{"id":340,"date":"2014-02-13T23:31:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T23:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=340"},"modified":"2014-08-12T22:36:32","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T22:36:32","slug":"catching-fire-with-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/catching-fire-with-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Fire with Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new sermon series on the Holy Spirit began last weekend called \u201cCatching Fire\u2026Every revolution begins with a spark,\u201d based on the Hunger Games<\/em> books and movies.\u00a0 The pastor briefly summarized the movie and how one person can infect a whole population and in this case, create a revolution.\u00a0 He went on to discuss how someone filled with the Holy Spirit could do the same.\u00a0 However, what was interesting was the time spent backpedaling, offering the disclaimer, \u201cnow I know you might not allow your kids to see these movies or read the books, so I\u2019m not endorsing anything, I haven\u2019t read them myself\u201d etc. \"\" Why do Christians have such a hard time of reconciling popular culture with Christianity and faith? Popular Culture can be defined as the \u201cstudy of the environment, practices and resources of everyday life.\u201d (p.19)\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t sound too bad \u2013 but yet we are fearful of the intersection between faith and everyday life. Two different views arise: 1) that all is suspicious, potentially dangerous and antithetical to Christian faith, and 2) that it can be used to promote new and creative understandings of faith.\u00a0 I love the second \u2013 that\u2019s why I subscribe to Relevant Magazine! I am not a fan of Fireproof<\/em> and Facing the Giants<\/em>, although I know many people who have been encouraged and challenged by those films.\u00a0 My concern is that although the theaters were filled, were they full of Christians?\u00a0 I prefer movies such as; Walk the Line \u2013 with themes of forgiveness and redemption Harry Potter \u2013 where love, loyalty and sacrifice shine forth as examples to us all The Blind Side \u2013 compassion, care and acceptance are proofs of faith Bruce Almighty \u2013 this is just a great picture to start a discussion about God! These are pop culture films which can cause dialogue among, not the Christian base, but with everyone. The readings this past week spoke strongly of this tension between faith and pop culture (with a little lament and internet thrown in).\u00a0 According to Vanhoozer, \u201dtheology is the relevance of the Bible and faith, as we seek to understand everyday life (p. 16).\u201d\u00a0 Instead of retreating and hiding from culture, we as Christians need to embrace and engage pop culture so that we can mark it or re-write it ourselves. A popular discipline in my church is to \u201cfast\u201d from things \u2013 and usually shout it to everyone!\u00a0 Many fast from food or drink but lately, the trend is to fast from television (except sports \u2013 the line is usually drawn there) or from facebook and the internet.\u00a0 Not a bad idea.\u00a0 But what I hear in the halls are remarks condemning a variety of TV shows or specials.\u00a0 When asked why, the response is usually a pious \u2013 \u201cwell, I haven\u2019t seen it and I don\u2019t watch TV now, I\u2019m fasting, but those morals are terrible.\u201d\u00a0 They might be right, but to dislocate ourselves into a bubble of spirituality can possibly create a more righteous person \u2013 but one with no influence in the world.\u00a0 I prefer Jesus\u2019 example in this regard. As De Certeaus says, we need to learn to \u201cpoach\u201d elements form popular culture and redeem them for our own purposes (p. 57).\u00a0 Using the language of popular culture, Christians can speak their own meanings in ways that communicate to all.\u00a0 Instead of looking at media or the internet as an instrument for use, we need to see it as \u201cintegrally related to culture.\u201d Maybe we need to fast from fasting and get caught up with pop culture?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new sermon series on the Holy Spirit began last weekend called \u201cCatching Fire\u2026Every revolution begins with a spark,\u201d based on the Hunger Games books and movies.\u00a0 The pastor briefly summarized the movie and how one person can infect a whole population and in this case, create a revolution.\u00a0 He went on to discuss how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[139,25,2,141,142,13,140],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catchingfire","tag-culture","tag-dminlgp","tag-faith","tag-fasting","tag-garner","tag-hungergames","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1666,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/1666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}