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This is for providing sample readings and sermon ideas for the church
based on the 14 stations of Civilization. I will make notes here
as I reread "The Story of Civilization" and the various great books.
January
One of the important things to hit in January is the "State of Nature"
and how the transition from the state of nature to a formal organized state
changed the social and psychological environment. Man evolved in
the state of nature, and studying him it this state is suggestive of what
is necessary for his psychological and emotional health. In many
ways the developed society in which we live is superior to the state
of nature. Especially in satisfying physical needs. However,
churchs are about emotional needs. The high population density, high
incidence of strangers, absence of various natural stimuli, overabundance
of other stimuli, and other changes make our social environment unnatural,
artificial and potentially harmful to us. Classic experiments have
been done with overpopulating rats and watching them become insane.
Churches help to maintain values and behaviors that would be destroyed
by the pressure of society without an institution dedicated to their maintenance.
Another that needs to be hit is that the bible of civilization is not divinely inspired.
Sermon 1 The Bible
Reading 1 Page 92 paragraphs 1 and 2
Reading 2 footnote of page 102
Third reading, something silly from the Old Testament
This is about the accuracy or lack thereof of our Bible. Our Bible is not divinely inspired, it is the product of human scholarship and therefore contains errors. The first reading contains some famous errors, the Piltdown man hoax is considered real, the dating of the Peking man is wrong. The second paragraph of the first reading is mostly right. It is necessary to do two things here. You must communicate the need for skepticism without destroying the credibility of the Bible. The second reading the footnote shows the authors own skepticism of the dating of Peking man. Showing that his judgement and instincts are sound. The third reading from one of the Great books showing its errors emphasizes the point.
We are skeptical in our methods but consider that our final conclusions are more accurate than those based on faith in divine inspiration. This is the intent of the sermon.
Sermon 2 Honesty, etc.
Reading volume 1 page 25 last paragraph and its continuance on the
next page.
(optional) Reading volume 1 page 73
Story of Cain and Abel from the Old Testament
The idea here is to nail down a historical or at least quasi-historical moment of transition from the state of nature to a higher population density state. The readings from volume 1 emphasize the virtues of primitive man. The story of Cain and Abel is the story of a farmer, Cain, killing his brother Abel, a hunter. This is the transition from hunter/gatherer to agriculture. In Cain and Abels time, farming was industry. The big cities were agricultural centers. The city slickers what took advantage of country folks was farmers. Thus, according to the Old Testament, it was farmers what built all the cities. The higher population density makes competition more intense. Meaning that symbolically at least, brother will kill brother. Another story that can be brought in to make this point is that of Romulus and Remus of Rome. Romulus killed Remus as Cain killed Abel. Another major transition and teaching story, like that of the abandoning of human sacrifice commemorated in the Feast of the Chestnut Mare. There are two very good reasons for using Cain as the reading here instead of Romulus and Remus. 1) It occurs in the natural reading sequence. This is the period in history when the Old Testament was born. 2) It is not right to discriminate against a source like the Old Testament any more than it is to discriminate against Confucius.
Aristotle thought that a Polis or city greater than 10,000 in population could not be governed effectively as a republic. One of the major restraints is the power of reputation. In a small population group, everyone knows everyone. If you cheat one person, soon everyone knows about it, and no one will trust you. Reputation is literally your life itself. People will gladly risk death for a good reputation. As population increases so that reputation cannot spread widely enough to be such a constraint, behaviors that could not survive in a small tribal society become possible. Theft from ones fellow citizens, dishonesty, etc. become valid survival strategies, when they would not work in smaller communities.
This creates a multitude of evils. Distrust, betrayal, police, surveillance, etc. Societies are healthier, and the people are healthier if they attempt to maintain a standard of integrity closer to what men in a state of nature maintained. It creates a healthier psychological environment, and it cuts the need for and cost of law enforcement. The lowered need for law enforcement makes your privacy and personal life more secure. When carried to extremes, the breakdown of appropriate norms of behavior always results in the rise of tyranny and total loss of personal rights and freedom.
If you, (the congregation members) want a healthy good life, they need to maintain a high level of personal integrity in their lives and relations with others. This is the lesson of the story of Romulus and Remus and Cain and Abel. It is fairly obvious, but at least one book has been written on the subject.
The above looks at the change in environment and how that encourages
changes in adaptive behavior. Very Darwinian and quite accurate.
But to show the problems involved in this change, it is good to look at
modern psychology. One of the standbys in leadership and management
courses is Maslow's pyramid or hierarchy of needs. Physical needs,
emotional needs, social needs, etc. http://www.mrdowling.com/602-maslow.html
good diagram of Maslow's pyramid. As you can see, physiological needs
come first, then safety needs, then love and belonging needs, then 'self-actualization'.
If you satisfy your physiological needs by lying to and betraying the trust
of others you will be unable to satisfy your love and belonging needs and
will defeat yourself, even while thinking you are clever. It is the
role of the Church to help you remember that you need to aim to satisfy
all your needs and not to choose methods or behaviors that make this difficult
or impossible. http://maxvalue.com/tip043.htm
Maslow's theory of enlightened management.
