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.
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 stumbled upon a Myers-Briggs personality test today. I took one while I was in 7th grade, but it came back negative (ha!). Here’s how this one turned out:
You are an INFJ.
INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types.
Oh ho ho, thank you personality test! That’s exciting. Tell me more…
INFJs place great importance on havings things orderly and systematic in their outer world. They put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives. On the other hand, INFJs operate within themselves on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous.
INFJs are concerned for people’s feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. They are very sensitive to conflict, and cannot tolerate it very well. Situations which are charged with conflict may drive the normally peaceful INFJ into a state of agitation or charged anger.
It sounds like you know me…have we met?
Some INFJs report experiences of a psychic nature…This is the sort of thing that other types may scorn and scoff at, and the INFJ themself does not really understand their intuition at a level which can be verbalized.
(?) Not so much on that one. But I do see dead people. Better finish this one off.
Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ, but they are capable of great depth of feeling and personal achievement.
Ha - I love it! “Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ.” I feel like a creature on Nova or a superhero or something.
Potential career paths include “clergy / religious work,” “teacher / professor,” and “artist.” Oh, and “chiropractor.” I’m feeling pigeon-holed; I’ve been bouncing around the first three for quite some time now.
St. Petersburg, FL is fighting a battle against the homeless – not against homelessness, as we might expect. The city had agreed to allow homeless individuals and families to set up tents under an overpass. However, the mayor’s office reneged on the deal yesterday, then authorized the police and fire departments to slash and destroy the tent community. The police then took the tents, leaving behind a torn and broken community.
Not only were these tents the legitimate property of their inhabitants, they were also their makeshift homes. The city gave no compensation for the tents. But to the officers’ credit, they were kind enough to dump their meager possessions onto the ground afterward.
“That’s all that’s left of it…They cut it all the way down…I just started crying. I don’t even know what to do about it. I don’t know where to go now. This is sick. This is really sickening, man. Why would people do that?”
- Viola Wilson, St. Petersburg resident.
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Please watch the video. This will not be tolerated in the Kingdom of God.
When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for the newspaper to arrive in the afternoon so I could read Calvin and Hobbes. Later, I was able to persuade my parents to let me buy a couple Calvin and Hobbes books at our school’s book fair (which I later found out were prohibitively expensive!).
One comic in particular jumped out at me. In a terribly rare moment of innocence, Calvin walked up to his dad and asked,” “Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve all the world’s problems?”
That one really stuck with me. Perhaps there’s a more creative solution out there.
Consider that the inspiration for this desktop background:
click to enlarge
I originally posted this note in the Connexion Online forum.
I’m reposting it here - feel free to discuss!
Part of my celebration of MLK Day involved listening to a sermon delivered by the Reverend King about the role of the church as an advocate of creative non-violence and advocate for Justice (as opposed to a neutered pacifism).
Dr. King:
“A true revolution of values will soon look easily upon the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation.”
One dollar can provide clean water for an African for a year, yet Americans alone consume 26 billion containers of bottled water each year (most of which cost about a buck). In the time that it’s taken you to read this far, someone in the world has died of hunger - yet 2/3 of Americans are considered overweight. In a bit of damning irony: Americans spend more
annually on trash bags than nearly half the world does on all goods.
Finally, just one percent of people in the world have a college education. Indeed, most of us are among the top one percent.
As a Christ-follower, how do you feel about the global disparity between the rich and the poor? Is it right? Is it consistent with Kingdom principles? And if not, what can we do about it?
Suffering under the oppression of the Roman empire, early churches would often fast as a community until they had enough food for all to share. The emperor Julian once said of these Christians, “They feed not only their own poor, but ours as well.”
Yet what concrete steps can we take to end this systemic injustice today? As comforting as it is to relax on my couch and watch my Tivo, I cannot escape the fact that the presence of Christ in our world is deeply disturbed. The Kingdom of God belongs to the hungry, the thirsty, and the homeless - indeed, it was “prepared for [them] since the creation of the world” (Matt. 25:31-46). Speaking of those who refused to serve “the least of these,” Jesus taught that they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
In the Kingdom of Heaven, the tables are turned. What sort of hells are people living in today, and how might God work through us to subvert these forces of injustice?
A quick note: I don’t think that a conversation about “salvation by faith” would be productive right now - most of us agree on the orthodox perspective affirmed by scripture. I’m interested in practicalities at the moment.
What sort of prophetic fire does this ignite within you? What are some imaginative ways we can respond? And how can we make a difference?
Some ideas:
- http://www.bloodwatermission.com
- http://www.cpt.org
- http://www.thesimpleway.org
- http://go.sojo.net/campaign/evangelicalsfordarfur
In a recent post at Organic Jesus, I wrote that I often find myself writing in the oppositional language protest and frustration. I do not mean to do so. Such writing merely reflects my utter lack of creativity and inability to navigate icy waters with care. I hope in time that God will grant me the peace and soundness of mind to move to a more productive place.
I’m currently reading Scot McKnight’s lecture “What is Emerging” delivered at Westminister Theological Seminary a few months ago. With great wit, fine analogies, and beautiful words, Dr. McKnight brings two Christian movements - evangelical and emerging - into conversation with one another (I use the word conversation deliberately).
My recent posts concerning Genesis 1 as a site of tug-of-war between the exegetes and storytellers can be read as the wordy result of the turmoil I experience when someone place their copy of Systematic Theology (any of ‘em) on a pedestal and says “end of discussion.” On page 24, McKnight writes:
“The emerging movement is suspicious of systematic theology. Why? Not because we don’t read such folks, but because (1) the diversity of theologies alarms us, (2) no genuine consensus has been achieved, and most importantly, because (3) God didn’t reveal a systematic theology but a Storied narrative and (4) no language is capable of capturing the Absolute Truth who alone is God. Frankly, the emerging movement loves ideas and theology; sometimes we sit down with its leaders and its participants and you’ll find that they love theology - they just don’t ‘have’ a [single, unified] theology and they don’t ’subscribe to’ a theology or ‘confess’ a theology. They believe the Great Traditions offer us ways of telling the truth about God’s redemption in Christ, but they don’t believe any one theology gets it absolutely right.”
When I speak highly of interpreting biblical narrative as an authoritative source for Christian thought and practice, there’s often a false dichotomy lurking quietly below the surface - it’s a question of “Genesis vs. Pauline epistles,” “story vs. narrative,” etc. That need not (and should not) be the case.
The moment we cease speaking to each other and excluding interpretive possibilities due to emotive reactions rather than calm, reasoned engagement in conversation with one another, we have failed to fulfill God’s dream for His church today.
On Friday, I shared an article from Open Source Theology about different ways of reading Genesis 1. The article proposed five different ways of reading the chapter as a mythic creational narrative defining the relationship between God, humanity, and creation. If you haven’t yet, please read it as well as Friday’s post to catch up.
Part of the reason for initiating this dialogue is that I will be attending a conference about the role of the local church in a late-modern Western society called “Isn’t She Beautiful.” The conference is hosted by Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, MI. One of the sessions I’ll be attending is called “Narrative theology and how we read the Bible,” taught by Matt Krick.
I’m not sold on any particular reading, but I do think that a narrative/mythic reading can be helpful, and I do not believe that an enlightenment-era scientific/rationalist reading of the text is productive. What you’re reading here is an attempt to articulate a (somewhat primitive) perspective beforehand in order that I might be able to better engage the conference in a few weeks.
I promised to share with you some thoughts on the potential value and dangers of a narrative / mythological reading of the creation story. Here they are:
1) “Narrative” and “mythology” are separate categories. I use “narrative” to mean “story” and “mythology” to mean “a set of religious / cultural beliefs, often presented in a narrative frame.” Thus, it would be accurate to say that a mythological reading of Genesis 1 is a narrative reading, but it would be inaccurate to state that all narrative readings of Genesis 1 are necessarily mytholoical. The article seems to use these terms interchangeably.
2) It’s refreshing to read a discussion that engages the word “myth” in a complex way. We often attempt to divide our world neatly into “myths” and “facts,” which provides a useful albeit highly reductionist perspective of ideas and experiences that does violence to the particularity of situations.
3) It’s also refreshing to see a reading of the text that is attentive to temporal and cultural location. Doyle recognizes that formal scientific inquiry, journalism, and the discipline of history as we know them (inaugurated in Western culture by the Enlightenment[s]) did not exist at the time of Genesis’ writing, so it would be irresponsible to engage the text exclusively in such a manner.
4) It’s also interesting to note that a narrative reading of this text need not impugn (and must not impugn) the authority of scripture. In many ways, the importance of scripture is elevated as we come to understand that this is not merely a story of what has happened in the past, but rather one of which we ourselves are part. Much of the Bible (and especially the Old Testament) is a story describing the dynamic interaction between God and His people – yet while we’ve only a few short epistles in the New Testament, we tend to rely upon them far more than the rest of the book.
By locating ourselves within this narrative and engaging our culture according to it, we find that YHWH does indeed have a loud and booming voice for us and for our culture today. For more on narrative and the authority of scripture, see N.T. Wright’s essay, “How can the Bible be Authoritative?”
5) In understanding Genesis as myth or the story of Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus, and new creation, we must not refer to scripture as “one of many ways of making sense of human experience.” Paul contended against this idea in his letter to the Colossians: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ” (2:8, NRSV). While Greco-Roman thought understood the universe as composed of “celestial powers that rule life” (HC/NRSV Commentary), Paul faithfully taught that “in [Jesus] all things in heaven and on earth were created” and that “in him all things hold together” (2:15,17). In all things, scripture must remain authoritative as YHWH is author of life itself.
6) In the same manner that I praised a complex engagement of the word “myth” in #2, I would propose a complex engagement of the five ways of reading Genesis proposed in the article. Further, I would certainly not limit a reading of Genesis to these interpretive possibilities; there’s a lot to be said for traditional readings of the text. I am giving the narrative perspective greater attention not because I regard it more valid, but because it is relatively new to me.
7) I’d love to hear a great storyteller recite Genesis 1 while sitting around a campfire on a cool, starry summer night. How might it sound then?
I hope that you’ve enjoyed engaging this mode of thought, and thank you if you have. As always, love to hear what’s on your mind!
Cheers,
Scott
