Thursday, August 09, 2007
Stereotyping and Manipulating
There is some good advice for pastors in this MMI post describing "Four Types of Friends a Pastor Needs" and yet, I found it objectionable. I hope it will be instructive to go into why.
Do we really want to have people in our lives to fill roles? what happens when those people change and they no longer fulfill those roles? Are they no longer our friends? And if they are not, what kind of love have we really given them?
In the first place, this approach defines friendship on the basis of what it means to me, not what it means to my friend. That is certainly not "regarding the other as more important that yourself." Secondly, it removes from the other the ability to be who they are in relationship to you.
Seems to me that the Christian idea of relationship would start by accepting another person in whatever place they are at face value.
"Well sure!" comes the retort, "but not everyone we encounter is a 'friend.'"
Isn't that just the least bit disingenuous as well!? Haven't with such a statement we reduced people, especially those we minister to to the role of "ministry object."
And at bottom, that is the real problem I have with all of this. It is objectifying people. It reduces us from individuals with wills and emotions and thoughts and spirits to just things to be stacked neatly into categorical boxes and allowed to proceed to within certain distances from "the throne" (ourselves) based on which category they belong to.
And isn't that a description of an aristocratic court? Is that really following the example of our Lord. You know, the God who is the only true royal ever and yet...
Related Tags: friends, categories, humility, honesty, integrity, Christ's example
Do we really want to have people in our lives to fill roles? what happens when those people change and they no longer fulfill those roles? Are they no longer our friends? And if they are not, what kind of love have we really given them?
Phil 2:3 - Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself;Seems to me that nothing could more assault this admonision from Paul than to categorize our friends into roles and define their worth to us on the basis of those roles.
In the first place, this approach defines friendship on the basis of what it means to me, not what it means to my friend. That is certainly not "regarding the other as more important that yourself." Secondly, it removes from the other the ability to be who they are in relationship to you.
Seems to me that the Christian idea of relationship would start by accepting another person in whatever place they are at face value.
"Well sure!" comes the retort, "but not everyone we encounter is a 'friend.'"
Isn't that just the least bit disingenuous as well!? Haven't with such a statement we reduced people, especially those we minister to to the role of "ministry object."
And at bottom, that is the real problem I have with all of this. It is objectifying people. It reduces us from individuals with wills and emotions and thoughts and spirits to just things to be stacked neatly into categorical boxes and allowed to proceed to within certain distances from "the throne" (ourselves) based on which category they belong to.
And isn't that a description of an aristocratic court? Is that really following the example of our Lord. You know, the God who is the only true royal ever and yet...
...who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Phil 2:6-8Maybe we ought to think a little less about how to "handle" the people around us and think a little more about how to be one of them.
Related Tags: friends, categories, humility, honesty, integrity, Christ's example
