Tag: Evangelical

“Power of Image, Play, and Identity”: Thoughts from Len Sweet

Success Kevin T. Houle via Compfight

 

This is the last bit of reflection on the Leonard Sweet event hosted by Evangelical Seminary this week. (Here’s the first one in the series. Here is the second post.)

 Sweet claims we are living in TGIF times.

Thank God It’s Friday?

No.

Twitter

Google

Instagram

Facebook

Sweet leaves out YouTube which is huge omission. I sense that slipping a V into his acronym wouldn’t be as nifty. (But, I think he’d agree with me that it’s worth inclusion in any assessment of how our current culture learns and is entertained.)

Notice this: All but one of these vehicles of media prominently feature images instead of text. Twitter is driven by 140 text characters (and usually less than that) and this apparently is enough to be radical. Though Twitter is often used for tiny newsy bursts and quotes, tweets tend to include internet links to articles or videos which include visuals.

A new image driven age emerged with televisions in every home in the 1950-1960s. Film? It got super popular and this has never been more true in our current age. Can you think of any other time when you shut off your phone for 3 hours? No. People hate that, but they will sacrifice what that love for something they love even more: Cinema. Nothing solidified the domination of our image age more than the advent of images on the internet. Add to that, the innovative ways of sharing Videos and Images on devices we routinely carry (laptops and smart phones) a major and permanent shift in how we prefer to engage the world occurred. Period.

So what?

Well, we haven’t adjusted, and that is going to really matter. And soon.

Protestants have a substantive Identity crisis because they have lost the story. Disciples have stories: Guiding narratives that set them apart so they don’t have to discover who they are; they can just move forward and be innovative and transformative.

Sweet used the example of Identity in the Jewish culture and ethic group:

• There are about 7 billion people living in the world.

• There are only about 13 million Jews (How much of the world’s population %? is that? Scant.)

• Those with Jewish heritage make up  whopping 25% or so of Noble Prizes winners, Oscar winners, Pulitzers, Tonys, and many other commendations for exceptionality in a variety of fields. How can this be?

A bunch of social science research projects tell us that what lies behind the wild success is namely a firmly formed Identity.
By 12 years old they know who they are, where they come from, and they see themselves in the larger Story (by religious imperative and rites actually: it’s mandatory).

• Jewish culture also has many times of “play”, that is, festivals that tell them who they are. The sit around the table speaking about and interrogating the Story also. This creates a solidified Identity for flourishing.

The last tidbit from the Len Sweet event: Play Ethic

In our mad rush to work and do we have forgotten how to play. God was wasn’t working during Creation, he was making mud pies. He was Creating which isn’t work really. He still is. Labor came hit corruption entered the world and things got messed up. Jesus is always at a party or eating or cooking or making food out of thin air. He loves Martha’s cooking, but when caring for Jesus became work he told Martha of a better way. He didn’t want her to work, but to enjoy. “Sit down and let the rest go.”

If ministry is soul-killing, if it’s a heavy burden and labor, you’re doing it wrong. Ministry shouldn’t be [slow] suicide, says Len Sweet. “Worship is the playground of the Spirit.”

So, really the question remains: Will Protestantism stand the test of time? Signs point to “no”. But, critical to its survival and virility is the concept of creating a lasting and potent Identity that starts with a Story well-told.

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-Lisa

“The Tyranny of the Left Brain”: Thoughts from Len Sweet

wholebrain
(click photo to enlarge)

As promised, I’m writing a bit more to summarize the fascinating Leonard Sweet event at Evangelical Seminary this week. (Here’s the first one in the series.)

Dr Sweet had some interesting things to say about the legacy and effect of the Protestant Reformation which he calls “The 2nd Wave of Christianity”.

Wave 1: Catholicism (which is still growing in the global East and South).
Wave 2: Protestantism (which is in decline everywhere in the world and got its start by saying “no”.) It seems there is a shelf life to this version of Christianity. More on that in a second.
Wave 3: Pentecostalism (which is flourishing in the global East and South. Other Christian traditions are being influenced by its effect too.)

Sweet says that Pentecostalism is considered something other than Protestantism because it more fully integrates the Third Person of the Trinity (the Spirit) and perceives God as active and engaged in everyday life unlike previous versions of Christianity have done. He said that we in the West are slow to realize this seismic shift because we’ve been focused on Liberation Theology. L.T. accounted for the poor and was in essence created for the poor, but the poor didn’t pick it; instead they picked Pentecostalism.

In the West, we are in a post-Christian era. The “big-box churches” have put an end to most of the “mom & pop” churches, but mainly a reshuffling of Christians is occurring–not an increase of new devotees to Christianity. Sweet mentioned that on the West coast in the U.S. things have moved beyond simply disparaging Christians to open hostility. This promises to be the norm throughout U.S. culture, he says.

Why the “shelf-life” for Protestantism?
Protestantism was birthed just as a technological revolution hit. The moveable type of the Gutenberg printing press was one such breakthrough and Protesters of Catholicism used this technology along with their reforming ideas and desire to make the Bible available for everyone to create a major shift in how Christianity was practiced. According to Sweet, no invention was more anti-social and individualistic than the mass-produced book (you take a book and go off by yourself and absorb it). It seems, no worldview had been so individualistic until that time either (my note).

What happened soon because of that shift was the over-emphasis on the left-brain. “The Tyranny of the Left Brain”

And my what a power it’s had!
What was left behind? Mainly the arts, story using image, memories, relationships, emotional expression and recognition, intuition, creativity and a “whole person” view of Christian (body+mind+spirit).

What was favored? Reasoning, thinking, dissecting, apologetics/critical thinking, and textual language. Sometimes the right brain qualities weren’t just ignored, sometimes they were even despised. Whole sects of Christians took down art and have kept places of worship plain and non visual (More on left and right brain here). Logical left brain thinkers are often thought of as smarter even in our culture today, but it is the right side of the brain were some of the most meaningful things occur. And the combination of the hemispheres in balance makes us most fully alive.

We need both sides of our brain to be fully human.

Now something bigger than Gutenberg as come along: Google. All the information of the world is there for the taking, and the visual is back! Story is back again (and this is the format Jesus used too.) Word-heavy presentations are on the decline as many marketers have already noticed the shift and accounted for it (see ad below). Now we have interconnection of the internet and it’s been supercharged more recently by a new technological revolution even more significant than the internet: social media. (Apparently without Facebook the revolutions and movement toward democracy in the Middle East and in other important parts of the world wouldn’t have happened. So, yeah, it’s a big deal because it makes news and ideas travel so quickly.)

 

Social Media promises something we’ve been missing out on the interconnectedness. But, it cannot deliver fully on it’s promise, because face-to-face relationships are so transforming and vital. The internet and social media start to give us what we as humans crave, but a formidable wall persists that only the messiness of in-person interaction offers.

The shift is here and people are looking for a more holistic (whole) way of perceiving the world. Narratives, metaphors, image, story, and emotion are rushing back into the forefront and the it’s not a trend. It’s the new way the world works.

Future post: In the next post I’ll wrap up and focus on the “power of image” which includes metaphor, symbolism, and the affective powers of the brain and mind. Does Protestantism have a fighting chance?

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See how the narrative doesn’t need words much anymore?

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How Story is Trumping Word: Len Sweet

I got the pleasure of hearing Leonard Sweet in person at Evangelical Seminary yesterday. It was a free event, and that was surprising in itself.

Len talked about some important things. Some of them were already clear in my mind, but for the audience they felt shocking.

I will unwrap a few of his main points and add a few of my own over the next few posts.

He spoke about the power of image and story trumping words and books (which are essentially an anti-social and individualistic experience).

Len showed this video:

 

(It’s for a hotel. Their tag line is THERE’S NO GREATER ACT OF HOSPITALITY THAN TO EMBRACE A STRANGER AS ONE’S OWN.
IT’S IN OUR NATURE.) The (French) language barrier is overcome by using just a soundtrack and story that gets to the heart of something we all want.

“The world is stealing our best lines (as Christians) because we don’t know we have them.” -Len Sweet
(I would add that the Story is gone too–left to marketers and cheapened to sell goods and services, yet failing (of course) to truly deliver on its promise.)

It only takes a generation to lose a Story. Instead of mission statements maybe we need stories, or The Story.

How can we bring it to a new age and generation that has move “from Gutenburg to Google” ?

The arts may have a new renaissance if we properly apprehend the shift.

(Check back soon for the next in this series on “The Tyranny of the Left Brain”. Or get it sent to you directly by signing up in t he sidebar for delivery.)

Discernment Series: Defining “Consolation” and “Desolation”

This is the 2nd week of the Discernment Series.

This time it’ll be good to know about the terms Consolation and Desolation as described by Ignatius of Loyola in his work Spiritual Exercises.

BUT FIRST…some of you who know me know I’m not a Catholic. I’ve been trained at a decidedly Evangelical Seminary, called…not-so-creatively “Evangelical Seminary“. So why am I going on about a 500 year old book from a counter-reformation Catholic?

In short, because your soul will be blessed.

Because the tensions from that time (1491-1556 CE) aren’t here in force now so we can learn some very useful things that align with basic Christian theology. The major hostilities at the time made listening to what God was saying “on the opposing side” quite difficult. (Things were hostile to the point of murder on both sides, no less….how Jesus of them?!ugh.) So, from the point of my tradition, Protestants rejected both grimy bath water and baby.

In general, Catholics rejected what they considered a heretical and a rebellious front to the unquestionable authority of the Church, and didn’t see what was coming from Reformers as helpful or biblical ideas for doing church differently. (It took about 500 years at Vatican II to incorporate many of those needed Reformation era ideas, but a surprising number of them went through and were accepted. Masses conducted in a language understood by the people listening being just one of them. Then, it takes 50 years or so, so I’m told by Catholics, to see them flesh out at the parish (local church) level.)

SO Now-
We’re at a point (I’m generalizing here) where we don’t have to fear reading other streams of Christianity from that time. No one will be tied to a stake and torched, not literally anyway. I think we’re okay accepting that God has much truth to impart from devoted believers with various backgrounds, and this willingness to hear can aid our spiritual growth.

Ignatius was convicted and motivated to “find God in all things”.
 I like that about him. This is the way we live incarnational lives. This is how our worldview and our true selves get put right by the love and dominion of our Savior and Creator, and his Son, the enfleshed God, Jesus Christ. While I find some of the ideas, concepts, doctrine, and long-ago language of Ignatius foreign to me, I don’t let it unsettle me. Instead, I let the Holy Spirit speak to my heart and guide me while I read. I pray with the ideas and ask for guidance. I admit I have a lot to learn. I leave some things behind and take in what is transformative and what will make me more like Jesus, the Christ.

Not every but of it will help me or you, but enough will that I bother to write about it and include those outside of my tradition and experience in my blog to open our eyes to some great advice and sage wisdom for understanding how to discern God’s will in transformative ways.

So now for “consolation” and “desolation”

Ignatian teaching has it that these are two terms that help us decipher what is from God, and what is not. At first blush, we may assume that consolation is “happy…yeah God…feelings” and so forth. Desolated might be unhappy ones. But, hang on while we dig a little deeper.

For Ignatius, Consolation is a word to describe interior stirrings that are aroused in the soul that has been inflamed with love for God as Creator and Lord, and too every creature made by the Creator. It’s marked in every increase in faith, hope, love, and interior joy that bring a filling of peace and quiet. A drawing closer to God. A soul in consolation may weep too at the recognition and repentance of sins, and also the relief of the abiding grace of God. A godly grief may be a Consolation, though a difficult patch to get through. Most importantly Consolation is a gift. We don’t arrive there by techniques or things we do. God graces us with consolation.

Desolation is indeed the opposite of consolation, but note how Ignatius writes about it,

“I call desolation what is entirely the opposite (of  consolation), as darkness of soul, torment of spirit, inclination to what is low and earthly, restlessness rising from many disturbances and temptations which lead to want of faith, want of hope, want of love.  [In desolation] the soul is wholly slothful, tepid, sad, and separated, as it were, from its Creator and Lord.”

Desolation then is all the stuff that stirs our souls and draw us away from God, regardless of the subjective feelings. Some in desolation will not recognize it as that. They will be oblivious. And plenty more will not associate what feelings they have with interior stirrings of the soul. Maybe they’ll blame the government, the economy, circumstances, or other things instead.

So, now that you know which is which, listen and tune in to your interior stirrings. Consolation and Desolation are not mere feelings. They have to do with a conflation of responses and influences that are the movings at the soul level (our core).

Note when you are in consolation. Note when you sense desolation. Get a feel for the movements and workings of God. Begin to distinguish them from the ungodly ones that come from the Enemy or the ungodly parts of yourself.

Next time I’ll talk about the uses and aims of both consolation and desolation in God’s work on us.

To read the (English) PDF of Ignatian’s “Spiritual Exercises” click here.

(Don’t miss the next installation of the series. Use the sidebar to get the next update.)