Saturday, February 03, 2007
Brainwashed
The term 'brainwashed' has a very negative connotation and so it wouldn't be a good idea to use it in ministry without some qualifiers/disclaimers. The common meaning seems to indicate that the individuals brain has been washed blank, leaving the person mindless. But that would more accurately be called brainerasal or something like that. Brainwashing should be a good thing. How much different is brainwashing, literally, from Romans 12:2 where we are told to have our minds renewed? We are to experience a change in the way we think. We are to clean up our thinking patterns. We are to get our brains washed. It's the opposite of 'mindless,' but it really is brainwashing.
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4 comments:
I couldn't agree with you more. Quite scarily, in fact, this is exactly the sort of thing I ponder often that drives my husband nuts.
I also agree that brainwashing does not have to have a negitive effect.
Well, if you had grown up during the cold war, like I did (yes, I'm old...)you would have been taught that brainwashing is what the Communists do in the gulags; and that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ suffered in that process. To boomers it's going to always have a negative connotation, I'm afraid. I suppose it is an okay thing to try to redeem a term like that, but what's the point, especially if there are other terms which express the idea equally well but without the baggage? What's wrong with renewing your mind for instance?
To Dena: I drive myself crazy thinking about stuff like this...
that makes sense. Honestly, I never really knew specifically where the negative connotation had come from until you said that. I don't have hopes of redeeming the term so to speak, but I think i'll use this thought in a conversation or twenty, just to confuse people :)
God bless, thanks all for commenting
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