Tag Archives ⇒ culture

When testimonies come drifting in

March 16, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Steven Davi­son asked what the tes­ti­mo­ny of com­mu­ni­ty even meant or whether it was spelt out any­where. No one could answer but no ine want­ed to omit it.

I sus­pect a process may be at work sim­i­lar to the one that has made “that of God in every­one” the puta­tive foun­da­tion of all our tes­ti­monies: an unself­con­scious thought-drift in a cul­ture increas­ing­ly impa­tient with intellectual/theological rig­or, or even atten­tion of any seri­ous kind, not to men­tion care for the tes­ti­mo­ny of integri­ty. These ideas arise some­how, some­where, and then get picked up and dis­sem­i­nat­ed because they sound nice, they meet some need, and they don’t demand much. They appar­ent­ly don’t require dis­cern­ment, anyway. 

The “Tes­ti­mo­ny of Community”

Quaker cultures and young Friends

September 6, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Emi­ly Provance is back talk­ing about the dis­con­nect between dif­fer­ent Quak­er subcultures:

In oth­er words, as far as your per­son­al expe­ri­ence tells you, Quak­er meet­ing is sup­posed to be about fun and excite­ment — but sud­den­ly, you’re see­ing plan­ning and struc­ture instead. Quak­er meet­ing is sup­posed to be about light-heartedness — but sud­den­ly, you’re see­ing method­i­cal rule-following. Quak­er meet­ing is sup­posed to be about play­ful­ness — but sud­den­ly, you’re see­ing cau­tious cooperation. 

Last month I talked a lit­tle bit about the prob­lem when Quak­er youth cul­ture and meet­ing cul­ture don’t quite line up.

Tran­si­tions: An Appli­ca­tion of Cul­tur­al Theory

Emily Provance: An Application of Cultural Theory

August 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Inter­est­ing appli­ca­tion of busi­ness the­o­ry to dif­fer­ent types of Quak­er cultures:

Did you iden­ti­fy the cul­ture type of your Quak­er faith com­mu­ni­ty — more specif­i­cal­ly, the por­tion of that com­mu­ni­ty where you spend the most time? It’s pos­si­ble that yours might be a pret­ty even tie between two cul­ture types, but it’s less help­ful if you say “we’re not real­ly any of these.” Iden­ti­fy one or two that seem rel­e­vant and work with it for a few min­utes here. Nobody’s look­ing over your shoulder. 

I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigued by her place­ment of the chil­dren’s pro­gram cul­ture out­side of the ones she assigns her meet­ing. I’ve met teens who grew up embed­ded in Quak­er youth cul­ture who are sur­prised when they hit adult­hood and real­ize that they don’t con­nect with any of the adult activ­i­ties. Back in the day I was part of Young Adult Friends pro­grams that were part­ly attempts to con­tin­ue that Young Friends cul­ture in place in a twenty-something con­text. Acknowl­edg­ing that there are some­times fun­da­men­tal cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences at work seems like a good start. Also, don’t miss Emi­ly’s piece in the cur­rent Friends Jour­nal, The Grief and the Promised Land.

Nav­i­gat­ing Dif­fer­ences: An Appli­ca­tion of Cul­tur­al Theory

Sowing in tears

June 22, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Sow­ing in tears

As we keep sow­ing, we divide the labor accord­ing to our gifts. For every rad­i­cal prophet who risks every­thing to speak the truth, we hope some con­ser­v­a­tive is doing a good job of guard­ing the mon­ey that will pay the prophet’s bail. We make space for the pas­tor who cher­ish­es our com­mu­ni­ty, and we make space for the outward-facing evan­ge­list, who under­stands when the moment is ripe to inter­vene in our culture.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​s​o​w​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​t​e​a​r​s​.​h​tml

Sowing in tears

June 22, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Sow­ing in tears

As we keep sow­ing, we divide the labor accord­ing to our gifts. For every rad­i­cal prophet who risks every­thing to speak the truth, we hope some con­ser­v­a­tive is doing a good job of guard­ing the mon­ey that will pay the prophet’s bail. We make space for the pas­tor who cher­ish­es our com­mu­ni­ty, and we make space for the outward-facing evan­ge­list, who under­stands when the moment is ripe to inter­vene in our culture.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​s​o​w​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​t​e​a​r​s​.​h​tml

Sowing in tears

June 22, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Sow­ing in tears

As we keep sow­ing, we divide the labor accord­ing to our gifts. For every rad­i­cal prophet who risks every­thing to speak the truth, we hope some con­ser­v­a­tive is doing a good job of guard­ing the mon­ey that will pay the prophet’s bail. We make space for the pas­tor who cher­ish­es our com­mu­ni­ty, and we make space for the outward-facing evan­ge­list, who under­stands when the moment is ripe to inter­vene in our culture.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​s​o​w​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​t​e​a​r​s​.​h​tml

Mafias and chaos

June 19, 2018
· Martin Kelley

I like this inter­view on the Ital­ian mafia by Isaac Chotin­er in Slate, “The Mafia Is More Pow­er­ful Than It’s Ever Been.”

It seems that this per­pet­u­al cyn­i­cism may be the great­est threat of our era. Is the child of irony? The grand­child of gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries? Maybe the cause does­n’t mat­ter as much as the effect.

The mob thrives on chaos. It likes chaos. It likes to be the alter­na­tive author­i­ty that you go to because you can’t get any­thing done through the legit­i­mate state. For that very rea­son, I think there’s no doubt that it pro­motes that chaos. It likes civic dis­trust. It likes cyn­i­cism. It can prof­it from that. I think the great tragedy of Italy is that, to a large extent, it’s kind of succeeded.

I think that if we want­ed to con­struct a Quak­er cri­tique of the cur­rent Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment – and the type of cor­po­ra­tized cor­rup­tion we see in Rus­sia and the pet­rostates, it would best start with the polit­i­cal cul­ture that deny basic facts, gaslight cit­i­zens with ever-changing ratio­nales, and cre­at­ing chaos that can let finan­cial huck­sters reap bil­lions. These are not gov­ern­ments based on integri­ty and fair play­ing fields.


The Mafia Is More Powerful Than It’s Ever Been

The Mafia Is More Pow­er­ful Than It’s Ever Been 

If you think of vio­lent, influ­en­tial orga­nized crime in Italy as a thing of the past, think again.

Slate Magazine Slate Magazine 

Syncretism and dilution

June 11, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Bri­an Dray­ton looks at the effects of syn­cretism, dilu­tion, and cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion on the Quak­er movement.

At first blush, such a process might be cel­e­brat­ed as a process of enrich­ment: Quak­erism ver­sion 1 turns into Quak­erism v2, now new and bet­ter because it has bells or out­ward sacra­ments or what-have-you. But note that this kind of change is not just a mat­ter of sim­ple addi­tion, because ele­ments drawn from var­i­ous oth­er tra­di­tions are them­selves embed­ded deeply in some cul­ture, and so they are clothed round with mean­ings and nuances that are implic­it­ly adopt­ed along with the idea or prac­tice that has been explic­it­ly imported.

Love, judg­ment, and the “inner crit­ic”, pt. 2b: Syn­cretism, dilu­tion, and the draw­backs of cul­tur­al appropriation