These are notes from a Ken Myers lecture I recently attended. A very similar lecture is available on this page, first lecture at the top. (here is a direct link to the zipped mp3). I found it a very helpful and informative way of looking and thinking about culture.

I’ll start off with this quote: “Cultures are more like ecosystems then encyclopedias. They’re not a collection of static, inert, and abstract components that can be switched out. Cultures are more like organisms then mechanisms.“  Because of this we cannot understand a single part (song or movie) without understanding how that specific artifact relates to the whole and to broader movements and moods.  Ken Myers suggest the following parts or members of this ecosystem:

1. Artifacts:
-Material Things, or groups of things
-Specific books or TV Shows (Harry Potter or Lost)
-Clothing, buildings, food etc.
Artifacts can be produced by:

2. Institutions:
-Specific Newspapers but also communications media
-Texas A&M University but also the general institution of higher education
Institutions encourage certain:

3. Practices:
-Both formal and informal
-Graduations and Superbowl parties
-Vacations and shopping
-Can be thought of as liturgies
Practices shape and are shaped by:

4. Beliefs:
-Knowledge, Ideas, creeds etc
(Sometimes we protestants tend to focus only on this)
Beliefs are influenced by:

5. Sensibilities (or moods)
Cultures tend to have dominant moods or sensibilities:
-Russian Melancholy
-Yankee ingenuity
-Southern Charm
These can make certain ideas (beliefs) more or less plausible
Moods are conveyed by artifacts and institutions
Our sensibilities encourage certain:

6. Deep Assumptions:
-”An intuitive sense of the way things are.”
-a kind of Meta-Belief
-How we lean into life (how do we posture ourselves to our creator?)
-Deeper then Beliefs (#4)
Sometimes these can contradict our beliefs

Not sure how many people are familiar with the band Superchick.  I remember seeing them play at the Door back in the day.  Myself and many of my friends really enjoyed their debut CD, Karaoke Superstars - haven’t really kept up with them since then.  Anyway, I was re-listening to this CD the other day while unpacking kitchen boxes and part of the chorus from the song Super Trooper made me laugh/think.

And I’m sorry that I’m getting on your case
But true friends, they stab you in the face

I thought it was pretty clever.  In all seriousness though, the point (I suppose) is that people who actually care about you tell it to you straight.

This seems related to Andrew’s last post about the friend he brought to church. Something in her mental picture of what ‘religious’ people were like didn’t jive with the the welcoming, warm straightforwardness of the people she met there. Perhaps she thought being religious meant an austere, ascetic denial of the pleasures of life. These people enjoyed one another and themselves, they weren’t cold and disinterested, thus in her mind, they didn’t seem religious.

Can you enjoy yourself and die to self at the same time?
Why should we delight in material things if it’s all gonna burn?
Should we celebrate being human if we are going to become angle-like spirits when we die and go to heaven?

This seems to be part of the mentality of a lot of Christians and the way Christianity is often perceived from the outside. Bioethicist Nigel Cameron offers a thoughtful engagement with this outlook in his 1988 book Are Christians Human?

I quote from the introduction:

Are Christians human? This seems a rather facetious question to ask. I ask it in order to draw attention to a striking omission in our thinking about the Christian life. For there are many influences at work in the church today who seem to imply that the right answer to it is no. Their idea of what it means to be a Christian requires us to rise above not simply sin, but human nature itself. The motive is commendable: to help us be more spiritual. But it is a fundamental mistake to believe that spirituality lies in a denial of humanity. The problem is that our human nature has been effected by sin, and we find it hard to imagine what it would be like to be human and yet sinless. Yet, there is a human life which has been lived like that; and we must let the human life of Jesus govern our imagination set the goals for our Christian living.”

Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting notes, quotes, and questions from this book, and I’m looking forward to discussion, so please comment.

The eight chapters of the book are as follows:

1. The Challenge of the Incarnation
2. Was Jesus Human?
3. Faith and the Mind
4. Guidance and the Will
5. Emotion and the Heart
6. Life in the Flesh
7. A Cloud of Witnesses
8. God’s Human Face

If you are interested you can buy an mp3 audiobook of Are Christians Human? from Mars Hill Audio for just 11$ (that’s what I have, it’s about 4 hours) or you can buy an actual book used on amazon (it’s currently out of print).

I’ll close with another quote by Cameron on the Christian Life :

The Christian life is the story of the renewal and affirmation of the image of God in us. In his son Jesus, God himself was not ashamed to become our brother man. Let us in our turn not be ashamed to be the men and the women he has called us to be.”

Mars Hill Audio is a bi-monthly audio journal which, as described on it’s website

“is committed to assisting Christians who desire to move from thoughtless consumption of contemporary culture to a vantage point of thoughtful engagement. We believe that fulfilling the commands to love God and neighbor requires that we pay careful attention to the neighborhood: that is, every sphere of human life where God is either glorified or despised, where neighbors are either edified or undermined.”

While I don’t yet subscribe, I regularly borrow the tapes or CDs from a pastor of mine and occasionally buy MP3s from their MP3 store. In each issue the editor interviews various authors and thinkers on politics, music, art, economics, theology, etc. I find it relentlessly engaging.

I recently bought an audio book produced by Mars Hill Audio titled ‘Are Christians Human?‘ by Nigel Cameron. I’ve already listened to it once, and over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging through it here.

For more info on Mars Hill Audio, you can check out their about page, sample the journal here by downloading free mp3s or checkout their free podcast.

Here is another quote from the site:

“Therefore, living as disciples of Christ pertains not just to prayer, evangelism, and Bible study, but also our enjoyment of literature and music, our use of tools and machines, our eating and drinking, our views on government and economics, and so on.“