I'm disheartened by what I just read. Why is that conservative Christians see more clearly than Mr. Welsh? In 2000, Wheaton College decided to change their well-loved mascot of the "Crusader" because of their Christian ideals and commitments. I quote here from the current President Duane Liftin (www.wheaton.edu/alumni/mascot.html):
"Forgive me if I must make the following account personal, but since I'm the one initiating a change in Wheaton's mascot I want you to understand the reasons. At the outset let me dispel two potential misunderstandings: First, I am not being pressured to make this change. There have been in every generation those within Wheaton's constituency who wished to see such a change take place, and this remains the case today, but I have not received undue pressure. If I were not convinced this was the right thing to do, I would not be bringing this forward. Second, this change is not about "political correctness." I am utterly unmoved by such arguments--in fact, those who know me well will tell you that I am tone deaf to this sort of thinking. As you will see below, none of what I am about to say is driven by fears of what is or is not "P.C." What, then, are the reasons?...
The answer is, two things have changed, seemingly right before our eyes.
First, our environment has changed. We live in a world vastly more aware of itself than ever before. Revolutions in the fields of transportation and communications have transformed everything. No longer do the world's peoples live in isolated enclaves. Today a war breaks out and the entire globe watches it in real-time on CNN. Jets whisk us to new continents in hours; missiles reach the far side of the globe in minutes; a telephone puts us in touch with distant lands in seconds. And then there's the Internet. Its global transactions occur in nanoseconds; your e-mail reaches me as quickly from India as from down the hall. Today as never before music and movies and athletics are universal media; celebrities become international figures, from Tiger Woods to Madonna to Billy Graham. Sometimes it seems as if everyone now knows what everyone else is doing. We can watch British television in Beijing or reruns of "The Beverly Hillbillies" in Beirut. No previous generation has lived in anything like our world-sized fish bowl.
As a result, secondly, we also have changed. In our globalized environment others are constantly exposed to us, and we to them. We discover a steady flow of viewpoints other than our own, viewpoints we might otherwise never have glimpsed. These perspectives are sometimes pressed upon us, whether we want them or not. Where before we were oblivious to our differences, we can be oblivious no more. Our new environment forces us into a consciousness of how other people think, including how they think about us. Often this is delightful, sometimes it is painful, but always it is educational. When we see through other eyes we often wind up seeing differently."
Previous Month
Posted on May 1 at 3:51 p.m.
I'm disheartened by what I just read. Why is that conservative Christians see more clearly than Mr. Welsh? In 2000, Wheaton College decided to change their well-loved mascot of the "Crusader" because of their Christian ideals and commitments. I quote here from the current President Duane Liftin (www.wheaton.edu/alumni/mascot.html):
"Forgive me if I must make the following account personal, but since I'm the one initiating a change in Wheaton's mascot I want you to understand the reasons. At the outset let me dispel two potential misunderstandings: First, I am not being pressured to make this change. There have been in every generation those within Wheaton's constituency who wished to see such a change take place, and this remains the case today, but I have not received undue pressure. If I were not convinced this was the right thing to do, I would not be bringing this forward. Second, this change is not about "political correctness." I am utterly unmoved by such arguments--in fact, those who know me well will tell you that I am tone deaf to this sort of thinking. As you will see below, none of what I am about to say is driven by fears of what is or is not "P.C." What, then, are the reasons?...
The answer is, two things have changed, seemingly right before our eyes.
First, our environment has changed. We live in a world vastly more aware of itself than ever before. Revolutions in the fields of transportation and communications have transformed everything. No longer do the world's peoples live in isolated enclaves. Today a war breaks out and the entire globe watches it in real-time on CNN. Jets whisk us to new continents in hours; missiles reach the far side of the globe in minutes; a telephone puts us in touch with distant lands in seconds. And then there's the Internet. Its global transactions occur in nanoseconds; your e-mail reaches me as quickly from India as from down the hall. Today as never before music and movies and athletics are universal media; celebrities become international figures, from Tiger Woods to Madonna to Billy Graham. Sometimes it seems as if everyone now knows what everyone else is doing. We can watch British television in Beijing or reruns of "The Beverly Hillbillies" in Beirut. No previous generation has lived in anything like our world-sized fish bowl.
As a result, secondly, we also have changed. In our globalized environment others are constantly exposed to us, and we to them. We discover a steady flow of viewpoints other than our own, viewpoints we might otherwise never have glimpsed. These perspectives are sometimes pressed upon us, whether we want them or not. Where before we were oblivious to our differences, we can be oblivious no more. Our new environment forces us into a consciousness of how other people think, including how they think about us. Often this is delightful, sometimes it is painful, but always it is educational. When we see through other eyes we often wind up seeing differently."
On No Dogs Need Apply