Week 10--Final Paper Outline

I. General Problems of Religion in a Secular University
A. The Power Structure of a Secular University
1. Hegemony
a. Church and State issues
b. Hyper-rationalism and higher education
c. Prominence and preference of science
d. Prominence and preference of other humanities
e. Other hegemonic structures
2. Deconstructing Binaries
a. The binary of Church and State
b. The binary of Religion and science
c. Other binaries
B. Local Community and Church Community Interaction
1. Local Community
a. CSUN and the needs of Northridge
1. Higher education and Northridge
2. Religion and Northridge
b. CSUN and greater Los Angeles
1. Higher education and Los Angeles
2. Religion and Los Angeles
2. Church Community
a. CSUN and First Church of Christ, San Fernando
b. First Church of Christ, San Fernando and Northridge

II. Crerar Douglas and the Synthetic (Dialectical) Model
A. Crerar Douglas and Religious Education
1. Teaching and Learning
2. Openness to other scholarly disciplines
3. Openness to other religious perspectives
4. Gospel significance
B. Bevans and the Synthetic Model
1. University and universality
2. Is “needing the other for completion” a binary problem?
3. Religion is a process
4. Gospel significance

III. Church Community Response
A. (Place) Church as an Educational Forum
1. Educated ministers are necessary for adequately shepherding congregant through faith struggles related to intermingling with different ideas. Before any in-depth and comprehensive dialogue can take place some groundwork needs to be laid. The church would need to focus on Bible studies, sermons, and other lessons related to:
a. the issue of various religious perspectives within the text of the Bible
b. understanding the family tree of world religions and common elements
c. relevant contemporary discussions about religion and science
2. The church can then once again gain a reputation of being a place for higher learning and on the cutting edge of scholarship by inviting a variety of perspectives, hosting interfaith and interdisciplinary discussions.
B. (People) Church as Humble Learners
1. As the Church we engage the local community and university community with openness. Our ideology needs to be relaxed enough to hear and understand the perspectives of others.
2. Our willingness to be “last” in the discussion is often a more substantive message than our dogmatism.
C. (Community) Church as In-Process
1. In-process means “being-there” and “not-there-yet” tension
a. Humility means we are not there yet
b. A unique teleological (faith) perspective means we are not there yet, but we know where we’re going.
2. In-process means being active, not suspended or stultified
a. The local church’s interest and involvement in higher education reveals an openness that will make (and has made) the larger scholarly world more interested and involved in religion.
b. The local church’s involvement in other scholarly discussions will bring a much needed voice to often overly compartmentalized fields of scholarship (ethics, politics, biology, philosophy, psychology, etc.).

Week 10--Response to Emmet's Blog

Concerning Emmet’s post for the last day of class, I was also thinking the same things about the Christian Canon and secondary sources of “revelation.” Ultimately I think what this class has been about for us as Christians is to recognize that it is through culture that we come to know God and it has always been that way. The question is whether our current cultural setting is less revelatory about God than Jewish/Roman/Greek culture of the first century. The difference is that Jesus lived in that time. But doesn’t Jesus now live in our time as well?

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I think we need to be cautiously creative with our sacred texts in ways where they can be adapted to our time and place. Emmet alludes to the way in which early followers of Jesus did this very thing with their sacred Hebrew texts. They took great liberty (spurred on by the creative energies of the Holy Spirit) to make new meanings out of their Hebrew tradition (and some Jewish critics would say too much liberty). I see this kind of liberty as a good thing. In every stage of religious development in human history we see explosions of creativity, vision, and the courage to question tradition.

Week 10--Wednesday Class Reflection

It’s no wonder existentialism and nihilism has thrived in western culture in recent history: we no longer regard our contemporary setting in space and time to be revelatory or meaningful in any ultimate way. We’ve used rationalism to cast out the spirits of our time. There is no sense of this moment in time being valuable. When the past is seen as more valuable and ultimate (mythic times or when the canon was recorded), the present is drab at best, dismal at most, and the future is hopeless (if we extrapolate from the progression from the past to the future).

Week 10--Monday Class Response

Text, production, consumption, and everyday life are not each totally hegemonic, but each one has good and bad contributions for culture. The reaction of totally blaming any one of these categories is easier than carefully evaluating each one. I think it often does more damage to further complicate the problem when we assign one category total responsibility.

Week 9--Response to Aaron's Blog

It’s hard to disagree with the Frankfurt School and all their pessimism after Wednesday’s class. Our culture is certainly “consumeristic” and “controlled by the illusion of finding fulfillment in products and services.” The “cool factor” in pop culture is the power of the idol to control us and the reason we consume the idol. Without this illusion of “coolness” we would theoretically not put faith in these products, at least not to the same extent. I also agree with Aaron that coolness has the power to obscure who we really are deep down inside as spiritual beings. The mystery that surrounds coolness (the inability to define it exactly) is connected to an aloofness and hiddenness that’s not befitting the kind of transparency that’s expected of Christians.

Week 9--Cobb Chapter 9: Life Everlasting

“Ghosts symbolize belief in and reverence for the accumulated past.” I think, as Cobb asks, we do long to be answerable to sacred traditions with deep histories. Our popular culture is crying out for it. We want the psychological fortitude we once had, and can only be regained by once again shamefully reclaiming our myths. This is what pop culture producers are increasingly doing; they are working hard for every scrap of our mythic heritage they can find and piecing together new trial-and-error compositions of ultimate reality.

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In the U.S. most of us are Protestant or some derivation of it, so collectively we have little space for Purgatory. Purgatory and remembering saints were two ways of ordering the present by remembering and revering the past. But our Protestant ways have largely disposed of extraneous spiritual baggage. After all, in Protestantism was found the seeds of all demythologizing and demystification. We’ve strip-mined our religious past for whatever good scraps of truth we can find, and discarded the rest of what we’ve determined to be superfluous. I think one of the ways in which the Church is lacking in staying with the curve of cultural relevance is the fact that pop cultural producers are picking up the scraps that we’ve cast off and using the old stuff.

Week 9--Bevans Chapter 9: The Countercultural Model

This model might require a definition of the Gospel that’s too inflexible. If the Gospel is to be conceived in opposition to culture right out of the gate, a well-defined version of the Gospel is needed. But this is difficult because of what we’ve learned throughout the course in some of our other readings. Although there are certain core elements of the Gospel, there’s still a lot about it that’s highly interpretive. In many ways we’ve seen how different cultures make use of the Gospel and emphasize certain parts over others.

Week 9--Paper Outline (revised)

Part 1: The higher education system is a complex of hegemonic and subtler forces where the study of religion and the larger scholarly world are mostly in tension. I will use Barker to outline general problems of studying religion in terms of contingency (by showing the interrelatedness of religions beliefs); hegemony (the biases in the education system that have filtered down from political philosophies about the relationship between church and state, and also binary relationships between church and state); and the impact of hyper-rationalism on higher education and religion.

Part 2: I will use a particular model employed by Prof. Crerar Douglas at CSUN that emphasizes the “learning” process in education, as opposed to “teaching” with an angle. His model is similar to Bevans’ Synthetic model in that it is dialectical. The systems of both Douglas and the Synthetic model are witnesses to the Gospel in and of themselves because they are more humble pursuits of truth than the other models. While the dialogue amongst various cultural and religious perspectives will most certainly yield antagonisms, these can never impede upon the conversation process.

Part 3: The Gospel message emerges from open interreligious discourse. This can come about in my local congregation as we host and sponsor events related to religious dialogue. It will also play out in congregants being involved in campus activities and by being openly involved in the scholarly pursuit of religious truth. The local community outside of the church will in turn benefit from our unique faith perspective by being in dialogue with us along the way. The global community will be reached through academic and multicultural channels as the university acts as a kind of communication hub for the Gospel.

Week 9--Wednesday Class Response

The short life cycle of coolness demands that the culture industries try to always stay ahead of the curve. The underground advertising of groups like Cornerstone is a way of smoothly riding the curve, getting inside of the curve. This means the product gets so associated with everyday life that it moves effortlessly along the curve. And cool is automatically up-to-date because the product just becomes incarnate organically through the close association with the audience. MTV felt they needed to get a closer connection to their audience in 1997, and they did and their ratings skyrocketed to the highest in history.

Week 9--Monday Class Response

Seeking transformation of the culture while participating from within it is more compatible with how Jesus dealt with his culture. He worked within it, being a consumer and partaker of his culture, while at the same time subverting it when necessary. He appreciated it, and yet criticized when needed along the way.

Week 8--Response to Wess about Myths

I agree with Wess that many of our myths rob us of our inspiration by not allowing us the freedom to see alternatives. There are many atheistic arguments that are on solid ground in this regard (i.e. religion is often rightly accused of being naïve and shortsighted). But if we agree to “move beyond” all of our myths we will no longer have any basis from which to argue our faith. I believe this point is crucial. There are some myths we must hold onto (at least in practice and maintaining a suspension of disbelief). I think we can win the argument with the atheist, not by deconstructing all of our myths, but by showing the atheist how he/she also operates by similar myths, and how this is an integral part of being human. It’s true that some myths are damaging, but others are healthy and can actually spur us on to greater inspiration and creative freedom than the deconstruction process can.

Week 8--Paper Outline 1: The Gospel in a Secular University

I wish to treat the subject of higher education in Southern California, specifically the diverse community of Cal State, Northridge in the San Fernando Valley. How does the Gospel impact the halls of academia here? How does my local congregation mediate the Gospel message with CSUN, and how is our own understanding of the Gospel refined in this process?

I have chosen to use Bevans’ synthetic model because of this dialectic aspect. The synthetic model also suits the subject because it allows us to be critical of how we understand the Gospel, and because it respects the universality of the Gospel.

My local congregation will benefit from the diversity of ideas available at CSUN, thereby broadening its theological horizons. This can be done by the church hosting seminars and conferences on religious issues, and congregants being involved in campus activities (interreligious dialogue events, charities, protests, etc.) The local community outside of the church will in turn benefit from our unique faith perspective by being in dialogue with us along the way. The global community will be reached through academic and multicultural channels as the university acts as a kind of communication hub for the Gospel.

Week 8--Bevans Chapter 8: The Transcendental Model

Understanding the world as God’s body can help us with ecological concerns. But it can also help remind us that although care for the world (body) is important, it’s not as important as caring for each other. Obviously these two concerns don’t need to be, and shouldn’t be, at odds with each other. The fact is, in an ideal world, if we truly took care of each other and respected one another, ecological matters that are within our control would take care of themselves. We would respect other peoples’ land enough to not pollute or destroy it. We would share resources in more efficient ways, etc…

Week 8--Cobb Chapter 8: Salvation

The church experience offers little in the way of release or deliverance in a world where salvific offers are being made left and right, and where they are being made with the force and backing of billions of advertising dollars. How can the humble and often out-of-step message of the church compete with these other modes of “salvation”? How can we show the world that we have the ultimate salvation package, one that comes complete with the fruit of the Spirit and has no side-effects?

Week 8--Wednesday Class Reflection

If we decide to assume a process of deconstruction that’s constrained by love, or we maintain love as the guiding principle along the way, then aren’t we compromising a thorough deconstruction of it? After all, to ask a question like, "What kind of love are we talking about?" is a kind of deconstruction, right? I guess I'm still unclear about what should and what shouldn't be deconstructed.

Week 8--Monday Class Reflection

Our myths hold together our versions of reality. They are essential to the integrity of our worldviews. Deconstructing our myths doesn’t just lead to a dry academic treatment of the elements of what we hold to be true; it also deprives us of our inspiration. In the deconstruction process, we need to be careful not to totally dismantle the mythical framework of our collective subconscious so as to rob us of our inspiration to continue the search for truth.

Week 7--Response to Simon

Simon had interesting thoughts about how to apply cultural studies to our world. I don’t know the answers to some of his questions, but I think we can at least begin to apply some of the theories by unmasking many of our assumptions about what motivates us in our daily lives. I think by realizing, and helping others to realize, just how interconnected and contingent our cultural values are, we are better able to communicate with one another on the cultural and cross-cultural level.
There’s also an apologetic value to cultural studies for the Church. It seems to me cultural studies is similar to Bible criticism of the last few hundred years. Just as they applied modern critical techniques to better understand the Bible and how it came about, today these critics of culture reveal latent assumptions that we have about the “texts” of our lives, and they parse them out for us. But, just like Bible criticism, it is tool that can be used for good or bad.

Week 7--Bevans Chapter 7: The Synthetic Model

Thinking of theology in terms of “uniqueness and complementarity” is what makes this model stand out from the rest as to be preferred for Christian missions today. In this model we see proper consideration of the kind of contingent and reflexive nature of human culture, and this includes religious culture. If what we’ve learned from Barker is true—that everything is contingent and interdependent—then we should expect a fair amount of complementation. But if, as we Christians would argue, there is also a uniqueness to what we preach, then we should also expect something that speaks to all cultures and truly changes them.

Week 7--Cobb Chapter 7: Sin

The root of evil is our craving for earthly security. What does this say then about criticisms of religion that say religion is not concerned enough with earthly security? There is a lot of disapproval of religious beliefs that are accused of diverting attention too often to otherworldly concerns. The concerns of worldly and otherworldly security are actually two sides of the same coin. This is because we cast our earthly worries with an eternal light that transfigures the world. A heavenly focus recasts the world as hopeful, rather than a preoccupation with earthly concerns that engenders hopelessness. Exclusively earthly concerns cause hopelessness because they reduce everything to an unredeemable chaos. A heavenly focus reorients everything and makes sense out of it.

Week 7--Barker Chapter 14: Cultural Politics and Cultural Policy

Is there a materialistic, anti-supernatural, nihilistic ideological hegemony that is now in place in late modernity, against which Christianity is “nonsensical or unthinkable”? Is this especially so in the post-Enlightenment west where more is expected from those of us to whom much has been given? In other words, are we as Christians under special scrutiny because our civilization has been thoroughly demythologized? I think so, and I think we are more “lenient” or accepting of the superstitions and non-rational aspects of other cultures. We tend to see the importance of religion and faith in everyone else except ourselves, because we no longer need the clumsy and outmoded apparatus of religion, we now have science!

Week 7--Barker Chapter 13: Youth, Style and Resistance

I think some of the discomfort many Christians have in worship settings (public participation in praise music) comes from struggling with the idea of authenticity. If postmodernism is both an atmosphere for questioning and doubting authenticity, then all expressions of genuine love and hope is suspect. The worshipper him/herself brings this very attitude into the Christian public setting, and it creates a tension in the worship experience. I think today’s youth (those who are seeking authenticity but severely doubt it) are more comfortable in an environment of cynicism and irony than one of pure, unquestioning faith and exultant praise.

Week 7--Wednesday Class Reflection

Evangelicals traditionally don’t want to be partnered with people of different beliefs because of the fear of the slippery-slope or a confused message. But I like what Ryan said today about this no longer being an issue when we live out a common mission, and live out an embodied theology. I think when theology is embodied it’s harder to fall apart. Embodied theology is substantial, easier to point to, and stands firm. It’s the overly theoretical, light-as-air theology that’s more in danger of blowing away in the wind.

Week 7--Monday Class Reflection

If Saussure is right about things deriving meaning from their difference from other things, do we as Christians understand ourselves by certain things we are not? It’s interesting that our whole understanding of holiness is defined in terms of what it is not. It is being free from impurities. Similarly, since he is transcendent, much of understanding of who God is depends on understanding what he is not.

Week 6--Cobb Chapter 6: Human Nature

I liked Cobb’s use of Augustine to deal with memory and its relationship to identity. There is an interesting comparison with Barker’s chapter about space and place. Some consider Augustine’s ideas about the space of the soul to be foundational to modern epistemology. This raises the question, are we what we are because of what we know about ourselves and what we remember? Or are we something essential in spite of what we know?

Week 6--Barker Chapter 11: Television, Texts and Audiences

What does the field of hermeneutics, the encoding/decoding model, and active audience theories mean for authorial intent? What implications are there for how we are to understand the Bible? If we can derive any number of meanings (decode) from the Bible, regardless of the specific intent of the author, what does this say about biblical inspiration? Maybe considering authorial intent more ambiguously is more reflective of reality anyway. After all, people often say or do things without perfectly clear reasoning. I love watching a movie or something where the writer or director’s use of symbolism or metaphor is obviously beyond what they intended. Indeed, isn’t this at the heart of biblical inspiration? Doesn’t God continue to creatively bring out new meanings, in spite of the authors’ intent, from the Bible, through our involvement in daily life?

Week 6--Barker Chapter 12: Cultural Space and Urban Place

The fact that LA is “the location of the most culturally heterogeneous population ever agglomerated in any city in the world” is an important reality for Christians to grasp as we think of traditional attitudes towards missions. The reason I’m so interested in religious studies in general is because of this reality of religious diversity in LA, where I live and encounter so many radically different worldviews. I think it is important to invest in studying these different cultures, not only as a dry and academic pursuit, but by understanding the artistry of their faith with the aim to understand what moves them, not just what “determines” them or how they are “coded.” I see a particularly missional importance in spending time with people who are different from us and really engage them personally. And if LA is shaping up to be a model postmodern city, let’s not just “experiment” with our interaction with people from different cultures, let’s work out spiritual issues with them by living them out.

Week 6--Bevans Chapter 6: The Praxis Model

Since the praxis model relies on an inductive theology where an understanding of God is generated from real life struggles and human actions, it seems quite compatible with the anthropological model. The anthropological model likewise takes seriously the mode of human experience as revelatory about God. Similarly, both models presuppose a “theological structure to throw light on and examine” issues that emerge from human experience, whether it be termed as culture (anthropological model) or actions/struggles (praxis model). I think both of these approaches, each with their unique emphases, should be followed by the Church in its engagement with culture.

Week 6--Response to Brett's Blog on Space and Hegemony

I agree with Brett that the concept of hegemony is closely associated with our ideas of space. This is especially true in the West, where our notions of space and place are rooted in distorted biblical mandates about having “dominion” over the creation and “possessing” land. It’s because of this hegemonic character that prevents us from thinking of space in terms of freedom. Instead, I think we often think of space as restricting and limiting.

I especially agree with Brett about the Church’s responsibility to heal the wounds that it has caused with respect to occupying space wrongly. I assume Brett is referring to the Church’s wrongful hegemonic practices of its past, whether they be physical, emotional or psychological.

Week 6--Monday Class Reflection

In considering how we might apply the anthropological model to witness, worship, and formation, it was interesting to hear the different perspectives in the group. For some in our group, it was evident that they were experiencing God working outside of the “normal parameters” of church. What was interesting was that they could also return worship to God outside of the “normal parameters.” This is an acknowledgement, whether it is in church terms or not, that “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

Week 5--Bevans Chapter 5: The Anthropological Model

When we approach another religion we have to do so as if we are approaching holy ground, and humbly take off our shoes. We don’t want to tread on people’s dreams. But what if from our perspective their dream seems like a nightmare? This is an important caution, but I think most often our perspective is not well informed. We too often wrongly assume things about other peoples’ relationship with God. It’s absolutely crucial, in our pluralistic age, whether we subscribe to the anthropological model or not, to learn about other religions in order to improve our perspective. We also owe it to ourselves to better inform our perspective of own faith.

Week 5--Barker Chapter 9: Ethnicity, Race and Nation

The new prominence given to metaphors of travel, rather than place, in cultural studies is a positive development for Christianity. This is because Christianity already has the built-in metaphors about “following Jesus” and “spiritual journeying.” These metaphors suggest an identity in process, like Barker argues to be a preferred conception of identity. The difference with Christianity is that there is an aspect of the fixed and “essential” in Christian identity (“positional righteousness” or justification), where we already essentially share the righteousness of Christ. But there is also an aspect of Christian identity that makes use of the traveling metaphors to show how we are “on our way” (sanctification and spiritual growth). Another difference is that in Christianity, the identity process we undergo is teleological. We are going somewhere.

Week 5--Barker Chapter 10: Sex, Subjectivity and Representation

I think poststructuralism on the whole is a good thing for feminism because it helps prevent some of the clumsy and inexact stereotypes made about feminists, as well as those made by feminists about men. There are no perfect, sweeping generalizations that can be made about the issue of sexuality. For instance, it’s interesting to see how certain generalizations about voting patterns in this election process have proven too simplistic. With the diverse pool of candidates for president this year, it seems the old predictors of how people vote no longer hold true. A half-black/half-white man, a white woman, and a Mormon man defy all old predictors that should dictate where allegiances along identity lines are placed. The voting patterns of the current election year indicate the increasing difficulty of polling. Stereotypes are becoming less and less accurate as identities become more bricolage and syncretized.

Week 5--Cobb Chapter 5: Images of God

Ferrucci says we have virtually stopped creating and are now feeding on the past, which confirms “God putting out the lights.” God is removing himself from the scene of his creation fiasco. Maybe we feel we can no longer create because God can no longer create. There is a sort of divine apathy with God that’s now rubbed off on us. I think this sentiment is reflected in recent music and films. There is a kind of majestic cast to the existential hell of the late modern world. A trace of it can be found in the title of the Eve 6 song, “Beautiful Oblivion.” There is a sort of ironic beauty to it all. This suggests a sober awareness of both the decadence and hopelessness (hell) as well as God being an absent witness to it all (majesty). In any case, our awareness of God is all the more profound against the backdrop of such chaos and pain. This is kind of like the notion of God being present in his absence, similar to certain types of Buddhism.

Week 5--Response to Annie M's Wednesday Reflection

Annie asks an interesting question about whether or not the Church contributes to creating wants, needs and desires in people in a similar way that advertising does. I definitely think so, in both good and bad ways. Negatively, I think the Church often either downplays important issues or blows unimportant issues out of proportion. For instance, some churches downplay the centrality of grace in a Christian’s life, and advertise a kind of spirituality that creates fear and anxiety in people. On the positive side, many churches advocate a kind of freeing grace that enables people to think beyond themselves and their own fears. In each case, the church is selling a particular message that cultivates certain desires or needs in its audience. As culturally and spiritually imbued subjects, we are vulnerable to the messages of the world of the here-and-now and of the world beyond.

Week 5--Wednesday Class Reflection

Since Marx’s anthropology sees what humans eat as the most defining aspect of what it means to be human, there is an interesting parallel with the centrality of the Lord’s Supper and this idea of Marx. I would be interested to find out if Marx viewed people eating together in terms of how it builds relationships, or if he only viewed it as the most primal urge for humans.

Week 4--Barker, Chapter 7 (Enter Postmodernism)

Kuhn, Popper and Foucault are key figures for understanding a postmodern switch in the philosophy of science. They point out the fragile and contingent basis of scientific endeavors (Popper talks about science being not based on certainty, but on falsification and experimentation; and Kuhn talks about how science periodically overthrows its own paradigms). This is an important ally to help Christians stand in an era where atheistic critiques are being leveled afresh by such authors as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins.

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Sam Harris bases most of his argument against faith (as being epistemologically unsound) on the idea that reason is a better grounds for morality and spirituality, and faith is a mode of understanding the world that is hopelessly entangled in false metaphysical notions rooted in superstitions that are often immoral (i.e. fickle and violent representations of God in the Bible and the Koran). While many of Harris’ criticisms are warranted and helpful, a postmodern understanding of science can help us level the playing field, in a sense. Instead of trying to wiggle out from under the enormous weight of such atheistic claims, we can concentrate our efforts on unmasking the peculiar “superstitions” of rationalism and bad metaphysics associated with it.

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If knowledge is “not a question of true discovery but of the construction of interpretations about the world that are taken to be true,” as Nietzsche suggests, then the logic of rationalism is the most intrusive and oppressive mode of gaining knowledge. It seems to me faith, although maybe not as precise, is a gentler and more thorough way of gaining knowledge. Faith, when circumspectly exercised, gently pursues and attains knowledge. This is because faith is not based on absolute certainty, and it's not dependent on the harsh, cut-and-dry dictates of logical certainty. Faith may eventually achieve a degree of certainty (clearer boundaries), but its very essence is characterized by ambiguity, and it is more reflective than analytical overall. It is therefore freer and more creative, engaging the human intellect, imagination, emotions—all of the human elements we use to relate to the human condition. These are mixed and juxtaposed together in a more comprehensive endeavor for truth, yet not as precise. Faith is deemed to be ambiguous as a result, but faith is willing to sacrifice certainty for the sake of a more comprehensive handling of reality.

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Faith is comfortable with mystery and uncertainty being involved in the whole process of understanding reality (which is actually an important part of the scientific method, suspending what’s purported to be known for the sake of discovery). Faith is deemed to be creative, not only in its pursuit of knowledge, but also in the way it makes sense of that knowledge. Faith creatively takes in knowledge from various sources, and then it employs creativity to assemble it meaningfully.

Week 4--Barker, Chapter 8 (Subjectivity and Identity)

Determination and free will are questions that usually take on a metaphysical cast. But these ideas are really just parts that fit into socially constructed narratives that we plug in whenever it suits our narrative. This is why I think the Christian debate about free will and determinism can be supported on both sides, depending on how it’s being used in the narrative. The Bible attests to both because in the unfolding of the human drama, both ideas relate to our human condition. Instead of thinking in terms of contradiction, we need to think of them being held in tension.

Week 4--Cobb, Chapter 4 (Theological Tools)

This is a good discussion of the importance of having both the aesthetic and moral aspects of the holy. I like how he says, “For moral faith to endure it must be sustained by ontological faith, by symbols with transcendent power that testify to the goodness of being.” This quote perfectly expresses the importance of faith, and the whole apparatus of a faith-system, as opposed to a mere humanist, hyper-rational and insipid equation for reality, like most expressions of atheism are. Here is a great point of argument against the humanist core of atheism that overemphasizes reason: morality must not simply be utilitarian, it must be inspired. As Michelle Obama said today in her rally speech for her husband, “It begins with inspiration.”

Week 4--Bevans, Chapter 4 (Translational Model)

I don’t think everybody is really just like me underneath their cultural garb. Sure, there is an inner human essence that we all share, but culture runs much deeper than most people think. Culture is not like the clothing one wears, it is like the skin on one’s back. The clothing we put on is Christ (Gal 3:27). And as we don the apparel of Christ, we don’t try to completely hide our naked cultural selves, but rather we accentuate certain parts and hide others. We should highlight the positive aspects of our cultural image, while deemphasizing the negative aspects.

Week 4--Wednesday Reflection

I agree with Marx about fetishism. But I can also see a fetishism resulting from a person producing their own goods all the way through as well. A worker could have a kind of over-appreciation for his/her goods, which could lead to an under-appreciation of the actual economic value of the goods (like a person having a garage sale whose unwilling to give up certain sentimental items).

Week 4--Response to Todd's Blog (Cobb Chapter 3)

As I read Todd’s comments about the way Tillich’s theology was affected by WWII, I began thinking about other great theologians who were also affected by that tumultuous time (Bonheoffer and Barth). So in a way, not only does cultural creativity and construction shape us, but also cultural upheaval and destruction sometimes play even bigger roles to inform our cultural identities. As a result, our understanding of God is then affected by such experiences.

But I don’t agree with Todd’s statement: “revelatory substance in culture is rare, if at all present.” I think that whether it’s positive (beautiful art) or negative (disillusionment that follows war) it all colors and shades the way we look at God. It is God who arranges, selects, and uses much of it. And then God pushes aside, disregards and disposes of the rest.

Week 4--Monday Reflection

I found myself relating to the general problem of an artificial church service in our current society. It is especially important in a time when there is so little authenticity in culture. The one place where we would (or should) expect to find a real human experience is with people of God. I think we're getting to the point in our culture where we it's getting harder and harder to bring about an authentic experience within the four walls of church. I'm encouraged to learn about others who are leading the charge outside the walls of church to bring about a Christ-inspired movement in our culture.

Week 3--Barker Chapter 5--Evolution, Biology and Culture

Psychotherapy uses rethinking and cognitive evaluation of raw emotions in order to get the jump on and have mastery over some of these instinctive feelings that are evolutionary throwbacks. But does this mean that our emotional foundation should be completely uprooted? Should we expect, as part of our evolutionary progress, to increasingly displace our mainly emotional existence with a mainly rational one? Is there a place for a moderate and healthy, emotional existence that’s held in check by reason? Is there a place for emotions like fear (important for avoiding harm), hate (important for coming against things which are determined to be wrong or destructive on a major scale), or even love (important for putting us holistically in line with the things we admire most about existence)? Or are all of these emotions on their way out? Are we becoming the Borg!?

Week 3--Barker Chapter 6--A New World Disorder?

Identity formation has moved from being thought in terms of production to that of consumption. But what’s really happening is a production/consumption movement in one stroke. As members of our culture consume and commodify they also produce trends and new cultural forms. This consumption-as-expression (production) is very much reflective of society’s increasing distrust and disillusionment regarding modern and Enlightenment modes of identity formation. I think people are sick of thinking of people as “self-made” or the Horatio Alger ethic of can-do Americanism. Instead, now most people aren’t ashamed of being passive (at least outwardly, seemingly aloof) consumers of cultural material, regardless of being potentially duped into it. People seem less and less ashamed of giving themselves over to the machinery of the culture industry, so it can have its way with them. I still think we distrust the whole industry of pop culture, but we give ourselves over to it because we know we have an increasing amount of freedom within it that allows us to define ourselves.

Week 3--Cobb Chapter 3--Theology and Culture

Cobb gives an important caution against giving deviant voices in culture priority over mainstream voices simply because they are deviant. I think there is a tendency in Christian circles to make this mistake because we often pride ourselves on being an inherently countercultural movement. Anthony Pinn makes the mistake of favoring dissident voices against the mainstream to the extent that such voices are uncritically thought to be superior to the mainstream. But I also think subtler versions of this kind of privileging of outside voices can be problematic. James Cone makes a similar mistake when he comes very close to saying that only oppressed people (outwardly) are true Christians. While it’s good that Cone recognizes the special rapport that oppressed peoples have with the Gospel, it should not be used as a wholesale acceptance of every oppressed voice. I don’t think Cone is advocating as much, but I think his type of thinking and writing often leads people down that road. This kind of blanket judging is most often reactionary. An uncritical acceptance of outside cultural voices can be just as hastily disruptive to church and culture relations as solely accepting voices that are inside the church.

Week 3--Bevans Chapter 3--Models

I never really thought about the designation of God as “Father” being a model for understanding God’s mystery. But come to think of it, most people’s experience with their father is characterized by mystery. Fathers are often distant and have a strange and curious allure, especially to sons. The Father/Son dynamic is perfected in Jesus’ relationship with his Father in heaven, and the model is given to us as ideal. We too can experience the mystery of our heavenly Father in a way that we know we are loved and protected, even if it might seem like our Father is “distant.”

Week 3--Response to Randy's Blog

Concerning your take on Barker’s treatment of the subject of evolution, I agree and disagree. First off, I agree that Barker has a dim view of incorporating evolutionary biology and theology. He seems to assume the inevitability of “chance” governing existence that is has no “telos.” But I think it’s possible that God set up the algorithm of natural selection with a teleological aim. In keeping with God’s main mode of operation, the whole process only appears to be a product of chance with our limited knowledge and imagination.

I disagree only in the sense that Barker’s assessment shouldn’t cause us to doubt or give up on a biological-evolution approach to culture studies. His challenges of meaninglessness and Godlessness should cause us to align ourselves even more closely with science to show how God is all in all.

Week 3--MLK Reflection

One of my undergrad professors, Crerar Douglas, gives his experience of watching Martin Luther King preach at Riverside Church in Harlem when he attended Columbia. Douglas was raised in a quiet and comfortable, middle-class Christian environment. He describes being totally transformed by listening to Dr. King preach. He writes, “King was talking to a God whose yes to life meant death to all passivity, both the passivity of a God who only waits and that of a young man who only says yes and then starts counting his private blessings.” Douglas speaks of his conversion as one from counting private blessings to, all of a sudden, recognizing and counting the curses of our society. This ongoing recognition for King manifested in apocalyptic preaching that jarred people out of their complacency. In our hindsight of Dr. King forty years later, we have received a more domesticated and subdued image of Dr. King from the media. As “non-violence” is one of the first things we think of when we think of Dr. King, we often forget that his message warned the complacent people of our nation of a wrathful God who will not stand for injustice.

For anyone who's interested, here's the link to Dr. Douglas' conversion experience:

http://www.crerardouglas.com/documents/My_experience.htm

Week 3--Wednesday Class Reflection

I was glad to hear about a renewed emphasis on making the kingdom of God the rubric for missional theories and practices. I really like Brueggemann’s (and others) concept of regarding the Church as in exile in our post-institutional Christian society. The institutional Church represents triumphalism to many people, and I think the breakdown of the institutional Church in the West is a sign of our going into exile. It only makes sense that we act like we are in exile, which is compatible with a “Sermon on the Mount” and kingdom-based way of doing missions.

Week 2--Response to Aaron's MLK Day post

I like Aaron's reflection on MLK on this day of remembering. As I read the quote and the post, I got to thinking how truly definitive of the Kingdom of God this is. At the heart of Jesus' teachings on the Kingdom is loving/helping others and loving God. Also, the only way we can truly love our neighbor is to understand him/her. This is why cultural and religious studies is so important. The "single garment of destiny" that Dr. King refers to consists of many different fabrics. If we are committed to struggle for one another as a community, we need to understand the different ways we relate to the world, and our peculiar and unique modes of "struggling." Only then can we be one seemless garment.

Week 2--Cobb Chapter 2 (Hyperreality and Simulacrum)

Reading about hyperreality and simulacrum was illuminating. Is the Church troubled by the never-ending cycle of images that has no reference? I can anticipate where this is going and its relevance for Christian missions and cultural studies. The postmodern hunger for a fabrication that’s better than the real essence upon which the fabrication is based (if there even is an essence???) begs the question: is the Church offering a spirituality that has an actual referent, or is it just offering a package of symbols and signs through which people and communities can better cope with the “incomprehensibility” that’s out there (63)? I think if we are to claim that there actually is a real referent behind the signs of our religion, we better have a good explanation in this age of skepticism and a proclivity for “fabrications.”

Week 2--Bevans Chapter 2 (Creation-centered Theology)

How can we even have a conversation between culture and theology if we adopt a redemption centered theology? In the instance of creation centered theology the context can be revelatory, but in the redemption centered view the context dims the light of God’s revelation. I think we can hold to a creation-based model by understanding that the context of culture itself is not holy, but it is infused with the Spirit of God. Thinking that there’s nothing positive about the culture at large is a misunderstanding of God’s Kingdom.

Week 2--Barker, Chapter 4 (Rorty)

I was interested to read about Rorty. Often our conditioning convinces us of the absoluteness of what we believe and its universal foundations, until we are tested and “real life” smashes us with the irony that the opposite of our expectations and hopes are often there to shake us up. I think this increasing realization of the fragile foundations of Western culture (and all its canonized values) explains the current trends of strong irony in pop culture specifically. Especially comedy is increasingly ironic and dark; the most comedic elements are the most twisted and unfortunate. We laugh because we resonate with the recognition of this truth in our deepest being. Beneath all the serious and lofty ideas about our ordered and purposeful existence, there is an increasingly profound distrust (on an individual and institutional level) in our cherished and fuzzy notions about existence.

Week 2--Barker, Chapter 3 (Arnold and Leavis)

The cultural theories and attitudes of Arnold and Leavis can be easily brushed aside by contemporary students of culture as being elitist and passé. But as paranoid and overall skeptical as they may come across to us, it’s hard for us to really understand the uncertain times that they were dealing with. I think there are ways in which critics today are guilty of being overly reactionary to some of the more unsettling signs of our times. For instance, we often bemoan and resist the widespread effects of technologies like the internet and cell phones. Many of us fear the potential of these tools to further isolate and individualize us as a society. And as a result, some of us believe that these technologies are inherently bad.

Week 2 Wednesday: Class Reflection

Today’s class got me wondering about one particular definition of culture. If culture is something to do with a society’s beliefs and customs, then isn’t God’s Kingdom a kind of culture? Should we even think of God’s Kingdom as some kind of culture that trumps or is juxtaposed with “people from every tribe, people, language and nation” (Rev. 5:9)? The reason I wonder this is because the “tradition of the elders” (Mt. 15:2) could be related to “high culture.” And Jesus and his crowd could be considered as part of the folk culture. But Jesus was only opposed to the high culture of his day when it conflicted with “God’s culture.”

Elite Culture and the Working Class: Week 2 Monday

I was very interested to learn about the development of popular culture from its beginnings as a working class movement and into the early 20th century. I was surprised to hear in the lecture about how the different classes of society all shared and esteemed the same values, and had similar experiences with art and music. I was somewhat aware of the cultural intermingling of social classes, but hasn't there always been some cultural separation? Isn't folk culture typically associated with mass culture and high culture associated with the elite class?

Week 1--Response to Amy K's Blog

I can relate to your comment about people who have been broken by the Church, myself included. It’s interesting to think of our time at Fuller and how our theologies will be inevitably shaped by our negative experiences with Church. People like you and me will continually seek out and emphasize the apparent lack of love, grace and compassion in the Church. These realities that believers like us seize upon are just as important as other realities from different perspectives. Like Bevans points out, such is inherent in contextual theology. I hope we are, as you say, getting back to the basics. But I think the way back (whatever that means???) unavoidably means an upheaval (whatever that means???) in the Church. In order for something to truly live and thrive, it must die first, right?

Week 1--Bevans, Chapter 1 (Missional Language)

Bevans writes about the need for the church to use different languages to talk to different cultures in the same way that God used different languages to talk to the ancient Hebrews and Hellenistic Jews. His point can’t be exaggerated or mentioned enough, but there is still the huge obstacle of the language barrier. A real danger in our missional approach today is to misuse or misunderstand the languages of particular cultures in our attempts to communicate the Gospel. For all the seeker-sensitivity and concerns about relevance in the Church today, the Church on the whole still converses awkwardly with the culture at large. The solution, I think, is to allow God to fully incarnate in the culture to which we are ministering. This happens through us by our diligent learning of, as well as our immersion in, the culture in question. Inherent in properly learning and immersing is an assumption of the culture’s goodness and value. This includes religious stances other than our own. After all, how can we truly be the incarnate Christ in the most particular way in that culture if we are adversarial towards them?

Week 1--Cobb, Chapter 1 (Myth & History)

Our myths instruct us of the soul of history. What has happened to the soul of history since it has been banished from the modern mind? Like Cobb, Crerar Douglas of Cal State University, Northridge also talks about how the demythologizing and demystifying of modern society has happened in proportion to the rise of what Dr. Douglas calls Religion L.O. (Less Obvious). Religion in the less obvious sense includes everything in our arsenal of expression of daily living. From pop-culture to politics, Rel. L.O. seems to have filled the void created by the marginalization of Religion O (Rel. in the obvious sense—organized religion.)

So it looks like the human impulse of relating to God in mythic ways cannot be suppressed. Instead of Jesus, today most people settle for Superman. Instead of Moses, we now have Judge Judy. The Superbowl has taken the place of the conquest of Canaan. And the book of Job might fit 300 bars of Blues music, but we have much shorter versions today. These archetypal symbols of old are substituted, in an earnest need to maintain the balance of the human heart and the soul of history.

This appears to satisfy modern sensitivities. The only problem is that our substitutes seem to be lacking in their ability to comprehensively relate to ultimate issues. Many of such substitutes are spiritual junk food consumed while commuting in our daily, typically this-worldly, modern pursuits. Catching a movie or listening to a 3-minute song on the radio is often like eating empty calories. They give us just enough energy to get through, but lack the wholesome spiritual nutrition of our well-rounded, time-tested traditions. The difference in the ancient myths is that they were designed for a sustained and complete dealing with God. One of the Church’s main missionary concerns is trying to balance the old (comprehensive and time-tested traditions) with the new (modern experience and things that are relevant to the experience).

Week 1--Barker, Chapter 2 (Productive Consumers)

We are moving from an era of pessimism and skepticism in politics and economics to one of optimism in the increasingly autonomous and democratic market of ideas and goods. This recent explosion of “texts” that has taken place (i.e. the internet) has served to demonstrate more clearly than ever before just how much the determination of meaning is performed by the consumer, as Hall suggests. The almost limitless raw cultural material we now have access to ensure an exponential number of meanings. The means of production are being found to not be in the hands of oppressive forces beyond ourselves, but within us. We are becoming convinced that if we are being oppressed as consumers, for the most part, it is because we choose to be so.

Week 1--Barker, Chapter 1 (Anti-essentialism and Post-structuralism)

The Church has to take ideas like Anti-essentialism and Post-structuralism seriously if it is going to properly put them into a Christian perspective. For instance, I’m wondering about the implications of Anti-essentialism when applied to Paul’s argument in 1 Cor. 11 about women being subordinate to men. When Paul argues on the basis of Gen. 2 that women are subordinate to men, is it really based on “the nature of things” (v. 14)? Or is all of Paul’s rhetoric simply transparently revealing his agenda for upholding the artifice of social conventions (v. 16)?

Social, Theological or Both?

What is the main difficulty with answering McGavern’s question about whether the barriers in missions are social or theological? I think it’s the fact that the theological component of our religion arises from a social context. It’s not always easy to extract the pure, undiluted theological truth of the Gospel from its social setting (and most often not even appropriate). Sometimes it’s even difficult to wrest the Gospel from our own cultural trappings, as McGavern learned in his ministry. As in every Christian endeavor, Jesus’ life and teaching give us cues for understanding the relationship between the theological and the cultural. Jesus had a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward culture. He accepted all things in culture that didn’t get run counter to God’s direction for it. But he hated the things that did.

Culture & Mission: Week 1 Monday

If we as Christians are to embrace the culture at large as a capable mode of God’s general revelation, we need to consider God’s revelation in other religions as an aspect of our culture. Other religions offer serious insights about the world and beyond because God’s voice rings out across all creation. This realization has an inevitable impact on our missiology because it causes us to adopt a posture of conciliation rather than contention. The painstaking work of carefully sorting through the good and bad elements of thought-systems different than our own is more respectful of God and of others than dismissing them wholesale.