2008/10/30

Aping the culture

For ages, it's been a concern of many that Christians have a habit of trying to ape popular culture, rather than making their own. (I remember well the despair of a friend who saw a car-sticker in the style of an Oakley ad, saying "Jesus: Thermonuclear Protection", but I digress; I don't think their ads say that any more.).

So it's with some surprise that now the militant atheist fundamentalists are doing their best to emulate the behaviour of believers. Not content with their "I'm right and I won't listen to anyone who disagrees" line - the mark of a good fundamentalist, it seems to me - they are moving on to copy other things. Last week the big news was those unimaginative and hesitant atheist adverts (or were they agnostic) on the sides of London buses. And now, I've become aware of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People. I'm obviously a little late on that, because the tickets are sold out, and have been for a while, it seems, even with a ticket price of £20. (I've nothing against the event: it sounds rather good. And contemplating the wonders of the Universe would be good for us all).

I am rather left wondering what we'll see next. If you were an atheist fundamentalist, what elements of Christian sub-cluture would you choose to rip-off?

2008/10/21

Probably atheists

So, the advertising campaign to promote an atheist message has finally raised enough money to go ahead. London buses will carry a message saying "There's Probably No God". What wierd things some people spend their money on.

There's Probably No God - poster

I do wish the BBC would stop asking 'Christian Voice' to give opinions on this kind of thing, since they speak for approximately one man and his dog. But I suppose getting one whacky group to comment on another is what passes as news reporting these days.

I suppose the advertisers are trying to make a point. I'm just not sure what that point is. It's a free country, though.

2008/10/20

cigars

Well, here's a thing. Jake Bouma points to a post by a Jared Wilson entitled "20 ways to smoke cigars to the glory of God". I confess that I didn't find the 20 ways as thought-provoking as the preamble: the post begins with a quote from no lesser person than C.H. Spurgeon describing his joy in smoking cigars. You might argue that he was doing that before the full extent of the health problems associated with smoking became apparent. But that would be primarily a health argument, not a theological one, wouldn't it?

Anyhow, I thought it an interesting fresh challenge to presuppositions. We assume so much about "normal" Christian behaviour; so much that is actually determined by culture and today's values, not necessarily by timeless Kingdom values. We assume at our peril. It ain't necessarily so.

2008/10/17

America again

Here I am again. New England this time. Here are some more curiosities:

1. Nowadays, all the car adverts announce loudly their fuel economy figures. And 30 mpg is good, seemingly. Folks, it isn't.

2. I love the way Sen. Obama keeps talking about wanting to help middle-class families. I can't imagine any of the British political parties saying that.

3. Socialism is a bit silly, but the venom being directed towards Mr. Obama, on the charge that he looks like a socialist, is quite staggering.

Does that have anything to do with my normal blog topic? Not particularly, save to say that "good news for the poor" doesn't seem to feature big in either party's rhetoric. Nothing new there, then. But I don't really understand America. That much is clear. After all, I still don't know what baseball is for.

2008/10/11

Feeding the trolls

I was in Blackwell's this morning. They have the biggest Theology section of any bookshop I've ever visited. I noticed a big display of books critical of Richard Dawkins and all his works. Since Dawkins is "one of us" (Oxford Faculty) and has foisted his own mix of genius and nonsense on the world, I suppose it only just and right that some of his colleagues in the University do the same. Many of the (8? 10?) books in the display were by Oxford authors.

The title of my blog aludes, of course, to the glory days of Usenet, when some people would post articles simply to attract attention. The more contentious the point of view, the better. Feeding such trolls by responding to their arguments was frowned upon. I do rather wonder whether Richard's ramblings are worthy of responses from quite so many busy theologians, philosophers, and, indeed, scientists. "The God Delusion" would disappear all the quicker if the soon-retiring Professor of the Public Understanding of Science (or is that Misunderstanding?) were left to his own devices, methinks.

For there is a whole slew of books out there about new spirituality, about, on the one hand, a rise in spirituality. I've had "The Twilight of Atheism" on my half-read books pile for quite some time - but there are many more I could add to it, it seems. I have to say that among the people I mix with, I don't really see this happening - if anything, there is a rise of militant Atheist fundemaentalism. That seems terribly recherché in this postmodern age - but a great many scientists are struggling to re-think their philosophy, and cling to the epistemology they learned as undergraduates.

But I guess we all do. And if we're not careful, the things we read just reinforce that, instead of broadening our horizons. Which is why I fear for the "is/isn't" books, and want to leave the trolls well alone. Except that I just wrote this blog. Ooops.

2008/10/02

Interesting times

So, will September 2008 go down in history as the time when capitalism ended and the banking system collapsed, or the time when the idea of "emerging church" blew up?

The former is clear enough. The idea of socializing the losses but not the profits of the banks is certainly ... interesting: it seems somewhat uneven. But I long-ago decided that I do not understand macroeconomics - my only fear is that it sometimes seems that no one else does, either.

As for the "Emerging Church", well, there are certainly lots of people running a mile from the term: Jason Clark is moving on, and making his emphasis his "Deep Church" perspective instead. The sainted Dan Kimball and others are pointing to a post by Scott McKnight, inviting us to distinguish "emerging" from "emergent". The wise Tall Skinny Kiwi went so far as to have a post on "now that we have stopped emerging". And so it goes on. And on.

Trying to put things into a named box seems often to be an attempt to close down a debate, and attempt to coral lots of diverse people into the same corner. So if the whole "emerging church" label has passed its usefulness, it doesn't seem a big deal. If this helps to disentangle those with very conventional evangelical theology but lots of relevancy (certainly Driscoll, probably Kimball) from those who are more ... adventurous (the Emergent folks, MacLaren, and so on) perhaps that's rather good.

If MacLaren is right, and we are in the midst of a one-in-400-year sea-change in culture and theology, you can hardly expect it to happen in one leap, anyway. And if that turns out to be a load of froth signifying nothing, well, that's life, too. I wonder what the next name will be.

Ideas, good. Simplistic names, bad.