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Ten Most Significant Cultural Trends of the Last Decade

Ten Most Significant Cultural Trends of the Last Decade (Andy Crouch)

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Conan on Cynicism

Conan's "final thoughts" were dynamite! Fantastic portrait of a way to go out with class, as well as profound closing words on cynicism...

"No One Cares About You" | Seth Godin

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Cultural Contextualization or Cultural Preservation?

A strong and timely challenge for me this afternoon as I pray for our church and community in preparation to preach Ephesians 2.11-22

Cultural preferences must take a backseat to unity in Christ. The most important issue is always identity: What is the strongest defining reality for us-- Christ or culture? Culture is important-- indeed, a necessary part of the fabric of our lives-- but Christ, not culture, gives the primary definition to life. Culture is the means by which Christ is expressed, but the message is Christ himself. Do ethnic churches exist to preserve a culture or to promote Christ? Often one gets the impression that the real center of all our churches is our culture, not our Lord. That attitude needs to change

Churches need to be astute enough to know when they are using culture, when they are adapting culture, and when they must confront culture. Churches must demonstrate that the barriers are down. That most churches are culturally monolithic is an embarrassment. Church members must show they care about other people in Christ, even if they are different culturally, economically, politically, or socially. A monolithic church in a multicultural context is a failure. Churches need to demonstrate unity with Christians of other cultures, to seek justice, and to evangelize across cultural and racial lines. We have to show that the barriers are down.

(Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, 153 emphasis mine)

Walkable Neighborhoods

Since 2005, we have been a one car family. And, given that Katie uses our car the majority of the time, the walkability of the neighborhood we live in is pretty important to me. Actually, walkability is important to me for social and theological reasons-- so my concern would be the same whether we had four cars or none (why walking matters).

Walkscore.com has ranked the walkability of 2500+ US neighborhoods. View the top 10 here. The site also lists 138 Walkers' Paradises, of which our neighborhood comes in just below the 100 mark-- here.

Though over 60% of Kansas Citians live in car-dependent neighborhoods, we are fortunate to live on the dividing lines of the five most walkable neighborhoods in the city!

The moral of the story? Move to Midtown. Walk to Church

What Starbucks Has Lost...

A great piece by Tom Mullaney in the Chicago Tribune connecting the company's financial trouble with their declining culture and breaking their brand.

Starbucks once defined the coffee market but has lost control of its brand. Its ubiquity has killed the joy of discovering a new hangout.

[...]

Maybe Schultz needs to read "Moby Dick" again. He joined Starbucks in 1982 as the idealistic Starbuck. But in his relentless drive to pursue the White Whale of coffee supremacy and please his Wall Street masters, he now seems more like the character with the ivory peg leg and harpoon. (read the whole thing)

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Ben Stein: Expelled

A friend just sent me the link to Ben Stein: Expelled, a forthcoming documentary that deals with intelligent design and chronicles Ben Stein's "confrontation with the widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination that is spreading in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms, and that is doing irreparable harm to some of the world’s top scientists, educators, and thinkers" (source).

The Expelled Blog has been around since August (read Stein's introductory post), so this may have been discussed ad nauseam in the blog world. But if there are others who, like me, have taken a joyful and extended holiday from the blogs, I thought it would be worth linking again here.

Stein approaches the issue based on the fact that a free and progressive society should have the freedom to discuss intelligent design without fear of discrimination and persecution.

The Expelled site has several videos, including a lengthy 'super trailer' (pictured above). Check them out here, or view the teaser trailer @ youtube embedded below.

RELATED
Ben Stein's homepage
Stein on Bill O'Reilly (youtube video)
Stein @ technorati

As personal note, this documentary is especially interesting to me given that the Fellowship Associates residents just finished reading and discussing Nancy Pearcey's, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Study Guide Edition).

Technorati Tags: BenStein, intelligentdesign

Nation of Rebels

One of my favorite books in the world is Heath and Potter's, Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. I have read the book three or four times and have had more conversations with people about the book than I care to count. I don't ascribe to all the tenets of the book, but if I haven't told you to buy the book yet, consider this your introduction. Buy Nation of Rebels.

Brand Avenue mentions the book in a Fall Reading list (which also mentions City of Glass: Doug Coupland's Vancouver). Here is a blurb from Brand Avenue:

The concept of countercultural rebellion and its elusive twin—cool—have resulted in a status competition that has driven consumption to unprecedented heights. It's not conformism that leads us to spend, spend, spend on the unnecessary and the ephemeral, but its opposite: the quest to distinguish ourselves from the masses through our enlightened, hip, or just plain rebellious consumer preferences. And marketers of products ranging from cars (the Volkswagen Bug) to computers (the Mac) to shoes (Doc Martens) have been reaping huge harvests from the countercultural seeds that were sown in the 1960s. The point was never underlined more heavily than when Kalle Lassen, editor of the ragingly anti-capitalist Adbusters magazine, came out with the Black Spot sneaker: a "subversive" running shoe that Lassen hoped would "uncool Nike" and "set a precedent that [would] revolutionize capitalism." As Heath and Potter point out, there is nothing "subversive" about trying to beat Nike. "That's called marketplace competition. It's the whole point of capitalism...."

Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture

RELATED
Theoretically Related 'Nation of Rebels' Posts @ This Blog
The Claremont Institute's Review of Nation of Rebels
Andrew Potter's Blog
Rebel Sell Blog

How Culture Exploits Men

I have recently noticed an article that several people have been tagging on del.icio.us under the general tag "gender." The article is Dr. Roy Baumeister's recent address to the APA, interestingly titled: Is There Anything Good About Men? I'm surprised that I haven't seen this appear on digg, but I did notice that the NYT blog has picked it up here.

Essentially, Baumeister explores how cultural systems shape action with respect to gender. I found his thesis fascinating and enjoyed reading the whole article.

What I found particularly interesting about his argument is that he rejects contemporary theories of gender (overwhelmingly shaped by feminist ideology) in favor of a complementary view of gender:

Hence this is not about the “battle of the sexes,” and in fact I think one unfortunate legacy of feminism has been the idea that men and women are basically enemies. I shall suggest, instead, that most often men and women have been partners, supporting each other rather than exploiting or manipulating each other.

[...]

Let’s return to the three main theories we’ve had about gender: Men are better, no difference, and women are better. What’s missing from that list? Different but equal. Let me propose that as a rival theory that deserves to be considered. I think it’s actually the most plausible one. Natural selection will preserve innate differences between men and women as long as the different traits are beneficial in different circumstances or for different tasks.

Ultimately, Baumeister argues that gender inequality cannot be adequately explained by feminist theories of patriarchy (which he rejects as conspiracy theories). Instead, he suggests that the proliferation of gender inequality can be explained by the way in which men's larger, more shallow social networks have progressed culturally while women have concentrated on close relationships that have enabled the species to survive.

I have re-posted his conclusion below and would commend the whole article to you.

Technorati Tags: gender

Fast Cities 2007

The cover story of the current issue of Fast Company profiles the the 30 Fastest Cities in the World (kind of reminds me of being a kid and having the fastest shoes...a critical necessity for every child-- especially those of us who wore Husky jeans).

This article will be of particular interest to those who are interested in the work of Richard Florida and his continuing research considering the The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. In fact, Florida's follow up book, which i have yet to read, focuses on Cities and the Creative Class.

The Fast Cities profile is described as follows:

We scoured the globe in search of the perfect place to transplant yourself and your business. From Chicago to Shanghai, we selected 30 urban centers that are shaping our future. We have creative-class meccas, R&D hot spots, even cities so fast they're scary. Plus, the world's slowest cities. Is your hometown on the list? Vote for your favorites and submit your own.

Read it for yourself

RELATED POSTS
Richard Florida on the Colbert Report

Technorati Tags: CreativeClass, Lifestlye trends, RichardFlorida