(The Title's Source)
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world.
Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves.
All progress therefore depends on unreasonable people.
The Bible is a very reasonable book, but interspersed in it you can find a few unreasonable people.
Abraham left his home in Mesopotamia, made a long trip up the Euphrates, then another long trip south to Canaan where he heard the Lord say to him:
"And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;" (Genesis 26:4)
Abraham had lots of other weird experiences, fought in several wars, bargained with God over the fate of Sodom; in Egypt he told Pharaoh that his wife was his sister, etc. It's all recorded in Genesis 11:27ff.
Joseph, the spoiled younger son of his father, Jacob (Israel), was cast into a pit by his envious brothers, then sold into slavery in Egypt. But he had a positive outlook which carried him a long way-- in fact to be pharoah's top man. Then he managed to rescue his brothers and the whole tribe from starvation (Genesis 37:2ff).
Ruth, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah and many others unreasonably determined the structure of Judaism and in due course Christianity.
Jesus, the most unreasonable man, showed us all a better Way.
Back to Abraham's blessing: we went into a Burger King in Charlotte once. The cashier was apparently a Jew. The man in front of me, wanting to express solidarity told him that God would curse everyone who cursed the Jews.
That bothered me; I told the Jew that he and his would be a blessing to all nations.
We got our food and went to sit down, but I was still bothered; I saw the man sitting at another table and went over and told him the same thing. An 'evangelical' Christian, he was amazed and impressed, asked me lots of questions.
I tell this story because it points out the two main ways we may read the Bible. We may read the curses or the blessings, whichever you prefer.
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Most of us in the blogging world greatly deplore the wars that we've been led into; I certainly do. But like everything there's an 'on the other hand'.
In Blueprint for Action Barnett sets forth a program by which the core, the globalized world (mainly , but not exclusively us) brings the blessings of connectedness to the Middle East, darkest Africa, and all the rest of the world still unconnected. He said that 98% of the terrorism has emanated from the (unconnected, unglobalized) gap, and when these dark countries get some connection with the rest of the world, the trouble will stop. Let's hope so.
A hopeless dream? Maybe. But in the midst of the gloom and doom of the present day, like Abraham, Isaiah, and the rest of them he has come up with a creative possibility. An unreasonable man!
4 comments:
I definitely prefer to focus on the blessings.
You've started some rumblings in my mind that won't gel into a solid thought but I know they are good rumblings. Thanks for being the catalyst.
I love the quotation thee opened with. GB Shaw I think When travelling on committee business I cited that quotation in a conversation, but slowly: first line, general agreement, second line, more agreement, third line, stunned horror!
My mind is rumbling about it, too. I've just borrowed four books on globalization from the library.
At a recent Friends gathering some violent objection (if Friends can be violent) to globalization was made, which made me a contrarian again.
Since then I have a hunger to get an informed opinion about it. I know the pros and cons are pretty heated and radical, but I also know that the objective truth most lie there somewhere.
Let's try to ferret it out.
Larry, I don't know if you're familar with Jeff Vail. You might find his thoughts interesting. http://www.jeffvail.net/
I haven't been able to find Barnett's book in the local libary or bookstore. I'm going to check another bookstore today before purchasing from Amazon.
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