Tuesday, September 03, 2013
The Culturally Anarchic Church
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| Billboard, in downtown Detroit |
At Redeemer we are moving against culture (like some other churches we know of). We are not spending money on trying to keep people "happy." To be unconcerned about keeping people amused is, today, radically countercultural. It's cultural anarchism.
I'm not interested in enabling our happiness-addicted culture. And, yes, that is our culture, as an increasing number of scholars are showing us. Yale University's Miroslav Volf, for example, writes:
"For many in the West, experiential satisfaction is what their lives are all about. It does not merely enhance flourishing; it defines it. Such people cannot imagine themselves as flourishing if they do not experience satisfaction, if they don’t feel happy, as the preferred way of expressing it goes.
For them, flourishing consists in having an experientially satisfying life. No satisfaction, no flourishing.
Sources of satisfaction may vary, ranging from appreciation of classical music to the use of drugs, from the delights of haute cuisine to sadomasochistic sex, from sports to religion. What matters is not the source of satisfaction but the fact of it.
What justifies a given lifestyle or activity is the satisfaction it generates—the pleasure. And when they experience satisfaction, people feel that they flourish.
As Philip Rieff noted in The Triumph of the Therapeutic some decades ago (1966), ours is a culture of managed pursuit of pleasure, not a culture of sustained endeavor to lead the good life, as defined by foundational symbols and convictions. This is a broad generalization with many important exceptions. Yet it describes well a major and growing trend."
- Volf, Miroslav, A Public Faith, pp. 57-58)
Well, if we are not expending time, energy, and funds to fuel peoples' happiness, then just what the heck are we doing?
My answer is: We are teaching people about *The Real Jesus. And how to connect with Jesus, and how to abide in Christ. Which then, logically and inexorably, leads to discipleship.
That's it. That's all. Every resource is pointed towards this.
And, BTW, we have a lot of young people coming who are not interested in Entertainment Churches but Presence-Driven Churches and discipleship.
*We're not the last word on this. In spite of our insufficiencies, this is what I and my church family are going after.
Monday, September 02, 2013
Where Is This in Monroe? Clue #1
Where is this in Monroe? Clue #1
If you can answer this then you are a genius of the Einstein-type.
Decadence: We're Blind, but Once We'd Seen
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| Detroit |
"Decadence" - the decline of moral consciousness.
"Consciousness" - vigilant reflective activity on matters of self and community.
Consciousness, argues Charles Hill in his essay "On Decadence," is in decline in America. Which means moral consciousness is also in decline. To be conscious is to be morally "awake." Today's America is, largely, morally asleep. Ours is a decadent culture, which implies that once we were morally awake but now are asleep at the moral wheel. Reversing the lyric of "Amazing Grace," "We're blind, but once we'd seen."
Hill writes:
"Consciousness has been an American preoccupation since Tocqueville analyzed the nation's "point of departure" in early New England, reinforced by Thoreau's call upon his fellow citizens, in Walden, to become fully "awake." But... the "Enlightenment's assertion of the sovereignty of the individual subject as the center of human thought, capable of essentializing thought in itself," was soon challenged by Marx, Freud, and the new social scientists. Thus were planted the seeds of doubt regarding human consciousness capacity; viz., innate biological systems were seen to transcend the power of individual consciousness. Freud's "unconscious" and Marx's "capital" overcome and dominate humanh reflective consciousness and, so to speak, "take the wheel" from the human "subject."
Edward Said has written that this view ""flatly contradicts the core of humanistic thought" by relegating the idea of individualism to the status of illusory autonomy or fiction."
Hill says this brings us to the heart of the question that every political thinker since has had to address; viz., "What is a human nature?"
Until recently the assumption has been that human nature is mostly guided by conscious thoughts and feelings. It was broadly assumed that humans have "free will." (Which we do, BTW, and that is another story.) But now we have "an 'avalanche' of studies' [that] unsurprisingly asserts that we hold prejudices seated in a level of our minds so deep as to be inaccessible to our conscious awareness." (See, especially, Daniel Kahneman's landmark study Thinking Fast and Slow. At least Kahneman allows for "slow thinking" ]rational deliberation], but most "thinking" is "unconscious." Note that scholars are now questioning Kahneman's research - see here.)
Hill cites evidence of the shrinking of consciousness. He writes:
"The advent of 'screen culture' - cellphones, iPads, as well as old-fashioned TV and film - now ubiquitous among the young in their formative years of education, has shrunk consciousness down in a different way. Students increasingly seem conditioned by the fact that much of their waking life is populated by mechanically mediated images in which they can see other beings on screens but those others cannot see them. As a result the view can become oblivious to others, having no need to interact or maintain a minimum of civil conduct with them. To think back on Herodotus again, this is the Gyges question: What do you do when no one is looking? The "screenie" has invisibility even without privacy. As consciousness has atrophied, obliviousness - and no little rudeness - replaces it. This phenomenon adds a new dimension to the age-old definition of decadence."
Of course consciousness changes over time. As Hegel showed us, any study of consciousness is a history of consciousness (even if one doesn't buy into Hegel's notion that individual consciousness 'recapitulates' the historical development of 'the world spirit'). So, looking at the present moment, we see a shriveling of consciousness that, Hill argues, is die to two things:
1. The current orthodoxies of social science that deny free will, and
2. The electronic domination of society by screen culture. (Look around, everyone is looking at screens, including you if you are reading this and, of course, including me as I write this.)
These two realities will affect human consciousness; in this case, shrinking it. We are becoming the unconscious people. Hence the proliferation of zombies? Arguably screen culture zombies people. This is not a moral judgment, but rather an empirical observation, a phenomenology if you will.
We have become the "incomplete" society. The textification of culture leading to the texticide of the complete text has led to incomplete thinking, the failure of following an argument through and to its very end. Thus subverting "any real book's purpose."
Hill writes:
"What scope is there for the self when consciousness has shriveled and free will dwindled?
The answer is "not much", and this means the loss of a core dimension of human purpose. This, from Emerson to Nietzsche to David Foster Wallace, is the imperative to harness the power of one's own attention so that we can "construct ourselves by assembling our experiences, desires and actions in the way a novelist gives coherence to the incidental points of a novel" (Quoting Thomas Meaney, "David Foster Wallace on Planet Trillaphon"). But a diminished self, with its loss of interiority, is disinclined toward or simply unable to undertake such a task of self-fashioning. As a population, such diminished selves increasingly become passive, receptive, pleasure-seeking, self-indulgent and, yes, decadent.
With this observation we enter the Age of entertainment, Plato's nightmare, made worse by a ubiquitous screen culture that makes entertainment always available and that turns everything - news, sports, health, war - into one or another form of entertainment." (Is this the subtext of "The Hunger Games?")
If this interests you, read Hill's entire essay, which goes into far greater detail. Here's one more quote from Hill, in conclusion:
- "Today, everyone expects to be entertained, and they expect to be entertained all the time... Everyone must be amused, or they will switch... This is the intellectual reality of the twentieth century." - Michael Crichton
This is true, correct?
Covenant Praying as Everlasting Super-gluedness to God (PrayerLife)
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| Trinitarian sculpture, in a shop in Columbus |
To make a "covenant" with someone is to vow allegiance to that person, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part. Real prayer is a covenant-making activity with God, 'til death do I live forever. The act of praying is the expression of everlasting super-gluedness to God.
Ps. 57:7 expresses the confession of a covenant heart:
My heart, O God, is steadfast,
my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and make music.
And from The Message:
I’m ready, God, so ready,
ready from head to toe,
Ready to sing, ready to raise a tune!
This is commitment-language. Commitment Prayer takes us to the heights of life where we gain, among other things, a God-perspective that allows us to see sub specie aeternitis, or "from the view of God."
I like how Richard Foster expresses the nature of Covenant Prayer:
"Covenant Prayer is a profound interior heart call to a God-intoxicated life. It leads us to the crossroad of personal decision. It guides us through the valley of sacred commitment. It beckons us up the alpine pathway of holy obedience." (Foster, Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition: Finding the Heart's True Home, p. 67)
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Register for Redeemer Ministry School Fall Classes (RMS Is a Tuition-Free School)
A Tuition-free Ministry School - REGISTER FOR FALL CLASSES! Redeemer Ministry School will be tuition-free in 2013-2014. Students will be responsible to purchase their texts. (Note: We may have scholarships available for students who cannot purchase the required texts.) Students from outside of the Monroe area will need to secure their own housing. We can help you make contacts. Want to study with us in the fall? Let me know - johnpiippo@msn.com.Redeemer 3 ways to sign up for classes: 1) call the church office to sign up - 734-242-5277; 2) send John Piippo (johnpiippo@msn.com) or Holly Benner (oneeseemus@gmail.com) an e-mail; or sign up in Redeemer's lobby.
The Fall 2013 semester will begin September 10.
There will be no classes Thanksgiving week. Last day of Fall classes is: Friday, Nov. 22 (No classes on Thanksgiving Week and in December.) Listed below are the classes for all three trimesters. If you are interested in enrolling, please see the application page.
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From a Summer of Prayer to a Life of Prayer
Prayer Summer has ended. Thanks to the 400+
who joined me for this!
The purpose of PS has been to introduce you
to a deeper life of prayer,
and/or to strengthen your already-existing prayer life.
The point has been:
To help you gain a Life of Prayer.
A PrayerLife.
Now, PrayerLife has begun.
For the rest of your life.
For all the days of your life.
If you have been part of PS
then I'm going to keep sending you emails
of the posts I'm writing on prayer, praying,
and a life of prayer.
If you'd like to be removed from this list
then let me know.
If you are new and would like to join me in PrayerLife then send me an e-mail and I'll add you to my PL list.
"If my people....." Right?
J.P.
johnpiippo@msn.com
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Welcome to PrayerLife!
I'm so grateful to all of you who have joined me in Prayer Summer.
My prayer for you is that this experience will have strengthened your prayer life.
As for me, I am going to keep this life of prayer, this intimate conversational relationship, that God has offered me. It's been happening for many years between God and I, and I am not going to back off now. It's too rich, deep, engaging, and real.
Unless God instructs me otherwise I'm going to continue writing and posting things on prayer, praying, and spiritual formation.
If you are on my Prayer Summer email list I would like to continue to send you these. If you would like to opt out then please send me an email.
If you would like to join me in PrayerLife, please email me and I'll add you to my mailing list.
johnpiippo@msn.com
Blessings!
JP
Oswald Chambers on the Purpose of Prayer (Prayer Summer)
THE PURPOSE OF PRAYER
“. . . one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray . . . .’” - Luke 11:1
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer.
When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. “Ask, and you will receive . . .” (John 16:24).
We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, “. . . unless you . . . become as little children . . .” (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work.
The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits’ end. When a person is at his wits’ end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems—the very things that have brought you to your wits’ end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.
To say that “prayer changes things” is not as close to the truth as saying, “Prayer changes me and then I change things.” God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature.
- Oswald Chambers
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