Service as Substitute for Morality :: David Brooks (NYT) on the Moral Vocabulary of the Young

David Brooks has written a piece for the New York Times describing the moral vocabulary of the young, noting the role service now plays in determining who is and who is not a good person. Brooks' observations, rising from an examination of an online discussion held by Rob Reich of Stanford University, could easily be applied to other sectors.

Here is the key piece of commentary (my emphasis in bold):

The student discussion was smart, civil and illuminating. But I was struck by the unspoken assumptions. Many of these students seem to have a blinkered view of their options. There’s crass but affluent investment banking. There’s the poor but noble nonprofit world. And then there is the world of high-tech start-ups, which magically provides money and coolness simultaneously. But there was little interest in or awareness of the ministry, the military, the academy, government service or the zillion other sectors.

Furthermore, few students showed any interest in working for a company that actually makes products. It sometimes seems that good students at schools in blue states go into service capitalism (consulting and finance) while good students in red states go into production capitalism (Procter & Gamble, John Deere, AutoZone).

The discussion also reinforced a thought I’ve had in many other contexts: that community service has become a patch for morality. Many people today have not been given vocabularies to talk about what virtue is, what character consists of, and in which way excellence lies, so they just talk about community service, figuring that if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person.

...

People are less good at using the vocabulary of moral evaluation, which is less about what sort of career path you choose than what sort of person you are.

Anecdotally, I could support this description of younger people and their moral grid--there is little deep reflection taking place on what a good person is, and how to become one. There is some reflection, but the driving question is "How do I do good?", not "How do I become good?" As Brooks says, "community service has become a patch for morality." As long as someone is doing good things, one is a good person.

But Brooks' knows, as we all do, that one can spend one's life working in the non-profit sector and end up a rotten person, or at the other extreme, establish a career as a very successful business person and end up a remarkable person. Becoming a rotten or remarkable person requires more than rooting oneself in the right environment where good things are being done. Character requires development and transformation, and a moral framework within which to name vice and virtue, as well as the accompanying practices that can bring about the necessary refinement to live an excellent life.

As Brooks says:

Understanding heroism and schmuckdom requires fewer Excel spreadsheets, more Dostoyevsky and the Book of Job.

Living a morally excellent life is no simple matter. It cannot be boiled down only to what one does. It has always been possible to live an outwardly righteous life, while being utterly corrupt on the inside. And it has always been a tremendous temptation for human beings to hide behind a veil of socially approved good works as a substitute for the inner work required to become a person of exemplary character. It is the heart that is at issue.

Several years ago I heard Dallas Willard remark to a group of pastors and church leaders that the opportunity lay before us to become the true moral guides of our age. Christianity, he contended, provides answers to the questions, "What is the good life?" and "How do I obtain it?" in ways that far surpass any other philosophy on offer. "The service patch" is one such philosophy, which Brooks summarizes as, "if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person."

For Christian people, it is not only the works that matter, but the inner motivation and condition of the heart, or foundational moral framework that determines whether or not one is pursuing and living the good life. Yes, the doing of good works does itself have a formational aspect, but it is possible to do good works and be like a whitewashed tomb or a cup that is clean on the outside, but inside is riddled with filth.

Among the many intended outcomes of a life lived deeply with God is that of integrity--becoming a type of person who, through and through, has been permeated and transformed by the grace that has been revealed, enacted, and unleashed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This means not only doing good, but being good--being the person God has intended you to be, and doing the things prepared for you to do, since before the foundation of the world.

One Job Ends. A New Job Begins.

Tuesday marked my last day with the school bus company.

Wednesday marked the start of a new journey.

Like any planned transition, there is a mix of grief and excitement; anxiety and anticipation. I am both fearful and expectant. Worried, yet assured.

Since moving to Kansas my vocational journey has been mired in difficulty and confusion, at least personally, as I have moved from job to job with a deep sense that the task at hand was not necessarily the task for which these hands were made, but rather an indefinite place holder for a richer, fuller, and deeper life to come. Even in the midst of those transitional jobs, others saw things in me I did not see, and success where I may not have named it. 

I have worked as a barista, a youth minister, a school bus driver, and as an occasional freelance writer, having been published here and there around the web and, in a few instances, in print. Of the tasks undertaken, it has been in writing and communicating with others that I have been most deeply fulfilled, and therein lies the surprise.

My writing work began in 2008, or at least that was the period in which I became serious. I pitched an idea to my friend Jeff that was eventually written and published. After that piece, when asked what I did, I would respond that there was no singular answer to that question, but among the things from which I drew pleasure and pay, I was a writer.

I had never aspired to be a writer. But here I was. A student on the bus would say, “Is this all you do?” I would answer, “No, among other things, I write.”

The bus job happened to be a great context for a writer to embed himself, not only because I obtained a small sample of what the “next generation” may be thinking or feeling at any given moment, and not only because I once heard a student ask if Gaddafi was a chocolate, but also because in the quiet moments on the highway I was able to think. No cell phone. No radio. No internet. Only me, my thoughts, and rows and rows of empty seats. From time to time, arguments would arise, but only with myself and an imaginary interlocutor, whom I would always soundly defeat, or so I would imagine. It is hard to tell if you can be a winner or a loser when addressing the silence, for the silence both defeats us and humbly bears our ravings, present with us, yet at the same time distant and humbling us, reminding us that we are but a breath.

As I reflect back on my time as a bus driver, it may be that this will be one of the most significant and formative times for my life as a thinker and writer, not because of the work itself, but because of what the work afforded me: scheduled breaks, a small community, periods of silence, and routine.

But as I look forward, I am even more exited. Giving voice to thoughts, long hidden, is an adventure. I do not even know what I think, or what I have thought, until the moment when words take shape as sentences, and sentences as sections, sections as chapters, and chapters as books.

For now, I will settle for a blog post here and again.

I hope you’ll read along and step in to the void. And whatever is produced henceforth as written word, I hope will bring about an occasion for thought, an argument or opinionated discussion, a grounds for friendship and exploration, or maybe even a shared silence defined by wonderment.

Bye bye, bus.

Hello, pixels, ink, and page.

New Element on the Blog :: bread. weblog devotions.

If you have visited the blog in the last twenty four hours, you may have noticed a new heading. Coming in June, I'll be posting devotional writings that feature scripture, reflection, and a written prayer. Check it out and subscribe to bread. by email.

I'm working on the entries now. No set launch date, but once I have a solid 20 to 30 in the hopper to build from, the entries will post daily, hot and fresh, in your inbox by 6:30 a.m. CST. Once things get rolling, I'll also post to bread's Twitter.

I hope you'll read, grow, pray, study, reflect, and love God and neighbor more deeply and fully.

Overheard on the Bus :: #23

A middle school student, ascending the steps, speaking to a nearly full load before the afternoon run:

Everybody! Everybody! Whatever you have heard, I did not kiss a cow, okay? I DID NOT KISS A COW!

If you enjoyed this, check out more entries from the bus.

Gary Scott Smith on Black Slaves' Perspective on Heaven in America

What follows is an interesting bit of commentary (p. 90) from Gary Scott Smith's Heaven in the American Imagination regarding the perspective of black slaves in the years leading up to the American Civil War.

Largely rejecting whites' account of the gospel, blacks accentuated other aspects of the Christian message that enabled them to survive the dehumanization, heart-ache, and hardships of their bondage.  While many of them looked forward to heavenly bliss and compensation and divine retribution for their suffering and adversity, the Bible's emphasis on liberation, justice, and equality also helped inspire, comfort, and give them hope on earth.  Their life circumstances and the recognition that whites selectively employed scripture to exploit them prompted slaves to critically assess whites' teaching about salvation, morality, and the afterlife.  Resisting efforts to use Christianity to manipulate and control them, slaves devised their own interpretation of the gospel that enhanced their dignity, strength, and courage.  Many slaves disavowed their masters' version of Christianity "as a compensatory and otherworldly religion" that encouraged them to accept their bondage as God's will, epitomized by the Negro spiritual that declared, "Take this world but give me Jesus."  While agreeing that voluminous evidence "illustrates the perennial preoccupation" of both slaves and free blacks "with the promise of everlasting life" during the antebellum years, Timothy Smith repudiated the claim that this hope made slaves content with their condition and stifled their efforts to save them.  The Christianity they crafted helped them cope with the harshness of their everyday life, provided them the psychic space they needed to deal with debasement, and gave them hope of liberation, if not in this life, at least in the life to come.  "Narratives, tales, songs, sermons, aphorisms, prayers, and other slave sources" demonstrate that slaves rejected their masters' conception of a heaven where racism and subordination persisted and of a hell where disobedient, lazy slaves suffered for eternity.  Convinced that this portrait of heaven could not be reconciled with a loving and just God who valued all human beings equally, they recast heaven and hell in light of "their own experiences, values, and traditions" as "an abused and exploited people."

The Dark Knight Rises :: New Trailer

Don't know what to think of the prospects here.  Not excited about Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.  And I'm not excited about Bane as a featured villian.  But, here is the trailer, nonetheless.

Are you excited about the film?

Stephen Proctor: "Why is the visual aspect of our worship experiences important?"

My friend Stephen Proctor is one of the leading lights of the "visual worship" movement, an important theological discussion on the nature and place of technological innovation as it is applied to the gathering of the church for the purpose of corporate worship.  I refer to this first as a theological discussion, rather than as a gathering of practitioners, for it appears to me that Stephen and other worship leaders like himself are more concerned with the underlying ideas than they are with "the show"--they truly want their work to be an expression of worship that is faithful to the God revealed in Jesus Christ.  For this, Stephen and his friends are to be commended, as evangelicalism has long been guilty of being pragmatic before being reflective.  While "visual worship" does not reverse this course of action, it does take them as parallel.  Thinking is required while doing, and doing further stimulates theological thinking, discourse, and conversation.

Stephen recently addressed attendees at the RECONNECT Conference.  Check out what he has to say in the video below.  Follow his blog, if you don't already.

Thoughts on Visual Worship (Reconnect Conference) from worshipVJ on Vimeo.

Speaking This Sunday. You're Invited.

This Sunday I'll be visiting the people of FirstLight United Methodist Faith Community, May 6 at 6:00 p.m.  Your'e invited.

The event will be held at 138 E. Main in downtown Gardner.  You can read more about the event here.

I'll be speaking about my first book: Committed to Christ: 40 Devotions for a Generous Life.

I'm looking foward to seeing some old friends and making some news ones.  My presentation will be followed by a brief question and answer period.

See you there!