{"id":6469,"date":"2015-11-12T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T04:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=6469"},"modified":"2015-11-14T18:32:39","modified_gmt":"2015-11-15T02:32:39","slug":"lipstick-on-a-pig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/lipstick-on-a-pig\/","title":{"rendered":"Lipstick on a Pig"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lipstick-on-a-pig-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The phrase \u201clipstick on a pig\u201d has always fascinated me.\u00a0 The \u201cthought\u201d that someone would even attempt to perform such a feat is astounding and humorous.\u00a0 The \u201creflection\u201d of the lack of stewardship with perfectly good makeup is disgusting. \u00a0\u00a0The \u201cprocess\u201d to even bring the two together, pig and lipstick, is a task that I do not want to ever be involved with.<\/p>\n

Asa Briggs and Peter Burke in their book, \u201cA Social History of the Media: From Guttenberg to the Internet\u201d bring together the three:\u00a0 thought, reflection, and process.\u00a0 At times the progression and possible usages of media were similar to the lipstick and the pig.\u00a0 The thought of printed works available to other than nobility, the concept of wireless voice or pictures being transmitted to another location, or the idea that we could live in a world-wide community via a small cell phone would be astounding, humorous, lack of stewardship, and disgusting; as was the pig and the lipstick.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA Social History of the Media: From Guttenberg to the Internet\u201d by Asa Briggs and Peter Burke \u201cconcentrates on the modern West, from the late fifteenth century onwards.\u201d[1]<\/a> The book is a unique compilation that avoids stereotypical analogies of the progression of \u201cmedia\u201d within that time frame.\u00a0 Careful scrutiny is given to the progression of media and its impact upon culture and communication.<\/p>\n

Briggs and Burke state their \u201cbook will concentrate on changes in the media; in presenting them, an attempt will be made to avoid two dangers \u2013 that of asserting that everything got worse and that of assuming that there has been continuous improvement.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Media can be depicted as either the panacea or it is the anti-Christ.\u00a0 This feeling runs the gambit from educators to the church community.\u00a0 The mediums ranging from the printing press to the internet were just the \u201cvehicle\u201d to convey information.<\/p>\n

Briggs and Burke describe in Chapter Six, \u201cInformation, Education, and Entertainment\u201d, how that the media has served these three purposes.\u00a0 At times information, education, and entertainment can actually coalesce or overlap.\u00a0 Technological innovations \u201ccome in \u2018waves\u2019 (clusters) associated with economic trends, historical labels tend to be attached to societies according to what seems, for a variety of reasons, to be their dominant communications technology.\u201d[3]<\/a> This convergence, and at times uniqueness of relaying media, is the impetus to study it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

I admit I love technology and gadgetry that seems impossible to invent.\u00a0 Realizing this, I wanted to delve into media convergences and the modern media of the internet that this book would cover.\u00a0 Little did I know that Briggs and Burke were going to spend time in church history and the influence of media on the church.<\/p>\n

Technology seemingly creates revolutions in various forms.\u00a0 Chapter Four, \u201cTechnologies and Revolutions\u201d outlines from the French Revolution to the electrical revolution.\u00a0 It would seem that evolutions are based on either technology or ideas, or the two can work in tandem.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

This takes me back to the lipstick on a pig.\u00a0 Today we find that technology and forward thinking are creating a revolution in the church.\u00a0 Some of the challenges may be related to age and acceptance of technology in church.\u00a0 On the other hand, technology in the form of screens and video projectors are revolutionizing, and possibly replacing, the stained glass of yesteryear.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther said that the printing press was \u201c\u2019God\u2019s highest gift of grace\u2019, he still considered the church as a \u2018mouth house and not a pen house\u2019.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 More than one person has asked why we have intelligent lights and haze in our sanctuary.\u00a0 The notion that we are mimicking a night club is further from the truth.\u00a0 Our intention has been to create an atmosphere that Jesus Christ would be magnified by the use of technology, ideas, and media on the screens.<\/p>\n

The Byzantine Church, of the 700\u2019s, reflected the need and response to the culture.\u00a0 In an area and \u201cpart of Europe where literacy was at its lowest, Byzantine culture was one of painted icons of Christ, the Virgin and the saints.\u00a0 As an eighth-century abbot declared:\u00a0 \u2018The Gospels were written in words, but icons are written in gold.\u2019\u201d[6]
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge of the Reformation was more than ninety-five theses.\u00a0 The Reformation was \u201ca social movement, a conscious collective enterprise, even if its conscious aim was to reform the old Church rather than, as actually happened, to found new ones.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 The same is happening again today in our present church world with the evolution of technology being used in church.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther \u201cwrote in the vernacular so that his message could be understood by ordinary people, at the price of restricting it in the first instance to the German-speaking world.\u201d[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Just possibly intelligent lights, haze, t\"Pigext to give, church mobile apps, and interactive messages are the means to have the greatest media, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, understood by ordinary people.<\/p>\n

The power to portray the greatest media ever, the Bible, through new technology may be deemed lipstick on a pig. Embracing what may seem astounding, humorous, lack of stewardship, and disgusting may result in a great revolution in the modern church that reforms not just the old, but creates a new and powerful force to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Guttenberg to the Internet <\/em>(Malden, MA:\u00a0 Polity Press, 2014), 5.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 2.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 234.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 92.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 24.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 7.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., 62.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid., 63.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction The phrase \u201clipstick on a pig\u201d has always fascinated me.\u00a0 The \u201cthought\u201d that someone would even attempt to perform such a feat is astounding and humorous.\u00a0 The \u201creflection\u201d of the lack of stewardship with perfectly good makeup is disgusting. \u00a0\u00a0The \u201cprocess\u201d to even bring the two together, pig and lipstick, is a task that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"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":[389,733,735,736],"class_list":["post-6469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-briggs","tag-briggs-and-burke","tag-lipstick","tag-pig","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6472,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469\/revisions\/6472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}