media

Beauty, Bodies and Blunders

April 5, 2013 by Bo Sanders 28 Comments

President Obama got in some hot water for a compliment he paid California Attorney General Kamala Harris. He said:

You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country — Kamala Harris is here. (Applause.) It’s true. Come on. (Laughter.) And she is a great friend and has just been a great supporter for many, many years. [via The Los Angeles Times]

A remark like that is never going to go over well. It was just one sentence but we could talk for days about it!

I know that I am an odd bird in that I often see the silver lining in things that other people think are really bad – like taking the Lord’s name in vain. I like that people do it. It means that the name of God still carries some gravity. No one is cursing Thor when they smash their thumb with a hammer. No one is blaspheming Zeus when they get cut off in traffic. Anyway …

I was happy to see the outrage and level of outcry over the President’s remarks. I love when stuff like this happens outside the walls of the church and I think to myself “Ok, it’s not just us that are sensitive, reactive and protest-ant. Good, I was starting to worry”.

You have to forgive me. I come from a very muscular – testosterone – ‘Wild at Heart’ brand of Christianity. In the last decade I have migrated to a progressive – critical theory – ‘She Who Is’ brand of faith.

The thing that has been most difficult for me is to figure out what to do with the body.

As a contextual theologian and an Ancient-Future practitioner, I am deeply concerned with issues of incarnation and embodiment of the gospel. Our faith can not be merely intellectual, super-natural or institutional. Our faith must embodied, or in-bodied and lived-out.

I have figured out, through 6 years of blogging, how to talk with conservative, evangelical, and charismatic Christians about almost everything related to faith and practice in ways that they can hear. The issues of sexuality remain the most illusive.

The problem seems to relate to a giant pot-hole in the road to understanding that is so treacherous it almost doesn’t leave enough room to move without careening into the pit of ‘natural design’.

What complicates matter all the more is that there is a serious ditch on the other side of the road – one that was dug by Augustine’s legacy (I hate Augustine’s influence on church history) regarding the badness of the body, a specifically sexuality.

Here then is the issue: If I am talking about somebody and I’m listing all of that they bring to the table in areas of smarts, relationship, experience, and capacity … am I to act like they don’t have a flesh container? It asks me to act like they have no body.

Yes. That is what we want you to do. Jonathan Chait at New York explains:

For those who don’t see the problem here, the degree to which women are judged by their appearance remains an important hurdle to gender equality in the workforce. Women have a hard time being judged purely on their merits. Discussing their appearance in the context of evaluating their job performance makes it worse. It’s not a compliment. And for a president who has become a cultural model for many of his supporters in so many other ways, the example he’s setting here is disgraceful. [New York]

Even while I write this I can hear my more conservative Christian brothers saying “That is ridiculous! This is the sissy-fication of our culture.” To which I can only reply,”Yes. It is the leveling of a historically unequal playing field.”

I get why culturally, we don’t want the President even acknowledging her flesh container at all. We don’t want pastors commenting on congregant’s looks. I get it.

But as thinking christians, is anyone else worried about the implications for this kind of willful charade? Do we think that President Obama doesn’t see her? Are we under the impression that he doesn’t notice her beauty? Do we think that she, in her private moments, doesn’t want to be found attractive? Do we think that she doesn’t invest time and energy in her looks?

“It doesn’t matter! Just don’t say it. Not ever ever ever.” And I get that. What I am asking about is the ramifications for the embodied practices of the life of faith. What we have learned from church history (and reality TV)- from fundamentalist pastor’s daughters to celibate priests – is that repression of desires in one place (public) is bound to cause pressure which bubbles up some place else (private).

We have to break the ‘old boys network’ mentality. I get that. I am worried about the secondary effect of perpetuating a deadly dualism between body and mind/soul.

I clearly need help thinking this through. Anyone want to chime in on this?

Filed Under: church history, engaging, latest, media, news, politics, post-something, thinking Tagged With: Attorney General, Augustine, body, book, books, California, church, conservative, controversy, female, feminist, gender, God, hot water, image, incarnation, jesus, Kamala Harris, Liberal, looks, prayer, President Obama, sex, sexual, sexuality

The Problem With The New Pope

April 4, 2013 by Bo Sanders 20 Comments

It has been amazing to watch both the amount of reporting and the kind of reporting that Pope Francis’ style has drawn. You can find stories about him in major magazines, on every news website … even the Daily Show gave some hilarious attention to the hype.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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I was on an Australian radio show the day of his election – they liked the angle that I had taken on my blog focusing on the Southern hemisphere. [I will put the 4 minute clip at the bottom of this post] I was on after the Australian Ambassador from Argentina.

Some of my co-workers are Catholic and Pope Francis’ dealing provide us with every-other-day content for our coffee-pot conversations. Even my wife, who is generally not that interested in such things, is into it.

She asked me, on a recent road trip after several news stories, why I thought people were so into Francis. I have three thoughts and would love to hear other’s thoughts.

There are still 1.6 Billion Catholics worldwide. That is 1/6 of everyone on the planet. Who is their leader matters a lot.

I know that not every Catholic listens to the Pope and that the Pope does not influence every thing … but it is still a big deal.

Between the elaborate displays of the Vatican and the global sex-abuse scandal – both of which are hard to figure out from reading the gospels – the Catholic church has been having a rough time of it in the court of public opinion.

Francis’ style is not just a breath of fresh air – it is substantially different. What he did on Maundy Thursday was not just a ‘break with tradition’, as reports kept repeating, but was significant. Washing & kissing prisoner’s feet instead of priest’s is not window dressing

Protestants seems to be fascinated with Pope-drama like Americans are fascinated with Royals. I don’t really get either.

It’s like we are enamored with the figure-head of the thing we left so long ago. I chalk it up to some sort of fetish thing for regal gowns, bejeweled crowns and antiquated (and sometimes secret) ceremonies.

There is one problem though. Protestants seem to want the Pope to be more protestant.

Almost all of the critique or concern I heard about him is something that would be more emblematic of protestant values or approaches. He is following the church’s traditional stance on (just to name 4):

Contraception
Celibacy
Women in ministry
Homosexuality

I want to holler at people when they are disappointed in this

“Of course he is – otherwise he wouldn’t have been elected Pope”.

It feels to me like somebody saying “I like the new Miss USA … I just wish she was built like a Linebacker in football.” Well … I hate to break it to you but that’s not going to happen. In fact, people who are built to play linebackers don’t make it to the Miss USA pageant. That is just not what the judges are looking for.

What I wish we would instead focus on is his economic dealings, immigration issues (he is the son of immigrants) and out-reach to non-Europeans. I continue to claim that just those 3 will make this a game-changer.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Filed Under: engaging, latest, media, news, thinking Tagged With: Argentina, Bible, book, books, Catholic, church, complain, critique, foot washing, Global South, God, jesus, Maundy Thursday, Pope Francis, Protestant, Southern hemisphere, tradition

Homosexuality: the difference between TV and Greek Tragedy

March 27, 2013 by Bo Sanders 21 Comments

Blogging is a fascinating way to interact with people over an issue or topic.

Once in while a blog will unexpectedly come back to life after months of lying dormant. It usually happens when A) somebody references it month later B) when the topic hits the news again. The dying embers leap back to life in flame!

This week my old post on and Evangelical approach to same-sex marriage has fired back up – for obvious reasons. I’m not going to link there because I just can’t wade into the 195 comments without getting lost. I did, however, want to report about a most interesting exchange that came out of it.

Someone who disagreed with my saying that ‘homosexual’ as we currently understand and conceive of the term, never existed until the 19th century. Some people keep wanting to argue about sexual acts and missing that there are broader issues of orientation and identity that were not addressed in Greco-Roman culture or the greek language of the New Testament.

One such person – let’s call him TM – engaged the issue this way:

For example, the statement “The Bible (the inspired written word of God) is not talking about homosexuality. It didn’t exist.” seems somewhat confusing, even if we only focused on the Roman era of indulgences of the First Century. Are you suggesting that homosexuality didn’t exist in this era… simply because they may have called it something else?

This is along the lines of your attempt to make a point about television – in one sense, it didn’t exist; and yet in another, it did – as plays/theater. Are you suggesting that simply because the presentation was different that there weren’t actors and actresses who presented drama, comedy, tragedy and more to a mass audience? Are you really going to argue that because a word didn’t exist that means the concept didn’t exist?

Do you see the how the analogy works? This is really important to see because those who sincerely believe that they are being faithful to the scriptures are often mashing contemporary experiences into ancient writings in a way that is … how should I say this?
Let’s try it a different way: when your faith is constructed in such a way that you need your sacred text to speak to every area of your life – then you will, by necessity, fit your modern data into the provided molds.

My response to TM included 3 points of departure:

“TV is indeed different from ancient theatre.

1) One can sit alone in a house and watch TV, absent of the social connection and crowd interaction.

2) One can also change the channel when it gets boring. You can not do that at the theatre.

3) Plays also so do not have commercials which deeply influence us.

In those three ways I would say that one can not simply say “TV and theatre are the same” as you have.

You are comfortable mashing modern categories onto the ancient & calling them the same. This willingness to mash is why you are frustrated that the Bible isn’t talking about what we are talking about. TV is a different medium than ancient theatre – I hope that you can see that.”

It seems like a great example of the where the ‘two’ sides are missing each other in this debate.

It reminds me a great deal of the ongoing issues of conservatives ‘starting in the middle’ that I am perpetually having to point out.

That is where Ray Comfort takes the highly refined and cultivated modern banana and reads meaning, design, and intention back into it by the ‘creator’ – even going as far as it’s fit to the human hand, its easy pull tab opening, and its built-in disposal wrapping.

Maybe it would be easier for us to talk about TV & theatre in a categorical way before we wade into the elevated hostilities of the same-sex debate.

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, conversations, engaging, latest, media, news, politics, public policy, thinking Tagged With: ancient, Bible, church, conservative, court, gay, God, homosexual, homosexuality, jesus, marriage, modern, news, paul, same sex, science, TV

A Pope from the Southern Hemisphere! This is a game-changer

March 13, 2013 by Bo Sanders 22 Comments

For those of us from missionary backgrounds, we have saying (myself for almost 2 decades) that if when the Catholic Church elects a pope from the Southern Hemisphere – S. America, Africa, Asia, or Islands – that is would be a game changer.

Well that has happened.

Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina will be known as Pope Francis and it is nearly impossible to overstate how monumental this is.

You don’t have to be Catholic. You can think that the white smoke and all the pomp & circumstance is a bunch of hooey. You can roll your eyes and some of the superstitious or antiquated elements of the various varieties of global expressions.

What you can not do is ignore how important this is.

In his 2007 book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Philip Jenkins talked not only about the rise of Pentecostalism is the Southern Hemisphere but the importance of the unique Catholic expressions and hybrids as well.

Read any book about globalization and you will see how much this is going to matter in the inter-connected, trans-national, multi-cultural 21st century.

This is the primary reason that even as I have transitioned to working at a Mainline church, attending a Liberal school, and adopting Process theology as my main conversation partner … I have continued to carry the banner of Pentecostal-Charismatic expressions of the church and to have post-colonial studies as one of my cognate fields for my PhD.

I take this stuff seriously and I am under the impression that you should too.

Since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960′s the Catholic church has undergone many serious changes. The sex abuse scandals of the past decades have been crippling – especially in the North Atlantic countries of Europe and N. America.

I am not saying that this one change fixes all that. That would be silly. What I am saying that is a non-white face, from South of the equator, speaking Spanish … it is going to be big.

I have been asked several times in the last month what my opinion of the Pope change was. I have repeatedly said:

Unless they elect a Pope from the Southern Hemisphere, I have nothing to say.

We they did, and now I do. I will write more this weekend after I turn in my massive paper due Friday.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Filed Under: church history, latest, media, news, politics, thinking Tagged With: Argentina, Bible, book, books, Catholic, church, Francis, God, jesus, Language, New pope, Pentecostal, scandal, sex abuse, Southern hemisphere, spanish, vatican

Entertaining Empire

February 27, 2013 by Bo Sanders 14 Comments

I’m almost done reading The Secret History of the American Empire by John Perkins. The subtitle is “The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World”.

It is the follow up to his first book Confessions of an Economic Hitman. He details how global corporations, American foreign policy and military – along with Non-Goverment Organizations (NGOs) – pull the string around the world. It is a fascinating look at how money really changes hands, gives directions to both politics and news, and effects everything that we think, touch, buy, see and believe.

It has me thinking.

Last year we were chatting with Tony Jones about his book A Better Atonement. He asked Tripp and I what the theology nerds had been reading and we told him that we were really excited about the book that Joerg Reiger, written with Nestor Miguez and Jung Mo Sung, had put out “Beyond the Spirit of Empire” was challenging us.

Tony’s response was that he was kind of tired of all the empire talk. We were surprised.

I have thought about that aspect of our conversation more than any other. So I wanted to throw out this segment from Perkins’ book in order to set up something that I want to talk about next week.

Empire. It has been bandied about in the press and classrooms and at local pubs for the last few years. But what exactly is an empire?

Empire: nation-state that dominates other nation-states and exhibits one or more of the following characteristics:

1) exploits resources from the lands it dominates,
2) consumes large quantities of resources—amounts that are disproportionate to the size of its population relative to those of other nations,
3) maintains a large military that enforces its policies when more subtle measures fail,
4) spreads its language, literature, art, and various aspects of its culture throughout its sphere of influence,
5) taxes not just its own citizens, but also people in other countries, and
6) imposes its own currency on the lands under its control.

That is the part that I want to talk about. Since I will be leaving this up over the weekend while I am attending to other things, I thought it would also be good to post some of what he does with it.

Addressing each of the above points:
Points 1 and 2. The United States represents less than 5 percent of the world’s population; it consumes more than 25 percent of the world’s resources. This is accomplished to a large degree through the exploitation of other countries, primarily in the developing world.
Point 3. The United States maintains the largest and most sophisticated military in the world. Although this empire has been built primarily through economics—by EHMs—world leaders understand that whenever other measures fail, the military will step in, as it did in Iraq.
Point 4. The English language and American culture dominate the world.
Points 5 and 6. Although the United States does not tax countries directly, and the dollar has not replaced other currencies in local markets, the corporatocracy does impose a subtle global tax and the dollar is in fact the standard currency for world commerce.
This process began at the end of World War II when the gold standard was modified; dollars could no longer be converted by individuals, only by governments. During the 1950s and 1960s, credit purchases were made abroad to finance America’s growing consumerism, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. When foreign businessmen tried to buy goods and services back from the United States, they found that inflation had reduced the value of their dollars—in effect, they paid an indirect tax. Their governments demanded debt settlements in gold. On August 15, 1971, the Nixon administration refused and dropped the gold standard altogether.

I am not primarily as interested in that, per se, but I know that is where many people’s minds will go so I thought I would include it.
I would be interested in your thoughts on the subject.
How does the topic of ‘empire’ sit with you and if I were to address it, what would be your hesitations.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, media, news, politics, thinking Tagged With: book, books, economy, empire, Global, joerg rieger, politics

What Is Rick Warren Reading?

February 22, 2013 by Bo Sanders 65 Comments

Rick Warren provided some of us with a lot of fun the past two days on Twitter. He had sent out a message:

“New churches: Buy land as soon as you can but delay building for as long as you can. Cant explain all the reasons here.”

This set off one of the funniest followup memes I have seen called #RickWarrenTips.

Those, however, are not the Warren tweets that I want to discuss. Earlier Warren had fired two out of the blue shots at ‘liberals’. I had just finished my progressive and liberal post at Jesus Creed and so I was really interested.

Here are his two quotes:

Liberal theology cannot sustain a local congregation. It kills churches. In fact, It only survives due to tenured academics.

and

Liberal theology has never created any university. It just sucks the life our of those that were started by Bible believers.

Plenty of people had push-back on the last bit of revisionist history. I’m not so concerned with the accuracy of his content …my question is what do you think spawned or sparked it?

What is Rick Warren reading that even has him thinking about liberals?
Did he get in an argument with someone?
Is he watch watching something on TV about liberals?
Is he watching Fox News or something?

So I thought it would be fun to throw it out here and see what wild speculations you might have.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, media Tagged With: #rickwarrentips, Bible, book, church, Culture, God, jesus, Liberal, Rick Warren, twitter, University

Is the Internet for Women and Gays?

February 12, 2013 by Bo Sanders 5 Comments

“Is the internet for women and gays?” may seem like at odd question at first – but there is a story behind it. I am coming at the question as a researcher. I am doing research design at UCLA right now in preparation for my dissertation next year. One of the research questions is in relation to technology, the community of users interacts with the technology, and possible issues related to who conceived of and designed the technology.

An interesting case study is found in the Grindr social network community. Grindr is a widely popular mobile, GPS-enabled hook-up app for gays. The folks at Grindr had the idea to launch a ‘straight’ version called Blendr, and it has been massive failure. [You can read about why it failed here and here and here ]

One of the theories is that Grindr was conceived of and designed by gays. A hypothesis we were testing is that embedded in the ‘DNA’ of the technology was something inherently ‘gay’ that resonated with its users but was lost in translation when the conversion to Blendr was attempted.

During this research I have also become aware of a growing problem of cyber-bullying, particularly of women and LBGT persons. It shows up on Facebook, Xbox chat rooms during multi-player games, and blogs.

One article about women bloggers contained two different women’s experience.

“The death threat was pretty scary,” says HollaBack! cofounder Emily May. “And there have been several rape threats. But it’s mostly ‘I want to rape you’ or ‘Somebody should rape you.’ Most are not physical threats–they’re more about how ugly I am, how nobody would bother raping me because I’m so fat and hideous. Once, after reading all these posts, I just sat in my living room and bawled like a 12-year-old.”

Jennifer Pozner agrees. “Very rarely have I gotten negative feedback that doesn’t include either a rape threat or calling me ugly and fat. Or sometimes they tell me I’m hot, but they hate what I’m saying– they’d rather watch me on TV with the mute on.” Pozner’s threats have not been limited to online: One man left a letter at her door saying he’d “find you and your mom and rape you both.”

Ponzer says “It’s about the policing of women … using threats to keep us silent.”

It is clear that many of the same oppressive behaviors, patriarchal attitudes and hurtful rhetoric that plague us in the ‘real world’ show up in cyberspace. Is a matter for concern? Is this a surprising reality? Does this need to be addressed?

The question “Is the internet for women and gays?” seems to have 3 initial answers that each expose some significant underlying assumptions.

The first possible answer is “Of course it is! In fact, it is a powerful leveler of the social hierarchies and power structures that dominate our inherited cultural history” . The internet is seen to be a democratic space that allows for harmful elements to be exposed and for the community to vocalize and govern in ways that are newly empowering. It allows us the possibility to combat bullies and shame those who are hurtful to others.

The second possible answer relates to the idea that embedded in the DNA of technology are the values and priorities (as well a biases) of it’s designer. In this case, it would make sense that many of the same problems in Western culture are carried over into the technologies that are conceived of and designed by folks from the culture. It is the same shit by different means. Same prejudice – different medium.

A third possible answer is that technology is an empty vessel when it comes to values and we, as users, supply it with meaning and content. So a message board, Facebook page, blog and XBox chat room are just spaces that we utilize. They are neutral and can be used in socially positive (welcoming) or negative (aggressive or discriminatory) ways.

Why am I concerned about this?

This issues concerns me in two ways:

1) I am deeply troubled to read of women bloggers being threatened and intimidated – even virtually. I am concerned about stories I hear from the girls in my youth group about their Facebook experiences. My wife has worked in both Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Counseling while I have been in youth ministry. Issues related intimidation, violence and oppression-suppression are serious and deeply impact the quality of someone’s life, their mental and emotional health and their capacity to participate in family, church and society.

2) Technology seems to be a good test case for a much larger concern that I have regarding leadership and community development in the next generation. This particular issue gives me great hesitation about getting too excited regarding this potential new era of open-mindedness, equality, acceptance and freedom. The issue is simply this:
We who have been trained, groomed, shaped, and socialized into the old forms – bring with us into the new forms, our patterns, values, ideas, permissions and prejudices.

It’s like whenever someone complains about a perceived shortcoming in the Emerging Church, I find myself saying

“yes … but part of that has to do with that which we are emerging from. These are inherited patterns because we are all embedded in systems that contain inherent values. It will take a while to entirely emerge out of that.”

To take this back to our initial question about technology. Technology isn’t the solution to the problems that haunt us. They may be helpful for bringing about the solution – but simply have an open room – Facebook, Xbox chat or blog – is not a fix in itself. The prejudices and issues of power that are ‘outside’ the room are brought in with the people who come in to use the space.

This seems to me to be an import issue to vocalize. My hope is that in simply naming it to raise awareness that technology is not inherently neutral, safe, or equal. There is more going on in our use of Facebook, Xbox chats and blogs than just our use of those technologies. They are not absent of the values, patterns, prejudices and social power dynamics of the world and culture that made them.

We need to be vigilant to address hurtful and harmful material in our technologies. Technology is not neutral – it is embedded with meaning and value.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, living, media, news, random Tagged With: Blendr, blog, bully, Facebook, Gridr, internet, intimidation, LGBT, men, sex, technology, threats, use, violence, Women, Xbox

The Silent White Guy and Invisible Black Women

February 6, 2013 by Bo Sanders 15 Comments

A record number of people read the post yesterday “Beyonce and the Bigger Question”. I want to thank everyone who commented on the blog, FaceBook and Twitter for making the conversation so fruitful and constructive. It is a difficult question and we certainly have an issue with race in our society.

I am also glad that people seemed to like the idea of Critical Theory and the structure of the questions that I put forward.

I did notice 2 places where the conversation trickled to an drip.

One is the issue of what white guys are allowed to talk about.

Two is the way to talk about the role of black women in our society without picking on Beyonce.

Let me give those some background:

My friend Hollie Baker-Lutz tweeted yesterday a sentiment that I hear quite frequently

“Uh oh, overheard in the university cafe: “and I can’t say anything in that class cuz I’m a white male, which is the worst thing u can be.”

I get this all the time from guys young and old alike. I think something may be missing from that equation however.
Here are two things it would be helpful to add to the mix:

an acknowledgement that the world is changing.
a familiarity of the word hegemony.

If you add those 2 things, it has been my experience that people are generally open to hear what you have to say. People are quite interested.

What they are not interested in is the hegemonic refrain. See, here is the problem: because that is the dominant cultural narrative … they have already heard it. They know it well. They may know it better than you because they have had to deal with it – whereas you have only assumed it and benefited uncritically from it.

The second issue came from my friend Janisha when she wrote in response to yesterday’s post:

I appreciate your article and your attempt to think deeply. I don’t think anyone except for black women can truly determine what are primary and secondary issues.
The place of black women in society as a primary issue has with it endless complications, including “taking back one’s physicality in the face of generations of oppression and marginalization.”
My place in this culture is directly linked to taking back my physicality, because my black womanhood is my physicality. They aren’t different. they cannot be separated. I will argue again, that this conversation is difficult to have unless you are a black woman, because who else can fully understand the implications of Beyonce?

MP responded:

I get what you (Janisha) are saying about the black woman conversation and I don’t want to butt into it, white man that I am. But that conversation would be about actual black womanhood, whereas this one is about public spectacle, one created and much enjoyed by white men. So there’s a white man conversation to be had about why we (white men) have created a category of “black women” who occupy this particular place in our spectacle.

… Bo, I wonder how to tackle the issue of “what place black women hold in our culture” without picking apart actual cases like Beyonce’s half-time show??

MP makes 2 excellent points!

- The first situation I would compare to ‘reader response’ approaches to text. We have the author-text-reader.
In this case we have Beyonce-Performance-Viewer.

So each of us viewers is related to the performance differently so ‘white men’ and ‘black women’ may be relating to the performance differently.

- In the second I just think that we need to be VERY clear the difference between an example and an anecdote. Focusing in one example can be illustrative or it can be problematic.

I would hesitate to use this performance by Beyonce as an example – she is not the only one who dances like this. Lots of performers do. Also white women (like Christina and Britney) do. So it is not unprecedented.

NFL Cheerleading squads do many of the same moves in much the same outfits … the difference is that
A) they don’t have a microphone and
B) we don’t know their name.

Which is a HUGE difference.
If we want to talk about male sexuality and football we should have the Cheerleader conversation. That is every team – every week.

If we want to have the ‘place that black women hold in our society’ conversation, then we would ask a different set of questions. Like ‘where were the other black women during the 5 hour broadcast of America’s largest TV event of the year?’ Since it is a commercial event … maybe we would even take a look at the commercials and ask how black women were represented.

Either way – isolating the one performance by Beyonce is not our best starting point.

Filed Under: conversations, engaging, latest, living, media, news, thinking Tagged With: Beyonce, black, cheerleaders, Christian, commercials, controversy, Culture, God, half time, hegemony, men, performance, privilege, race, racism, sex, sexuality, society, song, songs, SuperBowl, theology, white, Women

Beyoncé and the Bigger Question

February 5, 2013 by Bo Sanders 30 Comments

It is with great interest that I have read the blowback over the Beyoncé SuperBowl Half-Time Show. I have read several interesting articles – both in support and in criticism – of the spectacle.

I get why people want to talk about her outfit, her moves, and her assembled cast of all females – about modesty, sexuality, and female empowerment. I get why those are conversation points.

What is becoming a trend, however, is that I have little interest in that conversation – not until we have a more significant conversation first.

I think that it is time I lay all my cards on the table.

While I was in seminary, my mentor Randy Woodley, showed me how to look at bigger systems and structures than I was used to. I have continued down that road and during my time at Claremont have been in dialogue with a school of thought called ‘Critical Theory’.

Critical Theory has taught me to ask 3 initial questions in order to examine an issue:

Is there a pattern visible?
Is there something behind the main thing?
Is there any issue of power differential?

The Critical part is that we are going beyond the initial perceptions, the popular approach and the cultural conversation. The Theory part is that we are going to see if we might offer an explanation about the deeper issue.

SO let’s ask our 3 questions about the SuperBowl Half-Time hullaballoo.

Is there a pattern visible?

I would argue that there is. I noticed it just before kickoff – during the Nation Anthem to be specific. Alecia Keys was introduced, Jennifer Hudson had just sang with the kids from Sandy Hook … and I knew that Beyoncé was the halftime show.

I thought to myself:

“It’s odd that the only 3 black women involved in this TV spectacular are all singers.”

I noticed that CBS didn’t even have a black female sideline reporter like Pam Oliver (on FOX) for its NFL broadcasts. I watched the rest of the festivities – including all the military stuff – and was struck by the noticeable lack of black women associated with the event. Walter Payton’s daughter presented Jason Witten with the NFL Man of the Year award … but that was about it. None of the coaches or commentators … not even many of the commercials involved black women. This seemed significant since so many of the on-screen TV personalities, coaches and players are black.

Is there something behind the main thing?

It is easy to see the answer to this one. The answer is consumerism. While the game itself is ‘the main event’ the commercial aspect of the SuperBowl has become at-least or almost as big. Commercials this year sold for a reported 4 million dollars a piece. Like the controversy we covered yesterday in the ‘So God Made a Farmer’, commercialism-capitalism-consumerism is the unspoken thing.

It might be hard to see in a short blog post like this but Beyoncé isn’t the telling controversy. The more telling one was the criticism of Alicia Keys’ soulful rendition of the national anthem. People criticized her not just for sitting at a piano (!) but for altering the tried and true version of the song.

In CT when something is assumed – even if unstated – as a dominant form, it is called hegemony. It is a type of power or influence that may or may not be overtly communicated. If one were to look at just the first half of the SuperBowl broadcast, it might be possible to say that the major narrative when it comes black women is twofold:

you can sing – we like that.
but make sure you do it our way. Don’t do anything too much or too … you know… that’s not why you are here.

Is there any issue of power differential?

This is the one that we never get around to talking about. Maybe it’s because we don’t know how to or don’t have frameworks for it. There is a question that needs to be asked though: who decided that Jennifer Hudson, Alecia Keys and Beyoncé would sing? What did that committee look like? Who are in those seats of power?

Did the group that decided who would sing look like Jennifer Hudson, Alecia Keys, and Beyoncé?

I don’t know, I’m asking an honest question. It’s the tough question that no one wants to ask. Who has the resources? Who has the influence? Who makes the decisions? Who sits in the seats of power?

Now you can see why I am not interested in talking about whether Beyoncé should have had more clothes on, should have gyrated less or is a model for taking back one’s physicality in the face of generations of oppression and marginalization.

Those are all secondary conversations.

The primary conversation is about what place black women hold in our culture.

It is a much bigger conversation with much deeper consequences than if Beyonce’s hips and wardrobe were appropriate for a Half-Time show.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, media, news, post-something, thinking Tagged With: ad, Alecia Keys, Beyonce, black, book, books, controversy, critical, dance, half time, Jennifer Hudson, national anthem, Pam Oliver, power, race, racism, racist, roles, sex, sexual, show, sing, Super Bowl, theory, TV, Women

So God Made a Farmer? and other things that are kinda true

February 4, 2013 by Bo Sanders 25 Comments

Not feeling so well, I watched the Superbowl alone. When the commercial came on that featured Paul Harvey reading his ‘so God made a farmer’ piece, I thought “nice tribute” - and nothing more.

I woke up this morning to find a buzz surrounding the spot – both good and bad. Some are claiming it the winner of the prestigious ‘best SuperBowl add’ and others are decrying it as a rip off and an overly sentimentalized piece of blatantly romanticized platitude.

I am fascinated with the power of words and specifically how, in our culture, there seems to be no understanding OF language and examination of its use. We act like words are just what the appear to be – but don’t look at how the function to re-present (or signify) a greater reality to us.

Yesterday at church we had a major conversation about masculine pronouns for god and use of the word Satan. We are going through the book StoryLine by Donald Miller and not only does Miller only refer to god as ‘He’, but god only has classically masculine attributes. I got taken to task for selecting the book as our new year reading.

My defense is that ‘it’s just language’. So while it may not be the best language, I never thought that we would swallow it whole – hook, line, and sinker.
When it comes to the ‘Satan’ thing, yes – I wish that Miller had used ‘the devil’ or ‘our enemy’ or ‘evil’ or ‘darkness’. I assumed that we all knew it was a kind of personification. Maybe I am just secure in second naiveté for my own good. I didn’t know that we still had to clarify that we don’t believe in an actual ancient cosmic bad guy but that it was a way for us to talk about forces that hurt us and others and destroys the good that God has called us to.

Earlier in our gathering we sang the song “How can I keep for singing your praise” and it has the line “I am loved by the King, it makes my heart want to sing.” It’s how language works! It is an analogy. It is comparison. It is not exacting or mathematical. No – I don’t think that god is literally a King. The age of monarchs is over … it is just a classical way to conceptualize. It’s poetic.

Side Note: I have been clear that language about god is not univocal. It is not a 1:1 equation. I have also talked openly about female pronouns for god (in God never changes, or does She?)

Which brings us back to Paul Harvey’s “so God made a farmer”. Of course god didn’t make a farmer – it is being poetic. Someone might say “well God did make Adam to care for the garden and to work the soil.” Which is a fair enough point … but in saying that, we are not saying that God made a modern farmer who uses double-axled combines and herbicides made in laboratories.

I am suspicious that the reason that we would either get so excited or so upset is if we were lacking a theory about how language works. Then I have to remind myself, we are the same country where a lot of people try to read the book of Revelation as literal – a completely novel way to read the Bible that has sprung up in the just the past 200 years.

So maybe that explains both the accolades and the criticism of the ‘So God Made a Farmer’ ad. If you don’t get imagery, poetry, analogy … and think that language represents exactly what it signifies … then I suppose this one would be worth getting all fired up about.

When we say that God created a farmer – we don’t mean that God literally created a farmer. It is a poetic tribute. Noting more. Not worth getting fired up by or upset about. It’s just nice language.

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One of my projects for the next decade is to take some of the theories of structuralism, and post-structuralism – mix them in with some Lindbeck style analysis and figure out how we are gunna help initiate folks who have never considered this stuff before.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, media, thinking Tagged With: ad, Bible, book, books, commercial, donald miller, farmer, God, Paul Harvey, Storyline, SuperBowl, truck, TV

Claremont School of Theology