Straight Dope on Medicine: World Transformation

Author

Scott Ganser
November 22, 2023

I’d love to change the world,

But I don’t know what to do…

 Alvin Lee & Ten Years After[i]

 

 

Talk about needing guidance. “I’d love to change the world, but I don’t know what to do?” It might help (a little) if Alvin would specify. Change it how? Economically? Greater justice? Improved health and hygiene? Environmentally? Ethically? Sometimes there can be a yawning chasm between ideals and pragmatics.

In all fairness, most everyone would like to change the world. God would too.

Matthew 5:13-16  (ESV)

Salt and Light

 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Unlike Alvin, I would make some radical changes to the world. In some ways, it would be unrecognizable, and that would be a good thing. Airport security would be a thing of the past. However, my changes might not be what I intended, and they may not last. There might be compensatory mechanisms that return the world to its former state, or even make it worst. I do not know all the contingencies. That knowledge resides only with God.

Change also might require something greater than simple editing. There are men’s wills to consider. Tampering with the agency of man takes the matter a bit deeper. An all-powerful snap of the fingers might rid the world of decades of garbage, but the polluters are still running about wantonly littering. That hasn’t changed.

The task is so daunting that some have thrown in the proverbial towel. They are trying to make a virtue out of seeming futility. Frank Powell penned an article entitled, 5 Reasons Christians Should Stop Trying to Change The World[ii]

The futility argument is really a non-starter.

“Even Jesus said during his ministry the poor would always be with us (Mark 14:7).”

The fact that there will always be poor does not invalidate efforts to help some poor. Poverty has not been eradicated by a solution for a few, or even many, but the situation as a whole has been improved.

It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor, but blessed is the one who is kind to the needy.

— Proverbs 14:21

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

— Proverbs 14:31

It is also wrong to say that “God never commanded Christians to change the world.” This is being too locutionarily-centered. Let’s look at an example:

Father: There is no salt on the table.

Son: (Goes and gets the salt)

Did the father command the son to go and get the salt? No. He was making an observation. But locution isn’t illocution isn’t perlocution.

locution: the words themselves

Perlocution: the intent of the words

Illocution: the effect or outcome of the words.

To flesh this out for the above example.

Locution: “There is no salt on the table.”

Illoctution: “Go and get the salt.”

Perloction: The son goes and gets the salt and sets it on the table.

Easy enough.

So what is wrong with the world ? Violence ? Social injustice ? Compromised or absence of ethics ? Liberalism ? Environmental irresponsibilty ?

Answer : All of the above.

 A BIG part of the problem is the abandoment of God and the concommitant obedience to Him. The, unfortunately, has gone by the wayside in our upwardly mobile, self-sufficient society. We keep trying to be our own gods.

Of course this has major Jewish connotations. I do try to keep my readership up.

Kedem Synogogue

It doesn’t look like they’ve fixed the problem(s). Maybe they should adapt the opening song as their entrance music. Keep going though. Far be it from me to curtail those efforts. We all benefit in the process.

Secular Jew Jonathan Haidt has written a magnum opus called « The Righteous Mind. » In i the delves into the ethics that arise in most cultures. Strange how that happens, isn’t it ?

Anyway, he found that six coordinates manifest themselves, we’ll arrange them like so :

owever, modern American culture does a fair bit of editing. They don’t allow for half of the items. Loyalty, authority and sanctity are gone. They either don’t exist, or are defined by each individual. Accountability is only to oneself. When you sense that there is something missing out there, you are not mistaken. There is !

Judges 21:25 (ESV)

 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

 Let’s consider the thief. What’s going on there ? A thief is definitely exercising liberty, and if the three-sided shape above holds sway, the theif might even elevate that above the other two. If so, then there is nothing wrong, and the thief is simply exercising his freedom. Add another component : caring. He stole the $150,000 diamond earing for his mother. He just hit on two out of three. He can hit on all three if his imagination is strong. The shop may take too great of a mark-up and he is evening the scales so to speak.

 Stanton E. Samenow Ph.D. wrote an article for Psychology Today, “Explanation or Excuses for Stealing?”[iii]

 

When offenders are held accountable, unless they make a full confession, they offer explanations for why they behaved as they did. Their after-the-fact statements are usually intended to gain sympathy and minimize culpability. They focus on people and circumstances outside themselves.

 

 “It’s not their fault!!”  No, it never is. Responsibility does not become them. In their minds, they are already free, they just have to sell you on it. Hold on, the snow job is coming.

Often their statements sound plausible even to seasoned criminal justice and mental health professionals.

When a criminal is interrogated or interviewed about his illegal conduct, two evaluations are occurring simultaneously. The detective, psychologist, or other interviewer is examining him. But he is doing what he has done all his life, namely casing out others to target any vulnerability. The criminal counts on outsmarting his interrogator.

 Dishonesty does not equal stupidity. They can’t be counted on to be malaperts.

 No, there is accountability in ethical systems. Not just to ourselves. There is a society round about us, and if you are a man or woman of faith, you know that there is a Creator God who has in interest in our behavior. He can be strategically placed at the center of it all. That completes the picture.

 Getting back to changing the world.

What to do ? What to do ?

1. Identify ideals

2. Take direct action

Martin Luther King Jr. identified needs in our society and lobbied those with the power for change. He did not sit on the sideline. King saw that poverty cut across race and geography. He announced the Poor People’s Campaign at a staff retreat for the Southern Christian Leadership (SCLC) in November 1967. Seeking a « middle ground between riots on the one hand and timid supplications for justice on the other, » King planned for an initial group of 2,000 poor people to descend on Washingotn, D.C., southern states and northern cities to meet with government officials to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, and education for poor adults and children designed to improve their self-image and self-esteem (King, 29 November 1967).

poorpeoplescampaign.org

3. Be an example

4. Get-buy in from others

5. Change attitudes

Women have always been a vibrant force in the workforce. However, the venue has changed. It was primarily in farming. Yet, industrialization and new technology making farming less labor intensive have led to a shift. Also, there was the matter of a war, in which factory production required women in the industrial setting because the men were at war. A necessity effected a culture change.

 5, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home.[iv]

6. Change the culture

This can be costly and someone will have to give up some power or advantage enjoyed under the current system. Child labor is something that changed. Yohuru Williams tells us that children have always been a part of our workforce throughout human history. However, industialization in the 19th century led to abuse. Industrialists saw children as something they could exploit. They were smaller, nimble, not unionized and could be paid lower wages. Reformers came in during the 1840’s, and started to turn back the tide. They argued that children were exposed to harmful environments and work deprived them of educaton. However, a wave of immigrants from Ireland brought in a fresh supply of children for factories. What changed the culture ? The Great Depression. An epidemic shortage of work and mass poverty provided the impetus for legislation to be passed so that adults would be the primary  laborers in the workforce. [v]

7Be Realistic (total, comprehensive change is not to be realized). Reduction of the scope of a problem is to be celebrated.

8. Take satisfication is limited or local victories. They are not meaningless.

9. Not achieiving ultimate realizion of an ideal worldwide for everyone is not a reason to ditch the ideal.

10. Realize that Olam Haba (the world to come) and the advent of the Mashiach (Messiah – Jesus) are one and the same. Not everything is going to be set right that needs to be set right. What remains requires divine agency, which is where the Messhiach comes in. Mashiach is a divine person. Jesus has power and scope beyond the limits of the ordinary man or group of men.