Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.

~Agent Smith

• 
  The Matrix
  Director: Lana Wachowski

The program of control (Smith) describes to Morpheus the reason for the failure of a Utopian world with human inhabitants, us.

This is actually a premise that is recycled over and over again as a plot line for man vs machine dystopic futures. Asimov’s, I-Robot and the Terminator series would be the common references. Mankind creates a simple machine with some basic programming to protect humanity, and the program works out the logical conclusion of the annihilation of humanity being the only way to help us reach our ultimate goals of peace and tranquility without compromising the programing in the process.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

~Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics

• 
  I, Robot
  Author: Isaac Asimov

I believe these narrative expressions of our fear of self-aware technologies powered by our rules of behavior says a lot about our hopes for the future of humanity. The safe happy worlds we imagine tend to turn into nightmares when we have the power to enact them.

It is not really a problem of power and control, but more so of imagination. We don’t quite know how to imagine a world that is lacking evil and is still interesting enough to keep us involved. We pass up the obvious solution for the annihilation of evil, because it is directly connected to us. So instead, we are engaged in a very long conversation of changing what we imagine “the good life” to be such that everyone could actually accept “the program” that leads us there.


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Categories: N.T. Wright, Advertising, Society, Heaven, Evil, C.S. Lewis, Movies, Books, Culture, Christianity, Theology
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One moral vision-the traditionalist or orthodox-is predicated upon the achievements and traditions of the past as the foundation and guide to the challenges of the present. Though this vision is often tinged with nostalgia and is at times resistant to change, it is not simply reactionary, backward looking, or static. Rather, the order of life sustained by this vision is, at its best, one that seeks deliberate continuity with the ordering principles inherited from the past. The social end is the re-invigoration and realization of what are considered to be the very noblest ideals and achievements of civilization.

Against this is a progressivist moral vision that is ambivalent to the legacy of the past, regarding it partly as a useful point of reference and partly as a source of oppression. Instead, the order of life embraced by this vision is one that idealizes experimentation and thus adaption to and innovation with the changing circumstances of our time. Although sometimes marked by traces of Utopian idealism, it is not merely an uncritical embrace of all things new. The aim of the progressivists’ vision is the further emancipation of the human spirit and the creation of an inclusive and tolerant world.

~James Davison Hunter, Is there a Culture War?

• 
  Is There a Culture War?: A Dialogue on Values And American Public Life
  Author: Alan Wolfe

There was a time not too long ago when I thought I was beyond a divisive vision of the world. Riding high on the successes of my enlightened 20s I had met so many people and seen so much of the world, how could my philosophical approach and posture on any subject matter ever be reduced to an “Us vs. Them” mentality?

Well, I am patronizing myself at best, I have not seen very much of the world at all… and only know a few people well, and they are mostly located in a very specific region of Midwest America that I have come to love and appreciate, that is Metro Detroit.

With my modern e-news portals and socially networked life, I am also tempted to believe that I have a well formed opinion about… well.. everything and everyone. For sure I have my opinions, but it is not until you live in a community that you know something of yourself by the reflection of other people. When a good friend, whom you know and trust, asks you… “Why does that bother you?” there is an opportunity to reveal something true about yourself; something defining about your moral character.

And there lies the rub I believe, no matter how educated and involved you become in what you are for, there is still something especially telling about who you are by what you are against. Even the loving inclusivist with the widest arms would say they are against hatred and exclusivity. Ok, an elementary distinction at best; but it still seems to rise to the surface as a profound demand for acknowledgment over and over again.

Hunter appears to be making the argument in this and many of his books that there is at least a consistent culture schism in America along these lines, the war may be one that is manufactured by the media, but the separation and distrust between these classic juggernauts of social distinction; conservative and progressive, is real.

And again, I am surprised at how surprised I am about this being true. We are all so “connected” now, how could this be? Is it even a problem? Does it do you or anyone any good to figure out if you are conservative or progressive?

I don’t know.

What I do know, is that I am horribly uncomfortable living too close to either pole. The conservative one makes sense, but the progressive one is more fun. Perhaps there is a way to live outside of the spectrum and just hold on to the good things worthy of preservation and rush towards the new good that you ought to, but that vision seems like a very pale and elite pseudo life.

Now reaching / searching for some great metaphor about kayaking or trombone playing…

Categories: Progressivism, Conservatism, War, Culture
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The more we read about Jesus and the background to his life, it was quite obvious that there was very little to ridicule in his life, and therefore we were onto a loser.

~Michael Palin of Monty Python

• 
  Monty Python’s Life Of Brian - The Immaculate Edition
  Director: SONY PICTURES

As far as comical satire goes, it could be argued that no one does it better than Monty Python. Nothing is sacred or beyond the scope of their intellectual buffoonery… except perhaps the very life of Christ.


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Categories: C.S. Lewis, Monty Python, Satire, Jesus, Christianity, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Books, College, Culture, Malcolm Muggeridge, Movies
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About theology, evangelism, politics, salvation, eschatology, authority, hermeneutics, social justice, sacraments, pedagogy, morality, priorities, methodologies, practices, history, and cultural engagement…

…well, let’s just say they disagree about everything.

But perhaps if they were sitting alone in a room long enough, in an eternal point counter point state of dialectic purgatory they would end up admitting that they are both right and wrong about everything.

Ok, so that is ridiculous or nihilistic, but it is my current frustration…

It is fun to enter into all of these conversations, but it is also rather maddening to read book after book that disagrees with the last one completely but still needs their arguments in order to build their own.

I am coming to understand this process as the Hegelian synthesis. Hegel proposed that there was a patterned philosophical dialogue of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis that was bound to repeat in human history into infinity.

Well, I don’t have that much time… do I?

9 Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. 10 The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.

11 The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd. 12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.

13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.

14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.

~Ecclesiastes 12:9-14

Well, regardless… the last few years I have been captivated by this question of how us Christian folk should go about engaging and contributing to the culture we find ourselves surrounded by in such a way that is proper; proper meaning, good and fun and beneficial and whimsical and serious and honest and glorifying to God and ya… all that.

Pretty much all the advice I grew up with in my Baptist up bringing seemed to be focused on the terminal state of decline in culture and the best we could do was to boycott the worst of it and retreat into a shallow corner of Disney Land, errr… I mean Veggie Tales, I think Mickey Mouse was found out to have questionable homosexual employment policies… and there was also a connection to Proctor and Gamble who make every household product, but we can’t buy any of it because of something political, I forget now. Anyway, this is what I grew up with.

Now I am greatly encouraged to read fresh voices that seem to offer a more hopeful and enjoyable call to our role in creating and dealing with “culture”.

The only way to change culture is to create more of it.

~Andy Crouch, Culture Making

• 
  Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
  Author: Andy Crouch

Andy goes on to give a fundamental description of culture as “What we make of the world.”, as borrowed or inspired by Ken Myers.

No boycotts here, we are going to go out and make some new stuff!

But not so fast now… what to make? And how should we go about it? And where to begin? And how do we make the most of our opportunity to create? This is where the discussion picks up I suppose with my latest read in this direction…

In the end, this view of culture and cultural change shares many of the basic problematic assumptions of the dominant view. This perspective is individualistic–cultures are constituted by and changed through the actions of aggregated individuals. Though an impersonal market finally determines the outcome, cultural change can be willed into being–through the investment and creation of cultural goods. And cultural change is democratic–it occurs through the actions of ordinary people, from the bottom up.

When all is said and done, through offered as a new approach to culture and cultural change, the “culture as artifact” perspective also falls far short of providing an adequate account of the complexity of culture and Christianity’s relationship to it. Once again, we are left with the need for an alternative.

~James Davison Hunter, To Change the World

• 
  To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
  Author: James Davison Hunter

So where Crouch was trying to help me out by getting the whole effort of cultural engagement real small, “just make something… and hope for the best”, Hunter is doing his best to squash my enthusiasm and remind me that no significant and lasting change has happened without the help of a “perfect storm” of related cultural ramifications.

There is a part of me that is actually very inspired by the hopelessness of his critique, it seems honest… its hard to change the world… perhaps impossible to do it with any sort of overarching strategy that guarantees success. And in this realm I do believe, speculate, that these two cultural advisers are probably much more aligned than one would initially perceive by lining up their basic arguments. I have not finished reading Hunter’s positive thesis, but I am already wondering how well he actually read Crouch’s book…

Indeed, I sometimes wonder if breathless rhetoric about changing the world is actually about changing the subject–from our own fitfully suppressed awareness that we did not ask to be brought into this world, have only vaguely succeeded in figuring it out, and will end our days in radical dependence on something or someone other than ourselves. If our excitement about changing the world leads us into the grand illusion that we stand somehow outside the world, knowing what’s best for it, tools and goodwill and gusto at the ready, we have not yet come to terms with the reality that the world has changed us far more than we will ever change it. Beware of world changers–they have yet learned the true meaning of sin.

~Andy Crouch; Culture Making, Why We Can’t Change the World

I love this.

I do believe it may be the most honest statement in the book. I don’t know how to do anything. I don’t have a clue how my own breathing works, and I am supposed to figure out how to change the world?

And I suppose that is my hunch as to the thesis of Hunter’s book as well.

Is the question of “How to Change the World” even a good question to ask?

Most days, the only thing I know for sure is that I am not perfect and if anything depends on my perfection in order to succeed… we are sunk. And to this point I do believe that both Crouch and Hunter are critiquing the traditional view of modern Christian efforts to fix up this sad state of affairs we call the world and culture.

The apparent problem, in brief, is twofold: First, Christians just aren’t Christian enough. Christians don’t think with an adequate enough Christian worldview, Christians are fuzzy-minded, Christians don’t pray hard enough, and Christians are generally lazy toward their duties as believers. By the same token, there are not enough people who do fully embrace God’s call on their lives, praying understanding, and working to change the world.

~James Davison Hunter; To Change the World, The Apparent Problem

So this is a direct rebuttal to what I am understanding as the “Pietism” approach to solving the problems of the world.

And perhaps, both of these authors are offering a more sober way forward than the “traditional” Focus on the Family approach to living the Christian life sufficiently.

A way that is encouraging, livable, and a lot more fun than a big sad face boycott… so thanks for the positive frustration.

Categories: Frustration, Culture, Books
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What happens when one strand of reality is singled out and stretched too far is hardly surprising. Wider reality springs back and has the last laugh. Pressed too far, for example, reason becomes rationalism and rebounds into mysticism; or freedom becomes anarchy and rebounds into authoritarianism. We thus become masters of irony and connoisseurs of the art of the side effect, the unintended consequence and the unknown aftermath. Reality rebounds, and things turn out the opposite of what they seem and what people expect. Strength becomes weakness; love becomes pornography; pleasure becomes boredom; and so on.

We have had classic successes with this tactic in the lives of individuals. You might call it the “Samson Syndrome”, because you see the cycle so clearly in the namesake. Trace the line from Samson’s early promise, to his extraordinary exploits, to his careless delinquency and ultimate downfall. Samson could become prodigal only because his strength was prodigious. When his gifts become his master, they were the key to his undoing. Et voila, strength turned to weakness. “All men that are ruined,” said Edmund Burke, “are ruined on the side of thier natural propensities.”

~Os Guinness, The Last Christian on Earth

• 
  The Last Christian on Earth: Uncover the Enemy’s Plot to Undermine the Church
  Author: Os Guinness

Categories: Christianity, Culture, Church, Books
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How much do you make? have you ever contemplated suicide? Are you now or have you ever been…? Are you aware of the fact…? I have here before me… Electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb surveillance are causing a very serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and the community’s need to know. The older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions–the patterns of mechanistic technologies–are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval, by the electrically computerized dossier bank–that one big gossip column that is unforgiving, unforgetful and from which there is no redemption, no erasure of early “mistakes.” We have already reached a point where remedial control, born out of knowledge of media and their total effects on all of us, must be exerted. how shall the new environment be programmed now that we have become so involved with each other, now that all of us have become the unwitting work force for social change? What’s that buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing?

~Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the MASSAGE

• 
  The Medium is the Massage
  Author: Quentin Fiore

Categories: Identity, Communication, Culture, Technology
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Innumerable confusions and a profound feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transformations. Our “Age of Anxiety” is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools–with yesterday’s concepts.

Youth instinctively understands the present environment–the electric drama. It lives mythically and in depth. This is the reason for the great alienation between generations. Wars, revolutions, civil uprisings are interfaces within the new environments created by electronic informational media.

~Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the MASSAGE

• 
  The Medium is the Massage
  Author: Quentin Fiore

Categories: Media, Anxiety, Culture
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To say it, then, as plainly as I can, this book is an inquiry into and a lamentation about the most significant American cultural fact of the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of the Age of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television. This change-over has dramatically and irreversibly shifted the content and the meaning of public discourse, since two media so vastly different cannot accommodate the same ideas. As the influence of print wanes, the content of politics, religion, education, and anything else that comprises public business must change and be recast in terms that are most suitable to television.

If all of this sounds suspiciously like Marshall McLuhan’s aphorism, the medium is the message, I will not disavow association (although it is fashionable to do so among respectable scholars who, were it not for McLuhan, would today be mute). I met McLuhan thirty years ago when I was a graduate student and he an unknown English professor. I believed then, as I believe now, that he spoke in the tradition of Orwell and Huxley–that is, as a prophesier, and I have remained steadfast to his teaching that the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation. I might add that my interest in this point of view was first stirred by a prophet far more formidable than McLuhan, more ancient than Plato. In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture. I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making concrete images of anything.

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing that is in heave above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth.”

I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why the God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture. We may hazard a guess that a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete, iconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture.

People like ourselves who are in the process of converting their culture from word-centered to image-centered might profit by reflecting on the Mosaic injunction. But even if I am wrong in these conjectures, it is, I believe, a wise and particularly relevant supposition that the media of communication available to a culture are a dominant influence on the formation of the culture’s intellectual and social preoccupations.

~Neil Postman; Amusing Ourselves to Death, The Medium Is the Metaphor

• 
  Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
  Author: Neil Postman

Categories: Communication, Media, Culture, Bible Study, Books
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“The only way to change culture is to create more of it.”

~Andy Crouch, Culture Making

• 
  Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
  Author: Andy Crouch

Categories: Culture, Quotes, Art, Books
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The record of technology as a science–relieving human beings of specific burdens and diseases–is splendid. The record of technology as a metaphor for being human is disastrous. When technology is used to win wars it becomes the atomic bomb. When it is used to control human sexuality, it becomes the destruction of millions of unborn lives and, in contraception, all too often fosters the disengagement of fruitfulness from love.

The biggest cultural mistake we can indulge in is to yearn for technological “solutions” to our deepest cultural “problems.”

~Andy Crouch, Culture Making

• 
  Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
  Author: Andy Crouch

Categories: Culture, Technology, Books
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The essence of childhood is innocence. The essence of youth is awareness. The essence of adulthood is responsibility. This book is for people and a Christian community on the threshold of cultural responsibility.

What is most needed in our time are Christians who are deeply serious about cultivating and creating but who wear that seriousness lightly—who are not desperately trying to change the world but who also wake up every morning eager to create.

I hope friends will read this book and begin to envision their friendships not just as the companionship of compatible individuals but as potentially transformative partnerships in the places where they live, study, work and play.

~Andy Crouch, Culture Making

• 
  Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling
  Author: Andy Crouch

I am looking forward to having a good many conversations shaped by this reading. Very thankful for the voices helping the boy and the cynic find a place where we can both play fair.

Categories: Culture, Creativity, Encouragement, Art, Books
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