Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts

The following is an excerpt of an article by Jeffrey Weiss found over at RealClearReligion.

[The "War on Christmas"] is the battle by Christmas against any other religion's tradition. I defy Bill O'Reilly and his compadres to locate the smallest corner of our nation immune from the months-long drumbeat of Christmas stuff. For us, the holiday seems closer to Star Trek's Borg Collective ("Resistance is futile!") than anything I can find in the Christian scriptures.

...so much of Christmas in America has nothing to do with Christ or Jesus. If there was a war, it was waged long ago amongst Christians. And the majority of them decided they also wanted a cultural holiday that distilled an essence from Christmas and left most of the God stuff behind. In my mind, I think of that holiday as "Xmas."

Look at our cultural holiday touchstones, all the way back to Dickens's Christmas Carol. What are the books, movies and TV specials that come back again and again and again? It's a Wonderful Life. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Nutcracker. Frosty the Snowman. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. A Visit from St. Nicholas. The Nightmare Before Christmas. And on and on.

There's only one example I can think of in the entire popular pantheon that includes enough actual theology for a short sermonette: Linus giving his unapologetic recitation from the Book of Luke in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Let's not blame this on the ACLU or the Supreme Court or Barack Obama. The decisions about which of the many, many holiday-timed specials became perennials were made by the marketplace and over decades. Most attempts by Christian religionists to create entertainment that was explicitly Christian and transcendentally popular have had little success beyond preaching to their own choir.

14 DAYS 'TIL CHRISTMAS!!

I think we finally have our schedule set up, with leaders and musicians and practices and gatherings on the horizon.

I think today we may finally get our tree set up.  I'm not sure our kids will let it slide another day.

I think this week I might have time to get some gifts together...finally.

I think adding Charge Conference, our main administrative meeting, the week before Christmas is going to add a burden that didn't need to be there...but really "needed" to be there because of scheduling issues.

I think I need to read this quote again from Jeff Monroe.

Friends from Europe were visiting and after a long day we were discussing what to do for dinner. Sergio, whose family is from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, said, “My father was a shepherd. Like him, I am a simple man. If I have some bread, a piece of cheese and a glass of wine I’ll be happy.”

My father was a shepherd! Have you ever heard someone say that? How many shepherds or shepherds’ sons do you know?

Later that night, a smiling Sergio had his bread, cheese and wine. And I learned a lesson about joy. There is a relationship between joy and simplicity. The more we have, the more cluttered our lives become, the more difficult it is to find that elusive combination of delight, satisfaction and well-being known as joy.

Here’s my life too often: I have 300 channels on my television and am bored that there’s nothing on. I have hundreds of Facebook friends but precious few people I really share my life with. There are multiple cell phones, land lines, televisions, PCs, laptops and an iPad in my house, yet I feel increasingly out of touch. And Christmas? Well, Christmas can become a seemingly endless must-do list of tasks that have little relationship to joy. Amid the often unfulfilling complexity of modern life, I am reminded of the elegant simplicity of figures like the shepherds in Luke 2, who cannot contain their joy after what they’ve seen in Bethlehem. I envy them.

Yes, there are times in my own life that I envy the Shepherds.  Even as I pastor, or shepherd, a people I can seem so far removed from the hands-on journeying and guiding that seems so basic to the role.  Too much to do.  Too much to think.  Too many places to go.

And this Christmas season doesn't seem to help.

And so, for today, I'll envy our Shepherds.

It's a simple reminder at the start of Advent, that the "X" of "Xmas" originally had nothing to do with taking "Christ" out of "Christ-mas" but using a Greek symbol to represent "Christ." John Byron says:

So next time you see Xmas in a store don't tell them "hey, put Christ back in Christmas." Instead you might thank them for partaking in a ancient Christian tradition of referring to Christ with a Greek letter. I doubt many will know what you are talking about. 

“No one” is the most influential Christian leader in America these days, according to a recent Barna survey. Of those named, Billy Graham was top on the list with 19%. But an overwhelming 41% answered “no one” when asked to name the most influential Christian in America today. Is it just me, or do you see this as a sign of progress?

(HT/ Jeff Dunn over at iMonk)

Being trained in the school of Stanley Hauerwas, where the role of the church is to set up an alternative culture that shapes people in ways that counter the ways that culture shapes them, I found the following at NextReformation.  I thought it was helpful this morning as we prepare for another discipleship class after a week where prayer has been emphasized.

If culture is a cultivating force, then the assertions follow:
1. we are always being discipled. The only question is what or whom is forming us.
2. we will not effectively maintain a discipleship “program” or curriculum without addressing the larger context of formation (the dominant culture)
3. an effective discipling movement must succeed at some level in generating an alternative culture.
4. The Church is intended to be a discipling movement, and therefore, is intended to be an alternative (kingdom) culture.
5. Culture is maintained by language and practices. An alternative culture must have a unique linguistic fund — a grammar of its own. It must also maintain shared covenant practices.

There ya' go.  

So, how do we provide alternative languages and practices in the church to make Christian disciples as opposed to more disciples of the dominant worldly culture?

"The generations that preceded ours were marked by wanting to improve, wanting to be free, and wanting to be educated, but this generation just wants to be amused."

"The good old days weren't all that good and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems."

(HT/SD Smith)

I’d like to address the MacPhail family. Let you know, despite the situation you are in, I’m not the one who personally killed your son, your father, your brother. I am innocent. The incident that happened that night is not my fault. I did not have a gun. All I can ask … is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight. For those about to take my life, God have mercy on your souls. And may God bless your souls.

Davis was executed yesterday for the death of Mark MacPhail.  Seven out of nine eyewitnesses recanted their testimony. 

It's sad.

Davis' death.

Also MacPhail's death.

Sad.

This is the pre-race prayer at the NASCAR Nationwide race on July 23rd, 2011.

It's hilarious.

There's no doubt about it.

And, perhaps the pastor uses a very much tongue-in-cheek style that would be appropriate to the occasion. After all, it is a race where people watch fast cars go fast.  This is not a solemn religious festival. 

But, it could also exemplify how the lines between Christ and culture get muddied...although "muddied" is way to mild a term for what happens here.  It's a prayer with not very much Jesus but a whole lot of racing.

Enjoy.



So, is it the best or worst?

(HT to Hacking Christianity)

Image via Wikipedia

The Kingdom of God is not a low risk, blue chip investment created by the brokers of religion for consumption, to make life better...or for retirement in some eternal resort. It can't be calmly considered, and casually digested. God's Kingdom can not be domesticated, it can't be franchised and placed along side the other proprietors of religious goods. It's leader, Jesus can't be restrained, leashed and muzzled from his continuous challenge of our selfish way of life.

We have North Americanized Jesus, making him a Spiritual Guru selling the american dream. He comes rather tamely, in a three piece suit, or as cool hipster...to tidy up a few bad habits, make us better people, more prosperous, more cool...sending us back into the world grateful for the self-help. It seems the North American Jesus leads us every where except into the Kingdom of God. It's interesting that we have success at fitting " christianity " into our culture...but trying to fit the Kingdom into the world is like trying to hammer a square peg into our hole.

From Ron Cole

                                       Image via WikipediaSo, a guy with a camera and a microphone goes around the streets of New York City, asking anyone and everyone with headphones on "What song are you listening to?"  And the people share what it is that they are listening to.  I found this fascinating, not because there was a lot of mainstream pop, which there was.  I'd expect that.  Not because the music selections were mostly new artists.  I'd expect that when considering the ages of folks I see walking around with headphones in.  I found it fascinating because there is all this music going on all around us, with people walking to different beats styles and in their own little musical worlds, oblivious to the sounds coming from around them.  I found it fascinating because I think it's indicative of how we segregate ourselves off from the rest of our communities.  We put our headphones on and, in a sense, we...are...alone.

Enjoy...

Found this over at GetReligion.Org.  I'm wondering if Alaska would really be a Red or a Blue state here.  It's clearly blue on the map, but we have a lot of red going on in our state as well.

Image by waprojecty via Flickr

Anyone who has been watching the news out of Japan has had to ask themselves that basic question:  "Why is there no looting?"  After all, remember what happened in the good old USA after Katrina?  We had looting and shooting and raiding hospitals and carjackings and...   It was ugly.  Contrast this to the orderly lines we see in Japan.  What's going on here?  Why aren't people "looking out for number one?"

With a hat tip to Allan Bevere, I read this really important article (I think) by Elizabeth Stewart of Deseret News.  I have excerpts below.  Here's the link to the full article.  But it gets at issues of alienation and community and culture--not unimportant concepts for the church.

News organizations around the world are chattering on about the remarkable order with which the Japanese have responded to the disaster.

"Three days after a magnitude-9 killer quake devastated Japan, triggering Pacific-wide tsunamis and a likely nuclear plant meltdown and then consigning millions of Japanese to darkness, thirst and hunger in the wintry cold, I still have yet to read reports of widespread looting," wrote Frederico D. Pascual Jr. of The Philippine Star. "This Filipino watching 3,200 kilometers from Ground Zero finds this disciplined behavior of a huge population in distress awe-inspiring. Let us pray that they stay that way — and that we learn from them."

Gregory Pflugfelder, director of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University, told CNN he believes the phenomenon has its roots in Japanese culture. He said the Japanese feel responsible "first and foremost" to the community.

"Looting simply does not take place in Japan," Pflugfelder said. "I'm not even sure if there's a word for it that is as clear in its implications as when we hear 'looting.' "  ...


Merry White, an anthropology professor at Boston University who studies Japanese culture, told CNN that she attributes the looting and disorder that is traditionally associated with natural disasters to social alienation and culture gaps.

"There IS some alienation and indeed some class gaps in Japan, too, but violence, and taking what belongs to others, are simply not culturally approved or supported," White said in an e-mail.

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around what this means for culture--theirs and ours.

Image via WikipediaThis is a video from Christian musician Regie Hamm.

Essentially, Hamm says that, if we have a culture that reveres wealth and power and sex and attitude, then we have a God in Charlie Sheen. He's doing exactly as we'd expect a god to be and do.  He is, in his own words, "winning."  He knows it.  And he knows he'll be celebrated for this...whether he's fired or not.  This is not good.

This implies that, as Christians we have a lot of work to do in working against this culture.

Here's the video.  Enjoy.

Reg McNeal

From The Doghouse Diaries:

I only have one of the three.  No flat screen.  No beer.  But, there's some football about to begin and we chips, cheesy salsa, and some diet Pepsi.

See more of David Hayward's stuff here.

This is  cool.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sean Dorrance Kelly
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It's all about changing -- transformation.

photo © 2009 Michael Accardi | more info (via: Wylio)


A relationship with God in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit will change us. A church grounded in God will be transformed, and it will likely transform its surrounding culture. If living in Christ makes no difference, we of all people are most to be pitied.

Mark Galli -- Are We Transformed Yet