With spring, came weeds. A particularly nasty variety of grass infiltrates my flower beds. I don’t know its name; I don’t want to get to know it by name. I think of it terrorist grass.
It spreads underground, you see. It sends out long roots that worm their way along out of sight through my mulch until they find a suitable place to surface. Where they then proliferate. Two days later, there’s an active cell of alien grasses intent on destroying my garden plants.
When I pull up a clump of this grass, I discover a network of long white roots. They stretch for several feet. They go right under the heather, the periwinkles, the peonies.
Sometimes, rooting out the infiltrator means doing serious damage to plants I hold precious.

Uncomfortable parallels
Do you see why I call it terrorist grass? Terrorist cells operate the same way. They move invisibly within a society, until they find a few disaffected, alienated young people. They cluster for mutual support and encouragement. The intruders avoid attracting attention to themselves, until they’re firmly rooted.
These cells flourish in settings where they are least expected -- like Brussels, headquarters for the European Union. Or Paris, a city long celebrated for free speech and liberty.
But when you try rooting out that cell, you risk damaging the environment that you want to protect.
In the U.S., in Europe, in the Middle East, efforts to combat terrorism have cost more freedoms than the terrorists themselves ever threatened. But apparently that’s the price you pay for ripping out roots.

Not by military force
The terrorist process works, because it’s copied from the most successful act of subversion in history -- the spread of the Christian church.
The biblical book of Acts documents the tactics used by travelling evangelists like Paul. Go to a city where you’re not known. Mingle in the synagogues and markets. Find the social and political underdogs -- rarely the dominant Roman citizens and officials; more often women, slaves, and small business operators paying taxes to a remote and ruthless emperor. Gather those people into a supportive community.
It took time for Rome to realize that these Christian cells threatened its imperial authority Then it tried to stamp them out. It threw Christians into the arena to be slaughtered by lions and gladiators. It dipped them in tar, and lit them as torches.
But Rome didn’t succeed in stamping out the underground church.
Twenty centuries later, we have grown so accustomed to this story that we fail to realize how radical it was. As I read history, all previous empires overcame other societies by force. Greece, Persia, Egypt, Babylon -- all relied on military might to expand their territory. Even King David’s realm conquered neighbouring tribes by might. The Norse and the Normans did the same to England. And England, France, and Spain re-applied the process in the Americas.
All imposed authority from the top down. The Christian church infiltrated from the bottom up.
Or at least it did -- until Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire.
I’m not defending terrorists -- or grass, for that matter. Following a successful model doesn’t make them right.
But they’re not doing anything new, either.
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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
        To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN

Quite a mixed bag of responses to last week’s column about the virtues of complex thinking.

Valentina Gal suggested, “While I think the study of complexity is interesting, I don't think I'd want to use it as a measure. Life is already complex as it is. It's one of the reasons folks turn away from faith. If they can't analyze everything to death and find out the ‘why’ of things, they won't go there. How do you measure a person who is very bright but is emotionally so debilitated that he can't think straight? What about things like your own intuition when deciding whether or not to give an opinion credence? And what of faith?
“Paul writes, as you well know, that we live by faith and not by sight. There are just times in life when we have to go on faith no matter how much we analyze. As I get older, I'm finding that my intellectual sight has very little to do with valuing someone's opinion. Knowing and trusting the person, or God, is often enough.”

Ruth Shaver took a different view: “I am convinced that 9/10 of the trouble in the world today stems from humanity's inability to deal with complexity. We are stuck, so to speak, in a Newtonian thought process of cause and effect that appears to conform to our experiences, but dig down even one level and we've got quantum complexities of possibilities and probabilities that people just are not equipped to process. I suspect that one of the reasons President Obama's foreign policy is seen as "lightweight" or even "ineffective" is due to its multiple tools designed to accommodate nuances and adaptations to multiple complex situations where previous administrations of both parties have used one tool for all troubles. I also think that religions of all kinds are failing the younger generations because we have not moved past Newton into the quantum age in our theologies. Of course, I am not convinced that we are teaching our children how to think about complex ideas, either, so in the end, we may be stuck right where we are for generations yet to come...

Isabel Gibson thought it was an “interesting notion -- conceptual complexity. It was, apparently, F. Scott Fitzgerald who said, ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.’”

“Complexity of thought is of particular interest to me as I watch our son recover from a massive stroke in the temporal region of his left brain,” Laurna Tallman wrote. “The damage affected parts of the brain stem and other parts of the left brain involved in the production of speech. The higher level cerebral functions appear intact, but his speech limitations make it difficult to assess his cognition. His judgement seems sound, but his self-control in regard to cigarettes, for example, is having to be relearned.” 
After sharing the details of her son’s stroke and (mis)treatment, Laurna concluded, “His speech, which sounds ‘wrong’ to him actually is more clearly articulated. He thinks he cannot form sentences as well, but I think he has access to greater complexity in word choices and ideas and it will take him a little while to learn how to use them. It is in regard to the latter that your blog piece is so important to me as I can draw on my knowledge of his pre-stroke complexity of thinking to help him rediscover that aspect of his brain function. 
“Despite a week of harrowing experiences, I think he is out of the woods and will recover faster. I sincerely appreciate your contribution to this restoration story.”

Steve Roney defended high IQs: “You say ‘everyone knows that intelligence does not correspond to ability to think.’ That statement is demonstrably false, because I for one know no such thing. To the contrary, my understanding is that intelligence is by definition ability to think; otherwise, what is it?
“You then accuse Mensans of being closed-minded. One can, granted, have great thinking ability, yet be lazy and not use it. That is what closed-mindedness to my mind amounts to: intellectual laziness.
Having said that, though, I think as a general rule one enjoys doing whatever one is good at. If one is good at thinking, one will probably enjoy thinking, and so not avoid doing it. Ergo, I would certainly expect Mensans, on the whole, to at least be more open-minded than average.”

“You opened the door on one of my favourite topics,” wrote Pat Grant, “the wisdom, and wide, practical knowledge (or sometimes, lack thereof) of those who have a lot of formal education.
“As a secondary school guidance person, I tried to help students find the next step on their path to adult life and possible careers. One young lad was considering college, or maybe an apprenticeship. He was a farm boy, who had achieved exceptionally high marks in an educational stream aimed at community college or apprenticeship. He lived on a farm and loved it. His dream, which he believed unattainable, was to be a full-time farmer. His dad needed an outside job to keep the farm going.
“Our school was a composite one, where he could transfer, with not too much difficulty, into courses aimed at university admission. I suggested he might be able to learn how to run his family farm full time, successfully. He thought about it, and then answered, "Oh, I don't know. My dad says some of those guys are so smart they're stupid!"
“A good example, in university 'experts', of a serious lack of the complexity quotient, at least in the eyes of an in-the-field farmer.”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

The 7th Sunday after Easter is also considered Ascension Sunday. The Revised Common Lectionary offers three choices of psalms for May 8: Psalm 47, Psalm 93, or Psalm 97.  I chose to go with Psalm 93, thinking about Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, which portrays God not so much clothed in light as a creature composed of light itself.

1   The Lord wears light like a royal robe; 
it dazzles those who gaze upon the Lord. 
The whole world is God's royal throne; 
like a sapphire, it shines in the darkness of space.
2   The earth has been God's home from the beginning; 
Before time began, God was there.
3   What is so irresistable as a river in flood? 
Its banks cannot contain it; 
trees and homes are swept along. 
As thundering waters dominate the valley,
4   So God dominates this planet. 
But God is greater than any flood, 
greater than surf that pounds a rocky shore into sand.
5   For God is not capricious, ruling by random whim;
God emanates justice and fairness. 
Thus is the whole earth made holy. 
Hear, O earth! The Lord, the Lord alone, is God.
Now, and forever.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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