As I recall, when I was in school we had pictures done once a year. We would have a big class picture (through elementary school), and then a single individual picture.
My kids, however, in a period of photography being everywhere via digital cameras on cell phones, have pictures seemingly taken a dozen times a year. Fall pictures. Fall reshoots. Spring pictures. Spring reshoots. Yearbook pictures for clubs. Yearbook pictures for sports. Lifetouch individual pictures, also for sports. It never stops...we spend half the school year getting pictures made.
Is it any wonder that children today are completely and totally narcissistic? From the time they were born we were pushing cameras in their face. We wallpaper our living rooms with the endless official portraits of whatever year it was. We give them specially designed phones that allow them to take selfies. We install software on said cameras to put dog ears or silly faces or touchups on every picture. We instagram, facebook, shapchat, tik-tok their lives until they believe that they are truly the center of the universe.
Because this a blog nobody reads and I have no interest in doing the research, I'll just go from memory...but somewhere I remember reading that some cultures thought that taking pictures were evil because it captured somebody's soul. By putting one's image on to a piece of film or scattering it into megabytes of information, they no longer are themselves.
I don't know that we can go back...but somewhere we need to address the idolatry of it all. The decalogue warned about the danger of making graven images of God, but that no longer concerns us. Rather, we are more interested in graven images of ourselves. I wonder if this is an even more wicked form of worship...we got rid of God, and replaced him with ourselves.
Showing posts with label idolatry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label idolatry. Show all posts
Monday, April 1, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2013
Working Outline Of The Phil Robertson Rant In My Head That I Don't Care To Finish
1. I care nothing about Duck Dynasty. I've never watched it. As always, I'm always very concerned when Christians find other Christians to idolize, and the attention that has been paid to this family in recent months has been insufferable. We raise them up only to watch them fall.
2. It's A&E's network. They weighed the financial fallout of Robertson's comments and decided to go with the gay lobby rather than the Christian lobby. They took a bad day for business and tried to make the best of it. They're probably wrong from a business perspective.
3. If the network were really serious about how much they hated these comments, they'd cancel the show. They'd pull from the shelves the greeting cards, video games, posters, t-shirts, and everything else that they sell to make money off that family. But again, it's all about the bottom line.
4. If the Robertson family really wanted to stand for their beliefs, they would walk away from the show in protest of this decision. It doesn't appear that they are going to do so. I'd bet that the huge contract they signed last year probably has something to do with this decision.
5. But can we please, please stop with the 'leads' about this story being that Phil Robertson is 'homophobic' or 'anti-gay'? 'Homophobic' implies fear and loathing. There's none of that in this story. He's a man who knows about sin and speaks against it. We live in a world that tells us that all kinds of things are wrong...but no longer can we call something sin.
6. I go back and forth on whether this is 'persecution'. On the one hand, he's not being killed for his beliefs and nobody is throwing him in jail. He's certainly made his money on this show and this won't send him to the poorhouse. But on the other hand, he basically loses his job because of his statement. To lose a livelihood because of belief, no matter how fake that livelihood may be, certainly does border on persecution.
7. Why is it that on TV today weirdness is encouraged but some things can never be mentioned? All manner of lifestyle is promoted on the various networks of crap that are out there, but when a statement of belief outside the ordinary goes against the trends of today, that's forbidden? If you're going to promote weirdness, let it be where it may.
8. In a supposedly free country, stupid statements deserve mocking, not firing. Not sure we live in a free country, though. Not sure we ever did.
9. The right deserves part of the blame for what is happening. Read enough history of this country and you find that many behaviors and beliefs were suppressed, even persecuted from those of a 'conservative' bent when they ruled the country. Now this lack of tolerance is coming back to bite them. Freedom means freedom even for those with whom you disagree.
10. I have found it interesting that many people who cannot tolerate somebody disagreeing with them about gun rights or Obamacare or some other issue not cannot stand it that somebody cannot tolerate their views on homosexuality. Basically the problem is this: we live in such narrowcasted world today that we don't think we have to hear something we don't want. Even in diversity, we have become a nation of isolated belief structures.
11. Did you actually read the GQ article? There's a lot more in here than homosexuality that is interesting, troubling, and should raise eyebrows. But it's also a really poorly written article as well, with lots of frivolous bad language by the writer. The writer needed a better editor.
12. Amen to Phil's words about sin and his dangers...it's much more than about homosexuality, though this is part of it. We need to also pay more attention to other sins as well. Sins like heterosexual immorality and adultery are now far too overlooked, as is adultery. Sin is still sin, and the church does itself a disservice when it only focuses on one particular sin at the expense of others, especially a sin it does not think it has itself.
13. This too shall pass. The celebrity grinder will quickly move on to somebody else, and Christians will find something else to be outraged about.
2. It's A&E's network. They weighed the financial fallout of Robertson's comments and decided to go with the gay lobby rather than the Christian lobby. They took a bad day for business and tried to make the best of it. They're probably wrong from a business perspective.
3. If the network were really serious about how much they hated these comments, they'd cancel the show. They'd pull from the shelves the greeting cards, video games, posters, t-shirts, and everything else that they sell to make money off that family. But again, it's all about the bottom line.
4. If the Robertson family really wanted to stand for their beliefs, they would walk away from the show in protest of this decision. It doesn't appear that they are going to do so. I'd bet that the huge contract they signed last year probably has something to do with this decision.
5. But can we please, please stop with the 'leads' about this story being that Phil Robertson is 'homophobic' or 'anti-gay'? 'Homophobic' implies fear and loathing. There's none of that in this story. He's a man who knows about sin and speaks against it. We live in a world that tells us that all kinds of things are wrong...but no longer can we call something sin.
6. I go back and forth on whether this is 'persecution'. On the one hand, he's not being killed for his beliefs and nobody is throwing him in jail. He's certainly made his money on this show and this won't send him to the poorhouse. But on the other hand, he basically loses his job because of his statement. To lose a livelihood because of belief, no matter how fake that livelihood may be, certainly does border on persecution.
7. Why is it that on TV today weirdness is encouraged but some things can never be mentioned? All manner of lifestyle is promoted on the various networks of crap that are out there, but when a statement of belief outside the ordinary goes against the trends of today, that's forbidden? If you're going to promote weirdness, let it be where it may.
8. In a supposedly free country, stupid statements deserve mocking, not firing. Not sure we live in a free country, though. Not sure we ever did.
9. The right deserves part of the blame for what is happening. Read enough history of this country and you find that many behaviors and beliefs were suppressed, even persecuted from those of a 'conservative' bent when they ruled the country. Now this lack of tolerance is coming back to bite them. Freedom means freedom even for those with whom you disagree.
10. I have found it interesting that many people who cannot tolerate somebody disagreeing with them about gun rights or Obamacare or some other issue not cannot stand it that somebody cannot tolerate their views on homosexuality. Basically the problem is this: we live in such narrowcasted world today that we don't think we have to hear something we don't want. Even in diversity, we have become a nation of isolated belief structures.
11. Did you actually read the GQ article? There's a lot more in here than homosexuality that is interesting, troubling, and should raise eyebrows. But it's also a really poorly written article as well, with lots of frivolous bad language by the writer. The writer needed a better editor.
12. Amen to Phil's words about sin and his dangers...it's much more than about homosexuality, though this is part of it. We need to also pay more attention to other sins as well. Sins like heterosexual immorality and adultery are now far too overlooked, as is adultery. Sin is still sin, and the church does itself a disservice when it only focuses on one particular sin at the expense of others, especially a sin it does not think it has itself.
13. This too shall pass. The celebrity grinder will quickly move on to somebody else, and Christians will find something else to be outraged about.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Fake Life
My old seminary buddy Bruce Bates linked to a terrific article about a film that takes on the subject of how internet porn has affected an entire generation. I especially liked the comment from the film's writer, director, and star: "Are you watching these images and concluding how this is how real life should be?"
Porn is certainly a serious problem for many many...but I'm wondering how much 'fake' life affects the rest of reality. It's not enough that a woman that doesn't have a size 0 body is now considered chunky in our modern society or that sex isn't always like it is in movies (both porn or mainstream). How much other kinds of fantasy do we live with from the stuff we allow into our homes. It comes in so many flavors:
-Romance novels that make a woman think that prince charming shouold be coming on his white horse to save her from the losers in her life
-TV dramas that make us think that criminal cases can be wrapped up easily within an hour
-Talk radio that makes people believe that their own extreme positions can and must prevail or nobody will win
Though I've not really had an appetite for porn and avoided it as much as possible (I've always found it somewhat disturbing, though in honesty I do know what my lust triggers are) and I've sought to stay as grounded in real life as much as possible, I've noticed that fake life has impacted me as well. I am a child of the first wave of the video game culture. From Space Invaders onward, we've been taught to believe that nothing in life is permanent. First we would put another quarter in, but later on we learned the beauty of switching the home consoles on and off. Don't like how the game is going? The reset button is right there. No problem, right?
I'm wondering if this kind of denial of the results of our games causes more problems than we think. Let's start with a simple game of Pac-Man that isn't going well. You get distracted by the kids, you lose focus for a moment, and soon enough you're dead. Just hit reset, problem solved. But life isn't that easy. Many people daily make horrible choices and think that there are no consequences. As a parent I am daily trying to make my children understand that what we do matters: if my daughter throws a tantrum, holding her to punishment doesn't seem fair to her. If my son spends all of his money on something frivolous (and yes, the frivolity of the marketplace is ever-stunning in the crap that it produces) and therefore has no money later to buy something of substance, not then loaning him five dollars may seem cruel. But consequences exist...have video games tried to convince us otherwise.
A few years ago I became interested in a game called Football Manager and still probably play it too much (finishing 30 seasons...yeah, that's too much). Basically, you take control of the management of a team and see where it takes you. I'm really quite good at working the game, getting the right players, and putting them in the right spots. But this game is so good in part because it leaves a lot of things to chance. Players get hurt, or we lose a match we should have won, or my team owner is demanding unrealistic results and fires me for not achieving them. But early on I learned how easy it was to not live with the results...quit early from the game in which your player gets hurt or you lose to Wigan. Who cares, right? But think about how video games makes us view sports: our team loses winnable games, and we think the coach is a bum. A player gets hurt, and we scream and rant because it's not just fair. Part of the problem of fan behavior in our modern society may come from the fact that we haven't accepted the reality of the results. Because we have no outlet to give us an upset button if, say, Sporting Kansas City loses tonight, we get upset and bitter. Our fake life has made it where we don't want to deal with the reality of life.
I don't know that we can ever go back to the way things once were. Many people even now spend all their time in Second Life or the Sims or playing some other game or watching porn or absorbing a romance novel. The escapism from reality may seem comforting for a moment, but inevitably it makes returning to the real world all that much more difficult.
Porn is certainly a serious problem for many many...but I'm wondering how much 'fake' life affects the rest of reality. It's not enough that a woman that doesn't have a size 0 body is now considered chunky in our modern society or that sex isn't always like it is in movies (both porn or mainstream). How much other kinds of fantasy do we live with from the stuff we allow into our homes. It comes in so many flavors:
-Romance novels that make a woman think that prince charming shouold be coming on his white horse to save her from the losers in her life
-TV dramas that make us think that criminal cases can be wrapped up easily within an hour
-Talk radio that makes people believe that their own extreme positions can and must prevail or nobody will win
Though I've not really had an appetite for porn and avoided it as much as possible (I've always found it somewhat disturbing, though in honesty I do know what my lust triggers are) and I've sought to stay as grounded in real life as much as possible, I've noticed that fake life has impacted me as well. I am a child of the first wave of the video game culture. From Space Invaders onward, we've been taught to believe that nothing in life is permanent. First we would put another quarter in, but later on we learned the beauty of switching the home consoles on and off. Don't like how the game is going? The reset button is right there. No problem, right?
I'm wondering if this kind of denial of the results of our games causes more problems than we think. Let's start with a simple game of Pac-Man that isn't going well. You get distracted by the kids, you lose focus for a moment, and soon enough you're dead. Just hit reset, problem solved. But life isn't that easy. Many people daily make horrible choices and think that there are no consequences. As a parent I am daily trying to make my children understand that what we do matters: if my daughter throws a tantrum, holding her to punishment doesn't seem fair to her. If my son spends all of his money on something frivolous (and yes, the frivolity of the marketplace is ever-stunning in the crap that it produces) and therefore has no money later to buy something of substance, not then loaning him five dollars may seem cruel. But consequences exist...have video games tried to convince us otherwise.
A few years ago I became interested in a game called Football Manager and still probably play it too much (finishing 30 seasons...yeah, that's too much). Basically, you take control of the management of a team and see where it takes you. I'm really quite good at working the game, getting the right players, and putting them in the right spots. But this game is so good in part because it leaves a lot of things to chance. Players get hurt, or we lose a match we should have won, or my team owner is demanding unrealistic results and fires me for not achieving them. But early on I learned how easy it was to not live with the results...quit early from the game in which your player gets hurt or you lose to Wigan. Who cares, right? But think about how video games makes us view sports: our team loses winnable games, and we think the coach is a bum. A player gets hurt, and we scream and rant because it's not just fair. Part of the problem of fan behavior in our modern society may come from the fact that we haven't accepted the reality of the results. Because we have no outlet to give us an upset button if, say, Sporting Kansas City loses tonight, we get upset and bitter. Our fake life has made it where we don't want to deal with the reality of life.
I don't know that we can ever go back to the way things once were. Many people even now spend all their time in Second Life or the Sims or playing some other game or watching porn or absorbing a romance novel. The escapism from reality may seem comforting for a moment, but inevitably it makes returning to the real world all that much more difficult.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Should Christians be sports fans?
I'm reading a book called 'Among the Thugs' by Bill Buford, a book about soccer hooliganism in the 1980s and published in 1991. Fascinating account of what it's like to be an extreme sports fan. It makes me not quite sure I want to go and spend some time in England watching soccer matches someday. I don't want exactly want to be knifed or have people pee on me from above because I'm some kind of American wanker.
It makes me think something of sports fandom, how dangerous to the soul it might be. Maybe there is not this kind of extremism or violent mob mentality in American sports, but the sociological questions of what it means to be a true 'fan' are fascinating. Last night we went up to my evangelical Christian university's gymnasium to see the men's and women's basketball teams play basketball against another university. It wasn't a terribly interesting game, but to watch sports fan scream at officials, yell at the opposing team, and act like this is of vital importance makes me think. What are Christians to really think about sports?
For most of the last few centuries sports was held at arms' length by the organized church. It was viewed as being frivolous, as edifying body rather than spirit. But in the late 19th century the YMCA started to appeal to youth with the idea that sports was important for both their body and their mind. Promoting this idea of 'virile manhood', churches and church-related organizations started pushing sports, thinking that it wasn't just enough to preach. Naturally much of the 'religious' element eventually got pushed out...would anybody consider the "Y" a 'Christian' organization now? Probably not. But they certainly have some good waterslides...
Now that my children are getting older, they are starting to play sports. It's not that they are that interested in them yet, but we want them to try things. So Elizabeth is now playing 'Upward' basketball. It's a fascinating operation they have...they teach kids how to post up or execute a good cheer even as they are trying to get them to hear a word of Scripture and teach character. I can't really find anything wrong with it...but over time, will Upward move away from the Christian foundation it is trying to promote? Will its emphasis on outreach eventually mean that it doesn't stand for much at all, so as not to offend?
The idolatry of sports is one of the great dangers to the modern church. We have so much free time, so much discretionary income in our American culture that we have the means to obsess about what a group of men wearing a certain uniform do. In some cultures it turns them into lunatics that go rampaging through European cities. Others have a less dangerous activity, perhaps, but their passion is just as strong. It overcomes churches, it divides families, it makes a mockery of those of us who claim that we are to be serving God first and foremost. Lord help us to keep sports in their rightful place.
It makes me think something of sports fandom, how dangerous to the soul it might be. Maybe there is not this kind of extremism or violent mob mentality in American sports, but the sociological questions of what it means to be a true 'fan' are fascinating. Last night we went up to my evangelical Christian university's gymnasium to see the men's and women's basketball teams play basketball against another university. It wasn't a terribly interesting game, but to watch sports fan scream at officials, yell at the opposing team, and act like this is of vital importance makes me think. What are Christians to really think about sports?
For most of the last few centuries sports was held at arms' length by the organized church. It was viewed as being frivolous, as edifying body rather than spirit. But in the late 19th century the YMCA started to appeal to youth with the idea that sports was important for both their body and their mind. Promoting this idea of 'virile manhood', churches and church-related organizations started pushing sports, thinking that it wasn't just enough to preach. Naturally much of the 'religious' element eventually got pushed out...would anybody consider the "Y" a 'Christian' organization now? Probably not. But they certainly have some good waterslides...
Now that my children are getting older, they are starting to play sports. It's not that they are that interested in them yet, but we want them to try things. So Elizabeth is now playing 'Upward' basketball. It's a fascinating operation they have...they teach kids how to post up or execute a good cheer even as they are trying to get them to hear a word of Scripture and teach character. I can't really find anything wrong with it...but over time, will Upward move away from the Christian foundation it is trying to promote? Will its emphasis on outreach eventually mean that it doesn't stand for much at all, so as not to offend?
The idolatry of sports is one of the great dangers to the modern church. We have so much free time, so much discretionary income in our American culture that we have the means to obsess about what a group of men wearing a certain uniform do. In some cultures it turns them into lunatics that go rampaging through European cities. Others have a less dangerous activity, perhaps, but their passion is just as strong. It overcomes churches, it divides families, it makes a mockery of those of us who claim that we are to be serving God first and foremost. Lord help us to keep sports in their rightful place.
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