Following my post about unordered lists, flocking information and David Weinberger's new book Everything is Miscellaneous, I got inspired to make his Authors@Google clip available (found at the end of this post).
It's an unbelievable hour long (beware - it makes references to both Paris Hilton's anatomy and 'provincial' Christianity) and underscores how things really aren't "boxable". According to Weinberger, in terms of categorizing and classifying, singular ordering doesn't work because things are interrelated. And they overlap. And they change. And in terms of their attributes, different attributes are important for different purposes and they are important to different people and at different times. Good point.
For example, and this is entirely hypothetical, what if I say, "I'm a Christian." You store me in a certain place in your mind. Then I say, "I'm a protestant Christian." You store me again. Then I say, "I'm an American, protestant Christian." Then I say, "I'm an American, protestant Christian - woman!" Got my category made? Am I driving a mini-van with a fish sticker yet in your mind?
Then I add that I'm friendly with a bunch of folks who are presenting some radical challenges for mainstream Western Christianity - you know the kind who want to live out their faith 7 days a week. Now where do you put me? Just hypothetical, mind you. Ok, real.
The interesting part for me is the new digital disorder described by Weinberger might affect how we present the gospel in current culture. We cannot deny that our "boxes" aren't working the way we once thought they might. Putting certain people in categories and then labeling them gets tricky. And of course, Jesus defied the traditional compartmentalizing of individuals based on what sickness or bondages they had, what their past or current sins entailed, what professions they had chosen, what strata of society they found themselves in, etc.
How we classify things does not change the Bible or its accuracy. Since the Bible is the blueprint of the order of the universe, and everything can be perfectly ordered when you place it next to the plumbline of the Scriptures, it seems like the Church might advantage any who are confused in the new digital disorder with a continual re-presenting of the Word of God.
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