Brother, Can You Paradigm?

I have been blogging a lot lately about the templates we use to see the world. Whether you call them templates, or world views, or paradigms, the problem of potentially false templates remains. 

Thomas Kuhn wrote about this in the 60's in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn's point is that scientific theories come into and out of fashion. The old guard holds to the accepted theory, but the young turks hold to a different viewpoint. Humorously, the young turks of today become the old guard of tomorrow.

Most of us in our lives have had a moment where everything becomes crystal clear, and we realize that that the way we have been looking at things is wrong. When someone changes their view on an issue like this it is called a paradigm shift. I have had several paradigm shifts over my life. The first one I remember was at age 7. I discovered the Easter basket in our house--days before Easter. Suddenly, everything became clear. There was no Easter bunny, therefore there was no Santa Claus. My mother was not happy as she had hoped I would believe a little longer.

Maybe the paradigm shift is the stereotypical discovery of lipstick on your husband's collar. Maybe it is noticing that your Pastor's car is parked at a hotel during the day. No matter what it is, your whole world view can change in a moment.

It is not possible to look at the world except though our templates. But if we understand that we do this, it can be helpful. Can we learn to step aside from these paradigms? This is difficult, but necessary. Babylon the Great wants us deceived.  Revelation 18 talks about Babylon:

11 “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore— 12 cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13 cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and human beings sold as slaves.

Have you been sold as a slave? Babylon cannot own a self-aware person. Being a part of the system tends to make us blind to the evils of the system. We focus on the fine clothes, but forget the slavery. Do we have eyes that see? Or as Jesus told the seven churches, ears to hear? Jesus told the Church at Philadelphia in Revelation 3:

11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name. 13 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. 

Jesus wants us to choose our paradigm. Ultimately we are a part of the old evil earthly city of Babylon, or we are a part of the new heavenly city of Jerusalem. Can we make the paradigm shift? Brother, can you paradigm?