The Dawn Mistaken for Dusk: If God So Loved the World, Why Can't We?

The Dawn Mistaken for Dusk

by Leon@rd.Sweet

Also by Leon@rd.Sweet

11 Genetic Gateways to Spiritual Awakening

AquaChurch

Communication and Change in American Religious History

A Cup of Coffee at the SoulCafe

FaithQuakes

Health and Medicine in the Evangelical Tradition

The Jesus Prescription for a Healthy Life

Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic

SoulSalsa

SoulSalsa audio

SoulTsunami

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Strong in the Broken Places: A Theological Reverie on the Ministry of George Everett Ross

Learn about these books at http://www.leonardsweet.com

Copyright

The Dawn Mistaken for Dusk

EPub Reader Fornmat

Copyright © 2000 by Leonard I. Sweet

Requests for information should be addressed to:

ZondervanPublishingHouse

Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

ISBN: 978-0-310-56573-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Page design by Rob Monacelli

Cover design by Holli Leegwater

Cover image provided by Masterfile/Imtek Imagineering

Electronic edition in collaboration with PreviewPort.com:

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For

DayStar

By the tender mercy of our God

the dawn from on high will

break upon us

to give light to those who sit in

darkness and in the shadow

of death

to guide our feet into the way

of peace.

Luke 1:78–79 (NRSV)

Table of Contents

Also by Leon@rd.Sweet

Copyright

Introduction

Bug Attacks

The New Ellis Island

Ready or Not

The Good, the Bad, or the Postmodern

Mutation or Mutilation?

Degree or Kind?

AC or BC?

New Native Economy?

Mainline Miserabilism

Visa Office

Naturalization Class #1: From Manual to Digital

As Seen on TV

The Sky’s the Limit

Naturalization Class #2: From Linear to Loop

New Native Neurology

Naturalization Class #3: From Word to Image

Graphicacy

Elementary

Elemental

Culture Jamming

Body by Jesus: Minds Molded, Bodies Inscribed [85]

Naturalization Class #4: From Vast to Fast

Remembrance of Things Fast [90]

Learning Relationships

Low Viscosity

Naturalization Class #5: From Make Sense to Make Sense

Text Is Toast

Come to Our Senses

Naturalization Class #6: From Who Am I? to What Is to Be Done?

Identity Signifiers

Naturalization Class #7: From Sharp to Fuzzy

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Reverse Currents

Naturalization Class #8: From Outer Space to Inner Space

Popular Culture

Mystery-Loving

The Things of the Spirit Come First

Naturalization Class #9: From Red to Green

Chain of Being

And Back to Red

Endtroduction

INTERACTIVES

Naturalization Class #1: From Manual to Digital

Naturalization Class #2: From Linear to Loop

Naturalization Class #3: From Word to Image

Naturalization Class #4: From Vast to Fast

Naturalization Class #5: From Make Sense to Make Sense

Naturalization Class #6: From Who Am I? to What Is to Be Done?

Naturalization Class #7: From Sharp to Fuzzy

Naturalization Class #8: From Outer Space to Inner Space

Naturalization Class #9: From Red to Green

Endtroduction

Acknowledgments

Introduction

We will forever be at the beginning of a new level of civilization. And this is fortunate, because a beginning is a fascinating and exciting place to be.

Douglas S. Robertson[1]

Bug Attacks

The Third Millennium began with a bug attack. The most feared and hyped was called The Millennium Bug. It was brought to us courtesy of computer programmers and other professionals who failed to provide four digit spaces for year 2000. Millions of dollars were spent, millions of pounds of groceries were hoarded, and millions of people shuddered in anticipation of a power-outage, missile launchings, plant explosions, and so on.

What happened? Nothing. The bug was a dud.

The second bug attack brought down planet Earth. It was called The Love Bug, and nobody saw it coming. A couple of Philippine college students living in a slum section of Manila decided to test out some software codes they had written for a computer course. With a few strokes on their home keyboards, they shut down government agencies, brought global portals to a grinding halt, and cost billions of dollars worth of damage to corporations and individuals around the world.

We are living in a world where, for the first time in history, children in some of the poorest (and wealthiest) places on the planet—the Philippines, Mexico, Norway[2]—can do the harm that only governments and armies could do in the past.

We are living in a world where, for the first time in history, children do not need authority figures to access information.

We are living in a world where, for the first time in history, children are the authority figures, and adults have to come to them to get help. Children have knowledge their parents don’t. Why is your VCR blinking 12:00? How do you get more RAM installed on your computer?[3]Who do you ask to hook up or fix your electronics?

Once you understand one simple fact, you get fresh insights into everything. If you don’t get this one simple fact, it’s like trying to make a credit card call from a rotary phone. The simple fact is this: If you were born before 1962, you’re an immigrant. If you were born after 1962, you’re a native.[4]

Not to understand this one little fact is not to make it in—if not into—the future.

The New Ellis Island

If any culture should be able to understand this fact, it ought to be the North American one, the largest immigrant culture on planet Earth. Since its settlement, more than 55 million immigrants have arrived in USAmerica, 20 million in the last 20 years, and not long from now, the average USAmerican will trace his or her ancestry not to England, Germany, Ireland, and Italy, but to Asia, Africa, and the Hispanic world.

The immigration of people to the United States represents the largest movement of human beings to any one place in the history of mankind.[5]Well, yes and no. Yes, if one defines immigration as the move from one geographic area to another. No, if one defines immigration as the move from one cultural and economic arena into another.

The largest immigration has not already happened—it is going on right now. Cultural immigrants from the modern world are moving into the primitive new postmodern world. Long before the year 2025, immigrants from the world that is presently coming to an end will constitute only a fraction of the population, as the swelling number of natives take charge and control of a dawning new world bursting into bloom.

Last year’s words belong to last year’s language.

T. S. Eliot

Some things are simple but not easy. Some of us are immigrants, some of us are natives—a simple thing to say but not a simple thing to live. The difference between native and immigrant is more than metaphorical; it’s more than the difference between updated and upgraded relationships with families, communities, and God. Living in God’s new creation is not easy.

On Millennium Eve, Newsweek featured a story about a 26-year-old ultra-Orthodox man named Noam who decided to live his faith in secular Israel a few miles from his former home Mea Shearim, a gated enclave of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. I’m like an immigrant trying to learn a new culture, he confessed to the reporter.[6]

Ready or Not

This is my confession. Like Noam, I’m an immigrant trying to learn a new culture. I have Ellis Island experiences every day. For instance, I’m learning:

a new language (more than just the netspeak of gigabyte, megahertz, spamming, downloading)

new customs (email, Website, e-vangelism, e-commerce, crashing—I’ve even been demmed[7])

new sights (.com, .gov, .edu, .mil, .org)

new rituals (networking, chatrooms, hyperlinking, surfing)

new technologies (CD-ROM, Jaz Drive, Zip Drive, Pentium III)

new hieroglyphics ( /. and : ) — to name but two)

I’ve even shown my immigrant status when I use the word titanic in a negative way. In a world where bad now means good, titanical means awesome and agreeable.

Like all immigrants I learn from my children.[8]Of necessity cultural immigrants—like the historical ones—build strong relationships with their kids because children can translate the cultural cues and clues, not to mention (in my case) free me from my digital ignorance and homelessness.

This transition from immigrant to native is taking place in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well. Scandinavian countries boast higher Internet penetration than in the US,[9]while Great Britain and Germany are closing the gap fast. Latin cultures are addressing postmodern changes through fiction and the arts more than through science, philosophy, technology, etc.[10]If truth be told, historical immigrants are helping create this cultural immigration in ways we still have yet to value. A Berkeley sociologist has determined that nearly half of all Silicon Valley companies were founded by Indian entrepreneurs. The definitive smell inside a Silicon Valley start-up was of curry.[11]

What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus asked him.

The man replied, I want to see again.

paraphrase of Luke 18:41

In the kingdom of the blind, the old saying goes, the one-eyed man is king. I frequently compare futurist Tom Sine to that one-eyed guy. Sine is like a giant satellite dish that pulls in information, turns that information into Christian wisdom, and then looks for various channels in which to distribute it. Sine observes that almost overnight we have moved into a new neighborhood, and virtually no one in the church seems to have noticed.[12]

The little brown church in the wildwood no longer