Or both?
Part of my dissertation reading has been Zygmunt Bauman’s book, Consuming Life, which describes and explores some of the implications of living in a consumerist society.
Bauman very quickly makes the connection from a society oriented around consuming products to a society which also finds itself consuming each other:
How does the image of mission as healing affect the way we understand the mission of God?
So, after a long sabbatical it’s time to resume our Missional Viewpoints series. I almost let this series go, but I still think it’s something worth continuing so it’s time to revisit it and press on further. Just to jog your memory, here’s what I wrote as the brief for this series last Summer:
On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
Continuing our series of reflections on the Twelve Days of Christmas, as the days increase so the subjects of each day become deeper and more elaborate. Today, seven swans a-swimming represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
It’s that time of the year to look back over another year of blogging, and begin to form plans and ideas for the next year.
The most viewed blog post in 2009 was actually written in December 2008. Missional engagement and reflective learning was an explanation of some quick observations I made about the link between engaging in mission and the reflective learning cycle.
Here’s a quick quote from the original post (after the jump):
Caught up in the Christian understanding of mission and particularly evangelism, is this concept of salvation and what it means. In recent times, the Church’s understanding of salvation has been fairly straightforward and in some ways quite a shallow image. Will a deeper image of salvation help to propel us towards a deeper understanding of the mission of God?
How does the image of mission as liberation help us in understanding how God is at work in the world around us, and how we can get stuck in alongside him?
I’ve been thinking recently, inspired by some stuff from a recent lecture at CYM, about the whole biblical meta-narrative – and in particular this idea of the story beginning with the garden and ending in the city. Beginning with Eden and ending with the new Jerusalem. I think I’ve read a few authors who have pointed this out and tried to draw observations from it – in particular recently Rob Bell’s new book and NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope.
It’s really interesting to see how we can play around with the interaction between this little bit of theology and all kinds of ideas about the way society and culture develops.
So had my first day back at CYM last Wednesday – and began the Culture, Society and Mission module. Here are two quotes and thoughts I had:
“Aesthetics are the postmodern currency of power.”
That probably needs further unpacking in a future post. And:
“Critiquing a modern faith from within modernity is like describing a box from the inside.”
Today began to sketch out the concept of culture, beginning by looking at a theology of culture – from the garden to the city. Then we went on to take a detailed look at modernity – it’s origins, vague characteristics, and then onto a critique – as well as looking at the church in the light of modernity.
We also went through the opening chapter of H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture - which I had my first look through in the first year during a theology module. Really good, classic, go-to book.
Its usual around this time to bloggers to start putting lists together to sum up the previous year – so I thought I’d provide my own. Here’s my list of a few films, albums, books, people, videos – whatever – that have left their mark on me this year. In no particular order…
In the second half of this year, Changeling was the film that hit me the hardest (Trailer here). What hit me was just how easy it was for these people who really thought they were doing the right thing to get it so wrong. Angelina Jolie played a very different role really well.
Throughout this year, Alan has managed to regularly turn out thought-provoking posts about missional, liminality and communitas on his blog. This is one of the few blogs in my reader that has no unread posts.
I’m currently working my way through Mark Sayers‘ book The Trouble about Paris (well worth reading), which has been causing me to think a lot about this concept of hyperreality and the effect it has on our lives and our spirituality.
Hyper-reality is this idea that our culture is constantly causing us to buy into a “larger than” life – the dream life which we see epitomised by our images of celebrity and success, and ultimately happiness. This hyperreality claims to provide us with happiness and fulfilment, but leaves us living in a kind-of denial of the actual reality we live in.
The main, most obvious way we can see the effects of this “larger than” life is in consumerism and the effect it has had on our culture and our spirituality. The hyperreal myth that “just one more” will bring happiness leads us to become both material and spiritual consumers. Hence the Church finds itself having to attract and cater for a generation of Christian consumers – who are after maximum result (perceived value) for minimum investment (cost), and are always looking for the best deal.
Welcome to the blog of James Henley. I'm a young church leader / youth worker and student based in Newport, South Wales.
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