Steve Jobs dies - prayer and reflection

This morning I awoke in Malaysia (I am here for a conference) to hear that Steve Jobs, the co founder of the Apple corporation had died during the night at the young age of 56.

I spent some of my quiet time this morning praying for him and for his family.  I would like to encourage you to do the same.  Of course there will be many who are critical of Steve Jobs.  However, in this time of sorrow let's ask God to bring blessing, healing and grace to his wife, children, family, friends and colleauges.

There is little doubt that this man has left an indellible mark on recent history!  I was struck by how much he had achieved in his young life.  In part my decision to 'buy out' some of my time to retun to academic work and consultancy arose out of a journey to use my limited time on earth wisely.

I remember sharing this video (well worth watching!) of Steve Jobs speaking at the Stanford University Graduation with my Forum group and saying that the time has come for me to make some bold choices, even to take a risk, in order to move closer to God's purpose for my life.  And of course the courage to spend your life well begins with choice of how to spend your minutes and your hours.

Watch the video here when you get a chance.

So, I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist:

The length of our days is seventy years - or eighty, if we have strength... for they quickly pass, and we fly away... Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90.10,12

May the Lord give you grace to know how to spend your hours and your days.  As Gretchen Ruben said so aptly, "While the days are long, the years are short".

Rich blessing from Malaysia,

Dion

Church decline and neuroscience... How people decide.

A few times a year I have the great opportunity of teaching some classes at Media Village (mainly in their school of video production and school of photography).  This is an incredible place, run by Graham and Diane Vermooten, two of the most gifted and passionate media specialists I have ever encountered.

I think it is safe to say that their yearly video are among the most effective mobilization tools that the Global Day of Prayer has!

So, today I started my two days of lectures with an incredible team of people - the classroom is abuzz with intellect, commitment and engagement.  It is one of the highlights of my month to be with such a diverse group of people (they always come from all over the world).

The title of today's session is: (A theology) of media, ministry and minds.

In this first session I cover some of the major shifts in Christianity (mainly drawing on the work of Jennings' 'The next Christendom', and my own research published in my recent book 'Christian and positive: Reflections on Christianity in an HIV+ world').  What is clear is that Christianity is moving from the West to the East and from the North to the South.  However, there are some other radical shifts in the 'Christian world'.  In parts of Europe (where Christianity was once strongest, and from where so many of the missionaries came) the faith is loosing ground at a rapid pace!

What is clear is that the traditional Church is in decline.  There are two pragmatic reasons for this decline (you'll be surprised at how simple they are!)

• Fewer people are joining the Church.
• More people are leaving Churches.

These are two simple facts!  The statistics are clear, and I will gladly share them with you - as a start you may wish to read the lecture that I presented in the UK in March last year which has some statistics on South Africa and England.

Simply stated, Church attendance is declining because people are no longer going to Church.  There are many complex reasons for that.  Central to my argument, however, is the thesis that the message of the Gospel, and the person and work of Jesus, have not lost their effectiveness.  However, the Christian faith's method of engagement, support, and community is no longer finding favour in many contexts.

My theory is that there is a neuroscientific explanation for this choice - let me explain.

Human persons choose to do certain things and not to do others.  At a very basic level choice is a function of the brain's operation.  The core purpose of all brains (including those of animals) is survival.  Basically the human brain is a complex survival mechanism (I have written about this elsewhere in detail).  It is designed to help you survive and to help the species survive.  Moreover, the human brain is not only a survival mechanism, it is an efficiency system!  The human brain is incredibly efficient at processing choices for survival!

Let share the following narrative to explain this point.  I'm sure you would have heard about the epic battle of minds between Gary Kasparov (the Chess Grand Master) and the Artificially Intelligent Super Computer, Big Blue (designed by IBM)?  Big Blue was the first computer ever to beat a human at the game of chess. What the programmers and engineers did was to design a machine that could massive linear processing that was both accurate and fast, and pitted all of that power against the Chess Master's years of experience and skill.  As the two opponents faced off against each other they would examine the chess pieces on the board and then each decide in turn what would be the best, or most effective, move or set of moves to make in order to defeat their opponent.  What Big Blue did was to study the chess board and then process every possible move that could be made working out the statistical probability of success for each series of moves (aggregating these statistics by considering a few moves into the future.  For example, if Big blue moved this piece and Kasparov moved that piece, then what set of choices would be presented and would that be good or bad).  You can see how complex that is!  However, the computer's power and speed allowed it to sift through all of the millions of options that had been programmed in each instance to decide what move would be best.  However, this processing is extremely energy intensive!  So much so that Big Blue had to be cooled in order to avoid the risk of fire!

Kasparov, on the other hand, made use of years of 'tacit' learning (basically neural pathways of experience, coupled with dopamine reactions and the input of the occipital frontal cortex) to simply glance at the chess board, see which 4 or 5 options were best (based on years of experience at chess) and so only had to process the probability of those 4 or 5 moves.  Kasparov hardly broke a sweat!  

The human brain is incredibly efficient!  It has been designed for survival and efficiency (which, as I argued in this post, is the reason why greed exists!  We know we need to survive, and so we hoard money and possessions in order to survive for longer with less effort - anyway, watch the little video as well, it gives a succinct explanation of my thoughts in this regard).

What makes all of this even more significant is that the decision-making centre of the brain resides predominantly in the 'old brain', an area of the brain that processes what is best for survival and efficiency without bringing every choice into the 'new brain' (the frontal cortex).  For example, your brain does not alert you of the need to breath, it just does that because you need oxygen to survive.  The same goes for metabolizing your food etc.  The choice to expend energy doing these things is a 'no brainer' as some have said.  It just happens because it is necessary for survival.

Now when you couple this to the way in which the Church operates, you can see why people sometimes choose (consciously or unconsciously) not to attend Church or adhere to the Christian faith. 

I have often asked Christian groups and Churches what tangible value we contribute to society - it is, perhaps, best phrased in a question that I first heard asked by Rev Dr Ross Olivier, "Would anyone in your community (other than your Church's members) notice if your Church shut down today?"  This is a challenging question!  I'm sure that there are many Churches that add little or no value to the communities in which they exist.  Yet, there is a hope that through these communities people will come to experience the Good News of salvation in Christ!

As such, I have come to think that the average person simply does not even consider the role of the Church in their lives.  Moreover, until we are able to effectively meet the 'felt needs' of our communities we cannot expect them to respond to propositional truths about our faith! I've quoted this before, but Ed Silvoso, an Argentian minister once said:

Preaching the good news without love is like giving someone a good kiss when you have bad breath.  No matter how good the kiss, all the recipient will remember is your bad breath!

I think that sometimes my faith, and the faith of Christians communities I am a part of suffers from this unfortunate situation.  Our intentions are pure.  We long to encounter people with the truth that God loves them, and that God loves all people.  Yet, as with the instance of Ecclesia de Lange and Bishop Paul Verryn, we do not show love.  Rather we show judgement and condemnation...

And, when we're 'hard-wired' for survivial and efficiency we will avoid all uncessary pain and all unecessary commitment that does not add value to our lives or the lives of those we care about.

What do you think?  Am I missing the mark?  Is there something that you can see that I've missed, or some point on which I have it completely wrong?

I'd love to hear your views!  I long to discover, and help other discover, ways of bringing the unchanging, transforming, Gospel of Christ to the whole world!

Just on a final note, I am coming to understand the incredible value of shared narrative!  For this new generation 'conversation' is so much more important than 'content'!  They can learn most of what I can teach from books, google searches (and even from I've written on my blog and in books).  It is far more valuable to learn with each other and from each other by conversation and mutual discovery of some truths!

Laying down your life (a daily choice)

I found the quote below extremely challenging:

When we think about laying down a life for another we usually think in terms of a singular event. But it is possible for us to lay down our lives over the course of a lifetime, minute by minute and day by day. And it is the work of the Spirit to empower us as we seek to lose ourselves in acts of lovingkindness and sacrificial living.

- Elaine Puckett, professor at Candler School of Theology

The neuroscience of selling your stuff... Here's why it hurts!

Before getting to the interesting 'brain' stuff story, the good news is that I have completed the text for the next book that Dr. Wessel Bentley and I are working on! The working title of the book (that is being published by the Methodist Publishing House) is 'What are we thinking: Reflections on Church and Society by Southern African Methodists' We intend launching this fantastic book at the Methodist Church of Southern Africa's annual Conference in Bloemfontein (September 2008). So, keep an eye on this space!

Now that I have done with that project I am returning to a perennial project that seems to have been a part of my thinking for some years now... A book that considers and discusses some elements of the relationship between neuroscience and Christian theology. I have not yet decided on the final title for the book, the working title is 'Why you're not who you think you are! Adventures in neuroscience and theology'.

Whenever I am working on a project I tend to notice posts and publications that relate to my topic much more frequently. So, my 'neurons' have become quite sensitive to just about everything I can find about... well, neurons!

I came across this interesting post on Boingboing late last night and thought it was quite informative. As my wife (and friends) will tell you, I tend to like gadgets, and I tend to be quite fond of holding on to them! I still have my tiny little Libretto 100CT computer (with a 486DX 233Mhz processor and 32MB of ram...)

Well, this may explain why we struggle to sell things that we own (and like):

We sometimes say that it "hurts" to part with our stuff even if it's junk, and we know it's junk. Behavioral scientists call it the endowment effect, a theory that people put higher values on things once they own them. Turns out though that it actually does hurt to sell something you own, and it has nothing to do with overvaluing. Stanford University and University of Pennsylvania psychologists recreated the endowment effect in volunteers while scanning their brains with MRI. From Nature News:

If the reason for the endowment effect came from the products being overvalued by their owners, (professor Brian) Knutson’s team expected to see a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbus change during the test. It didn’t, “whether buying or selling, the activation in the nucleus accumbus looked the same”, says (co-author professor Scott) Rick.

But others part of the brain, the insula, which has a role in the experience of pain, and the greater mesial prefrontal cortex became activated when the subjects contemplated selling one of their items. If they had ranked that item as one they particularly liked, the change in the insula was greater.

According to this research, this is because of loss aversion, says Rick. “It is not because people are overplaying the positive [aspects of a possession].” Rather, we just become attached to objects we own — so much so that it takes a lot to convince us to part with them.

Link