The man whom I was looking for soon appeared. He sat down. He was a part of the connection group happening with the two guy already sat down. Being the common person between us, he introduced me to them and we began to talk. These guys were retired, they’d traveled to places and in means I’ve only heard in stories or seen in movies. There was a sense that they enjoyed their years, and look forward to those that come behind them finding their own trails.
At one point, the conversation turned back to technology. But, not mobiles and web, radios. They started in just talking about how they used to have to tune the radio to find a program. One guy looked at me and said, “you don’t know anything about that do you?” I do. I used to have fun turning the nobs, listening for whatever wasn’t too filled with static – and hopefully not a commercial. I found plenty of music that way. These guys weren’t talking about tuning the radio for music though – its was about finding those comics and dramas that sparked their imagination.
Then they started naming shows, The Shadow, and several others of which I’ve heard of, but never had that experience of sitting in a living room, with the family around, just to take in the story together. They talked about how the stories were just audible, just enough sound to make your mind create the scene. And the best stories, how they left you in some sense of suspense and surprise, yea, that was how they remembered having their imagination stroked.
“But, not today,” the last gentleman who came in spoke. “Today, the TV does all the imagining for you. The pictures are made for you. And its so immersive. Now, there’s 3D…” He tailed off. I smiled. It was his generation that gave us these home and personal moving pictures, but now he was pushing back against it. Where it was helpful for connecting, it was detrimental for imagination. Without that imagination, there was no vision for living better. Where there was no vision for living better, there was so solid work ethic.
And so the conversation switched again, as it did several times in that hour or two that I sat there with them. These men, men how married and lost, fought in wars and strove for better lives in peace, were tuning my radio. I couldn’t be sure that I’d ever have their perspective towards the value of analog or “simpler” technologies. But, I could see how they appreciated moments enough to be sure that I got to hear what about the former media was good to hold onto, and not lose as we do move forward.
On Twitter recently, Gordon Marcy and I had a brief convo where I was asking about the value of broadcast communications (TV, radio, etc.) compared to participatory communications (web, mobile, and social). He alluded to the trust relationship that people have with broadcast communications compared to participatory. There’s not much tuning needed with those, there’s a reputation that’s assumed when those channels are used. But, with web, mobile, and social, there’s some tuning needed. People are still looking for what makes the channels necessary, valid, worthwhile. And if they are worthwhile, does that mean worth making things better for consumers or advertisers? Who’s imagination gets stroked to improve life around them?
It is a jump to say that web, social, and mobile are good enough. They are in some respects. But, when they take over the imagination or abiltiy for people to connect the dots themselves to see the depth and beauty of this faith, then maybe its not as valuable. Maybe, at that point it needs to be tuned a bit differently. And when it is, to be open to the signals coming as well as the signals going. We’d like to have this work for the Kingdom yes, but only if the Spirit compells, not if we wedge them into this.
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Where is the Christian?
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011I had to think about this for a bit, but history agrees with me: media has contributied to (and oftentimes accelerated) the disembodiment of those things we consider “spiritual” and those things we consider “life.”
We look at the term Christian and some see it as a form of language, style of dress, political views, or even just the signifiers of people based on a common location and behaviors on a few days a week. Some see it as all of the above. When the phrase Christian was termed, its was first a slander for a sect within Judiasm who happended to also be persecuted physically, economicaly, and socially. Peter took this title and used it as a point of empowerment (1 Peter 4:16).
From then on, it would seem that the early church saw it as connection – a unity defined by love for one another, demonstrated as love for their world that effectively preached the hope of reconciled unity with God. Location was only part of it. Behaviors were a contentious part of it. They maintained an identity not because of location or behaviors though, they thrived because they werent limited by either. There were various contact points, the Scriptures, letters from disciples and other community/church leaders, meetings places, and events. These were Christians, ever being pushed, pursued, and transformed. Constantly finding their place within layers of life, defining themselves by a layer of a life that reaches beyond.
Last week’s article from CNN throws some fuel onto the discussion. The author postulates that while remembering the democracy and effective changing of the world by the printing of the King James Bible is good, we should also be calling to question whether we have been as present with the faith (as a Body) as the technology has allowed us to be. To borrow from several streams of discussion over the past weeks: are we Christians because of what we do, or because of whom we are connected to?
A person noted on Twitter (and several retweeted) that they disagree with the title and conclusion of that CNN piece. I can see how they might disagree with the title, it takes a strong and pecular-to-the-age kind of faith to agree with the point that a technology is stripping the leaves off of what we might have defined as Christian for several generations. However, the fact of the matter is that efforts like YouVersion, BeRemedy, Jesus.net, the Lausanne Global Conversatioins sites, and thousands of others are making the concluding statement of that article a point that has to be understood as an implication to those efforts:
You cannot give people personal access to the Bible (or any tome of knowledge) without it later redefining their relationship to it and to others. If we do not understand this, but hold onto models of Christianity which are imperial/behavioral, then we are the worst hypocrites – plunging digital behaviors into a box they don’t fit, constraining a faith that was never meant to fit in a box (Exodus 20, John 4:21-24).
Lives that are unified (John 17:20-26) and knit by love (Deut. 6:4-8) and identified by love for one another (John 13:34-35) preach the Gospel. The CNN article says as much in that conclusion, as we should all be saying with our endeavors in this digital faith space.
So then, where is the Body? Is it cloistered on this mountain or that mountain (John 4:19-24)? Or, is it knowable by a select few (Mark 6:1-3) and therefore found only in specific social contexts? Or, is it identified only by a certain association (Mark 9:38-40) that’s unable to be recognized unless it runs with the clique? Or, is it Body that speaks to the one who saves (John 17:1-10) that connects where-ever, influencing a world how-ever, espousing the same message (1 John 4:2) no matter the context?
To the discussion that the CNN piece raises, we’ve got to let go of elements of what we’ve used to define Christian in the past. They were layers then, and hindrances now. The technologies of our time can help push those things away, but we shouldn’t let those contact points define who or where Christians are. A life that connects, lives by love defines the Christian. Were in print and digital faith are those contact points?
Tags: BeRemedy, Bible, CNN, community, fellowship, Global Conversations, innovations, Jesus.net, lausanne, YouVersion
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