I’ve posted about my fear that Papa Bear’s promotion might prompt him to stop posting to the college faculty email list and how disastrous that would be. My fears have not been confirmed. This is good because it allows me to keep fearing that it will happen in the future and fear is a very comfortable feeling for me.
But another reason it is good that Papa Bear has not stopped posting is, as I have said before, we need him. His latest posts to the college faculty email list prove this. I will share a couple of them with you.
Etiquette is important!
We will be having a inauguration ceremony for our University’s new president next week. There were various events to which faculty were invited and asked to RSVP. A week before the RSVP deadline, Papa Bear wanted to remind people to RSVP. A lesser Executive Assistant to the president would have asked one of the president’s office administrative assistants to send out a reminder of the RSVP deadline. But Papa Bear is no such slouch. He writes the reminder himself! And here it is:
From an online oracle, http://entertaining.about.com/cs/etiquette/qt/tip122500.htm, on “The Meaning of R.S. V. P.”
The term R.S.V.P. comes from the French expression “répondez s’il vous plaît”, meaning “please respond”. If R.S.V.P. is written on an invitation it means the invited guest must tell the host whether or not they plan to attend the party. It does not mean to respond only if you’re coming, and it does not mean respond only if you’re not coming (the expression “regrets only” is reserved for that instance). It means the host needs a definite head count for the planned event, and needs it by the date specified on the invitation.
Astonishing what can learn online.
We’ve been asked to remind faculty members: please follow through on the RSVP requests for faculty by March 9th: We need to know whether: …
I won’t bore you with the rest of the reminder because it is just what any administrative assistant could have written.
But that prologue could only have come from Papa Bear!
I was so inspired by this that I went “online” myself to see if the “online oracle” could teach me anything more on this subject. I entered the text of Papa Bear’s prologue into an online “google engine” and it taught me a lot. The first few pages of results were related to a recent book called The No Asshole Rule. Apparently, this is a book about building a civilized workplace. At first, I didn’t understand what this had to do with Papa Bear’s post. Since Papa Bear spoke so highly of the oracle, I thought about it more and realized that this was exactly what Papa Bear was doing! Building a civilized workplace by teaching us etiquette! The online oracle worked its magic again!
Apparently, etiquette is more important than I thought!
JH needs to get out more!
A week later, a discussion began on the college faculty email list related to the culture of the global church in contrast to the culture of the evangelical church in the United States. By “discussion” I mean what happens on this email list until Papa Bear give the definitive answer to the question, everyone feels satisfied, and the subject is dropped.
This example shows very clearly why we need Papa Bear. This discussion went on way, way too long. And who knows how much longer it would have gone on? How many people might have been confused by the wrong headed opinions being expressed in this discussion?
The original poster on the subject was a sociologist whom the secular world would call an “expert” in the area of the global church.
The second poster on the subject was another sociologist whom the world would call an “expert” on the Mennonite movement in the United States. The poster tried to make the point that the evangelical church in the US has been influenced by the “consumer culture” here.
The third, and naturally last, poster on the subject was Papa Bear whom we evangelicals call a “True Christian”. Papa Bear’s post begins:
["Expert" on the Mennonite church], with respect, isn’t this a little too sweeping?
Yes, he begins with respect. A reader of the rest of Papa Bear’s message is struck repeatedly with a feeling that there is a certain virtue pervading the words. Papa Bear names the virtue for us: “respect”.
Papa Bear goes on to argue that the point made by the Mennonite “expert” could only be made by a person who is completely out of touch with everything that is going on around him. He does this by giving examples of a few individuals and small churches that are trying to resist the consumer culture of the US. His presentation of these examples is punctuated with rhetorical questions such as These exceptions disprove the rule.
Finally, he puts his finger on the real problem with this “expert”.
I don’t think we “find few churches questioning or challenging a system that has at its root individual human greed”–I actually think we have a lot of them, but I wonder if most of us get out enough to perceive this.
The reason that this “expert” on the Mennonite church doesn’t know about churches that resist the consumer culture is that he doesn’t “get out enough to perceive” them. He’s too busy in his ivory tower of “experts” or embedding himself for months in Mennonite communities to be aware of churches that are different from the main stream.
Full circle
It has been a week since that short yet still too long discussion took place. I decided to bring this circle to a close by experimenting with the online oracle again. I asked the oracle about Papa Bear’s ability to have the last word in every discussion on the college faculty email list. Here are some of the results:
- Again, there were a lot of references to the book The No Asshole Rule. Recall that this is a book about building a civilized workplace. Giving people the right answers to the questions that confuse them must be one of the best ways to do this.
- A lot of results featured the word “definitive”. It means “serving to provide a final solution or to end a situation” and “authoritative and apparently exhaustive”. This must certainly characterize Papa Bear’s opinions.
I think this explains why we need Papa Bear to continue to monitor the college faculty email list.
- Without his opinion, no discussion is complete. We all flounder helplessly in error and sin until he steps in.
- He teaches us things that no one else knows. Seriously, how many of you knew before now what “RSVP” or “respect” meant?
- He brings these confusing discussions to the abrupt end they need.
I’m considering changing his code-name from Papa Bear to Breath of Fresh Air.
I will close this post the same way Papa Bear signed his response to the Mennonite “expert”:
“More hopefully, and with thanks,”
Royal
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