Week 4, Barker, Chapter 8

In reading this chapter I thought about the role of the enlightenment in relationship to the creation of identity. The shifting away from the enlightenment idea of the rationality of the individual to a post-modern identity whereby we're defined by many different and fragmented identities. After understanding this shift and seeing where our culture sits today in it's post-modern context, I think that we must discover how agency plays into this in terms of acting as an agent of change to make a difference. If we're to relate this to the role of the church being and agency in the community how does that play out in our post-modern context? How do we relate to others? How do we effect change?

Week 4, Barker, Chapter 7

This chapter helped me find a better understanding of the term post-modern. It would seem that the ideas of intertextuality and multi-genre form are two prime indicators of the post-modern form. I appreciated the examples that the author used in terms of The Simpsons, Miami Vice, and The Sopranos (3 of my favorites). I think if I had to add to the definition I would add that the characters in these programs or the voice of the show writer(s) also express a heightened sense of cultural awareness. Take a film such as Pulp Fiction where the characters and writer/director Quentin Tarantino, have an obvious affinity and reverential following of pop culture. This awareness seems to be a fundamental conceit of post-modern film and television.

Week 5, Wednesday

The class discussion on Marxism today was engaging as it related to Castro's quote about Karl Marx falling in line with the Sermon on Mount. However, I still have some fundamental problems with understanding how a pro-Marxist view might relate to Christianity in a larger sense once you start looking at how Marxism restricts individual freedoms. I understand that capitalism can be flawed and lead to abuses of the working class...the rich can get richer and the poor get poorer. Yet, I don't believe it's the economic system that is flawed. It's the individuals in the system who succumb to power and greed that create these inequities.

Week 4, Bevans Chapter 4

As I reflected on the Translational model and what that means to translate the meaning of doctrines into into another cultural context I thought about the role of "revelation" and how it's important to remember that revelations can both be "wholly culturally free" or "clothed in a culture that is divinely sanctioned" (Bevans, p.41). The point that I'm getting at is that even though the translational model is important and we need to strip the Gospel of its husk as we enter into mission with other cultures, I think it's important to temper it with the idea that God still has the ability to reveal himself free of that culture.

Week 4, Cobb, Chapter 4 Theological Tools

As I reflect on the Theological Tools that Cobb writes about I'm drawn to this idea of myth and what myths mean in our current context. Cobb writes that, "novelists, poets, filmmakers, and painters are reliable indices to the currently vital myths in a culture..." (Cobb, p. 123). He sites Mircea Eliade as a person who claims we have a mythic space in our subconscious that needs to be filled. He also claims that with religious myths on the wane we fill this space with other myths. This is an interesting proposition and I wonder what kind of repercussions this has on our religious identity as a whole. Have religious myths lost their luster? Is there a way to bring religious myths back into the consciousness? Or, is the result of moving into a more pluralistic society creating a loss of religious myth as a whole.

Week 5, Monday

Today we discussed the translation model. I thought about what this looks like in terms of stripping down to the "naked gospel." I'm still struggling to get my mind around this concept and figure out how this really plays out. If I understand correctly, it entails keeping the doctrine but totally removing the husk around the gospel. The husk is the particular social context and environment that each of us brings to our reading of the gospel. In order to use the translation model effectively, we need to adapt the context to the culture that we're speaking into.

Response to Harmony's Blog Week 4 Monday

Kester Brewin said, “If worship was about gifts, then what we brought to worship had to be integral to us, something meaningful from who we were.”

I appreciated your transition from the Brewin quote to your reflection on how this played out in your own experience growing up in the church. I think my personal experience has also been that the church, or people within the church, often do a poor job at setting up those in the congregation. I think that you're dead on when you say...

"I want to make sure, in my life, that I encourage people everywhere, not just in the church, to use their gifts."

Providing others with affirmation is a great spiritual gift and one of the most overlooked spiritual gifts in my opinion.