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Things have really changed in 30 years (Day 18)

March 21, 2013 by Bo Sanders 8 Comments

Things have really changed in 30 years. It is nearly impossible to overstate how monumental the shift has been! You can see it in areas from:

Technology
Spirituality
Denominational loyalty
Media

and so many other categories. We could talk about evangelism, Facebook, homework, dating, church, shopping, elections, and never run out of material for how much things have changed in that last 30 years.

Tim Vickery, a soccer columnist in S. America, was sick one week and spent his time on the couch watching reruns of Seinfeld. He had an epiphany: Seinfeld had to have been made before the invention of the cell-phone! 90% of the show’s plots would have been foiled by one simple cell phone call.

I went back and watched some Seinfeld episodes after Tim pointed this out. It is actually shocking to see. I am also amazed at how important a role cell phones play in contemporary films and TV shows. Most of plot lines could not happen without that new technology.

I’m blogging my way through Neighbors and Wisemen for Lent. In this chapter Tony’s Dad distances himself from a co-worker who wants to get to know him better and to talk about things of faith. He does this because the co-worker is a Mormon.

I remember the days when was considered a righteous and sincere response. Tony’s dad was a devout man who read the BIble everyday. His reaction to the co-workers request is something that I have seem a bunch from that generation.

Things have changed, and continue to change, quite a bit in just one generation.

Another story involved Kym the Insider voicing concern that non-christians would be invited to participate with a group of believers in doing good. Acts of compassion and kindness can only be done by those who claim to do them in Jesus’ name? or else they become tainted?

It would be hard to hold that line these days … but people do.

Double Judgment: I had a kid in my youth group a few years ago who’s family attended a neighboring local Bible church. The kid’s father was very concerned about this very issue. The kid reported to me that if somebody who was not a Christian did something kind – something that would have been chalked up to righteousness for a believer – that they were heaping judgment on themselves in the eyes of God.

You see, if a non-christian gives to the needy or feeds the hungry, they are doing it for the wrong reason (to feel better about themselves) or for the wrong motive (to relieve their guilty conscience) and in so doing they are actually mocking God and being selfish.

I talked to the kid and the dad at length about this. I questioned: your telling me that if somebody who is without saving faith in Jesus does what Jesus said to do – that they are actually making it worse for themselves on judgment day?

Yes, that is what they were saying. You see, if you belong to the right ‘bank’ then all these good deeds are credited to your account. BUT if you are outside of God’s system then you are actually racking up a larger debt that you owe because you are doing these good deeds in your own power and for your own satisfaction/glory.

If you are a sinner, you should act like a sinner – not a good person – so that you come to the end of yourself sooner and repent of your sinful selfish ways.

A non-christian who does good deeds is only masking their need for repentance. They think that they are thus a good person because they do good deeds.

Tony ends the chapter with a poem-ism thing. That poem sounds socialist and new age-y.

Oh wait … I just figured out that is from the Bible… only a different translation/rendering. All I have to say about that is: stop messing with my Bible.

I welcome your thoughts and stories about all of this!

Filed Under: conversations, latest Tagged With: 30 years, Bible, book, books, changes, church, dating, denomination, elections, evangelism, Facebook, generation, God, history, homework, jesus, loyalty, Media, shopping, society, spirituality, technology, Tony Kriz

Rob Bell is Gay Affirming but not everyone is happy about it

March 19, 2013 by Bo Sanders 40 Comments

Rob Bell, among others, has come out as open to Same Sex Marriage (SSM) - but not everyone is on-board with it.

David Fitch (with a Canadian connection) posted this:

Who is Rob Bell speaking for/to in affirming gay marriage? His (former) church? Christians at large? The press? Culture observers? Gay Christians (in Grace Church SF)? Why or who should be paying attention to him? and Why?

More and more I’m seeing Christian leaders who have no congregation/people they’re accountable to (who yet carry media/publishing driven leadership) create division with pronouncements. This results in damage to the church’s wherewithal for witness in a world that sees all this. I don’t know if Rob Bell is to blame (for the media) but I do think we Christians should not encourage this nonsense. (On the other hand, I can listen to the Pope differently because he stands within 2000 years of a tradition so that he cannot make statements without being accountable to it).

When we listen to a Christian leader we should first and foremost look at place of ministry/accountability from which he/she speaks. What say you? agree?

Jason Postma (another Canadian connection) added this:

Newsflash: Neither is Rob Bell is not the first Christian to “come out” in support of marriage equality nor is he single-handedly destroying the Church in sharing his opinion.
I would go as so far as to say that the culture-warrior saber rattling in response to Bell is more divisive than anything else precisely because it serves to marshal support and draw lines in the sand, none of which is helpful for unity or for opening the possibility for a charitable discussion.

I should point out that Postma added many bold posts including:

Question: when did support for marriage equality become a theology boundary that could not be crossed when there remains a robust theological pluralism on things that are central to the faith, like, I don’t know, the atonement, justification, ecclesiology, etc.?

Here is my thought on the issue:

It can be difficult as a local church pastor to speak out on a very controversial issues.

You feel the weight of your congregation’s expectations.
You feel a responsibility to your denomination/ ordaining body.
You feel the pastoral/shepherding responsibility to your community.

Those 3 things weigh heavily on you. SO when you are in the pulpit/in the employment of a local congregation – you might not feel all that free to share where you are on any given issue.

Rob Bell, then, being independent of his official responsibilities and obligations, is free to say what he really thinks – and by doing so – to further the cultural conversation in a way that helps those of us who are currently employed at churches within denominations that may not allow us (at the current time) to say such things.

I, for one, am glad that Rob Bell came out as affirming.

No – he is not employed at local congregation any more. But that should not disqualify him from weighing in on the matter.

In fact, his willingness to do so may be the exact opportunity that some of us who have:
A) a smaller spotlight and
B) responsibilities at a local church
to speak up for something that we have deep convictions about but don’t want to assume our entire congregations are with us is.

What do you think?
Is Rob out-of-line as a out-of-work minister?
How do we give voice to issues that our congregations may not be 100% with us?

Filed Under: conversations, engaging, latest, living, thinking Tagged With: affirming, Bible, book, books, church, david fitch, equality, Facebook, gay, God, homosexual, internet, jesus, marriage, Rob Bell, sex

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

Fake Picture, Real Prayer and God’s Wrath

October 29, 2012 by Bo Sanders 54 Comments

So it has begun. Hurricane Sandy is only one day in to its battering of the East and the religious have weighed in. I will warn you – it’s not good.

The first thing that caught my attention was a fake picture of ‘the storm’ over NYC

I was introduced to this photo by a worker at our facility today (who listens religiously to the Howard Stern show) and I was immediately suspicious of both the sunshine in the foreground and the speed boat that looks oddly mis-sized.

I thought it humorous until that afternoon when I logged onto Facebook and notices that it had already been shared by hundreds of people. What really caught my attention, though, was a response in the form of a prayer.

My friend had stated in the captions to the photo: “This is an amazing shot of New York today with the Frankenstorm bearing down. Nature is so powerful, yet so beautiful.” I thought “someone should tell him that it’s a fake”. Before I could, someone else had offered this response:

Father, all the elements of nature obey your command. Calm the storms and hurricanes that threaten us and turn our fear of your power into praise of your goodness. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

I was stunned. There are so many elements of this ‘prayer’ that concern me. I was filled with questions. Perhaps the biggest one was : Is there a god who hears these kind of prayers?

This past Sunday at the Loft LA I had preached a sermon called ‘Why Pray?’ about this exact type of thing … so my attention was immediately piqued.

On a side note – I especially appreciated that just hours later this fake meme showed up in the twitter-verse.

I am deeply concerned about people who think that their prayers can command whole weather patterns. This concern is primarily at two levels.

The first is that I know so many of them.
The second is that a wooden reading of the Bible can lead one to think that this is acceptable and permissible.

This kind of stuff really pulls at me as an emerging evangelical-charismatic. I was prepared to let the whole thing go when this showed up on the wire:

[I had written multiple times about John Piper's stupid storm theology and simple Bible reading]

A Christian religious leader has already claimed that Hurricane Sandy is further proof that “God is systematically destroying America” as political judgment for the “homosexual agenda.” John McTernan previously made similar allusions about Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Isaac (2012), which he reiterated in his urgent call to prayer posted Sunday evening (via Gay Star News):

Just last August, Hurricane Isaac hit New Orleans seven years later, on the exact day of Hurricane Katrina. Both hit during the week of the homosexual event called Southern Decadence in New Orleans!

McTernan believes that it is noteworthy that Hurricane Sandy is hitting 21 years after the “Perfect Storm,” because 3 is a “significant number with God”:

Twenty-one years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection.

It appears that God gave America 21 years to repent of interfering with His prophetic plan for Israel; however, it has gotten worse under all the presidents and especially Obama. Obama is 100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem. Both candidates are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda. America is under political judgment and the church does not know it!

Religious spokespeople have frequently tried to draw bizarre connections between natural disasters and the LGBT community. Last year, the American Family Association’s Buster Wilson similarly claimed that Hurricane Isaac was punishment for the Southern Decadence LGBT festival. Rick Joyner had the same to say about Hurricane Katrina, claiming that “[God]‘s not gonna put up with perversion anymore.” Pat Robertson has long believed that acceptance of homosexuality could result in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombs, and “possibly a meteor.”

It’s likely that McTernan will not be the only religious figure to draw such allusions from this devastating storm.

One anti-gay (former lesbian) activist actually targeted the state of Vermont as a litmus test of who her god was mad at. I loved the first comment on the post:

Considering that Lower Manhattan is troublingly at risk, I say there’s a good chance it’s Jesus cleaning up Wall Street – a modern-day version of when He cleared the moneychangers out of the Temple…

As funny as that last comment may be, I am not amused – because it concedes the rules of the game to the antiquated notions of centuries past and abdicates the metaphysical realities of 21st century life to the … let’s just say – the conceptions of bygone eras.

The picture was a fake.
It triggered real prayers.
I respect those intentions.
I questions the ‘god’ who they were offered to.
I am flusted that in the midst of suffering, those who claim Christ offer blame and not compassion.
They justify that stance by saying ‘if you only did what we said was right’.
It signals a pattern of christian response to tragedy.

I am concerned that the fakeness of the pictures and posts we respond to correspond to our notion of reality and our conception of how the world works … and thus how our prayers are effective.

Thoughts? Responses?

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, emergent, engaging, latest, media, news, philosophy, politics, post-something, prayer, science, thinking Tagged With: bay, Bible, church, city, epic, Facebook, fake, Fake Picture, God, God's Wrath, hoax, hurricane, jesus, John Piper, Liberty, New York, NYC, Pat Robertson, Pennsylvania, photoshop, picture, prayer, preacher, Sandy, share, storm, viral

Did Lebron James ‘deserve’ to win the NBA Championship?

June 22, 2012 by Bo Sanders 21 Comments

I like LeBron James. I am a native born Ohio son and I have been hearing about him since he was in High School. My cousin even played against him in a tournament (LeBron won). I get that folks were upset with the way he left Cleveland (a horrible ESPN live debacle that was supposed to be a benevolent fundraiser for some charity that is now long forgotten in the wake of the controversy). But I am still shocked that people are angry at him for leaving Cleveland as a free-agent.

I would like to say that this is long gone in the distant past and that time has healed some wounds. But with LeBron James it seems that time only causes the temperature to rise and intensity of hatred to escalate. I am always taken back with not just the amount of hatin’ on LeBron but the increasing viciousness of it. Then a fellow Ohio-born friend posted this comment this morning. Elud writes:

but I couldn’t help but think about this piece last night as I was watching LeBron win his first title. Being a native Clevelander, my Facebook and Twitter feeds were awash with dismay and vitriol. Yet, I thought a little bit about why it is that there was such a distaste for LeBron winning – yes, primarily because he spurned Cleveland in the most visible and humiliating way — isn’t it because we have this inherit desire to attach winning with virtue and righteousness? Only those that God has blessed prosper? As a previous post acknowledged, this is a convenient excuse for maintaining (and doggedly protecting) institutional and societal structures of power and privilege. Certainly LeBron didn’t “deserve” to win a title and had consigned himself to heartbreaking failure for the rest of his career, because justice wouldn’t have it any other way, right? I find we do this all of the time, not just with sports, but also when analyzing individual and societal outcomes. This implies an “authoritative God” that is consistently pulling strings behind the grand stage, but subsequently undermines the notion of free-will. I don’t necessarily think this is an either/or position, but we have set up this binary that creates these spiritual (and moral) narratives out of success and failure.

This was in response to a piece I put up yesterday questioning whether God is in charge of the Economy. Elud makes a great point. The problem here is actually a merging of three factors – two of which Elud mentions.

The use of simple binaries (us/them, good/bad, right/wrong) warps our lens. Everything then appears bent.
The expectation that good will be rewarded and bad will be punished by some ‘Authoritative God’ figure.

I think that there is a 3rd Factor that makes it combustible. It is actually embedded in the DNA of this country courtesy of those original Calvinists who brought with them the concept of “signs of divine benevolence”. This little mechanism says
‘while we can’t know who is elect unto salvation or damnation – certainly we say that a good tree will bear good fruit. So, while no can know for sure if they are “in” certainly God graces the chosen with “signs of divine benevolence”.

This is how we get that famous “Protestant Work Ethic” in order to make it as easy as possible for God to ‘bless you’. I have heard it said that this Calvinist legacy runs in the American water (like fluoride) and it so assumed and so embedded that people just inherently think this way whether they have been ‘taught’ it or not.

Did LeBron James deserve to win the NBA title? Based on his performance, that answer is clearly ‘yes’. If you are basing it on some abstract notion of virtue and reward … then I guess you can keep on hatin’. It just weirds me out a little bit and causes me to ask “how exactly do people think that the universe works?”

I had the same kind of take during the whole Tim Tebow debacle

Filed Under: engaging, latest, media, news, thinking Tagged With: champion, championship, Cleveland, deserve, ESPN, Facebook, finals, God, good, Hate, LeBron James, NBA, twitter, win

Kony 2012 and Apple’s Mr. Daisy

March 19, 2012 by Bo Sanders 10 Comments

There were two stories in the news last week that fascinated me as I watched them unravel. The first was the meteoric rise of the viral 30 minute video Kony 2012 that took over Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. The second story was an NPR radio episode of This American Life about working conditions in the Apple factories in China. The story centered around a play/monologue by Mr. Daisy about his trip to China to investigate the matter. Over 1 million people had downloaded that NPR podcast – by far an all time record.

Both stories turned tragic last week. Invisible Children, the group responsible for Kony 2012, came under heavy criticism. It turns out that the conflict as it was presented was not all that accurate – It had been accurate in the early 2000s but after 2004 no longer represented the true affairs of the country and Joseph Kony himself had left Uganda and migrated to a neighboring country.

People accused the film’s star Jason Russell and his Invisible Children crew of knowingly misleading people and falsifying content in order to elicit a greater emotional response.

The Apple story went down a similar road for Mr. Daisy. It turns out that he had taken some artistic license in presenting his one-man-show and that not everything he claims would qualify as ‘journalistic standard’ of truthfulness. For instance, while he was in China for that week, he saw a news story about some factory workers in another province suffering horrible effects from a chemical. He never went to that province nor talked to those workers but just imported that story and connected it to his subject. The result was that this one factory seemed to be layers and layers of horrific working conditions – but in reality what was presented was an amalgamation of many factories in several provinces.

In the follow-up interviews this weekend Mr. Daisy said that he took license with the facts because he wanted people to care about this. He knew that the conditions were bad and so orchestrated the story to draw a response.

These two stories, taken together, point to a series of issues that are relevant to the church and her theology.

The first issue is complacency. Both of these ‘presenters’ knew that some tweaks and modifications needed to made in order to overcome our collective complacency. We see so much bad, that unless something is really bad – it just doesn’t register. We are so overwhelmed with images, adverts, messages and pleas that unless something is sensational or horrific, we have evolved mechanisms and filters to catch it and screen it out. The result is that we become complicit in maintaining the status-quo and passive participants in the system, structures and institutions that comprise the ‘Powers the Be’ that Paul reference in Ephesians 6.

The second issue is Paternalism. At some point white people from the West are going to have to stop thinking that the solution to what ails Africa or Asia is us coming over and fixing it. Now, I applaud the generous heart behind both Invisible Children and Mr. Daisy but until we repent of our Colonial impulse and step away from that model of missions, we are going to continue to run into problems and run over the very folks we purport to be helping.

We want to help – that is great.
We do it in our way – and that is hurtful.

There is no doubt that in global system of international trade and foreign policy that the church must come to terms with our inter-connectivity and inter-relatedness in a way that transcends outdated clichés and antiquated platitudes of centuries past. We live in an evolving world that is experiencing exponential and radical change.

I love that good folks want to care about that and not just go shopping to bury their head in the sand. BUT until we repent of our ongoing paternalism and acknowledge the devastating effects of our colonial missions we will continue to replicate the harm and multiply the devastation.

As Christians, do we need to think through and address our participation in the global market and international structures that dominate our contemporary economy? Yes.

If, however, we do not first repent of our Colonial missions mentality, we will continue the pattern of paternalism and Imperial impulse that has created these very situations we want to address.

p.s. I know about Jason Russell’s ~~arrest~~ episode this weekend but did not want to distract from the bigger issue.

Filed Under: church history, engaging, latest, news, thinking Tagged With: Apple, book, books, Christian, church, downloads, Facebook, Invisible Children, Jason Russell, Kony 2012, Mac, megachurch, Mission, missions, Mr. Daisy, NPR, San Diego, This American Life, twitter, white, YouTube

The Church and New Media w/ Brandon Vogt

March 13, 2012 by Bo Sanders 3 Comments

In this interview, Bo talks with Brandon Vogt about “Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet“. Brandon is a Catholic writer and speaker who blogs at The Thin Veil (www.thinveil.net). He writes on spirituality, technology, social-justice, and features regular book reviews and weekly giveaways on his blog. He also manages the Church and New Media blog (www.churchandnewmedia.com) and daylights as a mechanical engineer.

This episode is brought to you by the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, a progressive, interdenominational graduate school that’s rooted in the integration of theology, psychology and culture. We value mission, relationality, praxis, and creativity and this is seen in the students training to be therapists, pastors, leaders and artists that innovate and excel in their calling and career.

Follow them on Twitter @Seattle_School - if you are one of the first 5 people to ask @Seattle_School on twitter, you will get a copy of Dwight Friesen’s new book!

Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Goose and the Sustainable Faith Conference

Standard Podcast [ 56:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Filed Under: engaging, features, podcast, thinking Tagged With: book, books, Catholic, church, Facebook, interact, interactive, Media, new media, Seattle, twitter

Women you’ll Want to Read

February 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 6 Comments

The John Piper controversy from last week was too much for me to deal with. I don’t even have the energy to attempt to respond to that level of simplistic, inane thinking.

Two things: #1 If you want to read an amazing response to Piper (via Rachel Held Evans) then check out HBC Deacon Austin Roberts’ response here:

#2 It might be far more profitable to avoid the whole Twitter/Facebook/Internet argument and read these women:

Elizabeth Johnson on She Who Is

Sally McFague on Metaphorical Language about God

Rosemary Radford Ruether on Sexism and God-Talk

Ellen Leonard on Women and Christ

Monica A. Coleman on Making a Way Out of No Way

Naomi Goldenberg on the Changing of the Gods and the End of Traditional Religions

Rita Nashima Brock on The Feminist Redemption of God (Christianity)

Letty M. Russell on Church in the Round: Feminist Interpretation of the Church

Jacquelyn Grant on Black Women’s Experience as a Source for Doing Theology

In my opinion, that would be a fantastic spend of your time. - Bo

Filed Under: conversations, engaging, latest, thinking Tagged With: Bible, book, books, Facebook, Feminism, feminist, John Piper, rachel held evans, Women

Femininity, Image, and Identity: the role of youth pastors and movies

January 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 4 Comments

Hey Julie Clawson ! I could use some help thinking through a couple of things.

For those of you who don’t know her, Julie Clawson is the author of Everyday Justice, a pastor, blogger, Emergent leader and former podcast guest. She is one of the conversation partners at the upcoming Emergent Village Theological Conversation at the end of January. (www.ProcessTheology.org). Her blog is in my top 10.

Background: I love going to the movies. As a student, I usually only go the theatre on Summer break (blockbuster action films + air-conditioning = awesome) and on Winter break (tired brain + Christmas money = fantastic).

Last week I saw two movies and was quite intrigued by a pattern that I noticed during the trailers: women being tough guys. The three trailers were for Underword: Awakening with Kate Beckinsdale, Haywire with Gina Carano (both action films) and The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher.

I have read enough feminist literature to know that there is a principle (which Thatcher made famous) that “In a man’s world …” a women often has to out ‘man’ the guys in order to break into the boys club and be taken seriously.

In a system where we have been socially conditioned to see certain behaviors and attributes as ‘leadership’ or ‘strength’ – or in the church as ‘anointing’ – then women must over-do it in order to overcome the intrinsic biases and gain credibility in a system geared to evaluate by masculine expectations. (people point to Joyce Meyer as a Christian example)

This is a real problem.

THEN I was reading your blog this week and you bring up the Lego Ads making their way around Facebook and tie it into both modesty and obesity. As a youth pastor I have read everything from Reviving Ophelia to Queen Bees and Wannabes ,that explains why girls treat each other the way that they do, and I recognize that there are deep underlying issues. Let’s be honest, these deep issues will not be solved by quoting some Bible verses or ‘going back to the way things were in the Bible’.

So here are my questions:

1. What do we do with the karate-chopping drop-kicking gun-shooting heroines of violence on the silver screen these days? On one hand, it is nice to women getting these big-deal leading roles in major films… on the other hand, are they real portrayals of women-ness or is it the bad kind of mimicry - like ‘Girls Gone Wild’ as a picture of sexual liberation or power.

2. Are there any resources that you can point me to for Image and Identity? Your blog post on the Lego issue is really sticking with me.

3. As a youth pastor, how would you suggest I navigate the (rapidly) developing sexuality without repression while steering clear of moral permissiveness? Any thoughts?

Thank you ahead of time.
Any help would be much appreciated.
I sure am glad that I mature sisters in faith as conversation partners.

anxiously awaiting your response -Bo

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, media, post-something, thinking Tagged With: ads, Bible, blog, book, books, Facebook, female, feminine, Femininity, Film, girl, God, identity, image, jesus, Julie Clawson, LEGO, legos, Mean Girls, Movies, Queen Bees, Reviving Ophelia, sex, sexuality, Women, Youth Pastor

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