Reflections on my Month of Documentaries

1. Supersize Me

After two years of trying to push through a thyroid disorder, I have been amazed at the importance of the relationship between food, our bodies and God. As Dr. Wirzba says, eating reminds us that we are still creatures, reliant on God and God's creation. Supersize Me shows the underside of what eating the wrong things can do to you. And to make things even worse, marketing plays a role in skewing information and leading us off course into territory that has us degrade our bodies.

2. The Century of Self (BBC)
I highly recommend this one. It comes in 4 parts.

The first section focuses on Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and the founder of "Public Relations." Not long after Freud had compiled and sythesized all of his thoughts and ideas on the power of the unconcious, underlying animalistic desires, and a certain depravity of humanity that is a danger to society, Bernays brought those ideas to American business. I can almost see it happening so innocently, an appopriation of knowledge that is dangerous. Ironically, I think that the Church had probably tapped into some of that for years. Anyway, Bernays used this information to get people to buy into various ideas. One of these ideas was consumption. Bernays was already "in bed" with business so to speak, so he used psychology to get folks to buy more products. Part of the idea behind filling folks with products is that the products could represent their desires and the people could assume that they were happy. Meanwhile, folks wouldn't worry about things like democracy if they were chasing "stuff" or thought that "stuff" made them happy. Keep in mind that Bernays was originally was in charge of "propaganda" but he changed the name to "public relations" because it had been closely associated with Nazi Germany. Yet again, when you think about it, this is the same information that the Bible has been telling us for a while: idolatry, love of money, treasures on heaven vs. treasures on earth, etc.

Part 2 focuses on Freud's daughter, Anna, as she attempts to carry on her father's work. While Freud seemed to be very pessimistic about society, Bernays saw the information as something to exploit (to become incredibly wealthy and politically powerful), Anna honed in on child psychology and pragmatically believed that society could shape us in such as way as to tame our inner badness. Her teachings reflect the leave-it-to-beaver era of the 1950s and which slowly began to be questioned throughout the 60s and 70s. By those later periods, psychologists were beginning to advocate letting the devil out of you rather than trying to repress it. While this is a fascinating shift, I wanted the BBC to follow that lead to how we deal with ideas about our inner badness, but it didnt' go there. However, they made a shift toward explaining that whoever you are once you release all of your inner badness and society's pressures, then you both arrive at the real self or you can be so stripped of self that you can create a new self. Either trajectory resulted in people who now sought out a certain means of self-expression, a need which advertising would eventually pick up on. Part 3 in particular goes in depth of how business could now target not just a general audience, but could focus in on particular subsets "the prep," "the hippie," "the jock" and people who buy stuff to fit their lifestyle as a means of self-expression. Yet again, advertising, marketing and consumption would be able to manipulate the inner workings of the human desire--in this case to be oneself. I think these two segments should speak to the Church in how we describe the self. The only way I can pull my head around it is using the language of the old and new self as described by the apostle Paul. The new self does bring freedom and the old has to be stripped away. I think the Church might actually have a lot to say about this.

I was not as impressed with Part 4. It centers on President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair as examples of how the techniques that were born in the marriage of business and psychology come to politics. The previous section showed that Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were able to win elections with assertions of the individual which appealed to the new understanding of the self. In the case of the rise of the New Left, both Clinton and Blair used focus groups, polls, etc. to pander to swing voters in attempt to always please the people. Although the political focus seems to be a offswing from the previous three sections premises about business, self and consumption, a certain truth rises at the end. If you try to pander to the public, then you are always at the mercy of the sway of people's opinions and desires. The individual reigns while a sense of community is demolished.

Although this documentary was made in 2002, I almost felt that Part 4 could have easily gone into the impact that "the self" has had in Church culture. All I could think about was the algining of the Christian Right with George Bush and a focus on "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," making a "decision" for Jesus, arguments concerning the individual's right to choose (and even how all of that gets into the culture wars). I'm not articulating it very well, but there is so much that we can talk about as far as the Church and the individual goes. Unfortunately today, the easiest consumers, most easily decieved consumers are Christians. Sell a piece of decorative wood with a Scripture on it, a Christian will buy it. Sell a knock-off t-shirt from a popular advertisement and substitute the logo with "Jesus," a "conservative" Christian will buy it. Sell a t-shirt that says something about AIDS, poverty, Africa with a small percentage of the proceeds going to those causes, then a "liberal" Christian will probably buy it. Why else do you think Bono chose to base the Product Red campaign on corporations? I heard him in an interview say that the market has become the way that people excersie their democracy (and I wonder if this is sometimes how we attempt to exercise our faith). Consumption has totally taken over the Church. I no longer feel comfortable in most evangelical Churches, not just because of politics or on certain hermeneutics, but because everyone dresses so nice it makes it seem like you gotta be rich to be a Christian--or at least stylish.

To be continued.

Why the Church has a Dating Crisis

What can be more American than dating? Boy likes girl. Girl flirts with boy. Boy gets the nerve to ask out girl. Girl says yes. Boy wants to kiss the girl. Girl wants it to be like a fairytale. Remember, it is first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes their spawn in a baby carriage. And of course, they will live happily ever after. We laugh at this story, but I think deep down we believe it. But I’m not sure if the Church should be believing this story.

What kind of stories does the Church believe in? What do we believe about people? I think we enter a danger zone when we act as if the destiny of Church members is to get married. I am not saying that marriage is not good. Surely it is good! Jesus may have been single, but he retained the rigor of marital fidelity. Paul too was single and he promoted singleness first and foremost while also building up marriage. And clearly, Genesis tells us that leaving and cleaving with a spouse is good. But I’m not sure if getting married, having 2.3 kids, a well-paying job and a house in the suburbs is one of the promises that God gives to us.

God gives us many promises. I, the Lord your God, will never leave you and will never forsake you. I will remove your sin as far as the east is from the west. I will give you eternal life. I will send you the Holy Spirit. I will make you, as a member of my Church, my bride. These promises are good. These promises are eternal. But the promise that is made in marriage is to death do us part. We will always have God, therefore our primary relationship is the one we have with God. And although our faith is not contingent on our keeping of God’s commands, the law, but Jesus summarized the commandments as loving God and loving neighbor. These two things we can do without being married. So this is the goal, not marriage, though marriage may be one aspect of living out the Great Commandment.

Instead of asking what marriage is, I think we have to start the conversation with what we believe about God and what we believe about humanity. Perhaps a good place to start is to insert a statement of faith, the most broadly accepted among Christians being the Apostle’s Creed. This is a good starting point for understanding what we as the Church believe about God. As far as humanity goes, we find that we are messy. We are made in the image of God, We are sinners, We are Saints and are becoming Saints. We are living in the in-between of Jesus coming to save us and the Kingdom which is coming on earth and already is in heaven. This in-between stuff is just messy.

I’ve made the claim that the Church has a dating crisis, and here is why. I would suggest that we don’t love God or our neighbors very well in the ways in which we date. Too often we give baggage to one another in ways that does not build up the Church. Forgiveness, redemption and transformation builds up the Church, but too often I think that we say that those words are too “heavy” for the casualness of our culture’s dating habits.

Here is one real-life scenario:

By the time Elinor entered the evangelical dating culture, she had waited to date, assuming that Christian dating meant that one had eyes on marriage and taking things slow. So she dated Isaac. Isaac had already dated Melody. When she first got to school, she had a crush on Evan who at the time was dating Melody. Melody eventually married Frank who was a Senior member of their college fellowship. Frank had dated Mary, another Senior, two times. Mary was best friends with Scott, who tried to date Elinor once things didn’t work out with Isaac. Scott was also friends with Frank and Evan. Scott made Elinor think he wanted to marry her, but snuck away and married Heather. Scott and Heather eventually showed up to be small group leaders at a Conference, where Mary was in charge of setting up small groups. Out of the awkwardness, Elinor ended up hanging out with Celia, Scott’s ex-girlfriend, who she had met at the Conference the year before when she still thought he wanted to marry her. Elinor and Celia never knew or spoke about their Scott connection. Meanwhile at the same conference, Elinor’s friend Anne was dating Ken, who she at one point in time also had a crush on. Ken broke up with Anne the night before Elinor and Anne headed on a mission trip that included Isaac, who still had not really resolved things with Elinor. Meanwhile, Mary started dating her eventual husband Matthew, who was best friends and co-workers with Michael. Elinor had had a crush on Michael since the year before, so she thought about asking Anne to hook her up with Michael as Anne’s job transfer made her Michael’s co-worker. A few months later, Michael and Anne start dating and yes, eventually married. And to make it all that much more bizarre, they were all part of the same Christian fellowship group.

Such a scenario looks more like a who-dunnit puzzle than the Church. Although there are safeguards about physical boundaries in dating in that subculture, dating creates a trainwreck for those relationships. And it seems that relationships, how we treat our neighbors, is what is important to God. I think it is more than just “not having sex.” It is about loving our neighbors. I’m not sure how to quell the relational awkwardness that American-style dating can have for the Church, but I think it is definitely worth thinking about the effect it has on the Church and how it narrates what we believe.

Attention All Helicopter Parents...

...and those who who think that they don't fit that bill.

Your baby came out of the womb at his or her own pace.

Your newborn suckled at its mother's breast without being taught how.

One day after trial and error, your toddler walked when he figured it out.

She told you when she was ready for a big girl bike.

The government deemed that when they are 16 they have what it takes to drive and when they are 21 that they can handle the alcohol choice.

And the Bible says that there is a day that a man will leave his mother and cleave to his wife.

They may be put into your charge to teach them about life on the earth, but first and foremost they are God's. They came from God and are meant to return to God. And most likely, they are an important part of your sancfication. There is a time to return them over to the care of the one who Created them.

On Time-Sickness

**Taken from an unknown source

"We have forgotten how to look forward to things, and how to enjoy the moment when they arrive. Restaurants report that hurried diners increasingly pay hte bill and order a taxi while eating dessert. Many sports fans leave sporting evnets early, no matter how close the score, simply to steal a march on the traffic. Then there is the curse of multi-tasking. Doing two things at once seems so clever, so efficient, so modern. And yet what it often means is doing two things not very well."
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"'Time-sickness' can be a symptom of a deeper, existential malaise. In the final stages before burnout, people often speed up to avoid confronting their unhappiness. Kundera thinks that speed helps block out the horror and barrenness of the modern world: "Our period is obsessed with a desire to forget, and it is that desire that gives it over to the demon of speed..."
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"The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form of innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation with violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys her own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." --Thomas Merton

The Activity of the Activist

I do not have anything against activists. In fact, I consider myself one. I used to think that I was not a political person, but on hearing Jonathan Kozol's definition I realized that it must define me. He said, "Politics is what you do in the morning about what you thought about at night." In my increasing understanding that action is necessary to following Jesus and embodying the already-here-not-yet Kingdom of God, I have also found that changing the world cannot rest completely on my shoulders. This is God's work and God is gracious enough to let me play a part as a means of worship in God's redemptive plans for the world. I cannot do eveything and I must give honor to my status as creature: I must eat, I must rest my weary bones, I must take time to sabbath, etc. This is not simply a worldly battle and it is not simply a spiritual battle.

Granted I was not always able to be present for worship while volunteering for a conference of Christian activists, but I was overwhelmed by the sense of busyness, meetings, networking, "make it quick," gotta-have-it-now mentality of a number of the conference attendees. There is almost a spirit at times of "if God doesn't connect me with this organization or get me a network meeting with this associate, then God has no plans for me." Or it goes even further to if I don't put myself in those positions, then God can't find ways to speak to me and/or help me make connections. Or perhaps it is with resources. If I don't take that book now or ask for special permission to have it held for me while I get money, then someone else will get it.

It is amazing to me how folks who use the language of "we are one community" or "one church" as a means to becoming involved in social justice and reconciliation, yet on a personal, mundane level folks had trouble living into the virtues of dying to oneself, patience, listening, trusting in God's providence, sabbath, truthfulness, empathy, etc. I saw a lack of teamwork and a rise in exclusiveness and individualism. It seems that we as the Church have a lot of work to do in embodying the Gospel in everyday encounters and with the world and with God at large.