October 2009 Archives

By Steve Breen, San Diego Tribune, October 18, 2009

Following up on Christianity21, we at JoPa Productions are developing a series of boot camps for pastors who want to learn about and utilize social media tools like blogging, Twitter, and Facebook.  These are one-day, hands-on learning experiences, currently offered in the Twin Cities and soon to be offered around the country.  We'll also be offering social media boot camps for authors soon.

More info HERE.

And find out more about Christianity21 HERE.

I've taken some heat in the comment section for using yesterday's post on "unbiblical" and a "higher view of scripture" as a thin foil for my own disregard of biblical standards. To the contrary, I was pointing to the use of the word unbiblical as a stand-in for a particularly thin hermeneutic. There are, of course, things that are unbiblical: child pornography and shampoo, for instance. Both are technically unbiblical since they are never mentioned; further, the first is morally at odds with the biblical narrative, while the second is not.

So, to repeat, "unbiblical" is not a euphemism on its face; it is a euphemism when used as a stand in for a hermeneutical argument.

Today, I thought we'd poke at the liberals a bit, since the conservatives around here seem to be on the defensive. The euphemism of today is,

fundamentalist.

Again, I'm not implying that fundamentalists do not exist. They do. But liberals and progressives often use "fundamentalist" as a cheap and easy stand-in for someone who has a more conservative biblical hermeneutic.

Last week at Christianity21, GENERATE Magazine debuted. With the tag line, "an artifact of the emergence conversation," it fit perfectly at the gathering. When I actually got around to reading it last weekend, I was truly surprised at how good it is.

There have been several efforts to begin a paper journal that capture the exploits of emergence, and none has quite succeeded. GENERATE does.

In our attempt to exterminate Christian euphemisms from our vocabulary, Nathan nominated thusly:

"Unbiblical" when what the situation really is is "I really, really DON'T like that" OR "I disagree" OR "Your words challenge my deepest held idolatries posing as genuine Christian faith."

This euphemism seems to be more prevalent today than I remember it -- or maybe I just ran into it less in the past. Of course, what it implies is that there is a consistent, reliable, and mutually agreed upon hermeneutic for a particular passage, or for the entire narrative arc of the Bible.

I ran into this at the Cornerstone Festival this summer, while on a panel discussing gays in the church. The two anti-gay members of the panel, both "ex-gays" who were affiliated with Exodus International, repeatedly stated that theirs was the "biblical" position, and that opposing views were "unbiblical." They said this with no anger, and really no passion. It was said matter-of-factly, and simply, as though no counter-argument could possibly be summoned.

I received loads of great comments about what Christian euphemisms we should drag, kicking and screaming, into the light of day in an attempt to euthanize them. I won't be able to tackle them all, but I'll highlight some of...

Thanks to Don Heatley...

As other bloggers have noted, putting the Christianity21 experience into words is nearly impossible. In short, it went even better than Doug and I imagined it. All of the pieces came together beautifully.In fact, when people repeatedly stopped me in...

Due to snow in the Twin Cities, several C21 participants got held over for another night here, allowing us to revel in the glories of the gathering for another day.  But today holds a couple more airport runs, some packing,...

I'm busy the next couple days, co-producing Christianity21 -- a gathering that promises to be unique on the Christian event landscape.  Here's the Twitter feed for the event, a great way to listen in on what we're doing: <a href="http://twubs.com/c21">#c21</a>...

We're currently battling Christian euphemisms here on the blog.Here's a passage from my book, The New Christians, about my experience with one Christian euphemism while in college: Back on campus, I chafed under some of the policies of Campus Crusade....

According to Wikipedia,A euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener, or in the case of Doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for...

Scot asked a good question last week: How come people who are clearly not evangelical keep getting upset about what evangelicals do? He asks this in response to the semi-furor around Rob Bell's (seemingly off-handed) remark to a newspaper reporter...

I was having a conversation with a friend about the evangelical interest in Jim Belcher's book, Deep Church.  Jim's written a good book, and I was happy to endorse it -- albeit with the caveat that he and I disagree...

I've taken a month hiatus from this blog, primarily for personal reasons.  In fact, I haven't even read a blog in a month (with a few exceptions, including Zach's series on gays in the church).  I've tried to breathe deeply...