Week 8- Classmate Post on Harmony's blog for Week 8 Wednesday Class reflection

Somewhat of a Disagreement:
"People need to go out into their communities and bring people in and just be social with them. Churches need to have the intent of understanding and simply being kind and loving—without the intent of getting something in return."
I don't really disagree with you that much Harmony, but I do think the above statement can be critiqued and moderated. For instance, Professor Bolger has made a good case during class that our intention as Christ followers is not merely to "bring people in", but is in many ways to enter into their reality and in this way bring our community to the "people". There needs to be real discussion about how helpful it is to the people we "reach" and to ourselves to extract individuals from their world to bring them into ours.
EXTENDED THOUGHTS:
Also, I don't know that the mandate to simply be "kind and loving" sufficiently describes Christ's commands to us. It seems that much of what we are called to do is to avoid the temptation of simply being "nice" and to act as prophets who challenge the status quo and call for repentance. Of course, our crying out for repentance needs to happen after we have repented ourselves and while we are pursuing relationship with the community around us; but at some point we have to become "not so nice" and wake people up to their own self-destructive behavior.

Week 8- Wednesday Class Reflection

This was an especially helpful class in the way that Caputo bridges cultural studies theory to Christian ministry. While I don't know if the concept of an undeconstructable truth is philosophically sound, it is pragmatically useful. We do aim towards "Truth", "Forgiveness", "Love", and "Justice"... all of us do.
EXTENDED THOUGHTS:
I think the weakness in our talk today was a lack of recognition of the important place that tradition and culture plays in defining what these undeconstructable truths mean.

Week 8- Monday Class Reflection

The concept of deconstruction is too often presented in church circles as a demon. I think ministers are afraid that in the case that their congregants become skilled in the art of deconstructing myths that they might turn this tool against the scripture or against the minister's own presentation of the gospel.

Week 7- Barker Chapter 14 (Cultural Politics)

Barker rehashes the history of Cultural Studies as a post-disciplinary field highly influenced by Marxism and ending up in a post-structuralist, post-modern, and anti-representationalist consensus. Interestingly, Barker advocates a Cultural Studies that understands all language games as fictional and all transcendent/universal truth non-existent, and yet continues to be socially active and advocating for a "revolution in thinking (Barker 2003: 430). To bridge this gap, Barker points to the neo-pragmatism of Tony Bennett and Rorty.

Extended Thoughts:
It is at this point that I have to get off of the post-modern, post-structuralist train. Barker seems to advocate a hit and miss operation of advocating for a better world and the ending of oppression. Barker points to the values of multiculturalism (appreciation of difference) as the key to a better future. However, I don't think that he has provided the kind of philosophical conviction or basis to counter those who do not appreciate diversity and difference. What of those points of view that are sadistic and hate-filled; are we to "appreciate" them? At the end of the day I just don't think that declaring all language as "fictional" paves the road towards fighting evil. If one cannot define evil then how is one to fight it?

Week 7- Response to Brett Yee's Blog

I think you have hit on a key point Brett. While I can not travel all the way down the post-structuralist, anti-foundationalist, anti-representationalist route, I do agree in large part that the language we use does not correspond to objective reality in any one-to-one manner. That is, our language is a socially agreed upon construct that is valid only among those who are in the in-group. I think that this fact holds promise for our work in theology, because we can always fine tune our doctrinal statements and understandings of God while always being humble in that we are not there yet.

Week 7- Bevans Chapter 7 (Synthetic Model)

The Synthetic Model is the moderation of all previous models. Bevans identifies this model as a "dialectic" or "dialogical" model, meaning that the intention is to conversate with the target culture and allow for a give and take between the gospel message and local cultural forms (Bevans 1994: 83). Bevans provides some case studies but the model does seem to blur into the translation model a bit.

Week 7- Barker Chapter 13 (Youth)

The concept of "adolescence" is largely culturally derived. Barker presents the trend of cultural studies in first identifying youth culture as a subculture of resistance and then coming to a place of demythologizing the concept of resistant subcultures. I think Barker is right to question the concept of resistance, or at least to locate this resistance in personal subjectivity. Perhaps youth feel they are resisting society's expectations, but the media and the culture industry thrive on this concept of "resistance" and make billions of dollars on the commercialization of rebellion.