Get Green
Seven Heads, One Body

We are confronting in postmodern culture multi-headed monsters--many that we have created ourselves

Fighting each head is fighting the symptoms, not the causes. The heart of the problem is the heart. All the problems of postmodern culture stem from the same root cause: heart disease. Our problems are not "out there." Our problems are "in here."

Monster #1: Climate change
Monster #2: Species extinction and Environmental destruction.
Monster #3: Wealth Segregation
Monster #4: Rampaging Microbes and Deadly Plagues
Monster #5: Violence
Monster #6: Overconsumption and Overpopulation
Monster #7: Technological Evilution

"Sooner or later, we sit down to a banquet of consequences."
Robert L. Stevenson

"I had plastic surgery last week. I cut up my credit card."
Henny Youngman

Return "evil" to the postmodern vocabulary. The church must throw a searchlight on our souls; show the folly of engaging in post hoc moral rectitude.

We have thinning moral air!

Amish call house-raisings a "frolic." It’s a "frolic" because it’s the time when an entire community gathers for neighborliness and assistance. When it comes to building houses, the Amish don’t "work at it;" they "play at it." How the Amish build barns and houses is how we must learn to build relationships and marriages and churches.

"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien
To be hated needs but to be seen.
However, seen too oft, familiar with her face
We first endure, then pity, and soon embrace."
Anonymous

Postmoderns may have strong stomachs, but slushy minds.

"I am not against technology so much as I am for community."
Wendell Berry

In all of this contemporary search for spirituality, there is something very unbiblical about it. The Greek ideal for life is encapsulated in the concept of ataraxia and apatheia. The former means tranquility, or undisturbedness. The latter apatheia means total peace, or beyond passion.

Ataraxia and apatheia are the opposite of the biblical ideal. God wants us to be disturbed, passionate, not at peace unless it’s the "peace that passes understanding." God is disturbed, and passionate about the creation.

"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."
Karl Barth

What do you think of the prospects of a "sin tax" like that on tobacco and alcohol, except in this case it would be on high-fat foods like hamburgers, French fries, pizza, etc., that cause health problems ranging from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, strokes, etc. Are our nutrition habits improving, or deteriorating? Would you personally support a bad-food tax, the proceeds of which could go to fund bicycle paths, recreation centers, nutrition education programs in the public schools, and more?

"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans."
Jacques Cousteau

Now What? Net Notes

1. For more information on the prevention of eating disorders, see Web site http://www.eatright.org.

2. One US family, trying to escape the escalating crime in Albuquerque, NM, used the Internet to view live street scenes of various communities in their hunt for a better neighborhood. They finally settled on what they determined to be a family-friendly neighborhood—and moved to Colchester, England. For Colchester’s live Web site, see http://www.actual.co.uk/streetcam.html.

3. For a select bibliography of resources on urban-based ministry, see appendix 1.

4. To get some grasp of Bill Gates’ wealth, find on the Internet the Bill Gates Net Worth Page http://www.quuxum.org/evan-bin/bgnw.htm, the Bill Gates Wealth Index Page http://www.clari.net/brad/billg.html, and the Bill Gates Wealth Clock http://www.webho.com/wealthclock. Evan Marcus, who tends these pages, calculates that if Gates were to spend the same portion of his net worth seeing films as the average US household, then going to a movie with his wife would require $10.5 million—not including baby-sitter.

5. Visit http://www.sexless.com. It is the official site for Born-Again Virgins of America (Bavam! for short), a Seattle-based nonreligious organization founded in 1996 by Laura Kate Van Hollebeke and her brother Thomas.

6. For information about antibiotic resistance, see http://www.pharminfo.com/pubs/msb/abx240.html.

7. One estimate is that porn looms behind about 30% of sites on the World Wide Web. How would you feel about the creation of a .porn domain so that people could block out cyberporn? This would make pornography both harder to access—and easier, since it would serve to create a red-light district online.

8. Why not do a Bible study on creation care? To find some texts you might study, consult the Green Cross Web site at http://www.esa-online.org/greencross/. You can also find there some excellent recommendations of books on the subject of planet Earth trusteeship.

9. For updated information on the plight of the world’s oceans, visit http://www.yoto.com. Other key sites include http://www.seaweb.org and http://www.worldwatch.org.

10. For more about the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in East Sullivan, NH, visit http://www.monad.net/~applehill/p4p.html.

11. Try drinking tap water again after visiting this interactive site by the Environmental Defense Fund at http://www.scorecard.org/.

12. For an audio experience of the Net, log-on and listen in at the Bloomberg site where speakers discuss current issues and events at http://www.bloomberg.com/wbbr/smalltalk.html.

13. At 46, John F. Welch became the youngest chair of the board in GE’s 99-year history. His predecessor, Reginald Jones, tried to bring focus to this sprawling conglomerate of 250-plus businesses by setting up a corporate planning department staffed by legions of strategic planners. When Welch took over, he dismissed the planners and in their place introduced a unifying, centering vision in their place.

What do you think: Is one vision more compelling than hundreds of plans, rules, or guidelines? Download from the SpiritVenture Ministries Web site http://www.leonardsweet.com "The Potter" issue and discuss it.

14. Download some of the prayers provided by the monks at http://www.monksofadoration.org/prayart2.html.

15. To consider what your church might be able to do in distance education, start with the Web site InterEd: http://www.intered.com.

For the most recent literature on distributed learning, go to http://www.uwex.edu/disted. It’s a clearinghouse of distance-learning information sponsored by the University of Wisconsin.