Archive for July, 2005
Tuesday, July 26th, 2005
The first session of the Emerging Generations course will focus on an understanding of generational culture and generational cohorts. I’ll be engaging with:
1. Karl Mannheim’s “A Problem of Generations”, from Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, written for post World War I Germany. This will provide a historical context for current approaches to generational theory. Opportunity to unpack the meaning of ‘cohort’.
2. Turner and Edmonds - looking at the dynamics of generational cohorts and sub groups, with consideration of education and gender as factors.
3. Strauss and Howe - their theory of generational cycles in the United States - how valid is their theory? Application by Mike Regele in his book, “Death of the Church”.
4. Hugh Mackay - his Australian research on ‘generational slices’. Insights gained. The limitations of such approaches.
5. Meredith and Schewe - their framework for generational culture based on defining moments. Marketing in the context of life stage, natural ageing, socio-economic background and ethnicity as well as generational culture.
6. Andy Crouch - a critique of defining distinctive and innovative generations - appeal to continuity, consideration of Biblical models of generation.
I’ll be looking at Jesus as an example of a counter-cultural prophetic leader - challenging the assumptions of his elders and peers.
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Monday, July 25th, 2005
I’ve been blogging for a week at [Praxis] now. First week was five installments of Romans 8:26-39. This week will be five installments of Matthew 14:13-21, in which Jesus oversees the feeding of at least 5000 people. Today I start with Jesus’ quest for solitude, silence and intimacy with God.
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Monday, July 25th, 2005
I’ve just put some thoughts down at PostKiwi’s Generational Posts, on U2’s “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” as a text for the currently 34-43 age group.
At the same time, I’ve written up some material on text at GodPost: Resources for Theological Reflection. As I read through the critics of the Emerging Church movements, I’m coming across bewilderment at the honouring of texts other than Scripture. Whatever happened to Sola Scriptura? And so I’ve written what I’ve written…
Despite the rhetoric of the Reformation, in reality we all make decisions daily on the basis of texts that have little connection with Holy Scripture. We develop our perception of the world around us as we choose and engage with newspapers, magazines, television channels and radio stations. We communicate with one another using an amazing variety of media, including mobile phones and the internet.
What makes some of us nervous is when we realise that we have always been applying our culturally-biased perception of the world to our understanding of God and the world in general. Paying attention to the texts that form and express the values of a generational cohort helps us recognise and discern the impact of those texts. In some cases we will discover perspectives that have been overshadowed by the texts of previous or later generations.
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Monday, July 25th, 2005
I’ve just posted on ‘text’ at GodPost, unpacking some of my thoughts on analysis of generational text. In that post I say:
“Paying attention to the texts that form and express the values of a generational cohort helps us recognise and discern the impact of those texts. In some cases we will discover perspectives that have been overshadowed by the texts of previous or later generations.”
Take U2’s song, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”.
It was released in 1987 as a single and as part of the Joshua Tree album. It was released as a music video as part of the Rattle and Hum video (with the gospel choir New Voices of Freedom) and later in The Best of U2: 1980-1990 (walking the streets of Las Vegas).
People aged 16 to 25 in 1987 when this song was released, were born 1962 to 1971, now aged 34 to 43. It’s helpful to note that the members of the band, U2, were born in 1960 and 1961.
This could be a useful text for exploring the values, spirituality, and aspirations of late Trailing Edge Baby Boomers and early Generation X. If you’re in any doubt that this song has done the rounds, bear in mind that it has been covered by at least 30 different artists.
Engaging with the text
In engaging with this text, where would you start?
With the experience of Bono and The Edge as they put the song together? See U2 Songfacts.
With the experience of participants of a group? Would you ask what it is that people are looking for?
Would you unpack the imagery of mountains, fields, city walls, honey lips, burning desire, the hand of the devil, bleeding colors, broken bonds, loosed chains and carried cross?
How might this text relate to other texts? To novels, movies and television series? To personal stories? To Biblical texts?
Who else has asked these questions?
Check out U2 Sermons Blog. Check for comments on this post. Add your own!
The Lyrics
I have climbed the highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you I have run,
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes, I’m still running
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And my shame
All my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
generation x U2
Posted in Generations, Worth Reading | 2 Comments »
Monday, July 25th, 2005
Textual analysis is a crucial process of engagement with generational culture. But to get our heads around working with generational text, we need to unpack what we mean by ‘text’.
Text Defined
From Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia we’re given different meanings relating to different contexts:
Language
Text is a broad term for something that contains words to express something.
Linguistics
Text is a communicative act, fulfilling the seven constitutive and the three regulative principles of textuality. Both speech and written language, or language in other media can be seen as a text within linguistics.
Literary Theory
A text is the object being studied, whether it be a novel, a poem, a film, an advertisement, or anything else with a linguistic component. The broad use of the term derives from the rise of semiotics in the 1960s and was solidified by the later cultural studies of the 1980s, which brought a corresponding broadening of what it was one could talk about when talking about literature.
Mobile Phone Communication
A text is a short digital message between devices. Also known as short message service (SMS)
Computing
Text refers to character data, or to one of the segments of a program in memory.
Text as Authority?
Note that none of these definitions assumes that the text is authoritative or to be given equal weight in decision making. Textbooks in academic study are seen as foundational material but in most disciplines are used alongside other sources. Academic rigour is measured in the capacity of a scholar to engage with a number of texts, forming opinions with discernment.
Biblical Text Only?
A complication when working in a conservative Evangelical framework is the anxiety about the place of holy scripture. “Sola Scriptura” was one of the rallying cries of the Protestant reformation. The recognition of personal and shared experience, along with the consideration of forms of popular culture, threatens a perception that world views are shaped only by the ‘Biblical worldview’.
Reading the Bible requires the skills of textual analysis. The Bible is made up of a number of texts. The Old Testament and New Testament as we know them now, are made up of collections of texts. As we read through those texts we place more weight on some than others. We interpret them in the light of the authors’ contexts as well as our own context.
Text Recognition
Despite the rhetoric of the Reformation, in reality we all make decisions daily on the basis of texts that have little connection with Holy Scripture. We develop our perception of the world around us as we choose and engage with newspapers, magazines, television channels and radio stations. We communicate with one another using an amazing variety of media, including mobile phones and the internet.
What makes some of us nervous is when we realise that we have always been applying our culturally-biased perception of the world to our understanding of God and the world in general. Paying attention to the texts that form and express the values of a generational cohort helps us recognise and discern the impact of those texts. In some cases we will discover perspectives that have been overshadowed by the texts of previous or later generations.
Generational Text
How would one would decide on a generational text? I would start with a means of communication that has came of age with a generational cohort. It’s for this reason that the rise of television show is associated with Baby Boomers, and music video with Gen Xers. It would be almost impossible to find texts that have had universal appeal throughout a generation. When considering a generational text one of the first tasks is to identify the particular context in which it has arisen and the more general context in which it has been accessed.
One hazard of working with generational text is absolutism. As we recognise cultural patterns expressed in the text we are tempted to make sweeping generalisations about a whole generation without taking into account the particularities of generational sub cultures.
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Sunday, July 24th, 2005
It’s been a fascinating couple of days in the Emerging Church international movement. Forge Missional Training Network distanced themselves from Emerging Church movements in the United States and UK in their response to DA Carson’s “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church”.
Tuesday July 19
The pdf file, created at 6.52 am and modified 4.53 pm, titled:
Don Carson and the Australian Missional Church Movement: A Forge response. The nine-page paper’s aim was to help frame responses to the various reactions brought about by Don Carson’s critique of Emergent and how it might have an effect of Forge’s ministry and that of the emerging missional church in Australia which Forge serves.
Wednesday July 20
The pdf file was posted, 11.05 pm, at Andrew Hamilton’s site, Backyard Missionary
Thursday July 21
received a copy of the file by Forge Queensland, 10.37 am.
4.26 pm Andrew Jones posts at Tall Skinny Kiwi
11.28 pm Tony Jones, Emergent National Co-ordinator expresses concern in comments at Backyard Missionary and Tall Skinny Kiwi. Alan Hirsch responds.
Friday July 22
1.16 Steve McCoy of Reformisssionary posts on Drawing Lines. and again at Emerging SBC Leaders.
2.09 am Stephen Shields gives his commentary at Emergesque.
9.20 am Jordon Cooper points out that despite advanced technology, we do a lousy job of talking to each other. What might have happened if Carson had sat down and talked with McLaren? What might Frost and Hirsch’s paper looked like if they’d included McLaren’s input? He’s since deleted the post.
9.25 am Andrew Hamilton places an apology from Alan Hirsch and withdraws the pdf.
9.43 am Subversive Influence post
4.30 pm I finally get to read the document I’d printed out earlier. I post something here and then discover the conversation’s happened already. I delete the post when I get home later in the evening.
Saturday July 23
2.23 Radicalcongruency post on Forge and Emergent - lessons from the conversation
5.45 am Robbymac posts on Aussies and Centred sets.
12.41 Darren Wright suggests people drink more decaf.
In the meantime, I finally manage to read Brian McLaren’s “The Last Word and the Word After That”, and start on Don Carson’s “Becoming Conversant”. Reviews coming when I’m finished.
Posted in Emerging Church, Worth Reading | 2 Comments »
Saturday, July 23rd, 2005
William Willimon, United Methodist bishop, scholar and writer, started a blog this month. I take my hat off to any writer who’s prepared to put their thinking online and open up for comments.
His first post, back on July 4, was on church planting. Quoting a number of ex-pupils he draws the Alabama Conference’s attention to the link between growth, missional engagement, flexibility and new churches. He finishes by saying, “I want our Conference to make new church development a priority among priorities. New church development is that way to the future, the answer to our problems in membership decline and lack of inclusiveness, and a gift of God to us in our present challenges.”
Willimon is online at willimon.blogspot.com
Posted in Blogging, Worth Reading | 4 Comments »
Saturday, July 23rd, 2005
Luke Slattery hit the front page of The Weekend Australian this morning with an article on critical literacy in Australian high schools, backed up with a column on page 10, “Fading theory has no place in schools“, and a feature in the Enquirer section, “Words without meaning“.
The front page article, “This little pig goes post modernist” features Mem Fox’s book, “Feathers and Fools” as it is deconstructed in the secondary schools teaching guide, “From Picture Book to Literary Theory“.
“The culturally relativist theory, which teaches that there is no such thing as objective truth, has largely fallen out of fashion on university campuses. But the new lease of life it has been given in secondary education, under the guise of ‘critical literacy’, is a trend Mem Fox finds ‘enraging’.
And why is this trend so enraging?
Luke Slattery says that “students are not well enough acquainted with their own cultural traditions for teachers to justify dumbing down the school curriculum by treating all forms of communication literature, films, emails and even conversations as texts equally worthy of their attention”. He is concerned that postmodern theory has become stultifyingly doctrinaire in the hands of second-rate intellects.
As the parent of two high school students I can see where he’s coming from. Over the last two years discourse analysis and deconstruction has become the focus of English homework. It’s a headache for us all, getting our minds around the discourses of war, fear and loathing. Texts such as seminars, movies, web sites and television advertisements are considered alongside classic texts such as Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” and Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”. It’s been interesting, stretching and exciting, and hard work.
There’s an empowering element to critical literacy. Here on the Gold Coast students are given tools with which they can critique the implicit hedonism in the everyday texts they encounter. Slattery bemoans the attention paid to everyday “texts”. The reality, though, is that the texts of high culture - such as Shakespeare - are pulled out to equip us to engage in the English language. The English language is expressed in emails, blogs, newspapers, movies, conversations and other everyday forms of communication.
However it becomes clear that some teachers have a fixed viewpoint when it comes to critical literacy. “These are the angles you should take, and these are the examples you should provide”. It’s postmodernist technique driven by modernist ideology.
At the same time it appears as though these 16 and 17 year olds are being asked to grapple with complexities that are beyond their capacity. They could engage with this in Sociology of the English language 101 perhaps. But being asked to produce high achievement in discourse analysis at the age of 16 leads to frustration for those who are still struggling to come to terms with character, plot and writing technique.
I don’t share Slattery’s contempt for postmodernist philosophy. Nor do I agree that postmodernism has had its day. Sure, the marxism-driven analysis of the 1970s has been overshadowed by economic rationalism. But postmodernism continues to morph and will be with us in many different forms for a long time.
Other Opinions:
Ninglun, posts this morning at More Lines from a Floating Life, on The Australian’s article on the demise of multiculturalism. He notes that once again the Australian is “letting Luke Slattery loose with his parodic versions of critical literacy and the dreaded pomo.”
Gary Sauer-Thompson back in December last year wrote at Philosophy.com :
“I gave up reading Slattery’s ignorant and ill-informed jibes at postmodernism many a long year ago.” … “It is best to ignore the chatter of this kind of junk commentary, given its unwillingness to actually engage with the texts of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault, and its penchant for tilting at cultural windmalls. What Slattery and The Australian express is the dumbing down of critical commentary in Australia and the devaluing of knowledge. ”
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Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
There’s an interesting conversation going on at Signposts, sparked by a post by Canadian Leighton LeBay reviewing John Bevere’s model of APEPT in charismatic churches at TheHeresy.com.
Alan Hirsch, in Leighton’s comments, restates his belief that at least a five-fold ministry model is prescribed by the Ephesians 4 passage. This is consistent with Alan’s approach in the book, The Shaping of Things to Come (of which I bought 15 copies today!)
Dan of Signposts in Melbourne wonders if the focus on ‘apostolic leadership’ may have negative consequences for the church as a whole. She makes a link with her earlier questions on women in leadership.
Steve Taylor, Emergent Kiwi, comments that the APEPT model is one of the more problematic things he’s come across in the emerging church conversation. He says that one small section of Ephesians is not enough to build a prescriptive model of leadership for the New Testament churches let alone the 21st Century churches in all their diversity. I agree.
Steve refers to Andrew Clarke’s “Serve the Community of the Church: Christians as Leaders and Ministers“. Clarke examines leadership in the Graeco-Roman society, at city, voluntary associations, family, household, and Jewish synagogues. Clarke takes us through the many models of leadership found in the New Testament. Corinth was a community wavering between being boastful of its leaders and being divided over them. The church in Rome was a community of leaders preoccupied with status. The church in Philippi was a church preoccupied with politics. Leadership outlined in Pauline writing was in fact a response to the socio-economic settings of each city.
I think we need to commission and welcome people with leadership that goes beyond the local congregation. Obviously I’m biased as my role as mission consultant includes aspects of apostolic and prophetic ministry. But I would be very very reluctant to limit leadership roles to the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher brackets. I’m with Steve Taylor on this. I’m sure we need to move out of a dependence on ‘clergy’. But we also need to recognise the huge varieties of leadership styles and frameworks God uses in churches around the world.
Homer Paxton, internet troll extraordinaire, asks in Dan’s comments how apostles and prophets get to be chosen. My response…
From the evidence of The Didache the early church found it difficult to work out which prophets and apostles were to be recognised. Just like now, there was no shortage of people who made a living out of travelling around with the message of the Lord. Many were genuine. Some were spongers. And so the paragraph quoted here from the Didache:
“Concerning the apostles and prophets, so do according to the ordinance of the Gospel. Let every apostle, when he comes to you, be received as the Lord; but he shall not abide more than a single day, or if there be need, a second day. If he abides three days, he is a false prophet. When he departs let the apostle receive nothing except bread, until he finds shelter; but if he ask for money, he is a false prophet.”
Excerpted from: http://www.antioch.com.sg
The Didache was probably written either late first century or early second century.
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Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
I used to wonder what the radio announcer was talking about when he/she referred to the weather radar. And then I took a look for myself.
Right now there’s an impressive storm brewing up around Townsville.
There are two sites that give me that information:
Weatherzone
and
Australian Bureau of Meterology
The second site provides the capacity to check on the direction of rain, hail or snow, with a 4-image loop.
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