benedson

Facebook, memory and truth

I've been on facebook now for over six months now and a few things have happened recently that have caused me to reflect on the relationship between facebook, memory and truth. I recently made a facebook friend with a person whom I've not seen for about 28 years. It was the girl that I first kissed, so in some ways a very significant memory. When I saw that she had requested to be friends with me I hovered over the accept button wondering what this would do. By saying yes, there is the potential that my memory of that first kiss, will be changed forever, whatever I had constructed in my mind as the truth of that innocent childhood kiss would be challenged by this. Memory constructs truth, we remember what we want to in a particular way and suppress those memories that we chose to deny. By becoming a facebook friend with this person my memory was going to be challenged, and my truth of that particular moment would be altered.

Following on from my previous post regarding absolute truth I've been re-reading Miroslav Volf's stunning book: 'Exclusion and Embrace'. Volf explores the relationship between truth and memory and how those who hold power in the present have control on the memory of the past. History is almost always written from the side of the victor and therefore a certain deception takes place as marginalised voices are quieted and the losers voice is silenced.

When we apply this to our personal lives maybe our memories construct a truth of the past, of a particular moment and as that moment gets further and further away it becomes more idealized. It becomes a memory that has no real bearing to reality, yet in a strange way it still holds a very powerful truth within it. My memory of that particular moment is true, but the question is can we accept that as true without wanting to find out the actual facts of the situation?

This of course has massive implications on the way that we read particular religious texts, which were of course constructed from memory. Does the text become an idealized account of the reality of the moment? and when we look back on Christian history we read from the side of the people who constructed what truth was in this context. We read from the side of the powerful truth holder rather than the side of the oppressed. My question is: Is this a bad thing?

Should we always be looking back to try and find the true historical Jesus? Or can we accept the truth of the construct that we've got of him at this present time, that truth maybe idealized, it may not be historically accurate but it maybe that the truth of the memory is more valuable that the truth of the reality, and it could be that the idealized picture has a greater bearing on the truths that need to be challenged in contemporary society.

Moving back to facebook, it seems to me that facebook is destroying memory as a constructer of truth by allowing that memory to become a reality. What if i discovered that the person who I shared my first kiss with had then gone on and kissed one of my brothers, (she didn't btw), my memory of that moment would be warped, it'd be changed and perhaps that is not healthy. Perhaps idealized memories are better than the reality of a moment.

I don't think it's as simple as a straight divide between either memory as the constructor of truth or the historic reality as the constructor of truth. There will be times when we need to go back to the historic reality, times when memory can be used to oppress and therefore the historical truth needs to be discovered. But maybe just, maybe there are time when the memory as constructor of truth is a positive thing and the truth of the idealized account of the memory is a more healthy truth than the historical truth of a moment.

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, facebook, memory, truth, Volf

The interpretation of the evolution of...

Here is my interpretation of the cartoon in the previous post.

Stage 1: I read a number of comments on blogs saying 'it's funny 'cause it's true...' I think I'd like to say that 'it's sad because it's true'. At the extreme the movement in theology, which is then outworked in worship, is from one position of power 'God told me so' to another 'Father knows best'.

I'm also wondering whether the 'alt-worship' guy is also a position of power within this...but i'm still formulating that.

Stage 2 - The arrow was added to highlight that the movement can go both ways. I read from left to right and therefore whilst this was no explicitly spelt out in the first cartoon it was implicitly there. The movement goes both ways...

Stage 3 - The cyclical nature of this evolution highlights that it is not an evolution at all. We start in the same place that we begin. A place where we are either defined against something, or our definition is so strong that there is a lack of integration with the previous way of worshipping. The movement can be either way and perhaps there can even be arrows connection all the stages.

Stage 4 - You break the cycle, you can worship authentically in a catholic environment and authentically in a charismatic one. You recognise the vastness of God and move beyond neatly defined worship styles to encounter God in a diversity of ways.

I know a nun. She loves and has a deep reverence of the sacraments, and she has an authentic catholic faith. Yet, I have been with her when she has been dancing in the spirit and praying in tongues for the healing of people. She is not defined by one or another but is humble enough to be open and respectful of both traditions.

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, spirituality, theology

The Evolution of the evolution of the worshipper

Original cartoon from Dave Walker of course...

I'll offer an interpretation in a few days, and I'll never be a master of photoshop. And yes the final image does look like kali!

Technorati Tags: Ben Edson, theology

Hard Questions Tour: Angela Tilby

I've been at the Hard Questions day in Manchester today. Angela Tilby was exploring Catholic ecclesiology and contemporary mission. Here are my notes and thoughts on what she was saying.

I thought that the picture of the tradition church that she was painting was a utopian christendom ideal, it was a picture of a church that existed outside of culture, and culture did not have an influence on it. She felt that there was not much that we could gain from sociology and that we should be looking to the past more.

The church lives in time, it runs in time, history is formative, theme running through history from the beginning – history, church and mission go together. I wondered where the future hope was in this...

She commented that there seems to be either 'a theme park' approach to tradition, where we just pick at it without really understand it or a fundamentalist approach to it where it takes over and people become fundamentalist in their approach to history. She was looking for a third way...

She felt that Fresh Expressions were not liturgical enough and that the body of Christ is formed in it’s liturgy. Robust belief that worship and liturgy forms identity. However, I commented that i thought that she was being too narrow in her understanding of Fresh Expressions. She had not recognise the creative ways that the emerging church is engaging with liturgy.

She was calling for a disengagement with culture and paradoxically through that transform it. My comment would be that the catholic movement is not a disengagement with culture it is still engaged with the culture of christendom...

Technorati Tags: Fresh Expressions, Hard Questions Tour