My cell is ringing
\nNo ID
\nI need to know who\u2019s calling<\/p>\n
My garden\u2019s overgrown
\nI go out on my belly crawling
\nI got CCTV, pornography, CNBC
\nI got the nightly news
\nTo get to know the enemy<\/p>\n
-U2, Fast Cars<\/em><\/p>\n This week as a D.Min cohort we have been pondering the intersection of theology, culture, technology and media.\u00a0 To be sure, if you are a Christian leader and not thinking about these things, then you should.\u00a0 For one, the internet is now everywhere.\u00a0 People spend much of their life connected and communicating, and many use it to seek out spiritual content, or augment their current spiritual practices.\u00a0 Christians, of course, have also been very preoccupied with culture, whether from an accommodationist or a rejectionist standpoint, in particular evangelical circles have often had a love hate relationship with \u201cculture.\u201d While evangelicals in the mainline (and mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox) often have a strong working connection to high culture, wider evangelicalism typically have been content to create their own pop culture ghetto.\u00a0 In recent years, this has radically changed as more and more evangelicals seek to engage and create film, music, and art that is not explicitly Christian.\u00a0 Our reading this week, has also shown how Christians have tended to look at technology.\u00a0 Garner in \u201cTheology and the New Media\u201d highlights how Christians see developments in technology as either liberating, oppressive, or as a neutral instrument.\u00a0 I believe a point can be made here as to Christian\u2019s relationship to culture as well, seeing it as liberating, oppressive, or neutral.<\/p>\n In our world, new media, technology, and pop culture all collide and merge together into a convergence of dizzying bombardment.\u00a0 We are constantly and instantly connected to information and a cascade of narratives, images, symbols, and conflicts.\u00a0 We have to ask ourselves if we are only sliding on the surface of things here.\u00a0 The dark side of this convergence is seen in the reactive political extremes of Wikileaks anarchistic attempts to pull back the curtain on what it sees as the hypocrisy of Western democracy, and with aplomb smash it all to pieces, against the countervailing institutional pull for structure and control in the NSA data collection. \u00a0We live in a world caught between security and anarchy.\u00a0 The dark side also raises its ugly head in pornography, online bullying, and the rise of \u201creality television\u201d in which we become voyeurs into people verbally and physically destroying each other and themselves.\u00a0 Still, this does not mean the convergence is all bad.\u00a0 People find Jesus online, or connect with communities they would not be able to.\u00a0 Moreover, this week, we read two articles that highlighted the power of pop culture, and new media to speak prophetically and powerfully into the connected world we inhabit through lament.\u00a0 Christians have much to speak into the use of media, and technology and our relation to culture.\u00a0 God inhabits these realms.\u00a0 His common grace redeems and creates good, even in pop culture.\u00a0 As Noll would urge us, God created these things, they are part of God\u2019s realm, so they are important. Yes, there is much to critique in the hyper-sexualized, vapid, consumerist, emotional porn of much of pop culture (I personally find it disturbing that the only way Bob Dylan can get on TV is in a commercial).\u00a0 But, there is also much pop and high culture available that is redeeming, and imbued with common grace.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0David Lowery\u2019s Ain\u2019t Them Bodies Saints<\/em> and Terrance Malick\u2019s To the Wonder<\/em> are two recent cinematic meditations on both human and Godly love.<\/p>\n So as Christians, we live in this tension: \u00a0belief that what God creates as part of his visible and invisible world, is worthy of study and use.\u00a0 We must become sharp thinkers, and cultural exegetes, understanding culture and technology, and how they converge.\u00a0 Maybe pastors should see themselves as cultural exegetes and guides above all else?\u00a0 This maybe already is underway as missional theology asks us to see ourselves as outsiders, sent ones, and missionaries even within our own cultures.\u00a0 Why do we not teach our churches about film, music and art criticism?\u00a0 Still, most of all we need to develop a theology that comes to these issues in light of the incarnation and resurrection.<\/p>\n The fear of how technology will impact modern society is not just confined to evangelical circles.\u00a0 There has often been a growing sense of fear and dread in reaction to the hyper media connection of our world.\u00a0 This year a technological apocalyptic film called Transcendence <\/em>will be released.<\/p>\n While it is science fiction, the fears of our world are reflected in it.\u00a0 Since U2 has been a theme for this week, perhaps we should turn to them to help us point a final theologizing point on the theme.\u00a0 In their song Fast Cars<\/em>, U2 describe a person caught up in the media, technology, noise and anxiety of modern society:<\/p>\n I watch them channel hop There is no fiction In a sense, the modern world has left the protagonist numb:<\/p>\n You should worry about the day However, the song ultimately points us back from the discontent of the hyper connected world, back into the garden, to relationship:<\/p>\n All I want is a picture of you I\u2019m not used to talking to somebody in their body Interestingly, U2, a Johnny Depp movie, and the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ, point us back to a theology of embodiment.\u00a0 To be human is ultimately reside in a physical world of community and love.\u00a0 This can be augmented and aided by technology of course.\u00a0 But, perhaps this is our guideline for interacting and thinking about the convergence.\u00a0 Pop culture and new media should ultimately point us back to the embrace of Christian love, the already not yet of communion, and the redemption of our whole and entire humanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My cell is ringing No ID I need to know who\u2019s calling My garden\u2019s overgrown I go out on my belly crawling I got CCTV, pornography, CNBC I got the nightly news To get to know the enemy -U2, Fast Cars This week as a D.Min cohort we have been pondering the intersection of theology, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"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":[2,13],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-garner","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1671,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/1671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCheck the stocks
\nI\u2019m in detox
\nI want the lot of what you\u2019ve got<\/p>\n
\nThat will truly fit the situation
\nI\u2019m documenting every detail
\nEvery conversation<\/p>\n
\nThat the pain it goes away
\nYou know I miss mine sometimes<\/p>\n
\nAll I want is to be right next to you<\/p>\n
\nLook, there\u2019s somebody in a body, somebody in a body<\/p>\n