This is what I wrote on facebook. Just posting it here for records:

Well, personally I don’t celebrate Halloween, but I don’t feel the need to give extra emphasis to condemn it on this particular day. If we are to condemn, there are many many more things that are also abhorrent to God, such as celebrating the blatant consumerism of lining up and fighting over goods during black Fridays, or worshipping singers, stars, business and sport celebrities as idols or even as gods (just watch Steve Jobs’ memorial service. It was almost like a typical praise and worship service.)

Why do I seldom see Christians posting on their facebook walls about these things, condemning them as cultures that God disapproves?

Anyways, as resurrected people, we need to redeem things, not just condemn things. Pumpkin is a good creation of God. Redeem it for its good purposes. Here is something I got from an email:

“Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff–including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.”

Now this is what redemption is about. All Saints’ Day was originally celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Pope Gregory III (731–741) intentionally moved it to November 1st to overlap it with the pagan harvest festival to redeem it. Why aren’t we following the same spirit to redeem bad things and make it good?

Redeem culture, create culture. That’s what we need to do.

Further Reading:

• Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch
• The State of North American Evangelicalism by Douglas Todd (Vancouver Sun columnist)

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1. Advent Conspiracy

雖然本人並非生蠔粉絲，但亦知道識得食生蠔的人士，食生蠔時絕不會加鹽加醋，只會新鮮拆開「雪」一聲吞落肚，就連殼內新鮮的海水也要品嘗。

食生蠔要加鹽加醋的人，根本不認識生蠔。

同樣地，那些整天嚷著說福音對一般人的生活很「遙遠」，強調教會必需「令」福音「變得」更加 relevant 的人，其實與食生蠔要加鹽加醋的人無異。因為他們根本不認識自己食的東西是什麼。以為自己做了好事，實際上卻破壞了那原有的鮮味。

我認為，福音或耶穌基督根本上與世界上每一樣東西每一件事也 relevant 不過(西1:15-20)，我們只須指出 (“point out”) 它已有的 relevancy，而並非要「令」它「變得」更加 relevant。

遙遠，其實並不是福音，而是那些加鹽加醋的人。

他們離福音的真義才是遙遠。

I think it pretty much sums up what contemporary Christianity, deeply influenced by consumerism, has become.

Brilliant, but sad.

Related:

Shopping、買色情雜誌 = 敬拜撒旦！ 培靈大會鮑維均牧師：你夠膽讓神看月結單嗎？

“There’s an overwhelming desire for people to be rooted…… and the only way they feel rooted is through another person.” (@2:19)

What a profound theological statement being made back when the Internet just started to become popularized!

Yes, many of us may be addicted to the Internet, but perhaps that’s just pointing towards the reality that we are all made for relationships and connectivity. We cannot live as disconnected people.

Instead of discarding our technology, we need to redeem it, for it can sometimes guide us into greater realization about our human or God-made nature.

“Maushart decided to unplug the family because the kids — ages 14, 15 and 18 when she started The Experiment — didn’t just ‘use media,’ as she put it. They ‘inhabited’ media. ‘They don’t remember a time before e-mail, or instant messaging, or Google,’ she wrote.”

What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months? by By Beth J. Harpaz, Associated Press – Tue Jan 18, 2011

Use media when you need it, instead of inhabiting in it.

Inhabit in Christ, instead of just using Him when you need Him. (John 15:4-11)

Locals admire the 46-foot artificial tree in the lobby of the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi. The hotel has expressed regrets over the $11 million tree, which is bedecked in jewelry. Photo by Nour Malas.

This Christmas tree is full of irony. I can spot at least three. Can you?

Read full article over at WSJ: Abu Dhabi Hotel Regrets ‘Overload’ With $11 Million Christmas Tree

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The following graph is proof that postmodernism is in its demise, if not dead. At least as an ideology that people want to write about. (Click to enlarge picture.)

Play with Google Books NGram Viewer yourself
Learn more About Google Books NGram Viewer
Wikipedia explanation of n-gram

Love Without Agenda: My Journey Out of Consumer Christianity
by Jimmy Spencer Jr.

Download here: http://ebook.lovewithoutagenda.com/read/

Book Synopsis:

Modern Christianity is an subtle yet tragic amalgam of our cultural consumer expectation and the words of Jesus. Consumer Christianity is what we experience today as “Christianity”–and it’s a far cry from the whole human experience Jesus pointed all people toward. Perhaps that’s why millions of people are struggling with what it means to ‘be a Christian’. Perhaps there’s good reason for all the angst, anger and fear surrounding our current way of following Jesus?

Love Without Agenda: My Journey Out of Consumer Christianity is my uncensored, unmuffled voice on the stark contrast between the whole, love-oriented Pattern of Jesus, and the Heaven-bound, agenda-driven, counterfeit love I used to practice. It follows my continued journey from consumer towards wholeness, and in the process rediscovering and redefining what it means for me to be a Christian. That loving others and doing good is not only the key to maturing as a human, but it also triggers the energy of God in each intersection or life.

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1. Free training courses for your church

My friend Rob Haskell notices the apparent decline of blog-reading/writing on the web, which seems to have been replaced by quick facebook status updates. He says:

“Facebook and other such social web environs have lowered the bar of digital communication to the level of phrase publishing. No bitterness; I like it too. But it means that in the last few years less people are reading blogs. It’s quicker and punchier to update your status. Less work, too. Instead of crafting a few paragraphs about some contemporary event, you can just rip off a one liner. Or if that is too much work, you can just ‘like’ someone else’s witticism. Social media is how bumper-sticker discourse went digital. And no, ‘microblogging’ is not real blogging. Again, no bitterness! I’m just saying…”

Do you share that sentiment? I certainly do.

Yet, the reachable audience on facebook is just unbeatable. It is also harder and harder to find time writing thoughtful blog posts.

Whenever I have something to share and I have to decide whether I facebook it or blog it, I tend to go for facebook if it feels impermanent or “ethereal,” as Rob describes it. I would blog it if I think it is worth keeping the record, such that months later people on the web can still search for it.

I once wrote down some instructions on how to setup typing Chinese on a Mac and it has reached over 3000 views, since people find it useful and keep referencing it in other places. I think that this is at least some sort of contribution to the web.

So how do you decide whether you facebook it or blog it? Please share it below.

I remember Clay Shirky once commented on TED.com about our collective surplus, unused brain power, and how it could be utilized if we turned off our TVs:

How big is that surplus? If you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project — every page, every edit, every line of code, in every language Wikipedia exists in — that represents something like the cumulation of 98 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it’s the right order of magnitude, about 98 million hours of thought.

And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television.

Thank you Brian for once again reminding us that creating is better than consuming, that being in a community and in relation with one another is better than sitting alone in front of the TV smashing buttons.

Book Recommendation: Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch

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