Responding to Mortensen’s Unauthorized Postscript
I don’t understand Mortensen’s style of communication. His main point seems to be a critique of the shallowness of contemporary worship, both in music and lyrics. This is something that needs to be addressed. However, his article reads less like a thoughtful critique and more like a condescending lecture. His explanations of meter, rhyme, and imagery were rather embarrassing. It was as if he assumed that none of his readers had taken a college literature class, so he had to articulate and demonstrate types of each before challenging us to make better use of them. He could have made his point more delicately and concisely by assuming a broader knowledge base for his audience (which I think is reasonable to expect). My question is this – can we talk about these sensitive issues with humility and respect while still communicating our desire for change?
The hard part about that question would be that I think it is how the person is speaking on the sensitive issue and how the person is receiving it on the other end. It is really hard for us to figure out what Mortensen’s tone was throughout this article critique since he wrote it and didn’t speak it. But, looking back at when I read this I can tell by the notes I wrote in my article that I had already put a wall up against him and what he was saying before I even read it; because of some things that I had read in the McLaren article. So because I had that wall up it was easier for me to take a lot of the things he said in a kind of arogant way. Even though he might have not been protraying that at all. So my answer would be it has to depend on the speaker and the receiver of the sensitive issue.
isn’t it curious how we can disagree with a person’s ideas, and also disagree with someone who intentionally expresses disagreement with the same ideas?
Unfortunately, I tend to feel the way you’ve described quite often. Sometimes, I’m even made to feel arrogant for feeling that a speaker or teacher is being condescending. I’d much rather be made to feel stupid for having to do homework later to unpack what someone had to say. I think I realize that more often, a speaker or writer is simply trying to lengthen his delivery by including bits that everyone already knows. We do have minimum lengths after all. We don’t want our article to sound like a blog post, nor our sermon to sound like a homily.
Indeed, I believe we can exhibit humility and express respect while speaking of our desire for change. Respect is not only shown in assuming that people already possess a specific bit of knowledge, but also in the assumption that they have the ability to garner the bit that they currently lack.