Christian Pragmatics (CP-1): The Format

Christian Pragmatics is the study of how Christians respond to the revelation of God's presence in their lives.  It will be recalled from the Scriptures that Jesus said words to the effect that "Where there are two or three gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them."  Christians claim to have a close spiritual relationship to God through the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  It is anticipated in the Old Testament by the calling from God for Samuel to become a Jewish prophet.  His response amounted to the words, "Here, I am, Lord."

The paradigm of a typical response is the Eucharistic Service, or "the Mass," performed at Christian churches around the world adhering to Catholic and Episcopal (Protestant) liturgies.

I use the concept of Christian Pragmatics as an inclusive term of Christian worship. This worship is really a response of the parishioner to his calling from God.  It is really a testimony of his or her encounter with God.  And this testimony bears witness that God's power penetrates being--all that is and evermore shall be. For God's power is the eternal creating Force of the universe.

The concept of Christian Pragmatics can be viewed as having properties or component elements; and these are taken up as "Meta-Elements" of the concept in the next CP item in the Didactics series.

In theology, this concept is named "the religious experience" and is applied to religions in general, not simply Christianity.  Paul Tillich used it extensively throughout his theology; and I studied theology at Union Theology, where he had been teaching for many years.  I did my M.A. thesis on Tillich's notion of the religious experience.  He tended to use it as a Kantian thing-in-itself and didn't try to unpack it further.  Through use of a property list for the concept, each property a Meta-Element, I am attempting to analyze it further into components.  I am limiting my analysis to Christianity, simply because I am interested in using the concept of the religious experience in a Christian context, though its property list as I am developing it, i.e., through the Meta-Elements, I believe could apply to the religious experience in other religions. .            .     

Lessons from History II: Principle of "lead a little" "nudge a lot!"

I am of the opinion, developed over these last five years, that President Obama is on the verge of greatness!  He appears to be using a principle of  'bottom-up' leadership, by which a leader leads through consensus building. The fundamental task in this type of leadership is to keep everybody focused on the aims and objectives he is intending to achieve.

Let's look at some of these objectives. 
 
1.  Obamacare.  This objective is not only important for the country but for the entire mass of humanity.  It will establish the wherewithal to monitor and control the healthcare of human beings received from recognized and approved healthcare providers.

To even establish the means for such a monumental project has been herculean, but to get the system functioning is a tribute to technological innovation and ingenuity!

Along the way, President Obama has had to step back looking for where consensus lie , ever mindful of the ultimate goal.  Witness how he  has yet again delayed implementing new standards for insurance policies.  Opponents comment:  Why doesn't he just give up?

2.  Foreign policy.  In Syria, he has been unable to reach consensus among US partners, principally, the EU.  In the Ukraine, he is forging ahead of the EU, temporarily, by offering support including financial assistance. His objective is clear nonetheless:  stop heavy-handed treatment of the poor and downtrodden by tyrants.

3.  The Green Earth Project.  Because of the need for a constant flow of oil, he has only kept the development of proven oil reserves to a minimum.

4.  Upgrading the US military. Currently, the Administration is making the military technologically advanced beyond what anyone could possibly imagine.  I applaud the President in his steadfastness to this objective, which is always at odds with Congressional interest to keep things as they are in their several districts.

Furthermore, he appears committed to ensuring the military's endeavors worldwide on behalf of peace are supported.

Good Resources

I am recommending really great resources for ideas in stimulating thought and action!  Currently, those below:

1.  The GPS program of Fareed Zakaria on CNN Sundays can boast of a fine list of books on political matters, far better than CSPAN's-2.  His list contains provocative entries and is consistently up-to-date in the point-of-views expressed having merit. 

2.  BBC-radio, heard in Las Vegas in the middle of the night, has notable in-depth analyses of current events occurring--especially  in Africa.  I've found the series on Nigeria that traces its military intervention into the political arena to the 1960s particularly enlightening.

3.  When I was in El Paso, I discovered that travelers from South-of-the-Border brought with them rumors about what could be happening in the countries from which they had just come.  These conjectures, though fanciful, were nonetheless useful in prompting me to do related factual research upon which the rumors might be based.  (see "What's Up John?" 7/13/13 item,)

Here, in Las Vegas,  I think, because visitors come from all over the globe, the rumor mill is churning out a veritable landfill!  I find rumors, no matter how preposterous, fun; and grist for serious study on some topic of current interest.

4.  I'm a good resource, too.  I posted in scribblings today, May 10, 2014, an item in What's up? that can help my friends.  If it proves useful, I'll continue to do so, but only under scribblings,

Lessons from History I: Is Russia a Christian Nation?

Background material about my philosophy of history

I majored in history in undergraduate school.  But I never developed a philosophy of history until I studied Jewish history under Rabbai Jonathan Plaut, who was the Rabbai in the Reformed tradition at Temple Emanuel, San Jose, California when I knew him.  His father was an illustrous scholar in the Reformed movement before him.  His instruction on the significance of history in understanding the Jewish mind enriched my discernment how one's past is embedded in one's own self-identity.  Accordingly, I embrace some notion of the collective unconscious espoused by psychoanalysts, early in its analysis of the mental, such as (I think) Karl Jaspers.

Understanding history in terms of cultural clashes

To question the existence of the collective unconcious is to fail to take history seriously.  Stalin, in an apparent effort to rid Russia of non-Russian ways, attempted to kill off its Armenian population, as had the Turks during WWI, Hitler tried to rid Germany of any remnant of Jewish influence by waging a holocaust on the Jewish people. Pol Pot of Cambodia aimed at killing off those who embraced Western ways, particularly, inculcated by the French, in order to return his nation to its humbler beginnings. Mao of China wanted to return his country to its agrarian beginnings, too, forsaking Western influence as alien to the Asian Mind.  Today, the Afghans bolt at giving up their tribal traditions. 

Some nations have attempted to integrate the "new" with the "old." You can see this in Africa, where Christianity is accepted within a broader framework of native religions whose elements still remain; and you can see this in Haiti whose people are known to practice indigenous voodo yet go to Catholic church on Sunday.  The "old" in China is Confusianism that has been embedded into the very fabric of Chinese culture; and the "new" is Buddhism and Chrisitianity--the latter only accepted to a modest degree, today, because of its insistence on affecting the everyday life of the believer, whereas the former emphasizes a spiritual, non-practical ascendence of the believer through everyday religious practice. The important point is that the "old" has precedence within a cultural framework.  The "new" must be integrated into its primordial foundation.  Indeed, most cultures have a religious structure inherent to them, because it is the means by which a societal member is identified as a person or being of that culture.  It is not an accident that churches in the US had retained the birth and death records of their parishoners long before the local government were given that task regarding its citizenry.

Let's look at Russia today as a case-in-point how instructive paying attention to the remembered beginnings of a people is.  For, I regard the Russian mind today as molded from its origins when Russians were Tartars. Essentially nomadic, the Tartars were a fierce, rough society, strongly rooted in their traditions that could be carried with them and practiced wherever they went.  Each clan was an outspoken group, dedicated to boldly insinuate their interests into the society at large.  The Tsars had a tough time controlling these independent groups, who would go their own way; so did Stalin; and so does President Putin in 2014! Currently, the Muslims want their own independence to become just like the other satellite states who have asserted themselves as independent nations. Yet The Russian Confederation of Independent States, composed of its several states, each work together to retain the overall Federation structure, while maintaining their separate languages and their own governmental structure and politic.

It is true that the Eastern Orthodox Church was established centuries ago in Russia, but I see it as an "add-on" to be integrated with what had gone before. 

One may ask, why did some Russian authorities urge me to stay on in Russia after I had provided input from the 1980s into the makings of the new Russian Constitution.  It is because I understood their point of view and respected who they are as a people with longings and potentials especial to them.                             
 

Follow Ups

The purpose of this item is to relate an item in one of my blogs to some event--expected or reported.

Globalization's regionalism as set forth in "SC: The Demise of the Western World," 8/27/2011 Social-X series and theorized about in "X. Globalization's Regionalism," under the label Whack-O Theory, 12/10/13 John's "What's Up?" series offers an explanation of China's military presence in Asian islands in the Pacific within the framework of the Globalization movement.

The item "Educative Learning Under Capitalism" 11/28/12 Ruminations series, picked up in India, apparently has resulted in parents' greater interest in the learning of their kids, as motivation toward greater student achievement.

The item "The Real Reason for US to stay in Afghanistan" 11/22/13 John's "What's Up?" series  relates to the US insistence for military presence in that country past 2014.

The item "The Ukrainian Developing Nation!" 12/8/13 Ruminations series emphasizes the country's stance for independent status among the nations of the world, including its desire to look West toward the EU for business and commerce.

The item I just posted under John's "What's Up?" 5/10/14 will prove true by the end of 2014 for those who can take advantage of it.

The Theoretical vs. The Practical

In political theory, there's socialism, communism and capitalism--as if these are three competing theories, one of which is right; and the other two are wrong.  I'm here to tell you (so long as I'm alive!) that they are all right and all wrong.  From the practical world, each draws upon human experience as the foundation of its fundamental thesis.  The trouble is they generalize too far--and when they do, they enter the world of absurdity, where nothing exists but fantasies!  I recall sitting in on a lecture on Marxism.  The lecturer was boldly stating without a smile on his face that, as Marx first stated, the world is inexorably headed toward a new era of never-ending peace once capitalism has been overthrown.  No one need do anything to rid the world of capitalism, the forces of history will destroy it.

Now, there are instances when it's important to share equally one's wealth: after a physical catastrophe--a monstrous earthquake, a volcanic eruption of enormous proportions. Survivors help each other out of beneficence.  So too, cooperatives emerge when people find that by pooling their assets, they can support a capital venture they could not afford and so could not benefit from--an "A" for socialism.  And you can't motivate an individual to do something without giving him a reward--the old stimulus-response mechanism, the basic truth of capitalism.  (As in the adage, work hard, and it will pay off in huge dividends!)  So, every one of these theories is right--to a degree. 

You may recall in chemistry or physics class, the mathematical equation of a law or principle was written on the board, and the professor expounded on its meaning.  But the application made in the laboratory turned out to be a mere approximation of what was its precise meaning.  In other words, a demonstration of a particular principle produces rarely the findings anticipated from its formula derivations.  The "close enough" empirical, laboratory findings to the formula derivations are explained as variations due to the inability to sufficiently control the conditions of testing in the laboratory situation.

In other words, the world of thought, of intellectual perfectability is never that of the real, physical world.  The chemist or physicist aims at producing findings in the laboratory that are only approximations, given the variances of testing conditions, to his theoretical expectations.

That same conclusion occurs in other contexts.  For instance, interior home design.  The interior decorator produces on his laptop a design of a room that contains the elements he wants to put in it at some physical location approximating what he believes are the home owner's expectations.  But a property owner won't know if that's really the way he wants the room to look until he starts living in it!  For instance, the interior designer may think the plasma TV will look great over the mantelpiece, distant from where the inhabitants will sit to see it; but in actuality, it's not in a location viewers will find comfortable to watch.

Similarly, computer system designers will schedule several re-iterations of coding based upon their dissatisfaction with how the programs actually mesh together into a coherent, systematic whole in practice.  That is to say, systems design can't really achieved until it's beta-tested in various situations where it is to be used.

So, the perfect can't be a theoretical structure; but the physical, real instance of its application is by definition, perfect because it is real--which counters Plato's thesis of the real world being the ideal conceived in thought!  Thought captures merely the repetitive elements of what occurs in reality.  Another way of saying this, the practical world of physical things in interaction controls how we can change the world as we would want, our conceptions being sometimes no more what history can tell us regarding our past success in relating thought to action.

I think that's what I mean!

 

                

Tea Partiers vs. High Rollers

Since the founding of the United States, there's always been an isolationist tendency.   Europe and Asia are far away lands, so it's really difficult to think of the US as intimately tied to countries continents away.  In today's politics, the Tea Party, to my mind, is of isolationist persuasion.

I am sympathetic to its message that the United States should be concerned with the ways it spends its monies.  It ought not spend beyond its means of what it can afford.  But here is the rub.  Citizens think of the US economy in ways similar to their own financial situation.  In a way, that can be a good thing: the bank where they put their money will tell them when they're overdrawn, the stores where they shop will tell them when they have exceeded their credit limit.  The financial institution where they want to take out a loan for a house, boat, etc. will tell them how much they can borrow.
The point is it's not the family that decides what their financial limitations are--it's those with whom they seek additional financial resources, even if those be their own monies entrusted to some bank that provides them with a monthly statement of cash flow.

Now, it is the Tea Party who's proclaimed what the US' credit limits should be.  Encouraged by sundry economists, to whom they turn for reassurance, and armed with their tried-and-true common sense (drawn from their limited financial experience),  these would-be-do-gooders have judged that the US is spending too much, as if they really knew what the limits of credit are for the United States Government of America.  I submit to these Tea Partiers who think the US has borrowed too much that they turn their attention to what our creditors think are its limits and to note what they believe when such limits have been exceeded, viz., when the US bonds are no longer in demand for purchase on the open market.

Contrast their knowledge of economics with that of the high rollers.  These are the CEOs of giant corporations that deal on the international transactions on the open markets.  They engage in investment speculation based on their empirical forecasts of the economic value of the good faith and credit of US on stock exchanges worldwide.  They are betting that the worth of US assets is far greater than its debts.  Accordingly, they, including banks around the globe, buy US treasury bonds for their portfolios; and more importantly, they exhibit confidence in the US ability to repay what it has borrowed.  Now, if that confidence were found to be ill-founded, the markets where our bonds are exchanged would act much differently than they are:  it's up to the markets to decide what are the limits to US credit; it's not for the Tea Party (despite their experiential knowledge base and the opinions of economists who advise them) to decide.

What the Tea-Party people don't take into account is what the US actually does on the international scene.  It's as if the US government should  aim to do solely what pleases the Tea Partiers!  It should conform the US international and national transactions to their budgetary narrow interests and knowledge-base.  So, no Obamacare--it's too expensive to save many more US citizen lives through a national health care program.  So, bring the US military home; get rid of the nearly 1000 US military installations around the world and keep bases on home territory!  That's the opinions, I would aver, the Tea Partiers would hold, if anybody were foolish enough to want to know what such opinions are, given the foundations.  Well, the plain fact is that because of the US military presence around the world, we, globally, have entered an era where there is more peace and prosperity than heretofore witnessed on the planet.  And, the President accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, as he said, on behalf of the US military for their much needed and appreciated endeavors around the world!  That acknowledgement of US value in the world is translated, I believe, into economic confidence around the world that the US will pay off what it owes others, and specifically, will not default this month or at any future date.

So, what's this about the debt ceiling being debated in Congress?  (a question posed in the style of John Stossel)

It seems that Congress would influence the interest rates on US Treasury bonds and notes by attempting to set its own "debt ceiling" and by, furthermore, instituting austerity measures as a coherent plan, such as the sequester, to give the impression to High Rollers that the US is reining in on US spending.

Nice try but no cigar!  My bet is on the High Rollers, who through the marketplace exchanges will continue to determine the US credit limits for national and international transactions. Too bad, Tea Partiers; and too bad, US administration and Congress.