February 2013

Evangelicals Really Dislike Lent

My friend Krista Dalton tweeted last week:

Was told Lent was “stupid” by a fellow Christian at school. Good reminder why I am not evangelical!

I had to fes’ up to her that I used to say crap like that and I repented.

So what is it about Lent that evangelicals hate so much? I have a two-tiered theory.

The first involves a Theology of Glory. The second is not a cause – it is an effect – but it is born our of strangeness and suspicion.

Theology of Glory

Back in Christian history, back to the roots of evangelicalism in the Protestant Reformation, are two major approaches (if you will). The first is a Theology of the Cross held up by Luther. The second is a Theology of Glory brought forward by Calvin.

I don’t have time to get into all the sorted details, but suffice to say … that the American evangelical church has not just majored in a Theology of Glory but almost to the near neglect of a Theology of Cross.

Here is a really helpful article on the differences:

“Theologies of glory” are approaches to Christianity (and to life) that try in various ways to minimize difficult and painful things, or to move past them rather than looking them square in the face and accepting them. Theologies of glory acknowledge the cross, but view it primarily as a means to an end-an unpleasant but necessary step on the way to personal improvement, the transformation of human potential. As Luther puts it, the theologian of glory “does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil.” The theology of glory is the natural default setting for human beings addicted to control and measurement. This perspective puts us squarely in the driver’s seat, after all.

It’s not that we don’t like the cross – oh we love the Cross – we sing about it (the wonderful cross) and we wear them around our necks!

It’s so bad that Dallas Willard has coined the phrase “Vampire Christians” for us. He says that we love Jesus for his blood and little else. Ouch – that one stings.

It shows up in other ways too. We are almost completely ignorant of the apophatic tradition. We are so kataphatic (speaking of God in the positive) that we have no idea that there are other options! We have no negativa or posteri – it is all presence all time.

Look at our worship services. Just ask yourself: what would it take to lift your hands and sing “Shout to the Lord” at the top of your lungs … and then ask if that seems compatible with fasting or Lent. They are just two different muscle groups. Unfortunately, those who use the one often neglect the other and vice-versa

Strangeness and Suspicion

I’m not saying that this element causes the unfamiliarity – but once there is alienation this next element adds fuel to the fire. The suspicion is syncretism.

Think about it this way: Lent isn’t in the Bible. Historically evangelicals have been a sola scriptura bunch (don’t look into that too much) and Lent is a foreign concept. It doesn’t’ take long to dig up some dirt on Lent and find out that it has its roots in Egyptian-Pagan worship borrowed by the Roman cults. Isis lost a son for 40 days so we mourn for 40 days and then have Isis eggs that are colorfully decorated is the story that come to me.

So, I’m not saying that explains all of the animosity that evangelicals have toward Lent, but I just wanted to offer up my two-tiered theory.

It starts with neglect and ends with accusations.

It’s same reason that we kinda try on Good Friday … have NO idea what to do on Saturday … but LOVE Resurrection Sunday!

February 21, 2013 5

Critical Questions: part 3 “Is the Internet for Women & Gays?”

This is part 3 of a series of critical questions. You can find part 1 and part 2 here.

“Is the internet for women and gays?” may seem like at odd question at first – but there is a story behind it. I am coming at the question as a researcher. I am doing research design at UCLA right now in preparation for my dissertation next year. One of the research questions is in relation to technology, the community of users interacts with the technology, and possible issues related to who conceived of and designed the technology.

An interesting case study is found in the Grindr social network community. Grindr is a widely popular mobile, GPS-enabled hook-up app for gays. The folks at Grindr had the idea to launch a ‘straight’ version called Blendr, and it has been massive failure. [You can read about why it failed here and here and here ]

One of the theories is that Grindr was conceived of and designed by gays. A hypothesis we were testing is that embedded in the ‘DNA’ of the technology was something inherently ‘gay’ that resonated with its users but was lost in translation when the conversion to Blendr was attempted.

During this research I have also become aware of a growing problem of cyber-bullying, particularly of women and LBGT persons. It shows up on Facebook, Xbox chat rooms during multi-player games, and blogs.

One article about women bloggers contained two different women’s experience.

“The death threat was pretty scary,” says HollaBack! cofounder Emily May. “And there have been several rape threats. But it’s mostly ‘I want to rape you’ or ‘Somebody should rape you.’ Most are not physical threats–they’re more about how ugly I am, how nobody would bother raping me because I’m so fat and hideous. Once, after reading all these posts, I just sat in my living room and bawled like a 12-year-old.”

Jennifer Pozner agrees. “Very rarely have I gotten negative feedback that doesn’t include either a rape threat or calling me ugly and fat. Or sometimes they tell me I’m hot, but they hate what I’m saying– they’d rather watch me on TV with the mute on.” Pozner’s threats have not been limited to online: One man left a letter at her door saying he’d “find you and your mom and rape you both.”

Ponzer says “It’s about the policing of women … using threats to keep us silent.”

It is clear that many of the same oppressive behaviors, patriarchal attitudes and hurtful rhetoric that plague us in the ‘real world’ show up in cyberspace. Is a matter for concern? Is this a surprising reality? Does this need to be addressed?

The question “Is the internet for women and gays?” seems to have 3 initial answers that each expose some significant underlying assumptions.

The first possible answer is “Of course it is! In fact, it is a powerful leveler of the social hierarchies and power structures that dominate our inherited cultural history” . The internet is seen to be a democratic space that allows for harmful elements to be exposed and for the community to vocalize and govern in ways that are newly empowering. It allows us the possibility to combat bullies and shame those who are hurtful to others.

The second possible answer relates to the idea that embedded in the DNA of technology are the values and priorities (as well a biases) of it’s designer. In this case, it would make sense that many of the same problems in Western culture are carried over into the technologies that are conceived of and designed by folks from the culture. It is the same shit by different means. Same prejudice – different medium.

A third possible answer is that technology is an empty vessel when it comes to values and we, as users, supply it with meaning and content. So a message board, Facebook page, blog and XBox chat room are just spaces that we utilize. They are neutral and can be used in socially positive (welcoming) or negative (aggressive or discriminatory) ways.

Why am I concerned about this?

This issues concerns me in two ways:

1) I am deeply troubled to read of women bloggers being threatened and intimidated – even virtually. I am concerned about stories I hear from the girls in my youth group about their Facebook experiences. My wife has worked in both Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Counseling while I have been in youth ministry. Issues related intimidation, violence and oppression-suppression are serious and deeply impact the quality of someone’s life, their mental and emotional health and their capacity to participate in family, church and society.

2) Technology seems to be a good test case for a much larger concern that I have regarding leadership and community development in the next generation. This particular issue gives me great hesitation about getting too excited regarding this potential new era of open-mindedness, equality, acceptance and freedom. The issue is simply this:
We who have been trained, groomed, shaped, and socialized into the old forms – bring with us into the new forms, our patterns, values, ideas, permissions and prejudices.

It’s like whenever someone complains about a perceived shortcoming in the Emerging Church, I find myself saying

“yes … but part of that has to do with that which we are emerging from. These are inherited patterns because we are all embedded in systems that contain inherent values. It will take a while to entirely emerge out of that.”

To take this back to our initial question about technology. Technology isn’t the solution to the problems that haunt us. They may be helpful for bringing about the solution – but simply have an open room – Facebook, Xbox chat or blog – is not a fix in itself. The prejudices and issues of power that are ‘outside’ the room are brought in with the people who come in to use the space.

This seems to me to be an import issue to vocalize. My hope is that in simply naming it to raise awareness that technology is not inherently neutral, safe, or equal. There is more going on in our use of Facebook, Xbox chats and blogs than just our use of those technologies. They are not absent of the values, patterns, prejudices and social power dynamics of the world and culture that made them.

We need to be vigilant to address hurtful and harmful material in our technologies. Technology is not neutral – it is embedded with meaning and value.

February 16, 2013 1

Critical Questions: part 2

Originally published as ‘The Silent White Guy and Invisible Black Women’.

I am glad that people liked the idea of Critical Theory (from part 1) and the structure of the questions that I put forward.

I did notice 2 places where the conversation trickled to an drip.

One is the issue of what white guys are allowed to talk about.

Two is the way to talk about the role of black women in our society without picking on Beyonce.

Let me give those some background:

My friend Hollie Baker-Lutz tweeted a sentiment that I hear quite frequently

“Uh oh, overheard in the university cafe: “and I can’t say anything in that class cuz I’m a white male, which is the worst thing u can be.”

I get this all the time from guys young and old alike. I think something may be missing from that equation however.
Here are two things it would be helpful to add to the mix:

an acknowledgement that the world is changing.
a familiarity of the word hegemony.

If you add those 2 things, it has been my experience that people are generally open to hear what you have to say. People are quite interested.

What they are not interested in is the hegemonic refrain. See, here is the problem: because that is the dominant cultural narrative … they have already heard it. They know it well. They may know it better than you because they have had to deal with it – whereas you have only assumed it and benefited uncritically from it.

The second issue came from my friend Janisha when she wrote in response to part 1 post:

I appreciate your article and your attempt to think deeply. I don’t think anyone except for black women can truly determine what are primary and secondary issues.
The place of black women in society as a primary issue has with it endless complications, including “taking back one’s physicality in the face of generations of oppression and marginalization.”
My place in this culture is directly linked to taking back my physicality, because my black womanhood is my physicality. They aren’t different. they cannot be separated. I will argue again, that this conversation is difficult to have unless you are a black woman, because who else can fully understand the implications of Beyonce?

MP responded:

I get what you (Janisha) are saying about the black woman conversation and I don’t want to butt into it, white man that I am. But that conversation would be about actual black womanhood, whereas this one is about public spectacle, one created and much enjoyed by white men. So there’s a white man conversation to be had about why we (white men) have created a category of “black women” who occupy this particular place in our spectacle.

… Bo, I wonder how to tackle the issue of “what place black women hold in our culture” without picking apart actual cases like Beyonce’s half-time show??

MP makes 2 excellent points!

– The first situation I would compare to ‘reader response’ approaches to text. We have the author-text-reader.
In this case we have Beyonce-Performance-Viewer.

So each of us viewers is related to the performance differently so ‘white men’ and ‘black women’ may be relating to the performance differently.

– In the second I just think that we need to be VERY clear the difference between an example and an anecdote. Focusing in one example can be illustrative or it can be problematic.

I would hesitate to use this performance by Beyonce as an example – she is not the only one who dances like this. Lots of performers do. Also white women (like Christina and Britney) do. So it is not unprecedented.

NFL Cheerleading squads do many of the same moves in much the same outfits … the difference is that
A) they don’t have a microphone and
B) we don’t know their name.

Which is a HUGE difference.
If we want to talk about male sexuality and football we should have the Cheerleader conversation. That is every team – every week.

If we want to have the ‘place that black women hold in our society’ conversation, then we would ask a different set of questions. Like ‘where were the other black women during the 5 hour broadcast of America’s largest TV event of the year?’ Since it is a commercial event … maybe we would even take a look at the commercials and ask how black women were represented.

Either way – isolating the one performance by Beyonce is not our best starting point.

February 16, 2013 2

Critical Questions: part 1

Originally published as ‘Beyoncé and the Bigger Question’.

Over the last 2 weeks I have watched the blowback over the Beyoncé SuperBowl Half-Time Show with great interest. I have read several interesting articles – both in support and in criticism – of the spectacle.

This is a part of what is becoming a theme for me. I will link to part 2 and 3 as I post them today.

I get why people want to talk about her outfit, her moves, and her assembled cast of all females – about modesty, sexuality, and female empowerment. I get why those are conversation points.

What is becoming a trend, however, is that I have little interest in that conversation – not until we have a more significant conversation first.

I think that it is time I lay all my cards on the table.

While I was in seminary, my mentor Randy Woodley, showed me how to look at bigger systems and structures than I was used to. I have continued down that road and during my time at Claremont have been in dialogue with a school of thought called ‘Critical Theory’.

Critical Theory has taught me to ask 3 initial questions in order to examine an issue:

Is there a pattern visible?
Is there something behind the main thing?
Is there any issue of power differential?

The Critical part is that we are going beyond the initial perceptions, the popular approach and the cultural conversation. The Theory part is that we are going to see if we might offer an explanation about the deeper issue.

SO let’s ask our 3 questions about the SuperBowl Half-Time hullaballoo.

Is there a pattern visible?

I would argue that there is. I noticed it just before kickoff – during the Nation Anthem to be specific. Alecia Keys was introduced, Jennifer Hudson had just sang with the kids from Sandy Hook … and I knew that Beyoncé was the halftime show.

I thought to myself:

“It’s odd that the only 3 black women involved in this TV spectacular are all singers.”

I noticed that CBS didn’t even have a black female sideline reporter like Pam Oliver (on FOX) for its NFL broadcasts. I watched the rest of the festivities – including all the military stuff – and was struck by the noticeable lack of black women associated with the event. Walter Payton’s daughter presented Jason Witten with the NFL Man of the Year award … but that was about it. None of the coaches or commentators … not even many of the commercials involved black women. This seemed significant since so many of the on-screen TV personalities, coaches and players are black.

Is there something behind the main thing?

It is easy to see the answer to this one. The answer is consumerism. While the game itself is ‘the main event’ the commercial aspect of the SuperBowl has become at-least or almost as big. Commercials this year sold for a reported 4 million dollars a piece. Like the controversy we covered earlier in the ‘So God Made a Farmer’, commercialism-capitalism-consumerism is the unspoken thing.

It might be hard to see in a short blog post like this but Beyoncé isn’t the telling controversy. The more telling one was the criticism of Alicia Keys’ soulful rendition of the national anthem. People criticized her not just for sitting at a piano (!) but for altering the tried and true version of the song.

In CT when something is assumed – even if unstated – as a dominant form, it is called hegemony. It is a type of power or influence that may or may not be overtly communicated. If one were to look at just the first half of the SuperBowl broadcast, it might be possible to say that the major narrative when it comes black women is twofold:

you can sing – we like that.
but make sure you do it our way. Don’t do anything too much or too … you know… that’s not why you are here.

Is there any issue of power differential?

This is the one that we never get around to talking about. Maybe it’s because we don’t know how to or don’t have frameworks for it. There is a question that needs to be asked though: who decided that Jennifer Hudson, Alecia Keys and Beyoncé would sing? What did that committee look like? Who are in those seats of power?

Did the group that decided who would sing look like Jennifer Hudson, Alecia Keys, and Beyoncé?

I don’t know, I’m asking an honest question. It’s the tough question that no one wants to ask. Who has the resources? Who has the influence? Who makes the decisions? Who sits in the seats of power?

Now you can see why I am not interested in talking about whether Beyoncé should have had more clothes on, should have gyrated less or is a model for taking back one’s physicality in the face of generations of oppression and marginalization.

Those are all secondary conversations.

The primary conversation is about what place black women hold in our culture.

It is a much bigger conversation with much deeper consequences than if Beyonce’s hips and wardrobe were appropriate for a Half-Time show.

February 16, 2013 2

So God Made A Farmer – and other kinda true sentiments

Not feeling so well, I watched the Superbowl alone. When the commercial came on that featured Paul Harvey reading his ‘so God made a farmer’ piece, I thought “nice tribute” – and nothing more.

I woke up the next morning to find a buzz surrounding the spot – both good and bad. Some are claiming it the winner of the prestigious ‘best SuperBowl add’ and others are decrying it as a rip off and an overly sentimentalized piece of blatantly romanticized platitude.

I am fascinated with the power of words and specifically how, in our culture, there seems to be no understanding OF language and examination of its use. We act like words are just what the appear to be – but don’t look at how the function to re-present (or signify) a greater reality to us.

Earlier that day at church we had a major conversation about masculine pronouns for god and use of the word Satan. We are going through the book StoryLine by Donald Miller and not only does Miller only refer to god as ‘He’, but god only has classically masculine attributes. I got taken to task for selecting the book as our new year reading.

My defense is that ‘it’s just language’. So while it may not be the best language, I never thought that we would swallow it whole – hook, line, and sinker.
When it comes to the ‘Satan’ thing, yes – I wish that Miller had used ‘the devil’ or ‘our enemy’ or ‘evil’ or ‘darkness’. I assumed that we all knew it was a kind of personification. Maybe I am just secure in second naiveté for my own good. I didn’t know that we still had to clarify that we don’t believe in an actual ancient cosmic bad guy but that it was a way for us to talk about forces that hurt us and others and destroys the good that God has called us to.

Earlier in our gathering we sang the song “How can I keep for singing your praise” and it has the line “I am loved by the King, it makes my heart want to sing.” It’s how language works! It is an analogy. It is comparison. It is not exacting or mathematical. No – I don’t think that god is literally a King. The age of monarchs is over … it is just a classical way to conceptualize. It’s poetic.

Side Note: I have been clear that language about god is not univocal. It is not a 1:1 equation. I have also talked openly about female pronouns for god (in God never changes, or does She?)

Which brings us back to Paul Harvey’s “so God made a farmer”. Of course god didn’t make a farmer – it is being poetic. Someone might say “well God did make Adam to care for the garden and to work the soil.” Which is a fair enough point … but in saying that, we are not saying that God made a modern farmer who uses double-axled combines and herbicides made in laboratories.

I am suspicious that the reason that we would either get so excited or so upset is if we were lacking a theory about how language works. Then I have to remind myself, we are the same country where a lot of people try to read the book of Revelation as literal – a completely novel way to read the Bible that has sprung up in the just the past 200 years.

So maybe that explains both the accolades and the criticism of the ‘So God Made a Farmer’ ad. If you don’t get imagery, poetry, analogy … and think that language represents exactly what it signifies … then I suppose this one would be worth getting all fired up about.

When we say that God created a farmer – we don’t mean that God literally created a farmer. It is a poetic tribute. Noting more. Not worth getting fired up by or upset about. It’s just nice language.

________________

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there is a huge racial component to the controversy that I didn’t even get to touch on! If you are interested in an examination of that aspect please see this article in The Atlantic about the WhiteWashing of farming

February 6, 2013 0

Doug Pagitt Radio: what is going on IN religion

I had the honor to be on Doug Pagitt Radio yesterday morning. It was a great conversation with Doug and Victoria that centered about what is happening in religion.

You can read the initial blog about religion and postmodern thought here.

Doug has the video on his website and on Itunes.

Here the video of the first segment. Here is the video of the second.

Doug has been on Homebrewed several times. Once talking about his books in the Inventive Age, and once chatting with Tripp about politics (in a post-debate debrief).

Check out Doug’s book on Amazon.

Most the conversation centered around my proposal that there are at least 5 things happening in religion:

Experience
Formation
Event
Mystery
Potentially Something Real

I would love to get your feedback on the interview. Brew on! -Bo [you can keep up with all my past posts on this page]

February 2, 2013 0

Barna and the Burned Over Region

Barna Research put out a fascinating list of America’s Top 100 most ‘Bible-Minded Cities’. Its not the top 10 Bible cities but the bottom 10 that are so telling!

The bottom 10 are:

Boston, Mass
Manchester, NH
Hartford/ New Haven, CT
Portland/Auburn, ME
Burlington,VT
Plattsburgh, NY
Albany/Schenectady/Troy, NY
Providence, RI
New Bedford, MA

It really caught my attention for 3 main reasons.

1. When I was in college I was an evangelist and Barna was our go-to source

2. During that time a common mantra in my circles was that ‘the Pacific-NorthWest is the most unchurched are in North America.’

3. After college I went to help plant a church in upstate NY (near the VT border) and grew suspicious about that Pacific NW thing.

I had spent time in the Pacific NW and while there were lots of unchurched people … there were also tons of churches – but specifically big churches aggressively engaged in the culture wars.

In the New England (or NorthEast) region, it was different. There was a cynicism is had not seen. Not a coffee shop atheism like the west. I deep suspicion unlike I had encountered.

This came to a head for me when two roads converged.

Ingredient 1: I was charismatic and had bought into a thing call “Re-digging the Wells of Revival” where you go to places where God has worked in the past and, through prayer, you try to unplug that ancient well of what God wants to do to release the anointing that once flowed.

I lived in area that had seen large revivals in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. In fact, the denomination I was a part of was founded in the region and still had some of the revival tabernacles as properties! I would go to the one closest to my house (Round Lake, NY) and pray for revival to sweep our area again.

I even started doing historical research. I stumbled into something. It was called ‘the Burned Over region’. It turns out that the much celebrated revival had burned through so fast and so hot that when it was over … a cynicism had set into many people. Families that had given large amounts of time, sums of money and even family jewelry collections grew bitter.

A problem developed for me. The circles I was running in were celebrating the 2nd Great Awakening and other historical renewals of the church. I was growing suspicious and that altered my prayers. I stopped praying for the same kind of revival we say 100 years ago and started praying for a different kind that didn’t leave generations of families bitter and broke.

Ingredient 2: I went to a Barna Conference in western NY (Syracuse or Rochester area). I sat there the whole time shaking my head as Mr. Barna presented to a packed massive auditorium. The finding that he was presenting were not exactly true of my area.

I had read a book by that point called “The Nine Nations of North America” and had begun to concoct a theory that merged (for churches) the New England of Nine Nations and my findings in Burned Over research. When you put those two together it really explained a lot.

I kept saying to myself, “Even NY is different east of the Hudson river. From Albany east NY is more like New England than like Western NY and Pennsylvania”.

After Barna’s presentation I voiced my suspicion and that was not greeted well by my denominational cohort I was attending with.

I even brought up the Pacific NW thing and how out there you can hear 3 big christian radio stations and find a christian bookstore every couple of miles. We had neither.

The Pacific NW had mega-churches. We had one church over 1,000 and people in our area were suspicious that it was a cult, “because how else could you get that many people to all come and sing the same thing at the same time and then listen to one guy talk for a half-hour?”

All of that is background for this past weekend. Barna put out a fascinating new list of the 100 most biblically minded cities. You can go read the article to see how they configured that. The 2 most important things to me:

1 – the top 50 are East of the Mississippi River (except for Bakersfield, CA).

2 – the bottom 10 are all in NE or that NY Hudson River basin.

To me this says two things. First, the Bible Belt is a real thing and when combined with something like ‘Nine Nations’ is potent to think about.

Second, The bottom 10 are all in the burned over region and should give us concern about what 100 years from now will look like. I know that there are lots of factors over the last century and that someone will say “the past is not the future” and I get that.

But as one who a) studied this, b) while I lived there, and c) called it out in real time… I’m telling you –

The bottom 10 of this thing are far more relevant to our future than the top 10.

February 1, 2013 2

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Evangelicals Really Dislike Lent

Critical Questions: part 3 “Is the Internet for Women & Gays?”

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Critical Questions: part 1

So God Made A Farmer – and other kinda true sentiments

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Barna and the Burned Over Region

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