The Complex Christ

Is The Need to Create the Same as the Need to Save?

So asks Damnflanderz with his usual perception, responding to the post on Grizzly Man.

Thoughts?

I'd say there's some truth. But perhaps the need to create is the need to be saved?
Do we create to sanctify, or create to be sanctified? Or is sanctification not part of it?

"Where there is no gift, there is no art."
But where there is no creation, is there no salvation?

Technorati Tags: Art, Creativity

St Paul's Cathedral To Become Café Church Shock

OK, that's not quite true, but they've been turned down for a Lottery grant... for being 'too exclusive' and been told they 'must attract attract new audiences.' The Baker head-hunt from CMS "Café Mission Society" starts here.

More troublingly, what's the centre-piece of a £4.5billion rich organization doing going cap in hand to the Lottery for anyway?

End of the Original: Old Masters vs Artists of the Digital

"The dominance of the art market - not to mention the art object - is being challenged by hackers, code warriors, and artistically motivated nerds who prefer networks, websites, and $19.95 posters to glitzy shows and art-star fame."

Thus begins the article 'My Art World is Bigger Than Your Art World' in December's issue of The Believer (I'm a huge fan). The scope of the article is wide, covering 'net.art', the history of 'video art' and the work of some 'hacker art', exemplified by the piece 'Super Mario Clouds' by Cory Arcangel (screenshot below, cartridge above) which he created by hacking the code of the Super Mario game. The result of this intervention is a 'minimalist game environment - no iconic Mario figure in red coveralls, no coin-generating brick blocks, and no poisonous mushrooms - all that remains are the puffy white clouds gently drifting across a clear blue sky'

Beyond the artistic merits, or otherwise, of such pieces, the article raises a far more interesting - and for my thoughts on Emerging Church issues, pertinent, question about what constitutes 'an original'.

The art world makes its money out of the concept of 'originals' - a case of the economics of scarcity - and artists have long sought ways to subvert - or at least appear to subvert - the 'insularity and pomp of art-world conventions'. Photography was an early example. As mechanical image, could it be called art? And, more to the point, how could one distinguish one print from the negative from another? There was no 'original', and thus the art world had to invent ways of creating an 'aura' around a piece, by limited edition numberings, signatures, framings etc.

Warhol took this idea of mechanical reproduction further in much of his work, as did Duchamp with his signed 'bog-standard' urinial. But all of these examples, with a little tweaking, can be distilled to some 'original', whether it be photographic negative or screen. What is interesting about the work of the digital artists that the article explores is that, with many of the media they are working in, there is simply no concept of original at all. And this causes the art world a great deal of trouble, for how can it create profit, aura, buzz, exclusivity...power, if it cannot control access to the object?

In building this argument the writer notes:

"A work of video art is simply a video signal on a tape. Early analog video technology is termed 'lossy' - meaning that with every successive copy there is a noticable degradation in quality. Analog technologies still had some claim to the construction of an 'original' - the photograph had the negative, and the video has the master copy, from which further copies are struck. The negative and master thus have more value than their offspring.

"Digital video formats released by Sony in the 1990's changed this condition completely, as they alloweds for perfect reproduction. Video is now simply a piece of code - a string of ones and zeros that, unlike its analog parent, is wholly duplicable. Enabling the production of infinite clones with no discernable value hierarchy thus renders 'original' a meaningless term."

Reflecting back on Arcangel's work with the Super Mario hack, his release of the method for producing his pieces, and admission that the 'original' cartridge got lost, again forces us to re-think whether the term has any meaning for his work. Anyone following the right instructions can perfectly create the 'work of art' that he did. So what of it can be bought or sold? What value does it have? There are millions of Mona Lisa prints for a penny, but only one priceless original. If you could have a perfect reproduction to gaze at, would it spoil your visual enjoyment?

The question then comes round to 'what is art?' It is clearly not just about enjoyment of a created environment. We like the 'aura' of the gallery where the 'original' hangs - exclusive, live, real... It gives us a sense of power - because the original is invested with such power by ArtWorld™.

Paul said with relief that he was glad he hadn't baptized many of the Corinthians. Why? Because he didn't want to participate in the heresy of 'the original'. Being baptised by him was no different to being baptised by anyone else. There was no special power the closer you got to him. "Is Christ divided?" he asked? No. We all have the same access to Christ by the Spirit, unmediated by the high priests of art, culture, church or anywhere. This is dangerous speech, a gift many think 'the common people' are not responsible/wise/intelligent/cultured enough to handle. But the truth is, it is a free gift, one which is devoid of human power, which is all about the Other, not about us.

The Emerging Church must avoid the 'aura' offered by mega-churches, experts or names. They have wise experience to offer - let's not forget that. But they don't mediate our access.

The Spirit hacks us with the same code. We are all a unique original. Priceless. Signed. Not cloned. Not reproduced by Graham, Robertson, Gumbel, Wimber or McClaren (insert Male Pastor Name here). Without "value hierarchy." It's a gift. It can't be bought or sold. Or gallaried; hung up in a stale white cube.

So remember, whatever you do, View the Source.
That's the bomb.

Happy New Year.

Ode To Joseph

Joseph is one of those characters that has always intrigued me. His is an apparently strange story in the nativity, and we hear little, if anything about him afterwards. But behind the scenes he is quite an extraordinary figure.

He is engaged to Mary, probably about 14 or so. Who gets pregnant. What the?!! And then claims "God did it." But he sticks by her... Pretty much. She's farmed out to a cousin for a while perhaps. But he does then take her to Bethlehem to register with him in the Augustine census.

I've been lucky enough - if you can call it that - to go to Bethlehem with The Amos Trust and spend some time with Palestinian Christians. It was a powerful 10 days, as Jonny has testified with his Backbone CD. These are people who's families have been Christians, living and working and dying in the same soil as Christ himself, for thousands of years. They are the 'living stones' scattered among the old ruins of the religious sites. Both need tending to preserve our future.

One of the most amazing parts of the trip was a visit to the Church of the Nativity. As our Palestinian guide explained, Bethlehem is such a short trip from Jerusalem, with nothing of any significance further south, there would never have been an 'inn' there. Plenty in Jerusalem. And if Joseph was coming to register in his family's town, he would naturally have stayed with family. But there was 'no room'. In other words, his family chucked him out. He'd brought a pregnant girl with him out of wedlock to the biggest family reunion in years, and frankly that was totally out of order. They appeared to have sheltered in a cave under the house where the animals were kept. This wasn't generousity on the part of some kindly innkeeper. This was savage neglect on the part of a family who dare not entertain disrepute.

This, for me, makes Joseph an extraordinary figure. Not only was he prepared to accept Mary and her unlikely story, he was prepared to take her to his family, to publicly announce his faith and acceptance of her. And then to uproot his family for years to protect them.

It's unclear what his family later made of him, or Jesus. But if we are to believe the family tree as presented in the gospels, it's pretty clear that plenty of his forebears had had some pretty alternative relationships too. This is God's bloodline: messy, different, challenging... but faithful, trusting and ox-strong. It's an inheritance Jesus must have been thankful for.

Christmas Card from the Milkman

Just received a Christmas card. From the milkman. I think we both know what it's really about.

In some situations, you get a card from someone and think 'Oh - must write them one back!'. I'm pretty sure the milkman isn't after a card in return. In fact I'm pretty sure he's not all that fussed what sort of Christmas we have. How could he be? Swinging by at 5am he's never even met us.

Advent: Journeys and Gifts

Perhaps it was the mixture of darkness, waiting and the great mulled wine afterwards, but Advent was always my favourite time of year at Vaux, and as this will be the first year for about 7 years when we won't be doing something I thought I'd offer some resources from the services we did on this theme.

Firstly, a link to the liturgy 'Journeys and Gifts' from the Vaux archive, which explores the coming incarnation through the 3 traditional gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. In typically obtuse style, the service sheets ended up being triangular. Beautiful, time-consuming and totally unnecessary. Summed a lot of what we did up nicely.

Secondly, a video-liturgy simply entitled 'Wait', personally one of my favourites of all the things we produced.
This was filmed one night at the local station (screen-shot above), and is simply a single shot of the bank of 3 platform monitors that the drivers use, plus a remix of Sigur Ros' Svefn g englar, followed by a liturgy on waiting bouncing off Whitman's poem 'finally comes the poet'.

"As Christ waited, waited to be emptied of power self sufficiency, so we should wait.
For one advent, finally shall come the poet, the true son of God, singing songs."

It's around 12Mb, but streams nicely over broadband. If you'd like a full-size version on DVD, just get in touch.

Thirdly, a 4-voice meditation which combines themes from the nativity with Rumi's words "Whoever brought me here will have to take me home."

Emerging Church and the Holy Spirit [4]

The language of the Spirit has been hijacked by the charismatic/pentecostal movement, which is probably why people in Emerging circles have been shy of using it. What some of them appear to have seen from their side of the fence is that this shyness amounts to a rejection of the Spirit, and what they interpret that to mean is a lack of 'power manifestations.' What I have been arguing in these posts is that:

1. We need to reclaim the language of the Spirit and not be afraid to use it and
2. We need to think much more widely about what spiritual gifts are.

On the second point, using some of Lewis Hyde's work on gift, I've argued that gift-exchange is actually the very fuel that runs the church, the inter-connect that is the fabric of our relationships. We don't relate on a market-exchange plane, where the scales are balanced, but on a gift-exchange plane, where things are left unbalanced, and the relational potential is heightened in every transaction.

Furthermore, true gifts always operate in a circle of 3 or more, meaning that the relational cycle is never bi-polar but involves 'the other'. In such a system I don't necessarily receive from the person I gave to, leading to multiplex relational networks that operate on multiple levels. The circle of 3 of course hints at the trinity, which is the ultimate model of generous exchange and relationship.

So how does this work out in some practical ways?

Emerging Church and the Holy Spirit [3]

In the last post on this I tried to argue that we need to re-imagine our language of spiritual gifts, and used some of Lewis Hyde's thinking on gift to consider how, in fact, any transaction that occurs in the 'gift economy' is actually rooted in God's breathing into us.

When you let someone into traffic. When you hold a door open. When you pay for a stranger's bus ticket. That feeling that somehow this is how life should be: generous, amicable, inclusive? It's God. That's the gift of the Spirit: taking us above the apes into humanity, into the realm of the gift. It's not a 'power manifestation.' But we only need to read article's such as this - thanks to Sanctus for the link - to see how powerful the gift is.

I want to come back to this idea of generous action later. But before I do that, I want to examine why Hyde is keen to point out that there is a further level of complexity in true gift exchange. According to him, a true gift must go 'out of sight' before it is received and passed on.

Emerging Church and the Holy Spirit [2]

I ended the last post - which was a critique of Chris Simmons' article in Christianity accusing the Emerging Church of lacking power manifestations, and thus lacking the Spirit - by arguing that we needed a fresh understanding of the concept of 'gift'. It is only by doing this that we can prevent the hijack of the language of 'spiritual gifts' by those who want to tie this to power manifestations, healings, tongues etc.

Indeed, in the book I try to argue, using Lewis Hyde's fabulous work on art, that the Church needs to re-evaluate not just the language of gift in relation to the Holy Spirit, but also in relation to its entire existence. My conclusion is that in a world drowning in the market economy of needs, desires, advertising, cash for questions and touch-the-screen salvations, the Emergent church will be a place where the gift economy rules. Churches ought to be places of gift-exchange; they are often places where gift and market confusions abound, creating a jarring experience for those exploring...

Is the Emerging Church Lacking the Spirit? [1]

Any visit to my parents' house requires the customary penance to be done: reading all the Christian press that they subscribe to. October's Christianity carried an article which questioned whether the Emerging Church was lacking the Spirit. Their much-used stock graphic of an arid desert pretty much summarized the tone that Chris Simmons - a Vineyard pastor from Brighton - took. It's a depressing read.

Jason Clark has helpfully posted a PDF of the article, written a reply to Christianity, and looks like he is also hosting a conference around the issues this Saturday. All of which has catalyzed me to get some thoughts down about this vital issue over the course of a few posts....

Chris' article worries me on a number of levels. Firstly, he writes that "it was frightening and horrifying to see that Jesus was much bigger and more powerful that I had thought" and goes on to criticize the other speakers at the event he was at who "spoke eloquently but then just left the platform". He then describes how he sees power manifestations - healings, exorcisms etc. as not only central to his 'conversion', but a required part of normal Christian life.

His argument appears to run like this: power manifestations are evidence of the Spirit; without the manifestations the Spirit is not there.

I find this not only deeply troubling as an argument, but deeply insulting too. In what power and in whose name does Chris think Christians in the Emerging Church are working? If he really thinks it is being done outside of the Spirit this is a very serious indictment indeed... One that would appear, in what I am assuming to be the fairly standard Vineyard theology, to condemn us to a very unfortunate fate.

Confusingly, he ends his piece by saying:

"In the UK church let's keep loving the church in all its diversity... Let's pray that we can identify with our converts in the UK as the apostle Paul did with his 2000 years ago with the words, 'Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?'"

I totally agree with the diversity angle - but don't really see it reflected in his argument, which appears to present a very one-dimensional view of the Spirit. Not a wrong dimension necessarily. But only affirming one.

Secondly, Chris seems to be equating observation of the law with "mental ascent, a journey of faith with more questions than answers" - in other words, doubt, questioning and uncertainty. We should simply 'believe what we hear', a conclusion that deeply troubles me when connected back to his opening statements about how he as a pastor is constantly being hassled "by people with some new idea, usually to do with something called emergent." A precis of the piece thus seems to read:

Power manifestations are the true test of whether something is 'of the Spirit.' If you are going to doubt this, you are falling into 'observing the law.' The right thing to do? Just believe what you hear from me.

I have to feel sorry for those in his church who have come up to him with these new ideas. I hope they have not really been re-buffed in this way, and don't doubt that he would have been pastorally sensitive. What worries me is the underlying message that the leader is right and there is no other way.

So what should we do? If we are not experiencing power manifestations is the journey we are exploring not 'of God'? Ought we simply 'believe what we've heard'?

I want to propose that we need to radically re-imagine our language of the Spirit. It is unfortunate that the charismatic wing of the Church have hijacked the concept of the Spirit and taken it hostage to the power-evangelism agenda... It seems that one cannot talk about the gifts of the Spirit without it being taken as meaning healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy etc.

This, I believe is a real shame, for the concept of gift, as I've explored in the book, is an incredible rich one. And it's this I want to explore in the next post.