The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion and the Public Sphere

I came across a blog today that is part of the Social Science Research Council called The Immanent Frame: Secularism, religion and the public sphere. For anyone interested in the social sciences this blog looks to be promising. The blog contains post by many contributors including prominent figures such as Charles Taylor, Scott Appleby, Robert Bellah, William Connolly (who’s most recent book Capitalism and Christianity, American Style (Duke University Press, 2008 ) looks quite interesting), Dwight Hopkins, David Hollinger, Nancy Levene, Leigh Eric Schmidt, James K.A. Smith, and Mark C. Taylor. For anyone with a particular interest in the work of Charles Taylor (which I hope would be many; if not you might want to pray about that) there is quite a bit of engagement with his most recent 896 pg. tome, A Secular Age. I’ve included a link above to the blog and encourage you to check it out. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts after you get a chance to view the blog and read a few posts. There are a couple of other SSRC blogs that can be accessed through the SSRC link above. However, I haven’t had a chance to look over them much so I can’t make any direct recommendations. Enjoy!

The Rock (music) upon which the Church is Built: Celebrating the U2charist (cont.)

For all those that took interest in the previous post on the U2charist I have added another video. This one is an advertisement for a U2charist celebration that took place in Chicago. I’m still trying to be fair and not too quickly dismissive of this whole ordeal, but this ad seems to confirm some of my difficulties.

I find movements like this, ones which seems to latch onto some cultural icon and baptize it as a Christian icon in a desire for relevancy to the surrounding world, to be very frustrating, to be quite honest. I am all for seeking to be all things to all people, to be engaged enough in the community you live in to speak to those around on the level of their day-to-day concerns. However, as Christians, our greatest relevancy to those around us comes not in knowing this or that band, having seen this or that movie, or wearing this or that brand, but in being faithful to Christ and growing closer to him, and others, as members of his body. Only in doing this are we, as the body of Christ, able to embody an alternative lifestyle as part of a (forgive the term) counter-cultural community (maybe better put, a counter-political community), one that operates on a whole different set of values and allegiances. Only in this are we able to offer a new way of being human, a way that exists in Christ, as his body, empowered by the Spirit, to the praise and Glory of our Father; not in simply showing the world that we have found Jesus in the music that they listen to and therefore listen to it as well. Yes, Bono has values that overlap with that of the Church, and yes U2 has lyrics that are vaguely Christian, but I think that we would be far better off seeking to get Bono connected to a church than trying to connect the Church to Bono. True relevancy is not giving those who don’t know Christ what we think they want but offering to them what we know they need, which is not Bono, but Jesus - incarnated in the self-giving life of the church (his body) as it follows him in his call to radical discipleship on a path that doesn’t lead up, onstage with the cultural elites of our day, but down in a life of self-dispossession.

God Bless America! Land of the Free…

I found this picture online and had to share it with everyone else.

The One Movie Meme

1. One movie that made you laugh
Kicking and Screaming

2. One movie that made you cry
Life is Beautiful (gets me every time)

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Monty Python’s: the Search for the Holy Grail

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Good Will Hunting

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
The Devil Wears Prada

6. One movie you hated
The Fountain

7. One movie that scared you
The Ring (Creeeeepy!)

8. One movie that bored you

The Fountain
9. One movie that made you happy
Once

10. One movie that made you miserable
Walk the Line (I loved the movie, it just left me feeling super depressed)

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
Teeth

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Pretty much every role Nicole Kidman has ever played

13. The last movie you saw
Iron Man

14. The next movie you hope to see
The new Indiana Jones Movie (Booyah!)

15. Now tag five people: Adam, Patrick, Sam, Eric, Luke

Looking for Good Resources, Can Anybody Help?

To whom it may concern (or whomever might be reading this blog),

I recently sent an email to a good friend of mine that contained a bibliography for a paper I am working on. I wanted to him to look over it and give me any feedback he saw fitting. He commented on a few of the books, The Evolving Self by Robert Kegan (one of his favorite authors), Exclusion and Embrace by Miraslov Volf (which is a great book despite what the cover suggests, causing one to think that the publisher must have simply drawn a blank and solicited the help of a 7th grade graphic design class, only to select the least creative kid), and a couple of others that I’m unfamiliar with. I don’t know if anyone has come across them in their studies but I thought I would ask around just to see. As with any topic, the problem usually isn’t finding relevant resources, but finding the most relevant resources to read within your given time constraints. Anybody have any helpful feedback on these two below?

My top 10 reasons for finally jumping on the blogging bandwagon:

(1) With a blog as a place to write and talk about various topics, I will finally be able to say things at cocktail parties like, “Well as I have written elsewhere, if I may paraphrase myself…” like the bartender from the movie Kicking and Screaming (no, not the one with Will Ferrell. It’s ok, that’s what I first thought too).

(2) In thinking about the social existence of humanity and the role that recognition plays in the making and taking of life, I decided that without a blog I couldn’t exist in the world of blogs. [However, this "new life" is thoroughly contingent upon others reading and responding to the things I write. Otherwise my blogging life will be short lived] Today, apparently, Descartes’ dictum, “I think , therefore I am” has been replaced by , “I post, therefore I am.” Or, so says Wired magazine.

(3) So people who write articles for Wired magazine can be justified in their stereotypes of people today.

(4) If Jesus had decided to become man today instead of during the 1st century, he definitely would have had a blog! (WWJD?)

(5) The 12 disciples, following in the footsteps of Jesus (NB: the use of the words “footsteps” and “Jesus” here in the same sentence is not intended to conjure up images of the popular “Footsteps” picture/story where some person who had been walking on a beach with Jesus wonders why there was only one set of footsteps during the difficult times…You know the one. No, I mean following in his footsteps in the sense of following his example as their Rabbi), would have followed suit and started blogs as well. However, I could see there being some problems, like some sort of internal contention among the disciples over which was the greatest: Blogspot or WordPress; maybe Peter denying that he ever posted on Jesus’ blog or was a friend on his Facebook; Judas questioning Jesus on why he didn’t use his blog space for advertising in order to make money to give to the poor; Thomas having a hard time believing in the reality of the World Wide Web, which allowed for the existence of Jesus’ blog, because it wasn’t something he couldn’t see and touch.

(6) Because writing is the prune of learning that prevents intellectual constipation.

(7) I’m sure “starting a blog” is somewhere on the list of things white people do.

(8) Blogging is kinda like writing. So starting a blog, and therefore being a writer by extension, I can justify the many hours I spend in coffee shops reading and playing on the internet, buying pastries that are overpriced and unfilling (though incredibly good!), drinking coffee in ungodly quantities, and always being broke.

(9) Well…everyone else is doing it. I mean, seriously…come on.

(10) With a blog I can simply delete anyone’s comments who disagree with what I have to say so that I don’t have to listen.