Category Archives: media
Britain has gone from God-fearing to God-jeering
Well written piece in the Telegraph today from Alison Pearson:
I’m not sure what I believe, but I do know every word of the Creed, and when I say them I feel I am joining myself to generations who spoke those words centuries before I was born, and that custom is deeply consoling. I thought about my friend, stranded in New York by snow when her son was hurt in a car crash. Ann hadn’t prayed for years, but she slipped into a church on Fifth Avenue, “I can’t manage it alone,” she emailed, “I know that sounds strange.” Religion is strange, infinitely mysterious and easy to mock, but all I can say is that its rituals feel full, not hollow, as so much of modern life does. The [Richard Dawkins followers] argue that you don’t need organised religion to hand down the wisdom of ages or a system of morality. Don’t you?
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My 12 most read posts of 2011
1. The Best Caramel Shortbread – Not my most interesting post but it keeps showing up at the top of search requests! I updated it in December 2011 to include a recipe.
2. Lucio and Kaka show their faith – Comment on the place of faith in football, written just before the 2010 world cup.
3. Henry Scott Holland: “Death is nothing at all” – Some thoughts on the popular poem by Henry Scott Holland which is often used at funerals.
4. You can’t help who you fall in love with – A response to a news article where a prison guard falls in love with an inmate.
5. The poor in the gospel of Luke (iv) – One of a number of posts examining what Jesus says about the poor and injustice in the gospel of Luke. For the whole series, click here.
6. Into the Wild – movie review – review of the 2007 film about the true story of Chris McCandless.
7. New Starbucks Logo – Comment on the new starbucks logo announced in Jan 2011.
8. Kieran Richardson and Kaka – More about faith and football following Kieran Richardson’s “I belong to Jesus” T-Shirt and goal celebration in November 2011.
9. Martin Luther on Religion and Politics – Quote from Martin Luther.
10. Why didn’t the rapture happen? Will it ever? – Response and critique of rapture theology following Harold Camping’s failed prediction of the end of the world in May 2011.
11. Donald Miller reviews Love Wins – Donald Miller’s take on Rob Bell’s controversial book.
12. I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead… – Quote in the aftermath of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. See also Has Bin Laden been brought to Justice.
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A message of hope from the Queen at Christmas
In her Christmas speech today which is broadcast live to over a billion members of the British Commonwealth worldwide, the Queen spoke about Jesus as the bearer of forgiveness and with the power to heal.Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: ‘Fear not’, they urged, ‘we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.
Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.
It is worth watching.
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Kieran Richardson and Kaka
After scoring the first goal in Sunderland’s 2-1 defeat to Wolves last Sunday (4th Dec), with new manager Martin O’Neill watching, Kieran Richardson peeled away from the goal and took off his Sunderland shirt to reveal a t-shirt bearing the slogan “I belong to Jesus”.
This is, of course, the same slogan that Brazilian forward Kaka famously wore on his t-shirt in the Champions League final (whilst playing for Milan). The Brazilian team is known for their public displays of faith and before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, they were told by FIFA to stop. British players are usually much more reticent about declaring their faith in overt ways, with a few notable examples.
I had not heard about Richardson’s faith before, but I tend not to listen much to Sunderland players! Some web forums have speculated that this t-shirt was not a declaration of faith rather than a show of support for the Brazilian player Socrates, who was ill at the time of the match and who died a day or two later. But in my opinion that would be an odd way to show support. Perhaps he is genuinely expressing his faith?
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Generation A in his own words
Our book group is discussing Douglas Coupland’s Generation A tonight (which I have reviewed). I just found this question and answer session about it. Some weird questions but he does give us an insight into how his brain works and what was behind the book. Some of what he says about story remind me of what Donald Miller wrote in ‘A million miles in a thousand years‘ about our lives needing to be story. Perhaps this is what Coupland thinks we have lost.
Generation A by Douglas Coupland
The second book for our bookgroup was Douglas Coupland’s generation A, which I chose. I have read a number of Coupland’s books, and although most of them are weird in terms of plotline, he tries to say something about society, the search to identity, the search for meaning (and God) and the state of the world. The phrase ‘Generation X’ describes the post-babyboom generation, born from the early 60s to late 70s. It was not coined by Coupland, but it was popularized by him in his 1991 novel of the same name which followed a group of people in their early 20s working unsatisfying ‘McJobs’ and trying to make sense of their lives.
Since then the term Generation Y has come along to describe those born in the 80s and 80s. There was no Generation Z. This book is called Generation A as a response to a quote in the mid-nineties in a university commencement speech at Syracuse University:
Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago
Generation A is set in the near future, maybe 20 years or so, in a world where bees have become extinct. That is, until five people, Zack, Samantha, Diana, Harj and Julien, all young adults, are stung in different parts of the world, Iowa, New Zealand, France, Sri Lanka and Canada, within a few weeks of each other. The narration switches between the perspective of each one.
There is immediately a worldwide uproar. The places where they were stung are immediately scoured to see if the hive can be found (it can’t) and the five young people are whisked off into solitary confinement under the authority of their handler, Serge. Was there something about these five people that helped them to be stung? They are kept in an underground, completely white, sterile room for up to a month, fed a strange jelly-like substance and kept away from anything that might contaminate their mind, such as reading material, brand logos etc.
They are eventually released and a little surprised to find that they are worldwide celebrities. They enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame before they are all called together by Serge to meet on a remote island off the coast of Canada at Haida Gwaii, near the site of the last recorded bee hive. They are to live together and tell stories to each other for the next few days. The stories are supposed to be a catalyst for something.
It is typical of a Douglas Coupland storyline – quirky, but the characters are interesting enough and the tech-aware humourous asides are enough to keep you reading. All through the book you are wondering, why did the bees pick them? Here’s my suggestions:
The world as it is inhabited is addicted to a new wonder drug called Solon. This drug has no side effects acts like a mild anti-depressant. It makes you float along in a contented state. However, it also makes you forget about the future, the bigger picture, setting goals and working for things. Almost everyone has begun taking this drug to add to their general wellbeing. All five of the stingees have never taken Solon. They each had had some difficulties in their lives, some family rejection, and there was an element of loner-ness about them, but still, they had not taken Solon. At the moment of their sting, they were all involved in something that had a global effect. It may have been something mundane, but it was global nonetheless.
The stories they were telling each other were supposed to bring out what they had in common. Each of the stories were all quite different yet they had quite definite similarities. They were all, in one way or another, about the breakdown of society, the breakdown of communication, and the preference to stay in an isolated inner-world fuelled by cyber-knowledge of everything you want to know, rather than have the highs and lows of real relationship.
In these stories, Coupland is painting a picture of where our culture could go. The seeds of self-obsessed, self-realisation and self-satisfaction are there. A future like this, he posits indirectly, is less concerned about others. The world is turning into the consumerist relationship – service provider/customer interaction – and it is killing its soul.
It may be worth saying, the Telegraph hated it , the Independent disliked it and the Guardian merely tolerated it, but I rather enjoyed reading Generation A.
Rob bell on the creative process
Notes from Rob Bell’s talk on the creative process at Greenbelt Festival. Brackets are mine.
Creativity starts with how you see the world
1. God is already present – first assumption. At every time you’re on holy ground learn to observe.
2. Capture the moment remember. Write things down. Take note. Take a photo.
Turn your edit button off until the thing is written/ or out of the brain. Get it out first then edit.
It nay be rubbish but unless you get it out you’ll never know.
3. You make stuff because you have to, they’re in you. (passion and need?). Youdfont have control over how it is received. The reward is not that it is received well but that you were able to create it. (God given creativity accomplished)
4. creativity is exhausting. That’s ok and it is a cost of creativity. Take a break if or when ideas don’t come.
Questions. Creativity doesn’t have to be written or artistic. Could be organisational. (Just following spirit really)
I did then ask a question about church-planting, and, in particular how he planted his church, but he didn’t really expand on the beginnings of his church any more than he did in Velvet Elvis – namely, that he was an associate pastor in another church and a group of them thought there was a need for a church plant. They were offered the use of warehouse building for the rent of $1 a year, and five weeks later they began. Velvet Elvis says that on the first week nearly 1000 people turned up. I was a little disappointed that he didn’t go into more detail on what happened in those 5 weeks.
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The eye is the lamp of the body – Bin Laden photos
This came through to my inbox this week from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity. What particularly struck me was the assertion that the graphic and violent images of 9/11 have been stored up and re-emerged in the impromptu triumphal celebrations on the day of Bin Laden’s death. See what you think:
Political expediency it may have been, but Barack Obama’s decision not to release photographs of Osama Bin Laden’s body is a welcome act of national self-censorship that constitutes a significantly counter-cultural move.
Ever since news of the al-Qaeda leader’s killing broke, there has been an inevitable drip-feed of ever more graphic images through the media to the viewing public. Iconic portraits of Bin Laden first gave way to stills of the compound and the abandoned American helicopter, and then to video footage from within the house, including the heavily bloodstained bedroom where Bin Laden was shot dead.
The media are eager to capture such images because it is the image that stimulates and sustains public interest in the story, whether on television or online. It’s the ever-present promise of new pictures that keeps us enthralled. The Internet and a growing superfluity of high-definition, touch-screen devices are constantly reinforcing the lesson television first taught us: seeing is believing. Naturally enough, the corollary is also true: in the absence of images there is doubt, or outright disbelief.
So it is that some believe the US should release photographs of Bin Laden’s corpse by way of providing conclusive proof of his death. Nevertheless, the president has decreed that these very graphic images will not be seen. They have been censored on the grounds that their publication would constitute a threat to US national security. I, for one, am inclined to agree with his decision.
Doubtless, national and political self-interest influenced Obama’s decision, but perhaps we should allow for the possibility that so also did a genuine concern for the global greater good. Since the eye is ‘the lamp of the body’ (Matthew 6:22), and just one look can kill the divine image-bearing people we were made to be (Matthew 5:27-29), we all need to consider carefully the imagery to which we expose ourselves, and to which we expose others. Is it not in all our interests to look on that which will enhance our humanity, and to look away from that which will diminish it?
For proof of the compelling power images can exercise over hearts and minds, look no further than those who, having been inundated this past decade with the traumatic images of 9/11, and of the face of the man behind that atrocity, took to the streets this week to celebrate his killing.
Even in our visual age, there are things we really don’t need to see. Trust me.
It reminds me of the much quoted phrase that one 9/11 survivor said – “I can’t find it in me to be glad that one more person is dead”. Forgiveness really does affect us as well as those we are forgiving.
