::Reflections on Contemporary Culture

The Irresistable Revolution - Chapter 1

2008-08-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

Although the beginning of this book is set in an American culture, I could definitely relate to several aspects of it. I would not say Christianity is really safe in France, but it is easy to stay safe and live an un-risky faith. Fortunately, what Shane Claiborne defines as spiritual bulimia is less likely to happen to the extent he describes it, simply because Christianity is not nearly as wealthy or popular in France.
I’ve had many of the same questions the author was asking, as far as the consistency of my church’s works and Jesus’ teachings and works.
I really think my church should be more involved in social justice, getting out of the comfort bubble.

Fandom - Chapter 1

2008-08-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

I found Sandvoss’ analysis of the interaction of readers – fans in the instance – and texts very interesting. According to the author, readers to not simply sheepishly accept everything they read, they creatively work with it, using information from different sources and media. This intertextuality seems to have been emphasized a lot thanks to the immergence and convergence of new media, especially the internet.

I have been wondering how this type of “conversation” with texts, biblical texts or Christian literature, would be possible in today’s Christianity, and what it could look like. Sadly, it seems the main ingredient for this, passion, is missing.

Week 10 - Wednesday

2008-03-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

It was interesting to try and apply the model of a culture that involves producers, texts, consumers and everyday life to actual situations. While thinking about this through the week, I realized this model can help understanding the functioning of society at different scales, from the small community of a church, or even to some extent of a family, to a larger and more complex frame such as we have studied in class.

This can help understand the how a culture works, and eventually to see what has to be transformed or challenged.

Week 10 - Monday

2008-03-11T17:56:00.000-07:00

What stroke me in this class is the attitude of the media (the producers in that cyclical model). They claim that they are simply showing what is really going on in the consumer’s everyday life; they are reflecting what is actually happening. However, even in this documentary we can see that the contrast between actual youth life and “MTV” youth life. The boy that the marketers from MTV tried to “know” at the beginning of the documentary had nothing to do with the text, the represented youth that actually came out of the interview.

I can’t help but wonder about these marketers. Do they not realize what is going on? Do they close their eyes on what is going on or are they blind to it?

It seems they are determined to continue feeding that downward spiral. It seems like one of those desperate situations that only God can use, or make right. I feel completely helpless.

Week 9 - Final Paper Outline v2

2008-03-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

1 - Description of the culture:

A/ Historical background: Religious upbringing, counter-cultural stance, rejection of Christian values

B/ Strong postmodern influence, self reflectiveness, irony and openness to dialog

C/ Quest for authenticity

2 - Expression of the Gospel in this culture:

A/ How does the Gospel answer to the needs of this culture?

B/ Building theology together: the synthetic model

C/ An authentic theology, rooted in experience: the transcendental model

3 - How can the Church address this issue?

A/ Is the church as we know it relevant in this situation?

B/ Importance of relationship and exchange

C/ Natural creation of home “churches”

Week 9 - Response to Ben's Blog - Wednesday

2008-03-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

“What if the Church could come to understand our culture well enough where we could present Christianity with the right methods and language?”

I have mixed thoughts about this comment. Church does indeed have to know the culture it lives in, and adapt itself to speak in ways that touches it. All too often, churches are simply out of the world and have no idea of the real issues and struggles of people from “the outside”, bringing irrelevant or sometimes even harmful answers.

However, knowledge of a specific culture should not bring the church to some kind of Christian marketing. We have to be careful that our evangelizing comes out of authentic love and compassion for lost souls, the poor and the hurt, and not just because we are trying to sell Christianity.

As we saw in the documentary, it’s easy to be interested in people for a personal gain, anyone can do it. We have to mark the difference by doing it out of genuine love.

Week 9 - Bevans, Chapter 9

2008-03-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

The counter-cultural model of contextualization, as its name implies so clearly, has the goal to confront directly a culture. Christians are to hold dearly and firmly to their beliefs and sacraments and to testify that an alternative way of thinking and living is possible. The general idea is that the context is flawed and sinful, and can altogether not be trusted, and the Church has to be apart from the World but constantly questioning it and challenging it to change for the better.

I feel like this model is some kind of extreme or accentuated imaged of the church as it is now, in France at least. I must say that at first it made me uncomfortable. I can’t imagine myself trying to share the Gospel with this mindset, without sounding narrow minded or sectarian. It would have to be in very specific conditions and with people with whom I have built a strong relationship already. It seems to me like this model used indelicately could do more harm than good on an individual level.

However, thinking more about it I found a new and refreshing way of seeing it. Our culture is indeed corrupted and stained by sin. There is abuse, corruption, inequality and perversion all around us. Using this model, the Church can hold a prophetic role to society as a whole and denounce the wrongdoings of our culture.

Week 9 - Cobb, Chapter 9

2008-03-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

Popular culture takes its eschatological themes and myths from two different sources.

The first comes from its very strong Christian background, and is noticeable in any of its apocalyptic tales. An uncountable number of books and movies tell about wars between good and evil of armageddonesque proportion, or of natural disaster. This has a redeeming effect, the face of human society is changed for the better. An utopia can be reached.

The second is greatly influenced by globalization and the mixing of cultures, according to Cobb, and concerns the spirits of the dead that roam around us. When people die, they have a period of “purgatory”, their spirits haunt the physical world to free themselves of unfinished tasks or of the last bounds that hold them to Earth, to finally reach the other world.

Week 9 - Wednesday

2008-03-05T20:12:00.000-08:00

Even though I knew most of what was seen on video today, the more we went through the videos, the more depressing I found it.
Teens are between two ages, shifting from children to adults and struggling to find their identity, and these "merchants of cool" try to influence them- or even impose on them - a built identity for the sake of profit. I can't see what good can come out of trying to make immature and obnoxious mooks out of little boys and "post-feminist" bimbo mid-rifters out of little girls.
It seems like the standards are being set lower and lower just to make sure everyone can fit in the mold. Even if the audiences play a part in creating texts, it is a very controlled and focused part, and apparently the best of the youth isn't what sells the most.

Is there anything the Church can do besides copying MTV music videos?
We really need to find ways to bring alternative perspectives to the world. Can we do it without flashing lights and fast-paced TV spots?

I'm so angry. I'll go read something about loving my enemies.

Week 9 - Monday

2008-03-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

I liked a lot the idea of carnival, of turning the world upside down to show that things can be another way. It seems like it is a recurring theme in the Bible, and especially in the Gospels. The beatitudes are clearly set with this note. The mere idea of forgiveness of sins, grace, has this carnival theme.
The grieving find joy, the poor inherit the Earth, and the sinners are forgiven. In I Corinthians, Paul describes the message of the Gospel as foolishness, in the world’s perspective, and a few verses further:

“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”

Are we, as Christians and as a Church, open to this Carnival? Do we make ourselves servants and make the poor, the weak and the broken kings? Are we open to this perspective of the kingdom of God?

I know I have a lot of work to do on that side.

Week 8 - Final Paper Outline

2008-03-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

I have decided to talk about a specific part of the youth culture in France, and that is widely spread throughout the country, which is the part of the population that have been raised with a Christian – and more particularly catholic – background, and that rejected it plainly as time went by.

Description of the culture:

It is a culture who rejected religion as whole because of its lack of authenticity. It is seen as a set of rules with no real purpose. Religion is not relevant anymore, if it ever was. Because of the oppressive nature of the moral rules that were set on them, many people stray to the opposite and basically will search for their own truth and what feels good and right, in a very postmodern way.

Important values for this group of people are authenticity, sharing, openness to others points of view and reflections, and socializing (bars, hanging out at a friends place, concerts, festivals...)

A motto that could come out of it is “I am free from moral constraints, I can do what I think is right.”

Expression of the gospel in this culture.

I'll be studying a mix of the synthetic and of the transcendental models, the open conversation and search for authenticity makes this adequate.

I'm guessing a theology that would come out of it would be focused more on God's love and grace that does not depend on our sinful natures and the ongoing process of conversation and exchange in the authentic search for God.

How can the church address this issue?

I am not sure the church in itself can address this group of people as it is rejected as a whole. New ways of thinking and doing things have to be created. I believe it is to be a personal ministry of sharing and exchanging ideas. The very “sponsorship” of a church would take out all credibility and authenticity to it. The main way of contextualizing theology, in this case would be to hang out and share with an open mind and an open ear.

Week 8 - Cobb, Chapter 8

2008-03-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

I found this analysis of salvation in popular culture really sad.
It made me think that people sought redemption in ecstasy, or feeling good (or better). There is no true hope, only promises of personal and temporary satisfaction. It seems to me like a huge way of closing our eyes and blinding ourselves to the fact that we need more than a good job, a nice car or an active sexual life to be saved from our condition. This all left me a littler bitter.

There is some deeper, less superficial, reflection too, as was shown with some of the analyses of the songs, but this is not nearly as important in our society as the urge for instant satisfaction and gratification.

Week 8 - Response to Annie, Cobb

2008-03-03T08:08:00.000-08:00

Just a few thoughts about the whole self-help therapy madness that is going around.

It was quite a shock for me to find this kind of thing in such an extended way, when I came from France. It does exist there also, but in a way smaller proportion, I guess it’s just not part of the culture.

I don’t know exactly what is said in these books, or what the general ideas are, but it seems pretty obvious to me that it all focuses on the self. How to satisfy your personal desires. How to be happy. How to find personal satisfaction and fulfillment.

It is literally everywhere, especially in advertising.

Nothing is wrong with this, in the essence, it is important to take care of oneself, but I feel like this whole cult of self goes against the message of the Gospel, in some ways.

Jesus said to love others like we love ourselves. It seems to me like we don’t have too many problems loving ourselves, and should try to turn out to others for a change.

I grew up with this idea that sin basically comes from putting something else than God at the center of our life, and especially yourself. I feel like every sin, every suffering one man inflicts on another can be rooted to the fact that we are seeking for our own satisfaction instead of God’s.

As Cobb said, there is some good in the fact that it helps us to look into ourselves and try to understand what is going on inside. But if we stop to that, or don’t use it to change yourself for the good of people around us, it can just create more harm than good.

Week 8 - Bevans, Chapter 8

2008-03-01T23:11:00.000-08:00

I am not quite sure of what to think of this model. It seems to me like it would be more like a tool or an approach to any other types of models described in this book rather than a complete model in itself.

The idea of authenticity of faith is very important to me, and I do have the feeling that it is an issue in some Christian circles. If a belief is not made personal, and has no authentic and open questioning and experience, if it is simply a matter of imitation of others or traditions, most people around will sense the lack of conviction.

However, I’m not sure that authenticity of experience can always qualify to theologize. We have sinful natures and our subjectivity is flawed. I believe we can authentically experience lies. Some people in the New Age movement have very realistic and authentic transcendental experiences and base their own personal metaphysical philosophy on it, and will believe it with more authenticity than most Christians believe in the redemptive power of the Cross for example.

I really like this approach, and I think God reveals himself to people who genuinely search for him, but in my opinion we can't rely only on subjectivity.

Week 8 – Wednesday

2008-03-01T13:11:00.001-08:00

I realized yesterday that I had completely forgotten to post an entry about Wednesday’s lecture, which is unfortunate because I found it fascinating. I got completely focused on another paper and forgot about my assignments, so here are a few late thoughts.

Bringing together theology and deconstruction is for me a way of questioning our faith and beliefs, and our ways of expressing them. I believe it can bring us in areas of “uncertainty”, of adventurous discovery as we deconstruct and break apart well set binaries. However, this “risk” is a way to be open to God’s way of doing things, and dealing with different issues.

We are aiming for the higher undeconstructable values (justice, gift, hospitality, forgiveness, love). To do so we construct models adapted to particular situations and places. When these models are outdated or do more harm than good to attain the absolute and undeconstructable value they point at, they have to be rethought and deconstructed.

Week 8 - Monday

2008-02-25T22:41:00.000-08:00

Myths seem to be central to cultures as they shape, in part at least, people’s worldviews.

A few ideas come to my mind while thinking of this concept.

First of all we talked about the denotative and connotative aspects of texts. In the examples we saw, it was only question of images, which really are the base of communication in our world. Everything works with images. I am wondering if the denotation/connotation ambiguity is as strong in other media. Written texts? Radio? Art? Dance?

I wonder if myths can be created with the same strength by the connotations of texts in cultures that are not as focused on images as ours.

A second thought is that myths, as I understood it, were mostly seen as negative, with binaries that had to be deconstructed. However, it seems to me that some myths can be positive and stimulating in some ways. As it was pointed out, people will die for myths, not for mild lukewarm ideas, and even though some of them are clearly negative and even manipulative, can’t some myths have some good, positive, and motivating values?

Week 7 - Response to Brett - Wednesday Lecture

2008-02-25T08:57:00.000-08:00

“It does not require an incredible expertise but it seems to need heart, drive, and a mission from God.”

I think this is a beautiful thing about this model. It does not necessarily need a high level of theological knowledge. You learn by doing, and what you learn enables you to do more and better. And all of this can come from a “gut feeling”, out of compassion or a sense of injustice.

I feel like this model is accessible to literally anyone who genuinely wants to serve the Lord and show his love to the world. Other models like the translation model or the anthropological mode require to some extent some background knowledge and a certain reflexion, starting from theory to go to practice.

The praxis model can be lived out by theology doctors and by elderly people or old-fashioned housewives all the same, if they have the heart for it.

Week 7 - Barker, Chapter 14

2008-02-25T08:37:00.000-08:00

What interested me the most in this chapter was the active part of cultural study. How do we use all this theory to bring change and agency to society? How can cultural studies be more implicated in society and in politics? In this sense it is interesting to see the different criticisms against cultural studies.

In some ways, this chapter reminded me of the praxis model described by Bevans. Maybe what cultural studies need is an active participation in social struggles, to refine theory and to get in this beneficial spiral.

Of course, I don't really know what part these studies actually play in our world. I would be interested to hear about examples of how cultural studies actually bring change.

...

Now begone, infamous book.

Week 7 – Bevans, Chapter 7

2008-02-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

The synthetic model appears to me as a conversation between a specific culture and a theologian. The concept that each has to learn from the other seems very important to me.

To acknowledge that a culture has something to bring to us is a sign of respect. We are not imposing our values or our culture; rather we are discussing and sharing our different worldviews to build something new. Other cultures can teach us as much as we can teach them. They can bring to our view new perspectives on texts and doctrines that we know only from our western evangelical standpoint.

This seems to be a model I have been using unconsciously with friends around me. Also, this kind of open conversation seems very appropriate in a postmodern world.

Week 7 - Cobb, Chapter 7

2008-02-24T13:46:00.000-08:00

The first assumption made by Cobb in this chapter is that humankind has lost something, a Paradise, an Eden, an ultimate happiness. Something is broken and we are trying to restore it. From this stance, sin can be seen from two different perspectives, which are not necessarily in contradiction.

The first one is what he calls the covenant/jeremiad perspective, which can be summed up to the idea that a general/natural/divine/superior rule or set of rules has been broken and that judgment ensues, and all the consequences that come with it.

The second one, the Gothic perspective, is more focused on the evil itself, on what is bad in and around us, and how we can inherit it from our peers. Pushed to the extreme, this can lead to hopelessness.

I do believe these two trends resonate with the hearts of people, even though not always identified as sin. How can we use this to bring a message of hope and liberation from these patterns?

We’ll see what the next chapter has to say about this.

Week 7 - Barker, Chapter 13

2008-02-24T11:20:00.001-08:00

I find this concept of resistance interesting. Many youth subcultures will focus on resisting “the man”, the capitalist hegemony with its own ideologies, sometimes considered as imposed on people through the media.

This resistance even though often passive has its own symbols and rituals. Youth from subcultures will appropriate elements from this entity they are resisting against to make them their own, giving them their own meanings. Somehow we find a way to build a resistance against consumption through consuming, and I am pretty sure the big “capitalist entity”, if such a thing does exist, doesn’t really care why people consume as long as they do. It is common to see television show tales of resistance against television, because it sells.

I might be wrong, but this apparent absurdity seems to have been dimmed a bit by the shifting from the concept of resistance to the more subjective concept of authenticity.

Week 7 - Wednesday

2008-02-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

Today, we got to discuss a bit more about the praxis model of theology contextualization.

I can understand why this way of doing would be so widespread and growing. It seems many churches are paralyzed by their structure. They feel the need for change, for action, for outreach, for having their place in society, however the best solutions found for these problems are often things such as changing the leadership or creating a new ministry, restructuring their church entity.

According to the praxis model, the first step would be to go and do it and the rest would follow: learning, theory and structure.

I believe this is something that the world needs to see and know: Church is not all about meeting twice a week and singing pop songs. We are the physical body of Christ in this world, and as such we are to continue the work He has started. What good could be done to the world around us, and what a testimony of God’s love it would be.

Week 7 – Monday

2008-02-18T22:53:00.001-08:00

Today we approached the subject of structuralism, with the language oriented view of cultures.

Culture can be seen as working as a language, according to Saussure’s work on linguistics. Words are signifiers (a series of letters chosen arbitrarly), which are associated to a signified sense, a meaning.

The signifier + the signified create a sign. Signified, signifier and sign are not fixed and unchanging things. They are different from one language, one culture to another, and even from one person to another.

I’m not sure I understood what the point of the whole cowboy discussion was. I guess we will know more about it this Wednesday.

Week 6 – Barker, Chapter 12

2008-02-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

Sites and places are not merely places people walk and live through. They are associated with cultural values, and even meanings of power, class, economy, ethnicity, etc… These spaces, set in a postmodern world are transforming the face of cities towards more fragmentation and control. However globalization is enabling cities to become heterogeneous places, where people from different cultural contexts and national background can meet and exchange.

Here again, the emergency of digital technologies plays an important role. Distances become inexistent, and the flow of information is omnipresent, even within households.

Week 6 – Bevans, Chapter 6

2008-02-18T10:11:00.000-08:00

The praxis model is one of action.

There is a constant cycle between action and reflection to elaborate, but more importantly live out theology. It seems to aim at changes in society, which is why it is so frequently associated to theologies of liberation.
According to this model real theology cannot be purely theoretical, it has to be, on the contrary more practical than theoretical to be genuine. This does reminds me of James’ writings, when he says that faith without action is dead. Faith reveals itself through actions.

Week 6 – Response to Randy’s response

2008-02-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, producers of media content do try to carry out some ideas, especially as you pointed out in advertising. Even though this happens to some extent, and some ideas are accepted, it is important to remember that the postmodern culture is very self-reflexive and critical. As Barker pointed out, the audiences are active. They will reject what they do not like, or disagree with. It is important to note, also, that advertising is not a one way thing. Large scale market audits are done, and advertisements promote basically what people want to hear, even if in a sense it sometimes does create a need that didn’t exist.

As for technology, I can imagine 3D television coming some day, but I feel like a growing trend that will affect our interaction with media is our more direct influence on the content itself. A little power is already given to audiences. We can for example vote for the best singer or for the one to be kicked off of the stage. The mere ability to choose a program, do go from one channel to another is already going in that direction. Some technologies are being put in place so that the viewer of a sport will be able to choose what angle he sees it from, and switch from one camera to another.

As things go, and because of the evolution of multimedia, the viewer will have a greater influence on the creation of the content itself, as time goes by.

Week 6 - Cobb, Chapter 6

2008-02-18T08:25:00.001-08:00

I find it fascinating to see how people reflect on their nature through popular culture.

Who are we? What defines us? A quantity of diverse notions about human nature is thrown at us through the media, and Cobb seems to have taken out of it a few of the main ones.

People define their identities mostly through consumerism, ideas associated with brands (or non-brands) that they buy and wear, or drive, or use.

There seems to be a general agreement that simple people, hard workers, family people and common men are more closely in touch with reality. Popular common sense and simple virtue seem to have taken almost a mysterious wisdom to them.

It is also commonly accepted that technology has a more and more important place in our world, we depend on them for more and more aspects of our lives, and the cyborg theme is a development of to what extremes this might bring us to, and the hopes, but mostly fears that come from them. However, it is interesting to see that even through these cyborg eyes, the idea of human simplicity with its weaknesses and struggles prevail again.

Week 6 - Barker, Chapter 11

2008-02-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

It seems media are evolving into ways that involve its audiences more and more and create more interaction with them, partly because of the evolution of technology.

Television usually has the reputation of serving political or economical values, and altogether, slowly melting the population brains into a sweet apathy all for the sake of money (a very explicit example of this can be seen here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=W_tN_NCHhSM). However it is not a one way communication media. Audiences create their own meanings from the texts provided by TV programs, and these programs are also partly created based on the expectances of their audience.

In the years to come, the audiences will certainly have a much more important influence on programs. We already see, thanks to digital technology, different media converging in ways that would not have been expected a few years ago.

Week 6 - Wednesday

2008-02-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Today’s class brought a few thoughts to my mind.
There has been a shift in consumerism. People will mostly buy something not for its utility value but for the ideas associated with it and the identity they find in it. Identity is now defined by one’s taste and consumed products, and no longer by his social status.
This is closely linked to the importance communication technologies and especially the media have taken. Advertisements for example do not sell a mere product; they sell an idea, a style, a way of life, and in this manner may impose (if not completely, at least in part) what these identities should be, mainly for economic reasons.
I believe some of these “standards” set by the media bring more harm than anything else. Media defines concepts such as beauty, elegance, coolness, intelligence, femininity, masculinity, happiness, success, etc… and everyone has pressure to fit in these definitions. Even counter-cultures will be affected by it in a way or another.

I am wondering, however, how long this can last. As it was mentioned, post-modernism is very reflexive and these things are already being pointed out by many people. On top of that, the rise of the internet enables basically anyone to be connected to any other part of the world, where values can be the opposite from ours. Anyone can have a point of view on anything and let the world know. While this can bring a lot of confusion and drown people under the amount of information available, it can also blur out the definitions brought by the conventional mass media.

Week 6 - Monday

2008-02-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

This model is really interesting. It makes want to go back to France and try starting a church in a bar or a basement full of junkies.
It is still a bit unclear for me as to what the churches in today’s examples would concretely look like. I guess the consequence of using the contextual model for contextualizing theology would be that every single church would be different and unique, according to the culture it grew in.
Coming from France where there are so few churches and different denominations, I am always amazed at seeing so many different kinds of churches here. And to be honest they don’t seem that different, but still find ways to disagree.
I can’t wait to see more of these “ culture-born” churches grow so we can all start fighting on real issues.

Week 5 – Response to Ben, Bevans ch.5

2008-02-11T11:05:00.001-08:00

“There are cultural evils or sins that cannot be adapted to the Gospel.”
This is the big issue I have with the anthropological model. Even with the hypothesis that man is good, every culture is corrupted by sin. Our own expression of Christianity is certainly flawed in ways we are mostly blind to, that people from other cultures could probably point out to.
How does a theologian, being a “treasure hunter” who tries to find the Gospel in the culture, coming himself from a specific culture with his own cultural biases and sins properly guide people from another culture?

It seems to me like this model has to rely a lot on the action of God's spirit in convincing of what is acceptable or not in one's culture.
I would be interested in seeing (or at least reading) more cases where this model has been used.

Week 5 – Barker, Chapter 10

2008-02-11T09:40:00.001-08:00

This chapter deals mainly with, feminism, which is a reaction to patriarchy and phallocentrism.
There are different types of feminisms, which have an emphasis on different aspects of women's discrimination. Some will accentuate the equality of men and women, while others will focus more on the creative difference of women. Barker argues that equality and difference do not contradict each other.
This discrimination has been largely experienced in representations of women, on television, in movies, and in all kinds of literature.

Week 5 - Cobb, Chapter 5

2008-02-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

According to Cobb, the image people have of God is one either of a weak, lonely, maybe depressed, and limited entity, creating the universe out of boredom or to find significance and that cannot deal with what it has become; or one of a God that basically doesn't care about humanity at all.
The general philosophy regarding a superior being seems to be agnosticism, but there is a sense that “something is out there”. Postmodern thinkers have all been confronted to what Cobb calls “the holy”, or the ultimate concern.

There is a brief development about polytheism in this chapter which stroke me. It seems that humankind is naturally drawn to polytheism. We find this today in subtler ways than the most renown religions of the antiquity.
It particularly stroke me as I was in Disneyland this week end. Disney has its own pantheon of divinities or characters, it spreads specific moral values, and has its list of icons, symbols, myths and even rituals. This is all pulled together by a Disney “mythology” with its own social, moral and even supernatural (dreams can come true, etc...) discourse.

Going to Disneyland after having read Cobb is a disturbing experience.

Week 5 - Barker, Chapter 9

2008-02-11T07:54:00.001-08:00

Race, ethnicity and identities seem to be a very large and complex subject in todays world, where boundaries between people and countries are blurred out by technologies, especially those of communication and travel. Cultural and ethnical hybridity is becoming the norm.
What was the most interesting to me was the difference between race and ethnicity. Race seems to be a cultural and social construction which can lead to abuses and relations of power. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is based on biological and genetic factors.

Week 5 - Bevans, Chapter 5

2008-02-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

In this chapter, Bevans develops the anthropological model. In many ways it could be described as the opposite of the translation model. Here, instead of bringing a meta-cultural gospel to the culture he seeks to minister to, the theologian engages in a conversation with people from the culture, sharing theology, concepts and ideas and seeing how people from the culture appropriate these things and make them their own.
By doing this, a “new” form of Christianity grows from within the culture. While the translation is more focused on the content and the message itself, the anthropological model is more concerned with the culture.

Week 5 - Wednesday

2008-02-06T21:55:00.000-08:00

Most of the concepts seen in today’s class were developed by Barker and Cobb in chapters read previously.

The most interesting thing for me was discussions about Fidel Castro’s quote. It seems that Marxism shares many ideas with Christianity, in theory at least.
I have read in one of Tolstoy’s books (“War and Peace”, probably, although the dates don’t seem to fit) that in the circles of the Russian bourgeoisie the rise of socialism (even if it is not precisely Marxism) was discussed. People wondered what the difference between socialism and Christianity was. Even though both philosophies have radically different goals, their social implications are pretty close: caring for the poor and the unwanted.
I have the feeling that Marxism was largely rejected by Christians because of its materialistic views, its rejection of God and all the happy things that followed World War II. However, I believe there is good in it, and there are things we can learn from it to enrich the Church’s ministry to the world.

Week 5 - Monday

2008-02-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

The hardest part for me today was to find a culture that was different enough from mine so that the gospel actually needed to be contextualized and "translated".
The New Age movement is kind of what came to my mind since I have read a little about it and have a friend or two in that setting.
However, thinking back about it, I'm wondering if the translation model is the best model for constextualizing the gospel, here, for this simple reason that the concept of absolute truth is rejected. I started reading about the anthropological model and it seems to fit this context more nicely. We'll see what the other models have to offer.

Week 4 - Answer to Annie's blog - Monday reflection

2008-02-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

Your post about Monday's lecture caught my attention and brought back to my mind some reflections I was having at church this week-end.Blurring the lines between secular and sacred seems extremely important in today's world, if we want to relate with people and share the gospel in a way that affects them. However, I believe we have to be very cautious in doing so, and approach this way of doing things with prayer and humility.I was just very uncomfortable in church this Sunday, especially during the whole worship part preceding the preaching. The music was good, very good. Professional musicians, playing in a professional way. They even played a jazz piece as a way to “give their talents back to God”.
After that, a little 3 year old boy came on the “stage” (funny thing... a stage in a church) to recite 1 Corinthians 13. It was really cute and everyone applauded.

There is nothing bad about it, I guess, it was actually very positive, but I believe that the way our churches are structured can bring danger to blurring the lines between secular and sacred worlds.
If worship centers on man and not on God, we're going straight to idolatry.

I always get a little freaked out when church services become entertainment shows.

But my reaction might just be determined by the social context I come from. What do I know? :)

Week 4 - Barker, Chapter 8

2008-02-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

The concept of identity seems central in the western world nowadays.In this chapter, Barker develops the concept of identify, what defines it and what is it made of. The concept of identity has shifted from the idea of an individual core self, specific to every person to the idea of fragmented identities: everyone has several identities defined by their social context and personal history.
As such, every behavior is determined by social and cultural background, and even agency (the capacity of change or evolution) is limited by this background.

Week 4 – Cobb, Chapter 4

2008-02-03T20:20:00.000-08:00

It is interesting to see that in a society that has in great part rejected religion we can find these kinds of theological elements.
There is deep in the heart of man this longing and craving for an ultimate reality, which Cobb calls the “ultimate concern”. This concern is declined in many ways in our culture and the tools he presented in this chapter seem to all follow from this first state.
Religious concepts are perceived by people, although they will often not openly be admitted to be religious in any way.

Week 4 – Barker, Chapter 7

2008-02-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

Post-modernism is born out of modernism, or rather as an answer to modernism.
Modernism is focused on science, rational thinking and has this idea that there are absolute values and truths.
The postmodernist way of thinking has a whole different view on reality, claiming that there is not one truth but several, which opens the door to tolerance and acceptance of the other, but which also seems to come with a good dose of irony and a blurring of cultural boundaries. Bricolage and intertexutality are good examples of this.

I personally enjoy immensely discovering cultural mixes in art. Jacques Loussier playing Bach with a jazz band, bluesman Taj Mahal producing a CD with Malian kora player Toumami Diabate, Albert Schweitzer mixing some of Bach’s classical masterpieces with African rythms, the Klazz brothers playing classical pieces with a Cuban touch… and this is just music.
I guess postmodernism grew in such a way because technology enabled it to.
As Barker says: “It represents a cultural style of late capitalism operating in a new global space.”

Week 4 – Bevans, Chapter 4

2008-02-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

I can see why Bevans says that the translation model is the most common model of contextualization. Actually, I thought it was the only existing one, so I’m curious to read about the other ones.
The idea of this approach is that there is a meta-cultural and meta-contextual message to the gospel that can be extracted to one’s beliefs, religion or ways of worshipping, and freed from all cultural influence or bias. This core message can then be integrated to another culture.

I find it very interesting to read about this, as this idea of core message is one of the things that brought me to SIS. How does culture affect the gospel message, and what does this message look like without its cultural wrap?

My perspectives are opening up. I like this.

Week 4 - Wednesday

2008-01-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

I guess I knew a lot of what was said in today’s lecture through my school education but also through the weekly readings, mainly in Barker’s writings.
I’d never heard about the history being divided in six periods with specific modes of production. It’s interesting to see that communism is supposed to be the finality of humankind, the accomplishment of all.

I heard or read from French analysts, that the socio-economic system in France is “diluted communism”, or that it is what the USSR would have become if it has “worked”. This class brought to my attention how much Marxism has influenced the French culture; we can see traces of it everywhere. And yet, it is far from being a utopia. Very very far.
I think human nature is too corrupt to live out this kind of society.

Week 4 - Monday

2008-01-28T22:39:00.000-08:00

I’ve already shared a few thoughts about emerging churches.What I found fascinating in today’s class was to see in what different ways these emerging churches were born. They were not part of a specific movement or born out of a specific theology, rather they seem to have come in different places and contexts from a need of something different, from a questioning of the traditional way of seeing Church, or from a need to share the gospel in more contextual meaningful ways.I’m looking forward to hearing more about this kind of church and in the different ways the Gospel expresses itself in different cultures.

Week 3 - Bevans, Chapter 3

2008-01-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

I don't have much to say about this chapter.
Basically, Bevans explains the concept of “model”: a representation of reality, which has an emphasis on a specific aspect of it.
And so this book will study a range of different models for contextualizing theology, which each “compromise” more or less between scriptures and cultural context.

Week 3 - Barker, Chapter 6

2008-01-27T22:33:00.000-08:00

It has been interesting for me to read about the hybridization of cultures.A widely shared opinion about globalization in France is that it is basically a form of cultural imperialism, some kind of American invasion. Mac Donald’s has invaded the streets, a huge proportion of movies in theaters come from Hollywood, American music is everywhere, and interestingly this opinion is so strong that a law was passed so that 40% of the music aired on the radio has to be francophone. A lot of artists also come back to older kinds of expression, in music for example where music style from the time when the American corruption hadn’t destroyed all that loved yet.
Some people feel like the American culture (which isn’t a REAL culture, you know… only 300 years old… ha.) is taking over the good French values.

However, Barker makes a few good points. There is no dominance of one culture on the other, but each culture influences and transforms the other.
Mc Donald’s hamburgers will have that “French touch” (even though they will still be frowned upon by purists), French movie producers are adding some Hollywood ingredients to their movies, many songs considered as great accomplishments of the French culture will be bilingual…

So in a sense, globalization really is enriching, culturally speaking. New forms of expression grow from the mix of both cultures and as a “defensive” measure, more traditional forms of expressions are brought back to life and cherished.

Week 3 - Cobb, Chapter 3

2008-01-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

What stroke me the most in reading this chapter is the two approaches of Christianity to culture, in entertainment in particular.
The first one, called the “sect type” and developed by Tertullian is generally hostile to culture, and forms a radical countercultural structure, in which believers are invited to take a radical stance.
The second one, the “church type” which was Augustine‘s point of view suggested that there is goodness in different aspects cultures that must be used for the greater good.

It is interesting to see how these two ways of thinking still live today in more or less extreme forms. Is there a good or a bad way for the Church to deal with cultural matters?
Is one of these approaches better than the other?
It seems to me that each is good and benefic in specific contexts.
Tertullian wrote his texts during a time of Christian persecution, Augustine wrote his when Christianity was largely being accepted and paganism was on the decline.

A thought coming to my mind out of the blue is that Tertullian’s point of view is more of a ‘defensive’, and has the goal of protecting Christians and uniting them, while Augustine’s stance is rather ‘offensive’, finding compromises and ways for the Gospel to be shared and spread in a specific culture.
I’ll have to dig deeper in this. If anyone has insight about this, I’d love to hear your comments.

Week 3 - Barker, Chapter 5

2008-01-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

I think this is the first chapter in this book that talks about the environmental implications for subjects on an individual level. The previous chapter talked more specifically about cultural groups and movements.

Here we see that as individuals we are a complex interaction of our bodies (in a biological sense), emotions, context, conscious and unconscious information processing, etc…
These are not set, measurable and framed entities; they are rather part of a whole that defines who we’re and how we interact with the world around.

Week 3 - Wednesday

2008-01-23T22:15:00.000-08:00

Whenever I read the book of acts, and how the first century church worked, I can’t help but notice how different the churches we know nowadays, in the western world, are.They seemed to be micro-communities of fellowship, sharing and searching. I might be idealizing it, but this type of community seems to me so much closer to what the church is supposed to be.
Most churches seem to be narrowed to touch a certain type of “audience”, and because of the very structure that defines them, many people do not feel even compelled to try and see what’s going on.

Hearing about emerging churches and a new way of building the Church is refreshing and this concept echoes with personal thoughts and reflections.

Back in France I was part of the youth leading team in my church. We had this heart to see our youth really live the church out and not let it just be part of their Sunday schedule. So we invited them to meet as often as they could during the week. Organized prayer meetings, my friend and I opened our house so they could share, talk, pray, or just enjoy being together.
The results were surprising. The size of our group exploded in only a few months. The kids would invite their friends from school to whatever was going on, even prayer meetings. And they came back, brought other friends, and our home packed up a little more every week. The youth service on Sundays benefited from that too.

And we really didn’t do much. Just a little praying and opening minds to what church can be.
This is the kind of stuff I want to bring back to the old continent.

Week 2 – Barker, Chapter 4

2008-01-20T23:53:00.000-08:00

And we get to language.
Having grown up between two cultures and with two languages, I have always felt that there was tight link between language and culture. I can’t say things in one language the same way in another language. It’s another way of thinking, and another way of interacting with people. Just count the number of words in each language (I didn’t, but I read it’s different, somewhere).

And so words are associated with specific meanings, always changing and shifting through time and from one country to another. The most innocent word in the European French language can be pretty rude in Quebec. The same word can have different meanings, depending on the cultural context.
So my question is: do practices create meanings or do meanings create practices?

Week 2 – Cobb, Chapter 2

2008-01-20T23:25:00.000-08:00

I feel like there is a whole ‘chasing each other’s tail” situation going on here.
As a rough outline, on one side the ‘media world’ is constantly trying to stretch out to a broader population, adapting itself to diverse subcultures to get their attention, and on the other side some specific subcultures trying to find an identity, a cultural independence from popular culture, sometimes trying to escape from it or to use it for their own purposes.

I don’t know how ‘popular’ braconnage is in the USA. In France it seemed to be a rather common thing. There is actually a whole organization revolving around this idea: ‘Les Casseurs de Pub’ (literally, ‘Ad Breakers’ or ‘Ad Rioter’– http://casseursdepub.org ).
They will organize events, post stickers and posters across cities in one night or add a few words to actual commercials to change the meaning, to try and make people aware of the dangers of consumerism and dehumanization.
I’ll have to look back into it.

Week 2 – Barker, Chapter 3

2008-01-20T22:44:00.001-08:00

Cultural studies are a vast and diverse field.
In this chapter, many definitions and points of view about culture described, whether it is seen as the best of what the world has to offer, or as a whole way of life, whether the accent is put on economics or on anthropology, all definitions have some truth, and yet they are not exhaustive.

At first I was wondering if I was studying cultures or studying how other people studied cultures. I guess the former is possible only through the latter, this subject being so large that every opinion and point of view is necessary to have complete (or is it really complete?) grasp of what is going on.

Week 2 – Bevans, Chapter 2

2008-01-20T22:30:00.000-08:00

I did get a few questions answered in this chapter, especially in the part talking about the criteria for orthodoxy suggested by De Mesa and Wostyn, and Robert Schreiter later on.
There has to be thin line between ‘valid’ theology and heresy, and it seems to me that even though contextualizing theology is an imperative, it must be done cautiously, rigorously, in prayer and guided by the Spirit.

I love the image of the theologian being a midwife, working alongside people in a specific culture to guide them and help them find their own marks.
Fascinating book.

Week 2 - Wednesday

2008-01-16T23:12:00.001-08:00

A few things struck me in today’s lecture.

The first one was the attitude of cultural studies theorists towards the working class, especially those of the earlier years (Arnold and Leavis). They seem to study this social class in a very cold and scientific way, as if they were studying the reactions of animals in a specific ecosystem. I am guessing that these writers were part of the Elite.

The evolution of the theories through time was also interesting. The constant line for all of these writers’ (Arnold, Leavis, Hoggart, Williams and Hall) ideas is that industrialization had a negative effect, especially for the working class.
The concept of high Culture being an objective norm for Excellency seems to have faded to the idea that there are several cultures, and so called “high Culture” is one among many, while mass produced culture emerged (out of working class culture?), being viewed negatively at first. With time, good aspects seem to have been noticed about it, and a more balanced opinion was made by Williams and Hall, masses taking what they need or want from the media to create their own subcultures.

I have always been more or less aware of the impact of media on western culture, but these reflections bring a few questions. To what extent do media form people’s minds and influence their decisions and lifestyles? Is there a ‘natural’ resistance to this form of commercial ‘propaganda’? Is there an ‘uninterested’ popular culture?

I have gone way past my 75 words, so I will be quiet now.

Week 2 - Monday

2008-01-14T21:27:00.001-08:00

It is kind of funny how the word “culture” in itself is hard to define; its concept encompasses so many things that a single sentence seems inappropriate to give an exact definition. Coming out of class I asked a few friends how they would define a culture, and every single one of them gave me a different answer. Our background gives us notions of what a culture is, or is not. I am wondering if objectivity is even possible in cultural studies.

I love searching through history and going back from effect to cause to find how things work. I had no idea that popular cultural originated from the industrial revolution.
It’s interesting to see that “high culture” took some kind of religious stance against popular culture, having a social goal to redeem the masses and bring them to higher levels of “spirituality”.
I’m wondering if popular culture isn’t playing that role nowadays.

Week 1 - Barker, Chapter 2

2008-01-14T07:36:00.001-08:00

I found this chapter easier to understand than the first one.
I find it kind of ironic to see that the principal problems we encounter in cultural studies come primarily from the fact that we live in a specific culture with its own sets of rules and values.
For Barker, the best way to overcome these problems is to get rid of binary questions (or answers) and to change them in a more open way.
This is a concept I am not sure i have completely grasped and will have to get back to it.

Week 1 - Cobb, Chapter 1

2008-01-13T17:24:00.001-08:00

It is interesting to see how popular culture has evolved hand in hand with media and technology in general. Print, radio, movies, television… up to nowadays mass media communication systems, including the internet have all brought new ideas and new dimensions to popular culture.

The idea that it has derived from an attempt to democratize “high culture” is rather appealing to me. Bringing the ‘sacred’ arts to a proletarian level.
It seems to me like it would be healthier to educate people to understand this “high culture” rather than vulgarizing it.
I wonder how Tchaikovsky would feel about a mouse magician dancing to his compositions.

Week1 - Bevans, Chapter 1

2008-01-12T19:28:00.000-08:00

In the last few years I always had these questions about Christianity and culture.

What do we bring from our culture to our churches? Is it good? Can we strip it from it? Is there a “culture-free” religion or theology?

Bevans seems to say that contextualization is an imperative. I guess theology is useless if it doesn’t reveal who God is to people, in that sense, and it needs to be adapted to different kind of people’s kind of needs and worldviews.

I do still have questions about the nature of this theology. In all times and context, theology has obviously been mixed with cultural factors and traditions. The Bible itself was written in a specific cultural context. How do we know what is crucial (if I may say) and what is secondary?

Week 1 - Barker, Chapter 1

2008-01-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

Well this is going to be a challenging book.

I was assuming cultural studies would encompass a vast number of subjects, but some of those I found here were unexpected. Some seem more relevant to western culture and western history.

I do have a hard time imagining how all of this will blend in one field of study, and am looking forward to that with curiosity. And to think that is only one point of view on the matter…

I will now go heal the blisters on my brain and buy a few dictionaries.

Week 1 - Wednesday

2008-01-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

The main idea that stuck with me today is that we find ourselves in a world where a secular church is surrounded by a spiritual society.
I have seen and felt that in many ways in France. There seems to be such a spiritual dryness, a craving for something more. It has been frustrating for me, in the past few years to see this need in people around me, as they turn to New Age spirituality, Buddhism, Hinduism or other eastern religions and philosophies, etc… all of this in a more or less “diluted” fashion, picking fruits on every trees for a satisfying little fruit salad.

Why is the church unable to answer these needs?
It seems like the church has developed its own sub-culture over time, and an image associated with it, which “outsiders” cannot relate to in many ways, in France at least.

How could homosexual people fit in a traditional church?
How could Muslims find their place there?
How could my underground cynical tattoo-artist friend Richard be comfortable sitting on a bench between two nicely dressed and over smiley elderly women?

I love the idea of seeing the gospel grow and bear fruits in different sub-cultures. It seems to me that such a diversity of expressions of the same faith can be incredibly enriching on an individual level, but also as cultures.

Week 1 - Monday

2008-01-08T17:43:00.000-08:00

Day 1.

The course seems very interesting. I'm curious to see how such a large topic will be approached, and if it will apply to the contemporary french culture (which I come from, and will probably go back to soon).

I also have a few ideas for the term paper, we'll see how they develop as time goes by.