By: Aaron Peterson on March 2, 2017
I very much enjoyed reading Shelley Trebesch’s, Isolation this week. Like Judy Blume’s 1970 teen novel about a young lady searching during adolescence, Isolation is about one major coming-of-age component for every leader. Her short, but powerful, book is a great example of how to write a dissertation. Reading it gave me hope and vision for…
By: Marc Andresen on March 2, 2017
I crashed emotionally when I walked into my tiny room. There were two sparse bunk beds: period. Nowhere was to be seen a table or even a chair. The dormitory rooms had 8 foot walls, but no ceiling, so high above was the tin roof. When other people (students) were in the building all noises…
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: Claire Appiah on March 2, 2017
Shelley Trebesch—Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of A Leader Introduction Shelley Trebesch’s expertise in organizational leadership development is reflected in her professorship at Fuller Theological Seminary, and her role as consultant, mentor, and seminar leader to Christian organizations around the world. In this work, she demonstrates the necessity for Christian leaders…
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: Garfield Harvey on March 2, 2017
This week’s reading took a more subtle approach from recent weeks. Last few weeks we discussed the role of secularism but also the transformation of our global culture since the 1500s. Our challenge in this week’s reading as ministry leaders is that of isolation. The word itself suggests loneliness, so we (ministry leaders) have the…
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: Pablo Morales on February 24, 2017
Summary Charles Taylor and James Smith have given us a detailed analysis of the secular age in which we live. Like an ideological GPS, they have shown us our chronological location in this map of secularism. From the age of ancien régime, to the age of moral order, to the age of mobilization, we are…
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,…
By: Chip Stapleton on February 24, 2017
First, let me begin by stating something that will be completely obvious to anyone that has engaged with William Cavanaugh’s Torture and Eucharist & Being Consumed: There is simply no easy way to boil down all of what Cavanaugh is saying, and all of his important insight into one or two short sentences. If one were to…
By: Kristin Hamilton on February 23, 2017
A long, long time ago (about 500 years to be exact), in a couple of places far, far away (namely Germany and Switzerland), a group of reformers looked at the church in charge and, distressed by excesses and abuses, sought to make a BIG change. Some of them thought they could maybe make the change…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on February 23, 2017
[Just A Quick Note: This week we had two works published by William T. Canavaugh Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire and Torture and Eucharist. Both are great and so thought provoking! For the sake of this post, I am focusing my discussion on his Being Consumed. ] “The church is called to be a…
By: Kevin Norwood on February 23, 2017
The immanent frame Immanent frame: A constructed social space that frames our lives entirely within a natural (rather than supernatural) order. It is the circumscribed space of the modern social imaginary that precludes transcendence. [1] Immanentization: The process whereby meaning, significance, naturalistic universe without any reference to transcendence. A kind of “enclosure.” [2]…
By: Garfield Harvey on February 23, 2017
Last week, I found complexity in trying to divide my thoughts of two great books, which was a great injustice to the authors. Separating the takeaways of these books coincide with the very nature of this book as we discuss the idea of secularism. Smith and Taylor both show how secularism is associated with the…
By: Stu Cocanougher on February 23, 2017
I have just completed two excellent books by Catholic Theologian William T. Cavanaugh. These were: Cavanaugh, William T. Being Consumed: economics and Christian desire. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2009. Cavanaugh, William T. Torture and Eucharist: theology, politics, and the body of Christ. Oxford UK: Blackwell, 2005. Both of…
By: Aaron Cole on February 23, 2017
Summary: A Secular Age by Charles Taylor is an exhaustive and narrative insight on what “secular” is and how we as people and planet got here. The unique mix of academic and story offers the reader a map of sorts which navigates the reader on a journey of how we became a secular society and…
