Its Buy Nothing Day on The 26th November check out the site for some great jamming ideas.
Buy Nothing Day
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Constructive post modernism
Been working on an essay and came across something in Grenz and Franke Beyond foundationalism. They cited a difference between the early deconstructive approaches that post modern thinkers took (early Europeans) and a more recent more constructive approach, particularly Stiver who talks about postmodernism being:
A rejection of modernity
A paradigm shift
A sketch of the future
I like this approach of not just slating stuff but trying to be more constructive. Anyway it got me into an interesting discussion about this and the nature of truth in modernity. That started with me saying applying Stiver to a theological missional process might look like “this is my truth, tell me yours and lets go on a journey together to discover more”
Great insight from IH who threw in the old story of the monkey with his fist in the peanut jar but wont let go of the peanut to gain more. Perhaps we are so precious about our truth we can let go or break the jar. Could tie in well the need for revolutionary moves in thinking and paradigm shift in how we define churchPaycheck film
Videos for Sale
Well it is worth a try. As we are moving we are having a big sort out and getting rid of loats (thats not a typo but a cross between lots and loads) of stuff. We have several videos for sale (many ideal for youthwork discussions) All at the knock down price of £2.50 each plus 50p per video if we need to post them. Ist come first served.
Dune
Catch me if you can
Contact
Being John Malkovich
Mission Impossible 2
The pianist
Donnie Darko
Little Voice
Ferris Buellers day off
The Office (complete first series)
Dogma
Fight Club
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Matrix
Eight Mile
K-Pax
(Childrens videos)
Barbie Rapunzel
The Little Mermaid
Rudolph the Movie
Children’s TV favourites
The Railway children
The Clangers, complete series 2
The road to Eldarado
Shrek
Flubber
Lion King 2
Veggie Tales the kindly Viking
A message from a hopeaholic
I hope that spirituality overwhelms religion. I say this because spirituality links, religion ranks; spirituality sees God in all living things, religion rations out God to some more than others; spirituality celebrates life, religion celebrates life after death.’ (Gloria Steinem, Tuesday September 13, 2005,The Guardian
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Post modernity and critical thinking
I recognise this may not be a very critically thought out statement or question but at the moment I am struggling to identify the difference between post modern approaches to issues and critical thinking. PM talks about questioning many basic assumptions, truth, our ability to assume or project answers to issues due to cultural formation issues, reader response and interpretation etc, but surely there is little difference between this and good critical thinking. I was always very skeptical of people asking if post modernity was real, but I am wondering if we more accurate in thinking in the shift as critical or (hyper or an extension of) modernity as wouldn’t critical thinking have it roots and be shaped by the science movement like modernity?
From Dave in South Africa
Hello from an internet cafe in Cape Town!
We have arrived safely and are settling in well. The people are extremely welcoming and great fun. We have already enjoyed a Braai (traditional South African BBQ) and I have begun to learn to play dominos. I wasn’t very good but provided plenty of comedy moments for our hosts!
Yesterday we were shown around Elsies River, the township where we are staying. We visited the local health centre, an advice centre, an AIDS hospice and some of the rougher areas where the gangs operate. It was a real eye opener. So many people and so few services and resources.
We are living with an old lady called Aunty Rose. She has been very welcoming and is good fun. She reminds Isla of her gran! She has some interesting stories about living under apartheid and enlightening political views which she shares often!!
We have met some of the young people which was fun. I’m not sure what they make of us, I think it will take them a while to get used to these weird British folk who have suddenly turned up. One of them asked if we kew David Beckham! There are a lot of issues which make an impact on their lives. Alcohol and drug abuse is common. The gang culture is sometimes looked up to and admired. There are lots of local ‘Shebeens’, which are basically informal (and illegal) bars that sell alcohol and drugs. Some young people use these. The parents in the church are very concerned about the possibility of their kids getting involved in this stuff (last week a church member’s son stabbed another lad and killed him). They also have high hopes that we can input something useful which is very flattering but very daunting!
Well. It’s still early days so we’ll have to keep watching, learning, praying etc. For now though we are feeling welcomed and at home and are enjoying this adventure!
Please pray for us, that we’ll know how to repond to the needs of the church and community and that we’ll discover what it is that we can offer to our new friends!
Written by Dave but posted by Richard
At last!
We have finally had an offer on our house and had one accepted on a house in Chard. All being well we will hopefully move before Christmas.
View full size This Is Spinal Tap on dvd
Tides of life
Hectic week of half term. Dads taxi service clocked up an unusual amount of miles with children having parties to go to, sleep overs, days at mates houses and a trip to see the great Wallace and G. In all busy but satisfying half term. It was good to catch up with friends over lunch and spend time doing what the children wanted. Looking back it was good to make the effort to fit in with other peoples schedules, to let the children take a lead in the agenda of the week, but at the time seemed much of life was out of control and quite stressful.
Blog something new?
In recentre I was wondering out loud if the new centre of culture or western meta-narrative was popular culture itself. PG
commented on how scary a thought this could be which in turn reminded me of the Thoreau quote below, that I use when doing stuff on spiritual disciplines.
“when our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper or been told by a neighbour; and for the most part the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper or been out to tea and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters proud of his extensive correspondence has not heard from himself in a long while.”
Henry Thoreau
I wondered about a rephrasing
“when our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us anything genuinely new about God or the world; and for the most part the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has been surfing blog-sphere and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails we go more constantly and desperately to the computer. You may depend on it that the poor fellow who walks away with the longest blog roll, proud of his extensive list of links has not heard from himself in a long while.” (adapted from Henry Thoreau)
The mere act of rephrasing this is ironical and forces me back to re-look at my walk before God.
Maturity without Membership
In order to prepare for growth and outreach Chard Baptist are looking at Purpose Driven church, one of the principles of which is membership. This raises several issues for me. Membership in itself is not something I am fully confident about and whilst I understand many of the arguments, the approach to membership as we enter post Christendom seems all the more problematic.
How do you begin to grow towards maturity without membership? Murry in The church after Christendom offers a great critique of Matt 18 v 15-17
15″If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Whilst I accept the possible intended use of the language of tax collector/pagan to signify an outsider, it is interesting that this is only one of two times the bible actually places the word church on Jesus’ lips. I would want to explore the creative tension that verse 17 throws up as we begin to consider how Christ would have treated tax collectors or pagans. Murry points this out but I would want to push this issue towards a maturity without membership, that does admonish one another in a non dislocating way, and uses the process well to reaffirm core beliefs so the whole community matures, but does not exile people who disaggree.