Faking Cultural Literacy

Karl Greenfeld writes for the NY Times:

THERE was a time when we knew where we were getting our ideas. In my eighth grade English class, we were assigned “A Tale of Two Cities,” and lest we enjoy the novel, we were instructed to read Charles Dickens’s classic with an eye toward tracking the symbolism in the text. One afternoon while I was in the library, struggling to find symbols, I ran into a few of my classmates, who removed from their pockets folded yellow and black pamphlets that read “Cliffs Notes” and beneath that the title of Dickens’s novel in block letters. That “study guide” was a revelation.

Here were the plot, the characters, even the symbols, all laid out in paragraphs and bullet points. I read the Cliffs Notes in one night, and wrote my B paper without finishing the novel. The lesson was not to immerse and get lost in the actual cultural document itself but to mine it for any valuable ore and minerals — data, factoids, what you need to know — and then trade them on the open market.

With the advent of each new technology — movable type, radio, television, the Internet — there have been laments that the end is nigh for illuminated manuscripts, for books, magazines and newspapers. What is different now is the ubiquity of the technology that is replacing every old medium.

The information is everywhere, a constant feed in our hands, in our pockets, on our desktops, our cars, even in the cloud. The data stream can’t be shut off. It pours into our lives a rising tide of words, facts, jokes, GIFs, gossip and commentary that threatens to drown us. Perhaps it is this fear of submersion that is behind this insistence that we’ve seen, we’ve read, we know. It’s a none-too-convincing assertion that we are still afloat. So here we are, desperately paddling, making observations about pop culture memes, because to admit that we’ve fallen behind, that we don’t know what anyone is talking about, that we have nothing to say about each passing blip on the screen, is to be dead.

Read the rest.

The Surprising and Sickening Outrage over Josie Cunningham’s Abortion

Trevin Wax reflects on the news story from Britain about Josie Cunningham and her decision to have an abortion to further her career.  Click over to read the whole thing.  His concluding reflections are quite insightful and enlightening.  

The surprising response is also sickening. British society reacted with revulsion toward a woman who decided to sacrifice another human in order to further her career. (I use sacrificial terminology deliberately, since all idols demand sacrifices, and a career can function as an idol.) 

What’s sickening is to see how society bullies and shames a woman who is following the script that society itself has given her. Over and over again, we are told that women’s rights hinge on access to abortion, that women can be equal to men only if they have full freedom over their reproductive choices, that women need to put themselves and their careers first. One woman follows the logic, and all hell breaks loose against her. 

Other news outlets have reported on the vitriol, so I won’t link to the comments made about this woman, many too vile to print here. Abortion is dehumanizing toward the unborn. The treatment of Josie Cunningham is dehumanizing too. It makes her a monster, when in fact, the monstrous act of abortion is something we as a society have created and promoted. (I wonder if there is a reverse sacrifice going on here. Josie Cunningham sacrifices her child on the altar of her career ambitions, and then British society sacrifices Cunningham as a collective easing of the conscience of a society with blood on its hands.) 

Absent from this discussion, sadly, is the baby’s father. Where is he? Who is he? We are quick to heap scorn and judgment on a woman, as if she is the only person responsible for this debacle. How is it that a society that promotes woman’s rights can so quickly demonize a woman? Meanwhile, the man walks away after his romantic fling without consequence. Far from elevating our view of women, the abortion culture has led to a sickening double standard. 

So, yes, the outrage over Josie Cunningham’s abortion is both surprising and sickening. As Christians, we should weep for the baby who was lost and be encouraged by society’s shock at abortion for selfish gain, even as we shake our heads at the double standard on display in society’s demonization of a woman.

Read the rest.

Christianity Packs Its Office and Leaves the Building

Very interesting piece of writing here from Jonathan Leeman.

Does Christianity have anything to offer in the public square?

Astute Cultural Analysis Here

Zachary Fine:

Those of us born after the mid-1980s whose upbringing included a liberal arts education and the fruits of a fledgling World Wide Web have grown up (and are still growing up) with an endlessly accessible stream of texts, images and sounds from far-reaching times and places, much of which were unavailable to humans for all of history. Our most formative years include not just the birth of the Internet and the ensuing accelerated global exchange of information, but a new orthodoxy of multiculturalist ethics and “political correctness.”

These ideas were reinforced in many humanities departments in Western universities during the 1980s, where facts and claims to objectivity were eagerly jettisoned. Even “the canon” was dislodged from its historically privileged perch, and since then, many liberal-minded professors have avoided opining about “good” literature or “high art” to avoid reinstating an old hegemony. In college today, we continue to learn about the byproducts of absolute truths and intractable forms of ideology, which historically seem inextricably linked to bigotry and prejudice.

For instance, a student in one of my English classes was chastened for his preference for Shakespeare over that of the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat. The professor challenged the student to apply a more “disinterested” analysis to his reading so as to avoid entangling himself in a misinformed gesture of “postcolonial oppression.” That student stopped raising his hand in class.

I am not trying to tackle the challenge as a whole or indict contemporary pedagogies, but I have to ask: How does the ethos of pluralism inside universities impinge on each student’s ability to make qualitative judgments outside of the classroom, in spaces of work, play, politics or even love?

Read the rest.

Remember, We Don't Negotiate With Terrorists

Andrew Sullivan, writing about the resignation of Brandon Eich:

Dissidents in these absolutist groups are outlawed, condescended to, pressured, bullied, lied about, trashed, slandered, and distorted out of any recognition. In this case, a geeky genius who invented Javascript and who had pledged total inclusivity in the workplace instantly became the equivalent of a Grand Master in the Ku Klux Klan. And yes, that analogy was – amazingly – everywhere! The actual, complicated, flawed human being was erased by thousands who never knew him but knew enough to hate him. Because that’s all they need to know. No space was really given for meaningful dialogue; and, most importantly, no mercy was given without total public repentance.

Read the rest.

"As Christians, one of the most loving things we can bring to society is an advocacy for genuine civic pluralism."

A very interesting proposal here from Andrew Walker.

"Centering an entire day around productivity or effectiveness as a goal equaled very little focus on other people. On relationships."

This is a needed challenge to me and all others who are concerned with "productivity".

What's it all really for?

Will we lay on our death bed and be thankful that we were so "productive"?  Maybe in reference to certain things, but I feel many of the things that we orbit around in the name of "productivity" are rather meaningless in the long run.

Ann Voskamp:

If we want to put others first, like Jesus? Then we must. slow. down. It’s the only way we as a Body can survive, thrive, be who we are meant to be in this rapid, rapid world.

My mind drifts frequently back to our life in the Middle East. Sure, my glasses are rose-colored, but what I remember most is how I felt. I felt… slower. More contemplative. More at rest with myself and those put purposely around me.

A dear friend and fellow expat American there said after several months of living in Turkey, “If someone were to look at my calendar, they would think I died six months ago.” There, we could equate our life’s measure not by boxes filled with pencil scratches, but by how much freedom in our days we had to linger over çay with neighbors. With people. In relationship.

I think a slow life can happen anywhere, in any culture.

But it’s harder, and it requires swimming upstream, when we live in one where the default setting is lightning fast.

And we have to be vigilantly aware of this so that our fingers continually twist the dial on our life to slower, slower, slower.

A slower-paced life isn’t just a good idea, or hip, or wishful thinking.

It’s essential if we want to have time to be the Body of Christ.

Read the rest.

And yes, there is a way to be sinfully lazy in the name of "slowing down". But I would guess that for many of us, we are so far from that extreme that some intentional thinking on how to push back the other way would be wise.

Another way to frame this discussion would be to center it on priorities.  If the Great Commandment is to love God and love people, is my busyness getting in the way of that?  Why am I making other things the priority over these two?

The Gospel of the Cross and the Grace to Disagree

Very interesting insights here.

Derek Rishmawy:

Pick a hot subject (gay marriage, the environment, healthcare, and so on) and scroll through your Facebook feed to find someone updating vociferously on the subject, trumpeting his position and damning the opposition in bold, apocalyptic terms. It's not just that people are wrong, confused, and perhaps in need of correction; no, they're downright wicked. As younger generations increasingly identify as "nones" (no religious affiliation), it's not that they have no moral or spiritual bearings, just that they find them elsewhere. 

It's increasingly popular to eschew any explicit religious system and take that bearing from the reigning "Causes" linked to the benevolence demands of the day ("love," "justice," "equality"). This is why our political skirmishes aren't just about the issues. They're about a much-deeper justification of the Self. If I'm defined, say, by my healthcare position and corresponding self-image as a moral, caring (or pragmatic and free) person, then when I argue with you, I'm defending my raison-d'etre. You don't simply have a different opinion on a subject; you threaten my very being. 

What's more, if supporting this Cause is what makes me righteous and pure, your opposition demonstrates your impurity and wickedness, possibly even your inhumanity. You must be opposed, hopefully only through argument. But if you persist in your perversity, other stronger means of enforcement may need to be employed. This is modern/postmodern ideological moralism. 

None of this moralism is new, of course. Postmodern thinkers have been describing the way we construct such oppositional identities for years. What's interesting today, though, is how this sort of logic works out in the lives of my peers and contemporaries. Of course, posting aggressive memes on Facebook isn't exactly coercion or fanatic violence, but the language used and, at times, the political measures advocated by partisans verges on it. Ideological self-justification is alive and well. 

The Gospel of the Cross and the Grace to Disagree 

Christians reading this analysis might be tempted to take it as a simple condemnation of secularists, saying, "See, look what happens when you don't have God." Perhaps, but that problem doesn't let religious believers off the hook. As a friend of mine observed, this is simply the logic of Holy War, sublimated and secularized. Again, we see how the whole dichotomy of "religious" versus "secular" breaks down at the functional level. Get rid of God and something else fills the existential vacuum. At this point secularists are only doing what religious people, including "Christians," have done with their gods for years. 

Actually, this observation should prompt Christians to examine where we're getting our sense of self, our purity, and our wholeness. Is it from the righteousness of our moral positions? Or from the righteousness we have in Christ by grace apart from our moral achievements? If the former, we're in the same boat as secularists. If the latter, we're positioned to disagree, even forcefully, without our entire sense of self feeling threatened. Even if others oppose us not only on moral issues but actually set themselves in vocal opposition to Christianity itself, how can we look on them as totally different from ourselves? For is this not precisely who we were apart from God's condescending grace—enemies of God in need of redemption (Rom. 5:6-11)? And are we not secure no matter what accusation or charge is brought against us (Rom. 8:30-39)?

In short, there's a visible, practical difference we observe in the lives of those who trust in the Christian gospel as opposed to those who merely subscribe to its morals. Indeed, unless you believe the former you won't be able to practice the core of the latter—the command to love our enemies the way Christ has loved us. Moralism—secular or "religious"—can only lead to demonizing the enemy. And only the gospel of grace can lead us to the true benevolence that moralism fumblingly strives toward.

Read the rest.

The White Guy Who Doesn't Know How To Talk About Race

Barnabas Piper offers some honest reflections on being white and wanting to seek change in reference to racial issues but isn't sure where to start.  Obviously he is writing in general terms as he speaks about "white people" but his contribution to the discussion is valuable and I'm sure many can relate.

This is Joel Osteen's Worst Nightmare

Well done sir, well done.

Contextualized or Compromised?

Good reflections  from Trevin Wax on movies and the intake of media in general.

"The most important skill for 2014 is deciding what you will pay attention to."

Good post here from Adam Jeske.

Three Ways To Live Our Your Faith in Public

Aaron Armstrong:

1. Be concerned about social issues—but get involved in them. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on the corner outside the hospital holding up a sign pleading for the end of abortion (but it might). It simply means that where there’s a need you see, you should get involved. And in case you’re wondering, sharing videos on Facebook (remember Kony 2012?) or buying a t-shirt from Sevenly doesn’t count. Volunteer at a street mission or homeless shelter; get involved in an after school program for kids. Sponsor a child with an organization like Compassion. Do something that causes you to invest in people. 

2. Talk about Jesus—but talk about Jesus like he really matters to you. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be out on the corner street preaching (though, again, it might). It simply means speaking like a human being about Jesus in a way that shows he really matters to you. So talk about going to church when the barista asks you what you’re up to on Sunday morning. Talk to your coworkers about what you’re working through in your small group. Wherever you can in a way that’s natural, talk about Jesus. Seriously, people aren’t likely to rip your head off. 

3. Repent—but repent well. This doesn’t mean owning all of the faults and failings of Christians from days gone by—it simply means owning yours. Or, y’know, having character. This mean we don’t use sketchy language like, “a mistake was made, and if anyone was offended I apologize.” Instead, we say, “I did X and it was wrong, please forgive me.” We own what we do wrong and accept the consequences.

Read the rest.  

What Russell Moore Says Here is Good For Everyone, Gay or Straight

He writes concerning the Duck Dynasty controversy:

The comments that seem most offensive to people are his moral assessments of sex outside of conjugal marriage, which were more or less just a recitation of the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is lord over sexuality, and he says that sexuality is expressed rightly only in the marriage of a man and a woman. That’s not new. We also think we’re all sinners, and that God calls us all to repentance. That’s not new either.

We’re a divided country on sexual issues. That’s why every news cycle brings more controversy. Why not engage one another, and have the debates in a civil fashion, without attempting to silence one another. I don’t agree with David Letterman’s views on divorce and cohabitation, but I don’t want him suspended for voicing them. I’ll bet I don’t agree with MTV’s Nev Schulman of the popular Catfish show on sexual ethics, but it wouldn’t put me in the fetal position under the table to hear him voice them.

Let’s have the sort of cultural conversation that allows us to seek to persuade each other, not to seek to silence one another with intimidation. That’s what real diversity is all about.

Read the rest.


A few thoughts:

1.  When a group of people feel have been persecuted in the past, I'm sure it's hard to have any desire to "have a conversation".   I think this needs to be acknowledged by non-gay people.  Compassion would be in order.   Historically, many gay people have been treated very poorly by non-gay people in the majority culture.  For gay people, if that music is always playing in the background, the desire to pull up a chair at the table of cultural conversation is greatly diminished.

2.  When the assumption is that race issues and sexuality issues are exactly the same, it's a no-brainer that Phil gets fired.  If Phil did an interview in GQ magazine and was spouting off about all the n*****s in the south, of course he should be fired from the show!  Duh!  So in this sense, when many in the gay community see race issues and sex issues as exactly the same, it's easy for them to take the moral high ground.  This is not hard to figure out.  If I believed that race and sexuality were the exact same thing I'd be first in line with them.

In light of this, I think we need to back the train up a bit and have a cultural conversation about race and sexuality.  Are they exactly the same?  What are the similarities?  What are the differences?  At this point though, that conversation doesn't feel safe to me.  I fear that if I dared open my mouth and even hinted at the fact that race issues and sexuality issues are not completely parallel I'd be crucified in the public sphere.

3.  Michael Kruger responded to the controversy in this blog post.  Here is his proposed paragraph on what A&E and GLADD should have said in light of this controversy:

We here at GLAAD were disappointed to hear that Phil Robertson thinks homosexuality is a sin. We disagree. However, we acknowledge that he has the right to hold and proclaim these views, just as we have the right to hold and proclaim our views. If we want Americans to be more tolerant of homosexuality, we could hardly accomplish that goal by being intolerant of others who disagree with us. So, we want to say that we respect and tolerate Mr. Robertson’s views, even though we disagree with them. We hope this attitude of mutual respect can allow for more dialogue and conversation about these important issues.

But again, if the assumption is that race and sexuality are exactly the same then the above paragraph is simply unthinkable.  We don't negotiate with terrorists and we don't tolerate racists.

4.  This broke my heart this morning.  I have a black, five-year-old daughter, and I know there is coming a day when I’ll have to explain to her that there are still people in this world that will hate her simply because she is black.  Now, unless something changes radically in our culture, I fear that I’ll also have to explain to her that if she dares to hold historic Christian convictions in public, there will be people who will hate her for that too.  She could lose a job or worse over her deeply held convictions.

5.  We'd all be better off if we spent a bit more time reflecting on this piece from Brandon Ambrosino.

6.  The sky is not falling. Jesus is still on the throne. Godliness implies persecution (2 Tim 3:12). We’ll be ok. This life is a mist. This is nothing new and many Christians around the world are persecuted WAY worse than some reality TV star losing his job.


Books by Russell Moore:

• Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
• Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches
• The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective

Hope On The Horizon For A Contentious Issue

If this cultural discussion could have thoughtfulness and nuance like this on a broader scale, we'd all be much better for it.

After reading his piece, I get the sense that he and I would walk away with different conclusions but still respect and honor each other.

Maybe it's actually possible!

Idolatry and Common Grace Are Often Quite Near One Another

One of the fascinating (and disturbing) things about popular cultural idols is that they are often (always?) strongly linked to the common grace that we considered in question 3. The reason for this is obvious: Satan is no Creator. He’s a deceiver, a distorter of creation. He cannot create anything new – he can only corrupt the goodness of God’s creation. Think of it this way: idolatry is a trap, and grace fragments serve as bait. It’s genius, really. Satan uses the good things of God’s creation as inducements for rebellion against him. We are tempted by the beauty that is supposed to reflect its Creator, and instead we are mollified by the thing. And thus we are drawn into false worship, and we become trapped. Idolatry uses common grace like a spider uses a porch light: the light attracts the moth so it hardly notices the web until it’s too late and it becomes hopelessly entangled. So keep your antennae attuned for the connections between those shining, beautiful shards of grace and the idolatry at the heart of this imaginative popular cultural world.

- Porterbrook curriculum, module "Culture", Unit 4

We Are Obsessed With Personal Promotion

16 People On Things They Couldn’t Believe About America Until They Moved Here

Very interesting article that highlights American cultural oddities that most people simply grow unaware of.

(HT:  T-Wax)

"Materialism, the worship of the god “Mammon” as the greatest good on earth, may well be the biggest competitor with the God of Jesus Christ for the allegiance of human hearts in our world today."

Materialism, the worship of the god “Mammon” as the greatest good on earth, may well be the biggest competitor with the God of Jesus Christ for the allegiance of human hearts in our world today. It is easy to demonize other religions or aberrant offshoots of Christianity because we do not accept their theological tenets; it is much harder to see the weaknesses of the worldviews in which we ourselves are enmeshed. Like the Israelites of old who believed they could still worship Yahweh under the guise of a golden calf, Christians in more well-to-do nations or parts of the world think they can serve Jesus while still worshiping money and material possessions even more. They quickly deny that their attachment to those possessions comes anywhere close to worship, but when one compares the time and energy expended in working for it, managing it, protecting it, longing for more of it, and deciding how to spend it with the time and energy put into kingdom activity, the denials often ring hollow. 

Unlike those ideologies that find the material world inherently evil, biblical Christianity recognizes the fundamental goodness of property and possessions. God created the entire universe as good. Despite human sin bringing many damaging results to all of God’s creation, a decent standard of living is something almost all people appropriately desire. Being materially poor is not a virtue, nor does it by itself bestow any level of spirituality. Precisely because helping the poor is such a pervasive principle in the Bible, we can recognize that extreme forms of self-denial are not particularly Christian forms of spirituality. God wants his people not to live in poverty, so those who are well above the poverty line must be generous in helping those who have less so that as many people as possible can enjoy his good, created gifts….  

…Because of sin, material possessions do not always function as God intended them to. In many contexts, they may seldom function as he wishes. There is no biblical support, however, for the notion that money, since the fall, is inherently corrupting.  But possessions or the desire for possessions does frequently serve as a seduction to sin. Those who amass great riches are tempted to use them to wield power over others in inappropriate, heavy-handed fashion. They may think that people owe them favors in return for their patronage or benefaction. They readily imagine that money can buy happiness, health, and even salvation — if, indeed, they think they have anything to be saved from. They are naturally tempted to imagine that they don’t need God or even that there is no God. They often live in subcultures that shield them from having to encounter the most desperately needy people of the world, so that they can assuage their consciences that they have helped the poor even when they offer a much smaller percentage of their profits to that end than they might have otherwise. 

The best way, therefore, to maximize the goodness of material possessions and minimize their negative effects is to give a generous, even sacrificial amount of them away.  Philanthropy, in and of itself, saves no one, but it can do a huge amount of good for hurting people. The best forms of philanthropy, however, grow out of a Christian worldview. Sacrificial giving cannot be fixed at a certain percentage of one’s gross or net income or worth. Qualifying levels vary from person to person and from one set of circumstances to another. But they always involve giving up something that a person values considerably. 

God normally does not ask the rich to trade places with the poor, merely to give from their surplus. But they must be ruthlessly honest about just how much is surplus. Savings, investments, insurance, retirement accounts, and leaving money behind for one’s closest
relatives after one dies may also exemplify good stewardship under various conditions. But they cannot automatically be said to be appropriate for everybody. In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all-stewardship; all Christians must regularly reassess their finances and determine what God will be pleased with in their specific contexts. 

- Craig Blomberg, Christians in an Age of Wealth, p. 243

An Infidelity Scandal Implodes a 'Biblical Patriarchy' Organization

Permit me to ramble for a second...

Why is this story newsworthy in The Atlantic?

I mean, in our culture of sexual "freedom", who cares?  Didn't Mr. Phillips just do what was natural?  Was he not just following his inclinations?  What could be wrong with that?  Shouldn't Dan Savage be trying to book him as a guest on his radio show and telling him "Atta boy!"  If you want to say that adultery is wrong, on what basis?

Maybe you say that the problem is not adultery but the hypocrisy.  But then again, I have the same question.  Who cares?  And based on what standard?

Does not this article presume a sexual morality?  Or at least some type of morality?

So we are not a relativistic as once thought are we?

Morality will be shoved down our throats.  New stories will appear that implicitly state that it is morally wrong for those who preach family, faith, and "down with feminism" to cheat on their wives.

Yeah, I agree, it is wrong, but why does a publication like the Atlantic bring it up?  Why are they shoving their morality down my throat?  Shouldn't we be "free" to be hypocrites?  If not, why not and based on what standard?

Again, we are not as "tolerant" as we'd like to think.  Everyone has a morality they are trying to impose on someone else.  The question then becomes, what worldview can sustain a culture of true tolerance, listening, civility, and charity?

My money is on the worldview that has as it's primary picture God becoming man and dying for his enemies and rising again.