The Cylons are coming? Tweeting with the Mind.

My wife and I enjoy watching the updated version of the Battlestar Galactica series (2004) staring Edward James Olmos. We are currently in Season 3.The premise of the series is that the human race was nearly destroyed by a race of machines with artificial intelligence, who had been created by humans and enslaved until they rebelled. Eventually, these machines come to self-awareness and design or clone human bodies for themselves into which they download their consciousness. A war ensues between Cylons (the human-looking machines) and humans. A group of forty-five plus thousand human beings flee through space in ships, pursued and hounded by the Cylons. Oddly enough, there is a religious theme running through the series. The humans are polytheistic and the Cylons are monotheistic. The Cylons know that the only thing they lack to become fully human is to learn to love.

This is a similar theme of war between humans and machines in the Terminator series. Most machines are bad, but some have been reprogrammed to protect humans such as John Conner.

I am generally an early adaptor with technology – at least earlier than many of my friends (although not all: MC and JJ come to mind). I have been on Facebook for several years and I recently started playing around with Twitter. (I only use Twitter rougly once a week to send out prayer requests for Deb and our "god-party" - it sends them directly to the cell phones of those following me as a text msg.) I have to admit that I have not gotten up to speed with Skype, mostly because I am normally too busy to spend much time on the telephone. I have had long and occasionally contentious arguments with some of my friends about the value of adapting to and using technology to facilitate long distance communications in relationships. It has been my argument that the new communications technologies make participation in long-distance, virtual community not only possible, but potentially a virtue. However my friends rightly point out that there are negative cultural and ethical downsides to new technology (See Neil Postman's Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology).

I was stunned recently to see a headline on CNN that someone had sent a message on Twitter using their mind: Brain-Twitter project offers hope to paralyzed patients. When I mentioned this to several friends, they looked at me strangely, like I was delusional. Nevertheless, it is true. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, using no keyboard but just a red cap with electrodes, were able to send a message on twitter (a “tweet”) on March 31 by just focusing on the letters.

Technology seems to just keep making it faster and easier to send communications fluidly around the world. Visual reality can be captured as digital images, edited in numerous formats, uploaded, reassembled and sent around the world. Politicians now have to be careful what they say off the cuff, because of amateur reporters with digital cameras capturing visual and auditory film and uploading it to blogs. (See Friedman's The World is Flat)Blogging and twitter gives voice to anyone who has anything to say, whether it has value or not. Newspapers and professional reporters doing hard news are rapidly disappearing, yielding to the amateur digital competition (see the Newspaper Death Watch).

And now, I will be able to send my thoughts to your cell phone via Twitter. As long as I keep my thoughts under 140 characters! Apparently the Cylons and the Terminator are reflections of humanity's underlying anxiety about unchecked technological change. What will be my first mental tweet?

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God will guard your minds (140 characters)

For more information about research into sending messages with Twitter using the mind, check the following online articles:

Video: Brain Interface Creates Twitter Messages

Researcher use brain interface to post to Twitter

Telegraph.uk: Scientist updates Twitter using only his mind

Blog commentary on the Social Mosse: "Twitter on my mind"

Newbigin - Chapter 1, Dogma and Doubt in a Pluralist Culture

Newbigin begins the chapter by talking about his experience as a cross-cultural missionary in India… reading the Upanishads and the Gospels in the Ramakrishna Mission, India is a religiously plural society with the freedom to follow whatever religious path one chooses. Jesus was viewed as one of many great teachers (Newbigin: 3).

Newbigin discusses the changes that secularism and pluralism has wrought in the role of religious faith. Religious truths came not to be regarded as facts in the same way as scientific facts. Only what can stand up under the critical examination of the modern scientific method can be taught as fact, as public truth: the rest is dogma. “Dogma” derives from dokien, “to seem.” It is the word used to designate that which seemed good to a competent authority (Newbigin: 5).

The New Testament repeatedly affirms a radical contradiction between the apostolic message and the wisdom of the world. To subject every alleged truth to the critical scrutiny of reason is, in our culture as in the Greek world of Paul’s day, the mark of a mature person (Newbigin: 6).

The principle of pluralism is not universally accepted in our culture. There is a sharp distinction between a world we call “values” and a world of what we call “facts.” In the former world we are pluralists; values are a matter of personal choice. As long as the church is content to offer its beliefs modestly as simply one of the many brands available in the ideological supermarket, no offense is taken. But the affirmation that the truth revealed in the gospel ought to govern public life is offensive (Newbigin: 7).

If we are to meet secular criticism, if we are to be faithful bearers of the message entrusted to us, we need to pay attention to four points:

One: Part of the reason for the rejection of dogma is that it has been entangled with coercion, with political power, and with the denial of freedom of thought and conscience. When coercion of any kind is used in the interests of the Christian message, the message itself is corrupted.

Two: We do not defend the Christian message by domesticating it within the reigning plausibility structure. That was the great mistake of the eighteenth-century defenses of the reasonableness of Christianity (Newbigin: 10). That the crucified Jesus was raised from death to be first fruits of a new creation is—in the proper sense—dogma (Newbigin: 12).

Three: It is essential that we recognize that to be witnesses, does not mean to be possessors of all truth. It means to be placed on a path by following which we are led toward truth. There is indeed a proper place for agnosticism in the Christian life. There is a true sense in which we are—with others—seekers after the truth. The apophatic tradition in theology has always insisted on the fact that no human image can grasp the full reality of God (Newbigin: 12).

Four: The dogma, the thing given for our acceptance in faith is not a set of timeless propositions: it is a story. Moreover it is a story that is not yet finished, a story in which we are still awaiting the end when all becomes clear. The 18th century apologists wee wide of the mark at this point: The Christian religion which they sought to defend was a system of timeless metaphysical truths about God, nature and man. Any valid defense of the Christian faith, I believe, must take a quite different route. It is to be primarily understood as an interpretation of the story—the human story set within the story of nature. Every understanding of the human story must rest on a faith commitment—for we do not yet see the end of the story (Newbigin: 13).

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Cambridge and Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.

BIO
Lesslie Newbigin was British missionary and theologian born in 1909 and educated in a Quaker school. He was converted to faith in Christ in Queen’s college at Cambridge in 1928 and began to work with the Student Christian Movement. He was ordained in 1936 by the Church of Scotland and was sent to Madras, India as a Presbyterian missionary. He eventually became Bishop of Madras in the fledgling Church of South India, an ecumenical group of Protestants (Wikipedia). After his retirement in 1974, he moved to Birmingham and became a pastor and a lecturer at a nearby college. He died in 1998.


From Wikipedia:
“He is remembered especially for the period of his life when he had returned to England from his long missionary service and travels and tried to communicate the need for the church to take the Gospel anew to the post-Christian Western culture, which he believed had unwisely accepted the notions of objectivity and neutrality developed during the Enlightenment. It was during this time that he wrote two of his most important works, Foolishness to the Greeks (1986) and The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989)”


Christopher Duraisingh from the forward:
“Newbigin has the courage to take up a position and the conviction to defend it against what sometimes appear to be impossible odds. What he has to say—and says with refreshing clarity—comes out of his background of long pastoral experience, missionary commitment, ecumenical vision, and unwavering confidence in the gospel."

Here is a passage on page 9 that adjusted some of my own thinking:
“In the famous story of the blind men and the elephant, so often quoted in the interests of religious agnosticism, the real point of the story is constantly overlooked. The story is told from the point of view of the king and his courtiers, who are not blind but can see that the blind men are unable to grasp the full reality of the elephant and are only able to get hold of part of the truth. The story is constantly told to neutralize the affirmation of the great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth. But, of course, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite. If the king were also blind there would be no story. The story is told by the king, and it is the immensely arrogant claim of one who sees the full truth which all the world’s religions are only groping after. It embodies the claim to know the full reality which relativizes all the claims of the religions and philosophies.”

ok -- my new copy of McLaren just arrived as I was writing this ...I'll hit it this week.

WORSHIP, TECHNOLOGY AND JESUS’ DNA

For the context of the discussion, go to

Covenant Thinklings: The Heart of Worship

William, I liked how you expressed the modern church building mindset in a way that does not cast it as traditional. As Robert has often and correctly pointed out, we don’t want lose our appreciation for ‘tradition’ as in historic heritage…but some ‘modern’ mentalities may need to be altered in order to reach postmoderns. I like the way you describe that as relational communities. That is actually where our movement started out. When I first heard about the shepherding ‘community’ in Lancaster (where Dennis Coll currently serves), it was called Hope Community. As a hippie who had just planted several communes in New England, it lit the fires of my imagination…I remember telling John M. “I didn’t know Christians could do that!”

On the importance of corporate worship. I believe it was Émile Durkheim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim), who in his study of cultures came to the conclusion that every community, human collectivity or tribal group has some form of worship. Even though he was not a believer himself, he believed that it was an essential part of developing a cultural or tribal collective identity (Robert: I love the quote by Peterson of Keillor—Brian got me reading the book).

Robert: on your question about the influence of electronics and other aspects of modern technology on worship. Excellent question! I remember being in a little Mayan Indian church in Guatemala once, with about 12 to 15 people attending. The amplifiers were each bigger than me…when they cranked up the “worship” I could actually feel my internal organs vibrating! That’s when I started rethinking some things.

George Patterson, a Baptist church planter in Central America tells a story that has some application. He found a jungle village of indigenous Hispanics who did not have a church, priest or the scriptures. He arrived in his Jeep with a overhead projector and showed them the “Jesus Film” and led the village elders to Christ. He then taught them that they need to begin to reach the outlying families around the village. When he returned several months (or maybe weeks) later, they had done nothing. When he asked them why, they told him that they could not evangelize because they did not have a jeep or an overhead projector. The next time he visited them, he was riding a mule with a bag of Bibles in Spanish (even the Bibles can be problamatic in such a context when people are often illiterate).

In Mexico, we once visited a little church associated with Sebastian Vazquez that could only be reached by foot, or by horseback. A three hour hike up the mountain. The Pastor’s house was falling down. When we asked how we could pray for them, they gave us a “shopping” list, they need a electronic keyboard, sounds system and an electric guitar. The old acoustic guitar they had was not adequate to bring them into God’s presence. They were not a “real” church without electronics. Don’t laugh….how many us feel we are not a real church without a powerpoint projection system!

This is why I started on a process of ‘descontructing’ the church (not our historic traditions – just some of the 20th century accretions). I posted something in this process on my blog: http://c-far.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html on May 6th called DECONSTRUCTING THE CHURCH. At some point along the way, I realized that I could not keep up with the pace of electronic technology and seeker oriented strategies for growing a church so I just completely opted out....got rid of most of the technology and went back to 'simple' (2 or 3). I have heard Charles talk about the need to ‘digitize’ the church and to find out what the basic ‘byte’ of church life is (hint: I think he thinks it is the cell – where two or three are gathered).

Some people prefer the term “liquid modernity” over postmodernity. One of the reasons we need to allow new churches to be organic “bytes” (without losing our connection to historic tradition) is to be able reconfigure and flow as needed in this liquid modernity. The church needs to be able “be the church” with an acoustic guitar (or no guitar) on the top of a Mexican mountain, or to use powerpoint and multimedia with 20,000 people in Chicago or LA without one or the other being more correct or more 'church'. The church also needs to show up, and be visibly present in the midst of darkness among the tribal vampire people at Stick & Stein’s in Homestead when my daughter is bar-tending. That is why I try to always take “one or two” with me.

I think that the DNA of the church (don’t get nervous Brian!) and the kingdom and for worship is uber-flexible. Jesus’ corporate DNA can go anywhere, and adapt to and infect any people group, culture, socio-economic lifestyle, technology (or lack thereof) or world view, and like a out-of-control virus begin to transform and uplift them into his eternal kingdom--as long we don’t try to box it up.

NON-LINEAR POSTMODERN RAMBLINGS

I am no expert on postmodernism, although my adult children have been trying to get me up-to-speed for several years. I have read a smattering of Jacque Derrida and Michel Foucault and a lot of commentary about them. Lately, I have been buying books faster than I can put them on the shelves, let along read them, in my efforts to keep up with what is being written about postmodernism and the emerging church movement.

My young friend Patrick Currie wrote some excellent thoughts about postmodernism on his blog recently, LINK: Learning: a Modern Post, so I combed through my posts in some on-line discussions and pasted together the following non-linear thoughts on the subject. I promise I will come back to this with greater insight in the months and years to come. We have time. It is not going away.

Modernity is basically co-existent with the Protestant Reformation. Most of what we have inherited from the Reformation can also be viewed as part of modernity. The emphasis on the book, reading, individual interpretation, rationality and pulpit preaching are all "modern" and at the same time "Protestant." Professionalization of organizational structures is also both modern and Protestant (although the clergy as a religious profession apart from the people of God goes back at least to Constantine).

Alan Hirsch points out in his excellent book, The Forgotten Ways, that in the process of modernity, the over-arching religious worldview known as Christendom, gave way in the public sphere to primarily three institutions as the final arbiters of truth: the secular state, science and the financial markets (Hirsch:60-61). The church has been forced to retreat into the private sphere, although it did not go willingly or quietly. Postmodernism is critical of modernism (validly, in my view) but is not yet "for" anything. Another way of saying "postmodern" is to say "not modern any more". The church fought modernism, but finally gave in and began to adapt to modernism, especially among Protestants. Modernism began around the fourteen hundreds, and the Protestant fundamentalists were still fighting it in 1920. The Catholic Church did not make peace with modernism up until 1962 (Vatican II). Now many ‘modern’ Christian leaders are calling for a holy war on postmodernism. We don't have to do the same thing with postmodernity. We are neither pre-modern (Christendom), modern or postmodern, we are Jesus-followers, seeking the kingdom--a city not made with hands, swimming in the currents of modernity and postmodernity. If we ‘react’ to postmodernity, we will form a ‘negative focus’ and reproduce what we focus on, as the fundamentalists and Catholics did. Postmodernity can help us with our old enemy modernity but will not become our friend either. It is simply a cultural sea that we must learn to swim in (or sail if you have a boat). Learn the currents and the wind patterns, don’t fight them!

In response to a question Brian asked me about postmodernity and authority, I don't think postmodernism has anything to say about any kind of authority...at least nothing positive to say.

Postmodernism, as I understand it, it not FOR anything... it is against a quasi-religious faith in rationalism. It debunks the grand story of continuous human progress towards higher civilization through education and rationality. Post-modernism does not attempt to offer any solutions—only critiques. Postmodernism does a good job of pointing out hypocrisy, agendas, human pride and lust for power in modernism…but it does not offer any alternatives.

Postmodernism does a good job of delivering the ‘bad news’ and makes no pretense of offering any good news. That’s why it’s called POSTmodernism rather than PRO or PRE-something else. We don’t know what comes after modernism…(pre-Agape-kingdom maybe?) although we, as followers of Jesus, can be sure that God is guiding the world towards his loving rule and drawing it to himself. Postmodernism is just the disenchantment with what is… not the preview of what will be. That’s why I don’t think postmodernism is capable of saying anything positive to us about proper biblical or spiritual authority, although it has a lot to say to us negatively. However, make no mistake, postmodernism will let us know in a hurry if we try to work an agenda, build a tower, make a name for ourselves, pull a fast one, or impose our own authority for the wrong motivation. Postmodernism has a great B.S. meter. The only source of any true authority is Jesus. The only way to have authority is to submit fully to him. The more we submit our egos to Jesus and serve, the more authority will oscillate from him through us to others.

I want to throw out one more thought. I have not made up my mind entirely about postmodernism yet (heck, I don’t even understand it yet!), but one aspect of it that I can willingly endorse, is the desconstruction to expose the wrong use of coercive power and domination. Deconstruction can almost be viewed as a ‘prophetic’ function “There is an appointed time for everything …A time to tear down, a time to build up” (ECC 3:1-3). It seems to me that a constant lurking thread throughout church history, since Simon Magus, has been the issue of coercive power and political domination, the very opposite of the Spirit of Christ.

Despite the wonderful example of many dedicated servant leaders throughout the history of the church, there have been as many or more that have used church offices for positions of power, or even wealth. So…in our modern age, (or postmodern), if men are motivated by ambition for power and the desire for personal gain, why shouldn’t the women want to get a slice of the action? Why would a woman want that kind of authority over men? Easy… for the same reasons that most of men want authority or position….power, ambition, pride, money. If we are going to ask our sisters, wives and female friends to humble themselves, submit and serve, why shouldn’t we men lead the way by our own example?

Personally, I think the most important verse in chapter 5 of the letter to the Ephsians is verse 21: “…and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”