The Rebranding of Jesus

How the top Aussie ad agencies would sell salvation.  What do you think?

Can Subcultures Exist in the Digital Age?

Some ideas from the Toronto Star

As part of an interview with The Onion A.V. Club website last June, Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk agreed to answer a few fan questions, including one from someone named MollyPocket, who wondered if true underground movements were still possible, or was "the Internet making everything too readily available to everyone?"

Palahniuk's answer, in short, was yes and no. "There will always be an underground," he replied, and predicted "a backlash of veiled, hidden societies" in response to the overload of information provided by reality television and confessional memoirs.

The underground, and especially the subcultures that inhabit it, have been much debated and examined since British academic Dick Hebdige published Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), a groundbreaking examination of the symbols and rituals of the punk subculture in London. Almost a decade after Subculture, in an essay reflecting on youth culture, Hebdige wrote: "Subculture forms up in the space between surveillance and the evasion of surveillance, it translates the fact of being under scrutiny into the pleasure of being watched. It is a hiding in the light."

Palahniuk's answer suggests that while the technological infrastructure of how culture is distributed has changed dramatically in the past 15 years, the psychology of subculture remains stable. But what if the pleasure of being watched has so thoroughly overwhelmed the evasive component of subculture as to make it non-existent? What if the problem with contemporary subcultures isn't only Google and YouTube and blogs and MySpace, but the participants themselves?

Technorati Tags: subculture,Banksy,Chuck Palahniuk

The New Conspirators by Tom Sine

I finally finished my copy of The New Conspirators by Tom Sine last night and I was deeply moved by the book which is a little weird to write as not a lot of books affect me like that.  Tom is articulating I am coming to see more and more as my own theology and that is one of the Mustard Seed and also living and working in some of the forgotten parts of the Empire.

It's an odd space I find myself in.  I partner with the Government of Saskatchewan on several fronts working in a shelter that gets a lot of our funding from the government.  I am also on a local advisory committee for the Homelessness Partnering Initiative which helps decide where federal government funds are distributed in the city.  At both levels of government, I work with some amazing people who care as much or more about poverty, homelessness, and the people who call Saskatoon home as I do.  They have totally changed my perception of the people behind the system in a very good way.

At the same time the system can only do so much.  As I fear even the United States government will find out, one can only live with a deficit for so long before it all comes falling down on you again.  I get several e-mail and letters a week from local groups and people who are calling on the governments for more money to "deal with this crisis" and I agree that the government has a role to play.  At the same time I find myself also seeing the important role that "mustard seeds" have to play in changing cities, partly because there are forgotten people and as I found out yesterday (a long story that will never be published here), it is hard to get the funding and permission in many places to do anything else other than start small.

I'll get into the book more in the next couple of weeks but The New Conspirators tells many stories of Christian communities who are taking a big idea (changing the world) but starting small local expressions of faith as a ways to see it come true.  The cool part of the book is that it is working.

Technorati Tags: The New Conspirators,Tom Sine,Mustard Seed Associates

Evangelicalism's odd dance with pop culture

From Slate and their review of Daniel Radosh's new book, Rapture Ready!

At some point, Radosh asks the obvious question: Didn't Jesus chase the money changers out of the temple? In other words, isn't there something wrong with so thoroughly commercializing all aspects of faith? For this, the Christian pop-culture industry has a ready answer. Evangelizing and commercializing have much in common. In the "spiritual marketplace" (as it's called), Christianity is a brand that seeks to dominate. Like Coke, it wants to hold onto its followers and also win over new converts. As with advertisers, the most important audience is young people and teenagers, who are generally brand loyalists. Hence, Bibleman and Christian rock are the spiritual equivalent of New Coke. Christian trinkets—a WWJD bracelet, a "God is my DJ" T-shirt—function more like Coca-Cola T-shirts or those cute stuffed polar bears. They telegraph to the community that the wearer is a proud Christian and that this is a cool thing to be—which should, in theory, invite eager curiosity.

Straightforward, if somewhat crude, merchandizing so far. But there is also another level of questions, which the creators of Christian culture have a much harder time answering: What does commercializing do to the substance of belief, and what does an infusion of belief do to the product? When you make loving Christ sound just like loving your boyfriend, you can do damage to both your faith and your ballad. That's true when you create a sanitized version of bands like Nirvana or artists like Jay-Z, too: You shoehorn a message that's essentially about obeying authority into a genre that's rebellious and nihilistic, and the result can be ugly, fake, or just limp.

via

Technorati Tags: Daniel Radosh

The Death of Suburbia

This video is from TED and is one of a long series of videos I am downloading off of YouTube and converting to my PSP for viewing again later.  I am a big fan of Kunstler's view of the future (although I think he underestimates the power of capitalism and innovation a bit) but the video is one that you will want to watch.

In James Howard Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. Reengineering our cities will involve more radical change than we are prepared for, Kunstler believes, but our hand will be forced by earth crises stemming from our national lifestyle. "Life in the mid-21st century," Kunstler says, "is going to be about living locally."

Technorati tags: James Howard Kunstler, TED, urban, suburbia, energy

Heat or Eat

In the Maritimes, increasing furnace fuel costs are devastating some middle class families.  My political punditry skills are pretty rusty but I would imagine a large segment of your voters being either cold or hungry would be devastating for many governments, especially in a time of record prosperity in other parts of the country.

Dan Weston of the Fredericton Anti-Poverty Organization said rebate programs that offer amounts as low as $100 are "ridiculous."

"One would think that heat in a winter country like Canada would be a right," he said.

"People have to make serious choices - the choices are between food or rent or bills, because the price of oil eats up such a proportion of the daily finances."

He said provincial governments need to do far more to help people heat their homes. If they don't, Wilson predicted, governments will soon be footing the bill for shelters to keep families warm when they run out of money.

Non-profit agencies and some churches offer assistance, but they don't represent a permanent fix.

The Nova Scotia branch of the Salvation Army offers help through its Good Neighbour Program, funded in part by companies including privately owned Nova Scotia Power and Wilsons Fuel, but families typically can't receive help two years in a row.

A woman in Halifax who has used the Salvation Army and other sources to help pay her heating bills said such programs are just a Band-Aid solution.

"You can't call them every month or every two weeks - it's a one-time thing, you're lucky if you get it once a year," said the woman, who struggles to support a family of four on social assistance.

"We put in enough (oil in the tank) that will last, but that takes away from other things - food and bills."

In Saskatchewan most of our homes are heated by natural gas but when natural gases went up a couple of winters ago, it did affect how Wendy and I lived that winter, although not as drastic as furnace fuel prices have in the Maritimes.  The article does remind me of this interview with James Kunstler, the author of The Long Emergency

When I say the core I don’t necessarily mean the downtown business districts. Those parts are going to be very, very problematical, and that’s another important point you have made. The places that are overburdened with mega-structures, whether they are skyscrapers or even just large buildings, are going to be in real trouble. These are experimental building types that have only been with us for 100 years. I’m even talking about 10-story pre-war apartment buildings. I don’t know if we can run them in the energy-scarce economy that we are going to have in the future. And it raises one really interesting question like the question of—take this for example—modern plumbing as we know it, where every apartment has a bathroom, a toilet, etc., is totally dependent on central heating, good and dependable central heating. You can’t be running space heaters in a 10-story Manhattan apartment building. If one-third of the building or one-eighth of the building isn’t warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing, the whole building is going to lose its plumbing and then the building is going to become dysfunctional and we don’t know if this is going to happen or not. And it could. Because the natural gas situation in America—which is how we heat most of our buildings now—is arguably more ominous than the oil situation.

There is more on the Long Emergency in Rolling Stone magazine

Technorati tags: Maritimes, furnace fuel, Long Emergency, natural gas

Five Overlooked Web Tools for Churches and Non-Profits

Despite all of the hype about Facebook (which I find invasive), there are some other web apps out there that are worth a look at to help a church or non-profit connect with people online.  Below are five of my favorites and some ideas on how they could be (better) used.

• Upcoming :: It used be Upcoming.org but it was acquired by Yahoo! and is now at upcoming.yahoo.com.  What's so great about it?  Well it's local.  As you submit an event and a venue, it lists the event locally.  When someone from your town or city logs into the site, whether they are logged in or not, they are shown what events are coming up in their area.  It also allows you to great sub groups for a church, club, or network that you can subscribe to.  Of course it also provides you with RSS feeds for yourself, your city, and any groups you are a part of.  And since it is owned by Yahoo!, it also is "taggy" and also allows you to cross post to Google Calendar.  How would I use it?  I would set up a Upcoming group for my org and then post the big things that are coming down the pike.  For a church I would post things that would be of interest to the entire community but I would be careful not to spam it (posting your weekly worship service or prayer meeting for example).  Within my organization and on my website, I would give the occasional shout out to Upcoming.  Why?  The more people who use it locally, the better the site becomes for the entire community.  Already Wendy and I have gone to a couple of events that we would never have heard about unless it was posted to Upcoming.  Other people have said the same thing. 
• Craigslist and Kijiji ::  Both a different expressions of the same thing but they are local community bulletin boards where you can buy, sell, barter and list events.  Saskatoon has both and of the two, saskatoon.kijiji.ca seems to get more traffic but saskatoon.craigslist.org has sent more traffic to the Church of the Exiles when we have used it.  I would use both of them in a similar way that I would use Upcoming.
• Flickr :: Not a lot of communities and organizations are using Flickr and I am not sure why.  Those that do, tend to ignore it after a while.  I was cleaning out my RSS feeds the other night and there was a lot of local church Flickr feeds that hadn't been updated in a couple of years.  On the other hand, I look at how much more I check out the John Edwards or Barack Obama photostreams.  Probably the best examples of how to use Flickr would be Grace's photo pool (which features excellent photography from Jonny Baker and Steve Collins among others).  The Church of the Exiles has a photo pool as well which features some shots from Nathan Pederson, Wendy, and myself.  On a network level, Resonate has created Resonate Stories for showing what the emerging church looks like in Canada.
• Wiki's :: Now one of the coolest wiki's I have seen is Ikon's website which is entirely a wiki.  There are a lot of wiki options... jordoncooper.com used Media Wiki at wiki.jordoncooper.com but perhaps the easiest solution comes from Wikia which will host your wiki for you and cost is free.  While local church wiki's are cool, I keep thinking bigger like church planting wikis, the wiki of the emerging church, or denominational history wiki could be a tremendous contribution to a movement.
• Twitter :: A couple of youth pastors I know use Twitter to keep parents and kids up to date with what their youth group is doing.  Twitter can send notifications via IM or SMA which makes it easier to keep people current.  Now CNN, the NY Times, and other media organizations are using Twitter to share breaking news.

That's my list.  Add some of yours below in the comments.

Technorati tags: Upcoming, Craigslist, Kijiji, Flickr, Wiki, Twitter, Google Calendar, Saskatoon, Church of the Exiles, Grace, Jonny Baker, Steve Collins, Resonate, photography, wikia, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Facebook, Web 2.0

Have your lawyer call me...

Article on how divorces after 30 years together are getting more and more common.

Not long after the 30th wedding anniversary party, after the family photos had been thoroughly reviewed, the toasts and good wishes shared, the presents opened, the guests thanked, not long after the roses in the vase had wilted and sagged, he/she (you pick) left a note on the kitchen table that read in part: "Gone for good.… Get your lawyer to phone mine. Soon."

Wendy and I know a couple of couples who decided to end their marriage after 20+ years which strikes me as being really, really sad.

Rehearing Colossians 1.1–14

Rom Targum 1: Rehearing Colossians 1.1–14 in the Context of Disquieted Globalism

But here is the rub. Everything in this monolithic culture of McWorld globalization is allied against you and will try to keep your imaginations captive, stripping you of the courage to dream of alternative ways to live. So may you be strengthened with all strength and empowered with nothing less than the weighty power of God in this disempowered culture of unbearable lightness. May your vision, your stubborn refusal to allow your imaginations to be taken captive, have an endurance, an ability to hang in there for the long haul and a patience that doesn’t need to aggressively and triumphalistically realize the kingdom of God now because it has the faith and trust to work and wait for a miracle, for the coming of God’s shalom to our terribly broken world.

From Colossians Remixed

Our Generations Legacy

Glen Murray has a thoughtful piece in the Toronto Star on the controversy over Toronto firefighters and police taking the yellow ribbons off their cars.

While ribbons and rubber wrist bands have been de rigueur fashion for the politically correct, most who wear them invest little more than a loonie or the risk of a pinprick as sacrifice to the colour-coded cause.

It is a little different when the city's first responders stick a ribbon decal on their vehicles. They live the same commitment as soldiers do to protect others. Police officers stand between us and harm. Firefighters walk into situations we are taught to flee, and few people are more engaged in dealing with unrelenting life-and-death crises than paramedics, who must possess a stamina I can't even imagine to do their jobs.

Police officers, firefighters, paramedics and, most of all, soldiers, represent the highest expression of citizenship and public service as they offer themselves as the price for its preservation.

We seem to take those freedoms for granted as we stumble out of bed each day and hop the subway to safe jobs in safe buildings without fearing a bomb will go off or a bullet will be fired at us.

The strength of a civil society, for which so many have given their lives, depends on the quality of its citizenship. Citizenship is about more than casting a vote or paying taxes. Citizens are more than passive consumers of events; they try to make a difference.

Elected officials are paid to pursue the public good on behalf of the citizens they represent, to advocate and speak out against injustice, and to mobilize the resources of their community to improve the quality of peoples' lives. All this in an effort to build a just society.

So little is asked of us today. We are the generation that inherited from our parents what is arguably the world's strongest economy and greatest democracy.

We are healthier and better educated; we live longer, enjoy more liberty and have at our fingertips greater technology and knowledge than any past generation.

This is our inheritance from a generation that faced war, depression, and who came to Canada fleeing genocide, oppression and holocaust to arrive on this young nation's soil in search of hope. From so little they left us so much. We should start to consider what our legacy will be.

Technorati tags: yellow ribbon, Afghanistan, Toronto

Church Shopping

From The Onion but true enough that it is more sad than funny.