Bounded or Fuzzy - What is the Problem Today?

I recently read Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood by Christian Smith.

The in-depth interviews that sociologist Smith and his collaborators did with 230 young adults paint a disturbing picture of the results of hyper individualism, consumerism and moral relativism. The book focuses on five areas: confused moral reasoning, routine intoxication, materialistic life goals, regrettable sexual experiences, and disengagement from civic and political life.

It caught me up short.

I thought, “Here I am providing a solution to bounded group religiosity and many of my students have been absorbing society’s emphasis on tolerance as supreme virtue their whole lives. Their problem is not a bounded approach; they think like a fuzzy group.”

A bounded group creates a list of essential characteristics that determine whether a person belongs to that group or not. The group has a clear boundary line.

A fuzzy group has no clear sense of demands or expectations. In one sense a fuzzy group is the total opposite of a bounded group – one has very clear sense of in and out, the other is very unclear. With time there may be no distinction between those who belong and those who do not. 

Although Paul Hiebert (from whom I borrowed these ideas) included descriptions of all three approaches-- bounded, fuzzy and centered--I had only taught and written about bounded and centered.  Bounded, not fuzzy, was the problem I had encountered in churches, and centered was the solution. Reading Smith left me unsure of that approach.

I considered totally retooling, continuing to use material on bounded groups in contexts like Honduras or Ethiopia, but not in Fresno. Yet, almost immediately I thought of students who, like thirsty plants, drank up my teaching on Galatians and related it directly to current or recent experiences in churches of bounded character. Clearly there is still a need to proclaim freedom from bounded group religiosity in the North American context.

So, I did retool, but it was not by talking about fuzzy groups rather than bounded. Starting in this spring I presented all three approaches--bounded, fuzzy, and centered--in the same class. I invite you to watch a video of that lecture.

My thesis is that a centered approach, as seen in Jesus and Paul, is a corrective to both bounded churches and to the “whateverism” and tolerance as supreme virtue of a fuzzy approach. In the next blog I will share some ideas on how to help people move from a fuzzy approach to a centered approach. That was the reason I started talking about fuzzy groups in class--to work at a corrective. But something interesting happened. Including an explanation of fuzzy groups aided students understanding of the centered approach.

After including fuzzy ethics in class this year, I have observed three key improvements:

Centered– Now more clearly a different paradigm

I have always stated that the centered approach, the way of Jesus, is a radically different paradigm than a bounded approach. Students appeared to grasp that more easily this year. By presenting a fuzzy approach as re-working of a bounded group, giving it a very fuzzy boundary line, I can describe a continuum from radically bounded to radically fuzzy. All on that continuum are of the same paradigm. The centered approach is fundamentally different. It is not on the continuum, it is a different paradigm.

Centered—Now more clearly not “Christianity-lite”

Over the years the biggest challenge I have had in explaining a centered approach has been helping people understand it is not relativistic. In contrast to the bounded approach they perceive it as too loose. I think I have gotten much better at showing it is not “Christianity-lite”  (listen to all the ways I try to do that in the current version of the class), but still some students did not seem to get it—until this year! Adding the fuzzy group to the mix enabled students to see and have a name for a relativistic version, and see the centered approach as something different. Students this year more easily saw that the centered approach includes a call to changed living flowing from a relationship with Jesus because they contrasted the centered approach not only with bounded, but also with fuzzy.

Centered--Now more clearly making ethical demands beyond tolerance.

This greater clarity lessened the pushback by those who had argued against the centered approach from one direction, but the same clarity brought pushback from the other direction. Some students who are more attracted to a fuzzy approach now critiqued the centered approach for having too strong of an ethical call. In the past they probably would have interpreted the centered approach in a fuzzier way because I presented it as the alternative to bounded, and they knew bounded was problematic. For them as well it was clear that the centered approach is different than the fuzzy approach. It does ask more of people than to just practice tolerance as supreme virtue.

Our culture continues to frame ethical dilemmas somewhere on this continuum between out-grouping boundedness and all inclusive fuzziness, leaning more and more toward the relative virtues of tolerance and personal authenticity. When you are wrestling with an ethical problem, I encourage you to recenter on Jesus--not to exclude but to discover a new way of being. 

How does the centered approach reframe something for you more clearly around Jesus?

What is an example of how you have found talking about or utilizing a centered approach helpful?

What other potential benefits do you see from adding a description of a fuzzy group to the discussion about bounded and centered?

Living into Focus

Book Review:

Living into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions
- Arthur Boers

The title captures well what the book is about. It is well written, a good mix of personal reflection by the author, examples from his life and the lives of others, and insights from thinkers like Ellul and Borgman. The author brings big ideas of cultural criticism down to practical, day to day issues and habits of my life. I use quotes from the book in a few different D & E classes and have added chapter seven as a reading for the course.

A few memorable quotes:

“We have allowed our technology to outrun our theology” - MLK Jr. (69)  

“The issue is not technology itself but the reality that we often do not reflect on how we are affected and formed by our use of it.”

“Machines grow quieter, but we use more of them and so add to the noise. Devices are increasingly energy efficient, but we employ so many that we end up using more power than ever. While computers and online connections get faster, the time we spend on them keeps going up. The better we are at responding to e-mail, the more we are inundated by it.” (70)

“Too often our interactions with technology follow a predictable trajectory: because it is available we use it, then we think it is normal, and finally we expect or even demand that others employ it as well.” (71)

“People must be taught not to want leisure but to desire possessions.” - Henry Ford (144)

“When unclear about fundamental priorities, urgency becomes the default position.” (192)

I encourage you to read the book and, as I did, look for one or two new things to integrate into your life. Small changes can have big impacts on the whole.

Presence in an Age of Absence

During the first five or so years I taught Discipleship and Ethics, some students would push back and argue with me during the technique/technology class—they wanted to defend the use of technology. Following Ellul, I made the point that I was not attacking specific technologies. Rather, my concern was society’s general shift to adopt any tool or technique that was perceived to be more efficient without reflecting critically on its potential alienating impact.

The push-back no longer happens. 

No student has argued against my general thesis in that class session for years. At one level it is counter-intuitive. Students today use much more technology than in 2000 when cell phones were not ubiquitous, and there were no smart phones, tablets, etc. One would think that students would feel much more defensive today. But they are not. My sense is that no one pushes back now because, in their being, they feel the alienation that Ellul describes. They feel the truth. They have no problem filling the white board with both positive and negative effects of efficient technologies in their lives. This shift from push-back to no-resistance is like a carbon monoxide detector going off. Something has changed. The danger level has increased. What are we doing to let in fresh air and lessen the toxins?

Two years ago I added a new assignment after the class on technique. I ask students to do the following and write a reflection letter on the experience: 

Choose a day in the week ahead for a fast from electronic communication (cell phone/mobile devices, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and any other internet based forms of communication). You may choose the length of the fast, all day would be ideal, but less than that is acceptable.

It has proven to be a powerful assignment. Here are a few examples of common reflections:

“I began to see that all my efficiency is at the expense of something I hold dear...relationships.”  

“I felt a sense of freedom that I have not felt in a while; actually, I felt human. The world does not hang on my shoulders; it will not fall apart if I do not answer the phone. My relationship with my wife felt a lot more profound even though we didn’t talk much but simply enjoyed each other’s presence. My time felt abundant and the day went by less faster.”

“It was a struggle to wrestle with how I can reduce the control technique has over me when I live in a society that is conditioning me to rely on technique.” 

“To my great surprise, this day felt like a day off. The irony was that I did a lot of work, but it felt like a day off. I enjoyed the fact that I did not have to continually check my phone, wondering if I had missed a text from someone that I might need to get back to. I did not need to check my Facebook or e-mail. I did not have to see the blue light of a computer or kindle or tv screen. I did not have to be controlled by anyone else’s convenience nor did I feel compelled to initiate a question or conversation with someone I felt obligated to. I did not feel bad or guilty for a conversation not happening.”

“I realized how often I check my phone for calls and emails. [I] would reach for the phone only to remember it wasn't in my pocket.”

“In my most consumed moments of social media and technology there are instances where I become aware that I am looking for something. I ask myself in that moment: what am I looking for? What do I need right in this moment that I think social media can fill? Is it friendship? A connection? Personal meaning? Motivation? Am I avoiding something? Am I seeking attention? Recognition?”

“The first thing I felt: Addicted.”

“I discovered I thought I could be in two places at once.  I believed I could be on the floor playing with one of my daughters and also responding to a question via my phone.  This is not true, the moment I pick up my phone I am no longer in the same space my daughter is in.”

“I now realize just how much of a priority I give to these forms of communication without even realizing what control it has on me. I had to literally lock my phone away because I was finding that I would just naturally look at it without thinking. Why has this become such an addiction?”

Some students also shared action steps they planned to take such as turning off their phones at a set hour each evening, having a no-phones-at-the-table rule during family meals, not carrying their phone at home—treating it like a land line, or committing to regular fasts.

I encourage you to try a fast, or do it again. 

Share what you learn and ideas on how to lessen communication technologies’ alienating power in our lives in the comment section below.

In recent years we have listened to part of a college chapel talk by Shane Hipps. He tells a moving story about the significance of presence and ends with the following statement that I encourage you to reflect on today:  

“The digital age has taught us that our presence doesn’t matter. . . God became flesh and lived among us. We all have bodies too.  . . Something about presence matters. . . May we become God’s presence in a world of absence, in a world desperate for that kind of tangible presence.”