It has been a long time since I have posted here, so I thought that I would get the ball rolling by posting a retraction of previous statements that I have made regarding the movement Christian Reconstructionism. Though I still think what I do about how Christians should interact with the government, it is appropriate for me to publicly “take back” what I said about something I only distantly understood. Continue reading
I know, I know. We are on hiatus until September. That is still true! But I wanted to take a moment to let you guys know what at least two of us are up to in the mean time.
Nathan and I are both competing in something called Photo Fight. We’ll be taking pictures, they will be posted, people will vote, and only one will survive. Or, at least only one person will be declared the winner. The other will just be sad.
Anyways, pictures start getting posted on July 1st, and the bios are already up. So, go check it out!
We’ll be back in September. (And there may be occasional posts from time to time before then.)
Last Wednesday, James posted a response to an essay I had posted a week earlier, which was itself an example of the kind of thinking that Stephan had written about closer to the beginning of this blog. This excites me because it represents a respectful and serious engagement of ideas, which is what this blog is all about in the first place. Continuing this grand trajectory of ideas, I’m now posting my own response to James’ response to my application of Stephan’s original series, per his intention. All this to say: we’re all friends here, are taking our disagreement seriously and are enjoying ourselves. Continue reading
Everybody thinks whatever they have to in order to keep thinking what they already thought. Yeah, that’s right. Your perception of any charged event is strongly shaped by your desire to reinforce what you already thought. We are capable of thinking critically, but we don’t do it nearly as often as we think we do. Basically, we interpret the world the way we already decided we interpret it, which reinforces our conviction that we interpret it correctly. Continue reading
Last week, my fellow blogger Staples offered up an argument in defense of polygyny. To say it more correctly, he offered an argument against the idea that monogamy is a practice that can be defended strongly from the Bible. It is my intention to push back on some of his ideas, and maybe end up with another response from him. I guess only time will tell.
I like to consider myself a student of humor, always striving to improve my own technique. I carefully craft each joke—a dash of absurdity here, a bit of strained repetition there, brush the margins of acceptability over here, thinly and evenly distribute irony across the top, and glaze with good timing. Because my face is usually morose and somewhat funereal, I stick with deadpan delivery. The fact that people often cannot tell whether I am joking magnifies the impact of the joke: by the time they realize that I am being funny, they find themselves assaulted on every side with bone-dry wit. Continue reading
So, I feel kind of weird posting something so very pink here, but whatever the argument requires, I guess:
What happens when a Western missionary moves into a village someplace and has great success in converting the population to Christianity, but then realizes that some of the new Christian men have more than one wife? These men are often societal leaders or elders, even chiefs, but doesn’t Christianity ban having more than one wife? Should the missionary encourage divorce? But doesn’t God hate divorce? Continue reading
The last post in this series explored why it is important to have communication between Christian theology and pop culture. This post will show seven broad ways this can be done. Most of the following is taken from Gordon Lynch’s Understanding Theology and Pop Culture. His book is great for, among other things, laying out some basic methods.
1) Study how religion and popular culture of everyday life interact. How does religion shape the way people live life? How does pop culture change the way people believe?
2) Study the ways pop culture serves religious functions. When people point out the religious nature of football games, they are doing this.
Similarly, you could see in pop culture a way of doing theology. Remember, theology is a way of communicating eternal truths to a particular situation. Christian theology, then, is a way of communicating eternal truths, particularly about God, to a particular situation. Robert Beckford has shown how Bob Marley works out theology in his music. The blues was originally a way of doing gospel music for themes that were not to be discussed in church. Worship music, which is absolutely a piece of pop culture, is a way of doing theology.
3) Understanding pop culture in order to respond to it missionally. This is exactly what many missionaries do all over the world, except in the United States, or Britain (or wherever).
4) The use of pop culture “texts” and practices as a medium for theological reflection. Every time your pastor works some cheesy reference to pop culture into a sermon, she is doing a very basic example of this.
“We’re like iPhones, and we don’t have any bars. But when we are in better communion with Jesus, we get more bars!”
This could also be done in a deeper way, such as I did with Lady Gaga’s “Judas” here.
4a) Relate pop culture to the Bible. For example, you could point out that Mumford & Son’s “Sigh No More” is similar to 1 Corinthians 13:4 (“love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, etc.”), and 2 Cor. 5:14, 17:
Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be
2 Cor. 15:14, 17 (NIV)
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died…Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
4b) Compare certain theological ideas to certain pieces of popular culture. Considering how closely Neo (The Matrix) fits Christology is an example of this. I did this with P. Diddy here, and with Christan Bale’s infamous rant here.
Seeing the variety of ways this can be done is helpful to clarify one’s thoughts and aims. It also is a testimony to how important these comparisons are, because they are so versatile.
4c) Search for theological truth in popular culture. This depends on a respect for pop culture, and a recognition that Christians do not already know everything there is to be known about theology. This fact alone limits the variety of Christians able to participate in this method.
Push of Pikes 