The fundamental precepts by which we guide our life are cultivated, nourished and harvested in time. It is useful during Sabbath to clarify or reaffirm those principles that calibrate our inner compass to illuminate our inner direction.
- Wendell Berry
Megan posted about Wayne's heavy-handedness, but she liked the exercise. Cristopher posted about creeds...it's actually an interesting route to take with the chapter and the exercise suggested. Good stuff, both of yez.
Essentially the whole point of the chapter is that we measure value with the GNP. A civilization's value is measured in what it can sell, but not by how it lives, who it is. This is bad. I started thinking about the whole "doing and being dichotomy." What is measurable? What is more ephemeral? The line between the two is so blurred. And, honestly, usually one is an outgrowth/ingrowth/innertwining of/with the other. But the GNP is all about doing/selling/product...But the fruit of the Spirit...
Yeah, how do you measure love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? There is no spiritual GNP. It is impossible. Christianity wrestles with grace and works...we are saved by grace and not by works but a faith without works is dead. And this is why I think Muller is so bent out of shape. We have seen salvation in works in our national economy. And that just blows. Well, that is my perhaps inaccurate inference. It is why I would be bent out of shape if I spent too much time thinking about the GNP.
I immediately go to church growth and such issues. How do you measure the size of a church? Numbers in the pews? The ammount of money given away? It's ability to hold hands with old or young people? It's diversity? "525,600 minutes?!...How about love?" All of that is running about in my imagination right now. The issue again lies in the whole doing/being dichotomy or system. It's a mess to understand.
Muller's suggested exercise, to make a list of precepts for Sabbath, is a good one really. Useful, even. What he is asking is for us to find some way to discern what we value and then on the Sabbath to measure it, remember it, hold it up to be honored and understood. Megan suggested that we should all give it a shot. Cristopher agreed. I agree that it's worth a go. Here is the assignment in Muller's words. Why not give it a shot yourself and tell me how it goes. Make a list in the comments or on your own blog and let us know what they are.
What are some of the inviolable precepts that guide your life? To be kind? to be grateful? To be honest? To serve your neighbor, to help the earth, to love children? Make a list of principles that shape your days. Include both those you currently follow and those you would like to follow. On Sabbath, take time to speak them aloud, alone or with loved ones. Notice how you feel when you hear them. What resistance, what relief arises? Notice how the memory of these spoken precepts resonates in your body through the day.Here is what Megan said.
The Gross National Product is the total value of all goods and services produced by a county's "factors of production" in a given year and sold on the market in that year. For more information about the GDP (the similar, but still slightly different and more common these days, measure of economic strength) check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product.
Though GDP (or GNP) is usually denominated in dollars, it's also possible to compare it in rough terms over time. Since the Gross Spiritual Product (or GSP) is not subject to inflation, it should be possible to say whether or not a person, institution, or whatever is or is not producing more "fruits of the Spirit" this year over last, or whatever. Love can't be measured and compared in absolute terms, but you sure can tell if you've got more this year than last year.
I bet a talented religious economist (if only I knew somebody like that! I'm looking at you, Luke Shaefer.) I bet you could find a way to measure the GSP in some way that made sense. I'd be interested in that project.
Posted by: Micah at February 27, 2007 12:17 PMMicah is right on. Pretty much everyone uses GDP these days (which is restricted by a country's geographic boundaries, while GNP is total value of good and services produced by all of a country's citizens, regardless of where they are.) Basically you can think of GDP as the total net value of production for a given year. To compare across time, we adjust for inflation and compare Real GDP. (This is how we identify things like booms and recessions.)
John Kenneth Galbraith mounts a lucid and excellent critique on the focus on production in measuring economic success in his masterpiece The Affluent Society. You can take it in with only one chapter. I won't give you a synopsis here because it really is worth reading.
With my economist hat on, I would think that you could use some sort of benchmarking technique to evaluate GSP. What are the activities that suggest spiritual/christian growth? Total hours as volunteers for the poor, the average number of participants in leadership roles in your church body? What are the things that you could track from year to year.
I don't have to tell you that it obviously matters a great deal what the outcome measure are, and as Tripp surely points out, they are certainly hard to quantify. But if you don't define them, do you risk leaving it to someone else, whose choices you might not like? And if we don't develop better ways to evaluate our success, do we risk expending serious energy in projects that are not effective, let alone may hurt our causes? (this applies my field of social policy especially. BTW, economists refer to this last idea as the fallacy of sunk costs.)
Finally, I would say that whether or not you implement some measurement system or not, thinking critically about what your outcome measures should be can have positive externalities (help you better identify your priorities).
Posted by: Luke at February 27, 2007 02:20 PMWell, ask and ye shall receive. An actual economics prof chimed in. Lovely. Thank you, Luke! And your points are well taken.
Speaking of measurements means speaking about priorities. Who knew?
Well, you and your externalities knew that. Good on ya.
Posted by: Tripp at February 27, 2007 03:39 PM"you could use some sort of benchmarking technique to evaluate GSP. What are the activities that suggest spiritual/christian growth? Total hours as volunteers for the poor, the average number of participants in leadership roles in your church body? What are the things that you could track from year to year."
This tickled me, because it goes so far against the Gospel instruction not to let people see you doing the good you do. If people are serious about staying away from Christian showmanship, then you'd have nothing to measure!
But it also suggests a level of intimacy between pastor and congregant that is far beyond any I've experienced, or frankly, would want to experience. I would take it WAY amiss if the pastor of the church I presently attend thought it was any of his business how I was spending my hours apart from those he sees me in the sanctuary.
Posted by: Megan at February 27, 2007 05:31 PMYou say
"A civilization's value is measured in what it can sell, but not by how it lives, who it is."
I wonder how much this reflects upon the way we value ourselves and one another?- this directly impacts our desire to observe the Sabbath- is it worth it?
Good post, you have me thinking!!!
I'm glad Megan was "tickled" by my admittedly crude (and impromptu) suggestions for potential outcomes measures. Obviously, I would not be the one to create the real ones. But if the church doesn’t think deeply about what its outcome measures should be, others will make them up for the church, and they will probably be worse than the ones I suggested. This, unfortunately, is a fact of life.
Megan and I have vastly different interpretations of the Gospel’s call in terms of engaging the world with Christian acts of service. I’m no expert, but I take the intent of that passage to be that we should not engage in service because we want to show off or prove we’re better than others. But to suggest that we should keep our acts completely secret I think takes the passage way too literally (hide our light under a bushel, NO). In fact, if we don’t do service and invite others to join us (not to show our own righteousness, but because we are called to service and evangelism) then I believe we are not living out THE most important calls Jesus gave us: to go out and make disciples of all the nations, and serve each other.
Finally, I couldn’t disagree more with her contention that the church community has no business in the lives of parishioners outside of Sunday morning services. Certainly meddling is inappropriate, but any church where the pastor has no interest in me expect in my Sunday morning attendance is not a place I would want to be. Life (and Christianity) mostly happens outside of Sunday morning, and that kind of one-day-a-week relationship is exactly why, I believe, plenty of mainline protestant churches aren’t succeeding these days by any outcome measure, no matter how it is defined. If my church family isn’t there when I’m sick and in the hospital, then they aren’t my family. (They should also back off if I ask.) If my minister doesn’t push me to be of service to others outside of Sunday morning, she is not a minister.