Thursday, August 30, 2007
One more thing ...
while I am in the mood to rant. The report came out about the Virginia Tech shootings, pointing the finger every which way. Now I am ok with talking about the response time (to an extent), but blaming the university for failing to properly care for a mentally ill student? I think that is where I would draw the line. The last time I checked, adults were in college. The last time I read a story on this shooting, I seem to remember that there was a family for this student. The last time I checked, there were constitutional and other statutory protections against having someone treated for mental illness unless an appropriate showing can be made. Now I am not saying that there weren't enough warning signs or anything like that. What I am saying is that, looking back, there is always something that could have been done since, to use a cliche, hindsight is 20/20. I am not saying that we shouldn't learn from what happened in the past, but what I am saying is that we should just learn from it. If there is someone who rightfully needs to be punished, punish them. Should you fire the officials at the university? Probably not. I mean, who is in a better position to learn from mistakes than the person that committed the mistakes. How can we teach people to take responsibility for their actions if we are always trying to shift the blame on someone other than the person who acts? There are always going to be factors that lead to someone committing a crime, but it is time that we teach people not to point to those factors, but to point to the problem within themselves. Take some responsibility for your actions for once. This shooter killed people. He made the conscious decision to kill. He deserves the blame. Everything else is what we can learn to stop a future event from occurring. Placing the blame on others isn't going to help anyone heal.
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2 comments:
In response to your earlier post about special music discussions in sunday school, I think we should not have special music at all. Even if it is the choir and not just a single person, the principle is the same. It always amazes me that the same people who adamantly deny perceiving special music as a performance are the ones applauding along with everyone else after the song is over. This applause reveals what they intuitively perceive special music to be: a performance which they watch.
More generally, I can only think of one of the means of grace experienced in a sabbath service that should be received passively, and that is the baptism of others (not one's own baptism). Worship in song, the preaching of the word, corporate prayer, and the Lord's supper should all be actively and corporately engaged in.
If someone could show me a precedent in scripture for individualistic worship in a sabbath context (in the OT or NT) with regard to music, then I would probably have to alter my view, but I can think of no such precedent. In my mind, there is no qualitative difference between special music (choir or individual singer) and a concert. Sunday morning worship is not a concert. I think almost everyone would agree with this but they don't apply this belief consistently.
Special music is yet another manifestation of American hyper-individualism that has crept into the church. This hyper-individualism obscures much (if not most) of all that God has done in redemptive history, since nearly all of this work has been carried out in the context of a covenant community.
That is all. (It's kind of a pet peeve.)
I am quickly approaching the same position on all special music for two reasons. The first being that in self-reflection, I can probably count on my fingers when I was participating in the music as part of corporate worship instead of sitting there passively while being entertained. The second being that the temptation to focus on the individual is way too strong, so why not avoid the temptation. I haven't really thought about how the only passive aspect of worship should be baptism. I will now though. Another thought that I am having right now is that passivity in corporate worship tends to lead to passivity in other aspects of church life because we are teaching people to be pew sitters. I may end up with more to write in a few days.
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