site banner
ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45539 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

106
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think the desire to have a more diverse body of Christ is good. However, if your demographic reflects the demographic of the neighborhood, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think diversity becomes a problem when you have an historically white church in a predominately black neighborhood with practically no racial diversity. One of the things I've experienced with churches is that unless you're in a university or sort of cosmopolitan setting, you're just not going to cater to everyone always. For instance, a pipe organ will run off some people while contemporary music will scare off others (such as myself), frequently due to its lack of meatiness. There have been some attempts to create more robust contemporary music (such as Reformed University Fellowship, which has put classical hymns to more modern instrumentation), though, that serves the function of hitting both crowds.

If your church does want to make an effort to diversify, it might be worth talking to non-white individuals who have visited your congregations or others like it to see what made them feel welcome and what did not make them feel welcome and to see if adjusting that or making your church more broadly appealing would be wise. I know there's a lot of things that white folk don't just realize are off putting to non-white individuals and vice versa and merely starting conversations may be more enlightening.

Although, funny enough, the Catholic Church from what I've seen often tends to have more diverse populations that mainline Protestant denominations. And, the Catholics tend to be pretty rigid by comparison.

I sense the faint scent of pipe tobacco on this post. Another Reformed?

Hahaha, I am quite knowledgeable of Reformed traditions but I myself am more broadly Evangelical.

Diversity of what sort?

1 Corinthians 5:11 would exclude many, welcomed by many denominations today.

An abundance of diversity and pride has fractured many churches.

Diverse ethnically ala Acts 2:8-11. I agree that you have to draw some thick doctrinal lines, which modern mainline denominations are not doing very well

If we want the ethnically linguistically diverse to hear in their own tounges we still may be in seperate congregations. Though I've no principled objection to an organic ethnically diverse congregation.

My objection is that many mainline denominations fail to expel the wicked from among them.

Catholic churches have more diverse congregations to the point of legitimately needing to set language policies, something it doesn't have a lengthy institutional memory of doing because historically it was all done in Latin.

A shortage of Spanish and- in some dioceses- Vietnamese and Tagalog speaking priests is a major problem for the Catholic church in the USA.

Is it? My Irish Catholic church ended up with an Hispanic priest.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats