by Jeremy Daggett
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Joshua LaRock, fine artist:
We can't ‘exist’ on a philosophy that is basically … the rejection of everything.
Good thoughts in this video on postmodernism, Christianity and art's role in strengthening worldviews.
(Via David Condolora.)
Mike Breach — quite the latte artist.
An essay from deep thinker John Fortner:
Scripture is a co-production between heaven and earth. God relies on the creativity and imagination of humans to convey in human categories and culture that which in any given time can best be understood.
Fortner isn't content to hide behind the words “inspired” or “God's Word” when it comes to Christian scripture. In fact, he insists on engaging culture.
Since God is the best teacher in the cosmos, he accommodates himself to human culture. In doing so, God makes use of human civilization, culture, and imagination as much as possible to convey something of his nature, character, and agenda for the earth and its inhabitants. In all of this we understand that God takes a high view of human culture and human imagination. This is confirmed within the pages of Scripture itself where we see replications of and adaptations to the vast array of literary genres, approaches, strategies, and devices known in the cultural world of the ancient Near East.
Head over to the Fortner Thinkshop for more compelling essays.
Seth Godin:
Racing to build your organization around the latest social network tool or graphics-rendering technology permits you to spend a lot of time learning the new system and skiing in the fresh powder of the unproven, but it might just distract you from the difficult work of telling the truth, looking people in the eye and making a difference.
Tools are tools and people are people; it's all about people.
Frank Chimero:
Each invention shows that the world is malleable, from the simplest stone tool to the screen you're using to read this. We make what we want, break things in the process, collect what we like, and connect what we discover to get us closer to where we want to be.
Beautiful visual essay. I especially love the last two slides.
Great quote from the late Roger Ebert:
“What I believe is that all clear-minded people should remain two things throughout their lifetimes: Curious and teachable.”
Christian Piatt, looking ahead to the Subverting the Norm conference this weekend, reflects on postmodern theology:
The thing is, I have my own concerns that this movement risks becoming the kind of thing that it seeks to distance itself from. Whereas there’s a great potential benefit in challenging, or even actively deconstructing everything from our image of God to our notion of all things supernatural or miraculous, there’s also the risk that we end up embarking in our own sort of “scorched earth” theological crusade, intent on wringing all metaphysical thinking from the conversation and discounting anything beyond aesthetic experience and fundamental human morality.
In other words, the pendulum that swung toward divisive hyper-rationalism with modernity risks swinging too far in the opposite direction with postmodernism. And the result would be the same: division, power struggles, and partisanship.
It's a fair question.
If the movement's members can sustain self-examination throughout their growth, their theology stands a chance at avoiding “becoming what it ‘hates.’”
Jared Moore:
As a result of watching Harry Potter in this distinctly Christian manner, readers will enjoy God through enjoying the final four Harry Potter movies. After all, enjoying God is the ultimate purpose of life.
“Wingardium Leviosa”, which traslates (very loosely) to “People have way too much time on their hands.”
The headline, tweeted by @CTmagazine:
Died: The man Chris Tomlin, modern worship leaders owe thanks for bringing drums to church
A desire for pageviews pervades in Christian journalism too. There were 12 replies in two hours by "regular people" calling CT out for the misleading headline. It's sensational link-bait and an abuse of a large audience.
CT reposted the story an hour later, this time with a much more straightforward sentence structure:
Baptist conductor Buryl Red, whose pioneering compositions changed modern church music, died Monday
As long as the pageview model of advertising dominates, the temptation to sensationalize will be there. CT's readers (and advertisers) deserve better.
David Ferguson writing for The Onion:
I can’t stress this enough: Do what you love…in between work commitments, and family commitments, and commitments that tend to pop up and take immediate precedence over doing the thing you love. Because the bottom line is that life is short, and you owe it to yourself to spend the majority of it giving yourself wholly and completely to something you absolutely hate, and 20 minutes here and there doing what you feel you were put on this earth to do.
What are you waiting for? Use those 20 minutes wisely.
Greg McKinzie, debunking the "God turned his back on Jesus" argument:
The cross is the moment when God With Us screams out the meaning of his identity, not the moment when God With Us suddenly becomes God Left Us. In this last, most terrible moment, when Life takes death into himself, he stays. This is the very meaning of God’s faithfulness. The Father does not abandon when things are their ugliest. There is no compulsion in the divine being that makes him unable to bear the sight of sin or forces him to turn his back. He is not that father. He is not that god.
Think about it. We say "the cross" is the epicenter of God's plan for the salvation of humanity. Then we say that God abandoned Jesus on the cross. Was God completely absent at the fulfillment of God's will?
You can't have it both ways.
Rachel Held Evans, on how the Personal Promise Bible is an unfortunate reflection of our individualistic North American mindset:
While this product may be an extreme example, it points to the profound influence of Western individualism on our reading of the biblical text. Passages that were originally written for groups of people, and intended to be read and applied in a community setting (the nation of Israel, the various early churches, the first followers of Jesus), have been manipulated to communicate a personal, individual message … thus leading the reader away from the original corporate intent of the passage to a reaffirmation of the individualistic, me-centered, and consumerist tendencies of American religious culture.
I've often heard this suggested with John 3:16: "For God so loved Jeremy." This is a grave mistake.
Such a reading renders the reconciling work of God into little more than a personal improvement project, with the individual at the center, rather than the sustained and relentless work of God to reconcile and redeem the whole world.
Yes, Jesus loves me (this I know). But when we read the Bible, too often we jump straight to today. To "me" or "us." It's like we put the saving and sustaining presence of Jesus in a time machine and launch it into our current setting. In doing this we forget that Jesus hit the scene at a specific time in history to a specific place as an integral part of God's ongoing relationship with humanity. The arrival of Jesus of Nazareth bridges Genesis to our situation and looks ahead to Revelation.
We're part of a much bigger story. Substituting "me" for "world" as the primary object of God's love produces a passive Christianity. Maintaining the historical and community perspective, on the other hand, translates into an active participation in what God is already doing, what he's been doing for millennia.
Josh Graves on what it's like to preach:
Basically, you have to be (somewhat) crazy to earn your living talking about, speaking of, creating, and imagining a God nobody can prove. And by nobody I mean that no one can prove the existence and presence of God. Evidence can point you to something but it does not prove it. To believe, the scriptures teach, you have to take a long walk off the short plank and fall into faith.
Jeremy and I are launching a website.
You’ll find links to articles we’ve found interesting and thoughtful, or that we completely disagree with. This type of “linked list” got its start in tech writing. Some of our favorite websites point out relevant articles across the web by pulling quotes and interjecting their own thoughts.
We’ll do the same for a different “industry”. We’re searching for what’s being said in the context of postmodern Christianity. Using a postmodern worldview as a lens, we try to understand what it means to be a Christian.
We’ll also talk about things we like that are less overtly spiritual — coffee, design, pizza and Italy to name a few.
Welcome to Post Modern.
Marco Tabini writes about growing up in Italy around a coffee shop as the son of a barista. Making a good espresso is an art form, and Tabini details the process from bean to machine. It's more than just a drink. It's a symbol of culture, adulthood, and joy:
The common link was espresso. The shop sold pastries and savories, and drinks of both the soft and hard kind; there was enough variety to please just about any taste. But everyone who walked in the door — save a handful of tea drinkers — ended up with coffee in some form. And when Italians say “coffee,” especially in a café, they mean “espresso.” There is no other kind.
So far, one of my favorite articles in The Magazine.
Audio of the keynote lectures and workshops from the New England Church Growth Conference just became available. Brady Easter is a friend of mine, and his workshop on tech, social media, and evangelism are listed alongside big names like Don McLaughlin, Harold Shank, and Dan Rodriguez. I wish I could have been there, but I look forward to listening in on some of what I missed.
If it hurts you to look at the website as much as it hurts me, you can jump straight to the downloadable audio files here.
Peter Rollins for the Huffington Post:
For when someone rejects the notion of God because of the wars that have been fought over that name, as well as the abuse, the fundamentalism and the ecological destruction that is bound to so much religion, they are demonstrating a profound concern for both people and the planet.
Rollins says that the concern that drives their atheism is a sacred one.
While most Jesus-followers won't ever be asked if we are Christians on such a big stage, I need to have my own answer ready. I can't possibly know what everyone else is thinking when the question is asked, so it's important that I know what I'm thinking. Then I can ask what my “interviewer” believes about Jesus or Christianity and create a space for conversation.
Shane Claiborne asks people who they believe God is before he answers whether or not he “believes in God.” Very often we may find that we don't believe in the God about whom the other person is asking.
Hard to believe the KJV is still second in sales and third in overall unit sales 401 years after its inception.
Rick Oster (one of my professors) deconstructs the “Jesus didn’t hang out in the church” argument. His disclaimer should be enough to get you to read the whole article:
First, I don’t think TobyMac is the Antichrist, a member of the Illuminati, or guilty of any other nefarious associations or behavior, and I think it is clearly helpful to the Christian movement worldwide that he won the Best Contemporary Christian Album at this year’s Grammy Awards. I also find many of his lyrics to be on target spiritually.
