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Rolling Stone Goes Undercover with the Christian Fringe

I've been wanting to comment on the "Jesus Made Me Puke" story from Rolling Stone.  Fortunately, I don't have to because the blogosphere's two top Jared's have done my work for me and done a better job than I could have done.

In the latest of a burgeoning sub-genre of journalism called "undercover with the Christian right," Rolling Stone sent their man to get the scoop on one megachurch that is "representative" of the rest of evangelical Christianity.  Lo and behold, this reporter found a plethora of weirdness.

Jared Bridges rightly points out where the Rolling Stone reporter went wrong, but he acknowledges that the guy (unfortunately for evangelicals) got some things right.

When a writer for Rolling Stone can recognize that your preaching is more pop-psychology than biblical truth, you’re in trouble. Sadly, much of the evangelical landscape shares this wholesale adoption of talk-show therapy. It’s a practice the Apostle Paul might well refer to as conformity to the world.

Jared Wilson points out how the Rolling Stone writer rightly points out the troublesome privileging of jock culture in evangelical circles:

Some quotes, some thoughts . . .

One of the implicit promises of the church is that following its program will restore to you your vigor, confidence and assertiveness, effecting, among other things, a marked and obvious physical transformation from crippled lost soul to hearty vessel of God. That's one of the reasons that it's so important for the pastors to look healthy, lusty and lustrous — they're appearing as the "after" photo in the ongoing advertisement for the church wellness cure.

I found that observation really interesting, and generally true. Taibbi spends some time on the import of the macho, coulda-beena-contenda military/sportsman leaders, and it's an interesting perspective. As a guy who grew up in a youth ministry culture that propped up all manner of Christian ex-athletes, I always wondered if our youth ministers even cared that they were implicitly favoring jock culture with these endorsements, that many (most?) kids don't care that Jesus helped third string quaterback Brock Throwmeister get over losing that big game that one time.

My two comments are that unfortunately, some of what the article says is right and unfortunately, with this being John Hagee's church, it is representative of a significant minority in evangelicaldom.

My second comments is that Hagee, his followers and their ilk are still a minority in evangelicaldom and this article once again proves the prescience of James Davidson Hunter in his epochal work - Culture Wars.  Hunter points out that the culture wars are, by and large, fought by extremists on both sides, or I should say it is the extremists who get noticed by the press.  While it is true that not all who take a side are extremists, it is equally true that only the extremists get noticed by the press.

I wish these folks would send an undercover journalist to follow the folks at one of the ordinary, run of the mill, smallish churches of America, like mine.  And I wish they would follow the folks for a few days in their normal everyday lives.  What they would find is that most evangelical Christendom is made up of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, doing their best and trying to please God in the midst of it.  I have no doubt a reporter would probably uncover some sin and some greatness, but for the most part he wouldn't uncover much weirdness.  Then again, I guess such a story would probably be too boring to sell.

So where is the most "strategic" place to live?

But before you go any further in this post let's get something straight - I am not necessarily disagreeing with Tim Keller, or Hugh Hewitt, or Os Guinness or Rodney Stark or other people like that who have pointed out the vital importance of taking the gospel to the power centers of our world.  I might be disagreeing, but then again I might not . . . I'm just saying.

As we were discussing these guys all have a point - it can be fairly easily shown that the apostle Paul took the gospel to the great city centers of the ancient world.  This turned out to be good strategery, because as the gospel captured the cities it filtered out to the countryside.

Still, you have to admit that Will Willimon has a point.  Now again, I'm not trying to start something here, and don't hold it against him that he's a methodist (shh!) and please don't tell the folks at presbytery that I am having cyber-fellowship with a guy who's an arminian, maybe even a wesleyan-arminian - but he kinda makes sense when he says:

One might have thought that Jesus would do something effective.  If you want to have maximum results, don't waste your time talking to the first person whom you meet on the street, figure out a way to get to the movers and the shakers, the influential and the newsmakers, those who have some power and prestige.  If you really want to promote change, go to the top . . .

But Jesus?  He didn't go up to the palace, the White House, the Kremlin, or Downing Street.   (Jesus never got on well with politicians.)  Jesus went outback, back to Galilee.

Why Galilee?   Nobody special lived in Galilee, nobody except the followers of Jesus.  Us.

The resurrected Christ comes back to, appears before the very same rag tag group of failures who so disappointed him, misunderstood him, forsook him and fled into the darkness.  He returns to his betrayers.  He returns to us.

Feeble attempts at humor notwithstanding - Willimon raises some issues worth pondering.  I do think that some of the best kingdom work being done today is being done in city-centers like New York and other places like it.  And I do buy the rationale of Keller and others who point to Paul's example for their emphasis on the city.  At the same time, the example of Jesus suggests we ought not to write off the potential of those out of the way places.

One of the interesting points of commonality between Willimon here and Keller and others is their decisive "non-power" orientation.  Willimon makes the point that Jesus didn't go for the power centers.  The same methodology works for Keller and the others in New York.  They are counter-cultural in that they live in the power-centers and refuse to make power-grabs.

Maybe the "strategic" issue is not so much the location where you live but the orientation by which you live wherever you live?

Thoughts anyone?

Review of "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky

In announcing the 2008 EO/Wheatstone Symposium Joe Carter asks bloggers to write an essay answering the question:

If the medium affects the message, how will the Christian message be affected by the new media?

While I am not writing this post to enter in the symposium (though I am still considering doing a separate one) the question is a good bridge to a review of Clay Shirky's book "Here Comes Everybody."

I first became aware of Mr. Shirky while looking for some responses to Andrew Keen's book The Cult of the Amateur, and found some of his writings at Many to Many.  And with that I have become aware of his blog of the same title as this book. and requested the opportunity to read and review the book.  So, many thanks to Mr. Shirky for giving me this chance.

Getting back to Joe's question, this book illustrates how the question of how the Christian message will be affected by the new media is simply a subset of the question of how any and all messages will be affected by the new media.  But it also shows that the new media is much bigger than a "message transmission" technology.

In one sense the "new media" of blogging, vlogging, podcasting, twittering, social networks and the like are much more than just "media," as we have come to think of it.  On the one hand it is the same because the new media still "mediates" information and in that sense it is like orality and writing.  On the other hand the new media does things that old media never did.

More on Christians and Utilitarianism

As a follow-up to my last post on Christians and Utilitaranism I wanted to post to a few thoughts from Charlie Lehardy at Another Think that speak to this.  As a refresher, utilitarianism is an "ends-justifies the means" philosophy, and it is one that Christians often engage in during political disputes.  But we need to keep in mind that the Bible not only tells us that we must engage theological and political issues (as well as many others), but it tells us the manner in which we must engage.

Now, on to Charlie's comments:

Politics is fueled by discontent. In every election season, we Americans — the world's most prosperous and pampered people — take our complaints to the ballot box.

It's the nature of a democratic community that our collective unhappiness drives us to build something better. Like the oyster irritated by the grain of sand, all of human history has been a story of men and women working to smooth the edges of sharp stones.

Unhappiness can be good when it spurs us to action. But what if unhappiness becomes permanent? What if we are always discontented, always disappointed in the life we live, even when political fervor no longer prods us to see every cup as half-empty, or even bone dry?

And:

There is much we can legitimately complain about. But what are we grateful for? Where have we experienced God's mercy in our lives, and when was the last time we testified to his abundant grace, his overflowing goodness to us?

Are we somber, always obsessed with the many injustices we have suffered, or are we joyful, grateful for the unwarranted outpouring of God's blessing and mercy in our lives?

Is it possible that we are so caught up in our complaints that we have forgotten to testify to God's grace?

On the utilitarianism issue, Charlie's post got me to thinking of how, in the midst of politics debate, we can position ourselves as the "grace-ful" people of the earth.  If gratitude is to characterize us, how can this be shown in the midst of these debates?

Or, in another vein, if we are commanded to do all things without grumbling or complaining (Phil. 2:14), then what does this say about our manner of political engagement?

Or, if Charlie is correct that politics is fueled by discontent, what does this say about those of us who are to emulate Paul who had learned to be content in any and every situation (Phil 4:12)?  Are Christians allowed to be discontent?

Or, referencing my last post, one of the applications of David Gushee's concerns about utilitarianism is over ruthlessness in politics, or what appears to me to be "political victory via character assassination":

It elevates into positions of leadership and influence persons who gain power because they are effective practitioners of the dark arts of mortal combat rather than having more appropriate qualifications for their roles.

 

Can Christians engage in the ruthlessness and character assassination that seems to be part and parcel of political campaigns these days?

It seems to me that the whole utilitarianism issue goes pretty deep.

Christians and Utilitarianism

In what I'd call a "must-read" post, David Gushee discusses Christians and utilitarianism.  He applies the thoughts to the many ways that we practice an ends-justifies the means approach in theological and political debate.  Here's a few excerpts to whet your appetite:

The moral philosopher in me sees in all of these issues the means-vs.-ends problem in ethics. Is it morally permissible to employ any and all means to accomplish a goal one considers worthy? Do the ends, in fact, justify the means? Or are there moral rules or principles that set limits on what we might do even to accomplish laudable ends?

Those who define what is moral primarily by the goals or consequences of an action are called utilitarians. Few Christian ethicists formally embrace utilitarianism because of its obvious problems, mainly its lack of binding moral rules governing actions in all circumstances. And yet especially in moments of stress and conflict, Christians are among those who are tempted to slide into utilitarianism. To win the denomination, win the campaign, or win the “war on terror,” we must do what is necessary, right?

And:

There are theological and not just philosophical issues raised by the utilitarian temptation. For Christians, most fundamental is our willingness to disobey the concrete teachings of Jesus Christ in order to pursue what we believe to be a righteous goal.

This amounts to the belief that we know better than Jesus the Incarnate God what pattern of behavior is the right one in the “real” world in which we live. And it suggests that we do not trust in the justice of God. We take matters into our own hands in order to determine the outcome in a way pleasing to us. In its starkest and most terrible form, we disobey God in order to do what we believe to be God’s will. Not even a philosopher can make that work.

Al Hsu on D & D and Creating Culture

Hearkening back to this post, let's do another "who would win in a fight?"  Who would win in a fight between Gary Gygax of Dungeons and Dragons fame and Bill Gothard of The Institute in Basic Life Principles.

According to Al Hsu of The Suburban Christian we don't have to wonder - the fight was held and Gary Gygax won.

But as the New York Times article notes, D&D and the fantasy roleplaying motif has thoroughly permeated our collective consciousness:

We live in Gary Gygax’s world. The most popular books on earth are fantasy novels about wizards and magic swords. The most popular movies are about characters from superhero comic books. The most popular TV shows look like elaborate role-playing games: intricate, hidden-clue-laden science fiction stories connected to impossibly mathematical games that live both online and in the real world.

Rogers traces the ripple effects of D&D in influencing and shaping contemporary gaming culture, technology advances, and even Google and Facebook. He writes:

Mr. Gygax’s genius was to give players a way to inhabit the characters inside their games, rather than to merely command faceless hordes, as you did in, say, the board game Risk. Roll the dice and you generated a character who was quantified by personal attributes like strength or intelligence.

Al comments:

It occurs to me now that in the Gygax vs. Gothard smackdown, Gygax ultimately triumphed. Why? I think because whereas Gothard and other conservative Christians defensively attacked D&D out of fears of Satan worship, Gygax and D&D created an appealing world and fascinating narrative that people could enter into. It was participatory, and it also created community. Rogers notes, "You needed at least three people to play — two adventurers and one Dungeon Master to guide the game — so Dungeons & Dragons was social. Demented and sad, but social."

In short, Gygax created culture, whereas Gothard merely condemned culture. Gothard did not create a compelling alternative to D&D - he merely argued that it was evil. Whatever one might think about his perspective, the larger issue for Christians is whether we will create compelling, dramatic narratives and stories for people to participate in, or if we only react against what other people create. Andy Crouch's forthcoming Culture Making argues that Christians cannot change the culture by condemning it, critiquing it, copying it or consuming it. The only way to change culture is to create more culture.

I went to my first Gothard seminar in 1980 and was fully on board with the whole agenda.  D & D and pretty much all of pop culture was of the devil, rock music was of the devil (Amy Grant = bad, Sandi Patty = good) and so I understand where he is coming from.  I think another example that reinforces Al's point is the whole MTV thing.  Christians focused on demonizing MTV and didn't create an alternative (well, I suppose one could call the whole CCM thing an alternative of sorts) and yet MTV won the day.

It seems to me the same things are happening now with social networking and online worlds like Second Life.  Many Christians can talk eloquently about what's wrong with them, but few can provide compelling alternatives.

HT - Milton Stanley at Transforming Sermons

Technorati tags: religion, Christian, Christianity, role-playing games, rpg, D & D, Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygaz, Bill Gothard, culture

Crazy Brit Sticks His Nose Into the Obama Situation

Those crazy Brits, I tell ya, they just can't let us colonists go, they're still trying to govern the yanks from afar.

But seriously folks . . . my good buddy Adrian of England has been following the whole Obama bruhaha and has some interesting thoughts on it.  The most important point he makes in that linked post is at the end - the most troubling issue in all of this is not the political one, it is the misuse of the pulpit.  Adrian quotes Rick Phillips at Reformation21 as follows:

"When I first saw the YouTube excerpts of Wright's preaching, my first thought was not, "He hates America!" or "He's a racist!" but "What a terrible use of God's pulpit!" I feel exactly the same outrage whenever I see a candidate standing behind a pulpit—Democrat or Republican. I feel exactly the same outrage whenever I see a preacher extolling the virtues (or vices) of a particular candidate—Democrat or Republican. Surely the church pulpit is intended for higher and better matters than the small concerns of national politics! The pulpit is not an institution of the republic, but of the Kingdom, and its only legitimate use is the preaching of King Jesus. Politics should be kept out of the pulpit, not merely for reasons of church-state separation, but because the pulpit is for matters of such greater significance."

Amen and amen!

Subliminal Advertising Works

You just gotta see this - advertisers seek to influence us subliminally, and it works - subliminal advertising works!!. Here's an experiment where advertisers use subliminal advertising on the advertisers. (HT - Fresh Creation).

Now, let's think of all the ways we think we are being original and creative and are being unconsciously influenced by others and by our environment.

For a spiritual application of this think of all of those who claim to be "just reading the bible" in all it's purity. In other words, it's common for people to claim that other people are influenced by their theological traditions, by their denominations and other influences, but they themselves don't do that - it's just them and God - they have transcended earthly things and have a direct line to God. Such people ought not to say such things - they are influenced by more people, more things in ways they can imagine. Nothing wrong with that, we all ought to just admit that we play on an even playing field - I've been influenced, so have you. Now let's do the best we can to evaluate our influences and not claim a moral high ground against the other, as if we are somehow more pure than others.

Chuck Colson Blog Tour for his book - The Faith

I'm the last stop on Chuck Colson's blog tour for his book The Faith.  Here's the question I asked Chuck and his answer and after the jump I'll share a quick response and a recap of the whole blog tour for you to catch up on any posts you have missed.

Question:

Mr. Colson – thank you for your ministry and for this book, I think I have read all of your books, and this one continues the tradition you have established of depth and practicality and I am honored to be a part of this blog tour.  Since several of my friends in the blog world already took questions I would have asked you I would just like to ask you to elaborate a bit on a passage in the book.  On page 223 you write:

This is why orthodoxy matters, for a renewal and strengthening of the orthodox Christian faith can provide not only joy and meaning for Christians but a bulwark of sanity and reason against barbarism.  Do we want

Westminster

Abby and the Houses of Parliament facing one another?  Or do we want to leave it to the merry pranksters of café society to confront an evil they cannot understand, appreciate, nor defend against?  This is the great battle of good versus evil of our time?

I am just curious as to who you mean by “the merry pranksters of café society” and whether or not you see any groups on the horizon who are working effectively to re-establish orthodoxy in our day?

Answer:

“The merry pranksters of café society” is a reference to chapter 15 in the book, and the discussion about Theo Van Gogh.  (See page 216).  He was the toast of café society, and he could not understand why a Muslim would want to kill him.  His response when his assailant stood over him was, “Can’t we talk about this?”   

That is symbolic of exactly the way European intellectuals are responding to Islam.  They don’t get it.  And that’s the point that was meant by the “merry pranksters of café society.”

There are lots of people working hard for biblical orthodoxy, and some churches where it is really practiced very faithfully.  I think of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York as a classic example.  I’ve also been at Rick Warren’s church and I know that he is thoroughly orthodox in his theology and his belief, and is working hard to get people in his congregation to understand it.  There isn’t an organization per se committed to biblical orthodoxy I suppose, but there are certainly lots of academics, many pastors, and an increasing number of church leaders speaking on the question.  I’m hoping my book will inspire a lot more discussions and questions.

An Aussie Perspective on Being Cool

Found this today - I close the referring site too soon and so I don't know who I need to hat tip here - please forgive me if you are the one.  This is one of the best critiques of "coolness"  I think I have seen anywhere, and, sad to say, I see myself in this.  Paradoxically, this may explain why so many of us find Aussies so cool.  Be forewarned - some of the language isn't what I would use in church, but don't let that stop you from profiting from this short essay - full title  "Through Being Cool."  Here's the opening (which could stand alone and give you hours of contemplation and consideration).

I grew up in Australia. Australian men generally accept masculinity far better than American men, and I understand why this is. In every country on earth where boys play, there is a ritual of selecting members of each team, whether the game is soccer, cricket, football, baseball, kickball, mammoth-hunting, what have you. Most boys, at some time, have experienced the humiliation of being picked last, and it hurts. Even being picked second-last is much more tolerable than being picked last. It hurts— what is important, and culturally distinct, is how the boy deals with that pain and humiliation, when he's the one picked last.

In Australia, boys strive to be an asset to the team that picks them. They actually care more about how their team does than how they feel. This isn't ego annihilation, and it's not fascism. While playing the game, the game is what's important, not one's own petty issues. If a boy can table his own issues sufficiently to make a good catch, or kick a goal, he'll get picked sooner next time. He knows this. It's a question of priorities: the team wants to win, and they will pick those kids who will make it more likely that their team will win. How each individual feels during this process is irrelevant to the overall goal. Be dependable, be an asset to the team, and the rest of the team will take care of you.

Matt Adair on Politics

Wise words from my friend Matt Adair:

So where does Jesus fit into our political world? Without delving into side roads and rabbit trails, I’m pretty sure that Jesus would have a difficult time embracing any brand of contemporary politics carte blanche. And while that shouldn’t be taken to mean that followers of Jesus should abandon the political process on a local, state, or federal level, it does mean is that Christians should bring greater balance and stability to an increasingly volatile situation rather than exacerbating the problem by insisting that faithful Christians must embrace a single political party or persuasion.

The truth is that Christianity is far too conservative for liberals and way too liberal for conservatives. The way of Jesus is equally concerned for the rights of individuals and the health of our communities. The message of Christianity that we call the gospel not only deals with the brokenness of individuals but the dysfunction of systems and the injustice of nations. Our identity as followers of Jesus is found in the call of God to make him known by joining him on his mission that emanates from the cross of Jesus Christ.

Read the rest

Os Guinness on Playing the Victim Card

Justin Taylor has a quote from Os Guinness's new book The Case for Civility (which you can browse here in this post) that hits on a familiar theme for Os and an important subject for Christians in all areas of life. Os hits on one of his main complaints about the religious right, but this quote has far greater implications - as those who are called to suffer, Christians are the last ones who should ever claim to be a victim, either on a small scale or a large scale. I particularly like his comment about those who "appeal openly to Christian resentment."

As one who believes that the call of Jesus is to a path of suffering that shuts the door to every form of victim-playing, I am angered by organizers of the Religious Right who play the victim card and appeal openly to Christian resentment. . . .

Do they not know that those who portray themselves as victims come to perceive themselves as victims and then to paralyze themselves as victims? . . .

But whether "victimization" then or a "war on Christians" now, such tactics of the Religious Right are foolish, ineffective, and downright anti-Christian. The problem is not that these people are theocrats, but that they are sub-Christian. They do not violate the separation of church and state so much as they violate Christian integrity. Factually, it is dead wrong for Christians to portray themselves as a minority, let alone as persecuted. Christians are as close to a majority community as any group in America; what their fellow Christians are facing today in China, North Korea, Burma, and Sudan is real persecution.

Psychologically, victim-playing is dangerous because it represents what Nietzsche called "the politics of the tarantula," a base appeal to resentment. But worst of all, it is spiritually hypocritical, for nothing so contradicts their claim to represent "Christian values" as their refusal to follow the teaching and example of Jesus of Nazareth by playing the victim card and finding an excuse not to love their enemies. Shame, shame, shame on such people; and woe, woe, woe to such tactics.

Fordism, McDonaldization, Consumerism and the Church

One of my favorite little pet subjects is McDonaldization, a topic I have written on here and here. McDonaldization is:

a term used by sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society (1995). He describes it as the process by which a society takes on the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant.

Ritzer has updated The McDonaldization of Society several times since 1995 and has also compiled a McDonaldization Reader.

Now, I find out there is an older expression of roughly the same thing - "Fordism."  AJ Schwanz writes:

One interesting observation brought up:  since the “Fordism” of America (when people starting working in a factory to create goods for others rather than engaging in the art of craftsmanship to meet their personal needs), people have become more and more dissected - segmented - taken apart.  Just as the work place was analyzed and changed into a manufacturing line, human beings have been analyzed and taken apart into having certain “needs” that must be met by products they can purchase.  Which we all know doesn’t work:  the fires of consumption only grow with each offering, and yet I know I keep piling it on. 

I found this via Bill Kinnon's rant against the consumer church in which he took on a post in Out of Ur on franchising the church by Eddie Johnson.  Eddie Johnson has written more on the franchised church at his own blog here and here.

If franchising were all and only about learning from others and emulating "best practices" I think it would be fairly innocuous.  But I think Bill Kinnon hits the nail on the head in his assessment of the practices.  Though advocates of the franchised church argue that this generation speaks the language of marketing and this is the best way to reach them, Bill provides some good counter-arguments to the effect that "franchising" is pushing people, at least young people, away.  Here's a few sound bites from his post.  First is Sarah, a GenX'er

We know you have tried to get us to church. That's part of the problem. Many of your appeals have been carefully calculated for success and that turns our collective stomach. (From Earl Creps book, Off-Road Disciplines.)

Here's Roy Williams:

...today's teens are rejecting Pretense. Born into a world of hype, their internal BS-meters are highly sensitive and blisteringly accurate. Words like "amazing," "astounding," and "spectacular" are translated as "blah," "blah," and "blah." Consequently, tried and true selling methods that worked as recently as a year ago are working far less well today. Trust me, I know.

Here's John LeGrou:

David Kinneman, in his new book UnChristian, says of the Millennial generation, “they can smell B.S. from several miles away, they are easily offended by unwanted marketers. They identify more with an experience and relationship than a message.”

Having said all of that, I am not against marketing per se. I enjoy reading Seth Godin, the guru of marketing and I frequent Chris Forbes' Ministry Marketing Coach blog.  Yet, their version of "marketing" seems to me to escape the notion of "Jesus as product," which is what Bill is arguing against here.

So I think Bill and the critics of the franchise church are spot on - this is an argument against the commodification of the faith and an argument to engage people as people, not prospects and to engage them as human beings, not as a part of an assembly line process.

Neil Postman Swings and Misses on Biblical Exegesis and It's Relationship to Media and Cultural Influence

I haven't picked a fight with anyone lately, so in the interest of picking a fight with those who can't fight back I will pick a fight with a dead guy - Neil Postman.  But never fear, his ideas and influence are very much alive and his fans are legion so I am sure someone out there will come and give me a good smackdown.

Before the fight starts let me say that I am a big fan of my opponent in many ways, I still believe that, though I disagree with some things, his book Amusing Ourselves to Death is outstanding and worth reading, particularly his insights in how we have lost the ability to follow a lengthy, sustained argument.  That caveat aside I want to pick this fight with some words that Joe Carter (referencing Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con) quoted from Mr. Postman in his 33 Things post today.

In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture. I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making any concrete images of anything, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth.” I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why the God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture. We may hazard a guess that a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete, iconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of converting their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit by reflecting on this Mosaic injunction. But even if I am wrong in these conjectures, it is, I believe, a wise and particularly relevant supposition that the media of communication available to a culture are a dominant influence on the formation of the culture’s intellectual and social preoccupations.

I contend that Postman strikes out on this from an exegetical standpoint.  That he strikes out in this argument does not nullify his overall argument, that forms of media influence cultural development, but I think it does show he doesn't connect all the right dots, or he doesn't connect the dots rightly.  I agree with his last statment:

But even if I am wrong in these conjectures, it is, I believe, a wise and particularly relevant supposition that the media of communication available to a culture are a dominant influence on the formation of the culture’s intellectual and social preoccupations.

I think he is wrong in his conjectures but a case can still be made for the influence of communication media on a culture.  Here is where I believe his conjectures are wrong.

Strike One - Postman misunderstands the nature of God as "an abstract, universal deity."

Strike Two - Postman misunderstands how God was to exist among the Jewish people - "in and through the word."

Strike Three - Postman misunderstands the nature and purpose of iconography.

I'll argue those three contentions after the jump. 

The Law of Unintended Consequences

There's a great discussion of the law of unintended consequences going on in several places and it's a discussion that has resonance with the church and the Christian faith.  Before commenting let me give you the players in the discussion.  I may not have all the relationships in proper order here as far as who is responding to who, but if you check these posts out you'll get the gist (the posts aren't too long so you can read them and it will be worthwhile).

The Freakonomics guys did a column for the New York Times Magazines on Unintended Consequences where they looked at three examples of unintended consequences - how the Americans with Disabilities Act has harmed Americans with Disabilities by leading to a sharp drop in employment for them, how Jewish seventh year sabbatical laws got corrupted and came to harm the poor they were created to protect and how the Endangered Species Act has led to the destruction of habitats of endangered species.

This causes Andrew at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science to wonder exactly what kind of "law" the "law of unintended consequences" is?  He points to another post where he argues that often the "unintended" consequences were in fact "intended."  I suppose that would be like the woman who never intended to blow the week's budget on new clothes, but somehow found herself in a department store or some pastors who intend to quit buying books they don't read but somehow often find themselves in bookstores and don't know how they got there.

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution comes through with a definition of the law of unintended consequences that the Freakonomics guys like:

The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.   The political system is simple, it operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misaligned incentives.  Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system.  When a simple system tries to regulate a complex system you often get unintended consequences.

I like that, but speaking only for myself, I was hoping for more definition on the difference between a simple and a complex system.  The comments on Alex Tabarrok's post are almost too many to read, but there is one comment by Stephen Downes that I think helps on my question:

A 'simple system' is a system where linear cause-and-effect relations hold. A 'complex system' is one in which the same cause may have multiple effects.

This clarification is important because the 'contrast' in the quote cited above in fact includes a number of simple systems. 'high-feedback' and 'incentive-driven' systems are types of simple systems - they suppose that a certain cause - feedback, or incentives - will produce the desired result.

I am also wondering if Mr. Downes might say that in a complex system a single effect may have multiple causes?  It seems to me that this is the case.

Which leads me to speculate on how this applies to the religious realm.

John Maxwell and the Millennials and Leadership

I understand that most of my readers probably don't read John Maxwell very much and many would even consider him suspect. I also realize and agree that "generational theory" is very limited in it's ability to explain the world around us.

So now that I have begun by causing you to question the reliability of the source and the content let me recommend this article by John Maxwell on the Millennials.  For some of you this will be more of the same, but I think it does reinforce things many of us have been noting.

Maxwell asks the right question which is worth pondering when he says:

While most literature has focused on how to manage Millennials, author Jim Heskett poses a question one step down the road in his article, “How Will Millennials Manage?”

And Maxwell does a nice job of outlining how this generation will lead.  The article reinforces the ideas found in The Starfish and the Spider, among other places, that heavy-handed, top-down, hierarchically-driven, command and control structures of leadership aren't going to win the day in the future.  Of course, having said that I am now left dazed and confused, wondering how in the world Tom Coughlin has taken a team to the Super Bowl, but that's a discussion for another day.

And, if the Starfish and the Spider is even remotely on track, it appears this top-down, command and control style of leadership has historically been a weaker form of leadership than the more decentralized, collaborative style of leadership.  In other words, the millennials may not just be a quirky generation that older folks need to tolerate, they may be recovering important principles and ideas that have served well throughout history.

So, with that, let me encourage you to read the whole article by Maxwell.  And here's a link to the article he references by Jim Heskett.

Starbucks, Home Depot, Tom Peters, Pogo, Molding Innards and Total Depravity

I doubt that Tom Peters would agree and maybe not appreciate it, if I called him a Calvinist, but his post called We Have Met the Enemy is an outstanding illustration of Christian doctrines of original sin, indwelling sin, total depravity and the like.

Tom is most famous for his book In Search of Excellence, and his career as a consultant/speaker/author/business-guru. In the above post he opines on Starbucks, a company sailing in a wide open Blue Ocean yet whose stock is "in the tank." Along the way, he compares Starbucks struggles to those of Home Depot and says that basically, Pogo was right - "we have met the enemy and he is us."  In both cases, the decline of Starbucks and Home Depot cannot be explained in terms of overwhelming competition, it is something within the companies themselves that caused them to decline.  Here's a quick summary that could easily be translated into theologi-speak:

Yes, to use the oft repeated Walt Kelly quote (from his comic strip, Pogo): "We have met the enemy and he is us." "Innovation" is the business topic du jour. Of course, it's really the "topic du always"—even for 5-year old companies that started with a bang, and took advantage of said bang to undertake expansion. Or, for that matter, those choosing not to expand and graying in place. To use an even more oft used quote by the ubiquitous whomever: "Get thine own house in order first, dude." That is, in, conservatively, eight out of ten cases, I'd judge after 35 years of close observation, it's not a surging competitor with a "disruptive" strategy that generates a star's tailspin, but the star's inherent entropic (remember Newton) drift, away from innovativeness and toward mediocrity; such companies, almost all companies, do not have to learn how to innovate ... they have to learn how to not not innovate. "Data drawn from the real world," said Norberto Odebrecht, founder of the remarkable Brazilian heavy construction giant, Odebrecht, "attest to a fact that is beyond our control: Everything in existence tends to deteriorate." It's the molding innards, not the lousy strategy or uppity competitor, that cause most of, if not all of, the decline. And addressing said molding innards must, simply must, be the new or extant CEO's Job #1.

A Sign of the Times

Wow, talk about a picture that paints a thousand words - (HT - Digg)

Network Television R.I.P.

Most everyone knows about the writer's strike in Hollywood.  Marc Andreessen has a couple of posts up about the writer's strike and potential effects here and here (HT - Richard Florida).

It's all pretty interesting.  I know a number of folks who think television is the spawn of Satan and will probably rejoice in these misfortunes that are befalling the denizens of the city of iniquity, i.e. Hollywood.

Personally I'm only a little bit interested in the strike itself, as I only have a few programs I really follow, but if those programs go off the air it should take me about 20 minutes to deal with it and move on with my life.  I'm a bit bummed that 24 might not make it back in January and I really enjoy the new show Chuck, so I'll miss that if it goes away.  Oh yeah, I'll probably lose lot's of sleep wondering what happens to the castaways on Lost if that doesn't make it back. 

Other than that, for me the highest purpose of a television is show college football games so as long as the writer's strike doesn't affect Bowl season and next year's football season I should be fine.

But, all that silliness aside, Andreessen has an analysis worth paying attention to.  He says this:

The writers' strike, and the studios' response to the strike, may radically accelerate a structural shift in the media industry -- a shift of power from studios and conglomerates towards creators and talent.

Informational Cascades

I may be late to the party on this one but I came across a concept I hadn't really given any thought to recently - its the idea of informational cascades.  John Tierney of the New York Times explains it this way:

We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.

If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.

Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus.

I came across that doing a bit of research on Gary Taubes book Good Calories, Bad Calories and Tierney uses informational cascades as an explanation for the conventional wisdom that a high-carb low-fat diet is good for you, when a massive body of research says otherwise.

Keller - We Don't Know How to Persuade, We Can Only Denounce

I hate being such a groupie, but yeah, I'm a Tim Keller groupie and yes, my heart is atwitter with the news that he has a book coming out in February.  Keller is well-known but what is less well-known is that a couple of his sons have a blog called "Name Pending."  They don't post all that much but the blog is worth looking through the archives - some very good and interesting stuff.  Here's an excerpt from a post in August of 2005, announcing the publication of Keller's new book.  I am wondering if this is the one that is coming out in February of 2008?  Regardless, Keller has some good words about the cultural impasse we find ourselves in today.  These words are reminiscent of James Davison Hunter's in Culture Wars, where Hunter pointed out that one of the most notable features of the "culture wars" is the way both sides continually talk past each other.  Here's Keller:

Do we have a secular society in which skepticism and relativism reign, making orthodox faith both exotic and deviant? Or do we have an increasingly religious social order in which fundamentalism flourishes and non-belief is stigmatized? In an unforeseen and unexpected turn of events, we have come to a cultural moment in which both secular skeptics and orthodox believers feel their existence is threatened. We have neither the western Christendom of the past nor the secular society that has been predicted for so long.We have something else entirely. Both doubt and faith are on the rise in significant, powerful ways.

On the one hand, the number of unchurched people in the U.S. and Europe is increasing rapidly. U.S. universities went from being formally Christian to being overtly secular. As a result, there are many educated circles no one knows anyone (well) who is a Christian believer. Belief in traditional religion has little foothold in the institutions of cultural power. A century ago most.

On the other hand, there has been a new surge of belief in Christianity at the same time. Churches with supposedly obsolete beliefs in an infallible Bible and miracles are growing in the U.S. and exploding in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Stanley Fish, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, thinks that even the western university will soon be influenced by a new wave of faith. “When Jacques Derrida died I was called by a reporter who wanted know what would succeed high theory and the triumvirate of race, gender, and class as the center of intellectual energy in the academy. I answered like a shot: religion.”

We have neither a religious nor a secular society—but instead a culture divided. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and it has created a crisis.

Because both doubt and belief are on the rise, our political and public discourse on matters of faith, truth and morality has become deadlocked, shrill, and deeply polarized. The culture wars are taking a great toll. Emotions and rhetoric are intense, to the point of hysteria. Those who believe in God and Christianity are out to ‘impose their beliefs on the rest of us.’ Those who don’t believe are ‘enemies of truth and purveyors of relativism and permissiveness.’ We don’t know how to reason with or persuade those with whom we disagree. We can only denounce.

What can we do about this situation?

Two Ways of Seeing Jason Bourne

Two of my favorite things about Monday are that Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost publishes his weekly Thirty Three Things Column, and I also get my weekly update from Mike Metzger at the Clapham Institute. This week both had a reference to one of my all-time favorite movie franchises - the Bourne series. 

Joe has a link to an article that says that Jason Bourne is a Rambo for liberals, in which the author, Brendan O’Neill, says:

In The Bourne Ultimatum, as in the first two instalments, the only bad guys are CIA operatives. They think little of bugging phones, using spycams to track troublesome elements, shooting uppity journalists, and blowing up CIA men gone wrong in the teeming streets of foreign cities. As Cosmo Landesman says in The Sunday Times, Bourne is ‘the perfect liberal hero’. He allows ‘liberals to enjoy all the forbidden pleasures of the espionage blockbuster: they can see him kick a**, break necks, smash faces and shoot fellow human beings, and not complain about civil liberties because the victims work for the CIA’. Bourne is, says Landesman, ‘the John Rambo of the liberal intelligentsia’

On the other hand, Mike Metzger says that the Bourne franchise is a good representation of the four chapter Christian story:

The Bourne Identity asks the existential question ("Who am I?") according to film critic Manohla Dargis (formerly at the Los Angeles Times). He says the second film, The Bourne Supremacy was moral – "What did I do wrong?" The third installment, The Bourne Ultimatum, is redemptive according to David Denby of The New Yorker. It addresses "How can I escape what I am?" These three questions are addressed and answered in the first three chapters of the "four-chapter" gospel.

For thousands of years, the gospel was a "four-chapter" story enshrined in such early documents as the Nicene Creed (325AD), the Athanasian Creed (4th century) and the Apostle's Creed (8th century revision of the Old Roman Creed of the 3rd century). It was the story behind every story – captured in four chapters: (1) Creation – addressing the existential question "Who am I?" and how life ought to be, (2) the Fall – addressing "What did I do wrong?" to make the world the way it is today, (3) Redemption – addressing "How can I escape what I am?" and make things better and (4) the Restoration – "Where will I end up?" (For those of us who have seen Bourne Ultimatum, we were left wondering, "Where will Jason Bourne end up?")

 

Jason Bourne may seem larger than life, but his story actually reflects an even bigger story. "The Bible tells a story that is the story, the story of which our human life is a part," wrote Lesslie Newbigin. "It is not that stories are part of human life, but that human life is part of a story." When we see these patterns in cinema reflected in Scripture, the seeming gap between "the world" and the Word of God shrinks.

While I think Mr. O'Neill is insightful in his observations I think Metzger offers a more fruitful way of analyzing things.  The O'Neill article views life through a politicized lens, whereas the Metzger article views life through a gospel/redemptive lens.  Metzger doesn't claim that Bourne is a Christian hero, just that the franchise itself asks the inescapable questions which are only answered fully in the Christian story.

The reason that Metzger's take is more fruitful is that it escapes the pitfalls of the political illusion.  As Chuck Colson says:

Have we finally succumbed to what Jacques Ellul, the eccentric French Reformed thinker, prophesied in the 1960s—the politicization of all aspects of life? Ellul foresaw the Information Age and the media's need for a steady flow of information to feed the populace. Media would therefore gravitate to covering centers of power. Politicians would be willing accomplices, because they'd gain fame and clout. All of this has happened, creating what Ellul's prophetic book, The Political Illusion, predicted: the idea that every problem has a political solution.