theo|digital

I’ve heard about this from several places already: twspassionplay is the Twitter feed for Trinity Wall Street, an Episcopal church in New York who added twitter updates to their three hour passion play on Good Friday.  About 2,000 people followed online.

via @Mary_Mother_Of: They sealed his tomb at dusk. The stone stands between us, and I can’t leave. I am an old woman now, lost in the dark.about 22 hours ago from GroupTweet

    

via @romanguard1: I’ve got dibs on his robe, but if you guys want to cast lots for the rest of his clothes I’m cool with that.about 22 hours ago from GroupTweet

    

via @Mary_Mother_Of: I saw the water and the blood. I want to scream with him: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?about 22 hours ago from GroupTweet

    

via @JosephArimathea: is sleepwalking through this. I cut the tomb, bought the linen, hold his body—and he’s gone.about 22 hours ago from GroupTweet

    

via @Pontius_Pilate: They want this done by nightfall. I sent my soldiers to break the dead men’s legs. Are my hands clean of this?about 23 hours ago from GroupTweet

    

via @ServingGirl: Darkness and earthquake. I heard the curtain in the temple was torn in two. I wonder…about 23 hours ago from GroupTweet

Some not-to-in-depth observations:

• Narrative:  maintained characters, plot.  A level removed from setting, but no more than a reader’s theater that places parts as read on a black stage with isolated stools.  In true postmodern form, it picks up and depends on knowledge of the narrative, using only isolated memes.
• Global:  nicely makes real the idea that the worldwide Church is all celebrating Good Friday at the same time.  Live comments from California to Murcia, Spain.
• Human:  sometimes the form underscores the extended human emotion.  The terse, 140 character phrase I think makes Mary’s “I am an old woman now, lost in the dark” statement even more powerful.

Clifford Christians , a national expert on media ethics and communications professor at the University of Illinois, is also a Christian who has thought deeply about spiritual implications of new media.

Writing a recent book forward, he explains that, regarding new media technologies, a fundamental debate remains unresolved. The issue is whether communication is most productively oriented:

1. To the epistemology of virtual reality (What does it mean that our relationships are disembodied?)
2. To the nature of the human (What is authentic humanness in virtual space?)
3. To social structures (Are political and social formations offline and online fundamentally different?)

Christians writes his forward in Understanding Evangelical Media: The Changing Face of Christian Communication.  The book also features a website with additional content .

Shane Hipps , Mennnonite pastor, recently commented on how “dangerous” it is to refer to “virtual community” as real community (watch the video in my last post ).  He had four points real Christian community that I think are helpful starting points for discussion, but perhaps not as dismissible as they appear.

Hipps’ four factors for meaningful community:

1. Shared history (identity and belonging)
2. Permanence (necessary for the shared history)
3. Proximity
4. Shared imagination of the future

Hipps says that virtual community captures the fourth more easily than “true” community, but “utterly leaves out” the other three.  But would Marshall McLuhan , Hipps key thought mentor, agree?

Extensions of humanity.  Basic to McLuhan’s thought is the idea the technologies extend natural human functions.  For instance, humans have legs which let them move from one place to another.  The technology of the wheel extended and enhanced that function… suddenly we can do a human thing on a larger scale.  Right?  An axe extends an arm, telephone extends voice, etc.

From this starting point, thought about technologies like an IM chat or Facebook should see certain uniquely human functions like conversation and relationship extended and expanded, not replaced.  (Walter Ong reminds us that invention of the alphabet did not replace the spoken word, the printed book hardly replaced teaching…  new technologies in communication augment, not replace)

Gotta look at the whole system.  A technology can’t be evaluated on its own, but in relationship to the system of human perceptions.  Specifically, the ratio of human senses is altered by extending technologies.  And it’s not the obvious one.  For instance the effect of radio was to alter… the visual sense.  The effect of the photo is auditory.

Before we can make theological judgments on a technology, we need to think more widely.  Rare is the person that lives only “online” (dark room, glowing screen, empty take-out boxes, no verbal interaction in weeks, etc).  Instead, what is the effect of our online interactions on our physical interactions (and vice versa).

Is proximity physical?  Hipps assumes that proximity is physical and that online interaction breaks the proximity.  But McLuhan assumes that while industrialization created explosion, homogeneity, and isolation (think the suburbs), electronic technology has an imploding, contracting energy effect.  ”Everybody in the world has to live in the utmost proximity created by our electronic involvement in one another’s lives…” he writes (Understanding Media, p54).  Further, he tantalizingly forces us to examine our definition of proximity:

It begins to become evident that “touch” is not skin but the interplay of the senses, and “keeping in touch” or “getting in touch” is a matter of a fruitful meeting of the senses, of sight translated into sound and sound into movement and taste and smell.

Theologically I’m with Hipps on the importance of the Incarnation, and I think this has implications on physicality.  This is a whole ‘nother post… but I’d suggest that “presence” is significantly more than physical (something we call upon every time we speak on sacramental theology), and that online technologies are not inherently gnostic.

Amputation and Numbness.  McLuhan reminds us that a primary effect of new technologies extending human communication function is a sense of over-stimulus and then “numbness.”  We become both hyper-aware of the technology (like in 1998 when we all were talking about going to “do our e-mail”), but also oblivious to its sense-altering effects (an exception McLuhan notes is some artists, who write histories of the future).  But an important feature of this is that we can’t immediately see the effect of new technologies… in fact, we don’t tend to see them until the next technology arrives, allowing us to look back.

From this perspective, it almost seems silly (pardon the strength) to speak emphatically about media effects on community.  Especially items like “shared history” and “permanence” can’t really be categories on technologies that have existed less than 10 years.  Google has only been a wide-spread part of our lives since 2001.  The Blogger platform I’m publishing only gathering popularity since 2004.  And Facebook?  While I was on in the “early days” when it was limited to a huge large universities, it has only become ubiquitous in the last 1.5 years.

(allow me to offer apologies again that while I’m responding to Shane Hipps video clip, I have yet to have examined his published book , which may have significantly more interaction with some of the above I’m mentioned…  I’m sure a conversation with him would be fascinating and fruitful).

Shane Hipps is a Mennonite pastor who I noticed wrote a book a couple years ago entitled The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. I borrowed it and skimmed but never really read it, and now I’m realizing I’m gonna have to catch up, since Shane is starting to get some voice on these issues in the evangelical Christian leadership world.  I’d love to meet him and chat it up some time, since this is one my primary areas of interest.

Because so much of media ecology is simply unawareness, I had hoped another a fellow watcher of communications as culture would cultivate an imaginative view on ideas like “virtual community.” But here Shane makes it clear that he views online interaction as entertainment (“enjoy it, but don’t call it community, because it isn’t”).  This was somewhat disappointing to me (and not unusual, see my first post on this )

Scot McKnight posted a response at both Our of Ur and at Jesus Creed that asked Shane to consider the Jesus Creed community, a blog that does have a remarkable level a participation (both in volume and quality) compared to (most?) other blogs that often function as more soapbox than dialogue.

Over 40 commentors have contributed some amazing thoughts to this thread: Dan (4) points out that he doesn’t know Scot McKnight, and comes because the community is useful.  Makes sense to me.  I think utility is clearly a reason we both approach and stay in offline communities as well.  Eric (9) calls Jesus Creed a better community than any church he’s been part of in 20 years.  He cites questions and disagreement as key draws.  And these are clearly crucial in offline community as well!  Show me a community without conflict and I’ll show you “shallow.”  Chris E. notes that Scot’s experience is remarkably different than others because of his central role.  As a campus pastor at the center of a vibrant church for a number of years, I eventually realized myself that my experience was also remarkably different to those who knew only a few people in our church, or hung “near the edges.”  There really are positions and vantage points in communities that vary the experience.  Matt S. (14) sets up a thought experiment that makes me hopeful for deeper thinking on this, and Pat B (38) is wise to the net when (s?)he notes that blogs don’t have a natural format for extended conversation.

All this to say:  with not too much thought, we find a great deal of similarity between “virtual” community and “physical” community.

Next post (hopefully coming soon):  more on why I think Marshall McLuhan would argue with Shane Hipps four point analysis on virtual community.

The other day, two of my seminary buddies were talking about Facebook. We all check it regularly, me especially as a brain-break between droning academic essays.

And a the tone of the conversation turned a way that I’ve heard often from Christians as they talk about Facebook. In it’s mild form, it’s expressed an embarrassment to admit that we spend a lot of time online. “I should totally spend more time with real people, huh?” In it’s strong, dogmatic form, it emerges as a theological diatribe against “fake community” and it’s distinct threat to the real community of the Church.

I’ve heard this over and over.

While I believe this is common wisdom, especially among pastors I’ve spoken with, I think it misses the mark. There’s much more here. So I’d like to start reflecting on Facebook, using both communication media and theology as conversation partners.

The Boston Globe produced a quick series of interviews called “the end of alone.” By buddy Ty sent it to me to open the discussion.

On Sunday (28 Sep 08), a small group of thirty-two pastors set up a bait for the federal government.  They used their Sunday sermon to specifically endorse Barack Obama or John McCain for the Presidency, in violation of 1954 IRS tax code that prohibits non profit, tax exempt from intervening on behalf of any political candidate.  Their goal is to bring attention to the issue of first amendment speech being curtailed by the Internal Revenue Service.  Critics say that they are seeking to erode church-state seperation for a chance at political power.

This is a confusing issue and I’m unsure on where I land.  Convincing arguments are made by both sides.  I don’t follow Rev. Barry Lynn’s (American’s United for the Separation of Church and State) cynical prophecy that the “religious right is trying to forge America’s houses of worship into a partisan political machine.”  That’s loaded language that carries more political content itself than concerned dialogue.  And I think it’s answered successfully by Erik Stanley (Alliance Defense Fund), when he reminds that churches on a wide spectrum of “right” or “left” were encouraged to participate.

Church historian Martin Marty writes a column in opposition, but I don’t find his argument—intentionally breaking the law isn’t Christian—at all convincing.  There goes churches illegally helping free slaves in the South and every other counter-culture moral move made by churches in resistance to the law on the books. I’m honestly disappointed by how weak his argument appears to me.

Maybe the best argument against is the same for general separation of church and state:  a slide towards political power for churches has historically, fromt the Constantinian captivity on, been bad for the faith of the churches.  And in a pluralistic society, comprise in governing is required (and I don’t think detrimental to the an inherrently non-power, relational, counter-cultural gospel).

Some Georgetown academics talk throught the possible legal ramifications of the move.

But at the end of the day, I think I find the Alliance Defense Fund’s arguments against the 1954 Johnson amendment have some merit.  I won’t see eye-to-eye with them on abortion and homosexuality being the key moral issues for Christians.  But do we want the IRS dictating pastor’s speech?  The current division allows them to speak on “issues” but not candidates.  I think this is an artificial separation, and rosier than it sounds.  It also allows them to say anything they want once they exit the building… as private citizens.  But theologically I’m not a fan of such a private/professional split.  Not the mention the sacred/secular implications.

At I write… I think I’m arriving at a conclusion.  I support their effort and would support a change in the law, with one provision:  if we could find language to partially ensure that pastors would be speaking on their own accord, and not paid or compensated to do so by political campaigns.

G.K. Chesterton, the English novelist and theologian, was rather influential in Professor Marshall McLuhan‘s conversion to Roman Catholicism in the early 1930s. Originally drawn to Chesteron while still a university student in Manitoba, McLuhan later wrote a defense of some of Chesterton’s way of thought which he liked so much. The article was published in the Dalhousie Review in 1936, entitled “G.K. Chesteron: A Practical Mystic.”

The background isn’t completely necessary, though to appreciate these two Chesterton quotes, as selected by McLuhan:

Real mystics don’t hide mysteries, they reveal them.

The highest use of the imagination is to learn from what never happened.

The youth conference skit of the last few years has been the one featuring Jesus and a troubled girl, set to “Everything” by Lifehouse. It dramatically shows how dark life can feel, and how Jesus intervenes.

And I can’t bring myself to like it.

This is one of the cases where I wonder if my cynicism has gone too far. The LT crew performed this here in Colorado on our first Tuesday night, and though one my new friends poked me and asked if I liked it, I struggled to be positive. It made me feel like a jerk&mdashmy resistance like stiff-arming Jesus himself or something.

Here’s what was going through my mind:

1. It doesn’t feel like a legit art form. Where in culture do you see the pantomime-over-audio-bed-skit except by church drama teams? The “skit” as generally accepted is a piece of comedy (SNL), but I can’t think of applications that are taken seriously (Cirque du soleil maybe?). It’s just not common, and to me has that nobody-does-this-except-us feel that goes with gospel tracts and public hymn sings.

2. The cascading chain of sin. The Lifehouse skit shows a succession of temptations or sins that seems to distract or invade the girl’s life. In order: boyfriend/romance -> cash/money -> alcohol -> beauty/anorexia -> cutting -> suicide. Each of these is profound and serious. But do boyfriends cause money-chasing or does chasing money cause alcohol, etc? I guess the positive way to see this would be as one girl’s story, but the subtle message that these will lead to each other.

3. Oversimplified sins. Romance, money, alcohol, and self-beauty all have God-created elements that can both live with vigor and grace in the Kingdom or be twisted and abused outside the Kingdom. I’m sure the skit format necessarily needs simplification, but I’m not sure Romance/Love is replaced by Jesus as much as it’s replaced by Romance/Love Done Jesus’ Way. Wine Done Jesus Way (Wedding feast of the lamb). Etc. I’m always worried when it feels like we’re throwing out Creation along with the Sin. It’s tough – in our world they are well tangled. But I hope this leads us to complicated conversations about how grace is the Great Unravellor.

4. Her turn-around/conversion is so black & white. One image I love in this skit is the deep struggle that’s portrayed. The clawing and pain under sin. But when Jesus finally dashes in to shield the heroine, she seems instantly free of her ailments, returning to a sense of perfect freedom. Isn’t it a significantly more realistic picture (though much less Happy Ending) to portray a walk that’s near to both Jesus and struggle? This is the Christian life we live. It’s possible, by portraying otherwise, to tell a false story that condemns those that show harsh evidence of their sin struggle their entire life. Hardly difficult to find in the history of the church. Paul shows us a rich picture of grace and sin running in parallel… the final glory established is Next not Now.

I realize in certain quarters I’ll get an bored high-five on this, but there are other that might wonder why I need to stir the pot. Why bring it up? Because these are big central issues of the way we talk about the gospel, sin, and grace. As fundamental pillars in the Christian worldview, I’m sure they can emerge from my small discussion no worse for the wear.

On 24 Feb ’08, Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church (Seattle) spoke on the topic of the emerging church. Mark is often quoted — especially by general-audience news media (doing feature articles in the religion section) — as an “emerging church leader,” though I don’t think I’d agree (despite the wide breadth the term covers). Really he’s simply a younger conservative evangelical pastor who wears Urban Outfitter t-shirts.

But he does have a past association with Emergent Village types, which he can be pretty negative towards. Because I wanted to look more closely at what he had to say, I went ahead and transcribed his entire talk. The audio and video of his talk were already publicly available, but sometimes it’s easier to read it. I did it for myself but then figured others might want it as well. So here it is, the full transcript of his talk. It was part of a sermon series entitled Religion Saves & Nine Other Misconceptions.

Full Transcript (pdf – 379kb) Mark Driscoll Ask Anything Question 2: Emerging Church

The above is my unmarked transcript of his talk. If you’d like to see the copy I was using to mark up, including my personal (biased) comments, you can download that instead. Maybe I’ll be able to get back around and put up some quotes later.

Who said this?

Of course it is our aim to preach Christ and Christ alone, but, when all is said and done, is not the fault of our critics that they find our preaching so hard to understand, so overburdened with ideas and expressions which are hopelessly out of touch with the mental climate in which they live. It is just not true that every word of criticism directed against contemporary preaching is a deliberate rejection of Christ and proceeds from the spirit of Antichrist.
…
Is it not possible that we cling too closely to our own favourite presentation of the gospel, and to a type of preaching which was all very well in its own time and place and for the social set-up for which it was originally intended? Is there not after all an element of truth in the contention that our preaching is too dogmatic, and hopelessly irrelevant to life? (pp35-6)

As much as it could be the well-aimed critique of an emerging church leader (or me) on the American protestant church, it’s not. It’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian executed under Hitler in 1945. I was excited to be forced to read his classic The Cost of Discipleship in my NT class, because it’s been on my list for a while. He says so many things worth noting, that I think I’ll create a series of posts just using quotes of his.