Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Lilith, the queen of hell, mother of demons, angel of prosti.tution, killer of pregnant women and infants, Adam’s first wife, and seducer of men. We’re going to start off
By looking at a couple of allusions to her in the Old Testament. Following that, we’re going to look at early influences that originated in Mesopotamia, and finally, we’re going to look at the tide of information presented in various works published throughout the Middle Ages. Let’s get into it.
Lilith barely features in scripture: she’s absent from the Quran and doesn’t appear in the New Testament; it’s only in the Old Testament that she’s included, and even then, her inclusion depends either on the translation or on the interpretation.
In the Book of Genesis, which is the first book of the Old Testament that describes the Cosmogony (the creation of the universe) and the anthropogony (the origination of humanity), the creation of women is described twice, each with different wording,
Which has led to some interesting theories and stories that endeavor to reconcile the two. The first instance reads as follows: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
One interpretation of this passage is that God created the first man and the first woman simultaneously, which, by this reckoning, places it at odds with the second instance in which the creation of the first woman is described. Here’s the passage that describes the second instance:
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man,
Made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.” To reconcile the two accounts, one version, such as the one given in the Alphabet of Ben Sira,
Which we’ll expand on later, explains that the woman created at the same time as Adam in the first passage is a different person than Eve, the woman created from Adam’s rib in the second passage. Moreover, this version holds that the woman created in the first passage
Is actually Lilith, making her Adam’s first wife. Again, we’ll cover this part of lilith’s story in greater detail later in the video. The other mention of Lilith in the Old Testament is given in the Book of Isaiah, though her inclusion by name depends on the language and the translation.
In the JPS parallel Hebrew and English version of the Tanakh, Isaiah 34:14 reads as follows: “And the Wild-cats shall meet with the jackals, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall repose there, and shall find her place of rest.”
Night monster is indistinct and ambiguous, but many other translations, either of the Tanakh or of the Old Testament, have seen various monsters and animals substituted in, including: Lilith, night specter, night creature, night hag, Lamia (a female monster of Greek origin that
Preys on children), night bird, and screech owl. This last is especially interesting because it parallels a detail of the Queen of the Night plaque, which is nearly 4,000 years old, made in ancient Babylon sometime between 1800 – 1750 BCE. It depicts a winged woman
With talons for feet standing on two lions flanked by a perched owl on either side. Who this figure is isn’t known for certain, but the list of possibilities has been whittled down to just a few candidates: Ishtar, goddess of war and sexual love,
Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld, or the demon Lilitu, who became later known as Lilith. And this takes us into the part of the video that looks at Lilith’s origins. Lilith, a female demon infamous for preying on infants and pregnant women,
And for copulating with sleeping men, thereby birthing a plethora of demons into the world, is a central figure in Jewish demonology. You could say that Lilith, as conceptualized in Jewish lore, is but one expression of an archetype, that of the demon who targets infants and pregnant women,
That seems to rear its head across cultures and millenia, particularly in the near East. If this is tracked backwards through time, it looks as though Lilith’s origins can be connected back to ancient Mesopotamia. She briefly features in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
A Sumerian work, and she’s identified with Lilu and Lilitu, respectively, male and female spirits of ancient Babylon – both of them notorious for attacking infants and women in labour. Another figure who shares this MO is Lamashtu, either a goddess or demon, who endangered women during
Childbirth and even abducted infants as they suckled at their mother’s breast. In appearance, she was a hideous amalgamation of many animals, having the head of a lion, the talons of a bird of prey, the teeth of a donkey, a body covered in hair, blood-stained hands, and long fingers with
Long nails. Another variety of demon germane to Lilith is the Ardat-Lili, which rendered men impotent as a sort of revenge for itself not being able to copulate. Sometimes women were also targeted and rendered infertile. In appearance it looks like a wolf with a scorpion’s tail.
Much of the best known information surrounding Lilith comes from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a work thought to have been written sometime in the Geonic period, which lasted from the late sixth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE. The third part describes Ben Sira recounting 22 stories to
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. One of these gives an alternative anthropogeny. Rather than Eve being created from one of Adam’s ribs, it describes Lilith, not only as the first woman, but also as being created from the earth just as Adam was. Unfortunately, their relationship is
Characterized by acrimony and incessant fighting, and ultimately, Lilith refuses to submit to Adam; so she invokes God’s name and flies away. Three angels, Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof, are sent after her, and they eventually catch up with her; but she negotiates
Her way out of the encounter, promising to be repelled by any amulets bearing their likeness, which is why thereafter such amulets were used to ward her off, safeguarding those she preyed on: pregnant women and infants. Furthermore, she also accedes to 100 of her children perishing each day.
Here’s a quote that describes this: “He also created a woman, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, ‘I will not lie below,’ and he said, ‘I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you
Are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.’ Lilith responded, ‘We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.’ But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the
Ineffable Name and flew away into the air…. The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea… They told her God’s word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, ‘We shall drown you in the sea.’ “‘Leave me!’ she said. ‘I was created only to
Cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.’ “When the angels heard Lilith’s words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: ‘Whenever
I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.’” In one account, after the fall of man, which resulted in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the
Garden of Eden, the first man and the first woman became separated for 130 years. During that time, Lilith returned to Adam and copulated with him in his sleep; supposedly the son that resulted from their coupling turned into a frog. Another account, the one given by Rabbi Eliezer in
The Book of Adam and Eve, claims that at one time Lilith was bearing Adam 100 children per day. The Zohar depicts Lilith as “a hot fiery female who at first cohabited with man”, who “flew to the cities
Of the sea coast” when Eve was created. The cabala portrays her as the demon of Friday, who appears as a naked woman with a snake’s tail for legs. Another description maintains the nude upper body, but gives her a column of fire for legs. And in Talmudic Lore, Lilith is presented as an immortal
Demon who will continue to plague mankind until God eradicates evil from the face of the earth. Eventually, a profusion of early traditions coalesced, and from them emerged two predominant activities associated with Lilith: the strangling of newly born children and the seduction of men.
Regarding the latter, it was thought that anytime a man woke up with wet undergarments, made so by the nightly discharge of seed, it was indicative of Lilith having paid them a visit and seducing them in their sleep. And in this she was thought so prolific that a virtually infinite
Number of demonic spawn were attributed to her, said to be her brood – legions upon legions sired by unwitting men as they slept. Apparently, people were so wary of her erotic powers that in some Jewish communities it was commonplace for sons not to accompany their father’s as their
Bodies were laid to rest in graveyards, sparing them the shame of bearing witness to all their demonic half-blood siblings, those conceived when Lilith seduced the father. Because of this, In the Zohar as well as other sources, Lilith is known by many colourful appellations that denigrate
For lasciviousness and wantonness. These include: the black, the wicked, the false, and the harlot. In Zoharaistic cabal, Lilith, along with Eisheth Zenunim, Naamah, and Agrat bat Mahlaht, three angels of prostitution, was one of the consorts of Samael, a figure with many identities,
Not all of them evil, depending on the version; among them were: the great serpent with 12 wings, a prince of hell, and another name for Satan, especially in Jewish lore. As conceptualised in Kabbalism, Lilith was given preeminence, becoming the principal and permanent partner of Samael –
Basically, in effect, crowned queen of hell. And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy the content please LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel As always, leave your video suggestions down below
It’s kind of difficult to explain, but super important. Hey guys it’s me again, Douglas. And I’m pretty sure that around Christmas time you’ve probably heard a lot that Jesus Christ was born to the virgin Mary. You know, it talks about it in the Bible and
It talks about that in Christmas songs and it’s kind of all over the place. But if you’ve ever wondered what that means, I want to try to explain it to you in a way that is easy for
Us kids to understand. Because when Jesus was born they call that the virgin birth. And that’s something that is a little bit easier to explain to adults, but it’s still something important for us kids to know. So I’m going to try to explain it in a way that we can understand and makes
Sense and is appropriate for kids. A long time ago there was a man and a woman named Joseph and Mary. And they were betrothed to be married. Now betrothed means, like, engaged. Nowadays, when people are engaged it means that they are planning on getting married. So you say so-and-so is engaged
To so-and-so and they’re going to get married. And betrothed, it’s the same thing but it’s like bigger and more important. Like, if you’re engaged, but you break up before you get married, that’s not,
Like, against the law. You know, it’s still super sad, but it’s not it’s not as big a deal — quite as big a deal — as being betrothed and and having to break that off. And before Mary and Joseph got married
Mary was visited by an angel. An angel told her that she was very special and that she was going to be pregnant and have a son, and that she should name him Jesus, and He would be called Son of the
Most High. And Mary said, “Well how is that going to happen ’cause I haven’t married Joseph yet.” Now, in order for a woman to be pregnant, in order for a mommy to have a baby, she needs a man. And
Mary was betrothed to Joseph. She promised that Joseph would be her man. But he wasn’t yet. She had no man. And without a man it’s impossible for her to have a baby. But the angel said that
The baby would be God’s son. God was going to make the impossible possible. And this was a big deal because in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah, it said that the coming Messiah would be born to
A virgin — would be born to a woman without a man. But this was also super hard because, you know, Mary knew that this baby was going to be God’s son. But for everybody else, they probably just assumed that
Mary had broken her promise to Joseph to marry him and have Joseph be her man — her husband. They probably thought that she had gone off and gone with some other man and broken her
Promises. ‘Cause again, you need both a man and a woman to have a baby. Except for Jesus. This was the only ever virgin birth. And so everybody probably thought that she had broken her promises including Joseph who was planning on just sending her away quietly so that people wouldn’t hate her so much.
She might have even been in danger. ‘Cause again, it was a big deal to break your betrothal promises. But as he was thinking about how he was going to send her away quietly without, you know, causing
Too much of a fuss, an angel appeared to him too. And the angel told him, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The baby growing inside her is God’s Son.” And so eventually Joseph and Mary
Became husband and wife, and Joseph helped to raise Jesus, but Jesus was always God’s Son. Jesus wasn’t Joseph’s son. Jesus is the Christ. He’s the Messiah. He’s the Son of God. And so when you hear someone
Talking about the virgin birth or the virgin Mary or something like that, I just want you to remember that God did a miracle when Jesus was born — a big one! A miracle that’s never ever been done before
Or since then. And it was all to prove that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is God’s Son. And that’s what we celebrate on Christmas! We’re celebrating that Jesus Christ was born
To the virgin Mary. And God sent Him to the world to save us from our sins, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. And that’s the best Christmas gift ever!
Hey guys,Ii hope you liked this video. And yeah, you know, the virgin birth is kind of a tricky subject, but it doesn’t have to be too hard. Basically it’s just that Mary became pregnant and she
Had no husband or any other man, and a woman needs a man to become pregnant. Except for the one instance of Jesus coming into the world and on Christmas. We celebrate that God sent his Son Jesus
To the earth. And He proved that Jesus was his Son through the virgin birth. Merry Christmas guys!
From our archives… The Billy Graham Classics. [applause] My message is going to be brief, and my text is going to be Luke the 23rd chapter beginning at verse 42. “Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. “And Jesus said unto him, “Verily, I say unto thee,
“today thou shall be with me in paradise.” The greatest and most historical event of all of history, was when Jesus Christ died on that cross. And when Christ died on the cross, the lightning flashed, the thunder roared, the darkness came. As the nails had gone into the hands of Christ
And a spear had gone into his side and the nails through his feet. And Jesus was hanging between heaven and earth suffering for us. The soldiers had taken him out of his prison and they put a crimson robe on him, they’d beaten him two or three times.
And then they took two or three murders with him. Two of them in particular, who were going to be crucified with him. And then they took him across Jerusalem and they made each one of them bear a placard, or at least herald went before them to bear a placard
Telling of their crimes. And then Jesus stumbled and fell. He was weak from the loss of blood and they compelled an African to help him carry his cross. And as long as the history of man shall go, we will always remember that it was an African that helped Jesus bare his cross.
There are people today that say that Christianity is the white man’s religion. Don’t you believe it. For all of those who believe in Jesus Christ, He belongs to all people. He came from that part of the world that touches Asia, Africa, and Europe.
He belongs as much to the African as he does to the European; and as much to the European as he does to the Asian. Jesus Christ belongs to all people, but an African helped him carry His cross. And then when they got to Golgotha, these soldiers went about their work,
Nailing the nails in. These two murderers and thieves that were being crucified with Jesus were yelling, screaming, crying, but Jesus never uttered a word. And they took some medicated wine that acted as a sedative and gave it to the two thieves. And they took it and they offered it to Jesus,
And He refused it, because He wanted to drink the very bitter dregs of death in our place for us. He wanted to suffer all of death, showing that God loved the world and God was willing to forgive the sins of the world because of what Christ was doing on that cross.
The people that were watching were laughing and sneering. They said, “He saved others, why can’t he save himself?” Come on, you worked great miracles. Why don’t you work one more? You raised Lazarus from the dead. You raised a widow’s son from the dead. Why can’t you save yourself?
Those blind people did not realize that God had foreordained and predetermined that Jesus Christ was to die the death of the cross. And it was only through that death that the world could find forgiveness and salvation. There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.
The apostle Paul was an intellectual. One of the most brilliant men that ever lived. And Paul went to Corinth. Pagan, intellectual, immoral Corinth. The university center of the ancient world. And Paul said, “I’m determined to know nothing among you “save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Why did Paul say that?
He said that because God has locked up in the cross the secret of the universe. The only way that earth can ever find reconciliation with heaven is by way of the cross. The only way that you can ever get to heaven is by way of the cross.
And if Jesus Christ had not gone to the cross, you could have never had sin forgiven. You could have never gone to heaven. And the problems of earth would have never had a solution. Only by the way of the cross can we find our way back to God.
That’s why it was important that Jesus stay on the cross. Because you see, man is in rebellion against God. Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden of Eden. And every man since Adam and Eve has broken God’s law and sinned against God.
And as a result of that, God and man are separated. And man’s only way back to God is through Jesus Christ. Man had broken the law. Man deserved death. He deserved judgment. He deserved hell, but God said, “Wait a minute. “I’ll give My Son.
I’ll let him die. I’ll let him take the judgment and the hell for you. And if you will put your trust and your faith in My Son, I will forgive your sin. I will change your life. I will give you an inner peace and joy and satisfaction
That you would never find in any other way. Jesus was dying on that cross for your sins and your sins. Some people say, “Why don’t you try to make your gospel relevant?” The most relevant message in the world tonight is the fact that Christ died for you. He died in your place.
He shed his blood for you. And without that experience, no one can get to heaven. Yes, Jesus Christ died. And the people laughed and sneered. And two people that sneered and laughed the most, were these two thieves and murderers that were dying with Him. They were both mocking him.
But one of them became strangely silent. And finally, this one that was silent turned and rebuked the other thief or the murderer and said, “We’re dying justly.” “We deserve to be crucified, but not this man in the middle. “He’s a good man. “He is the Son of God.”
Then he turned to him and asked him what seemed to be an improbable, an impossible question. He said, “Remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Will you remember me, Lord? And then Jesus gave one of the most astounding answers in the history of the world.
The angels in heaven must’ve been shaken and startled and amazed when they heard what Jesus answered. Jesus said, “Today, today, thou shalt be with me in paradise.” Think of it. Here was a thief, a murderer, a man that had committed every crime in the books,
Dying, turns to Jesus in his dying moment and says, “Lord, remember me.” He didn’t even say forgive me. He didn’t even say, Lord, take me to heaven with you. He didn’t say, “Lord prefer me.” He just said, “Lord, remember me.” And Jesus answered quick as a flash and said,
“Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise.” And to all of you people that think you can’t be converted in a moment and that you cannot be saved at this hour, at this moment, in this rain, in Baton Rouge and have your whole life transformed.
You read the stories of the New Testament and the encounters that people had with Jesus. There are many of you that came here tonight in this rain that never dreamed that you were going to meet Jesus. You came out of curiosity
Or you came because your bus was already on the way, or you had already promised some friends to come, or you’re a student here at the university and you came out of curiosity. Many of the people of the New Testament that came to Jesus never planned it. They never thought that
They would have their lives changed. This thief on the cross that had been in prison, knew that he was going to die on a cross. He knew he deserved it. He never dreamed that before the night came, that day he would be in heaven. He deserved judgment. He deserved hell.
I’m going to see that man in heaven someday, by the grace of God. He wasn’t saved by his good works. He didn’t even have time to be baptized. He didn’t have time for anything, but he’s in heaven. That’s the grace and the mercy of God.
I want to tell you that the greatest word in all the language of men is forgiveness. That Jesus forgave him of every sin he’d ever committed. Wiped the slate clean and he was in heaven. There are three things about this passage. The whole gospel is in it. There’s repentance.
It’s the only death bed repentance in the whole Bible. I don’t know what led this fellow to ask that question or to make that statement. It might’ve been the prayer that Jesus had just prayed, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”
It might’ve been what Jesus had said to John concerning his mother. I don’t know what it is or what it was, but the Holy Spirit used it. The Holy Spirit used it to convict him and to convince him that he needed Jesus and he repented of his sins at that moment,
And he was saved. I can imagine the other thief saying, “Why, what have you done?” Have you turned preacher or something? You remember, we strangled that old merchant for his gold. Remember, you kidnapped that little child. Remember that girl you raped. Remember that person you slew.
You think God’s going to forgive you? Are you turn a preacher? He can’t forgive you. I don’t care what your sin is. I don’t care how deep in sin you’ve gone. I don’t care what you’ve done. God can forgive you. God can cleanse you.
God can make you a new person tonight, if you put your faith and your trust in Him. Yes, he repented. And the second thing he did was to believe The Bible says, “If we believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, “we shall be saved.” The Scripture says,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ “and thou shall be saved.” “But as many as received Him “to them gave He power to become the sons of God, “even to them that believe on His name.” Just repent and believe and then you’ll be saved. He said, “When thou comest into Thy kingdom,”
As though he were thinking of some far off kingdom age, somewhere, and Jesus answered and said today, right now, you’ll be saved Right now, you can have eternal life. You can put your trust and your confidence in Christ now. And he did. And that day he went to paradise.
Now it’s the word “remember” that I want you to think about a moment. He said, “Lord, remember me.” Did you know that God forgets? Did you know that there’s a scripture in Jeremiah 31:34 that says, “I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more.“
God can forget. God, forget your sin. What does God forget? God never forgets the universe. He sends the rain. Yes, sir. God sends the rain, but the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The sun comes up on the just and the unjust.
God blesses all of us with all of his blessings. He never forgets. Supposed He forgot to send rain? Suppose the sun ceased to shine. The earth would turn into a glacier. Suppose God would forget because the scripture says that God holds the whole universe together.
If God ever took his hand off, it would blow to pieces. And then the scripture says that God remembers you. Tonight, I had in my little office here where I see people, a lady and her children and a mother, and their son and their husband is a prisoner in North Vietnam.
I don’t think any of us will ever know what these families have suffered. I don’t think any of us will ever know what those boys out there have probably gone through psychologically and physically, never knowing. And then we had another one come and see us tonight. And her husband, she’s just found out,
Is alive and a prisoner, but for a long time, she didn’t know. He was only missing an action. But let me tell you this, God remembers them. And when we bowed our heads in the little office and prayed that God would remember them and that His grace and His love
Would reach out to North Vietnam, to the prison camp and touch them. God remembers them and God answers prayer. How many times has God been with you? You don’t even know, because you see, you almost had a wreck the other day, but you were saved from it. Why?
When you get to heaven, you may find out why. It might’ve been divine intervention. And that happens to all of us. God remembers you. And then God never forgets our sins either. The Bible says, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” The Bible says, “God is not mocked,
“for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” The Bible says, “For God shall bring every work into judgment.” God is going to judge every sin that’s ever been committed. What is your sin that so easily besets you? It’s going to be brought to light, all the secret things.
God is going to judge it. God never forgets sin. No sin has ever been forgotten by God. God has recorded everything you’ve ever done and all the things you’ve ever thought, from the time you were born, until the time you die. It’s all there.
It’s all in the record books. And God will never forget. Nothing is going to be forgotten. How do you stand before God? But there’s one thing God can forget. He can forget sin because of Christ. The Bible says in II Corinthians 5:21,
“He has made Him to be sin for us.” It says in Isaiah 53, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” It says in 1 Peter, 2:24, “Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” The Scripture teaches that God can forget our sins
Because of Christ. The sin that would damn us. The sin that would send us to judgment. The sin that would send us to hell. God can forget. In Hebrews 1:3 it says your sins are purged. In Isaiah 43 it says your sins are blotted out.
In Psalm 103 it says your sins are put away. Isaiah 38 says your sins are put behind His back. And in Hebrews it says God can remember your sin no more. Ladies and gentlemen, because Christ died, because He rose again, because of what He did, God cannot remember my sins.
I’ve committed plenty of sins in my life. And even if I’d only committed one sin in my whole life, it’s enough to cause me to go to the judgment and be lost, because I could keep the whole law and yet offend in one point and I’d be guilty of all.
But God has forgotten my sin. He forgot every sin that I have ever committed. Every one He has forgotten. He’s the only person in the whole universe that can forget. He has the ability to forget. Has He forgotten your sin?
Have you brought your sin and laid it at the feet of Jesus? What a night to give your life to Christ? You may never have another moment like this. The Bible says, “He that hardened his heart, “being often reproved, “shall suddenly be cut off and that without remedy.”
You’ve sat here for over two hours in the rain. Many of you are soaked all the way through and you’ve done it because you want your sins forgiven, many of you. And others of you have sat there because you’re praying for somebody that needs Christ. And this is your hour and your moment
And may never come again like this. I’m going to ask you to do something that I saw people in London do. I saw people in San Diego do. I saw people in Pittsburgh do. I’m going to ask scores of you to get up out of your seat
Right now, come across this field in the rain and stand here. And by coming say, “I want Christ in my life. “I want my sin forgiven. “I want to know I’m going to heaven. “I want to know that I will not be at the judgment “in that final day.
“I want my life transformed by the power of Christ. I’m going to ask you to come right now, men, women, young people, God has spoken to you. You need Christ. And in a moment like this, you’ll never forget. I met a missionary out in the Far East, a few months ago,
Said I received Christ one of those nights at Wembley Stadium, in the pouring rain in England, I stood ankle deep in mud to find Christ and said, I thank God, because if it hadn’t been for the rain, I don’t know whether I would have come that night or not.
But he said there was something about the challenge of coming forward in the rain that challenged me and it changed my life. Yes, it’s not easy to come, but Christ went to the cross for you. Many people are on the way now.
You get up and come and make your commitment to Christ. ♪ Just as I am and waiting not ♪ As hundreds are responding to Mr. Graham’s invitation to make a public commitment to Jesus Christ. You can make that same commitment right where you are. Just pick up the phone
And call the number you see on your screen. Special friends are waiting to talk with you and pray with you about this most important decision. ♪ O Lamb of God, I come, I come. ♪ Now I want to say a word to all of you that have come.
You’ve come tonight to make your commitment to Christ because you want your sins forgiven. You want to know you’re going to heaven. You want a new direction in your life, and you’ve come to make a commitment to Christ because you want him to forget your sin and save your soul.
Well, I want to tell you, He remembers you and He loves you and He wants to forgive you. He loves you. Keep that in mind now, that God loves you and is willing to forgive and forget all the past. And from tonight on, there are four things that are very important.
First, read your Bible every day. We’re going to give you a Gospel of John. We want you to read it several times before you read any other part of the Bible. We’re going to give you a Bible study. We’re going to give you some verses of Scripture to learn, memorize.
This helps you to grow. “Desire the sincere milk of the word “that you may grow thereby,” the scripture says. You cannot grow in the Christian life without reading and studying the scriptures every day. Secondly, pray. God will hear and answer your prayer. You’re His child now. He loves you.
Take every detail to God in prayer. He will answer your prayers. Don’t let a day go by but that you spend a few minutes every morning, every evening and all during the day in prayer. And pray about everything, whatever the details are. Nothing is too small to bring to God’s attention.
And then thirdly, witness for Christ. How do you witness? You’re witness by the smile on your face. You witness by the new attitude you have in the dormitory, the new attitude you have toward work, the new attitude you have in the home.
And then you witnesse by going to somebody of another race and going out of your way to be kind and courteous and gracious. And people will soon say, “Well, what’s happened to you, Mary?” And you can say, “Well, I’ve found Christ. “He’s changed my life.” That’s witnessing.
And then fourthly, get into a church where Christ is preached and get to work for Christ. Get into the church and work in the church. You say, “But I don’t like to go to church.” Jesus went to the churches of his day and they weren’t all they were supposed to be,
But He did it to set us an example that we should go to church. Four things, read the Bible, pray, witness, and go to church. Now I’m going to ask that we bow our heads and I want you to pray this prayer out loud after me. Oh God, I’m a sinner.
I’m sorry for my sin. I’m willing to turn from my sin. I receive Christ as Savior. I confess Him as Lord from this moment on. I want to follow Him and serve Him in the fellowship of His church, in Christ’s name. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer with my father,
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SPROUL: Let’s look this morning at Mark, chapter 15 where I’ll be reading again the later portion of the text we looked at last week. I’ll be beginning at verse 33 and reading through verse 40. And I’d like to ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God.
“Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’
Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, ‘Look, He is calling for Elijah!’ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, ‘Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.’
And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this Man was the Son of God!’
There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome, who also followed Him and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.”
Again in your hearing this morning, you have heard that word that comes to us from God Himself. He who has ears to hear it, let them hear. Please be seated. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, there is no more important, no more unfathomable treasure for us to contemplate
Than the meaning of the cross, and so we pray that in this hour, you would lend your help to us who are Your frail creatures. Give us insight into the meaning and the significance of our Savior’s death, for we ask it in His name. Amen.
Last week we looked at the narrative of the execution of Jesus by way of my normal method of biblical exposition, but I mentioned that this week I would depart from that and focus on a theological interpretation of the meaning of the cross. Again, I mentioned last week
That anyone who was an eyewitness of that event would likely not understand what was taking place in the cosmic realm that day, and that was left for the apostles in their epistles to give to us that added revelation of the meaning and of the significance of
The death of Jesus. We remember that Paul announced that he was determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, that is Paul’s focus was on the cross, and of course that statement was something of hyperbole, which is a literary form of intentional exaggeration
In order to make a point, but really it’s not too far as an exaggeration that we know Paul knew other things besides the cross; nevertheless, all that he knew and all that he taught had its convergence in that central message of what took place that day on the cross.
I remember my first year of seminary where a student in our class in preaching gave a moving and eloquent sermon on the substitutionary satisfaction view of the atonement. And in that class on preaching, it was customary when the student finished for the professor
Of homiletics to give a critique. And the idea was to be a constructive critique on the art of preaching. But that day the professor was furious, and he glared at the student, and he said, “How dare you preach the substitutionary satisfactory view of the atonement in this
Day and age.” And I heard that and I was thinking within myself, “How dare this professor question the legitimacy of preaching on the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement.” What is it in this day and age that makes this central understanding of the cross suddenly
No longer acceptable? And I mused on that for many years to come because when we talk about the satisfaction substitutionary view of the atonement, we’re trying to answer the question: What really happened there on the cross? And one of the questions that attends
That question is the question: Was Jesus death on the cross really necessary at all? And there have been different answers to that question throughout church history. Early on, the Pelagians taught that Jesus’ death and atonement was not necessary at all, that
God could have redeemed His people by many different ways. He simply could have waved His wand of mercy and grace and pronounced His pardon on sinners without such a grizzly method of execution. Others took an intermediate position saying that the cross was hypothetically necessary
But not absolutely necessary. It was only necessary because though God had many ways He could have done it. From all eternity He chose to do it this way and was in agreement with His Son and with the Holy Spirit to reconcile the world by way of an atoning death. And
So the atonement was not necessary “de facto.” It was not necessary “de jure,” that is legally. But it was necessary “de pacto,” that is because an agreement had been reached, a covenant had been made between the Father and the Son, and once that covenant was made, it had to be carried out.
But then the third view, which is the classic orthodox Christian view is that the atoning death of Jesus was absolutely necessary. We reach back in time to one of the greatest thinkers God ever blessed the church with, the philosopher theologian Saint Anselm of
Canterbury, whose little book, “Cur Deus Homo?,” has become a Christian classic, and that little book that is really a question is translated by the words, “Why the God Man?” And in that little book Anselm spelled out the reasons why the cross was absolutely
Necessary. And the grounds and the necessity for Christ offering payment and satisfaction for our sins was to be found in the character of God Himself. The reason why an atonement was necessary, dear friends, is because God is just, because God is righteous, and because God is holy.
But we’ve lost sight of the character of God in our age. We conceive of God some celestial grandfather, a cosmic bellhop who is on duty 24/7 to give us all of our needs. And we allow the love of God to swallow up His justice, to swallow up His righteousness, and to obscure
His holiness, and we think that not only will God forgive all of our sins without an atonement, but we believe that He must do it if He’s really going to be good and loving. And yet at the other side of that coin always stands His holy, righteous, justice that must be satisfied.
I remember the story of Abraham in the Old Testament where he got word that God was about to bring judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, which cities clearly invited that judgment from God, and Abraham was concerned about the few innocent folks there in those cities
That might possibly be punished along with the guilty, and so he raised the question to God, “Lord, will you punish the innocent or the righteous with the guilty?” And the reply was God forbid that God would ever do such a thing. And then the statement came
Out of that narrative, “Will not the Judge of all of the earth do what is right?” To ask that question, dear friends, is to answer it because the God of heaven and earth doesn’t know how to do anything except that which is right. The God of heaven and earth has
Never done anything that is wrong. Now according to our sensibilities, there are times in the Scriptures that we object to what God does. I’ve told you before how when I was in my first year as a Christian
As a college student, and I was reading the Old Testament, that I used to pace the halls of my college dormitory long into the night, three o’clock to four o’clock in the morning because I’d never heard of this God that was being revealed to me in the Old Testament.
And all I can remember from that is thinking that wow, if I’m going to be a Christian, I’m going to have to be a Christian because God plays for keeps. If you don’t believe that, let me just direct your attention to one passage in the Old Testament, the passage
That you’ve already heard this morning. When God delivered His law to Moses, after He had rescued His people from slavery and the focus of that law was a prohibition against idolatry. And while Moses was speaking with God on the mountain, Aaron and the people
Made for themselves a golden calf and worshipped it. And the Scriptures tell us that when God saw that, He was outraged, and He demanded satisfaction for that sacrilege, for that work of idolatry. I remind you, dear friends, that that episode in the Old Testament chronicles for us the
Most successful worship service in human history. The attendance that day at the worship of the golden calf surpassed all statistics before or after in Israel. The singing was so lusty, that miles away Joshua hears the music, and he thinks he’s hearing the sound of warfare.
The church was filled to the brim, and the people loved the music as they danced around an idol that distorted the very character of God. Do you think that was the last time that happened in church history? That’s our propensity.
It’s to exchange the God of heaven and earth for an idol and fashion for ourselves a God who requires no satisfaction, who requires no payment for sin. And in a day and age when we preach that God loves all people unconditionally, who in the world needs an atonement? You do.
And I do. Because the righteousness and the justice of God must be satisfied. Now when we look at the concept of the atonement in the New Testament, it’s not monochromatic. I like to use the metaphor of a gorgeous tapestry that is woven by several strands. And I don’t
Even have time this morning to even touch on some of the strands that the New Testament uses to describe what took place on the cross. But one of the major themes in the New Testament is the theme of reconciliation, that Christ is the reconciliation for us. And one of the
Things of course that is absolutely necessary for reconciliation to take place anywhere is a previous estrangement because parties that are not estranged have no need of reconciliation. I gave a message many years ago in a university to the atheists’ club that invited me to
Speak there. And they wanted to hear my case for the existence of God, and I gave it to them. And after I was finished with that part of the message, I said, “I’m happy to deal with these intellectual issues that come up.” I said, “But you have to know where
I’m coming from. I believe that for you the issue of the existence of God is not an intellectual issue at all. It’s a moral issue. Your problem is not that you don’t know that God exists. Your problem is you hate the God whom you know does exist.”
That’s the closest I ever came to being tarred and feathered. I was lucky to get out of there with my life. They were vehement in their denials and protests, “We don’t hate God.” Well, if the Word of God is the truth of God then by nature, dear friends, we are His enemies.
We are at war with Him. We despise Him. But we don’t get angry at the golden calf. If we create a new God, then we can live in comfort with that God. But the biblical God is the
Object of our wrath to such a degree that the Scripture says, “We will not have Him in our thinking.” That’s where the estrangement is. That’s where we are at war with God. That’s where we are at enmity with God. And that enmity was mediated for us on the
Cross, so that Christ became an enemy of the Father to satisfy your hostility and your enmity toward Him. Another dimension about which the New Testament describes the cross, the atonement is the dimension of ransom. Earlier in our study of Mark’s gospel, we read where Jesus said
That He did not come into the world to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. And because of that statement and others, the church has developed what’s called the ransom theory of the atonement. In fact, there is more than one ransom theory
Of the atonement. There’s a good one and there’s a bad one. The bad one that is popular in some circles is the idea that Jesus paid a ransom to Satan, after all Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He’s the prince of this world.
He holds us captive and hostage. In a sense he has kidnapped the people of God and now demands payment or ransom for our release, and so Jesus makes a deal with the devil. He pays him what he wants to purchase our freedom from him. No, no, no, no. In that
Case the cross would not represent “Christus Victor” but “Satanas Victor,” Satan would be the winner. He would get the payment and enjoy it forever. No, there is a ransom paid, dear friends, but it’s not paid to Satan. It’s paid
To the Father. A debt has been incurred to Him that has to be paid. Now quickly, we think of the New Testament speaking that we are debtors to God, and not only are we mildly in debt but that we are hopelessly in debt, and the way in which the New Testament sets
It forth is that we are debtors who can’t possibly their debt. We have an IOU that can never be redeemed. But there’s different ways to understand that concept of debt. I’ve told you on another occasion in another concept my favorite illustration of that. I tell the story of the little boy
Who goes to the ice cream store, and he asks for an ice cream cone with two scoops of ice cream, and when the lady behind the counter hands the little boy the cone, she says, “That will be two dollars,” and the boy’s face sinks. He’s crestfallen. His lip begins
To tremble, and he said, “But my Mommy only gave me one dollar.” So what do you do if you’re watching that transaction? You know what you do. You reach your hand in your pocket, and you get out a dollar bill, and you hand it to the lady, and you say, “Here, this
Is legal tender. I’ll pay the little boy’s debt, and we all can go home happy.” And she has to accept that payment because it’s a pecuniary payment, a monetary payment of commercial debt. But that’s not the kind of debt that we’re in here. The debt that we have before God
Is not that we owe Him money that we can’t pay. It’s a moral debt. It is a moral obligation that He has imposed upon us, which we have not paid. Now we turn the story around with the little boy. Now he comes to the ice cream store and
He said, “I’d like to have an ice cream cone with two scoops, and the lady comes and hands him the ice cream cone, and she says, “That will be two dollars.” He sticks his tongue out at her, runs out the door, doesn’t pay her anything, and she’s chasing
Him, yelling, “Stop, thief.” And the little boy runs right into the arms of the patrolman who’s walking down the block. He grabs the boy by the scruff of the neck, brings him back into the shop, said, “What’s going on here?” And the lady said, “That boy
Just stole two dollars worth of ice cream.” And I’m watching that. I reach in my pocket and I take out two dollars instead of one, and I say, “Look, everybody settle down here. Here’s the two dollars. No harm. No fowl. Let the boy go.” Now does the owner
Have to accept it? Absolutely not. Because now a crime has been committed. Now a moral debt has been incurred. And a policeman can look at me and my two dollars and look at the woman in the store and say, “Do you want to press charges?” And the storekeeper
Has that option on this occasion. Now with God we have a moral debt. And even when His Son pays the debt as our Substitute, when He pays the debt vicariously, the Father does not have to accept it. The fact that
The debt is paid means that justice is satisfied. The fact that the Father accepts the payment expresses His mercy and His grace, that as the Apostle says, “He may be both just and justifier of His people.” The justice is there insofar as Christ paid what was required, and that God wasn’t playing.
As the text I read indicated, the Son of God was forsaken, completely forsaken. And as Paul uses the other metaphor later in Galatians, “He was cursed by God.” He became a curse to fulfill the law of the Old Testament because all who break the law of God, all who sin
Are exposed to the curse of God’s wrath. And you say, “But that’s not fair.” But as I mentioned last week, once Christ willingly took upon Himself your sin and my sin, God didn’t play games. He punished Him to the fullest extent of the law. Christ
Didn’t just go to the cross. When He was on the cross, He went to Hell, not after He died but while He was on the cross. He experienced the full measure of God’s wrath when the Father turned His back on the Son and cursed Him for you and for me.
Again, I’m terrified when people come to me and say, “I don’t need Jesus.” I want to grab them by the throat and say, “O foolish one, don’t you understand that there’s nothing in the universe that you need more than Jesus. Don’t you realize that at the
End of your life, you will stand before God and you will be held accountable by God. And the God before whom you stand will be holy and just and righteous. And you either stand in front of Him on your own merit—and the only thing you have to bring is demerit, friends—or
You stand covered in the righteousness of Christ. If you deny Christ, you face the curse on your own, a debtor who can’t possibly pay your debt.” Karl Barth, the late Swiss theologian with whom I disagree more often than I agree, made
A comment once many years ago that I agree with completely. He said the single most important word in the New Testament Greek is the word “huper,” which is the Greek word that is translated by three English words, “in behalf of.” And that’s how the New Testament
Describes the death of Jesus, “in behalf of” His sheep, “in behalf of” the godless, “in behalf of” God’s enemies, He paid this price and He purchased you, so that the apostle says, “You are not your own.” You see the thing that we tend to think even
As Christians is we may not own the biggest house in the community, we may not own the biggest car in the community, but one thing we own, there’s no mortgage on, is ourselves. I own me. No, you don’t. No I don’t. Paul said, “You are not your own. You don’t
Own yourself. You’ve been bought. You’ve been purchased.” Paul said, “You’ve been bought with a price.” And the price tag is the blood of Christ. Finally, my friend John Guest once preached a sermon on the blood of Jesus. He said, “If
Jesus would have come to Jerusalem and scratched His finger on a nail, would that have done it?” There’s blood. It wouldn’t have done it. It took more than a scratch. The figurative significance to the Jew of blood means life. Jesus didn’t just give His blood.
He had to give His life. He had to pour out His blood unto death, and that was the price tag. That was the ransom. That was the purchase price. And the New Testament tells us that in God’s eyes at the top of the cross was not simply
The accusation written by Pilate, but the words, “It is paid,” appear on that cross. God is satisfied, propitiation. Our sins are removed, expiation. As I told you before, every time you come down that aisle, look at that cross. You come down the center aisle
Of the church. You remember that the architectural form of this building is a cruciform. It’s built in the shape of the cross. If you look from an airplane, and you cross over Saint Andrews, you’ll see the form of a cross. The center aisle if the vertical beam of the
Cross. The transepts in which you are sitting are the crossbeams. And I said the vertical beam points to heaven in the sense that propitiation was made. The Son satisfied the Father. And in doing that on the horizontal level was expiation, our sins were removed as far as
The east is from the west. Therefore, dear friends, come let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be as crimson, they shall be as wool, for He bought you with His life. Let’s pray.
O Lord, if we had a thousand tongues to sing the praise of our great Redeemer, that would not be enough to express our gratitude, which gratitude carries on for us into eternity. Thank you for the cross. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hi I’m Israel Wayne I’m an author and Conference speaker my most recent book is called questions Jesus asks where Divinity meets Humanity it’s a followup to a previous book that I wrote with new Leaf press entitled questions God asks and this really came out of a Bible
Study that I was doing in the Old Testament initially and I noticed that there were many occasions in the Bible where God ask people questions and I thought this was rather intriguing and then I began to think about how in Jesus ministry was common for him to engage
People with probing questions in fact the very first time that we see Jesus speaking in the Bible in Luke 2 he’s 12 years old at the temple and he is asking questions of the teachers of the law Jesus often had the practice of answering questions that he was asked
With a question and this is a model that I find is really helpful for evangelism and apologetics as we engage with those who are skeptical or those who are uh critical regarding the Christian faith one of the things that I learned from writing the questions Jesus asks is how
Jesus questions tend to dig deeper than the surface they tend to go to the heart of the issue many of us have questions that we ask of God there are many questions that we have like where is God when it hurts or if God is good why is
There evil and suffering in the world but Jesus asks questions of us and these questions help us to assess our biases and assumptions and presuppositions these questions deal with a huge range of our human emotions and experiences things like suffering and pain and relationships and money and
Healing and so many other issues that are engaged in these questions that Jesus asks because these questions are contained in the Holy Scripture they have relevance not only for the people that Jesus asked 2000 years ago but they have relevance for us today one of the things that we learn from studying the
Questions that Jesus asks as we learn about him we learn about his nature and his character John 173 says this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent this is really our primary purpose for our existence is to know God
In Jesus Christ which is one of the main reasons why I wrote questions God asks and questions Jesus asks I want to know Jesus better and you can come to know Jesus better through this intensive study of the New Testament through the questions he asks many people in our day
Are looking for Hope Jesus questions show us that even though he was fully God he was also fully man and he experienced many of the same things that we experienced so we have a high priest who can identify with us who can relate to our suffering and to our struggles
This is a great comfort to us to know that in many of the issues that we face and that we go through in our life Jesus went through those same issues and those topics that are close and near to and dear to our heart are topics that are
Explored within the questions Jesus asks I hope that you will pick up a copy of this book and maybe use it as a family read aloud for Family Worship or just for your own individual Bible study or perhaps for a small group study I think you will be encouraged you will be
Educated and you will come to know Jesus better and know how to relate better uh to others and to love and serve other people better through this study thank you God bless you
– Good afternoon. Good day, whichever time zone you are. And welcome everybody to the second in a series of conversations on global religious and secular dynamics. Welcome everybody, and especially welcome Hans Joas, Professor Hans Joas, who of course is a preeminent, distinguished, German sociologist and social theorist.
It is a pleasure to have you with us today, for this conversation. Before we begin our conversation, let me go over a few of the rules. This webinar is being recorded, and eventually in a few days it will be put on our website, the Berkley Center website.
If you are registered for the conversation today, you will receive an email notifying you that the webinar is already on the website. Otherwise, you can check in a few days on the Berkley Center website and you will find it there. We will have a conversation of around 50, 55 minutes,
Going over different aspects of Hans Joas’s life work, and afterward, we will have time for Q&A with the audience, about 20, 25 minutes, so please do prepare your questions. There is a question and answer at the bottom of your screen. You should open it and write your question,
Write your name, and please indicate your affiliation. We will try to answer as many questions as possible. So without further ado, I am Jose Casanova. I am a professor in the departments of sociology and religious studies at Georgetown University, and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion,
Peace, and World Affairs, which is sponsoring this series. But also is being co-sponsored by Reset (indistinct) USA. So, welcome everybody, welcome Hans. It’s a pleasure to have you. We will cover your life work, beginning with your early work and going to your most recent work. So let’s begin with your early work.
Your first major work was the book on George Herbert Mead. Which made you famous. It became the definitive work on George Herbert Mead. The subtitle it had when it was published in English by MIT Press was: A Contemporary Reexamination of His Thought. It was the least well-known of the major pragmatists,
Along with John Dewey, William James, Silas Peirce. There had been not yet any systematic interpretation of his work; your interpretation became the definitive one. Later, you wrote a second book on pragmatism and social theory, where you expanded the analysis to other pragmatists, into your parasocial theory.
You’ve become the main interpreter of American pragmatism, and interlocutor between American pragmatism and German and European social thought. So what attracted you to American pragmatism to the point that you indicated that you fell in love with American pragmatism, so please elaborate how did you fall in love with American pragmatism?
– Well, first of all Jose, let me say what a pleasure it is to see you, and to hear all your flattering remarks, about my early writings. Yes, I mean, I said, I wrote it someplace, I’d written it someplace, that I fell in love with pragmatism, and at first,
Particularly, with the work of George Herbert Mead. I could also have said that for me, it was a kind of revelation. Now why? I think the shortest way to explain that is to refer to the German, original German title of the book on Mead, which was: Practical Intersubjectivity.
I experienced Mead as a kind of transformation of something that was of profound importance for myself, namely the Christian idea of neighborly love, or of compassion, of understanding others. Now in Mead, you find this idea transformed into something you could almost say naturalistic.
I mean, he doesn’t remain on the moral level in that sense. It would be good, too, but he studies the empirical processes in which infants, children, human beings in general, develop the ability to see the world not just through their own eyes, but also through the eyes of others,
To put it somewhat metaphorically. And I still think this is an extremely important thing on both levels, on the empirical and on the moral level, and I’m rather radical with regard to that, in the sense of we as social scientists, or maybe we as historians, really should try to understand other human beings,
And we can understand all other human beings, even those who commit the most abhorrent deeds, so to speak. So that was the starting point. Now, in an atmosphere, I would say in Germany, in which all thinking about human intersubjectivity was kind of dominated by Jurgen Habermas’s idea about rational argumentative discourse.
So for me, Mead also was a kind of alternative in that sense; I mean there is a clear similarity or parallelism here to Habermas, but it’s also a kind of alternative because Habermas has this extremely strong emphasis on the rational and linguistic dimension, whereas in Mead, human intersubjectivity is much more corporeal.
It’s not necessarily on the rational, and not on the argumentative level, and even on the linguistic level. I mean, here are other ways of expressing yourself than the rational, argumentative one, like, let’s say the poetic forms of expression. So in this first phase, I would say, I mean,
The idea was to change from an exclusive focus on rational intersubjectivity to a more practical and corporeal way of thinking. But that, of course, then led me to discover that in the works of the pragmatists, this idea of intersubjectivity is not really the absolutely crucial one.
That such a central figure like William James, you could say, didn’t have so much to say about intersubjectivity, but he’s considered, and rightly so, as one of the most important pragmatists. So I realized that Mead’s thinking about intersubjectivity is, has a more basic, underlying level also,
And for that, I used the term: creativity. It is a specific understanding of the creative dimension of human action on which the ideas of intersubjectivity are based. – So Hans, if I may connect on this point, indeed, you are not only an authoritative interpreter of American pragmatism,
But one could say you are a major pragmatist social thinker in your own right. You’ve mentioned the creativity of action. This was the title of your next major work, and obviously this work was written in critical dialog with Habermas and his theory of communicative action. But also in critical dialog with the sociologist
Talcott Parsons, and his work: The Structure of Social Action. In a way, you are trying to expand the theory of social action beyond both Habermas and Parsons. And then you wrote another major work, a major work: The Genesis of Values. That continues the very same theoretical trajectory,
Trying to understand: where do values come from? But similarly, the personal commitment to specific values. In a way, it was a way of questioning theories of value decisionism, in the Bavarian tradition, but also the Parsonian emphasis on values being embedded in social systems, through which individuals are socialized and somehow accept those values.
You put the emphasis on the contingent historicity of both. The emergence of values in a particular social-historical context, and the personal commitment to these values. So can you explain this attempt to develop a theory of social action around these two key concepts, the creativity of action and the genesis of values?
– As I said, I mean, let’s say in terms of intellectual history, the book The Creativity of Action, was indeed an attempt not to write about the American pragmatists in historical terms, so to speak, but systematically on what the relevance of their work for contemporary social theory is.
And it makes sense to compare pragmatism and my own attempt in that sense, both to Parsons and to Habermas. Now, in Parsons, one could say, and I’m mostly referring to his first book, which I personally consider his best one, namely The Structure of Social Action from 1937,
That in a certain sense, the notion of value was the crucial term for Parsons, for his critique of what he called utilitarianism, and what we today might call rational action approaches or something like that, but although value was so crucial for him as a concept, he had nothing to say
About the historical emergence of values. And now it makes sense, as you did in your question, to distinguish between the historical processes in which certain values emerge, and the processes in which a person develops his or her commitment to a value. But even in the historical processes,
When values first come into being, so to speak, such the same processes in which individuals develop their commitment are at work. I mean, if nobody ever had had the idea, where would the values ever come from? So, I realized that one has to clearly go beyond Parsons,
On this very basic level, and as I already said with regard to Habermas, I think Habermas is, so to speak, two things: a moral philosopher and political theorist, on the one hand, and particularly in the book on the theory of communicative action, a sociological theorist.
But the two goals are not identical with each other. It can be that too much interest in the normative dimension, too much interest in rationality draws your attention away from the, let’s say, from the phenomenal character of human action, so for me I try to distinguish
The two problem areas more than he did. Now, we certainly don’t have the time to develop the details of such a theory of action that focuses on creativity, but I want to say one thing about the connection between the two books you mentioned, namely The Creativity of Action and The Genesis of Values.
When you study creative processes, I think what you cannot abstract from is something like the passive dimension in creative processes. I mean, you may have a problem, so to speak, that you would like to solve, but it doesn’t help to make the decision to solve a problem. You have to have the idea
That helps you to solve the problem. And this idea, although it may come from somewhere in your own person, you experience something that is coming to you, that is given to you, as in terms like inspiration and so on, huh? You are not really the master of the creative process.
That’s true for all creative processes. Even those, let’s say, in the area of what Habermas would call: instrumental action. As an engineer who has a technical problem to solve. But that idea of passivity is also the bridge between my book on action theory and these basic ideas about the emergence of value commitments,
Because the fact is when you’re honest to yourself, that you realize for you, certain things are self-evidently good or self-evidently evil. You do not really feel the need to develop a complex rational argument in favor of that. Let’s say, an example I often use in German discussions,
That the Holocaust is evil, is not something that you have found out after long processes of reasoning, it seems self-evident to you that this is the case, and if somebody asks you for a justification for this assumption, you find this a strange person, who asks such a question.
So that’s true for all of us, I would say. All of us who have any value commitment, and there is no human being without value commitments, have come to this feeling that something is self-evidently good in processes that also have very strongly this passive dimension. I mean, the German tradition, for example,
The theologian (indistinct) used terms like: you have been captivated or seized by something. That you then articulate in quasi-rational statements or propositional statements of character. I consider this to be good, or justifiable, and so on. So that is the connection between the two, and The Genesis of Values book, of course,
Is an elaboration of this idea. Namely the attempt to offer a rich kind of analogy of human experiences, out of which such a commitment emerges. – And you expanded this argument with a historic (indistinct) over the emergence of values in history, particularly in your next major work,
On The Sacredness of the Human Person, which had the subtitle: A New Affirmative Theory of Human Rights. And this work can be viewed also as an alternative theory of negative, Nietzschean and Foucaultian genealogies of values. It makes also, or marks also, actually, the beginning of your interest on the notion of religion
As self-transcendence as an experience of being seized or captivated by something external to the self, and also we’ll get into this notion of religion and self-transcendence in a moment, but also it is the beginning of a new phase in your work, focusing on global theories of religion,
Or the global history of religion, actually, and moral universalism. So, this work, can you explain or can you give a summary of this work, the Sacredness of the Human Person? And the role it plays in your further theoretical development? – I mean, for sociologists, so to speak,
Perhaps the easiest way to start is Emile Durkheim. And of his very famous Sociology of Religion, in which I think he analyzes connective processes, in which the participants develop an emotional commitment to something that he calls the sacred. Now, we should not forget that the analysis
Of what at the time was called primitive religion, was not his only contribution, but that he was also deeply interested in contemporary types of sacralization, let’s say, in the history of modern nationalism. I mean, obviously, historical sociologists have to explain why an emotional commitment to the nation,
That may go so far that people are willing to sacrifice their lives for the national flag, for example, has not been there in human history all the time, but that it emerged at some point. And Durkheim also already had, I think, the ingenious idea that we can analyze the history
Of human rights, along this line of a growing sacralization of the individual, or as I prefer to say, of the human person. I prefer to say person, because sacralization of the individual can easily be misunderstood as the self-sacralization of individuals, eh? People who think they are the only thing that is sacred,
For them, in the world, but what we mean when we talk about human rights and ideas about universal human dignity, is something different, of course. Namely that we attribute this dignity to all human beings, whatever they have done in the sense of, you know, even, let’s say,
A murderer who has tortured his victims must not be tortured by the state, or by other people in general. So that’s the basic idea here, that we have to understand the history of human rights, as a history in which such ideas about universal human dignity have become captivating.
So we cannot write this history on the level of history of ideas, as such, but we have to write it on the level of collective processes of experience in which this becomes something that then is articulated also in theories. But the theories, so to speak, are not constitutive for what happens later.
– And this is actually what you show in your book, The Sacredness of the Human Person, which the book was actually based on the Berkley public lectures that you gave here at Georgetown. And it was publishes subsequently by Georgetown University press.
Can you elaborate a little more on the way in which you link the first proclamation of human rights around the time of the American and French Revolutions, with the anti-slavery movement, and in similar ways, the way you link the second United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the experience of the Holocaust.
So there seems to be, in your theory, a linkage between the notion of the positive affirmation of the sacredness of the human person, and the negative experience of violence and oppression. Can you elaborate on this link? – Yes, I just realized that I did not really respond
To one element of your previous question, namely, what you said about a non-Nietzschean, non-Foucaultian approach, so to speak, and maybe before I answer this question, I just add very few sentences. Namely that what I share with Nietzsche, so to speak, is the insight that such processes are contingent,
They happen, that they are not determined by old, previous history, so to speak. But, in Nietzsche and Foucault, and that’s what they call genealogical, but in Nietzsche and Foucault, the idea is that as soon as people recognize how contingent the existing values are, and how contingent their own commitment to values is,
These values somehow lose captivating force. And I dispute that, and that is why I call my own approach following some ideas from Paul (indistinct), affirmative genealogy, namely: although I see the historical contingency of these processes, remembering these processes might actually strengthen our commitment to them.
I mean, you mentioned the, and I came to this period. Last question now: you know, I’m fully aware of the fact that let’s say if the Holocaust hadn’t happened, and if I were not a German, maybe my interest in the history of human rights would not be so passionate.
But this insight that if things had been different, I would be different, doesn’t destroy the energy, so to speak, I put into this research endeavor. Now, actually it is true what you said. Although my explanation of the innovations of the late 18th century is a little bit different,
But in principle, what I have to look for, if I follow the methodology as I’ve briefly described it, is of course changes in the experiential context of people. That is why the abolitionist movement plays an important role in my argument, but not for the 18th century, but for the 19th century, yeah?
The important point for the 18th century, in my eyes, is first that we should get rid of the myth that the French Revolution invented the basic ideas of human rights. It is indeed true that the American Revolution preceded and influenced the French Revolution, and I follow 19th century thinkers
Who already had the idea that although the topic of religious freedom was not crucial in the context of the American Revolution, let’s say basic logical structure of human rights, is a result of the struggle for religious freedom, not just for yourself, but for all human beings.
So it’s easy to ask for freedom for yourself. But it’s a complex thing to act in favor of the same right for people whose religious or other convictions you do not share. – So this is, however, the link with your new interest and new focus of your work, for roughly the last 15,
20 years, on the global history of religion, and the emergence and trajectories of moral universalism. I have to admit that probably the seminar that we both co-directed, the so-called Young European and American Scholars Seminar on Religion and Globalization was a turning point also for me, because I was already given up,
To a certain extent, on my interest in secularization, thinking that nothing new would be said, everything had been said already. And it was this participation in this seminar, first in (indistinct) and then in North Carolina, with very, very bright, young scholars that awakened in me once again the interest
In the study of global religious dynamics. So, if we look at your works of the last 15 years, beginning with your work in collaboration with Robert Bellah, your work on: do we need religion? Where you explain your theory of religion, itself, in standards; your work on faith as option,
In which you put both religion and secularity as options for modern individuals. In particularly your two major, recent works. First, the work that was published first in German, in 2017, and that will appear very soon, at the end of the year, in Oxford University Press, with a title: The Power of the Sacred.
And then the work, (unintelligible muttering), which is going to be published also by Suhrkamp, a German publisher, at the end of the year, with the title: (speaking German). Or: Under the Spell of Freedom. Basically, in this later work, you revisit the relation between religion and freedom, as postulated by Hegel,
By looking at some 20th century thinkers that have written about this relationship. So it’s a lot of work, but all of it can somehow be put under the heading: dynamics of sacralization, and de-sacralization. Can you explain what you mean by these dynamics of sacralization and de-sacralization?
– Jose, I’m of course happy to hear that the seminar we taught together, where you clearly influenced me a lot, also, that I also exerted some influence on you, and on your further intellectual development. Maybe I can just go back to what I said with regard to Durkheim, namely, I said:
I think Durkheim is an important author for, let’s say, the dynamics of new sacralizations. I used nation and person as possible examples. Now, if we think that new sacralizations are possible, we should certainly get rid of historical narratives that describe world history in the sense of an ongoing weakening of sacredness.
And I mean, I would have much, much more to say about Max Weber’s narrative of disenchantment. So I’m simplifying things at the moment, but at least in the reception of Weber, one could say, for the moment, the narrative of disenchantment is interpreted in that sense. And I think that’s totally wrong.
There are always processes of de-sacralization, that is true, but there are also always processes of sacralization, and some people say of the migration of the sacred, or of the migration or the transfer of the holy, and I mean, there are different terminologies. So, unexpected processes of that kind, I mean,
Nobody really predicted the rise of German Nazism, for example, and the cult-like forms connected to it, in the history of the 20th century. Now, let’s say for normative reasons, since I consider myself a moral universalist, what interests me most is not just any process of sacralization, so to speak,
But the long history of moral universalism. And what you mentioned with regard to Robert Bellah and our work together, including you, on the Axial Age, is of course work on what one could consider the first historical emergence of moral universalism. I mean, and one can even turn Karl Jaspers’s
Controversial claim that there was such a thing as an Axial Age into a question, so to speak. I don’t need all the implications of his claim for my argument, like simultaneity between let’s say China and the Middle East or something like that, but one can turn it into the question:
Where did moral universalism come into being? When did it come into being? Why did it come into being? And so on. So that interests me a lot, and I would have a lot to say about that, but of course that is just, let’s say, the first breakthrough of the idea
That there is empirically and normatively such a thing as mankind. That when I think about the justifiability of my action, the highest criterion is not: is it good for me, my family, my tribe, my people, my nation, my religious community? But is it good for all human beings, including maybe
Future generations that have not even been born ye? And after this Axial Age, or whether you call it Axial Age or not, but after this first breakthrough, of course, you have to study the processes in which such ideas became canonized, for example. How these processes of canonization into acts
With political power, because canonization always implies some power, at least within the religious community, but maybe much farther than that, and beyond its limits, so for me, the studies about the Axial Age, the two books I’ve actually written about the history of human rights, and still unpublished lectures
I gave in Wiemar as so-called Friedrich Nietzsche Fellow, on Gandhi and others, and Martin Luther King, in the 20th century, as extremely important, and rich articulations of the ethos of moral universalism. And why did they emerge and why did they be successful, so to speak?
All this is connected in this idea of a global genealogy of moral universalism, and in this global genealogy of moral universalism that nobody can write in a sense of a complete history of that, yeah? You can only reconstruct crucial points of that. History, I think, is the alternative
To the Weberian narrative of disenchantment, and since you mentioned Hegel, and since Hegel plays an important role in my most recent book that will come out in December in German, and Hegel’s narrative according to which somehow the world history of religion leads to Christianity, and Christianity somehow, particularly in its
Protestant version, leads to modern political freedom, I think that’s a myth and perhaps nobody would defend it as this myth today, but it is still extremely influential in the minds of people and even some leading intellectual figures. – Since you’ve been referring to Max Weber,
You serve actually as the director of the Max Weber Kolleg in Erfurt, for several years, and now you serve as the distinguished Ernst Troeltsch Professor at Humboldt University in Berlin. One could say in your later work, you have become much closer to Ernst Troeltsch and more critical of Max Weber.
And somehow this is related with your interest in historicism, and the problems for moral relativism with historicism, usually presents. Actually, the (indistinct) rift, written in your honor, at your 60th anniversary, a collection of essays to which I also contributed, had the title in German: Between Pragmatism and Historicism.
These being the two intellectual traditions within which one can say your own work is somehow related. So can you tell us more about your relation to Ernst Troeltsch, your interest, late interest in the work of Ernst Troeltsch, and also to a certain extent to answer those who argue that historicism leads,
Necessarily, to moral relativism? – It’s funny what you say, that I was the Max Weber Professor for nine years, and now I have been the Ernst Troeltsch Professor for six years. It’s funny, for those people who know that Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch lived in one and the same house
For many years, in Heidelberg, and were very close together in a certain sense- (audio distorting) Had a major conflict in 1915 and nobody knows exactly why their friendship ended then. Now for me, as for most sociologists, and I would say for most people, at least non-theologians,
For a long time, Troeltsch was just a kind of version of the Weberian thinking, and you could, in the secondary literature, you can find many descriptions that say, let’s say Max Weber was this extremely also polemical author with clear, and sharp statements. And Troeltsch was milder and in that sense more liberal,
And so on. But in principle, they seem to have said the same thing. Now, I dispute that, and for me, I would say in my life, he is the second author, after the student, or this encounter with George Herbert Mead in my student days, he’s the second author
Who I experienced as a kind of revelation. Namely, I think in very fundamental ways what he has done differs from Max Weber and differs from Max Weber in crucial respects. Now, one could elaborate all that, with regard to many topics. Maybe I just mentioned the two 1,000-page books that Troeltsch published.
One is a kind of 1,000-page history of Christianity. But certainly not written in the spirit of a history of disenchantment, secularization and so on. But with an interest in the question: how can Christianity remain vital? How can it be justified intellectually, in the present, but also what has to change,
Organizationally, to make it vital again if it is in a kind of crisis? Now, you were referring to the other main book, one could say, a book that is practically unknown in the English-speaking world, because it has never been translated into English, Historicism and Its Problems.
It is fortunate that I know the translator. He has just finished the translation, so it, and I have written the preface to the American edition, so I will come out in English, and I personally think this will change many things, so to speak, also in the perception of Max Weber.
Now, with regard to historicism, I mean, Weber is famous for making a very strict distinction you could say, between empirical study and the clarification of evaluative questions. And he does that with a lot of emphasis, so to speak, that nothing follows out of your empirical studies.
You have to reflect on your own values, so to speak, and you have to decide in favor of your own values that then have an existential meaning for you, and of course, everything you do, empirically, is somehow driven by your values. Now, in Troeltsch, I think, I personally think
He’s much more sophisticated at that point. Namely that when we reflect on the values we already feel committed to, we necessarily get into the empirical realm. I mean, I have to ask the question: where do my values come from, in an autobiographical sense, and in a historical sense?
So I cannot so clearly mark and make a distinction here between the two, but there is a connection. Now, the idea of a history of moral universalism is also the way out of the dilemma that you are alluding to when you say: how can you be a historicist, without becoming a relativist?
I mean, what Troeltsch was thinking, and what other of my main heroes, so to speak, like Paul (indistinct) certainly, also, have had in their minds is that I am, I’m acting in a present, on the basis of a past, and in anticipation of a future.
And when I see myself as such a potential actor in a present, I reconstruct history as having led to the situation in which I now find myself. And I draw from history, as I said before when I explained this term, affirmative genealogy, a certain strength for my commitment to values.
This is not an uncritical, selective attitude to history, but it is an awareness that I was not born with my values. That I cannot speak about my values without getting into the terrain of narration, so to speak. I have to explain to people why I find certain things
Deeply convincing, and as soon as I do that, they can argue with me, both about on the narrative level, let’s say they can say: the last time, you told me a different story about yourself. Or last time, you described German history in a different way and so on.
And they can argue with me on the normative level and say: no, I dispute the, what you derive from your experience, or what you derive from historical fact, but there is an intertwinement of our reasoning about history, and our reasoning about our values. – So coming now to our final question.
One of the like motifs, precisely, of your work, has been the relation between the sacred and violence. Between the positive experience of faith as self-transcendence, and what you call its perverted brother of the traumatic experience of violence. If we can bring this in relation to contemporary developments, in 1795,
On your first trip to the United States, when you were digging in American libraries in search of the key to your interpretation of the work of George Herbert Mead, on the one hand, you encountered both, the promise and achievements of American democracy, which are so crucial in understanding the philosophy
Of American pragmatism, but also its perverted manifestation in massive poverty and social inequality, racism, criminality, violence, and social decay. For over 20 years, you’ve been coming regularly, every year as a visiting professor to the department of sociology and to the committee on social thought at the University of Chicago.
How do you see, in this relation, the contemporary intertwinement of the disastrous American response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the widespread societal support for the Black Lives Matter movement? – First, my interest in violence, yes, but it has not mostly been an interest, let’s say, in individual violence, crime.
But in macro violence, eh? War, and the Holocaust. And what I found, the really challenging thing, in connection with my work about religion and experience and so on, is that perpetrators of violence sometimes enjoy the violence they commit. And so I’ve written a theory in one of my two books on war
About this fact; that’s what I call the perverted brother. Namely, that when what is characteristic for religious experience and for the experience that leads to all sorts of value commitments, including secular values, is what I call self-transcendence. Namely that you feel captivated by something that draws you beyond the boundaries of yourself,
Something similar happens in acts of violence. But similar only in the sense of that. In other respects, it is radically different, of course. While you may open yourself to the other, in let’s say, positive experiences like love, the boundaries of yourself are opened by others, using force against your will.
And that leads us to recognizing strange parallels between let’s say the need we feel when we had an ecstatic experience, namely, to articulate it and to share it with others. And our inability to talk about traumatic events in our life, and the long and slow process
That we have to go through to become able to articulate these experiences. Now, so that was the first part of your question on violence. Now, my experience of the US and particularly one could say in connection with your question of the South Side in Chicago, it is true
That when I and my wife first arrived there, in 1975, we could hardly believe what we saw. I mean, the degree of poverty. The, the, yeah, the way, the whole situation was broken, so to speak, we could hardly believe that. And I could talk for hours about the intensity
And the shocking character of this. I mean, given the fact that we came and I would call myself and my wife something like ardent defenders of the social democratic welfare state, I could hardly believe that this is true. And of course, at the time, and with a somewhat idealized
Image of American democracy in mind, I thought this is a problem that exists right now, but this is such a great country, they will certainly be able to solve that problem in the coming years. Now I must say, that this was not true. Although things constantly change, I mean,
The character of specific street changes, the University of Chicago may buy some buildings, adjacent to the campus, so to speak, in principle, not much has changed. And even under President Obama, to be honest, I’m very disappointed in this regard, not much has changed. So I certainly experienced the current Black Lives Matter
Movement as perhaps, nobody knows that yet, a crucial step forward in that regard. Although, I would also like to add that the mechanisms for the long term, let’s say suppression, of the urban poor in the United States, and of the Black urban poor, are probably more complex
Than the mere term “racism” is able to express. – So Hans, thank you so much for all these insights and ideas. We can now move to the question and answer period. We have about 25 minutes. Let me begin with a question from Professor Bill Barbary
From Catholic University of America, who says: Hi, Hans. Here is my question for you today. In light of your comments about affirmative genealogy, and your own historical and existential location, I wonder how you think your development of critical alternatives to Habermas and Weber has been saved
By the fact that in contrast to these two thinkers, you are not unmusical when it comes to religion. – Yeah, let’s say, as a religious person, in an extremely secularized environment, I mean me being Catholic, living in Berlin, to put it concretely, of course,
If you are not, let’s say, excluded from secular dominated intellectual discourse, you are constantly confronted with the question: but how? Why are you a believer? Where does your faith come from? And so on. And so I’m used to answer these questions, so to speak, on an autobiographical level.
Now, I will not get into that, but the abstract conclusion from that is: nobody in a highly individualized culture can answer this question by simply referring to his or her childhood background. You definitely have to say that you, in your own life, had certain experiences that either, let’s say, strengthened your original commitment,
Or that brought you to such a strong commitment. And this structure, how do we speak about the origin of our basic commitments? That is exactly that, what I defended methodologically a few minutes ago. Now I am saying: but this is not only true for religious people.
It is true for people with a strong emotional commitment to secular values as well. They cannot say: I came to my commitment to, let’s say, a secular understanding of human rights just through reasoning. They have to admit that something happened in their lives that made them so intensely committed.
And so I derive from the fact that I have a religious biography a kind of structure of possible argumentation for our value commitments, and this possible argumentation for value commitments is different from Habermasian, rational argument about cognitive, and he would say normative, validity claims. – There is a related question coming from
Sergio Gader, a Jesuit and PHD student at the Hochschule für Philosophie in Munich. And he asks: would you elaborate on the connection between transcendence and the absolute or the sacred, and the normativity of values, in the sense and the relationship you find between religion and morality
And whether there has been an evolution in your perspective on this relationship in your recent work? – Okay, that’s a complex question, or a complex of questions, I would say. Maybe first I say: please bear in mind that in my terminology that may be a little bit unfortunate,
But I will not change my terminology now, after decades, so to speak. There is a difference between self-transcendence and transcendence. Self-transcendence, for me, is a descriptive psychological term, applied to the processes in which people have the experience that something draws them beyond the boundaries of their self.
Transcendence is a kind of metaphysical term, namely a sharp distinction between the mundane and something different, called the transcendent. That is not given in the whole course of human history, but that like moral universalism and in the certain connection with moral universalism, emerged at certain points and in history,
Like in the Axial Age. Now with regard to norms, I make a rather strict distinction between values and norms; values for me, are attractive. Norms are restrictive. Now, we certainly derive restrictive norms from our values. My favorite example to illustrate that is, even if I’m purely, let’s say, attracted by somebody.
Like, in love and friendship. Something restrictive follows from this attraction. Nobody can say: I have a very close commitment to this friendship, now my friend is sick; I don’t care. But if I do care, something follows from that. I will not do certain things I might have enjoyed.
Because I will visit this friend, help this friend, or whatever. So we derive normative restrictive things from our values. But the values are not the only and exclusive source of normativity; I follow Piaget and others, Mead, for example, in also thinking that the structures of action, themselves, have normative implications,
Like the rules of fairness and so on. So, there is a very complex interplay of values and norms in our individual lives, and in history. So ideas about transcendence in the metaphysical sense, for example, probably lead to ideas about humanity in the sense of mankind and moral universalism,
But how exactly we translate these ideas about the reference point, mankind, into specific moral or legal norms, depends on many intervening processes that I cannot spell out within a second. – A related question comes from Paolo Costa, from the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Italy. Namely: do you see the COVID-19 pandemic
As a collective limit experience, that could lead to the genesis of new values? – Yeah, Paolo, this is a very good question. I recently said in an interview that what is so striking about this pandemic is that in one crucial respect, it differs from other societal crises.
In general, I assume that a societal crisis, let’s say a major depression, a war, collapse of a regime and so on, in a sense that brings people closer together. At least, particular groups of people. I mean, not denying that there may be very hostile relationships among different groups,
But within those groups, people come closer together. They identify with each other in such a difficult situation. Now, in this pandemic, what is lacking is exactly the opportunity to come closer together. One could put that in the literal sense, so it makes us more lonely. And not more collective.
And I really do not know, and I do not want to make unfounded predictions, what the result of a crisis is that isolates people in the corporeal sense, from each other instead of producing a kind of enthusiastic public. In that sense, I’m also less optimistic than others,
Who think that this crisis is, might be, a turning point in the direction of more solidarity. But actually, I do not know, and it is probably too early to judge. And we have to bear in mind that the societal conditions differ very much from country to country.
I mentioned before, speaking about the South Side in Chicago, that I’m an ardent defender of the welfare state. I think that the current crisis also, I mean, at least for me, strengthens the commitment to the welfare state; the crisis is much less dramatic under conditions of a welfare state than it is
If the welfare state is as weak as it is in the US. – Then we have a very broad question from Andrew Condon. Do you feel that in this time of technological, digital socialization, the notion of transculturalism faces some impact on the adoption of intersubjectivity as a theory?
– Again, I’m not totally sure that I understand the question. But I certainly think that, under present conditions, we do not live in one culture, exclusively. But that our contact with people from other cultures and the availability of elements from other cultures has become much stronger and that affects intersubjectivity,
But in the sense of a greater challenge, so to speak. I mean, it’s certainly easier to understand people, with whom you share many cultural features than people who you first experience as being very far from your own cultural background. On the other hand, that is exactly what may make these encounters more fascinating.
– So, Hans, my dear friend, I would like to thank you very, very much, for your willingness to participate in this conversation, which for me, really, really was fascinating. And I would also like to thank the entire audience, everybody who came and participated in the webinar, for their interest.
Thank you so much to everybody. And at this point, I would like to announce that the next conversation, our third conversation in our series on global religious and secular dynamics is scheduled for August 16th, again, a Thursday at the same time, at 12:30, with the Turkish French sociologist Nilufer Gole.
We will be discussing her work on Islam (indistinct) in Turkey, in France, and throughout Europe. So, I hope to welcome many of you to this webinar. Thank you so much and goodbye.
Welcome back to the NOC course on qualitative research methods my name is Aradhna Malik and Im helping you with this course and we discussed lot of things about qualitative research we talked what it is we have talked about philosophical background the Paradigms
The strategies of inquiry methods of data collection and analysis Now we are going to move towards closure of this course these are the last few sessions So we will start closing up the course you know through these lectures today we will
Talk about interpretation we will talk about what interpretation is How it can be performed or how it can be presented And will also talk about a few new strategies of interpretation so lets see what we have today Interpretation what is interpretation Interpretation is a clarification explication or explanation
Of the meaning of some phenomenon And this is again from this book by Schwandt and from the same book the same dictionary of qualitative research terms we have the reference is the same for both Judgment is a considered deliberate opinion based on good reasons
So these two terms are many times used interchangeably cannot interchangeable but interpretation does lead to judgment so when we interpret something be clarified it in our minds we explain it we describe it in our minds and then we form excuse me a and opinion about
It based on our interpretation of the phenomenon or series of events So these two terms are linked and used very very frequently in both qualitative and quantitative research Characteristics of interpretation: Interpretation is subjective interpretation in qualitative research is subjective it is contextual it is it varies from how the researcher has situated
The phenomenon within a particular context it includes the contextual situatedness of the researcher and the research It includes the biases and the prejudices of the researcher we gone through this many times I am not going to go into detail about it
It also includes the training and wordview of the researcher We have also discuss this point in a previous class so we know how one is trained to carry out the research affects how one interprets what one has the data one has collected and analyzed how has one been
Trained to look at this data how has one been trained to filter out the sense making data from the data that does not make sense at that point in time with reference to that particular context but may be used later on to add to the knowledge that is created
So how does one divide of the data into meaningful data today and data that could be meaningful as a result of this interpretation tomorrow so that all that depends on what one has been trained to look at what one is really looking at in terms of publications you see ultimately
We are all researchers and very finite tangible output of research is Publication It gives us numbers it gives us something that we can hold and touch and measure and see how many people cited it in terms of finding it useful so that is one tangible output
So what how one interprets data could also be influenced by where one intends to publish or how publishable the material the interpretation could be and all of these things we need to be honest about these things all of these things matter to a researcher now we cannot
Be totally removed from what we are studying we cannot be totally disconnected from what we are studying Qualitative research says yes the researched and researched have a relationship and despite this relationship or as a result of this relationship something new something unique emerges or
As result of this relationship the analyses is richer so that is where qualitative research focus this Okay Interpretation in terms of critical ethnography is likely to produce narratives about people in everyday and ordinary situations and in doing so politicize the everyday world illuminating
The structures and processes that shaped individuals lives and their relations with others which is likely to nurture civic transformation So we are you know when we talk about interpretation in terms of critical ethnography ethnography carried out with a purpose to highlight the problems
The sources of oppression the sources of the disconnect between the sources of hierarchy in social situations the sources of one community of people feeling uncomfortable and disadvantage than the other been perceived as privileged or more Elite or advantage class so we know
The significant events the significant phenomena normal life nobody wants to study normal life very few you have questions and nobody very few people want to study normalcy because it doesnt yield anything But we see the significant events significant phenomenal that really attract our attention
And what critical ethnography does is critical ethnography studies why this difference exist we are attracted to it because there is a difference and as researchers we also want to know why we are attracted to it in addition to why does this why does this difference even exist
And why is this difference leading to one group of people feeling disadvantage and one group of people feeling or be perceived as privileged One group of people feeling oppressed and the other be perceived as the oppressors Little bit of revision we had talked about the art of interpretation when we just started
Talking about what qualitative research was and we talked about interpretation being the last Phase or the fifth phase in the process of qualitative research We had talked about how interpretation takes place So lets go through the steps the researcher first creates
A field text consisting of field notes and documents from the field that is indexing and file work Then the writerasinterpreter move from this text to a research text which is notes and interpretation based on the fields text This text is then recreated as a working interpretive
Document that contains the writers initial attempts to make sensor out of what he or she has learned And finally the writer produces the public text that comes to the reader The Reader could be the peers reader could be the general public will talk about how
Policy how social policy is connected to qualitative research in the upcoming lectures will see how qualitative research can help social policy So you know we produce research documents we produce papers we produce monographs we also as qualitative researchers produce documents that can stimulate public action
So we talked about public action research participate sorry we talked about participatory action research so it can also qualitative research can also stimulate it can also provide an impetus to research that is going on or it can provide an impetus to research that
Should be carried out to help solve problems of day to day life by really going into specific situation then seeing what the specific situation are and helping the people there so that is what the ultimate output is So we produce documents that can help the or stimulate these discussions and actions okay
Impact of critical ethnography what does critical ethnography do We talked about Civic transformations: Critical ethnography presents the status of day today life with the stimulus for moral compassion and ground for sound decision making followed by a call to action So when we talk
About ethnography we discussed what ethnography is we describe what is there then we write it up in such a way that it stimulates sound decisions making and also brings to the fore I wont say highlight but brings to the fore the decisions that can be made to help the
Situation and this then followed by call to action so we say okay this is what it is this is what can be and this is how we can do it so that what it is so that the current situation can be improved okay
Critical ethnography also promotes interpretive works that raise public and private consciousness These work help persons collectively work through decision making process They help isolate choices core values utilize expert in local system of knowledge and facilitate deliberative civic discourse and so we reproduce works that can stimulate these decisions for social benefit
Critical ethnography also gives a chance to convey research findings to stakeholders through appropriate narratives It encourages participative discourse among stakeholders and researchers They talk to each other they see whats going on there life is described it its taken back
To them our understanding is defined in light of the stakeholders feel and it promotes the form of textuality that turns citizens into readers and readers into persons who can take democratic action in the world So its on the one hand it provides an analysis of the current day today situation with the
Feelings associated with that situation situated with the observations situated within that context so that the stakeholders can also relate to it they can realize that the researcher is really keen on doing something to help the situation and then it stimulates them
It motivates them to become people can actually do something for their own situation so that is the real goal of critical ethnography okay Writing norms for an ethnographic writing project accuracy is one we need to be absolutely accurate correct Interpretive sufficiency written accounts should possess depth detail
Emotionality nuance and coherence Nonmaleficence we should dont have the intention to hurt anyone right to know making ones moral position public I am on this side because I support your cause because I am I do not support this because Honesty the text must be realistic concrete as to character setting atmosphere and dialogues
It must be clear crisp accurate honest not written with the intention of hurting anyone but written with the intention of just highlighting bringing to the fore situations that can be resolved bringing to the fore problems that can be solved to make everybody is life better
How do you perform ethnography challenges in performance ethnography is how to construct perform and critically analyze performance texts We had talked a little bit about performance text in the past performance text or texts that a written about the performances who performed texts have narrators drama action shifting points of view and make experience
Concrete anchoring it in the here and now It is understood that experience exist only in its representation it does not stand outside the memory of perception So the meanings of facts are always reconstituted in the telling as they are remember that connected to the other events We are talking about remembering
Something we are talking about representing something as it is retained in our memory as we have connected it to our drawing parallels between a computer folder and our memory traces We store whatever we see and hear in our memory with tag into something we already know we
Store it in this folder that we have created in our memory so it is understood that experience exist only in its representation when we talk about experience yes we have a feeling it but then storing the experiences in terms of representing it in terms of you know our
Ability to retrieve it from our memory and replay it for want of a better word So it is stored in our memory and therefore it is influenced by the capacity and the categories the capacity of our memory the categories we have in our brain to hold this information
Etc The meanings of facts are always reconstituted in the telling I see it I hear it I experienced something but when I am telling it it is laden with the emotions are experienced when experiencing it it is laden with what I felt after the experience was over that helped me redefine
What I experienced okay So the meaning of facts are always reconstituted in the telling as they are remembered and connected to other events why would we remember an event only when it would have some significant value for us how many was remember the people we saw while travelling from our place of
State or place of work Many times people just passed by how many time to be remember how many stray dogs crossed our path unless a stray dog comes in front of your car and you have to accidentally break
The car and the dog just smiles at you and walks away wagging its tail probably expressing is gratitude to you for not running over it that would stick out in our memory But stray dogs walk on the roads all the time how many us would remember what breed of dog
Or what kind of stray dog crossed our path when we were going from my home to the office in the morning so all of these things are stored in our memories for a particular reason then and the motion experience you maybe a dog lover but only when you see a stray dog
About to come under your car and you have the opportunity to stop the car bring your car to a screeching halt And then you will see gratitude in the dogs eyes and the dog tail wagging that the emotions and multiplied you experience the different set of emotions at that point of time you
Dont see that you dont feel the same emotions when different types of stray dogs pass by those emotions are then reflected in how you convey that experience The writer narrating the ethnographic account recreates in the minds eye a series of emotional
Moments Life is when retraced through that moment interpreting the passed from the point of view of the present We have discussed this ad nauseam in the context of reflexivity so not going to go into the details go back and forth back and forth back and forth between what we see now what we
Experience in the past with distance ourselves we see things from the perspective of a researcher go back into the situation experience it understand it experience it understand it An aesthetic of color and critical race theory: A feminist or a member of a specific community
Or raised or ethnic group now they be the article by Denzin mentioned a lot of things but I am not going to go into the specific details just trying to be at neutral as possible a member of a specific community race or ethnic group uses art photography music dance poetry
Painting theatre cinema performance texts autobiography narrative storytelling and poetic dramatic language to create critical race consciousness thereby tending the significant events in the history of the specific community or race or ethnic or cultural group into the future So these practices serve to implement critical race theory
We take whatever has been experienced by a specific cultural group and ethnic group racial groups and we replay we use various forms of expression to capture what is being experienced and to capture the significant events that highlight the uniqueness of these experiences
They are not day today experiences they highlight and these experiences then you know sometimes they highlight the significant events in the history or these forms of expression highlight the significant events in the history of the race culture ethnic group etcetera And then we use those experiments captured through the expression of historical events
And we use them as basis for communicating what the specific culture or community or racial group would like things to be like in the future So we say this is what happened this is how we have expressed what happened and this is how we can change it and this
Is how we express it would be would like it to be and we use these different art forms to project these things okay So that is another form of critical ethnography okay Understandings that help create this critical race consciousness and again all of this relates
To interpretation we interpret the past events experienced by a specific community group racial ethnic group through art forms we experience we understand what is going on by a closed observation of the art forms also we also the art forms also tells us what can be done
To change that experience into more pleasant one okay or how would this let community like its these events or its perceptions about itself to be seen in the future okay Now ethics aesthetics political praxis and epistemology are joined every act of representation
Artistic or research is a political and ethical statement this is what it is this is what you would like it to be and here is why Claims to truth and knowledge are assessed in terms of multiple criteria including asking if a text: Interrogates existing cultural sexist
And racist stereotypes especially those connected to family femininity masculinity marriage and intimacy We want to know what is going on different texts are interrogated and this relates to day to day life significant events in day today life It gives primacy to concrete lived
Experience It uses dialogue and ethics of personal responsibility values beauty spirituality and love of others It implements an emancipatory agenda committed to equality freedom social justice and participatory democratic practices And it emphasizes community collective action solidarity and group empowerment Now claims to truth and knowledge are assessed
In terms of whether that text A: captures what is going on B: describes what is going on in terms of why it is wrong or explain what is going on in terms of why it is wrong Why it should be captured by the significant And C: It provides directions for how the
Situation can be changed to enhance to make the lives of those involved better that is a simple oversimplified explanation of what we just read through okay The Other understandings are No topic is Taboo every topic every topic is discussed in detail
It presumes an artist and social researcher is a part of and a spokesperson for a local moral community a community with its own symbolism method mythology and heroic figures It asks that the writerartist draw upon the vernacular folk and popular culture forms of representation including proverbs work songs etcetera
It includes a search for texts speak to disadvantaged and vulnerable or oppresses groups it seeks artists and researchers writers who produce works that speak to and represent the needs of the community It is understood that no single representation or work can speak to
The collective needs of the community Rather local communities are often divided along racial ethnic gender residential age and class lines So we use all of these forms of expression One: no topic is Taboo Two: the social researcher
Is a part of that local community is rooted in the local community is situated there feels the things that the local community is feeling and then understand that the researchers can drop on the various forms of expression that the community is engaging in It includes a
Search for text that that talk about disadvantaged groups it also try to find out the representation of these disadvantages and representations of the needs of the community And it also realizes that no single representation captures the entire gamut of experiences entire
Gamut of the needs of the community but still each text is representation is unique and valuable in itself What do these texts do These texts are expected to be grounded in the distinctive styles rhythms idioms and personal identities of local folk and vernacular culture These as historical
Documents these texts record the histories of injustices experienced by the members of oppressed group They show how members of local group have struggled to find places of dignity and respect in a violent racist sexist civil society These texts are sites of resistance this texts tell you what life is like they capture these
Moments they make them revisitable they are sites of resistance the places where meanings politics and identities a negotiated So the texts the way these texts are written provides an interpretation or they are representations of how these meanings were created and how
These created shared meanings can be used to change the things in the future okay So aesthetics and cinematic practices that inform and shape the narrative of texts documenting these practices So how do the cinematic practices these dramatic performing sorry this performing arts these expressions shape the narrative of texts documenting these practices these
Interpretations The experiments with narrative forms folk ballads etcetera are some of the ways in which the narrative of texts is shaped The use of improvisation miseenscene and montage fill the screen with multiracial images and to manipulate bicultural visual and linguistic codes The use of personal testimonials life
Stories voiceovers and offscreen narration to provide overall narrative unity to texts Celebration of key elements in the culture under study especially the themes of resistance maintenance affirmation and neoindigenism for example finding new ways of respecting old traditions or maintaining old beliefs or mestizaje (Mexican word that means mixing
Ancestories) there by challenging assimilation and melting pot narratives So we celebrate how the culture is evolving so all of these things shape the narratives of texts documenting these practices Then rejection of essentializing approaches to identity and emphasis on a processual gendered
Performance view of self and the location of identity within not outside of systems of cultural and media representation So essentializing approaches to identity are rejected and theres an emphasis on the view self that is constantly evolving Refusal to accept official race relations narrative of the culture which privileges
The ideology of assimilation while contending that the oppressed cultures had the capacity to and tried to resist the oppression It is a given fact that oppressed cultures always have some elements that trying to resist the oppression and all that is reflected in and
Through these expressions and that in turn adds to the interpretation of the significant events That even though this was going on something else was happening and that too is captured so everything needs to be captured in its entirety and presented okay
So alright what purpose do these texts serve aesthetics art performance history culture and politics are thus intertwined for an artful interpretive production cultural heroes heroines mythic pasts and senses of moral community are created It remains to chart the future
To return to the beginning to reimagine the ways in which qualitative inquiry and interpretive ethnography can advance the agendas of radical democratic practice to ask where these practices will take us next So that is how these texts you know we take these and then I go back and then we try and
Imagine how qualitative inquiry and interpretive ethnography can take these experiences and take these agendas of radical democratic practice and ask what and how our interpretations as qualitative researchers will shape these experiences in the future Criteria critical ethnography must meet: it must have written summary of literary craftsmanship
The art of good writing It should present a wellplotted compelling but minimalist narrative This narrative should be based on realistic natural conversation with a focus on memorable recognizable characters which should be located in welldescribed unforgettable scenes So one has to have a good grasp over the writing
The work should present clearly identifiable cultural and political issues including injustice is based on the structures and meanings of race gender class etcetera The work should articulator politics of hope It should criticize how things are and imagine how they could
Be different It should do these things through direct and indirect symbolic rhetorical means and researchers who write the above are expected to be fully immersed in the operations and injustices of that time Researchers need to know whats going on they need to feel the same thing that the members
Of the community at that point in time are feeling they need to be able to understand things from the inside as insiders and from the outsiders researchers and they need to be able to master this dance of going back and forth between the researched and the researcher
And then present an overview of how things are and how they could be So that is what critical ethnographers must do And that is where we will stop today that is as I know I will probably left you with
Some ideas that you may need to explore later but I just wanted to take the discussion regarding interpretation little further and give you food for thought If you remember right in the beginning of the course I told you that I need to leave you my intention is to leave
You with many more questions that you than you came here with I need to leave you I am trying to leave you with a lot of questions lot of stimuli for further thought and genuine quest for knowledge in this area thank you very much for listening
>> PAUL: Hi everyone, my name is Paul Raushenbush. I am the senior advisor for public affairs and innovation at Interfaith Youth Core. I am thrilled about this conversation. Thank you for joining us, I am honored to be with this group of interfaith pioneers, I have
Been working in this field for a long time. I view these four panelists as pioneers in interfaith work who have made space in the workplace for people to come as they are, in the fullness of themselves as religious people, as spiritual people, no matter what
The world view. They add to the richness of the grand mix of what makes the company or an organization an excellent place to work, and a good place to spend a lot of our time which is what we do at work. We spend a lot of our lives there. These people have helped
Make individuals feel less alone, they have helped communities enjoy the diversity, the richness that exists within that space. Over the next hour, we are going to talk about interfaith, ERG which is employee resource groups or business resource groups as our
Twitter friend will explain to us. Then also, we will have a chance to hear from your questions, we want to know what goes into these things, we want to know what some of the needs are that they have met. What is the future of this kind of work in organizations and corporations?
This is a discussion between all of us and we hope we will all go away enriched and excited about the possibility of interfaith groups and interfaith cooperation located in companies. I want to start by extending my deep thanks to Farah Siddiqui, who is at Salesforce who
Founded FaithForce at Salesforce. Who really helped to organize this panel, she has this network, this wonderful network. Again, thank you very much, Farah. I’m going to do very brief introductions for each of the panelists because what you don’t want to hear is me
Droning on about it. We are going to put their longer bios in the chat, and I urge you to look at each of their bio and find these people because they are doing incredible work. Starting with Farah Siddiqui the manager of trailhead programs and processes at Salesforce and the
Cofounder and global president of FaithForce, Salesforce’s interfaith employee resource group. Dan Eckstein is a director within Accenture media and technology practice, he is the leader of extensions Jewish employee resource globally as well as the lead of interfaith employee resource group in the Northeast. Mike Klose is the cofounder and cochair of Twitter’s
Newest BRG, business resource group Twitter Faith, where he gets to champion faith inclusion at Twitter for his fellow tweeps, which is a new term for me and we will be hearing a little bit about that, around the globe and I encourage you to follow Mike on Twitter
Of course. Becky Pomerleau serves as the director of finance risk management at PayPal where she also co-leads PayPal interfaith diversity and inclusion community. Again, a huge thank you to all of our panelists and I’m going to start with you Farah Siddiqui to talk about
The genesis of FaithForce and a little bit about what are the needs that are unmet and how did you manage to start this interfaith ERG at Salesforce. >> FARAH: Thank you Paul, for a great intro. I’m excited to be here and share a little
Bit about our story at Salesforce and how we brought faith inclusion. Before I go into that, I want to give a little bit of insight into who I am which will kind of feed into why FaithForce came about. I am Muslim, born and raised in Miami, Florida. I grew up with
This identity, it has been part of me my whole life. I would say my interfaith journey has been lifelong. Because in grade school, I was an “only,” in middle school I was in “only,” in the mall I would be the only one looking like myself. In all the spaces
You want to find ways to fit in, ways to belong. I think I did that; I did that through an amazing community that I was supported by with just the Muslim community, the Pakistani community that I was part of. Also, through friendships that I made in school with people
Who are different. My best friend in elementary school was a Jehovah’s Witness. My best friend in high school was a Seventh-day Adventist. Through these relationships, it wasn’t like I was the only odd one out, they were too. We could do it together. We could be different
Together and respect each other. It was just a beautiful kind of upbringing. Being different, it was just normal to me. At the same time, I don’t think anybody likes it. To be the odd one out. Having to put on tights underneath my shorts in gym and everybody look at me
Weird like, why is she doing that? Or not eating the hotdogs during the lunch day, everyone is excited about because I couldn’t, they weren’t halal or kosher. All those things kind of weigh on you, always being a little bi6 left out and feeling that lack of belonging
That you see everybody else around you experiencing. Move on to college, finally, and a lot of the attendees here might be in college right now, or in that university setting. I was actually the president of the Muslim Student Association at my university. Why did I find
That community? Because I wanted to find like-minded people when you are surrounded by people who aren’t like you, to have that community and that support just builds your confidence in your identity. It was such a valuable time for me to find that space of belonging in
The college setting. This was all pre-9/11, then 9/11 happens. Just for my community it was just a very difficult, for the world it was a very difficult time but for the Muslim community in America to be viewed as suspicious and all the stuff, the baggage that went around
With that. There was such a need to go beyond yourself and show people that what you’re seeing in the news, what you’re seeing in the movies, that is not my community. There is so much more to Muslims and my experience is not any of that. How do I go across my
Identity and talk to people and help them see the beauty of my tradition? That is kind of led me to constantly talking and learning, joining events and listening to stories that helped me connect with people who are different. I found so much value in learning about different
Identities. Like the Black expense, LGBTQ experience and seeing my struggle in that story. Like, I relate, whatever you went through, it’s a very different lens of what I went through but at the heart, those feelings were so similar. I heard all these other stories
And I was like where is my story? Where is that faith experience? It just wasn’t as loud, and I just wanted to know if there could be space for it. Then come into work, I’ve been in corporate America for around 12 years and throughout my entire career I’ve been the
Only one who has looked like me and believed like me in the spaces that I was in. An office of 30 people or an office of 200 people, I was the only hijabi woman. Everyone’s nice, everyone’s caring, but do I really belong? There’re walls that I’m creating, there
Are walls that exist because of perceptions I know people have about my faith and they just don’t know how to talk to me about it. Can we talk about it? Can we break down those walls? At Salesforce there is already a culture of belonging, of allyship, but there just
Wasn’t that faith narrative. I just reached out to the office of equality, and asked a question to the program owner there saying, “can we add an element of faith inclusion, can we try an interfaith group?” He was down for it and he said let’s do some research
And see what we can come up with. So, we talked to a few different companies to see how they were set up and how they approached it. We didn’t really see an interfaith model; we saw a lot of faith-based models. I just knew I didn’t want to go that route, I wanted to
Find a space for myself to be able to be supported in who I am but I wanted to go beyond myself too, because there is so much value in going outside of yourself and learning about the other. How can we combine that – be your authentic self, confidence in who you are,
But also build those relationships across divides, in my case religious divides, but everything else too. FaithForce came about, we put a charter together and pitched it to our executives and they said let’s do it! No pushback, maybe a little bit, make sure
We know—how are we going to address if this happens, or that happens, there’s always concerns when you talk about religion at work? Our charter was very clear how we were going to address it. We have an HR structure at a company just like any others, so any issues we can
Just direct in the right channels. When it comes to inclusion and belonging, recognizing that faith is just a part of our identity. When we say bring your full self to work, that part is included. You couldn’t really argue against it. We got set up and launched
In five cities initially. Since then, we have grown to over 17 cities across five continents, 3000+ members of all different faith backgrounds. It has been an amazing journey; we have 50,000 employees at Salesforce, and I need to reach them all. The work is not done, but just really
Excited to be able to make a difference in my own little way. >> PAUL: Thank you so much, that was inspiring. Mike, can you tell us about your experience at Twitter? >> MIKE: For sure, first off for anybody that missed the intro, my name is Mike. I’m one
Of the cofounders and cochairs of Twitter Faith, our multifaith BRG. I use he/him pronouns, Twitter is also hiring for anybody looking for a job. Thank you so much for having me here today, I really, really appreciate this conversation. Just hearing Farah speak and
Sharing a bit of her story, I don’t know how I can follow that. Yeah, when it comes to Twitter Faith, I think I would be remiss not to give credit to a handful of other Twitter employees who, before I ever got involved, they raised their voice to our leadership
To say that faith is missing from our inclusion and diversity work, very similar to what Farah identified. Our Twitter employees which I will probably end up referring to as tweeps just by habit, they indicated to our leadership that we need to get better at this and to
Be honest, I didn’t know, I work in an office that is about 40 people. I’m probably one or two of those 40 people that identify with faith, it is not something I really talk about work or, not used to. I didn’t really know it was even possible to just raise my voice
To our leadership and indicate this. But, I am grateful for other tweeps who did, and we already have amazing work being done with existing BRG’s in our company. If our goal is truly to make Twitter the most inclusive and diverse tech company in the world, then
Faith needs to be represented as its core to the identity of billions of people around the world. Fortunately, we have such a supportive inclusion and diversity team. Making the case for Twitter faith, I don’t think was a huge challenge. Getting it off the ground has been
A very interesting experience to say the least, we launched back in January right heading into a global lockdown. As Paul mentioned, we do call our group a BRG, so a business resource group. The difference there between an ERG and a BRG. The way I see it is that
BRGs are uniquely positioned to not only impact the employee experience, but also have a voice in the policies, the products and services that our company creates and puts out in the world. For example, something that is a work in progress for us right now is, how do we
Tackle the anti-Semitism that is happening admittedly on our platform and how do we get better at getting it off our platform? That is up to us as a BRG, we are able to make the recommendations and have a seat at the table in those conversations. When it comes
To the goal and mission of our BRG, we are multifaith. We were established in order to acknowledge, celebrate and foster understanding of global faith, belief, diversity, both within our company and on our service. That again, that all ladders up to this idea of bringing
Your whole authentic self to work, not feeling like you need to check your faith at the door when you come in, not feeling like you need to head to the parking lot to pray. Not shying away from talking about your beliefs or telling people that you went to church on the weekend,
Or that you prayed about this idea that you had at work. We really want to provide cover for our tweeps and give tweeps permission to practice their faith, both at work and also, through their work. I would just say, the biggest learning that we have had in the
Past eight or so months, in starting this BRG if I can share for anyone who is looking to start one at their company or organization, we spent the bulk of the first bit just really brainstorming ideas, trying to crystallize our principles on what the BRG actually stands
For and shout out to Farah, we might have taken a peek at your charter to get some ideas as well. That was super helpful in helping us clarify, what do we stand for? A lot of trial and error, my biggest learning if you take anything away from what I’m saying, is
To form a team around you, I am nothing without my fellow chairs, without my fellow office ambassadors, we also have a committee internally within Twitter Faith, knowing I am definitely not a subject matter expert in every single faith or belief out there. We have a committee
Of probably about 10 right now tweeps that cover a whole bunch of different faiths that will consult us and answer questions that we have about different observances, holidays or just things about different faiths that I myself wouldn’t know about. That has been
Invaluable to getting things off the ground and establishing processes and really advocating for all of our Tweeps around the world. I will leave it at that, and I don’t want to take up all the time and want to hear from the other folks as well.
>> PAUL: I think it might be helpful actually if you all can find your mission statements or like your principles of operation and it would be great to supply those to the folks listening so that they can walk away with those resources, or we can send out an email
Tomorrow. Becky, do you want to go next? >> BECKY: Absolutely, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here, and to be sharing because a part of our mission for our interfaith group which we call Believe is to not just
Impact within the four walls of PayPal, but also to impact the communities where we do business and beyond. Again, I really appreciate this opportunity. I pick up on a couple of things that Mike and Farah have shared so far. I would also say for those who are interested
In starting, or just in the process of getting started, that benchmarking is so important because it really helps break down some of the concerns that folks may be having. You may have this concern, but look, Salesforce is already doing this, or Twitter is already
Doing this etc. So we, being a tech company in Silicon Valley, we’ve specifically benchmarked with Salesforce, Google, Apple, Facebook, companies that we couldn’t have people within PayPal saying, “Oh, maybe an airline is able to do that, but that is totally a different
Company culture.” We wanted people benchmarked in similar industries as us. Again, it was an appropriate benchmarking and likewise, we had looked at Farah’s charter and kind of the slide that has that here is what we will do, here’s what we’ll not do. We
Have something similar that has been a very effective communication tool because you can put it in the mission statement out there. And then people always. the very next question is, “OK, but what does that really mean in practice?” We likewise have a slide that
We always share accompanying our mission statement that says here is what we are about and here’s what we are not about. We are not about promoting a political agenda, we are not about promoting one faith over another, we are also not about trying to say, well, all faiths are basically
The same. Those are some things that as we also took around a year to get to the point of lunching, have been really key in our journey. I will take a step back and go to some of my personal reasons as well for helping to cofound Believe at PayPal. Six years ago,
I suffered a series of heart attacks. Which, I was someone who had always been an athlete my entire life, I had no pre-existing conditions, no family history of heart disease, so it came as a complete shock. In fact, the damage from the heart attacks were so severe that
Within a day of experiencing my second heart attack, I was in need of a heart transplant, which I was blessed to receive just two weeks later, which is a pretty quick turnaround by most standards, sometimes folks are on the waiting list for months or even sometimes,
Depending on the severity of their condition, a year. On a side note, if you’re not signed up to be an organ donor, please do. But what really helped me through that life alternating, painful experience of waking up in a different hospital like five days later, from skiing
And active one day, to waking up in another hospital learning I needed a heart transplant. My hope and my stability during that time were really my faith. When I was able, seven months later, to come back to work, I was thinking, that sense, that source of hope,
That source of resiliency, that’s something that I want to be able to bring more fully into my everyday life and into my work. I was very fortunate to have some connections with people in leadership positions at PayPal, who had come from other companies like AMEX
Who did have faith-based employee resource groups and had had them for like 20+ years. Our senior vice president general counsel at the time, former, but at the time, Wanji Walcott was the one who really helped from an executive level champion this. So, you
Can imagine when you have, like, your head of legal saying we should do this, that breaks down a lot of potential barriers that I’ve heard folks have run up against in other companies. And so, for me, it was really about, truly, I know it sounds a little bit cliché, but
Being able to bring that full, your whole self to work. As we were trying to convince our HR folks and our diversity and inclusion programs that there was momentum around this, what really kind of tipped the scales for us is, we had a conscious inclusion training
That everyone at PayPal was going through. One of the things they did in the training was asked people to just throw out some phrases that describe their core identity. They were finding that a lot of people actually were saying phrases or words that made reference
To their faith background. It wasn’t necessarily so much about something that you could visually observe about them, which was where our existing, what at the time we called diversity and inclusion communities, but it was something much deeper than that. Their core identities were much
Deeper than that. Our next decision point also was around, well, should we have an interfaith employee resource group? Or should we have the separate ERGs by faith background? It was really important to our D and I team to make sure that we were being inclusive and
In addition to that, as we were benchmarking with some of the other tech companies that I mentioned, who do have a variety of models. We really looked at what Salesforce was doing and said, gosh, that seems like when we think about making sure we are being inclusive and
That we are actually , when we set out are mission statement to say we want to increase understanding and awareness, we are not going to achieve that mission if we are still in our separate groups. We really want to be functioning together as an interfaith group.
That’s why we chose to go interfaith, we launched in December of last year, it was kind of a soft launch at our corporate headquarters and we did our formal global launch in June of this year. Also, in the virtual world which has had its pros and cons, certainly our programming
Because it is all done virtual is now available to folks around the world. On the other hand, we do lose a little bit of some of that in person connectivity and local office connectivity, but definitely I’m very grateful that I’ve had this opportunity to start our interfaith
Group and get it off the ground. We are at a point now where we’ve been able to get programing in place to have, which we will talk more about in a little bit, you know, things for folks to start engaging in. Our next step and our kind of next challenge is
Really, how do we, now that we are getting, increasing our membership, how do we make sure that we are putting in place the right leadership positions because we have representation from all of the major world religions. We also want to make sure we are bringing in
Representation from humanists, spiritualists that maybe don’t fall into that. Also, just the run the business type of stuff of having a communications chair, a growth chair and those types of things, that is where we are at now is making sure we get people in those
Roles so we can really grow this thing to the vision that we have. >> PAUL: Thank you, thank you. Dan, let us know what Accenture’s doing, and we’ll move on to our next question. >> DAN: Sure, and thank you again for having me. It’s an honor to be with some of my peers
Who are all on the journey of helping our employees at every company bring their whole selves to work as it relates to faith. To me, my background is similar in some respects to what Farah was saying, with the same regard, very different. For me, as an Orthodox Jewish
Person, I grew up in more of a world where my peers and friends, you know, going to private school, Jewish private school, my world was really the Jewish world. It was really only until I came into the workplace where I had that exposure to people that weren’t like
Me. The questions about do I wear a kippah, or do I not wear a kippah. These are questions of how to deal with the food situation when I’m going out for dinner, do you order XYZ or something else? So how open do I share with people about what is important to me,
Related to my faith? Those were deep questions I had to ask myself as I was going into the workplace. I had a couple of jobs and really was solidified in terms of where I was sitting
But it was really only when I came to Accenture and I remember it was probably like a year or so into it, my time here, and I heard about the, our local office, was—had some money
At the end of the fiscal year and made $1000. They heard that I was Jewish and were like, oh, we had a Jewish group, but they never really did anything, do you want the money? I said great, let’s take it, let’s figure out how we’ll be able to spend this to be
Able to engage our employees. We took our Jewish group that then was just like maybe 15 or 20 people in the New York office and we went to Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, which was right around our office in New York. It was our first event where we were bringing
People together and people were saying, wow, this is amazing that we are able to have this happen in the workplace. And then, you know, after that, I heard about this bigger interfaith group which wasn’t necessarily doing a ton, but it was around. At Accenture, it’s been
A journey for us on, you know, an interfaith spectrum. For us, it really started probably around 10 years ago as an affinity circle, which was mostly Christian employees who are gathered around the room to learn and pray together. That is sort of how it started as
A grassroots movement. It was more of an opportunity to really get people of similar like-minded interests together to be able to figure out how do they come together in the work environment. Over the years, our faith groups have really started to spring up into different areas.
Then, that has transitioned into a more formalized structure where we have both the faith groups and we have interfaith. Interfaith is the overall umbrella, then you have different faith groups Muslim, Buddhist, Baha’i, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, atheist, nonbelievers and Sikh,
And we’re now having a stronger alignment at the interfaith level with I and D, inclusion diversity leads, in order to have that tighter integration both with the company but also, between faith and interfaith. So that’s sort of been our structure and for us, one
Of the things that stands out for me is one of our building bridges workshops and what we did was after the series of racial events that happened a couple of years ago and unfortunately still to this day is building these connected workshops to bring our employees together
To talk about these topics. We ended up doing one, specifically around faith. It was just an empowering event where we brought different clergy from all the different faith groups to come in and talk. We ended off the end of the day with a Friday night Sabbath dinner
At a restaurant on the upper West side, where we had an interfaith audience being able to understand from a Jewish faith. What do the Jewish people do on a Friday night? What are the songs they are singing? To be able to experience that both from the Jewish perspectives
And from others who are non-Jewish to be able to share those types of experiences was totally different in the workplace. To me, a lot of our time now is focused on how do we make sure we have those policies and procedures, so a lot around, you know, we’re building
A new office in One Manhattan West, making sure that we have a prayer space and being able to figure out what are the things that help our employees be able to do that. From the perspective of what are the policies that, someone who wants to let’s say, come out
Of the closet, that could be from an LGBT perspective, or a faith perspective, or a disability perspective, it doesn’t make a difference. How do we make those, make sure that employees are empowered to have those types of conversations? It’s so important.
Because if the policies are there to support the employees, then the employees are necessarily going to be able to have the strength to be able to share what is important to them. Making sure that we have the policies and that we empower people. Then, it’s really training
All of our employees, across all levels around these faith accommodations. Being able to train our recruiting teams, our business teams, and finds those opportunities, like what Mike was talking about, of how do we figure out that connection to the business? Is there
A way for us to be able to think through a financial services company that wants to think about how do they bring faith into an investment strategy? How can we as consultants help them through that journey? I think what is important, especially now, is this idea of intersectionality,
Of being able to look at things not just with our own groups but also our neighboring groups. That could be both from an LGBT or racial perspective, trying to see what are the things that bring us together? Because I think that often is the thing that will really solidify
Our relationships is seeing the commonalities that we have and realizing that we are so similar together. That is a little bit about our journey, and we are now on that growth and expansion phase, moving to different locations, expanding our training, being able to really
Be pulled in by the company for these important initiatives versus, you know, the opposite. >> PAUL: I love that, I think I heard that there was actually the new corporate office was going to incorporate a prayer space which, to me, is quite revolutionary. If these groups
Can help influence the architecture of corporate America, that is really something. That’s a good example, you gave a couple good examples of how to concretize the work that you’re doing and what it really means to the employees who are in your companies. I would love for
You each to offer a brief anecdote of a time which really comes to your mind about why the work you are doing matters to people and their lives. If you could each offer just a brief anecdote of a time over the last year or two, when you felt like the work of your
Interfaith ERG or BRG, was really making a solid difference in the life of someone who showed up to work on a certain day. Farah, why don’t you kick us off and we’ll go around. >> FARAH: Sure, I have a couple of examples, you want me to keep it brief, I will try to
Find the best one. One thing is, as a person from a minority group or minority tradition, seeing that support is huge. We see that right now with our Black employees, feeling supported, feeling like your voice is heard, your community’s pain is felt, and work is done to address
It, right? I think that matters so much to our employees. As a Muslim and, you know, you can use this example for a Jewish employee, a Christian employee, there’s so many ways to look at it but, as a Muslim, coming into work when I know there is some crazy stuff
Happening in the world related to my community, it brings you down. It hurts, you want to go into a room and cry, and you have to get out and just do your work and act like nothing is wrong and that is hard. To come into work and actually, people hear about the Christchurch
Shooting, and your manager texting you in the morning saying, “Are you OK? Everything all right? If you need to take a break, go ahead.” The fact that they feel comfortable enough to reach out and say that to me now, the past 10 years no one ever said anything
About anything. It is just such a testament to the value of just creating that group, that space, that this is okay to talk about guys. Your Jewish employee is hurting right now, it’s OK to ask them if they are OK, to give them the day off if they need it.
Just like we are doing for our Black employees who need to know that we understand, and we care, and we are here to support you. At Salesforce, after Tree of Life, after Christchurch, after the Sri Lanka shootings, after these events the impacted our faith communities, where
We knew they were hurting we rallied together as a company and had these healing circles and brought in speakers from different faith traditions. For the Tree of Life example, we brought in a rabbi to share some beauty around the Jewish traditions on just explaining
About grief, and mourning, and support, and community. It was just a beautiful time to sit with their Jewish employees and listen to them and say that we are here if you need us and, as a company, we support you. And just donating where we can donate to help
Support, right? We did the same thing for Christchurch and the Muslim communities. That being shown love, and support, and seeing the tweets from your CEO, just, I never expected something like that at work. To see that FaithForce was able to help this come about. Because,
As Mike mentioned, it doesn’t take one person, it takes a team. We have an amazing team of global leaders, regional leaders, executives who are just so supportive of this message. So, I think that has been so empowering for employees to see that support. For Sikh employees
As well, right? It doesn’t matter what your identity is, we are here to support you and that is known now at the company and I think that is pretty huge. >> PAUL: Thank you. Becky, do you want to go next?
>> BECKY: At PayPal, we have other companies as well, I think you’ve used the word allyship, right? And we have an acronym for allyship—the “A” stands for “act,” “listen, learn, and yield your privilege.” In terms of ally, right? That’s how we kind of help teach
People how to be an ally, not necessarily in that order, because you should probably listen and learn before you act. A lot of our events in our year one here are focused around the listening and learning. A shout out to Farah, she was a guest speaker at an
Event that we hosted, a learning event that we hosted around Ramadan. And really describing for attendees not only what is Ramadan and how is it celebrated, but specifically, based how it is celebrated, how can you support your Muslim colleagues in the workplace? For
Example, please do not schedule meetings at the time that they are breaking their fast because they have not eaten all day, and this is their chance to actually get to eat. Or during Ramadan, please don’t, while people are fasting during the day, let’s not schedule
A big smorgasbord type of event for everyone, except your Muslim colleague feels left out because they cannot partake in that event. So, coming out of that event, what was really I think a key win for us, is that our Muslim colleagues were saying how, Farah talked about
This already, but how it made them feel so included when there were all these people not of the Muslim faith attending the event, and actively wanting to, having that natural curiosity, and actively wanting to learn about it. When we have Muslim events, it is not,
OK, so all the Muslim people show up. We have Muslim events and the Christian, and the Jewish, and the atheist and everyone else show up in addition to the Muslims. But to really learn about it, to build those bridges even within our faith communities so that we can
Support each other in the workplace. >> PAUL: Great. Mike? >> MIKE: When I think about impacts of Twitter Faith so far, I think that one thing we discovered pretty quickly was that a really easy entry point for people into the conversation around
Faith is food. Normally, in non-COVID times, we would be gathering around a table with our friends, and our families, and communities and sharing a meal, and having conversation. But, obviously, that is not possible right now. But even still, food provides a way to
Break down barriers. Take that, alongside this idea that faith is fun. I think we get so caught up sometimes in being really serious about faith, there is a time and a place for sure, don’t get me wrong. When I think of my beliefs in the Bible, it says the joy of
The Lord is your strength. At Twitter Faith, we are trying to find ways—How do we make faith fun and accessible and create an entry point for people? Over the course of the past six months, we put on now four different virtual events where, for four different faith traditions
And occasions, Tweeps have done a cooking demonstration for some kind of a dish or baked good that relates to the occasion that they are celebrating. We started with Purim a few months back, where a Tweep made these hamantaschen cookies, which were so deliciously looking,
I didn’t taste it myself. From there, we moved on to Orthodox Easter, where another Tweep from Ireland did a baking demo of this cake she was making. Then, we moved on to Islamic new year which is not so much the most celebratory type of occasion, but it does call for a meal
With community and family, and it’s through that demonstration that we are able to start to explain traditions to people, start to share what it is that we believe and why we believe it. How we celebrate it, also during this time what makes it hard to celebrate.
I think it is really meaningful for our Tweeps to share with their colleagues like yeah, Rosh Hashanah, it really sucked that I couldn’t have a meal with my entire family, but I made this challah bread and it looks so wonderful. We’ve really been prioritizing things like
That and the impact that we’ve seen, is that this conversation around faith is going outside of the borders of just people’s faith, but into the rest of the company as well. That is what we are looking to do more of in the future.
>> DAN: For me, I would, obviously I think what Farah mentioned specifically around the leadership around when those tragedies occur I think has been super uplifting for me. I remember after the Pittsburgh shooting, seeing a text message from the head of HR, Ellyn
Shook at Accenture, when she texted me like, Dan, are you okay? Can you talk? At that point we just ended the Shabbos and I had no clue what was going on. I was wondering, am I going
To get fired. At the end of the day, being able to have that relationship with our leadership and, you know, getting on the phone with the CEO that night and her saying, “I’m going to personally write a note to the community.” I was just shocked and in awe and inspired
By that and it meant a lot. For me, my story would be aligned to something that my friend Elan Kogutt reminded me of recently. One of our first events after that Fiddle on the Roof event was something called Dating, Dining, and Devotion. We had each of our faith leads
Talk about how their faith group relates to romance, food, dietary laws, prayer, and meditation. It was a great event and a packed audience. It was exciting to see how everyone was together. A couple days later, someone came over to me, he was a colleague—he was a project manager,
And he told me a story about how he was leading this team and it was a virtual team. He had one analyst who always went MIA on a Friday afternoon, he had no idea where he was, he
Would IM him, never got a response. All of a sudden, from coming to our event, he heard about the Jumu’ah prayer, and heard about that going on Friday, and had no clue that Muslims pray then. He approached his colleague and he talked about his own faith as an Orthodox
Jewish person and observing the sabbath. It came out that, he was saying that he was also an observant Muslim, and he felt uncomfortable talking about his faith in the workplace. This manager and employee now built this greater bond together where they have this new shared
Understanding with each other. They are able to bring that into this new workplace and have this understanding, this analyst and now they are able to go and have the strength to say, hey, I can talk about this. It’s not something that I need to keep to myself
And just go MIA because you’re scared about who you are. That to me, is one of the most important examples to be talking about, is because throughout everything, if we don’t empower each of you who are listening, to talk about these topics, then we are not going
To be able to have that kind of inclusive environment, people want to see people that look like them, that sound like them and that have similar interactions like them. Whether you are the same faith belief or not from someone else, just the ability for you to
Be able to talk about it, even if you are an atheist, to be able to talk about what you believe in, has been—has opened the eyes of so many different people. So, Paul, over to you for the Q&A.
>> PAUL: All right, we do have some really great questions. I don’t – we’ll – you can each take one or two of them. It started, one of the interesting things that’s coming up in a few questions is training. Like, how are you trained to be an interfaith leader?
Some of you may have trained in higher ed to do this, others of you may not have any training. I am curious because we have someone who is talking about, Matt mentioned, on Facebook, that he is working with college students to develop a set of skills that would help lead
An interfaith, this kind of interfaith effort. He’s curious, like, if you were looking for an employee who would be able to bring this to the workplace, what would be the skill set that they would need? Were each of you trained in this? Did you learn it on the job?
Did you self-teach? Maybe one or two of you could answer this question—anybody feel inspired to take this? >> FARAH: I will take a stab at it; I’ve had zero training. I don’t think training is necessary, I think an open heart is necessary. I think kindness is necessary, right? Like,
What skill set would you bring to a leader, or people that I envision taking over when I retire. It’s just somebody who is empathetic, who’s kind, who’s caring, when they see difference, they don’t just argue with it, they learn to respect it. How do you build
That? You build it through religious literacy training, I would just read up on different traditions, get to know people who are different from you, expand your circles. That’s kind of what I would advise in terms of skill sets. I think, build a kind, soft heart, but I’m
Sure maybe others have had actual training and you can chime in. >> DAN: It’s funny because I feel like if you look at some of the other employee resources groups, like there’s like, if there is a disability group or an LGBT group or an African-American
Group, the question generally isn’t like, oh, what training have you had? It’s a question from a faith perspective of like, other faith is so sensitive that we need to make sure that you have training because you can mess this up. I think to your point Farah, I think
One of the things I always share with people is you just got to try and do something. You sometimes could get so woven into I want to make sure every I is dotted and T is crossed,
But you just got to do something and figure out, how am I going to engage employees? You have to figure out for yourself, how am I as an individual? It’s that introspection that each of us need to have is, how are we going to look at ourselves and say, “you
Know what? These are my experiences and I didn’t think of myself as a leader and I didn’t think of myself as an industry expert, but I have my own expenses and I can bring those to the table.” For me, that was sort of the eye-opening piece for me is not realizing
That it was just a Jewish person who was coming to work, but I was a Jewish person who had experiences that I can now bring light to other people as well. I think that to me was the exciting part. >> PAUL: Becky or Mike, do you feel –
>> BECKY: Likewise, I’ve had no formal training in this space and it’s more of a learning by doing. Some of the best advice that I was given along the journey of starting are two things that hopefully can be key takeaways for our audience. The first is, seek first
To understand. Similar to what Farah was mentioning in terms of an open heart. As you approach these situations where you may be getting into difficult conversations with people whether it’s about faith or otherwise, that is the type of skill set or characteristic that you
Would be looking for as an interfaith leader. Somebody who seeks first to understand and doesn’t just come in with like, “well, this is my approach or my way.” The second thing is, to be a magnet and not a detractor. If your intent is to attract people and be a
Magnet, you are going to approach how you run interfaith very differently than maybe someone who is kind of a “my way or the highway” type of situation. I will say that for myself, I realize I haven’t mentioned that I am a Christian. Everyone else has made
Some reference to that but I’m also of the Christian faith, which is a faith that says that there is one truth, there is one path to heaven. I had some initial internal struggle on this, should do interfaith or separate ERGs, because I’m like, well, am I giving
A platform for the other faiths where people could choose to convert to that faith or something. As I really prayed about that internally, the Holy Spirit led me to a verse in the Bible that talks about that God gave us the right to choose, the free will concept. So, it’s
Not my place—so this is kind of a skill set that I would suggest interfaith leaders have or, if this is something they kind of struggle with is—it’s not my place in an employee resource group to be saying I’m trying to promote a specific faith. The employee
Resource groups are exactly about supporting employees in the workplace. That is something, whether you are in the context of a collegiate world, a scholarly academic world, or otherwise, these types of groups are really about supporting people within their context and not about
Trying to be a church, serve the function of a church, or a mosque or a synagogue. >> PAUL: This is going to be the last question—there was a question about the charter and how you
Rely on it. I would love for each of you to be able to provide us with your charter so that we can send that out if possible to the group tomorrow. The last question I want to end on is, in what way does your work intersect with a broader understanding of how religion
Functions in the workplace? What managers at your company should know in order to provide maximum respect and accommodation for religious people in the workplace. Are you intersecting with managers? What advice would you, if they were to turn to you, what kind of advice would
You suggest for the company as far as a broader sort of approach to supporting religious individuals in the workplace? >> FARAH: I can chime in here really quickly. One thing Faith Force has done, like we haven’t really gone out to create our own faith inclusive training for managers or anything like that,
But what we’ve really done is try plug in with existing training, existing leadership development things, inclusive events and initiatives that are being developed, making sure there is that element of faith identity that is part of it. If we are doing an inclusive promotion,
A trail or something, learning module, one of the examples put a woman in hijab or a put a man in a kippah. Just adding that element so people open their eyes to that type of situation, scenario as a leader that we put into. As a manager, you have people of different
Faith identities, how are you going to manage effectively that type of diversity? There is existing diversity training, there’s existing leadership, fitting in that narrative is something we really push towards, to have that engagement with our leadership. >> PAUL: Who else? >> MIKE: Can I add something as well? >> PAUL: Yes please.
>> MIKE: With Twitter, I feel like there are multiple ways where we tackle this but something I found to be really meaningful with me and my manager is that I’ve actually made my BRG work and involvement a part of my yearly goals as part of my rating. It’s something that,
Because that comes up in our one-on-one all the time and in general, our company does a fantastic job as well of cultivating a culture of allyship. When you are able then, kind of, hold your managers accountable to that and say like, hey, I need you to show up for
Me, I think that goes a long way. Once it becomes visible, it becomes contagious. Then other managers will start doing it. It just will spread through the company and really change things in how you operate as well. Yeah, OKR’s ratings are included in there as possible.
>> DAN: It’s true, most people don’t realize the work that they do sometimes as a passion, right, has so much impacted to their daily life. The people that they are managing are the people you can translate into so many different things. For us, one of the things
That we were lucky enough to have is, you know, we got a sponsorship to have an interfaith summit. We brought together 150 people for half a day training across all levels, from managing director to the analyst, together to be able to bring our own training. This
Is stuff that we really developed on our own. By empowering our employees at all levels to be able to figure out what is the structure of that day and how will we be able to think through that, we were able to build a curriculum ourselves that was able to be shared with
Employees to managers to managing directors and now is being taken to each of the different regions as well. We are trying to bring that same training during some of our connect days to be able to bring our employees to talk about these topics and to continue to bring that awareness together.
>> PAUL: Well, this has been an extremely inspiring hour that has passed very quickly for me. So, I want to again, thank all of our panelists for being so forthcoming and really bringing your whole selves to this conversation, which is actually indicative
Of the way that this work operates. It’s being true, being vulnerable, being authentic to who you are and letting that be a blessing. Each to one of us—each one to the others. So, I feel very blessed by each of you and for all of you who have been with us today,
We will be reaching out soon. Again, thank you again to all of you.
– Hail oh deathless one. Who calls me from out of the pits? – [Voiceover] You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don’t want you to know. Here are the facts. In the 1980’s and 90’s people across the united states were convinced that satan worshippers worked in secret across the country. Stealing children for dark rights. Sacrificing animals and innocents and practicing sorcery.
In what became known as, “The Satanic Panic.” Numerous people alleged that they had been ritually abused during their childhood. They claimed that hypnosis and regression therapy revealed these long suppressed memories. Yet, when authorities investigated they ultimately found no proof to back up the accusations. Today the deluge of reports is considered part of
A moral panic. Like McCarthyism or witch hunts. Many people wondered if actual theistic satan worshippers existed at all. So, are there any real devil worshippers? Here’s where it gets crazy. Yes, though perhaps not the way you’d assume. Before we find devil worshippers we have to define the devil itself.
That’s tougher than it sounds. Afterall, one religion’s god may often be another group’s satan. Consider the Yazidis ethnic group. Often called devil worshippers by the nearby Muslim majority. The Yazidis worship an angel called, “Melek Taus.” Who in their religion refused God’s command to bow to Adam.
This bears great resemblance to stories of Shatam and Muslim lore. But the Yazidis don’t consider Melek Taus an evil deity. A similar disconnect occurs between gnostics and mainstream Christians. There are generally two broad camps in the world of genuine satan worship. Symbolic and theistic. The symbolic satan worshippers
Believe in philosophical aspects of satan as a concept. Or satan as an ideology. The theistic satan worshippers believe in a supernatural entity that can interact with the mortal world. Of these theistic satanists, many follow a Lucifer erratically different from the common Christian depiction.
Not an evil force, so much as a disruptive innovative one. Are there really any theistic satanists who genuinely believe they worship an inferno evil deity? While the tales of massive satanic conspiracies don’t seem to bear any fruit. There have been isolated cases of violent criminal acts
Carried out by people claiming to worship satan. And not just any ancient past either. In 2005, Louisiana pastor Louis Lamonica turned himself into the Livingston detective, Stan Carpenter. Lamonica listed in detail, ritualized child abuse that he and other members of his congregation participated in for a number of years.
This included things like animal sacrifice, ritual masks, and dedication of a child to satan. In 2011, Moises Maraza Espinoza confessed to killing his mother as part of satanic right. And there are a number of other proving crimes involving the use of satanic symbols and purported rituals. However, these crimes are not all representative
Of the satanic community. The majority of which, is law abiding. Despite these cyclical allegations of widespread, large scale of networks of devil worshippers, there simply hasn’t been any solid universally acknowledged proof. Those who believe in the conspiracies say the powerful groups have too much control to be reported.
And they point to other supposedly buried reports of abuse. Such as the infamous Franklin Case. Instead it seems that the only individuals or groups actually doing all of those sterotypical satanic things from Hollywood horror films are isolated and quite possibly, insane. Unless of course, there’s something more to the story.
Something they don’t want you to know. – So here comes satanism. Most of us would like to write off as harmless antics by some lunatic fringe. A few years ago maybe, but not now. We have seen that satanism can be linked to child abuse and murder. It has lead seemingly normal teenagers into monstrous behavior. They preach mysticism.
Other people, however, practice evil. And that is why we brought you this report tonight.
[Anderson] Evil and suffering is a big one, and I’d be interested in your perspectives on that. You hear people say that particularly the Abrahamic God, who’s all-powerful and all-knowing and all good, and you’ve just made a reference to that yourself, the locus of all good things,
[yes] now there’s the atheistic argument from evil. And it basically runs that if there is such a God, and look I don’t want to sound unsympathetic about this; it’s a big challenge evil is a big problem, just as I described exists, then, there’d be no evil or or suffering. But
There is a lot of evil and suffering in the world, therefore there can’t be a God, or certainly not a Christian God. So where do philosophers in general come out on that question of suffering, and where do you land? [Craig] Well historically for centuries atheistic philosophers have defended
The view that the existence of the suffering and evil in the world is logically incompatible with the existence of God. And now on the contemporary scene, this has really changed; virtually no one defends the logical version of the problem of evil anymore, and the reason is that it lays upon
The shoulders of the atheist a burden of proof that is so heavy that no one has been able to sustain it. The atheist would have to prove that there is no logically possible reason that God could have for permitting the evil and suffering in the world,
And no one can prove such a thing. So those who do defend the problem of evil today have retreated from the logical version of the problem to the so-called probabilistic version of the problem, where the claim is that given the evil and suffering in the world, it’s improbable that
God exists, if not impossible. And the difficulty with this version of the problem is that it makes probability judgments that are simply beyond our ability. There is no basis for thinking that if God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil and suffering in the world
That these should be evident to me. For example, every event that occurs in human history sends a ripple effect through history, such that God’s morally sufficient reasons for permitting it might not emerge until centuries from now, perhaps in another country. An illustration of this would
Be the so-called butterfly effect in contemporary physics. It’s been shown that the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings on a twig in West Africa can set in motion forces that will eventually produce a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean, and yet no one watching that little butterfly on the branch
Could possibly predict such an outcome. These kinds of probability judgments are just beyond our capacity. And similarly, when we see some instance of suffering and evil in the world, we are simply not in a position to say with any sort of confidence God probably doesn’t have
A morally sufficient reason for permitting that to occur. A second point that needs to be made here is that when one’s talking about probabilities, then you’ve also got to consider on the other side of the scale, what is the probability that God does exist? And here I would offer
A multiple considerations that I think make it quite probable that there is in fact a transcendent creator and designer of the universe, despite any improbability that the suffering in the world might throw upon the existence of God. [Anderson] Interestingly, I’ve never
Forgotten the story, a true story, about a young university student in Scotland not long after well probably I suspect during the Depression years, things were grim, and he knocked on the door, of a small cottage that was opened, there was a returned serviceman from the first World War,
And when he realized the young man wanted to talk to him about God he said go away, he said I was in the trenches in France and I stopped believing in God when I saw all that evil. And the young man said to him I respect that that must have been terrible,
And I certainly won’t pester you, but can I just make the observation that I wonder if I’d been there I might not have stopped believing in man rather than stop believing in God. And the old man looked at him, tears welled up near his eyes,
And he said you better come in; we need to talk about this. It’s an interesting take on evil. I sometimes think that one of our problems is we’re not self-reflective enough. [Craig] Yes one of the major developments in philosophy with respect to this problem is the so-called free will defense,
In which philosophers I think have been able to show that it’s neither improbable nor impossible that every world that God would create that would involve this much good, this much moral goodness, would also involve this much moral evil freely perpetrated by human free agents,
So that ultimately the blame lies at man’s threshold and not at God’s. oh
