Free E-Seminary! A vision of the not-so-distant future?

Can you imagine a time when our churches leaders don’t have any kind of official academic background or haven’t gone through a candidacy process? There’s certainly a good standard that comes out of this process, and yet, where did the Apostle Paul graduate from again? Who approved him to lead the earliest churches?

In a recent conversation with family I was informed that a friend of the family has created a means for people to seek a Seminary level of education for free. Dr. Rodger Dalman has created Evangelical Virtual Seminary (EVS). Dalman has an impressive education and history of service to the world of education, although he is sure to make a point that you don’t identify his understanding of God specifically in light of this.

EVS isn’t identified by any particular body, there’s no credit given for the courses, it’s there simply for deepening your own understanding and relationship with God to better serve others. It’s an entirely independent study program, unless you can find a mentor to look over your work and discuss it with you. There are two levels of study, one equivalent to an M-div degree for lay persons, and another equivalent to an M-Th degree for those who have gone through a masters program.

Although Dalman’s experience with the traditional academic world seems to be quite negatively colored by his past experience, I’ve had quite a good experience in my time at Luther Seminary. That’s not to say I haven’t experienced some of the negativity that scholarly pursuits can bring out of people, but I guess I still trust that my investments are going to a good cause, and the in person community here cannot be matched by any e-environment. On the other hand I’m pursuing my relationship for a deepening of my relationship with God and to better serve others, not for any particular scholarly recognition (other than what’s required by the greater church body), on that note Dalman and I are on the same page.

It’s an impressive undertaking for one person (even if recognition is not his goal). Dalman references some other regular bloggers about the future of the church and how it is decentralizing and in many cases returning to a home church setting. Who will lead these people when long-standing institutions no longer guide the shape of the church? Perhaps education through EVS will have a “credit” of its own kind among these smaller grass-roots congregations.

Although I haven’t had the time to thoroughly mine Dalman’s work and website I truly think he is ahead of his time in his concept. A pattern I did notice is that despite wanting to part from traditional academia, Dalman still follows the formula deeply seated in research and writing as a means for study. That isn’t to say that those means aren’t productive, but there’s much to be said for learning directly from others, and by experiencing things other than books such as media and cultural environments.

If the church does continue to decentralize over time, it will still need some kind of structure for education, a common means to share their ideas with one another while at the same time observing the history of the church and its theology. I hope others will be joining in Dalman’s effort and diversifying it, as I agree that it will be an important one in the not too distant future.

Another God Video

I was referred to this website, Wordle.net, the other night that allows you to take any body of words and instantly randomly create a word collage that emphasizes the words that appear the most frequently. It also conveniently allows you to paste your blog address into the tool and will do the same thing with the content of your blog (including others comments). Getting the image into a format that you can save and use on your blog or elsewhere is a bit tricky, but the site offers some options, one of which I used, a screen shot. Above is the collage for Oneswordsharpensanother, and I’m pretty happy that it expresses the new places that I’ve been seeking out God in the past few months. This can be a fun and quick analytical tool to look at what’s the prominent message of your work and the conversation around it.

A Holy Ghost in the machine?

I was watching music videos on Youtube this morning when a video tab came up on the side of my screen for Ted Williams, the man with the golden voice, so I jumped over to check it out. When I first watched it I was a little shocked at the voice that was coming out of this disheveled man, I thought it was some voice over joke that somebody put on a video, but then I started watching some of the other video suggestions that came up when I watched this story and this amazing story unfolded.

When I think of a viral video I think interesting or entertaining, but I don’t recall having thought of it as life changing. Perhaps more interesting is that the person who benefited from this video didn’t take it. From his story, it seems unlikely he had access to the equipment to make the video, or internet access to upload such a thing. Ted Williams’ social media was a cardboard sign he held up at a street intersection. 48 hours later he’s on CBS’s the Early Show with all kinds of job offers on the table and about to be re-united with his mother. Maybe what strikes me the most about Williams’ viral video history is that God is on his lips from the street corner to our TV’s (or video screens). In perhaps another great reversal, the word has gone out from the street and come into our homes.

Supernatural Nature of Community

We recently watched this in one of my courses at Luther and I wanted to share it here and discuss it a bit. Please holster you doctrine guns and Bible bullets and just listen all the way through before you think about shooting it to pieces. How can we be in conversation with Jim and what truth is there in what he’s presenting?

Although on the one hand thinking of the collective of humanity as being God is problematic and concerning to me, it also resonates with a great deal of Christianity’s language of thinking of itself as The Body of Christ (Ro. 12:5, 1 Cor. 12:12-27). I highly doubt that everyone in Jim’s internet pool are believers in God, but Jim’s testimony gets me to thinking about the potential of The Body of Christ.

Many I watched the video with shared a plethora of Bible verses in opposition to mankind depending on themselves and not God, and I totally agree with that.

“You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…”(Deut. 8:17-18)

or more prominently,

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5).

We the body of Christ don’t claim to be God, but we have certainly been enabled to do tremendous things beyond what we could ever imagine only years ago. Consider the commissioning of the twelve (Matt. 10, Mark 3:13-19, Luke 9:1-6) They were given the authority against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease, even to raise the dead (10:8). When you start to think about how connected we are (the shared knowledge and provided agency), aiding Jim in receiving new life, twice, it is far beyond the imaginable even just 10 years ago. The impossible becomes more possible all the time.

As the line between the two slowly (or quickly) disappears/dwindles over time, the remarkableness of what we are able to do can disappear as well. Stories like Jim’s can remind us of just how enabled we have become, and how those things promised to the original twelve disciples seem to be in a sense,  granted to us as well. As Christians we also need to use our given ability to focus on the source from which it all comes.

As Jim knows, this tremendous power/ability comes from others working as a community to support one another. Behind (in front of?) that community that is so capable is a God who has enabled and continues to enable them. One of my fellow classmates Jody Spiak pointed out that Jim’s story reminded him of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). Indeed we can do some amazing things when we all work together, but God made us to be in relationship with one another AND with him, not to replace him.  Regardless of what Jim’s theological claim is (if that was what he meant to make) I am thankful for the ways in which the Spirit has inspired me to think about the body of Christ through the message he’s shared. As a participant in what Jim calls his religion (the internet) I hope that others see from this what good we can accomplish together, and I also hope that we can aid one another in remembering what the source of good in life is.

Any thoughts the video inspired for you? If you are a disciple of Christ, how has God enabled you and what community do you share that gift with?

More from Elizabeth Drescher and others

I stumbled across another article of Drescher’s, the author of Tweet if You Love Jesus, about what social media is doing for religion. She gives some examples here of not only what churches are doing with social networking, but more importantly how it’s effecting some churches  beyond just their digital presence.

A nod to Pastor Keith Anderson for sharing the article. Pastor Anderson has done what I’m studying in this course for quite some time. Jump over to his page when you have a moment and follow on Twitter or his blog if you dig it.

Although not fully dedicated to the topic of media and tech in the parish,  Adam Copeland is a seasoned blogger/church leader who is still frequently relevant on the topic as well. Here’s a recent post from his blog about the use of smart phones in the sanctuary.

The Dark Tower, the next pop – religion crossover?

I’m just finishing up the 7th and final book in Stephen King‘s Dark Tower series. It’s currently in production to be 3 movies and 2 TV mini series with Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Eat Pray Love) playing the lead character. The Dark Tower story takes place across different times, including both our world in several different times, and also several alternate worlds/realities. There is frequent reference to the Bible and “God and the man Jesus” (I guess the Holy Spirit didn’t make King’s cut). I can’t wait for the movie makes of this awesome series, although I’m sure it’s still years away. The series currently has a huge following and I’m sure the movies will only increase that following. This should be another great opportunity to use the language of this pop culture to familiarize people with theological language and the stories of the Bible.

****SPOILER**** the end of the first book uses imagery that could definitely parallel the Abraham Isaac story. As I’m finishing up the final book in the series it could definitely be read as a commentary on the American life and the privileged few oppressing the rest of the world, and how the main character is turning things upside. As always with any culture, there’s plenty of sin mixed in with the good, but I can’t wait to read the series again and begin dissecting it more and drawing out its positive messages. As I read them again I’m hoping to put together another blog that explores the themes in each of the books since I’ve found no such blog so far. I’ve read bits and pieces in other people’s blogs, but there’s nothing dedicated to it yet. Hopefully doing so will provide a place for others to join the dialogue and improve it as well (kind of like Wikipedia).

Jesus Christ was a Horcrux? Hmmm…..!

As I’ve been preparing to work on a small group study working with the language of pop culture to discuss faith and religion I’ve come across a few resources for some shows I’m more familiar with. If you have any of your own to add that’d be a great help. Here’s what I have so far, I’m hoping to continue to grow my resources over time so if you come across something and you’re feeling generous with your time, please stop back and post a comment with the web address and maybe why you’ve found it helpful.

The Simpson’s Archive: Religion . Wow, I’ve watched a lot of episodes over the years, but this gives an excellent breakdown of what was said in the episode and what’s referenced to. It even goes behind the scenes, in one episode talking about how they are making fun of Scientology even while the voice of Lisa is played by a Scientologist.

Religion in Futurama is a Wikipedia page. Although it’s not real in-depth it does give some detail of places where religion themes show up and talks the most about an episode which I’m considering for my project entitled “Godfellas”.

25 Essays on Christian Themes in Harry Potter I can’t wait for the final film to come out. I’m a huge potter fan, both novels and movies. There’s an abundance of Christian themes in the series, admittedly there by the author. As far as resources they’re aplenty out there, but I haven’t found a good website that compiles all the info. This one certainly has some ideas to get the pot brewing on some great discussions.

The Matrix: Unloaded Revelations Not so much a compilation as some of these other pages, but it gives a good overview of themes throughout the movies by which you could search other topics. It also has a chart comparing Matrix “theology” to Christianity and several other religions. That’s right I said a CHART, who doesn’t like charts?

Theology in Battle Star Galactica Another Wikipedia entry. Although it’s not in-depth as others, it’s a good starting point by which to search for specific content elsewhere.

Among the many suggestions I got from a Facebook post concerning faith/religion in pop culture, there were a few I was surprised to find little information on. As for the Lord of the Rings, I’ve found several bits and pieces about the web pointing to religious/Christian themes, but no good compilations. Another is Scrubs, although it has a great deal of good content to discuss, it seems that much of what I’ve found is people dogging it for sexual themes alongside the religious ones (nothing new for several of these other titles).

Race depiction in pop entertainment

I’ve been a fan of the Simpsons for some time now, although I’ve found them far less entertaining in recent years than I did in it’s earlier seasons (they’re now beyond their 20th season, and are the longest running animated series). As I consider a project I’ll be taking on in the near future around conversation with this pop juggernaut and theology I started to bring race/ethnicity into the conversation. In some recent reading I’ve done (hop over to the book reviews page) the potential for media to engage the marginalized has come into the conversation. The Simpsons focuses on a white (or yellow if you like) middle class family with the mother and father falling into traditional roles (that are becoming less and less traditional as the years go by).

As I consider some other options to engage, Matt Groening‘s other brainchild, Futurama comes to mind. Although the lead character is also a young white male, the regular cast features several other races, species, and robots. I also like how the main robot character, Bender regularly blurs the line of what it is to be alive in a variety of comical ways. Both shows regularly touch on theological topics, albeit jokingly, but I think they provide avenues within which to discuss commonly held misconceptions (or revealing truths) about how religion and the church are understood.

I’m aware of some other shows (such as Scrubs and Lost) which also regularly engage moral topics and narrowly avoid an entire white cast, but it’s hard to find something that has at least semi-equal representation among races. As I consider Futurama Futher, I’d be delighted to hear of any other suggestions you might have on pop-culutre that engages moral/religious topics and represents the marginalized.

A short clip from the Simpsons on the topic of going to church

And another from Futurama about the religious/pop holiday overlap.

#Nomi The Mpls Tornado Tweet page

As we continue to try to aid this community in its recovery, I’ve found this page helpful in keeping track of what’s going on in North Minneapolis not only from a news standpoint, but from those aiding, living in, and supporting the community. It really gives an entirely different depth to the situation than what you’d ever get from just watching the news. As we discuss the transition into the digital age, I’m sure there will continue to be an appreciation for professional reporting, but I wonder how much longer news services will be the primary source of information.

There’s a variety of other pages that are collecting information on what’s going on with the recovery effort, but I particularly like this one as it incorporates so many different voices, from both the caregivers and the recipients. Although this video did come from a news service, I thought it was worth putting in this particular discussion as it is about a school that its students and staff have all been displaced by the tornado, yet they are still gathering for school for some continuity amidst the destruction.

Even the Amish are social networking?

Well, sort of. I’m currently reading Tweet if you heart Jesus by Elizabeth Drescher. It’s a book about how we might do church in the digital age. In her introduction she points out that even the Amish are online, which just seems contradictory to me so I had to check it out. There’s a newspaper that receives letters written from both Amish and Mennonite scribes around the world and then publishes them both online and in print format. The print format is distributed  in the Amish communities. As far as the Mennonites, I’m not sure. One of my former employers was a RadioShack owner and I experienced him as a regular internet user, but I know there are other Mennonites who live very similarly to the Amish.

Other than depictions from Hollywood and TV I’m not really sure what the true values of the Amish community are. This doesn’t seem like a very intentional effort on their part, but perhaps this serves as a reminder to us all that whether we intend to participate in the digital community or not, we’re going to wind up there one way or another.  It’s likely in our best interest to be intentional about at how we’re being portrayed on the web rather than having a repeat of the broadcast era, by which much of society thinks it understands what church is about thanks to TV and Movies.