The Complex Christ | Signs of Emergence

Clinton? Obama? McCain? This Guy Gets My Vote...

Thanks so much to Shane and his people for sending me a copy of his new book, written with Chris Haw, Jesus for President. It's gorgeous to look at and hold, fabulously designed, and perfectly balanced between seriousness and playfulness... starting with the title. Why can't every Christian book be like this? I just hope people get it, and read it thoroughly as they think about the coming US elections.

Worst case scenario: Shane gets asked to be Obama's advisor on something. As Campolo is quoted in the book: "Mixing the church and state is like mixing ice cream and cow manure . It may not do much to the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream." Stay pure and creamy Shane!

Check http://www.jesusforpresident.org for details / reviews / news.

Technorati: Claiborne | Don Carson | Jesus for President | Politics | Poverty | Power | puppy

Jaime Lerner ¦ Stealth and the City ¦ The City is Not the Self

Thanks to Helen of Urban Practitioners for sending me this article in The Guardian a couple of weeks back about Jaime Lerner and his radical environmental policies that have transformed the Brazilian city of Curitiba.

I say environmental in the truest sense: he is an architect by trade, and is concerned with the built environment, as well as carbon footprints.

What is particularly interesting was the necessity of stealth and speed: with political turmoil and dictatorial governance, he was never quite sure how long he had before his authority as mayor was swept away, nor how long it would be before someone tied his ideas up in red tape. Hence:

"We had to do things quickly because next week we might not be here anymore [because of the dictatorship].' And you have to be quick to avoid your own bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is like a fungus that contaminates everything. We built the opera house in two months, the botanical gardens in three months, Niemeyer's museum in five months. We transformed the city's main street into a pedestrian area in 72 hours. It wasn't that we were chasing after records - it was necessity."

There's something of the trickster about him, and as London comes to its own mayoral elections, it's going to be interesting who people plump for. One wonders if Lerner would have won the popular vote; in the case of Ken Livingstone, many of his policies for London - like the congestion charge - have been wildly unpopular, and yet have been very successful and vital to the city's environmental awareness.

Einstein once said 'the environment is everything that isn't me', and we might re-phrase that as 'the city is not about the self.' It's worth holding this in mind whenever we vote. Are we voting for our own pockets, or for the common - and more difficult - good?

Frrvrr.com

This is Onion genius. Read it and weep, Web 2.0.

Technorati: Frrvrr | Onion | Web 2.0

Sort it out gays - stop destroying earth!

The Telegraph reported recently that an Israeli MP has blamed the recent spate of earthquakes in the Middle East on gays. The Knesset has recently repealed various laws about homosexuality, and this created the siesmic events.

Gays were also to blame for flooding in Britain last year, according to one Bishop, and one might also argue that with their thrusting steel tubes penetrating and bringing down two of America's largest twin erections, 9/11 was some sort of twisted stunt to highlight the destructive power of gay love, a judgement on liberal America, if you will.

So sort it out gay people - we don't want more floods and earthquakes and terror attacks! Stop it!

Vaux Is Like a Box Of Chocolates...

Rather surprised to see, as I opened a bar of chocolate from Lundy Island - a present from my mum, that Vaux had branched out into confectionary. With Grace were doing Donuts, Ikon just candy-floss, perhaps I shouldn't have been.

Technorati: Chocolate | Grace | Ikon | Lundy | Vaux

Some Ideas for Commemorating 9/11

It's that time of year again, so how might we begin to find a rhythm for commemorating 9/11 and/or the July London bombings?

Perhaps, in our local communities, we could build huge bonfires, and all gather round them, faces glowing in the heat. We could make effigies of Bin Laden, or Mohammed Siddique Khan, and have competitions to create the most grotesque one, before lifting them atop the fire and cheering as they burned.

We could light up the sky with fireworks, reminding us of the explosions that ripped through the air that day.

We could gather together for festive food: sweet toffee apples or spiced wine, and congregate in large crowds in pubs and bars beforehand to get right into the mood.

Or we could lobby our governments and demand that no Muslim ever held public office - at least for a few hundred years until things calmed down a bit.

Ah. Apologies. I forgot. That's what we Brits do to commemorate the 5th of November 1605, when the Catholic, Guy Fawkes, very nearly blew up parliament with kegs of gunpowder stowed in the basement of the Palace of Westminster.

Somehow it all seems a less appropriate celebration these days...

Technorati: 9/11 | Bin Laden| September 11| Guy Fawkes| Terrorism|Commemoration

Signs of Life in the Churches

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been really enjoying Roger Deakin's meditation on trees 'Wildwood'.

In one passage on 'The Sacred Groves of Devon', Deakin goes in search of the 'Green Man' - the woodland spirit of rebirth often seen carved into beams in old churches - in various villages. He notes the oddity of having a basically pagan deity carved into the very supporting fabric of these ancient Christian places of worship - "nowadays such an inspired conjunction would be called 'multiculturalism'" - but then goes on to quote a great piece of Ruskin:

"Go forth again to gaze upon the old cathedral front, where you have smiled so often at the fantastic ignorance of the old sculptors: examine once more those ugly goblins, and formless monsters, and stern statties, anatomiless and rigid; but do not mock at them, for they are signs of the life and liberty of every workman who struck the stone; a freedom of thought, and rank in scale of being, such as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure; but which is must be the first aim of all Europe at this day to regain for her children."

I had never appreciated this before. In the hundreds of tiny country churches - many built around the 16th and 17th centuries, we see local communities expressing, through their craftsmen, their faith and spirituality. Later, as more grand projects emerged, the masons were still able to throw their personal touches into their work through gargoyles and other features.

Have we lost something here? Are the warehouse churches that we throw up or rent just bland, interchangeable shells for an equally bland and interchangeable God?

Technorati: Deakin | Green Man | Megachurch | Ruskin

Is The Emerging Church Hopelessly Utopian? [3]

Hopelessly Utopian [1]

Hopelessly Utopian [2]

Thanks for the comments on the above posts. In response to Cheryl and Becky, yes, of course every church movement has felt 'no one else has ever felt this way before'. And it's actually important to recognise that, as Gray does in Black Mass, suggesting that 'the utopian instinct in modern politics, which has itself presented itself in secular and often explicitly anti-religious form, must be understood as a kind of sublimated religious impulse.' Gray, as I've written, goes on to say that we need to move beyond any grand visions, any utopian ideals, but the point I think he misses is within his own words: utopian dreams are part of what it is to be human. They are part of the divine ache within each of us.

So, if the Emerging Church is hopelessly utopian, that's partly because it's hopelessly human, and hopelessly divine. We couldn't be any other way.

Trouble is, these grand visions often lead to states/power structures enforcing their own purity codes on others, and, in church parallels, people getting hurt and religious warfare/bigotry breaking out. Which is why Jay Winter argues for us to go after 'minor utopias', "a modest strand of visionary thought that sketch out a world very different from the one we live in, but from which not all social conflict or all oppression has been eliminated."

Because, as I've written in the book, I believe the Emerging Church needs to be a 'dirty' church, having a 'minor utopian' vision will hopefully allow us to avoid some of the pitfalls of sterile religion, and avoid becoming a fully denominated, bounded group.

So what might this look like?

I'm really glad Nic brought up the concept of TAZs in the comments on the first post. The article describes these Temporary Autonomous Zones as "like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State, a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it."

In other words, as the article continues, TAZ is, in the ancient sense, 'festive': "it envisions an intensification of everyday life, or as the Surrealists might have said, life's penetration by the Marvelous [...] It lies at the intersection of many forces, like some pagan power-spot at the junction of mysterious ley-lines, visible to the adept in seemingly unrelated bits of terrain, landscape, flows of air, water, animals. [...] The patterns of force which bring the TAZ into being have something in common with those chaotic "Strange Attractors" which exist, so to speak, between the dimensions."

I don't think it's too far to push the TAZ concept to say that Jesus was involved in TAZing. The incarnation event was 'life's penetration by the Marvelous', which existed in festival for a while before the authorities radared it and tried to crush it. Jesus' miracles can be seen in the same way: foretastes of another world, TAZs breaking through, complex, strange, without fixed dimensions.

I believe, as John L pushed towards in his comments, that the Emerging Church will not be hopelessly utopian if it follows Jesus' TAZ vision. Never institutionalising, never forming solidly, always festive, always uprising, always liberating, always slipping away, Trickster-style before the authorities can crush it. But, as John rightly points out, this will take a totally different sort of leadership, and membership. One that resists trying to permanently inhabit the spaces that should only be TAZs. Permanent spaces have to be state-sanctioned; they are not penetrated by the Marvelous.

Of course, 'utopia' means 'no place'. If we are dreaming of 'winning', and turning everyone on to our way of thinking, we are trying to create permanent, pure places that will divide and oppress. If, on the other hand, we are about more modest, local visions, about creating festive TAZs, then these temporal, radical 'non places' are, by that definition, utopian.

So, is the Emerging Church hopelessly utopian? In many senses, I hope so. The utopian instinct is part of our divine humanity for things to change - and thank God for hopelessly utopian figures like William Wilberforce - but we must temper this desire with our also very human instinct to grab power. If we can find that middle way then I, for one, am in.

Technorati: Black Mass | Festival | Jay Winter | John Gray | TAZ

Is The Emerging Church Hopelessly Utopian? [2]

In the previous post, I outlined John Gray's recent conclusion that, post-Iraq (and thus, essentially, post Neo-con), post-Communism, post-Marxism, post-Nazism, the grand utopian ideas of the 20th Century had proved themselves failures, and that we should all give up on grand political visions. I paralleled that with some of the disenchantment I've seen expressed about the 'emerging church' movement.

Commenting on that, Matt says:

"With a few exceptions, the utopias of the c20th were of an all-encompassing top-down nature, rather than the organic communities of the c19."

I think this is pretty spot on, and actually lines up nicely with the later sections of the Prospect article on utopias, where the writer points out that:

"During the 19th Century, many utopians tried to create perfect societies in small settlements, often in the 'new world' of the US. [...] The real harm came in the 20th Century, when utopians abandoned the idea of withdrawing from the world and instead attempted to remake it."

I think this model is actually helpful. We can see two visions of the emerging church through it: the 'withdrawal' model (no giggling, please ;-) or the 're-making' model. Both have been seen to fail in history. The withdrawal model because the very act of attempting to create a pure society carries within it its own destruction, especially when disillusionment with the leader comes (which it always does). The re-making model fails because it is essentially futile. We can't bring heaven to the whole earth yet. Energy saps, and people drift away.

So what's the way forward? Do we admit the EC vision has been hopelessly utopian, and give up?

The Prospect article continues with a review of another book - Jay Winter's Dreams of Peace and Freedom (subtitle: Utopian Moments in the 20th Century) - which I think offers us some direction. Winter wants to 'resurrect a more modest strand of visionary thought, what he calls "minor utopias" [...] He describes these as visions of partial transformation that "sketch out a world very different from the one we live in, but from which not all social conflict or all oppression has been eliminated"'

So one way forward is for us to think of the emerging church in terms of such a 'minor utopia'. In other words, we retain the powerful vision, but are more realistic about the bounds and reach of that vision. It's always going to be partial transformation, and dirt is always going to remain.

As I outline in the book, the characters that help us to remain involved in 'dirt' are the Tricksters, and thus, if the Emerging Church is going to pull back from the 'hopelessly utopian' place, it must keep in touch with its tricksters; it must avoid trying to harden boundaries and purify its ground. In other speak, I think that means it needs to pro-actively avoid 'denominating' - moving towards a settled, denominated state. (See earlier post on this.)

Some ideas about how we might practically do that, I'll try to cover in the next post.

Technorati: Black Mass | Jay Winter | Nazism | Neocon | Politics | Denomination | Utopia

Salvaged Faith ¦ Baptized in Arial Black ¦ RS Exam Bloomers

We've been having school examinations the past week. I had to mark a bunch of scripts (the kids are 11/12 years old) of an RS paper on Christianity. Some of the answers were just priceless:

 

In a series of questions on parts of a church - what is an altar, what is a pulpit...

What is a font?

"I'm not sure what font they wrote the Bible in, but I reckon it was probably Times New Roman or Arial Black or something."

Genius. Though the cynical francophone atheist might have prefered 'Comic Sans' ;-)

 

What is the Salvation Army?

"The Salvation Army are a bunch of people who salvage Christians."

I think this is going to be a key emerging market! Anyone think their faith needs salvaging? Not sure how much I'd get for mine...

 

 

Technorati: RS | Exam | Bloomers | Font

Mary Douglas Has Died

Mary Douglas, whose work 'Purity and Danger' I am heavily indebted to for the 'dirty' bits of Signs of Emergence, has died.

Obituary here.

"In 1966, Douglas published her most celebrated work, Purity and Danger: an Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. This book is best remembered for its stylish demonstration of the ways in which all schemes of classification produce anomalies: whether the pangolin for the Lele, or the God incarnate of Catholic theology. Some of this classificatory "matter out of place" - from humble house dust in her Highgate house to the abominations of Leviticus for the Hebrews - was polluting, but other breaches of routine classification had the capacity to renew the world symbolically."

Why Does American Christianity Always Seem to Wait for the Real Thinking to be Done Elsewhere?

A few of us have been reading Marilynne Robinson's wonderful novel Gilead recently. I can't recommend it highly enough.

One episode jumped out at me last night. The trickster, the Prodigal perhaps, of the novel is debating faith with the protagonist, an old preacher, when he asks:

'Do you ever wonder why American Christianity always seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?'

The preacher replies:

'Not really' I replied, which surprised me, since I have wondered that very thing any number of times.

They are referring, in part, to Barth's thinking, and the novel is set in the 50's. And I wondered if people thought there was any truth in that, or if still the case, or if things had changed? Is Pentecostalism America's unique gift to the church?

Technorati: American | Christianity | Gilead | Marilynne Robinson | Barth

Dangerous Representation ¦ Chocolate Jesus' Penis ¦ Trickster Art

In news rather like that surrounding the furore over Andreas Serrano's 'Piss Christ', the BBC are reporting 'outrage' over a 6 foot chocolate Jesus being displayed in a gallery in Manhattan.

The piece, entitled 'My Sweet Lord' is by the artist Cosimo Cavallaro has drawn huge fire from the Catholic League, who described the piece as "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever."

I've obviously not seen the piece properly, but my sense is that it looks like a wonderfully cheeky critique of the saccharine nature of modern Easter-tide. I wonder if those in the Catholic League would normally purchase chocolate eggs for their children around this time? Are we not all guilty of sweetening the impact of Christ's death?

It also seems likely that the CL are offended by Jesus' penis being shown. Did he not have one? Would he not have been stripped naked to be crucified? Isn't a loin cloth just a lie?

It seems again that those who seek to represent Christ in anything other than explicitly Christian and conservative works are going to find themselves heavily under attack. But, as in the work of Serrano, what I hope is happening is that these artists are playing the Trickster role that they ought, and are forcing us to re-evaluate our engagement with Christ over Easter.

This is why the Catholic League are wrong to moan about the timing of the show being offensive... That's precisely why the timing of the show is right. It is making us all think. And if a chocolate Jesus is the worst sort of suffering we are going to get over the Holy Week, then we really need to spend more time meditating on the true nature of Christ's suffering, and on those in the world who are genuinely being persecuted for their faith.

Kapoww...ouch ¦ Comic Bloomers

This is one of the funniest things I've seen for ages. Real comic strips from way back. Really funny.

Emerging Heroes...

Lego have quite rightly jumped on the Emerging bandwagon, and released this great set of 'Emerging Church Heroes' figures.

Alan Hirsch

Jonny Baker

TSK

Si Johnston

Pete Rollins

Mobsby

Steve Collins

Nic

Greg Russinger

Collect them all and get a free darkened room to keep them in ;-)
(Thanks Jordon for the link)

Damien Hirst | New Religion

A unique chance to catch Hirst's 'New Religion' works for free, and in the amazing setting of the church of All Hallows on the Wall.

"There are four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. People tend to think of religion and science as two very separate things, one cold and clinical, the other emotional and warm and loving. I wanted to leap over those boundaries and give you something that looks clinical and cold but has all the religious, metaphysical connotations too. "

Technorati: Hirst | All Hallows

Cross' Bridge | Health and Safety | Middle Class Obedience

Some photos of Michael Cross' installation at Dilston Grove - a disused shell of a church on the edge of Southwark Park.

The main body of the church has been filled with a tank of water. As you step out over it, steps appear from the water. They are meant to disappear behind you, leaving you standing in the middle, alone, surrounded by water and light. 'It'll work better in the next one I'm building', said the artist. Apparently in an outdoor lake, which will be stunning.

The piece for me ended up being a meditation not on water and light, but on health and safety, and middle class obedience. We all had to sign disclaimers. Walkers were forced to wear life-jackets, and were guided out by the artist. In case they fell into 60cm of water. No one was allowed near the tank when the artist wasn't in the room. And everyone obeyed sensibly.

It wasn't Cross' fault. 'Insurance purposes.' But somehow it took the trickster element away, and thus a good bit of the artistic merit, leaving something more akin to a challenge on a outdoor pursuits camp.

Technorati Tags: Art, Michael Cross, Obedience

Three-view Tele | Now That's Community

No doubt about it, Sharp are clever people. They've developed an LCD screen that shows 3 different images, depending on your viewpoint.

As Far East Gizmos put it, "these displays have allowed Sharp to once again create new demand and contribute to the creation of new lifestyles."

Call me a grouch, but is part of that great new lifestyle everyone in the family being able to watch the same screen, but something different? Ahh... those great family evenings! McDonalds for one, KFC for another and curry for the kids. And let's all sit down together and watch something different! Now that's community ;-)

[But wouldn't we just LOVE one for alt.worship. Trinity meditation here we come...]

Technorati Tags: Technology

The FlowMarket™

Thanks to Saga for this [link]

All products available from The Flowmarket™

Technorati Tags: Art, Consumption, Design, Flow Market

Greenbelt | Dirty Theology | Judas v Jesus: Two Tricksters

Just back from Greenbelt, which, like Ben and Jonny, I think was one of the best ever. Personal highlights were the series of talks by Christopher Booker on the spiritual / psychological background to stories [available here and here], and Michael Franti's gig closing the festival - not to mention hanging out with Greg and Jon from Ventura, as well as Gareth, Si and Shane who were at Soliton too.

I spoke on 'Dirty Theology', and you can get the MP3 for download here.

It was basically a trip through some of the dirt thoughts in the book, but I've been thinking recently about Judas and Jesus as two Tricksters. If we look at the classic trickster pattern, we can see Judas attempting to engage in a trickster act... So why did it fail? And what made Jesus' trickster act so different? I think the key lies in some of the ideas Booker presented to do with the tension between the ego and the 'other' within us. Judas' trickster act was perhaps centred on the ego, while Jesus' on the other.

I also reflect on what importance this distinction might have for the artist as trickster, and how we might live the 'trickster life' in the light of this need to serve 'the other'.

Technorati Tags: Greenbelt, Ego, The Other

Soliton | The Gospel of Welcome

Just at LAX now on my way back from Solition. What with the security alerts in the UK, my flights home have been changed, cancelled and delayed... and changed again to suit me much better than the original plan. At one time I thought I'd have no hand baggage allowed, but they've relaxed that just today. Thank goodness. Seems flying will soon be exactly as Stelios wants it: naked cattle with passports tatooed to our necks. So much easier to transport...

Soliton itself has just been absolutely amazing. The theme was 'the gospel of welcome', and the hospitality has been just incredible. This is no convention centre meeting: it's meeting in homes, in parks, in bars. Conversing, not preaching. Flexible programming and a great relaxed attitude with some brilliant and inspiring people.

The picture is of me and Si Johnston with the little car we were given to get us from the place we were staying one day. It's bigger than my house. And if the flying hadn't already done so, entirely ruined any environmental credentials I may have had. It was a lot of fun though ;-) 3.5 litres of it.

It's going to be a pleasure to have Shane over at Greenbelt. It was really great to meet him. He had to drive an M3 BMW while he was there too, so we all got a little compromised. Greg Russinger - who puts Soliton together - is going to be over too. Just an amazing guy. Do your best to hook up with him while you're there. You don't need a picture. He IS Jack Nicholson in the days of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Here's to getting back home to London. Can't wait.

Technorati Tags: Los Angeles, Greenbelt, Terrorism

How many EC Bloggers Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

In the great tradition of such things, I propose:

1 To change the bulb and post about it

315 To lurk around and make no comment

2 To propose a stack of del.icio.us tags the poster should have put in

16 To complain he should have used categories

4 To flag up a conference on nu-media emerging bulb ministries "The LED Shines in the 80% Greyscale-ness" in Ukraine.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

I Might Be Wrong

Ever get racked with doubts? Just want to call the whole thing off, write the last post, become a labourer on a building site, or something simple, and never think again, just watch soaps and drink too much and love Christmas and keep upgrading my phone and blow the whole lot on a HD ready plasma?

Sometimes.

But it's doubtless best to keep it quiet. Write in white; only the RSSers will know. And lurkers will have to wipe their mice before they see, and leave. With no comment.

Sultan's Elephant

This is what we live in London for! Spectacular Spectacular! Strange, you wait ages for a blog post on French elephants in the city, and then two come along at once... But this was no Babar, rather a fabulous day of carnival from the Royal de Luxe group. It's been going on for the past 4 days; we finally made it up today to see the elephant wake up, walk off, hose everyone down, meet the girl and send her off in her time machine. A genuinely astounding event; a friend likened it to watching a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel live. With hundreds of thousands there, and everyone gob-smacked at how huge and... moving it was. Plus I got to stand near Rolf Harris ;-) Bunch of photos here:

www.flickr.com

Technorati Tags: Art, Elephant, Fantasy, London, Royal de Luxe, Sultan's Elephant

Via Crucis Grid Blog: The Cross

"

An image which frequently appears among the archetypal configurations of the unconscious is that of the tree or the wonder-working plant."
Carl Jung

The Golden Bough, the Burning Bush, the Tree of Life, the Forbidden Fruit, Golden Flower, Ambrosia... The healing plant has a long history, and appears to be 'rooted' in our very subconscious as a potent symbol of life and transformation.

So how does the Cross fit in? It is clearly part of the 'healing plant' archeype, but perhaps with some essential differences. For the tree that Christ hangs on on this Good Friday has been ripped from the ground. It has no roots anymore. It has been 'manufactured' by humankind. Given shape and form by technologies. This healing tree is therefore in touch with death.

As God hangs dying, the two poles of creation and death meet, and within their potential difference lies our healing, our re-rooting, our re-grafting. Separated from the earth, hung above it, God is then thrust in death into the earth's dirty bowels. It is here, in these places where the two poles are forced together that our ressurection begins.

Dirty, Tricky London

Satirical London exhibition at the Museum of London.

Highly recommended.

Free.

Foolishness to The Greeks

The next Grace service is on tonight, and promises to be a mix of their usual explorative worship tricks, with an Ortho-twist. Having forged links with the local Greek community in Ealing, Jonny, Steve Collins et al have invited the neighbourhood's Greek Orthodox congregation to join them at Grace.

The theme will be 'foolishness', and apparently will try to persuade them that they need to explore more emerging Church ideas within their own tradition. Jonny has promised to go 'incarnational/trickster', and sport an 'Orthodox' beard and cassock for the occasion, and Mike the Hat will doubtless have some new mitre to play with. The Junior Bakers are due to act as servers.

Don't miss.

Technorati Tags: Grace

Nic's Blog | Haunted Geographies

Nic is/was/shall always be a co-conspirator. He's a very fine designer, and is graphing a complex and beautiful path on the axes of spirituality and design. He's finally relented and started a blog. I've added him to my Blogs list, and encourage you to click there often.

Technorati Tags: Art, Blogging, Design, Spirituality

Meanwhile, Chez Emerging Minister...

Technorati Tags: cartoons, IT, Spring

A Dirty, Robust Messiah

An excellent thought for the day from the always-interesting Giles Fraser on the BBC this morning, discussing the essential dirty nature of the incarnation, rendering the sacred/profane divide fuzzy in the extreme.

His Greenbelt talk on Why Rothko Is Bad For Your Health is also superb. Buy it on CD, or hassle them to fast-track it to MP3.

Release Your Inner Mr Man/Little Miss

Make your own Mr Man or Little Miss here. Resistance is futile. You know you're going to have to. The Mr Emergent™ competition starts here.

Technorati Tags: Cartoons

Mobile Blogging | Are You Suffering From Hyperconnectia?

Reading TSK's post on the Vizrea mobile-to-blog tool, I wondered if we are in danger of suffering collective Hyperconnectia. [ See Wikipedia entry here ]

Do you get Super-highway Rage when you're connection is dropped, or you can't find wifi?
Does your blood pressure and perspiration rate increase in inverse proportion to the number of battery bars you have left?
Is your eye-to-eye / eye-to-screen ratio very poor?

Perhaps you are suffering.

Hyperconnectia sufferers may appear distant or ill at ease in human company. They will regularly text others during conversations, or disappear to check blog stats. They will tend to have their laptop open in meetings, even social gatherings, and their eye-to-eye / eye-to-screen contact ratios may be very poor. They appear happier with on-line relationships than face-to-face ones.

On a more serious note, an excellent article in this month's Prospect (full article here) asks whether an always-on-everywhere society is such a good thing:

"Most of the argument about our progress into the digital future assumes that it is both inevitable and desirable...The only question left unanswered is how quickly we will get there. But while the benefits of the digital revolution are evident enough,

Technorati Tags: Addiction, Blogs, Emerging Church, Hyperconnectia, Mobile

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But Cartoons Will Never Hurt Me.

The European press are clearly wrong to raise the temperature on things by re-publishing the offending images, but I can't help thinking that Mohammed would have been more robust than to worry about them.

What worries me more is a minority mindset that reacts with cries of bloody violence, demanding hangings, lynchings and beheadings. It reminds me of the crowd we read about in Jerusalem, who, whipped into a rage by censorious priests over a man's claims about representing God's image, demanded his crucifixion.

He didn't raise a finger.

Now that's a holy, robust, God

Weeping to see people try to defend their image in ways that destroy the very heart of their message.

"We are all created in the image of some God. And there is no more important theological investigation than to find out in whose image we are making ourselves." Brueggemann.

Technorati Tags: Dirt, Emerging Church, Islam

Neophilia [5] Subvert the Fantasy Church

Links: Neophilia [1]  |  Neophilia [2]  |  Neophilia [3]  |  Neophilia [4]

Anyone been finding blogging more difficult than it used to be? Lost the novelty a bit, and now what seemed so easy and freeing is more of a chore at times? Lots of people I've read seem to have done recently... Welcome to the fantasy cycle of the neophiliac.

I've linked to the other posts in the series above - and in the right bar under the series clicks - but to summarize, I've been fascinated by Christopher Booker's work The Neophiliacs - Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties and believe it has strong messages for us as an emerging movement.

Why? Because he identifies the potential pitfalls of newness: falling into a neophiliac fantasy cycle:

Technorati Tags: Books, Emerging Church, Fantasy, Rebirth, Sustainable Growth

Dead Dick

This short sermon clip from Dick Lucas, vicar of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, just has to be listened to to be believed; had me in stitches and disbelief in equal measure. As Ian said, if he'd made this cock-up, he'd have to leave the job!

(For those aware of the high standing of this most respected of hard-line evangelicals, there is a extremely naughty element of schadenfreude that one probably ought not admit to ;[) )

Thanks to Ship of Fools, and Ian of Moot for posting it.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Dick, Emerging Church, Sermon

What Would You Do With £4,500,000,000?

That's the value of the property portfolio of Church of England plc - the Church Commissioners.

I'm on an electoral roll... Am I a stakeholder? Can I pursuade the board to do certain things with the cash? I hate to ask, but WWJD?

Fine time to pay tribute to Tony Banks MP - a true Trickster voice in parliament - who quipped in 'Church Questions' in the House of Commons in 1996s, when it was revealed they'd lost hundreds of millions in poor investments:

"May I suggest that one way of maximising [Church Commissioner] income would be to build congregations? Perhaps the best idea would be to privatise the Church of England, to get in a regulator-- OfGod, or something like that--and a few consultants, and then start marketing a Lord who is suitable to the 21st century."

OfGod. Nice. Think they might have something to say about redistributing that 4.5 billion.

Winning the War?

"I declare that World War III is now being waged by short-haired robots whose deliberate aim is to destroy the complex web of free wild life by the imposition of mechanical order."

Timothy Leary in his Manifesto, written on escaping from prison and fleeing to Algeria.

I think we're gradually winning now, Tim. We got tags on our side.