My ministry colleague and Director of Student Discipleship, Holly Rankin Zaher, recently sent me a link to a thoughtful reflection on the effects of social networking in our culture. As she says, “it highlights our desire for community and the ways that electronic media have created space for relationships to happen; thoughtful and something from which the church can learn:”
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Elsewhere on this website I have recommended Rodney Clapp’s book, Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation:
http://www.fisharewet.org/blogs.php?id=12. I enjoyed Clapp’s article in a spring issue of Christian Century (April 7, 2009) about how developments in culture lead to the creation of new words known as neologisms: “A neologism takes hold in our vocabulary when it crisply encapsulates an activity, event or category that people intuitively understand but which has not yet been labeled. Several regular church happenings have yet to be labeled.”
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I was interested in commentary from the editors of The Christian Century on book sales during this time of economic recession and what research figures say about our cultural and spiritual yearnings. Hard times have been rough on religious publishing houses of late. It seems that sales figures indicate religion book sales have declined while sales of romance novels have gone up. “Apparently, when it comes to books, people are seeking escape more than spiritual support.” (Here are two links: http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6851
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As reported in a number of news outlets, the British organization called National Secular Society is selling certificates “formalizing” renunciation of belief or any implication of infant baptism now that one has come to the light of rationality. As the website hawking these certificates states with refreshingly clear, if triumphal, glee: “Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had!” Look for WWDISS (“Wait: Why Do I Still Sin?”) bracelets soon! Check it out: http://www.secularism.org.uk/debaptism.html
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A recently released survey of American spiritual commitments by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life focused on the reasons why people switch or leave their religious affiliations. The results indicate that most do so not because of disagreement over institutional direction or theological disputes, as important as these may be, but rather through slow drift and gradual loss of commitment to the institution.
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