Lost Pages

I have just finished reading ' Dataclysm ' by Christian Rudder. It has the interesting subtitle ' Who we are when we think no one is looking'. The book has some interesting reflections on what online data (drawn largely from the online dating data of OkCupid) reveals about our nature. Here is one quote that struck me : It is no longer socially acceptable to be openly racist. In response to that pressure, there is some portion of the public who have therefore slunk away: if I can't shout hate at some schoolchildren anymore, well, fine, I'll just shout it at the TV. This is not the typical American. Most of us—almost all, in fact—recognize that racism is wrong. But it is still implicit in many of the decisions we make . Psychologists have a name for the interior patterns of belief that help a person organize information as he encounters it: schema . And our schema is still out of step with how most of us know the world should be. By hundreds of small, everyda...

While Hip Hop is not an end to salvation, it does provide a similar reciprocity that builds people up, helps its members out and points to Jesus through creative forms within its art. Hence, Hip Hop is like Jesus to many urban post-soulists. So those of us who want urban post-soulists to know Jesus, need to know Hip Hop. What becomes problematic for some Christians is the notion that Jesus would even be in places like a club, rap concert, and/or event that was not centered around some church. Some Christians cannot see beyond the four church walls and the programs that run it. So, finding Jesus in these irregular and nontraditional places will be hard to understand. Still, even in these nontraditional spaces, community is happening. And, if we really believe that God is Alpha and Omega, omnipresent, "all-seeing," might Jesus be in that smoke-filled strip club trying to talk to the inhabitants there? Daniel White Hodge in his fascinating book T he Soul of Hip Hop'.  I  ...

I came across this story of footballer Clarke Carlisle whose attempted suicide went "horribly right". He thankfully survived but mat great cost to himself and his relationships. Here is what he says about his path to recovery :  “I’ve come out knowing what I’ve done before is not good for me. And I feel very guilty and ashamed about the way I thought and acted previously. So I need to establish new boundaries in my relationships. And that is tough. It’s tough when you’ve been married to someone for eight years. It’s tough when you’ve been a son for 35 years, and a brother for 35 years....I need to maintain my wellness. Because if I don’t, anything else I do is going to turn to rubbish. It seems a little bit selfish but I have to focus on myself first. But it’s also altruistic because if I don’t focus on myself first I can’t be a dad, I can’t be a charity trustee or a chairman of this, because it will all go to pot.” Carlisle is correct. Self first is very important. We can...

Daniel Dorling’s  Injustice  aims to “redefine” our understanding of why injustice exists and how it is reinforced over time. The book is passionate and written as a rallying cry to the masses to agitate for greater  redistribution of power and resources in society. The question of course is why the masses don’t do that already, but that brings us to Dorling’s central argument. According to Dorling, although the developed world has become richer, people continue to live in an unjust world largely due to ignorance rather than conspiracy by the rich. At the heart of this new injustice is extreme social inequality, with the rich supported by a band of economists, continue to propagate social inequality through state machinery. They are able to get away with this because society at large continues to hold certain sets of beliefs that are aligned against positive social change. Over the ages these beliefs have taken many forms but in the modern era they have evolved into new f...