By: Rose Anding on March 2, 2017
“It takes heroic humility to be yourself.” — Thomas Merton Introduction Isolation—A Place of Transformation in the Life of a Leader by Shelly G. Trebesch is a leadership guidance book that informs Christian leaders on what to expect in the ministry. It prepares leaders on what they are likely to face when they have set…
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: Kevin Norwood on March 2, 2017
Isolation, as described by Shelley Trebesch in her book Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of a Leader, is a desert or wilderness time, where one is removed from his/her normal daily routine or home and isolated from friends and family. A person is a desert time may not feel the presence of…
By: Phil Goldsberry on March 2, 2017
Introduction Shelly Trebesch, author of Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of A Leader, states, “Our studies indicate that leaders need 3-4 renewal times over a life time.”[1] I started doing the math and felt a little better about the path I am on. When framing “life” in terms of “renewal” and “transformation”,…
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: Aaron Cole on March 2, 2017
Summary: Isolation, A Place of Transformation in the Life of a Leader by Shelly Trebesch is an academic field guide to the specific stop of isolation on the journey that 95% of leaders will experience. Trebesch states that “all leaders face deep processing..where God uses such activities as isolation, conflict, and life crisis to…
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,…
