Humanizing the world – Ruben van Zwieten

Voor het nieuwe nummer van Second Sight ‘Making Worlds‘ interviewden we Ruben van Zwieten (1983), predikant/ ondernemer, oftewel de dominee op de Zuidas in Amsterdam. Zijn stelling: ‘Biblestories are fiction: but these stories tell us more about reality than reality itself’. Lees hier het artikel dat in het magazine is verschenen: 

‘WHAT IS REAL? IN WHAT CAN WE TRUST? That is a topic of our time. My god is a human being and I believe in the metaphorical power of stories. A story is a mirror of the times.’

‘Do you truly believe Jesus really existed? According to the Bible: I don’t. Sometimes it is as if I am the least religious clergyman there is. But capitalism is equally a religion, people believe in the holy capital. Stories can exemplify things for us and it helps people to give meaning and purpose to life in a different way than we are used to. I will tell this story in the same way in Wassenaar as in Bussum and again in a small village in Groningen, a week later. It doesn’t matter where I tell it, my story remains the same.’ ‘I believe it makes sense to read a certain text over and over again. That, of course, is what bible study does. ‘In the beginning … .’ Here In the beginning means ‘from the principle’. The Latin doesn’t say ‘In principio’ for nothing.’

Reading together

‘It is my goal, my skill, to read what it says. That is why I believe in reading together and going through texts together – what does it say and what do we read? For that we need to read a text more often. It says so much about the world in which we live. It makes life more understandable, clearer. We should structurally make time for that. Read stories together. I do that with people.’

Lernen

‘We suffer from a certain ‘sprachnot’ in our society. We have forgotten the meaning of words. We often just say something without thinking about what we are actually saying. It is dreadful to hear someone say Wilders……

This is an article published in Second Sight Magazine #29 ‘Making Worlds’. To continue reading, register now or purchase a single copy PDF (€ 15,-, ex VAT) or in print for € 25,- (ex VAT , ex porto).

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