KEEPER: "Why We Need More 'Chaplains' and Fewer Leaders"

Why We Need More 'Chaplains' and Fewer Leaders
What's a pastor for?
Mark Galli | posted 12/01/2011 10:41AM


In my email recently came another list of suggestions on how to tell if your church is healthy. The warning signs of a sick church were lack of outreach ministries, increasing dropout rate, church conflict, little corporate prayer, and finally, the pastor has become a chaplain.

It's becoming increasingly common to infer that when a pastor becomes a "chaplain," the church is in trouble. A few years ago, one website encouraging "innovative" ministry listed five types of pastors that a church might call: Catalytic, Cultivator, Conflict-Quelling, Chaplain, and Catatonic. The page clarified that "each of these types carries positives and negatives," but it seemed clear that the further one went down the list, the more problematic was the pastor. At the top of the list were Catalytic pastors, who are "gifted in the prophetic and tend to be charismatic leaders. These pastors have lots of energy and are focused on the mission of the church … that is, reaching the community for Jesus Christ. In the 'right' church, they'll grow it without a doubt."

A Chaplain pastor, on the other hand, was mired near the bottom. A Chaplain pastor is "wired for peace, harmony, and pastoral care. This is the type of pastor that has been produced by seminaries for several decades, though a few … a very few … seminaries are retooling. Chaplain pastors eschew change and value status quo. They don't want to stir the waters; rather, they want to bring healing to hurting souls." And if that weren't bad enough, "Chaplain pastors don't grow churches. In fact, a Chaplain pastor will hasten a congregation's demise because they tend to focus on those within the congregation rather than in bringing new converts to Jesus Christ."

The assumptions here are all too common, I'm afraid. So we hear in many quarters that pastors should be leaders, catalysts, and entrepreneurs, and the repeated slam about pastors who are mere chaplains.
* * *

This, of course, inadvertently denigrates every clergyperson who is literally a chaplain—in hospitals, in the military, and elsewhere, as if these ministers are second-class clergy. If they were real ministers, they'd be growing a megachurch. Instead, they are only good enough to "bring healing to hurting souls."

We find ourselves in an odd period of church history when many people have become so used to large, impersonal institutions that they want that in their church as well. Thus the attraction of megachurches, where people can blend in and not be seen if they want. Many thought leaders who ponder church life naturally end up championing massive institutions and denigrating (inadvertently, to be sure) the healing of hurting souls. And this in a community whose theology is supposedly grounded in the universal and cosmic love of God who gives attention to each of us as individuals.

There may be something else going on as well. A chaplain is a minister in the service of another. A chaplain at a hospital or in the military is clearly not the highest ranking member of the institution, clearly not the person in charge of running things. The chaplain's job is defined by service—service to the institution's needs and goals, service to the individuals who come for spiritual help. The chaplain prays for people in distress, administers sacraments to those in need, leads worship for those desperate for God. In short, the chaplain is at the beck and call of those who are hurting for God. He's not his own man. She is not her own woman. There's no mistaking a chaplain for an entrepreneurial leader, a catalyst for growth. No, the chaplain is unmistakably a servant.

In an increasingly secular, capitalist culture, it's understandable that so many clergy are fascinated with the idea that they can be leaders and entrepreneurs. These are the people our culture admires most—those like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or whoever has made a ton of money and a practical difference. I can appreciate this. When I was a pastor, I felt I gained more credibility with my church board—composed of mostly business people—when I could wax eloquent about the church's "decadal growth" and the need to "target a young demographic" and create "revenue models" that would "ensure long-term stability" for the church.

Such is the culture we live in, where successful business people seem to enjoy really important work, and pastors, if they are not careful, will be chaplains, mere servants.
* * *

It's interesting to note how much time and energy our Lord spent on "healing hurting souls." Take this typical summary in Matthew's gospel: "So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them" (4:24, ESV). When Matthew wanted to sum up what Jesus did over and over, time and again with people, this is the sort of thing he said: "He healed them."

It's also interesting to note the way Jesus framed how his disciples should think about their ministries: "And Jesus called them to him and said to them, 'You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles like to be seen as "leaders," "entrepreneurs," "catalysts for growth," and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' " (Mark 10:42-45).

Okay, I paraphrased a bit. But I'm not convinced the paraphrase is false to the sense of Jesus' words. In any case, it seems clear that Jesus was a chaplain of souls, and that he encouraged his disciples to think of themselves in the same way.

One wonders where we got our other ideas about the pastorate. For centuries, the pastorate was thought to be about "the cure of souls"—souls being understood not as the spiritual part of us, but as the fullness of our humanity. The pastor has traditionally been thought of as one who does ministry in the midst of a people who are sick and dying, and who administers in word and sacrament, in Scripture and in prayer, the healing balm of the Lord.

So who told us that the pastor is primarily a leader/entrepreneur/change agent and anything but a curer of souls? And why do we believe them?
* * *

The good chaplain-pastor recognizes that the ministry of healing hurting souls has many dimensions. Take King David's chaplain, Nathan. It's clear that Nathan is at the beck and call of his king, and that he sees himself as a spiritual presence to comfort and affirm his patron. At one point, he tells David, "Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you" (2 Sam. 7:3). But he also knew that if he was truly going to serve his king, he was going to have to challenge him from time to time—like when he confronted David about his adultery.

But note how pastoral even that conversation is: Nathan tells David that he has "despised the word of the Lord," and David admits, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan is acting as a chaplain, to heal the sinful soul of his king (2 Sam. 12).

o say that a pastor is first and foremost a chaplain—someone who is the Lord's means of healing—is not to suggest that his or her role is primarily therapeutic. It includes therapy-like moments, for example, in helping parishioners deal with their ordinary fears and worries. But it is fundamentally about the healing of souls—helping men and women, boys and girls, to become right with God, and therefore, right with others.

This will happen in a variety of ways, as the pastor leads worship and hears confession and simply spends time with the congregation. This happens even when presiding over those functions we tend to think are perfunctory. When the pastor is present, you see, people get this intuitive reminder that God is present. That often puts people on their best behavior—sometimes annoyingly so! But when the pastor communicates in word and deed the graciousness of God, the pastor's presence can be a great comfort to people. For it is by grace that we are healed.

Eugene Peterson put it this way in The Contemplative Pastor: "The primary language of the cure of souls … is conversation and prayer. Being a pastor means learning to use language in which personal uniqueness is enhanced and individual sanctity recognized and respected. It is a language that is unhurried, unforced, unexcited—the leisurely language of friends and lovers, which is also the language of prayer."

I've been a parishioner in many churches over many years. In each church, the pastor has been tempted, as I was, to become the great leader, to shape himself in our culture's image of success. To be sure, the modern pastor does have to "run a church"; he or she is, in fact, the head of an institution that has prosaic institutional needs. I've been thankful when my pastor carries out these institutional responsibilities with efficiency and joy.

But the times I remember most, the times when my troubled soul has been most deeply affected and moved—outside of preaching and receiving the sacraments—have been when my pastor acted like a chaplain. When he pulled me aside in the narthex, put his arm around me, and prayed with me about some matter. When he visited me in the hospital. When in unhurried conversation I felt less alone, because I knew in a deeper way that God was present.

Some say that pastoral moments like these are like germs, and if we let such moments take over, they'll make the church sick. I beg to differ. During such moments, the church is never more healthy.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of Chaos and Grace: Discovering the Liberating Work of the Holy Spirit (Baker). He also blogs at www.markgalli.com.

Occupy Thanksgiving

QUOTES: Bauman on Consumerism

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.  For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.  --II Cor. 11:3-5

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. --Gal. 1:6-7

from The London Riots – On Consumerism coming Home to Roost
09/08/2011 by Zygmunt Bauman

"We are all consumers now, consumers first and foremost, consumers by right and by duty. The day after the 11/9 outrage George W. Bush, when calling Americans to get over the trauma and go back to normal, found no better words than “go back shopping”. It is the level of our shopping activity and the ease with which we dispose of one object of consumption in order to replace it with a “new and improved” one which serves us as the prime measure of our social standing and the score in the life-success competition. To all problems we encounter on the road away from trouble and towards satisfaction we seek solutions in shops.

From cradle to coffin we are trained and drilled to treat shops as pharmacies filled with drugs to cure or at least mitigate all illnesses and afflictions of our lives and lives in common. Shops and shopping acquire thereby a fully and truly eschatological dimension. Supermarkets, as George Ritzer famously put it, are our temples; and so, I may add, the shopping lists are our breviaries, while strolls along the shopping malls become our pilgrimages. Buying on impulse and getting rid of possessions no longer sufficiently attractive in order to put more attractive ones in their place are our most enthusing emotions. The fullness of consumer enjoyment means fullness of life. I shop, therefore I am. To shop or not to shop, this is the question.

For defective consumers, those contemporary have-nots, non-shopping is the jarring and festering stigma of a life un-fulfilled – and of own nonentity and good-for-nothingness. Not just the absence of pleasure: absence of human dignity. Of life meaning. Ultimately, of humanity and any other ground for self-respect and respect of the others around."

Austerity and the American Dream

My friend C. sent me this article, written by an Australian:

American dream comes with a heavy cost

Ros Coward

The US debt debate reveals a nation living beyond its means.

ONE word is missing in the American debate over the debt crisis: austerity. It's a revealing absence. In spite of the vast deficit, and despite the US being the home of individualism, no way is being offered for individuals to make a difference by changing their lifestyles.

People in Britain have become familiar with talk of the ''new age of austerity''. Politicians of both left and right use the expression to frame the narrative about the cuts Britain is now facing. While both sides ''warn'' about this coming era, austerity is not negative in the British psyche. Associations with wartime Britain soften it. Austerity is associated with personal changes that benefited society and made sense to people who learned to tackle wastefulness, to ''make do and mend''.

Long before the current cuts, austerity was making a comeback in Britain, associated with the environmental issues of recycling, cutting consumption and reducing our carbon footprint. Indeed, the New Economics Foundation recently launched the New Home Front, arguing that wartime lifestyles are positive models for reducing environmental impact.

 Not so in the US. In the five months I spent there earlier this year, I never heard the word austerity in political discussion. There was nothing about individuals living beyond their means. Yet the US deficit is founded on overconsumption, made possible by too much consumer credit and, less well recognised, too much environmental credit.

In the current war of words in Congress, there is no reference to the immoral lending that encouraged people who could not afford it to invest in the American dream. Yet that is what led to the property crash and the financial crisis. From individuals I heard nothing about the need for prosperous people to change their ways. There are, of course, many worthy ''green shoots'', such as the ''locavore'' movement or the ''greening the campus'' initiative at the university I was visiting, where a newly appointed sustainability officer tries to cut energy use. But people like him have their work cut out.

The whole of the east coast and the rust belt are vast, shocking landscapes to which many Americans seem oblivious. This is a society that has lived not just beyond its economic means but beyond its environmental ones, too, as the hundreds of miles of abandoned buildings, abandoned cars, and endless highways bear witness to.

Yet the American dream survives. You're either in it, or out of it. Being out means destitution. In Britain I know many people who reject consumerism, getting involved in poorly paid environmental or political work. We regard them as rather honourable. In the US, if you don't have money you don't count.

None of this is supposed to indicate Britain has got it right. Far from it. The relaxation of planning controls with the potential to trash the environment is a case in point. But at least words such as thrift and sustainability don't carry such negative connotations. They suggest a place to work from. In the US, the ideological mindset makes these negative terms, which in turn makes the future there look bleak. Their problem isn't just fixing government spending, but ultimately counting the real costs of the American way of life.

Here's my response:

Austerity is not an American virtue. Making a profit and consuming are. "The concept that making money (employment) and spending money (consumerism) is the primary goal of individuals within a market economy, and the assumption that individuals must work for an employer to "make a living" and that such activity is the most meaningful and desirable of human activities." wikipedia

So we have tended to equate consumption with success and happiness and being good Americans. We define ourselves in terms of our quarterly earnings reports and our "stuff." Buying and selling on credit just allows us to have more stuff, feel better about ourselves, and keep the economy rolling. Austerity is taken to be un-American, because it is a refusal to participate in this economic and social engine.

The housing crisis stands as a challenge to all this, because it means the conveyer belt has stopped. See this. Austerity is being imposed upon us, whether we want it or not. The question is, in the process, will we come to realize that the culture of capitalism is a false kingdom? If sin is missing the mark, then the gyrations between the extremes of consumerism and austerity are evidence that we are not where Christ intends us to be.

Why Patients are not Consumers

The reason patients cannot be reduced to consumers is that they are persons, not events. A naturalistic worldview can only account for that which is material: able to be quantified, therefore able to be measured; therefore able to be predicted, therefore able to be controlled. Events are able to be reduced to material explanations. Persons are not. Persons are both material AND immaterial; matter AND  form, body AND soul, events AND agents.  What is immaterial cannot be quantified,  it is unable to be priced: therefore it is outside the realm of commerce.


Patients Are Not Consumers
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 21, 2011

Earlier this week, The Times reported on Congressional backlash against the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a key part of efforts to rein in health care costs. This backlash was predictable; it is also profoundly irresponsible, as I’ll explain in a minute.

But something else struck me as I looked at Republican arguments against the board, which hinge on the notion that what we really need to do, as the House budget proposal put it, is to “make government health care programs more responsive to consumer choice.”

Here’s my question: How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as “consumers”? The relationship between patient and doctor used to be considered something special, almost sacred. Now politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car ­ and their only complaint is that it isn’t commercial enough.

What has gone wrong with us?

About that advisory board: We have to do something about health care costs, which means that we have to find a way to start saying no. In particular, given continuing medical innovation, we can’t maintain a system in which Medicare essentially pays for anything a doctor recommends. And that’s especially true when that blank-check approach is combined with a system that gives doctors and hospitals ­ who aren’t saints ­ a strong financial incentive to engage in excessive care.

Hence the advisory board, whose creation was mandated by last year’s health reform. The board, composed of health-care experts, would be given a target rate of growth in Medicare spending. To keep spending at or below this target, the board would submit “fast-track” recommendations for cost control that would go into effect automatically unless overruled by Congress.

Before you start yelling about “rationing” and “death panels,” bear in mind that we’re not talking about limits on what health care you’re allowed to buy with your own (or your insurance company’s) money. We’re talking only about what will be paid for with taxpayers’ money. And the last time I looked at it, the Declaration of Independence didn’t declare that we had the right to life, liberty, and the all-expenses-paid pursuit of happiness.

And the point is that choices must be made; one way or another, government spending on health care must be limited.

Now, what House Republicans propose is that the government simply push the problem of rising health care costs on to seniors; that is, that we replace Medicare with vouchers that can be applied to private insurance, and that we count on seniors and insurance companies to work it out somehow. This, they claim, would be superior to expert review because it would open health care to the wonders of “consumer choice.”

What’s wrong with this idea (aside from the grossly inadequate value of the proposed vouchers)? One answer is that it wouldn’t work. “Consumer-based” medicine has been a bust everywhere it has been tried. To take the most directly relevant example, Medicare Advantage, which was originally called Medicare + Choice, was supposed to save money; it ended up costing substantially more than traditional Medicare. America has the most “consumer-driven” health care system in the advanced world. It also has by far the highest costs yet provides a quality of care no better than far cheaper systems in other countries.

But the fact that Republicans are demanding that we literally stake our health, even our lives, on an already failed approach is only part of what’s wrong here. As I said earlier, there’s something terribly wrong with the whole notion of patients as “consumers” and health care as simply a financial transaction.

Medical care, after all, is an area in which crucial decisions ­ life and death decisions ­ must be made. Yet making such decisions intelligently requires a vast amount of specialized knowledge. Furthermore, those decisions often must be made under conditions in which the patient is incapacitated, under severe stress, or needs action immediately, with no time for discussion, let alone comparison shopping.

That’s why we have medical ethics. That’s why doctors have traditionally both been viewed as something special and been expected to behave according to higher standards than the average professional. There’s a reason we have TV series about heroic doctors, while we don’t have TV series about heroic middle managers.

The idea that all this can be reduced to money ­ that doctors are just “providers” selling services to health care “consumers” ­ is, well, sickening. And the prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong not just with this discussion, but with our society’s values.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on April 22, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Patients Are Not Consumers

ADDENDUM: On April 25, 2011, the Economist published a response to Krugman, entitled "Diagnosing Krugman." My further remarks can be seen, above, in an April 28 post, Why Patients are not Consumers, Part 2."

I refused to celebrate it, muchless call it "Black Friday"

Brad Boydston hit it with his Tuesday, Nov. 24 post:

WHEN DID "Black Friday" become a public holiday? I mean, the shopping day after Thanksgiving has been a big deal in the States for years and retailers called it "Black Friday" amongst themselves because supposedly that's the day that moved them out of red ink and into the black. But now they have "Black Friday" ads on television and they talk about it as though it were a holiday in and of itself. And they've even suckered the news media into the whole charade with special reports on the holiday preparations. Marketing hype. Absurd.

When we name things, we give them status and respect. We acknowledge not only their existence, but their meaning for us. It is even more telling when we create our own holidays. Instead of receiving the gift of a Holy Day, which presupposes a Giver, we take matters into our own hands--time and space--and hallow them to idols of our making.

"Black Friday."

The world, in its arrogance, can only ape what God has already brought into being, but in doing so, it twists His good gifts. Black Friday is the world 's answer to Good Friday:

Instead of sacrifice, there is greed.
Instead of isolation, there are crowds.
Instead of vinegar, there are lattes.
Instead of whispers, carols blare over loudspeakers.
Instead of receiving grace, people go deeper in debt.
Instead of darkness, there are wildly blinking neon lights
Instead of forgiveness, there are fights.
Instead of atonement, there is shoving; disagreement; defiance; loss.

Instead of a tomb ready to explode with new Life, there are empty wallets and empty hearts.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

Dan Whitmarsh: Anything to make a sale

Dan Whitmarsh has some wise words about the dark side of youth ministry, such as that practiced by Young Life.

Anything to Make a Sale

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . .

Evangelistic-minded youth ministries hit upon a genius idea. Create events that are cool, hip, attractive, amazing, get kids in the door, and then hit them with the gospel. Young Life is the master of this strategy, but it has impacted the entire world of youth ministry. In small ways, it looks like 'throw a pizza party, invite your friends, then we'll tell 'em about Jesus." In larger ways, it looks like "Hire a band, have some fireworks, break some bricks with your head, then tell 'em about Jesus." Either way, entertain 'em, entice 'em with coolness, then tell 'em about Jesus.

One problem: no matter what the Church does, the World does a better job of offering Cool options. While the Church was offering pizza and goofy games, the World invented Wiis and Hip-Hop. So the Church is always playing catch-up, trying to find ever hipper and cooler ways of enticing 'worldly youth' into our doors, so we can tell 'em about Jesus. Or, maybe just to keep our kids in the doors, trying to make it just cool enough that they won't run out there where the World offers all that other stuff.

So, to recap, the strategy is: do something fun/cool/outrageous to get people in the door, then tell 'em about Jesus.

Let's be clear about one thing: the motivation is great. Telling people about Jesus is our highest calling. Creating opportunities to tell people about Jesus is a wonderful task.

But there was a dark side that very few people really wanted to talk about: this 'wow 'em and tell 'em about Jesus' strategy doesn't do much in the way of creating disciples. Instead, it creates instant flash with no long-term impact. The fact that even 70-80% of Christian kids leave the church after high school ought to tell us we're doing something wrong. That we're not growing Followers, that we're not raising Disciples. Instead, we're creating Consumers who will always chase after the next big fix, wherever that comes from. We're not raising young people who understand such basic tenets of Christianity as sacrifice, service, humility, forgiveness, love, grace and mercy. We are, in fact, temporarily distracting young people with smoke and mirrors, sneaking the gospel in there, assuming that, since they 'said the prayer' following the pizza and root-beer gorge, they're 'in.'

And here's today's problem: those raised in this world are leaving their youth ministry days behind and moving into senior leadership in churches across America. . .and they're using the exact same strategies in the larger church.

Like the Church over in the Seattle area that decided to perform live tattooing during their worship service.

Again, the motivation is probably good: create some buzz (no pun intended. . .maybe), get some people in the door, tell 'em about Jesus. Young people are into tattoos. So, bring tattoos into the Church, get people interested, tell 'em about Jesus.

But is this anything more than the same strategy that has failed so miserably in our youth ministries over the last 60 years?

One might also spend a few minutes talking about the nature of worship itself - a holy people gathered to lift up the name of God in adoration and praise, to listen to (and apply) his Word in their lives.

It has always struck me as odd that we have to do all this in the first place. After all, the Church has the most amazing package ever to be offered - eternal life, hope, love, peace, joy, a relationship with the God who created the Universe, redemption, acceptance, friendship. . .For some reason, so many have decided that's not enough, so instead they re-package all that into pizza parties, goofy games, church coffee shops, the never-ending pursuit of 'relevance,' tattoo services.

My hope, as I've stated before, is that people will be drawn to Lakebay Community Church not because we're cool or hip or relevant or edgy, but because they've heard it's a place of hope, a place of joy, a place of acceptance, a place where Christ's light shines into the darkness of our lives. It makes you wonder what would happen if the Church across America would decide to give up this striving for relevance, and get back to the real work of the Church, which, as I pointed out in my sermon yesterday, comes down to two things:
1) being a community of grace and mercy and love
2) going out into all the world making disciples.

Something tells me we just might actually be healthier. We'd certainly be stronger. Promotional gimmicks might fill the pews, but they don't teach people to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God. Only the hard work of disciple-making does that.

Jim Hawkins on Food Choices

here

Hilarious!

The Uniform Project

This via a friend on Facebook:

Can a woman wear the same dress 365 days a year, and achieve a different look every day? The answer is at The Uniform Project.

Various shots of the Black Dress Project

Just Wondering: "Brands" vs. "kinds"

The other night on Fresh Air Terry Gross engaged her guest, Dan Belz in a discussion about the Republican "brand." This got me wondering about "brands" vs. "kinds."

Here's one way of defining a kind:

• it is something a set of things (objects, events, beings) has in common which distinguishes it from other things as a real set rather than as a group of things arbitrarily lumped together by a person or group of people. (wikipedia)

Some philosophers reserve the word "kind" to refer to "natural kinds," and make a distinction between natural kinds and brands:

• a natural kind is a grouping of things which is a natural grouping, not an artificial one.


• or, a natural kind is what we mean by "species"


• a brand is a name or trademark connected with a product or producer (via Wikipedia)


• a brand is a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers" (via (Laura Lake, American Marketing Association )


• a "brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot." (Laura Lake, About.com)

According to this view, humans, aluminum and tomatoes may be thought of as kinds, but they aren't brands. Republicans, Pantene shampoo and Nike are brands, but they aren't properly kinds. In other words, one is created by the Creator, the other is a name for something man-made.

In Genesis 2:19-20, God charged Adam with the task of naming all the different kinds of animals, but he was not asked to "brand" them! But we live in a world where God has been eclipsed, and the notion of a natural kind is regarded as quaint, or more frequently with suspicion, so the trend in our culture is to conflate them, or better, to move toward branding things. Branding enables us to own, control and most importantly, sell things. Hence we unconciously begin to conflate "kinds" with 'brands," and speak about "Kleenex," Xeroxing," "Jello," "I-pods," and "Chacos."

It is one thing for the Republican party to be worried about its brand, but what happens when we allow things which are not meant to be bought and sold to be branded? When we are already in the habit of conflating kinds and brands, it makes it difficult to resist this tendency. What Brave New World lies ahead of us, with the "Genentech Mozart Gene," the "Sinovac Energy Embryo," "United Rent-a-Husband," and the "BioCon Delhi Liver?"

Build a Better Baby

Kyrie Eleison.

Gilbert Meilaender warned about this long ago in
his Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. Life is not a commodity; children are not art projects. Time to go watch Gattaca again; and especially take note of the alternative ending.


Fertility Doctor Will Let Parents Build Their Own Baby

Clinic's Service to Custom-Design Baby's Hair and Eye Color Sparks Controversy
By GIGI STONE
March 3, 2009

Imagine if you could choose your baby the same way you pick out a new outfit from a catalogue. Perhaps some blue eyes, a bit of curly hair, and why not make her tall, lean and smart? One fertility doctor now says that he may be able to deliver....continued here

'Twas the Night before Superbowl Sunday

Good sportsmen now rejoice

With heart and soul and voice!

Give ye heed to what we say

News! News!

Superbowl is on today!

Busch and Block before it bow;

Apple, Coke--come see them now--

Commercials deck this golden cow.

Superbowl today!

Superbowl today!

Here we come a-chugging

Before the TV Screen!

Here we come a-swigging--

our Superbowl routine.

Couch and cash come to you

And to you an ice cold Bud too,

And Noll bless you, and send you

A winning team this year,

And Noll send you a winning team this year.

The High Holy Days are about to reach their climax. Tonight is Superbowl Eve, and tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday. Years ago, Joseph L. Price nailed it in this article for The Christian Century. "The Super Bowl as a Religious Festival."

The Superbowl is the ultimate holiday of Civic Religion. It is the one occasion that unites people of all ages, incomes, persuasions. However, it seems to be particularly sacred to males:

According to a new Coors Light survey of more than 2,500 adult male football fans, preparing for Super Bowl Sunday is one of the most important priorities of the year. Survey results show that a large percentage (44 percent) of men put more time and energy into making Super Bowl plans than making Valentine's Day plans. The survey also shows that more than 30 percent of survey respondents would rather see their favorite team win the Super Bowl than win a date with a supermodel, win a year's supply of beer or win their fantasy football league for three years in a row. link

Savvy evangelicals have co-opted it for their own ends, by hosting Superbowl parties. Yahoo will even tell you how to do it. Of course, the NFL magisterium is wary of such subversions and will flex its muscle to maintain orthodoxy. As Bruce Forbes and David Mahan point out, it is ironic that many evangelicals--"heirs of those who stripped bare their churches"--have eschewed visual representation in their sanctuaries, while simultaneously they have become "the most sophisticated practitioners of electronic technology." Now those electronic images have been granted "a power greater than that of medieval liturgical icons."

Among the many rituals associated with the day is the Drinking of the Beer:

The survey also revealed that the winner of the game isn't the only thing on men's minds - beer is also a top priority on Super Bowl Sunday. While roughly 35 percent of those surveyed said their male friends are the ideal Super Bowl companions, 24 percent said all they need is an ice cold beer, preferably at a temperature as cold as the Rocky Mountains (45 percent). link

One of the rituals of Superbowl Sunday that Price fails to explore is the Viewing of the Commercials. Of course, in keeping with the spirit of the Day, certain commercials are taboo. Others that reinforce the values of the Game are welcomed. They involve immense sacrifice on the part of the advertisers, and the more they amuse us the greater their power.


Yes, for some of us these are sacred days; but for others of us, they mark the Abomination of Desolation. Guess which group I fall into?

What if Starbucks Marketed like a church?

via Brad:



I found the You Tube comments worth even more than the video:

"churches don't need marketing churches need prayer. "

"This is the problem with all the protestant evangelical McChurches all competing for each other. This is what you get for fracturing the Christian Church."

"Church isn't a consumer transaction; it's a relationship"

While I am altogether in agreement with those comments (especially the last one), there are other perspectives. Take a look here for example. According to David Deal,

"Some might find it distasteful for a religious institution of any denomination to so nakedly embrace marketing. But religious institutions are no different than secular organizations that seek to attract and retain members: they need to make themselves known if they’re going to succeed. And like secular organizations, they can choose any manner of tasteful or obnoxious ways to spread their message through marketing."

So, according to Deal, it is not a question of whether or not religious institutions should stoop to the market. It is assumed that "consumer" is the default position of everyone in our society, and that churches, synogogues, mosques and temples reduce to markets. So the question is whether or not religious institutions are in tune with how consumers wish to be treated.

From this perspective, Evangelical churches are using outdated techniques to appeal to and manage their consumers, which erodes trust between church as marketer and potential consumers That means churches need to adapt and follow consumer behavior. (Heaven forbid that they should form it!)

Here's what Deal predictions the consumer of 2018 will be like:

The answer is fairly simple: follow consumer behavior — don’t try to “manage” it. To help the marketer, Lisa introduces the four “Ps” of understanding consumer behavior in the digital world: permission, proximity, perception, and participation:

1. Permission: consumers derive comfort by managing with whom and when they engage. Example: Gilt.com is a closed, invitation-only shopping community.

2. Proximity: consumers tap into networks and affiliations based on on content and association. The notion of curated content is important here. Example: Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast content curator connects people with common interests. Daily Beast brings proximity to its readers.

3. Perception: consumers inhabit multiple personas. Marketers need to engage the persona consumers are willing to reveal and allow consumers to manage their own perceptions. Example: Apple enables consumers to customize our iPods however we want, and we pay Apple for the privilege.

4. Participation: consumers participate in order to feel connected. Example: Sprint and and Suave have collaborated to create In the Motherhood, a community managed by moms for moms.

Consumers use these 4 P’s to manage their fluctuations between core need states. We cannot “control” them. We have to let consumers guide us.

Lisa’s closing thoughts: if you’ve gotten permission from consumers to participate in their world, ask them to share their experience with others. Consumers will act as brand advocates for you – if they like you.

Sigh. Too bad Paul didn't do a better job of asking permission to participate in Philippi, Thessalonica, and especially Ephesus. Think of how many more brand advocates they could have made!

So when does the Embryo Tax take effect?

I'm from St. Louis, where every school child makes a field trip at one time or another to the Old Courthouse, overlooking the Mississippi River, under the shadow of the Gateway Arch.

"On these steps slaves were sold," our teachers told us. "And inside is where the two Dred Scott cases were decided, which eventually resulted in the Supreme court ruling that negroes--even free negroes--are 'beings of an inferior order' and thus not able to be citizens of the United States. In other words, slaves were not considered persons, but private property."

The Dred Scott decision marks one of the nadirs of our history. Now here's another, the latest step in America's continuing compulsion for commodification. Today the Oregon Court of Appeals declared embryos to be private property. So, does this mean that someday they'll be taxable? Kyrie eleison.

---------------------------------------------------------

from the Seattle Post Intelligencer website:

Oregon court rules frozen embryos can be destroyed

The Oregon Court of Appeals has ordered six frozen embryos destroyed after ruling they can be treated as personal property in a divorce.

The court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that an agreement leaving the final decision up to the former wife must be followed.

Dr. Laura Dahl, a pediatrician, and her former husband, Dr. Darrell Angle, an orthodontist, had attempted to conceive through a process called in vitro fertilization.

After several failed attempts, the couple gave up and left the embryos with Oregon Health & Science University under an agreement that spelled out how they would be stored.

Dahl decided to have the embryos destroyed, but Angle had argued they should be donated to other couples trying to conceive.

In an opinion by Presiding Judge Rex Armstrong, the court ruled there is a contractual right to determine the fate of the embryos as personal property.

But Armstrong noted there is little guidance on who gets to make that decision in a divorce, so the court relied on a 1998 New York state case that held agreements on what to do with embryos after in vitro fertilization are binding.

Armstrong noted the ruling in New York said that it should be the parents, "not the state and not the courts, who by their prior directive make this deeply personal life choice."

Angle denied that he had read the OHSU agreement he signed with Dahl, and opposed the destruction of the embryos or their donation to science because "there's no pain greater than having participated in the demise of your own child."

But Dahl said she opposed her ex-husband's recommendation that the embryos be donated to another woman for implantation because she did not want anybody else to raise her child.

Dahl was also concerned that any child born as a result of implantation might later wish to contact the son who she and Angle had previously conceived naturally.

The court noted that Angle "does not argue that the agreement itself is ambiguous or invalid for public policy reasons" and affirmed a Clackamas County Circuit Court ruling that he agreed his ex-wife would make the final decision.

"You are not your own. You were bought for a price."

Plastic Water Bottle Waste

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZbTXDkrD1o

Animating Water Bottle Recycling Rates, by Doug James, Cornell University

Why Materialism Makes You Unhappy

via Brad:
Why Materialism Makes You Unhappy"

We propose four psychological needs. The first is safety/security, which is the need to feel like you’ll survive, like you are not in danger, like you will have enough food and water and shelter to make it another day. The second is competence or efficacy, which is the need to feel like you are skillful and able to do the things that you set out to do: I need to feel like a good psychologist, you might need to feel like a good journalist, etc. The third is connection or relatedness, which concerns having close, intimate relationships with other people. The fourth need is for freedom or autonomy, which is feeling like you do what you do because you choose it and want to do it rather than feeling compelled or forced to do it.

As I lay out in my book, The High Price of Materialism, people who put a strong focus on materialism in their lives tend to have poor satisfaction of each of these four needs. In part this is because of their development, but it also is because materialism creates a lifestyle that does a poor job of satisfying these needs. That is, a materialistic lifestyle tends to perpetuate feelings of insecurity, to lead people to hinge their competence on pretty fleeting, external sources, to damage relationships, and to distract people from the more fun, more meaningful, and freer ways of living life.

Or here's an even shorter Thomistic answer:
because we are not simply material beings, but beings made in the image of God, and so "according to the maker's instructions,"
we have to pay attention to the dimensions of our being which connect with truth, beauty, goodness, and love. In other words, we can't be happy apart from Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

How Relevant can be more relevant, and all of us more faithful to Jesus Christ

Dan Whitmarsh is pastor of LakeBay Community Church in Lakebay, WA. I read his blog regularly. Today this came across my screen. What Dan has written is so important that I am reproducing it here, for my own edification and yours. I can't think of anything I've read recently that is more countercultural and relevant than this blog entry.

Amen and amen, Dan!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A Case Study in the Power of Language

"Over the weekend, Seattle's Mars Hill Church opened up their newest location, in a former downtown bar. Personally, I think that's kind of cool. There's a huge metaphor here. This bar was notorious for the violence and mayhem it attracted. Many in the community were fed up with all the antics going on there. The Seattle Police Department was regularly called to break up fights among the drunken patrons.

Now, that place of darkness has been transformed into an outpost for the Kingdom of God. The Light has shined in the darkness, and the darkness has fled. This is what the Kingdom is supposed to look like: ground once held by the darkness taken and restored for the Kingdom of Light. I wish we would see more of this happening all over the city, all over the world.

However, that's not the purpose of today's post. I simply wanted to begin with some kudos so you don't think this is another Bash Mars Hill post. You can find those all over the internet, and I don't particularly want to join in. (That's not to say I don't have my own disagreements with the MH way of doing ministry, which I have blogged about in the past; just that I don't want you to think I'm a hater or anything). (By the By - if you have the stomach for it, and want to understand the way many people up here in the NW view MH and Christianity in general, just follow the link to the article, and then read the comments at the end. It's. . .frightening)

Here's what I want to focus on today. Tim Gaydos, the pastor of this particular branch, had this to say about the newest MH edition:

"We're all about Jesus," said Gaydos, a 33-year-old Seattle native. "We're not about religion. Religion sucks. ... And this is not your mom's or grandma's church."

This is a theme you hear quite often from a certain segment of Christianity. People who have decided that the Church has become irrelevant and musty and a little, well, nerdy. People who think we need to reshape and reframe the church in order to reach a new generation for Christ. People who have read Donald Miller and Erwin McManus and Brian McLaren and Rob Bell (note: I don't think any of those men would necessarily be represented by where I am about to go with this blog; they just ask some questions that then allow a second contingent to make less-than-profound statements such as the one above). The last time I picked up Relevant Magazine, I read this statement and many variations on it: "We're the NEW Church! We're Cool! We're Hip! We're Relevant! We're not like that old person's church anymore!"

I think there are at least three reasons why we need to cut this kind of language out of any conversation regarding the Church.

1) This language, and the thought behind it, is stolen directly from the Marketing Machine that drives American Consumerism. And the primary tool of that Marketing Machine is the Divide-and Conquer approach. Divide society up into niche markets, then sell your product to that niche market. And make it painfully obvious that anybody who doesn't identify with that niche is a nerd, a loser, an old person (horrors!), somebody to be laughed at and avoided at all costs. Come Be Like Us! Be Cool! Be Appreciated! Show Everybody How Cool You Are For Buying Our Product! Show Everybody That You Aren't A Loser Like Those Other People!

2) Which makes the next obvious point: the product is always sold over and against something else. We're cool because we're Not Like Them! Or we used to be like them, but now we're cool because we've discovered this new product. I used to be a loser; now I shave with Afta and all the hot girls pay attention to me. I used to be a loser, but then I bought the new Nicky Hilton line of clothing, and now I'm cool. The Church used to be a bunch of losers, but now we've rebranded, dumped that boring religion of all those Old People, and now we're cool. Come check us out!

3) All of which goes against the Biblical Call for the Unity of the Body. You see, one of The Primary biblical messages is that there is one church, and that we only reflect Christ when we live out that Unity in the Church. Jesus said the world would know we are his disciples by the way we love each other. Paul spoke powerfully of Christ tearing down dividing walls to create One New Humanity. Paul blasted Peter when Peter chose to stop dining with Gentiles. The Church is the Bride of Christ, and it is beautiful. Derek Webb attempts to speak for Jesus in singing "And you cannot care for me if you've no regard for her/If you love me, you will love the Church."

Therefore, it is wrong bordering on sinful to define ourselves over and against other churches, especially against the saints that have gone on before us. It is a cheap shot to make ourselves more attractive by demeaning our "mom's or grandma's" church. This kind of statement is demeaning, divisive, and the exact WRONG way to attract people into the Kingdom. In fact, we should be doing all we can to portray to the world that we are lovers, that we cherish our ancestors, that we honor those who have gone before; if anything, we honor all outposts of the Kingdom of God, regardless if they are "cool" or not. Sara Miles, in her "Take This Bread," states that one of the tougher things about becoming a Christian was realizing she had to be in the same family as a bunch of people she vehemently disagrees with. Yet, she says, it's God's family, so she'll do her part to get along and honor those who, outside of the Body, she would never have befriended. In other words, because we are all One in Christ, we respect one another, even if we don't particularly like, say, the music somebody else listens to.

I should say that I do admire the missional aspect of MH; I understand the crowd they are trying to reach and I love that they reach people my church probably never will. I applaud them for taking the Kingdom of God out onto the Highways and Byways, and that they get into the broken, stained, sinful lives of hurting people. They have faced a lot of opposition, and continue to thrive. May they continue to do so.

But it is time we all recognize that we dare not market the Church, nor even speak about the Body, in the divisive and destructive terms laid down by Madison Avenue. The strongest message we can send to the world is We're not like you - in fact, the message we bring is a lot better than anything you'll get out there. All that stuff being sold to you will only leave you empty. But here, life is different. We get along with people who aren't like us. Old people are actually kind of popular around here. And so are young people. But God loves us all, so we pretty much all love each other. And isn't that better than the empty loneliness you're trying to fill with aftershave?"

--Posted by Dan at 10:36 AM

Just Wondering: Did God Ever Pay Mary?

I am looking for extra work, now that one of the schools I've been teaching at has encountered rough financial waters, and has dismissed all its adjuncts. So I've been faithfully reading our Eugene Craig's List. Tonight I saw this entry. I understand that infertility is a horrific thing, and have had my own experiences with it. But is this really the direction that we should go?

Gilbert Meilaender makes an important distinction between "procreation" and "reproduction." Procreation is a matter of passion, and of receiving a child as a gift from the Lord. "Reproduction" is a matter of our own planning and construction; making a child becomes a project under our own control. Children which are so "made" are products, and like all products eventually are subject to quality control and the whims of fashion.

Somehow this just doesn't sound right:

[WARNING: what follows is meant to be read with the same spirit of irony as Swift's "A Modest Proposal." My apologies in advance for those who might be offended. ]

"In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are pretty and bright! The Lord wants to employ you for his Next Big Project: the production of the Messiah!'"

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you are in the upper tenth percentile for IQ and have a body mass index of 21.5.Your genome shows a less than 10% chance for developing Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, hypospadias, spina bifida or transposition of the great arteries. So you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be produced will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month, thanks to the Greater Galilee Fertility Clinic! For no word from God will ever fail; his success rate is 100%, according to the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Report: 2007 Preliminary State Clinics List!"

'Okay, but be sure He pays you the $5000 Donor Matching Fee you deserve, Gabriel,' Mary answered. "And my fee will be $22K in compensations and allowances plus expenses." Then the angel left her.

(c)Beth Bilynskyj, Dec. 10, 2007

---------------------
Surrogates Needed

$22,000 In Compensation and Allowances Plus Expenses


One of the country's leading surrogacy agencies is looking for healthy, non-smoking parents who live in your community. Surrogates carry to term an embryo created from donors. If you love being pregnant, then you can help bring immeasurable joy to the lives of others! Please visit http://www.surrogateweb.com.Some couples pay hefty fees to the prettiest, brightest women. They also pay a fee, usually around $5,000, to the company that matches them to a donor.The second program is called ?gestational? surrogacy. This involves one woman serving as an egg donor and another woman serving as a gestational surrogate. Through the process of , eggs provided by the donor are fertilized with the sperm of the future father. The embryos are then transferred to the gestational surrogate, who carries the child to term. With the gestational process, it?s generally necessary for the women to synchronize their menstrual cycles. This requires self-administered injections by the surrogate. In most cases it takes two or three transfers to .

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We're not all in the mood for a melody

There won't be live music at Nordstroms.

According to the Seattle Times,

Some Nordstrom department stores are discontinuing their live piano notes in favor of commercially recorded music piped in over speakers.

Nordstrom's store at Bellevue Square recently did away with its pianist, and the Alderwood mall store in Lynnwood will soon follow suit, said company spokeswoman Brooke White.

Apparently, some shoppers prefer popular tunes by the likes of Bob Dylan, Alicia Keys and Frank Sinatra to the jazz and Broadway standards that pianists have been performing in Nordstrom stores for 20 years.

"We know there's a nostalgic value to the piano, and some customers love it. But some don't. They just feel the piano is outdated," White said. "It's a difficult line to walk. We know we're going to disappoint some people."

The Oregonian also quotes White: "We certainly understand that some people are disappointed, and that's something we always hate to do at Nordstrom. But over time, we just evolve our experience."

My gnostic buster antennae are tingling. So live is passe. Now we prefer our music to be canned. The Market knows best! But hold on. Does this have anything to say to us about how people nowadays respond to incarnation? Is it really good news to proclaim "God is With Us!" Does the gospel need to "evolve" too? Yes, we certainly need to do more than just preach; we must get down and dirty. But that's my point. If we do not have Christ's incarnation as our motivation-- the conviction that live is better than virtual--then why bother?

Its a pretty good crowd for a saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
cause he knows that its me theyve been comin to see
To forget about life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, man, what are you doin here?

Patenting Snow

Used by permission of the
artist