannot contact the server" when I try to spell check.
The first error is to think that capitalism means the same thing as "competition." It most certainly does not. Competition is a valid concept of capitalism that applies to the obtaining of the best price for the sales of one's surplus. For example, going back to my foundational definition of capitalism, a farmer that grows enough corn for his family and then sells the rest in the market is of course entitled to try to get the best price that he can for his corn. If his corn is better than his neighbor's corn, or gets to a market where there is no demand, that is "competition."
Competition is not, however, "negative" in true capitalism. Using that example, the sole objective of one farmer should not be to do a "beat down" of the other farmer's corn. In true capitalism the quality and demand of the product "speaks for itself." In other words, while cunning marketing and vigorous competition is of course valid and desirable, one farmer should not structure his entire corn crop in order to focus only on competing with an "enemy" competitor rather than letting the market work naturally to either reward or penalize his product. I've seen this from the inside of corporations. When corporations focus on "smashing" or "beating" the competition to the exclusion of normal product offering and development, they stop being capitalists who are both prudent and visionary and instead, use their products (and the buying and selling public at large) as protagonists in an ego and greed based "competition." So imagine that two farmers with surplus corn to sell become "enemy competitors" rather than genuine capitalists. If they are focused on each other's success or failure, they forget not only the market but their own families and the health of the economy as a whole. So suppose they are so busy trying to "beat" each other that they no longer notice that let's say a new disease has developed that threatens their corn production. They are so busy competing and manipulating market share that they do not invest in a new corn, one that may not get the "best price" in the market at first, but one that resists the threat of the new disease.
When capitalists "fight," treating their worlds as video game fiefdoms, where they are "battling" in the so called "healthy competition," they are no longer actually being competitive in a natural market. They are skewing the market to accommodate their battlefield, not to build genuine capitalism. So remember, when you hear about "competition," that refers to angling for obtaining the very best price and market share for your product, but is ultimately self destructive if competition is the be all and the end all of one's purpose. You can see this in the financial crisis. Banks started "inventing" financial products and instruments not with the healthy of the consumer, their company, their community or their country, but with the sole purpose of grabbing more money that is "out there in the market." That is like if one of the farmers decides he can make even more money by selling tainted corn. Suppose the farmer does a marketing blitz to convince the public that buying corn that is one tenth rotten is the coolest and smartest thing to do. So that farmer "beats" his rival who continues to sell corn that is one hundred percent wholesome. And then, over time, the farmer that sells 10 percent rotten corn, "grabs" a bigger and bigger share and "beats" his competitor, because he has convinced the public that buying and eating partially rotten corn is "OK." That is what much of the American "capitalist" economy has become, in analogy, in the name of "competition."
The second error that I want to point out in this edition of our ongoing tutorial is related to this first error of misunderstood and misconducted "competition," that is done for antagonistic and greed purposes, rather than balancing keeping one's focus on wholesome products AND ethics. This second error is the actual "creation" of "products" to gain money that is based totally on looting and exploitation. Trial lawyers are the example I wish to offer up here.
Lawyers offer a "service" for money. Thus they are capitalists even using our farm definition because in theory, a lawyer provides his service to his family and all surplus of his "profession" is then offered in the marketplace for cash. So I have nothing against lawyers and indeed, I even taught a little environmental law seminar in college while I was a student, and took the law boards exam when I considered career options. Further, the idea of lawyers "specializing" had well taken root when I was a student, and I considered becoming an environmental lawyer as my "specialty" (which was a totally new area at that time). So again, I have no problem with "trial lawyers" per se nor with those who narrowly specialize, such as in "product liability."
However, these "specialties" have become monstrous destroyers of capitalism, and have taken on a robotic greed of their own that is appalling and having destroyed much of genuine capitalism. Here is an example of why.
People, in general, over the centuries, do the best that they can. They do not mean to be evil and cruel, in general, so long as they are raised to be normal and loving, within a secure context of family, faith and community. Thus, people are constantly "inventing" or "discovering" things that attempt to improve the quality of life, and if that didn't happen, most humans would not be alive today. How about the first people who realized that some weird mold, for example, would be the basis for discovering the first antibiotic penicillin? I'm going to give you first a silly example, and then a deadly serious example. Suppose that trial lawyers "discovered" that some nut in a laboratory was testing "making people eat mold" and therefore sued to get that laboratory closed down? I wish I was joking but I'm not, really. Fortunately, people back in the 1930's and 1940's were not totally greedy and demented (yet). "Progress" was something that did not need explaining because it was a shared value... millions of people died from infections each year around the world because at that time there was no cure for infections. So people of course through self interest and global humanitarian interest researched medicine in order to serve the greater good, and rarely received great financial renumeration other than their paychecks. But people who make money ONLY through "conflict" (trial lawyers), would have seen the development of "eating mold" as an opportunity for some juicy suing in court, questioning whether that was "healthy" or not. So rather than being part of the community that silently praises and endorses the world, trial lawyers "look for" money making opportunities in the creation of conflict. So that is my "silly" example, but one that I think modern people can understand. Thank God product liability trial lawyers did not exist when penicillin was being developed!
Here is the serious example. Infections were a huge threat to humanity (and remain so, as cleanliness decreases and potency of infections increase), but the invention of penicillin, and its successors saved millions of lives per year. Humans at that time faced another great threat through history and that was fire. Throughout history entire cities have burned, and every community had a constant fire threat. Heat and light were both provided through the use of open flames. And so humans thought they had discovered a wonderful development when they developed use of asbestos as a fire proofing material in homes and buildings. Be assured that many lives were saved through the use of asbestos. It was one of the theoretical "human advances" when humans focused on how to figure out how to have a less fire vulnerable home, school or place of business. For decades people thought they had discovered a remarkable thing, and they had. But two problems developed over time. One was that people discovered that it was a dangerous material to work with, and that it could become a dangerous material to live with. People did not know better back then. Workers had no way of knowing, nor did their bosses and company owners, that they were breathing fibers that would later harm their health and even kill them. However, I am in complete agreement that once the medical threat was determined that everyone should have acted promptly and responsibly to mitigate and prevent it. But people are not born to be geniuses who have full knowledge of right and wrong in a flash. That's just ain't humans, folks, in case you have not noticed. Thus, there was no reason to totally demonize people who thought they were doing the right thing before the danger was discovered. But trial lawyers are experts in "revisionist history." In order to create the marketplace in which they make money (conflict), they label entire segments of well meaning society as "bad guys" who exploit "victims."
Think about it. Who can speak up for the decades of people who lived in safe housing because of asbestos? No one, obviously, because most of human history is lived, not recorded in paperwork. We don't know how many tenements in slums did not burn because they were protected in some part due to asbestos. We don't know how many factories were safer because they had asbestos. We only know that science and medicine revealed the hidden dangers of asbestos once humans had advanced to a certain point.
But modern "capitalists" no longer think in terms of this balance, because they have splintered life itself into kind of gladiator arenas in which they can make money. And so asbestos trial lawyers discovered (and created) a new arena in which they can make money, by declaring "evil doers" (asbestos providers) and "victims" (workers, genuine illness victims, and theoretical 'future' victims). Now, I'm not talking out of my hat, and I'm not pig ignorant. I had to have asbestos removed from my own home (and fell for contractors who were unlicensed and who probably did a lot of harm in their removal procedures). However, I'm all grown up and a good person and so I figure that asbestos is yet another chapter in human history where people discovered and developed a good thing, for good purposes, but as they grew up they learned of side effects that were unacceptable. That's human evolution, folks. Think of the people who first bit into the bad mold before discovering the good mold from which cheese and eventually penicillin came from. People who tried to find cures and good things for human development were not "evil" just because later research and experience shows a bad consequence for what they did. Likewise, asbestos users never set out to destroy anyone or hurt anyone; in their day they thought they were saving lives (and they did, as many potential fires were prevented).
However, I do agree that ethics dictate that once a worker becomes ill because of improper exposure, all should be done to protect him or her or their family. Companies who refused to do so without litigation are part of the problem, and thus put blood in the water that attracts trial lawyer sharks. In true capitalism a company owner who learns their product causes harm (asbestos) has to "man up" and view their product development as a dead end, and pay the financial consequences. (That's one reason why real insurance policies exist; not to "make a killing by marketing freak derivatives.") In real capitalism insurance policies exist so in case their is a huge "oh oh" and product liability, they are protected as a company from being destroyed, and the victims receive compensation.
But some trial lawyers went into the "find the asbestos and loot da money" business. All they do is sniff out use of asbestos and like truffle pigs, point out a place to litigate and sue, so they can loot money out of the situation (and even call themselves "heroes"), whether damage was actually done or not. And so we have had an unbelievable wounding of American capitalism through trial lawyers who seek up, stir up and even create conflict, in order to loot wealth out of the "crisis," whether real or contrived. And insurance companies have become part of the problem by no longer partnering with their customers to anticipate and proactively deal with inevitable product liabilities and dead ends. The whole asbestos litigation industry has been a debacle that I cannot over emphasize as a case study of where moral and prudent genuine capitalism has been totally derailed, all for the purpose of enriching the few, and victimizing the genuine victims twice. So many people have been enriched due to the "asbestos mitigation and litigation" industry that has derailed what should have been a prompt and reasonable approach to the crisis.
In a genuine, moral capitalist economy all the safeguards for bad or defunct "free market" product development would have been in place and activated. Insurance policies would have been written to do what they are supposed to do, insure, duh, not avoid helping pay out their clients when a tough situation arises. Also, a genuine capitalist company owner would promptly recognize his or her responsibility toward asbestos workers, acted swiftly and morally, AND had the security of the appropriate insurance in place, rather than put blood in the water by fighting and denying. Also, in a genuine capitalist economy, opportunities would have arisen for, yes, asbestos remediation companies (those who take the stuff out) and also for mediators and other advisers. But here is the problem. Trial lawyers should have been a last resort minority in this crisis. Instead, they "led the charge" for sheer monetary reasons. They drive, for example, the wealth of remediation companies. In true capitalism companies that alleviate asbestos should thrive because they offer a great and needed service, not because companies are held essentially at the point of a gun because of fear of the asbestos trial lawyers being sicked on them. Trial lawyers should be a "court of last resort," using their "speciality," and not the emperors of that entire segment of the economy.
I hope you have found this helpful, especially the young people, who have to rely on hearing about saner times, since they were born into these times when the "norms" are very abnormal.
Please excuse any typos or misspellings. Often I "cannot contact the server" when I try to spell check.
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