Elegant Aggression?!

/in /by

While watching commercials my children and I play a game to overcme the tedium – what is this advertising? Sometimes it is clear from the start, advertisments for detergents tend not to mess around, but often one doesn’t know what is being hawked until the end. It’s a contest of course, and when I have absoltuely no idea I usually guess ‘cars’. More than most products, cars sell image more than content; style more than engineering

Recently I saw an ad for an Acura during a sporting event. it started with a football player undressing and then redressing into a suit. A voice then said, “we can do it with people, why not with cars?” which even now makes little sense to me. Then came the line that has troubled me. “The new Acura, aggression at its most elegant.”

What is that? What is elegant about aggression? Is that punching someone but with good form? Tearing into someone but with style? Waterboarding with Perrier? Advertisers don’t casually come up with this stuff. People are paid much more than I am to weedle out such amazing combinations of words. The audience is men and you know that some big bucks reasearch went into discerning that men are filled with latent aggression, so why not capitalize on it. Do you see why this troubles me?

I remember in the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller when the crews went up over Italy to bomb the Nazis; the Major didn’t care about what was destroyed – the actual success of the mission – he just wanted to see a good and even bomb pattern becasue that’s what his superiors wanted. Now I have a name for that – elegant aggression. I am also reminded of smart bombs and drones.

There is nothing elegant about aggression and violence. It hurts people. The last thing we need our young men hearing subliminally is that aggression is cool if you can do it with style.

One of the tasks of the church with young people is to offer a different vision of the world and what it can be. In order to do that we have to be very discerning about what the wrong message is – to point it out and rage against it. If we aren’t doing this, who will? Pastor Jim

Occupy the Church

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I sympathize with the “Occupy” movment, at least about the disparity of wealth in America today. I feel particular concern for young people who graduate from college with tens of thousands of dollars of debt into a job market that is depressed. I recently heard on NPR that older people are now 47 times wealthier than young people – it is always the case that older people are wealthier, but this number represents a new record.

There is plenty of biblical precedence for the message of the equal distribution of wealth, not the least of which is the Old Testament concept of Jubilee – every 50 years all resources are thrown back into the pot and handed out again equally. Jesus had plenty to say about the economy, usually addressing the injustice of some having much and the majority having very little; it’s not as if this message isn’t clear. We can disagree as Christians on how this is to be done but not about the fact that it needs to be done.

There is a deep and abiding spiritual foundation for much of what the issues the occupiers are raising. So, why not “occupy the church?” I believe that this kind of dialogue and witness is not only appropriate to being the church in our world, but also vital to it. What do you all think? Pastor Jim

New to the Blogosphere

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Welcome to the pastor’s blog. Thank you Matt Cruz for all your hard work building our new website.

This is a new frontier in technology for me. When I started in ministry over 20 years ago computers had yet to make it into churches. It was in my second church that I learned the wonders of WORD and email. In my third church it was the Net and Facebook. Now a blog. I wonder what this will mean?

I have an abiding interest in technology as it affects us. I am not at all tech savvy, but I wonder about how certain innovations affect how we think, live, relate. I am convinced that the automobile has encouraged our independence, our sense of being self contained and maybe even our communication as we gesture fellow drivers – does it encourage rage? One other example is the remote control. Once again I feel old as I say that when I was young there were 13 channels and one had to get up to change the channel – not only that, but in my case I would usually engage in an argument with my brother over what we would watch since there was only one TV in the house. Now I find that I enjoy sitting in front of the TV with the remote scanning channels, often over and over again. While there is no argument with this, it pretty much necessitates my being alone. (Have you ever sat next to someone who is roaming the channels?!) When I was young we watched TV together more than we did alone. I venture to guess that today more people are watching alone.

Not only that, but I wonder what happens in our brians when we are swtiching channels all the time? What happens when we train ourselves to look forward to the next thing, and feel that we can bring it into being with the push of our thumb? In fact, I think it is a characteristic of our day for us to always be thinking of the next thing. Pretty soon life is a succession of often disconnected next things and then we wonder why we feel anxious.

One final affect wrought by the remote. Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and you are tired of listening and reflexively image having a remote so you could mute them? Maybe I’m confessing here but I bet this is pretty common.

I believe there is a lag between technology and both our psychology and spirituality. Inovations come so fast we don’t have time to think about how they affect us – so in some sense we are out of control. Again, is it any wonder we feel anxious? I also believe it is part of the mission of the church to interpret changes in lifestyle including technological changes; to incorporate all of these changes into some sense of meaning.

So as I type this first blog I can’t help but wonder, how will this change me? In any case, I’m sure it will be an adventure.

Come and join us on Sunday mornings! Pastor Jim