Perhaps you missed it in the midst of your New Years’ Eve revelry, but during a national broadcast of the Times Square ball drop, the singer Cee-Lo Green blasphemed one of America’s major religions. Singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” in front of thousands of drunken partiers with cameras trained on him from CNN and NBC, Green substituted words in the verse that reads:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to fight or die for,
And no religion, too.

Green’s interpretation of the final line: “And all religion’s true.”

This immediately set off a flock of angry twitterers, mobbing the former Goody Mob singer’s account with curses and invective. Typical responses from Twitter included:

@Austin McCarty: @CeeLoGreen All region is true = no religion is true.

@Occupylvcampout: @CeeLoGreen you don’t change the words to one of the best songs to what you believe go to hell fat boy I wish you a heart attack…

@Vegardkvaale: @CeeLoGreen who are you to change the words of a true artist. So fucking disrespectful and ignorant.

@SKYENICOLAS: @CeeLoGreen Look man, you’re nothing close to John’s intellect. You editing the song makes it a Pro Religion song and not a SECULAR song!

These critics seem unaware of just how religious their responses are. Other commentators used terms like “iconic” to describe the song, and “desecration” to describe what Green did to the song. They were essentially accusing Green of heresy against a system of spiritual beliefs that might be called “Lennonism.”

Lennonism sets itself against a perception of institutionalized, dogmatic religion, not the broader, less judgmental expressions of spirituality that have become part of the modern Western landscape. Surely Unitarian-Universalists would disagree with @AustinMcCarty’s assertion that all religions being true means no religion is true.

But whether using Thomas Luckmann’s suggestion of religion as a life-integrating discipline or Paul Tillich’s “matter of ultimate concern,” the responses to Green’s performance reveal the deeply religious meaning Lennon’s “Imagine” has for his fans. “Imagine” is the central creed of Lennonism. More than a pop song, it is a hymn to secular utopian spirituality.

Like the many evangelical Christians who misunderstand the American Founders’ deism as being compatible with their own theocratic agenda, some of Green’s critics seem to have equated Lennon’s song with contemporary “new atheism.” New atheists like Richard Dawkins or the late Christopher Hitchens believe in an aggressive rationalist or scientific materialism that would be pretty incompatible with the hippy utopianism of “Imagine.”

Lennon’s belief seemed to be more of an “anti-ism-ism” in which the lines of ideology would be erased in favor of a simpler and less-contentious mode of enlightened being. In the 1960’s, a time of heightened conflict between ideologies of Marxism and capitalism, nationalism and individualism, Eastern and Western religion, Lennon played the media trickster, subverting expectations of politicized celebrity opinion by promoting “bag-ism,” “hair peace,” and “bed-ism.” The solution-based striving of political and religious ideologies were replaced with slogans like, “Together we can get it together;” “War is over…if you want it;” and “All you need is love.” The idea was that the power you needed to change the world was inside you.

Furthermore, Lennon in the late 1960’s styled himself as a guru of this so-simple-its-obvious religion. The height of his spiritual influence was the Montreal Bed-in of 1969, in which Lennon and Yoko Ono took to their hotel bed for a week, and invited in counterculture celebrities, including Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers, and Dick Gregory. Visually emulating the Beatles’ former teacher, the Maharishi, Lennon and Ono led the assembled disciples in the recording of “Give Peace a Chance.” It was the founding moment of Lennonism, the sacred moment of the 60’s that gives life to much of the nostalgic passion the Baby Boomers have for their rock-n-roll messiah.

Non-religious figures John Lennon and Yoko Ono

What’s disturbing is how dogmatic the latter-day followers of Lennonism have become. Like many believers, after their founder’s death, they become unyielding in their faith in an attempt to show “true discipleship.” How perverted is it to lay claim to Lennon’s philosophy by telling someone to “go to hell fat boy I hope you have a heart attack.”

Cee-lo’s expression that “All religion’s true” is surely as innocuous (and ultimately impractical) as Lennon’s wish for no religion. Many of us share the ideals of peace and harmony Lennon and Cee-Lo were attempting to express, but believe that it’s only by capturing the spirit of the human religious impulse and using it for good that real peace will come about. This is a faith of addition instead of subtraction. Not “no religion” or “any religion you want” but belief in the transformative power of the most enlightened elements of religion. This is ultimately closer to Martin Luther King’s statement, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice and brotherhood,” than a negative statement of eliminating peoples’ systems of meaning-making in pursuit of some nihilistic desert of anti-conflict.

Whatever you are, though, Lennonist, Cee-Lo Universalist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist, by all means, let’s Give Peace a Chance. You can start by keeping it civil on your Twitter account.

Christopher Hitchens died yesterday. And as he had predicted, there were no stories of a deathbed conversion or recanting of his atheism.

If Jesus was the “wounded healer,” Hitchens was the “bullied bully.” Something about his demeanor and well-known abuse of his body through alcohol and tobacco suggested a man who had been deeply scarred by the events of his life. He used his prodigious talent at writing and argument to tear down both the good and the evil, the just and the unjust. Whatever calculus he applied to come to his intellectual opinions (and, as one writer suggested, his main ideology seemed to be apostasy from previously held positions) whoever ended up on the wrong side of a debate with him, God help them. He would resort to ad hominem and straw man attacks while denouncing his opponent for doing the same. He would confound his opponent with obscure words and writers and a certain slurred charm that would soon have his enemy holding onto the wrong end of the cobra. While it was enjoyable to see him do this to a religious charlatan like Ralph Reed, or a gargoyle like Henry Kissinger, his merciless attacks of Mother Teresa were in bad taste, and his defense of nitwit neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz was downright dangerous.

My own life is worse for Hitchens having been on this planet. One of my best and closest friends had been in a contentious relationship with his Catholicism for some time when he read God Is Not Great. Imagining Hitchens’ bigoted screed to be a new and heretofore unmet argument against religion, my friend finally lurched into atheism. If my friend was not cut out to be a Christian, he made an even worse atheist. Whatever spiritual duct tape had been holding him together through bouts of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder came unglued, and he plunged into near-suicidal despair. After my desperate pleas for him to get help from a counselor, he finally emerged from this period, spiritually broken but still alive. Perhaps as a means of survival, he had taken on cynicism towards many of his previous ways of thinking, including his former spirit of generosity and openness to the world. After several e-mails this past January in which he expressed virulent anti-Islamic sentiment using overwrought Hitchensian prose, I have chosen not to keep in contact with my friend for most of the last year.

I suspect, like Hitchens, my friend, who had experienced the trauma of bullying, both from his father and from schoolmates, had tried to become the bullied bully. Do I know for sure the changes in my friend’s personality would not have happened had he not read that book? No, I don’t. There were numerous other contributing factors to his breakdown. But the many encomiums after Hitchens’ death suggest that ideas and words really do matter in how they shape personal thought and public debate. Otherwise, why would we care that another pundit has met his reward? (Or lack thereof.) Public intellectuals are people who, through their erudition and eloquence, have an uncanny ability to crystalize opinion and move the world to action. They have an awesome responsibility to use these talents for the greater good.

Hitchens himself reflected on this in a late essay of uncharacteristic humility in which he described attending the funeral of an American soldier who had joined up to fight in Iraq after reading Hitchens’ powerful, pro-war essays. One wonders how many families of the nearly 4500 soldiers killed, or thousands of Iraqi orphans, he would have had to meet before he would finally admit he was wrong about the war. For all of his claims to scientific rationalism, if Hitchens had merely listened to the sound objections of the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, and several public Christians like Jim Wallis, Stanley Hauerwas, William Sloane Coffin, and Jesse Jackson, he would have come out on the right side of history in opposing America’s war on Iraq. His unapologetic cheerleading for this horrific misadventure was his greatest misdeed as a writer and producer of public opinion.

For the man who wrote, on Jerry Falwell’s death, “It’s a shame there is no hell for him to go to,” it’s a shame there is no hell for Hitch. How I would love to imagine a No Exit scenario in which Hitchens is forced to endure an eternal cocktail party (with low quality booze) with Falwell and Saddam Hussein, in which his only succor would come by asking forgiveness from his nemesis Mother Teresa.

But I suspect what will really happen is that Hitchens will get what’s coming to him, what’s coming to all of us, atheist and believer alike: an encounter with the all-encompassing, penetrating, and awesome love of God. Whether or not in the state in which he died he would be capable of accepting this gift is of some question; God’s love is freely given and has to be freely accepted, no one will force him to take it. This is really the only eternal judgment we face: whether after a lifetime, we can stand in the light of such a love that burns away the dross of our hatred and fear and leaves us both individually whole and communally connected to God. I believe this love can be resisted, in death as in life, but it is awfully tenacious, and I don’t think any of us—not Hitchens, not my friend, not Saddam or Jerry Falwell—can hold out against it forever.

In this life we like to imagine that at the End we’ll get some “accounting” of events, some kind of weighing of right and wrong. In general, we imagine this for other people, those we dislike, rather than for ourselves. (Although there is a certain spiritual S&M in my natal Calvinism that would be disappointed if we weren’t all just a little punished). After all, we tell ourselves that God is a God of justice. And God is, at least this side of the material/spiritual divide. But I find it hard to believe that any of us, if we truly experienced an overwhelming love that salved our wounds and enveloped us in the fullness of the Ground of All Being, would be quite so concerned with such earthly concepts as “justice.” The gerund that comes to mind from such a love seems closer to “basking” (in God’s love) than “bitching” (about those who don’t deserve it).

Atheists like Hitchens would no doubt find my speculation on what happens after death incredibly naïve and even a bit silly. I’m not sure I disagree with them. But I guess that’s what I count on, what gives me the spark to keep living in what is sometimes a painful and always uncertain existence: my somewhat naïve, somewhat silly insistence that Love wins out in the end.

The works of Joss Whedon–from his hit television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, to his popular comic book writing on Fray and X-Men, to his upcoming and highly anticipated Avengers film–are among the most influential pop culture phenomena of the last two decades. They are also among the most provocative when it comes to explorations of religion, family, friendship, sexuality, forgiveness, redemption, hope, love, and other dimensions of the human condition. While several volumes have been written on Whedon’s opus form philosophical and cultural studies perspectives, relatively little attention has been given to the theological significance–and implications–of how he portrays these subjects.

We are soliciting abstract submissions for an anthology volume on Joss Whedon and theology. Accordingly, submissions should address any of the above topics or other themes pertinent to Whedon’s work through a broadly theological lens. We are looking for critical engagement from religious (e.g. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist) or non-religious (e.g. atheist, agnostic, humanist) perspectives and also welcome theological approaches informed explicitly by issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc.

Please send a 250-300 word proposal and your CV by email. Both should be in Word or PDF format. The deadline for submission is February 29th, 2012. Finished essays will be due June 30th, 2012. Proposals, CVs, and other questions should be sent to Anthony R. Mills (cardinal.tony@hotmail.com), John Morehead (johnwmorehead@msn.com), and J. Ryan Parker (jamesryanparker@gmail.com).

Anthony R. Mills, PhD (Independent Scholar)

John W. Morehead (Independent Scholar, www.theofantastique.com)

J. Ryan Parker, Ph.D (Independent Scholar, www.poptheology.com)

Pop Theology: Tell us about your attraction to popular culture and why you feel like it is a fitting/important conversation partner for doing theology/religion/spirituality/etc.

Tony: I grew up in a middle-class Midwestern home which was not very religious, so pop culture artifacts like movies, music, and TV were staples of my exposure to culture, and my parents rarely had any scruples about what I heard or viewed. This was already in the background when I became a Christian in high school, so it was natural for me to begin integrating what I already held dear with my new faith. The question is often posed as if religion/spirituality is a fixed thing with which we then negotiate how to interact with pop culture, but I think that for me the reverse was true. I also think this is how it works for most people, even if unconsciously so. So my attraction to pop culture is born chiefly out of the fact that it is my first love, so to speak.

As to why I think it is an important conversation partner for religion, one reason has already been suggested: precisely because it is such a formative phenomenon for countless people, albeit in infinitely expressive ways. Cultural “texts” are often said to function religiously, so it is important to consider the extent to which this is the case. If we add what I said above about the fact that culture lays in the background of faith commitment more than is realized, then the boundaries between religion and culture become incredibly blurred.

Another reason why I like pop culture is because it is so often transformative for so many people, eliciting emotional responses that I think are on par with those elicited by religious music or sermons or spiritually intense moments. Movies and television are also great at illustrating significant theological themes like love, sacrifice, forgiveness, grace, sin, and so on. For instance, I have sometimes told people that if they want to witness the kind of grace and acceptance of others which Christ exemplified, they should watch their way through the seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Pop Theology: Explain the American Monomyth for our readers and tell us about your dissertation on the subject.

Tony: The “American Monomyth” is a term invented by Robert Jewett and John Lawrence that refers to the dominant American heroic archetype. It plays on the worldwide heroic journey outlined by Joseph Campbell wherein a hero comes from a community, goes off alone to face dangerous odds, then returns to his community a new man or with new gifts to offer. Lawrence and Jewett suggest that in America’s version, the hero begins and ends in obscurity, ultimately isolated from any real relationships. Moreover, the community that the hero saves is an Edenic paradise that can do no wrong. The villains are thus unquestionably evil and must be completely destroyed or removed in order for the town in peril to be redeemed.

My dissertation argues that while the American monomyth is for the most part true of our hero stories, beginning in the 1960s with Stan Lee, Marvel Comics worked to subvert this dominant archetype by having heroes stay within communities, making them have flaws, writing villains more complexly and humanely, etc. Lee didn’t do this so much with an eye toward the monomyth proper as he did in consideration of other comic book stories, namely those of DC Comics, which he just didn’t regard as true to life. For him, the perfect hero and the stereotypical villain are hokey, childish, and unreal, although after a while he did become more intentional about offering his own philosophical views through his stories and characters; views which challenged, among other things, the human proclivity to violence and exclusion. So I try to stay within the realm of anthropology and consider chiefly what both Lee and the monomyth have to say about being human…and I side with Lee.

I also discuss a similar shift among Christian theologians and argue that there is a growing trend of understanding human nature in more relational and less individualistic ways. This has consequences for both epistemology and ethics, which I also consider. Ultimately it is about ways of human being, knowing, and acting that are informed by both Marvel and Lee and contemporary Christian theology.

Pop Theology: Why do you feel like Fuller and various other evangelical seminaries are so in tune with popular culture studies and religion when the subject only receives cursory treatment in liberal theological schools?

Tony: This is a fascinating question. In fact, I think it would be a great dissertation topic because I don’t think that anyone has studied this in detail, which means, of course, that neither have I, so my comments are best considered educated guesses. Two thoughts come to mind. First, the liberal schools are good at inter-religious dialogue, something that evangelical schools are typically not. Engagement with pop culture is the evangelical version of inter-religious dialogue. So, both liberal and evangelical theological schools are basically doing the same thing, but with different conversation partners. I think this divergence stems, secondly, from an association between evangelical and popular/pragmatic, on the one hand, and liberal and academic/scholarly/theoretical, on the other. Evangelicals engage low or pop art, and the liberals high art, if you will. In other words, to put it coarsely, pop culture is in some sense beneath or lower than the academic, scholarly rigor characteristic of the liberal schools, in my opinion. I don’t think this is actually true but I think it is how they perceive pop culture. They don’t consider it seriously.

On the other hand, most evangelical schools are, in my opinion, not very academically intensive because they put the practical/ministerial matters of faith in the forefront. To the extent this is true, it makes engagement with pop culture more understandable. Most people in evangelical pews, those whom their ministers are going to serve, won’t be as confronted with or concerned about the non-Christian other as their liberal brothers and sisters. They are also not as interested in the weighty philosophical matters of faith and reason or issues of modern science, etc. They do, however, watch football and go to the movies and are thus more affected by those phenomena on a conscious everyday level. In this way it only makes sense for evangelicals to think theologically about what is important to them and the laypeople they will serve.

Pop Theology: How did your time at Fuller affect (positively, negatively, neutrally) your theology and theological approach to popular culture?

Tony: My gut reaction is to say that Fuller didn’t really affect my approach to pop culture all that much. I went into the Ph.D. program there already with the conviction that pop culture artifacts are important for my faith and need to be taken seriously. Moreover, much of my theological method and ideas are influenced by theologians like Wolfhart Pannenberg, Robert W. Jenson, and LeRon Shults, all of whom tend to eschew the dichotomies which pervade the Reformed categories characteristic of Fuller’s engagement with culture. Of course, not everyone at Fuller thinks in terms of spirit vs. matter or general vs. special revelation, but most of the time when I spoke I was misunderstood.

That being said, Fuller is an excellent place for the theological study and interaction with pop culture. I found it to be very encouraging of the convictions I already had going in, and was often challenged by the talent, drive, and artistry of my fellow students. One should be aware that Fuller is in Pasadena in Los Angeles county, only about 10-20 minutes from Hollywood, downtown, and the major studios, so the cultural ethos itself is very movie-friendly. I will also say that writing the dissertation I did may have been much more difficult at another school. I was fortunate enough to have a Ph.D. advisor, Rob Johnston, who believed in my project from the first time I proposed it in 2006 and has offered critical commentary along the way to hone it.

Pop Theology: What are some of your favorite pop culture creations (books, television, film, music, etc.)?

Tony: Without getting into the myriad reasons why I like all of these things, let me just give you a list. I’m not much of a fiction reader, but I like most of Tolkien’s stuff. I really loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’ve made it a point to try to read a horror or mystery novel each fall since the changing of the colors and temperature outside adds a certain dark mystique to the experience. I read Frankenstein last year, so I’m looking for recommendations for this year! It would seem that I’m an avid comics fan, but I rarely read them. I did not read them as a kid, so I approached the material for the dissertation definitely as a novice. I think there is great material there, but I’m not a regular reader.

As for television, the only thing I’m watching that is currently running is Fringe and I’m glad to hear it got picked up for a fourth season. I’m also a huge fan of Firefly, Buffy, Angel, X-Files, and am working my way through Star Trek. For comedies, my favorites are British: Red Dwarf, Spaced, Are You Being Served?, and Waiting for God, although Monty Python is a classic too.

My music and movie interests are way too broad, but a few of my favorite movies include Star Wars and Lord of the Rings; zombie movies like Shaun of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead; superhero movies like Superman, Spider-Man, and Hulk; comedies like Airplane, Young Frankenstein, and Office Space; Halloween (1978) is my favorite horror flick and for obscure foreign filmmakers I love Robert Bresson.

For music I love Celtic, folk, rock, hip-hop, and classical mostly, so Loreena McKennitt, Beethoven, Trampled by Turtles, Mumford and Sons, AC/DC, System of a Down, Beastie Boys, MIA, and lots more. And who doesn’t have a soft spot for Lady Gaga?

Pop Theology: What are you looking forward to working on/writing about through Pop Theology?

Tony: As you can tell, I’m a huge geek, so anything geek-friendly, like superheroes, zombies, Star Trek, Star Wars, LotR, Buffy, etc. I also play old school table RPG’s and sometimes video games so it would be fun to share my thoughts on those often neglected aspects of pop culture. I’ve also done a lot of reading and research on science, especially psychology, evolution, and cognitive science, so it would be interesting to see how engagement with pop culture may be enhanced by consideration of contemporary science. Such an approach is very much needed and is thankfully being done by a few scholars, but the number is limited and the conversation is still very young. I hope to contribute to that conversation from a theological/religious angle in my academic work, so hopefully some of that will spill over to Pop Theology.

ARE DEMONS REAL?

After the jump, check out a video of my presentation at the Theology After Google conference last week in Claremont, CA.  Below the video is a link to the other presenters’ videos.  More will be added throughout the weekend.  Enjoy!

http://transformtheology.blip.tv/

Yesterday, a friend directed me to an article about a recent sermon by Mark Driscoll (pastor of Mars Hill Church) in which he called Avatar  “the most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen.”  Check out my response after the jump.

While Avatar isn’t the best film of the year, it certainly isn’t the worst, and it is by no means the most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen.  Of course, I’m not Mark Driscoll.  In a recent sermon, he commented:

The world tempts you to sin, to use people, to disobey God, to live for your own glory instead of his own, to be a consumer instead of generous, that’s the world system.

And if you don’t believe me, go see Avatar, the most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen. That any Christian could watch that without seeing the overt demonism is beyond me. I logged on to christianitytoday.com and the review was reflective of Christianity today, very disappointing. See, in that movie, it is a completely false ideology, it’s a sermon preached. It’s the most popular movie ever made, and it tells you that the creation mandate, the cultural mandate is bad, that we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t develop culture, that’s a bad thing.

Primitive is good and advanced is bad and that we’re not sinners, we’re just disconnected from the divine life force, just classic, classic, classic paganism, that human beings are to connect, literally, with trees and animals and beasts and birds and that there’s this spiritual connection that we’re all a part of, that we’re all a part of the divine.

It presents a false mediator with a witch. It presents false worship of created things rather than Creator God in absolute antithesis to Romans 1:25, which gives that as the essence of paganism. It has a false incarnation where a man comes in to be among a people group and to assume their identity. It’s a false Jesus. We have a false resurrection. We have a false savior. We have a false heaven. The whole thing is new age, satanic, demonic paganism, and people are just stunned by the visuals. Well, the visuals are amazing because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with a lie.

Two things are abundantly clear from this section of his sermon:  1) Driscoll is a pathetic pop-culture critic, and 2) he has clearly never seen The Exorcist.  Hello, Mark!  In case you missed it, a young girl masturbates with a crucifix in that film!! But no, that is apparently not as Satanic as the notion of the interconnectedness of all things or attacks on consumerism and exploitation.

According to Driscoll, this is less offensive than Avatar.

Driscoll and I will definitely agree on one thing, Avatar is not a great movie.  However, we come at it from drastically different view points.  You can see my review here.  But let’s get the film’s strongest asset out of the way.  It is one of the most visually stunning films I have ever seen and will most likely change the nature of science fiction films forever.  It’s 3D cinematography is absolutely engrossing, and when paired with a much better narrative will create a cinematic experience the likes of which we’ve yet to enjoy.  As far as its weakest asset:  it suffers from a weak story and a poor script.

Now to Driscoll’s failings.  First off, he clearly cannot read a room.  Avatar is, or at least is on its way to becoming, the highest grossing film of all time.  You know what this means?  People are flocking to it in droves.  It’s also won the Golden Globe for best picture and has been nominated for, and many critics think it will win, Best Picture in the upcoming Oscars as well.  You know what this means?  Many people like it.  Guess what?  Many of those people might be actively involved in his church, living healthy, fully committed Christian lives.  Not only has he demonized the film, he’s demonized hundreds (?) of his faithful followers in the process.  There is no desire for conversation with or respect for congregants here.  Instead of asking why people are flocking to the film or what about it resonates with them, Driscoll leads with blanket condemnation which will most likely shut off any avenues for fruitful conversation.

Second, the film is a thinly veiled attack on consumerism, greed, manifest destiny, and exploitation…all of which have unfortunately characterized not only the growth of this country but the spread of Christianity as well.  Instead of attacking these evils, Driscoll, in a roundabout way, attacks the attack.  This should not be surprising given that his church and culturally ambiguous evangelicalism simultaneously embraces and rejects a rampant consumerism from which they greatly benefit.  It is this type of consumerism, not Avatar‘s attack on it, that leads evangelicals like Tony Campolo to bemoan the future of Christianity in America (see his comments in the documentary Lord Save Us From Your Followers).  To the extent that real-world modernity mirrors Avatar‘s depiction of it, then it is evil, plain and simple.

Third, the film is in no way meant to be a literal depiction of heaven, salvation, Jesus, or resurrection!  It is a science fiction film about a planet called Pandora and an energy-rich ore called unobtanium.  Jake is not Jesus (a more fitting Biblical comparison would be Jacob), but Jake does present a model of what standing in solidarity with the vulnerable and oppressed could look like.  That this notion is present in a mainstream film with such wide appeal should provide ministers with a perfect lesson to share with their congregants.  Unfortunately, Driscoll just doesn’t get it.

Fourth, Driscoll’s “theological” critique of the film is simply misguided at best.  You get the sense that he hasn’t fully thought this out or, worse, that he doesn’t believe it himself.  It sounds like he’s stammering here:  “It’s the most popular movie ever made, and it tells you that the creation mandate, the cultural mandate is bad, that we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t develop culture, that’s a bad thing.  Primitive is good and advanced is bad and that we’re not sinners, we’re just disconnected from the divine life force, just classic, classic, classic paganism, that human beings are to connect, literally, with trees and animals and beasts and birds and that there’s this spiritual connection that we’re all a part of, that we’re all a part of the divine.”  So which is it Mark?  The creation mandate or the cultural mandate?  These are two distinctly separate entities in the film.  It seems to me that Avatar promotes the notion of creation and damns a blindly destructive culture that would spread at the expense of that creation.  Moreover, the ways in which the Na’vi literally connect with their surroundings is fantasy.  I doubt Cameron and his crew are advocating bestiality, which is what Driscoll probably fears.  But the notion of the interconnectedness of the created order is something that we have lost in recent Christian history and is responsible, in large part, for the economic and environmental crises in which we now find ourselves so deeply mired.  If Driscoll is quick to throw out scripture to damn Avatar, I’ll turn to a couple of verses in its defense.

In Colossians 1:16-17, we find these radical verses, “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  This is a pretty fantastic notion of the created order being held together in Christ without any division.  Jesus himself seems to have a richer understanding of the created order and its potential as well.  In Luke 19:37-40, we find this account:  “When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’   Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’   ‘I tell you,’ he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.’”  Where is this sensibility in Driscoll’s half-hearted condemnation of connectedness?

Finally, Driscoll’s recent comments on Avatar are simply untimely and, quite frankly, seem self serving.  He’s just now getting around to talking about a film with such cultural appeal almost two months after its release?  This represents just the type of religious cultural engagement that no longer has a place in contemporary public discourse…if it ever did.  This is yet another example of a public figure wanting to be heard rather than saying anything substantive or potentially transformative.  In the end, I guess he got what he wanted.

Here’s the link to the original article which contains video of the sermon:  http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/archives/195724.asp.

By now, most people are just as familiar with Pat Robertson’s interpretation of the Haitian earthquake as they are with the natural disaster itself.  Yesterday, I came across two other theological responses to the quake, one by Al Mohler that is almost as offensive as Robertson’s and another by Paul Raushenbush that is somewhat more appealing to me.  The responses to Raushenbush’s response are just as compelling as the article itself, as many non-religious readers responded with vitriol, asking where the supposedly omniscient and omnipotent Christian God was in the face of such a tragedy.  Clearly, in many different ways, theodicy is at the forefront of our popular theology in these tragic days.  In a recent review of Life.Support.Music., I referenced the question, “Is God as Arbitrary as Life?,” that was posed to the theologians at the Transforming Theology conference last spring.  We have finally uploaded the video and you can check it out after the jump.  You won’t agree with all of the answers (I certainly don’t), but they are deeply thoughtful and compassion alternatives to those of Pat Robertson and his ilk that, unfortunately, garner all the media attention.  

While re-watching Frost/Nixon, I was struck by one of the opening lines of the film.  Reflecting on the whole experience of interviewing Richard Nixon, James Reston, Jr. (Sam Rockwell) says of David Frost (Michael Sheen), “He understood television better than any of us.”  I’ve been thinking more and more about the church in the digital age lately and wondering what the church could understand and do better.

As the films shows, David Frost seemed like an odd choice to do a post-Watergate interview with Nixon.  However, despite his shortcomings and inexperience, he knew the power of television and, perhaps, how, over time, he could work it in his favor.  At the end of the film, Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) comments on the reductive power of television.  We are left with the pros and cons of a new media.

The church has tapped into the power of television, often painfully so.  A few decades ago, TBN launched its own satellite for world-wide broadcasting.  Local churches televise services on public access channels or local radio stations.  With the advent of the internet and on-line communication, having a web page has become just as important, or more so, than television productions for church members and “outsiders.”

Yet, in the digital age, new programs and technology are daily transforming the ways in which we use the internet and communicate with each other.  Facebook, Twitter, etc. have introduced new users to the internet and given almost anyone new means of communication.  How will the church respond?  I will admit that I was resistant to Twitter at first, until I realized the benefits to both my website and Facebook account.

I realized quickly that Twitter can be a source of banal information, or it can be used to pose probing questions.  To people vehemently opposed to the use of Twitter during worship, we must remind them of the ways in which their faith community already uses technology and new media:  do they have a web page; do they broadcast their services on television or the radio; do they use electricity?  These were all once “new technologies” that challenged the life of the church.  Moreover, new media allow welcome new participants in worship and the life of the church:  camera operators, sound crew, web designers, etc.

Other critics might fear that Twittering distracts the users from worship:  how can they “pay attention” to the sermon if they are “on their phones?”  This operates under the assumption that everyone in church is paying close attention in the first place.  Can we see the use of Twitter in worship as the democratization of worship?  The users broadcast worship and their experiences of it to fellow congregants who may not be able to attend…like televised broadcasts for “shut ins.”  With the vast number of people using Twitter and Facebook, such broadcasts will appeal to both “shut ins” and “left outs,” those who do not feel welcome within the walls of a church, but who still have spiritual questions and concerns of their own.  Moreover, in a seminar that I conducted on using film clips in worship, one student lamented the lack of financial resources at her church that would allow for such a multimedia experience.  Such a small endeavor like Twittering worship can catapult congregations into the twenty-first century with virtually no cost and little trouble.

Yet understandable questions and concerns do remain.  Who twitters?  Everyone?  Are there designated Twitterers?  Just as soon as possibilities for wider community emerge, lingering questions of structure and order emerge to complicate the situation.

I’m still thinking about all this.  Folks like Elizabeth Drescher and Tony Jones offer some good insight as well.

Any thoughts?

Whenever pop culture icons exhibit bad behavior…behavior that would ruin the careers and lives of us average folk…the social commentators inevitably talk about how America is a forgiving culture.  As time passes, society will forgive and forget, or at least the most recent scandal will occupy our attention.  When the news story broke about Michael Vick’s involvement in a dog-fighting ring over a year ago, I thought that this would perhaps test the bounds of popular forgiveness.

The sports world has been dominated over the past few days by the return of Michael Vick to the NFL.  As soon as he was released from prison earlier this year, sports talk show hosts began speculating on the future of his career and what teams, if any, would take a chance on the troubled quarterback.  Last Friday, the Philadelphia Eagles took that chance and signed Vick to a one-year deal with an option for a second.  Of course, many analysts speculated on how this would play out with Donovan McNabb as the starting, and often ridiculed, QB.  Would there be a QB controversy…how would the Eagles “use” Vick?  The Eagles organization, including McNabb, quickly squashed those questions by arguing that McNabb played an integral role in bringing Vick to the Eagles.  Yesterday morning McNabb gave a press conference in which he expressed his side of the situation.  More interesting than any potential Wildcat formation or QB controversy is a statement that McNabb made in the press conference in which he said that he believes in a God who forgives us of our sins over and over again.  So while analysts are constantly talking about Vick’s second, and final, chance, McNabb reminds us of the God that offers countless chances.  I hear the echoes of scripture:  “How many times must I forgive my neighbor…?”
Though Vick is back in the NFL and will likely play, in some fashion, sooner than later, he is not out of the woods just yet.  Many polls reveal a 50/50 split regarding the Eagles’ decision to sign him.  Many people will never forgive Vick for his involvement in the heinous world of dog fighting.  As a dog owner, my stomach turns at the thought of it.  However, I recently heard a well-respected former NFL player talk about meeting Vick years ago and staying in contact with him throughout his career.  This player talked about knowing “bad guys” and how, in his opinion, he didn’t believe Vick was a “bad guy.”  He argued that Vick got caught up in an extremely horrific situation that spiraled out of and perhaps beyond his control.  We could endlessly debate whether or not Vick is a “bad guy” at heart, but I think we can all agree that Vick was simultaneously a victim of his own success and wealth.  I hear the echoes of Notorious B.I.G.:  “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.”  This is not to excuse his participation and the consequences that he should, and has, faced.

Vick has and is continuing to pay his dues.  Perhaps he’ll never pay them in full.  He served jail time, lost a fortune, and will always have the memories and images of dog-fighting attached to conversations about him.  Forgiving Vick does not and should not mean that we do not expect him to spend the rest of his career and life in service to his communities.  In all of this talk, we are quick to judge and relatively quick to forgive.  Yet we never take the time to examine our own lives and actions vis-a-vis the scandal that captures our attention and judgment.

In this particular case, Tripp Fuller of Homebrewed Christianity, pointed out to me last night over dinner that we should not be too quick to judge Vick’s involvement in dog-fighting.  While Tripp quickly denounced the event as horrific, he also pointed to the food on our plate and reminded me that if we eat meat, we are most likely participating in systems that profit from and perpetuate cruelty to animals.  Factory farming, animal testing, slaughterhouses, etc.  We benefit from such activities on a daily basis without a second thought.  How many of us have attended the circus at some point in our lives?

Now I’m not saying that we all become vegetarians or lead violent attacks on factory farms.  But might we not take this scandal and this moment to analyze our own lives and actions to see how we (un)willingly participate in similar evils.  Are there ways in which we could curtail this participation?  Could we commit ourselves to actions and organizations that help mitigate the damage that we cause by simply living our daily lives?  Perhaps we as a society are willing to forgive so quickly because we dare not remember these scandals for too long lest they remind us of our own failings as well.