By: Kristin Hamilton on March 9, 2017
About 50 times each week, I ask myself what the heck was I thinking when I gave up my career to go back to school. I mean, I know I did it out of a sense of calling and purpose, but can one middle-aged woman really make a difference in the world? After reading the…
By: Stu Cocanougher on March 9, 2017
Hunter, James Davison. To change the world: the irony, tragedy, and possibility of Christianity today. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. To Change the World was a well-written text authored by an accomplished sociologist James David Hunter from the University of Virginia. The ironically titled book is a critique of modern Christianity’s assumption…
By: Chip Stapleton on March 9, 2017
In his book, To Change the World: the irony, tragedy & possibility of Christianity in the late modern world James Davison Hunter gives us a quite a bit to chew on and work through. He levels powerful critiques against what he sees as the three dominant streams of Christian engagement with our culture: ‘Defense Against’, ‘Relevance…
By: Lynda Gittens on March 9, 2017
This week my younger daughter and I were discussing the behavior of coworkers and how it affects you. I told her that I had to pray and ask God to help me in the way that I respond to them. I was the one reacting and stressing. I wanted them to change, and they weren’t.…
By: Jim Sabella on March 9, 2017
Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Summary: One way to state Hunter’s thesis is in the form of a report card for the American church. The professor has given the American church an A+ on impacting…
By: Geoff Lee on March 9, 2017
To change the world – James Davison Hunter “I would suggest that a theology of faithful presence first calls Christians to attend to the people and places that they experience directly….the call of faithful presence gives priority to what is right in front of us-the community, the neighbourhood, and the city, and the people…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on March 8, 2017
Although the presenting topic in this book is, “How to Change the World”, as the title indicates, the title is an ineffective way to approach change in the world, as the author suggests. An appropriate sequel could be entitled, “How to Relate to Our World”. This appears to be the primary theme to our demise…
By: Katy Drage Lines on March 8, 2017
This week, it’s my turn to reflect back on professors who have had an influence on my theology and life. James Davison Hunter, in To Change the World, introduces three contemporary theological paradigms for how Christians in North America relate to our world: right-wing fundamentalism and evangelicalism (“defensive against”), left-wing mainline and left-leaning evangelicalism (“relevance…
By: Mary Walker on March 8, 2017
In his book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, James Davison Hunter explains why Christians have failed to change the world for the better as they sincerely longed to do. Hunter offers a new paradigm that he calls ‘faithful presence’ as an ideal for how…
By: Kristin Hamilton on March 2, 2017
In their interesting book, The Rebel Sell, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter argue the point that “decades of countercultural rebellion have failed to change anything because the theory of society on which the countercultural idea rests is false…The culture cannot be jammed because there is no such thing as ‘the culture’ or ‘the system.’”[1] They…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on March 2, 2017
“Coolness is a positional good, it’s not something that can be bought off a shelf. Some people are cool because others are not.” [1] There are those that assert that within our current culture there is a dissatisfaction with consumerism because everyone wants to be cool which means someone has to be uncool. Distinction and…
By: Lynda Gittens on March 2, 2017
Heath and Potter defines a ‘rebel sell’ as a “sale of commodities and myths which identify and define our culture. To work it must be supported by rules and consequences.” (323) “Counterculture acts upset those who define and monitor the culture’s behavior. Some counterculture behaviors are seen as being deviance where others see it as…
By: Stu Cocanougher on March 2, 2017
In the book Nation of Rebels, Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture (aka The Rebel Sell), Canadian Philosophy professors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter pen an innovative critique of the idea the there is a mainstream culture and an alternative counterculture. Through many colorful examples (Freud, Marx, Kurt Cobain, Burberry, The Matrix) they illustrate the pervasiveness…
By: Chip Stapleton on March 2, 2017
In their book The Rebel Sell authors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter make a bold and compelling argument that most countercultural movements aren’t really countercultural at all and the ones that actually seek to upend or obliterate the ‘system’ at best are missing the point and at worst are dangerous and detrimental to the very causes they…
By: Katy Drage Lines on March 2, 2017
We’ve wandered through nationalism, Puritanism, evangelicalism, capitalism, and consumerism (with some dabbling in fascism, socialism, and Catholicism). Our readings suggest those are not mutually exclusive terms, but concepts and realities that weave throughout one another. If we think of our readings this semester as one long text, The Rebel Sell seems to fit nicely…
By: Geoff Lee on March 2, 2017
In their book, Rebel Sell, Heath and Potter argue that, these days, everyone seems to be anti-consumerist – everyone is a rebel – everyone, it seems, nods in agreement as they watch films like Supersize Me. However things are not quite what they first appear. Their argument, in essence, is that rebellion against the system,…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on March 1, 2017
In an effort to solve social issues, countercultural movements have accidentally developed “solutions” that have actually created more social problems, according to authors Heath and Potter of Rebel Sell. The term rebel sell is defined as: ” It’s a sell that has been used not only to sell ordinary commercial goods, but also to sell…
By: Jim Sabella on March 1, 2017
In my teenage years, I was never really one of the “in” crowd or a part of the “cool” counterculture. I wasn’t anti-social. I had friends; we hung out. It’s just that I preferred to be outside fishing in a stream over sitting on the ground somewhere in protest. Not only that, there was no…
By: Mary Walker on March 1, 2017
Why is it that after more than fifty years the political left has been unable to stop the conspicuous consumption that it deplores? In their brilliant, witty, and appealing book, The Rebel Sell: why the culture can’t be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter explain that the counterculture has failed to “change anything because the…
By: Geoff Lee on February 24, 2017
Being consumed – William T. Cavanaugh In his book on economics and Christian desire, Cavanaugh borrows from Augustine’s teaching on desire and disordered loves to examine the effects of consumerism on our lives and what a Christian/Catholic response to that might be. He quotes Augustine’s well-known refrain: “Thou hast made us for thyself,…
