I am currently in a doctoral program, studying semiotics—cultural symbols—which requires a great deal of reading. Probably the greatest benefit of an education is the wise guide (teacher) who can give a curated tour of the best there is in any given subject, and such is the case with this program. Dr. Leonard Sweet has opened the door to an entire world of scholars and theologians who look beneath the surface of things and reveal mysteries. Now I would like to open that world to you.
Tribe Culture
The semiotic reading of “Tribe Culture” keys in on the word “tribe,” Garry Ridge’s metaphor for his philosophy on fostering a productive work environment. When he talked about the concept of “tribes” ticking all the boxes he saw as necessary, I wondered if the same could be said for “church” (17).
- Warriors = contenders for the truth?
- Teachers = teachers
- Nurturers = shepherds
- Learners = disciples
- Scouts = evangelists?
- Hunters = apostles
I appreciated his four pillars for the fearless tribe: Care, Candor, Accountability, and Responsibility (36). That also translates well for church. But the theme that ran through his book was encouraging his employees to view mistakes, failures, and errors as learning moments, highlighting his quotes from Mandela and Verne about the importance of continually learning, and Amy Edomondson’s remark about “complex adaptive systems” (Primal Intelligence much).
Me and We
Semiotically, then, reading a book about the healthy environment for productive enterprises pairs well with Me and We.
After explaining the impetus for and ultimate failure of the social gospel, Sweet established the legitimacy of the individual—being self-aware as a singular person with singular relationship with God—and of the community, the “we” of our various clans, of families and of tribes such as church.
Zoroaster
I’d have enjoyed a little more background on Zoroaster, and how that ancient prophet influenced changed thought both in the then-prevailing Persian religion, and in Judaism (51). Zarathustra (Zoroaster is the Hellenized version of his Persian name) lived from 628–551 BCE, a contemporary with the Hebrew prophets Jeremiah and Daniel, and with King Cyrus. He started out as a Persian priest, but when he was taken up into heaven in his first vision of God, he became a prophet promoting a new, monotheistic religion. Of the several notable (for us) aspects of his innovation, two stand out: his concept of the eternal flame (think Shekinah) and his description of the afterlife.
When someone died, according to Zoroaster, their soul would spend three days sitting at the head of their body in agonizing reflection, contemplating their deeds. The soul of a good person would be comforted by an angel while the soul of an evil person would be tormented by demons.
Every soul must cross the Chinvat bridge, the massive blade of a long sword. If the soul’s good deeds outweighed the bad, then that soul could easily cross over the abyss of hell into the blisses of paradise on the broad side of the blade. But if bad deeds outweighed the good, then the blade would shift, and the soul would lose their balance on the razor-edge of the sword, and fall screaming into the torments of hell.
It seems some cross-pollination happened as the Judahite exiles sojourned in Persia. Knowing this gives me pause (<cough> Sistine Chapel <cough>).
Darkness and Light
Reading about the darkness of God was unsettling. I’ll still be thinking about this long after we’ve moved on from this book. As I read example after example of God in the darkness, and the darkness in God, it came to me that though God’s first creative word was “Let there be light,” and God’s second creative act was to separate darkness from light, the concept of yin and yang is in error. There is not a balance of darkness and light that must be kept in order for the cosmos to work properly. Chaos involves both darkness and light, and so does order, because God is in and over both. God is there in the valley of the shadow of death, already preparing a feast. Interestingly, all the colors make black pigment, but also white light (67).
Then, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world” and also “you are the light of the world,” often speaks about the importance of bringing light to dispel darkness (John 8:12; Matthew 5:14). In fact, at the beginning of John’s gospel he wrote that the darkness could not grasp (understand nor cling to) the light. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus spoke of “outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 25:30).
I’m not sure what I do with this. I’ve long wondered if hell is the presence of God, but God’s constant and palpable presence is painful to those who reject the Lord. Is heaven, then the joyful presence of God, and are both temporary holding places until That Day?
Anyway, that section ends with the encouraging truth that the live in Christ is to be in the light (John definitely saw light as good and darkness as not good).
Consume versus Conceive
I was in more familiar territory with this section. Illich’s quote about the two forms of enslavement, addiction and envy, was terribly insightful (90). For us western Christians, and especially those of us in USAmerican culture, this is a constant pull to be resisted. I was reminded of a film—The Story of Stuff—I watched a number of years ago that scared me straight, so to speak. I made my own film about how I feel Christians are called to tend and care for the earth: Theology of Science. But it goes beyond even conservation of the earth. Our economic proclivities reveal our philosophy of life.
What I’m about to say is easily findable on the internet, it’s the sort of thing a person learns in a 101 Econ course. USAmerican economists formally defined economic health as growth during World War II, led by the U.S. government’s adoption of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The Cancer of Continuous Growth
The US government had to figure out a way to finance the war effort. So economist Simon Kuznets and John Maynard Keynes created a formalized system to enable the government to track production, income, and expenditures. Growth rather than sustainability became the important marker of economic health (98). Never mind that continuous growth is actually what cancer is. That’s what we’ve inherited. The younger generations are getting what true compassion is, though, and are far more interested in ethical production of goods, as well as sustainability (99–100, 112).
Living in the Commons
I appreciated the close-to-the-last line of this book, “This is where we need to live, and move, and have our being—between the divine ideal and the human reality” (152). This is the secret of the manna (Who is Jesus, the Bread of Heaven) lived out among the early years of the church.
When God gave the Israelites manna, a person might miss how the manna was distributed:
“This is what the Lord has commanded: Gather as much of it as each of you needs, an omer per person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents.”
“The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less.
“But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.”
Exodus 16:16–18 (emphases added)
This is remarkable, for it is exactly the economy of we, the economy of the Commons. Some gathered more and were wealthy, others gathered less and were poor. It is certain that children gathered a lot less, and there had to have been those who were unable to gather anything from time to time—they were sick, or hurt, or giving birth. But when everything was measured, omer by omer, there was enough for every person, every family, every clan.
So it was in the early church—with wealthy Barnabas leading by example—that some were wealthy and many were not, but the wealthy shared what they could, and all were fed (Acts 2:44–45, 4:36–37).
