Category Archives: politics/culture

The “unchurched” and church architecture

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Interesting results from a study on church architecture and the “unchurched,”

“Stetzer suggested that the unchurched may prefer the more aesthetically pleasing look of the Gothic cathedral because it speaks to a connectedness to the past. Young unchurched people were particularly drawn to the Gothic look. Those between the ages of 25 to 34 used an average of 58.9 of their preference points on the more ornate church exterior. Those over the age of 70 only used an average of 32.9 of their 100 preference points on that particular church exterior.
“I don’t like modern churches, they seem cold,” said one survey respondent who chose the Gothic design. “I like the smell of candles burning, stained-glass windows, [and] an intimacy that’s transcendent.”
More than half of the unchurched indicated the design of a church building would impact their enjoyment of a visit to church. Twenty-two percent said the design of the church would strongly impact their enjoyment of the visit and 32 percent indicated it would have some impact. More than a third said it would have no impact whatsoever on their visit.
Stetzer noted that despite these survey results, most of the churches that look like a cathedral are in decline. Just because someone has a preference for the aesthetically pleasing, Gothic churches doesn’t mean they’ll visit the church if that’s the only connection point they have to the congregation, he said.

It is a small study and I don’t think we can made concluding or definitive statements because of it, but it does add to the continuing body of evidence and the realization that things are a-changin’, and not in the direction that certain people want things to go. Read the whole article here.
Hat-tip: Titus19

What’s dangerous about this naïveté

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A quote from the book, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society,” by Farhad Manjoo:

“It’s important to remember that the death penalty advocates and opponents in Ross and Lepper’s study didn’t know that they were interpreting information in a skewed way. Indeed, Ross says, each of us thinks that on any given subject our views are essentially objective, the product of a dispassionate, realistic accounting of the world. This is naive realism, though, because we are incapable of recognizing the biases that operate upon us. Think of the Dartmouth and Princeton football fans I told you about earlier. When they looked at identical film clips of a game, each side ‘saw’ a different reality. They did not know – and really, could not know – that their perception of the event didn’t match the reality of it because, for them, the perception was indistinguishable from its reality. How they ‘saw’ the game was how it really was.
“What’s dangerous about this naïveté is that it spins out into our appraisals of other people. We’re jarred and offended when other people don’t agree with what, to us, is so brilliantly clear. ‘If we think we see the world the way it is,’ Ross explains, ‘then we think that reasonable people ought to agree with us. And to the extent that people disagree with us, we conclude that they are not reasonable – they’re biased’… ‘If we let you look at other people’s responses, we find that exactly to the extent that the other person disagrees with you, you think they’re biased. You think their opinion reflects biases rather than rational consideration.'” (p. 152)

Do you think this may well explain our current Anglican inability to meet one another in a form of understanding that can lead to compromise?

“Radical Identity”

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Let’s talk about Radical Welcome, errr, I would rather talk about “Radical Identity!”
I’m going to get into trouble, I just know it!
I think I want to talk about “Radical Identity,” by which I mean that I identify not with any earthly or human ideology or scheme, but I identify with Jesus Christ. Identifying with Jesus Christ is a radical endeavor in our society these days. To identity with Jesus one has to die to self, to one’s sense of fairness, to one’s sense of justice, to one’s sense of affirmation. To identify with Jesus one has to give up everything. (Of course, in giving up ourselves, we find ourselves. Don’t you love oxymoronic notions of things!)
It isn’t very politically-correct to identify with Jesus considering how terribly exclusive Jesus is when he says things like, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” or, when Jesus wouldn’t allow the rich-young-ruler to follow him on the rich-young-ruler’s own terms. Jesus just let him walk away – he must have felt very rejected. Jesus and his community completely missed out on this rich-young-ruler’s gifts and talents and voice, let alone all that money!
So, while others may want to identify with this or that new and improved “radical scheme,” I’ll be a recalcitrant who-knows-what and just stick with radically identifying with Jesus, as much as is possible with me and with God’s help.

The Civil War as Theological Crisis – a review

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New book concerning religion/theology and the Civil War that I think will not only be a good read for anyone interested in the nation and its attitudes leading up to and during the Civil War, and concerning slavery, but also the role Christian thought played on both sides of the issues. I also think that it will be very instructive as we learn from history how to better navigate through our current theological crises.
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, by Mark Noll
Here is a review from Christianity Today online.

Post-Fact Society, continued

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The American Family Association (AFA) – a politicized Religious Right organization – continues its anti-gay campaign by attacking McDonald’s for its membership in the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). AFA accuses McDonald’s of “aggressively promoting the homosexual agenda.” McDonald’s released a statement as a result of the e-mail barrage promoted by AFA among its members to attempt to shame or force McDonald’s into renounce its membership in NGLCC, its member on their board of directors, and any advertising within gay media.
AFA did the same thing for years concerning Ford and their advertising in gay-oriented media (the Advocate, for example) events (like the Human Rights Campaign events). AFA sponsored a boycott of all Ford automobiles and claimed to be the reason Ford’s sales have declined so much over the last couple of years. (They called off the boycott and claimed victory recently.) Now, it is McDonald’s turn.
What caught my attention was AFA’s rebuttal to the McDonald’s statement. The first sentence goes like this, “As a Christian organization, the American Family Association always seeks to be honest, accurate and completely forthright in the information we pass along to our supporters.”
Anyone who knows anything about the AFA and their perceptions of “reality” concerning the gay community, the continued and repeated and intentional spreading of misinformation (bearing false witness and outright lying), stereotypes, and scapegoating knows that their self-congratulatory statement about being honest, accurate, and complete is not honest, accurate, or complete.
This is what gets me – either they are so isolated that they really don’t know what is going on (“let them eat cake”) or they are intentionally lying and deceiving in order to win their cause – the end justifies whatever means they think they need to employ in order to win.
Another explanation could fall within the thesis of the author of the book I am reading right now, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society,” by Farhad Manjoo. I’ve been following this phenomena for a while now, and the author puts words to my perceptions. A couple points he is making revolve around the explosion of technology and our ability to find all kinds of “facts” and supporting commentary without having to be confronted with contrary ideas or “facts” that oppose what we already want to believe. It is the idea that “belief” and “feelings” now trump empirical “facts.” This is more than misinterpretations of “facts.” A second point is the notion that we honestly see completely different “realities” of the same event.
So, here we have one very large and influential group of people, the AFA and the Religious Right, who completely and honestly believe that if American society allows the acceptance of homosexuality and the legitimacy of gay relationships, that God will destroy Western Civilization. Some believe this more strongly than others, but I have read and heard and seen these kinds of statements from the leaders and their organizations that are currently the face of Christianity in this country. What lengths will they go to if their mission is to same American and Western Civilization from God’s wrath due to homosexuality? This is their “reality.”
In so many “conversations” I have had with anti-gay people, they seem truly unable to realize or accept that there are gay people who are not the stereotype – who are not promiscuous, who are not sexual compulsives, who are not drug addicts, who are not predatory in their attempts to recruit boys because they can’t breed their own kind, and who are not always diseased and die by the time they are 49 years old. They are not able to see that “fact” at all regardless of whether such a person is standing right before them and can “prove” the reality of such a non-stereotypical life. They only “see” or accept what they already want to believe to be true as the “reality.”
New technology allows any “researcher” to post the results of non-peer reviewed “studies” that proclaim the validity of their thesis, and the same technology makes widely available to people who want to believe them. In doesn’t matter that the studies prove to be flawed, unreliable, and invalid. The “proof” is in the eyes of the beholder. In this kind of scenario, credentials or “expert” status no longer mean anything, because we all can create our own reality and proclaim the validity of it. When “facts” matter less than feeling and believing, what kind of a society do we end up in?
In the anti-gay cause, anti-gay Christians don’t need to honestly engage their opponents or their opinions because they are able to surround themselves with like-believers and buttress their positions via like-minded media and organizations. They are in an echo-chamber, and attempt to speak outside the chamber to demand adherence to their claims by everyone else – all the while those of whom they speak and condemn know good-and-well that their propositions are invalid for the majority. They also condemn any study, regardless of whether it can be shown to be reliable and valid, that does not support their interpretation and presupposition. They testify before congress and the courts and the school boards, etc. Listen to the ex-gay rhetoric for another example of this phenomena.
Now, I well know that there are proponents of “gay-rights” that put themselves in a similar kind of echo-chamber. They find their own “reality” using their own “facts” that “feel” so “right.”
What do we do at this point? How do we deal with one another? If the AFA and the HRC, as examples of virulent opponents, will not, or worse yet cannot, understand the perspective of their opponents, recognize a common “reality,” or deal with the issues and problems that face both communities despite their “beliefs” surrounding those problems, then we will get nowhere.
It would seem that the final result of this kind of thinking and/or perceiving will be chaos or autocracy. When we can no longer listen, when we can no longer recognize the good in our opponents, when we can no longer compromise, when we are no longer able to love our neighbor let along our enemy, were do we end up? It would seem that a common, civil society resting on respect for difference and the rule of law will not survive. Theocracy, autocracy, oligarchy – what will be the result?
Read AFA’s rebuttal to McDonald’s statement here or by clicking below.

Continue reading →

Post-Fact Society

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I’m reading a very interesting book right now entitle, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society,” by Farhad Manhoo.
Just like “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity” by Philip Jenkins foresaw (predicted) what we are experiencing in the Anglican Communion with the rise of the “Global South,” Manhoo’s book and thesis describe in eerily applicable ways what is happening within TEC and the Communion regarding our perceptions of what is going on and our attempt to assert the “truth.”
His premise is that we have come to a point in society where “facts” are no longer objective, but subjective according to what we want to be true, not necessarily what can be empirically show to be true. It depends on what “facts” we are willing to accept. As he writes, “Welcome to the Rashomon world, where the very idea of objective reality is under attack.” (p 25)
I see/hear/experience this more and more among those with whom I interact. I am amazed at how so many on the Anglican-related blogs interpret the same event in such drastically and diametrically different ways.
When we are determined to win at all costs and we refuse to accept that we may be wrong and when we listen only to those with whom we already agree, when compromise is no longer possible and acrimony and hubris rule the day, we have already failed God, ourselves, and the world. We simply play into the “worldly system” and into the schemes of the Enemy of our Faith.
The question in my mind is whether we will continue to abide by the “systems of this world” or whether we will begin to live in such a way that demonstrates some sort of legitimacy for our claim of a different kind of life in Christ for those who are yet to discover God. Again, the question applies to both the conservatives and the liberals and all in between.
None of us engaged in these battles (politically, socially, religiously) are without fault, none are without sin, none are without the need to repent (to God and one another) for the defamation of Christ’s cause that we have flaunted before the world all in the name of Christ.

A Culture of One

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I think the following commentary is very important to consider, particularly with regard to pop-post-modernist notions.
I remember a number of years ago talking to a long-time campus pastor at Kent State University. A great guy who had been interacting with students for a long time and knew the ins-and-outs of the times – the zeitgeist, if you will. He said that 10 years prior he would go on campus and sit and argue with students about Truth – good arguments with atheists and others who absolutely disagreed with his American-Evangelical system or worldview. Now, he said, he goes on campus and no one wants to talk, debate or argue, primarily because he has a hard time finding students who believe in a concept of “Truth.” They just aren’t interested.
What’s the point, when everyone has their own truth and all truths are as valid as any other one. Of course, this idea is applied in completely inconsistent ways. When we all become amateur “experts” – in our own imaginations, at least – who demand the same recognition and consideration as those who have spent a life-time learning, then where do we end up? This is the dilemma and has been for the last 50 years. “Truth” claims become already suspect, and those who assert that there are definable and even absolute “Truths” are not trusted. What then???
Here is a “note” or commentary related to culture:

A Culture of One
“In this era of exploding media technologies there is no truth except the truth you create for yourself.” That’s the assertion of Richard Edelman, the founder and CEO of one of the world’s largest public relations companies. The work of PR professionals has always caused concern from people who believe in the importance of truth-telling. But Edelman’s observation suggests that in the communications ecosystem that is the Internet, where everyone is a spinmeister, the very idea of truth becomes less and less plausible. The quote from Edelman is in a new book by journalist Andrew Keen called The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture (Doubleday/Currency). “Today’s media,” writes Keen, “is shattering the world into a billion personalized truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile.”
Andrew Keen hasn’t always been so negative about the Internet. He almost made a fortune in the 1990s by founding Audiocafe.com, one of the first digital music sites. Keen got involved in that project because he wanted to make the world’s best music more available to more people. But the more time he spent among the digirati in Silicon Valley, and the more he heard the utopian pronouncements of its most energized leaders, the more he realized that his view of culture and theirs were at odds. He wanted to expand the audience for great music. The Web enthusiasts wanted to make money by allowing more people to distribute home-made music, no matter how unimaginative and insipid it was, and collect revenue for all of the web advertising that accompanies the narcissism-enabling websites.
Although he doesn’t use the phrase, Keen’s book is about the loss of cultural authority. He believes that the survival of the very best forms of cultural expression, in journalism, music, fiction, and other disciplines, requires a network of mediation and accreditation. Cultural institutions that nurture the production of the best cultural artifacts maintain teams of editors, critics, producers, and teachers who have advanced in their careers through years of training and evaluation within a guild or tradition. Over time, some of those institutions earn more trust and respect among their peers than do others, their expertise and ability are acknowledged through an organic process of accountability and recognition. Those cultural institutions can be corrupted and standards can become debased. But without some form of institutionalized judgment established over time in communities of expertise, without, that is, some knowledgeable person to tell you your work isn’t good enough to be published, cultural expression easily becomes mere self-expression.
When everyone can self-publish by putting up a few bucks for a website, they don’t have to face the humiliation of rejection slips. And when a critical mass of people spend more time reading self-published (and often mediocre) writing, and self-produced videos, less time is spent in the company of credentialed creativity. And that translates into declining revenue for established voices and their intermediaries. Keen is particularly helpful in calling attention to how institutions of cultural authority require economic support to continue to operate. They also require a widespread sympathy to the idea of hierarchies, an assumption that some ideas are objectively better than others, that some commentators are wiser than others, that some creative work is, well, more creative than others.
Twenty or so years ago, cultural conservatives were up in arms about higher education’s demotion of the canon of great literature. They attributed this abandonment to the anti-Western bias of campus leftists. But surely the ecosystem of ideas and sentiments encouraged by uncritical use of the Web, energized by its defining myth of the democratization of knowledge and culture, poses a much greater threat than all those tenured radicals.

Posted by Ken Myers on 3/13/08 at Marshill Audio

Hat-tip to Titusonenine