c. scott andreas

I found this video on YouTube. David Drury asked several people to discuss their reactions to the conference.
This isn’t an ethnographic project per se, but it’s a good “primary…



(This post is published at Conversatio.net, Scott’s academic-ish site.)

I’ve discovered an incredible study tool called MacSword, and with it, a burning desire to study. I’m a bit surprised as things usually don’t work out like that (consider your treadmill or ab-rocker, for instance).

That said, I’m working my way through the book of Micah. Micah has fascinated me for a long time - the book is literally pregnant with meaning. I’m tremendously excited to have the tools I need to study it properly.

Check back in the coming days / weeks. This will be fun.

technorati tags:Micah, exegesis, tools

There’s a great write-up of the “A Theology of Creativity” session from Isn’t She Beautiful over at EmergingConversation. I had a brief e-mail exchange with Jason Ellis, the…



(This post is published at Conversatio.net, Scott’s academic-ish site.)

I’ve been reading bits and pieces of Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. It’s a biting critique of our present mode of cultural engagement: commerce, and the philosophy behind it that teaches us culture is something to be consumed, not discussed or debated.

In this little missive, I suggest that there’s a tremendous opportunity for the church to resurrect public culture by “taking it back” from Big Media.

Habermas suggests that a brief history of the word “public” and the concept of “publicity” may shed light on the path leading to our current social order and patterns of cultural engagement (or more accurately, consumption). He accredits reason for the shift from feudal / manorial authority toward a bourgeois public sphere. Private individuals, Habermas argues, began to fashion public lives for themselves by critically reflecting upon and engaging products of culture in community. Only later did “public discourse” attain political connotations as the bourgeois began to debate matters of governance. Today, private leisure and familial intimacy has largely displaced public discussion, debate, and sociability.

Rooted in the eighteenth century, this new concept of privacy transformed the relationship between the individual and “the public.” Rather than engaging in culture through rational-critical argument over the meaning and productivity of shared cultural artifacts in public areas, individuals simply began to consume mass-produced artifacts, reducing culture to a commodity on the level of baking soda or flour. The rise of the “culture industry” (the penny press; later radio, film, and TV) spurred a race-to-the-bottom as content producers discovered that citizens were willing to unite culture with commerce. By and large, individuals came to understand “cultural engagement,” both literary and political, as a private commercial duty. The implications of this shift are far-reaching: even the state must now address its citizens as consumers.

But what of the way forward? Might it still be possible to supplant commoditized entertainment media with a new discussive (indeed, subversive) model of civil society? We have in our possession technologies that enable individuals to “publish themselves” – pens, ink, and 39-cent stamps, but also laser printers and blogs. Legend has it that Martin Luther inaugurated the Reformation by nailing his ninety-five theses to the church door at Wittenberg five centuries ago. Tim Bednar recapitulated this subversive proclamation by “nailing” a treatise to his blog called We Know More Than Our Pastors: Why Bloggers are the Vanguard of the Participatory Church in which he proclaimed the death of the hierarchical / consumptive congregation. This paper ignited a movement of writing, criticizing, and publishing that continues today.

Perhaps there is hope yet.

I just noticed that my RSS feed has not updated since I moved it to FeedBurner a few weeks ago.  Oops!

This site’s feed URL is now http://feeds.feedburner.com/paradoxica.  Please update your reader manually by re-subscribing to this site if you’re not getting updates.

Apologies all around!

I was checking out Logos’ digital reference library collection - someone mentioned that they had created a Mac version, which got me excited. They have a handy comparison chart that tells me why I should pay them $1379 instead of just $149.

But I saw this little note at the bottom:

**Note:Due to licensing restrictions, the New International Version is notincluded as a part of this collection if it is being shipped to one ofthe following countries: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,Cyprus, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Irish Republic, Italy,Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta and Gozo, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway,Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,Turkey, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Vatican City State, Yugoslavia.

Apparently Logos can’t distribute the New International Version…internationally!

Previously, I discussed who came to the Isn’t She Beautiful conference. Here, I want to consider who left. That means looking at:
Thought. What were people thinking? I certainly cannot posit a…



(This post is published at Conversatio.net, Scott’s academic-ish site.)

Thus far, I’ve discussed the content of the teachings at the conference. But who came to hear them, and how were they received? It’s time for a little ethnography.
I’ll be relying on a few…



(This post is published at Conversatio.net, Scott’s academic-ish site.)