CL8530 | Gospel and Cultures

R2P

You may also read an article, the crisis in Burma from the R2P website. Thanks.

Political Crises in Burma

Friends,

As I am working on my final paper, I am trying to reflect on my own context. It is sad to say that the political situation in my country is not hopeful. I would like to share with you an article about "Karen Refugee Testifies to Junta Crimes" which you can read from the  irrawaddy magazine. Thanks.

  

Steal this Film

Here's a great documentary film that engages issues of intellectual creation and property, and interviews (amongst other people) Yochai Benkler. You can download it for free -- in fact, they encourage you to do so!

Yochai Benkler MP3

By way of inspiration, please find an MP3 version of Benkler's 2006 Berkman Center presentation here.

Digital Culture & Missional Leadership / presentation reflections

Thinking along with Clay Shirky this week about relationships between digital culture and missional leadership, we wondered, among other things, about Jaques Ellul's critiques of technological society (in general) against the backdrop of Niebuhr's cultural (in the modern sense) typologies, namely Christ transforming culture.  From this perspective, Shirky via Tanner presents a more, and perhaps too, upbeat assessment of this relationship.

Are any of you familiar with Andy Crouch's recent work, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling? 

I know that it exists, thinks of itself as reframing the debate within American Evangelicalism, and depends on Neo-Calvinistic sources, but that's about it.  Still, I wonder if it doesn't open up some possibilities for our conversation.  Please take a look. 

Here's the first line of the blurb:  "It is not enough to condemn culture.  Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture, copy culture or consume culture.  The only way to change culture is to create culture."

And while the bibliography does not cite Ellul, it does rely upon the work of Albert Borgmann.  At the end of this 2003 The Christian Century interview  he counsels pastors on exercising "leadership amidst this technological culture of ours".

But at the same time, Crouch describes Shirky's essay, "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable," as:  "A typically insightful, indispensable essay by Clay Shirky."

On this point, and perhaps others, I entirely agree with Crouch.  I used the language of "imagination" yesterday in relation to "missional leadership", but Shirky's category of the "unthinkable" also gets there. 

How do practices (among other threads) make certain horizons or "senses of the possible" possible?  Yesterday I used "imagination" to try and get at this, thereby demonstrating a helpful and constructive use of a "wiggle word", not so much hiding behind it as trying to extend and adapt it toward a particular end.  Verbal crutches are not just for malingerers.

And I am still thinking about the "red guy", code language inspired by a PowerPoint slide for particularly directive models of teaching and leadership.  In retrospect, I wonder if yesterday's presentation needed a lot more "red guy", one strategy for narrating a common sense. 

Thinking with Scott Cormode's discussion of multi-layered leadership, when should "building" precede "gardening"?  Did TodaysMeet (an online backchannel discussion tool) create a seminar within a seminar?  And did the presentation, by departing from the paper (and that from the book) function as a presentation within a presentation within a presentation?  Was this all too much?  I wished for more conversation time.

Finally, if curious about the relationship between historically privileged institutions and a culture of ridiculously easy group formation, please also take a look at Shirky's short and provocative essay on the demise of the newspaper (or, selling and distributing newsprint ads) business.  Universities offer a second comparative case study for thinking, albeit still in economic categories, about institutions and change.

Journal Report for April 20

We spent the first session of the class reflecting on the journal account and John’s additional comment on last class (March 23th), especially regarding whether the gospel had always been outside our conversation or only assumed in it. Though diverse, our reflections focused mainly on how we had dealt with gospel in the previous classes and why more colleagues had not been actively engaged in our on-going conversation. In our class, there was a lack of pedagogical relationships and little space to draw personal narratives. Also, most of us tended to understand the gospel in a modern sense, according to international colleagues, discussions regarding gospel (& cultures) were addressed within the western context. Additionally, other questions (opinions) were: is the gospel a common language or specific in our class? Or is it hermeneutical in the midst of context?

 

The second session began with the presentation of Part II of Converging on Culture. The presenter was primarily concerned about the role of Gospel (the Scripture) in the authors’ context (or approaches) and their understanding of Christ and culture as “Christ of culture.” The first respondent raised questions about the relation between gospel and culture, the role of gospel in Part II, and where Christ was in the authors’ cultural analysis. Both the presenter and the first respondent spoke of the absence of Christ in Part II. Also, the first respondent raised another important question, which focused on the gospel being addressed in terms of power. Could the authors who were in high position make their arguments regarding the lives of people “down there” without a theology? Or can a theology help them understand the situation of people (the marginalized or the poor)?

 

The second respondent made an issue of the relation between Part I and Part II in the book. According to him Part I was “general,” focusing on responding to academic theologians, while Part II, with responses to ethnic minority groups, was “too specific.” One of the professors admitted that this book’s methodological approach regarding its structure was so traditional that Part I dealt with general arguments and Part II consisted of specific researches or analyses. However, there were some questions and opposing arguments regarding the notion of “too specific,” as well as the previous notion of the absence of Christ in Part II. They were: particular cultures are making Christian identities very specific; the essays in Part II are very Christo-centric and incarnational; Paul, too, used cultural languages; gospel itself was culturally expressed.

              Our discussion turned to the first respondent’s final question above: Can theological/cultural languages of the highly educated authors address stories of the marginalized and the uneducated, without understanding what is happening among them? Can the authors come up with a theology which will critique their powerful positions? In the first respondent’s context, Malawi, culture and Christianity (mainly, Pentecostalism) were not separated, and culture was very closely related to what is going on among the people. Accordingly, even politicians had to engage with Pentecostal Christians who were generally poor and had little education. One of the professors asked him what and how our colleagues can learn from them. If there can be answers regarding these questions, we can understand that Hopkins’ theological attempt to “seek some intentional normative practices located in slave religion” could “enhance the faith and witness of those on the underside of any society” (Converging on Culture, 90).

Journal for April 6

We submit our time into Your hands. With these words, a simple prayer, Hrang commended the morning to the One who receives all things spoken and unspoken. But the Amen sent us back to Civil Society and Political Theory  by Cohen and Arato. The discussion broadened to wonder what God might be up to in the discussion of civil society, global civil society. One of the professors mentioned that the response to this question was dissertation-worthy because the church is simply being “left behind” in this significant global conversation. We reviewed the conversation about power and its relationship to civil society, democratization, and lifeworld. There was reference to the image or metaphor of capillaries—that power flows like capillaries through the lifeworld.

The presenter offered a helpful summary of the first five chapters of Converging on Culture: Theologians in Dialogue with Cultural Analysis and Criticism, edited by Brown, Davaney, and Tanner. What is the relationship between theology and culture? There was a discussion of the tension between academic theology and everyday theology, culture as a critique of theology, theology as a critique of culture. The presenter argued for a space to negotiate a number questions: How does religion critique culture? How is power channeled and who has the power? Is culture always messy and local or are there points of unity and commonality? Can theology be a unified whole? Could Welker provide a framework for this discussion with his pneumatology, God as Spirit?

The first respondent asked the question whether and how it is even possible for ALL people to participate in meaning-making, in cultural meaning-making. For those not native to the academy, how do we understand the democratization of theology? His concern was that academics still seem to be the power holders. Do the writers in these first chapters actually bridge the gap? The presenter wondered about the role of scripture. Are there norms? values? universals?

The second respondent had specific questions for participants in the course. This became a spirited and tension-filled climax to the morning. Is there a rock to which we can flee? If there are no essences or cores, and all is suspended in motion, what do we confess? What is the Gospel? And how do we engage discussions of theology and culture in a course entitled Gospel and Cultures? In the midst of the swirling and at times confusing dialog and conversation, pedagogical questions were raised, there was a longing for common ground, shared experience, community, and wondering what bodied Good News, Incarnate Good News might look like. What is there to hold on to?

One world under God?

[cross posted from Mary's blog, tensegrities]

We've been having rather passionate discussions in my doctoral seminar, of late, that tend to cluster around some of the differences between issues that arise in "everyday theology" and those that we focus on in "academic theology." (I put these terms in quotes, because although I think Kathryn Tanner does a good job of defining them, not everyone has read her excellent book.)

Today I opened up the latest issue of The Atlantic (April 2009) -- which is one of the few magazines I regularly recommend people subscribe to in print version -- to find this powerful essay entitled "One World Under God" by Robert Wright.

I think that this essay is a remarkable illustration of everyday theology. It makes some key points about Christianity -- particularly the Pauline corpus -- that we regularly work on in the midst of discussions at Luther (see especially the Center for Missional Leadership), but it does so almost entirely in the language of evolutionary theory (which is not surprising, given that Robert Wright is a journalist who's focused a lot on that topic).

I'm certain that systematic theologians and biblical scholars could find some things to disagree with in this essay (Wright draws on a fairly common interpretation of Lydia's role in Paul's ministry, for instance, when newer work is available), but I wonder to what extent academic theologians can engage this essay as a welcome intervention in popular US discourse?

My hunch is that many would find it hard to do so, because it doesn't start from the key claims of the Christian gospel. But on the other hand, I suspect that many religious educators -- or maybe I should speak for myself, as a specifically Catholic religious educator of Christian faith -- would simply say that I find this essay a powerful argument that could go a long way towards opening up notions of the missio dei and missional leadership in broader discourse.

Which is why it's a great illustration, to my mind, of the challenges that arise when everyday theologians and academic theologians engage each other.

Journal Report for March 16

Journal Report for March 16

Medhat Yowkem

 

We spent a long time covering my question about the significance of Civil Society and Political Theory  in northwestern cultures. Some of the international students explained how they struggle to relate this book with their own cultures. I think it was very helpful to see the professors and other students listen to our frustrations and understand our challenges. It was helpful when the professors talked about the applications of this reading to our countries; for example NGO’s as civil society movement.

 Suzan’s presentation was helpful for making civil society theories and politics understandable within any culture. I appreciated when she pointed out the scripture verse about Jesus turning over the tables and kicking them out of the temple (Revolutionary Christ). Jesus was engaging with his community and creating dialogue.

  The first respondent raised a question about how we have other texts which show Jesus in a civil society movement as a peacemaker. Also, Jesus and his conversation with the Samaritan women, or Jesus as an angry man throwing the tables away. Which method is the right method to pick at which times?

 In the second response Harvey mentioned the political issues of Zimbabwe, a non-western country, that is ruled by dictatorship and which is controlling the civil society task. Harvey is disappointed because the president of Zimbabwe is a Christian and even a seminarian so the expectations for this leader were high (I hope I understood you right Harvey).

 We finished our class with a wonderful conversation about democracy. Is it something universal or just culture? Gary said we can see the sense of universality in the intuition of human speech, and through the golden role of participation of people. In the same time Gary explained his concern from making democracy just all about culture.Gary sees democracy as an evolutionary concept. The important thing about western civilization is that, though it is largely based on Christian morality, coming out of Christian tradition, the West doesn’t get ethics only from the Bible, but from other experiences and sources.

On obligation ....

Is the West obliged to help? 

And I said yes. Here is part of the reason ....

My brother spent a year in Rwanda soon after the genocide as part of the UN Peace Keeping Force. He still struggles with the trauma he faced there. As those of you that have seen "Hotel Rwanda" know, the West was not only silent throughout those 100 days. Western countries managed to come in to save their citizens, leaving the Africans fighting. Of course, Bill Clinton made an apology a few years later, and the UN declared the famous "Never Again," but could it have made a difference if they had intervened sooner rather than later?

We did mention Sudan this morning, only to see on the news later today that government has decided to send all international NGOs packing. 

Then there is the question of the impact of HIV/AIDS. The figures are alarming, no need to repeat them here. 

And then, the billions of dollars from the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa for muslim scholarships and food aid. 

There are some issues too big for local civil societies to handle by themselves, eg; the case of Zimbabwe. This is where civil societies could advocate for one another. When I lived in England, on numerous occasions, I joined "movements" that would speak to the government on behalf of struggling nations elsewhere, for instance, Africa. I took part in the Live 8 campaigns. (Thank God for Bono and Bob Geldof. I have always wondered why the Archbishop of Canterbury remained silent through out those campiagns.) This is not at the expense of something local. Civil society ought to have eyes both on the local and the global, especially Christian civil society. We are one Body. And the globe is shrinking.