Average customer rating:
- the kitschmeister dishes
- the best Schnabel art book
- Autobiography of a modern genius
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CVJ: Nicknames of Maitre D's and Other Excerpts from Life
Julian Schnabel
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
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| Arts & Photography
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Schnabel, Julian
| ( S-U )
| Artists, A-Z
| Arts & Photography
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| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
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ASIN: 0394553136
Release Date: 1987-11-12 |
Customer Reviews:
the kitschmeister dishes.......2006-10-14
if you have heard of Schnabel, the illustrations in this book will persuade you that it's best not to see his work. If you would like to read the autobiography of a mediocre painter and consummate poser, this book might be for you.
the best Schnabel art book.......2003-07-30
As a young painter I value art books as my teachers, a removed version of the artist the book covers. Schnabel's book enhances (and probably created) the mythic figure he would become (including his Achilean fall) and offers great images of the works of art he created up until the book's publication. The photos of the work are excellent. The commentary is honest (and heavily colored by Schnabel) and story-like (written with a short "burst" style like a Chuck Pahlaniuk novel). It is nearly embarrassing (which is good). Schnabel is an undervalued painter and mind. This book is an excellent entry point into his thoughts, biography, and work. There are few decent Schnabel books out there and this is by far the best.
Autobiography of a modern genius.......2001-10-11
Though he's better known now as a filmmaker, Julian Schnabel was also one of the leading figures on the American Art Scene in the late '70s and '80s where, for better or worse, his gigantic canvases and infamous arrogance typified the last years of Warhol's New York. You either love the Schnabel of that period or you hate him. Luckily for me, I thought he was a genius and therefore I enjoyed his autobiography, Cvj. Covering his childhood in Texas, Cvj doesn't carry all of the insider gossip that a lot of readers will probably be looking for but it is a rare and fascinating glimpse into the development of one of the greatest artists of modern times.
Book Description
Alan Hirsch is convinced that the inherited formulas for growing the Body of Christ do not work anymore. And rather than relying on slightly revised solutions from the past, he sees a vision of the future growth of the church coming about by harnessing the power of the early church, which grew from as few as 25,000 adherents in AD 100 to up to 20 million in AD 310. Such incredible growth is also being experienced today in the church in China and other parts of the world. How do they do it? The Forgotten Ways explores the concept of Apostolic Genius as a way to understand what caused the church to expand at various times in history, interpreting it for use in our own time and place. From the theological underpinnings to the practical application, Hirsch takes the reader through this dynamic mixture of passion, prayer, and incarnational practice to rediscover the dormant potential of the modern church in the West.
Customer Reviews:
Great Seminary Text.......2007-06-15
If I were still teaching my seminary courses "Revitalization of the Local Church" and "The Gospel in Western Culture," which I'm not ("My Calvin Seminary Story"), I would assign this book as a primary text for the former and at least as a secondary text for the latter. Every seminary (and Bible college) student should read this before going into ministry. I certainly don't agree with everything Hirsch writes, but he raises issues in a cogent way that no other book matches. He's telling preachers that the local church must become smaller before it grows, and "church growth" as it's been dished up is just plain unbiblical. For those looking for corporate management models, this is not the book for them. In many ways I see it as a companion to my own book Left Behind in a Megachurch World: How God Works through Ordinary Churches. I look for this book to become a pivotal text for training ministers------and for guiding those in the congregation who are seeking a pastor. Here in America we're soon celebrating the grand holiday of patriotic American Christendom----the 4th of July. Give FORGOTTEN WAYS as a holiday gift to your pastor or elder or head deacon, or buy it for yourself and pass it around.
Rare missiological "gem".......2007-05-13
If you prefer to read books by dead guys and are wondering if there are a couple of modern missiological thinkers out there who really "get it," I believe this book is for you. Rather than throwing out overused church growth principles or spending the majority of time bashing the institutional church (and I do love Frost's "Exiles", despite this), Hirsch really nails a couple of key points that could actually make a difference with respect to cultural engagement and the mission of the church. I think the emphasis on defining liminality and "communitas" are key concepts in the book, that pastors need to understand, just as the emphasis on dualistic thinking was introduced in "The Shaping of Things To Come." Buy this book.
Thought-provoking!.......2007-05-07
Alan Hirsch takes us to a new level of ability to see our inherited paradigms. Parts of our thinking that are so inherent that we almost act instinctively out of them, are laid open to examination. This book will rock your world.
Alan Hirsch: The Forgotten Ways.......2007-04-30
Review: Alan Hirsch, 'The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church'. Michigan: Brazos Press, 2006.
Ivan Illich was asked what he thought was the most radical way to change society; was it through violent revolution or gradual reform? He gave a careful answer. Neither. Rather, he suggested that if one wanted to change society, then one must tell an alternative story.
And for Christians the alternative story has to do with the evils of institutionalism and clericalism. A quote from sociologist Robert Merton jumped out of a Masters' degree I once did at the University of Sydney: `The evil in institutions is greater than the sum of the evil of the individuals within them.'
Martin Buber warns that `centralization and codification, undertaken in the interests of religion, are a danger to the core of religion.' This is inevitably the case he says, unless there is a very vigorous life of faith embodied in the whole community, one that exerts an unrelenting pressure for renewal on the institution. C.S. Lewis observed that `there exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it.'
In this exciting, readable and provocative book, `emerging church' missiologist Alan Hirsch tells an alternative story by unlocking the secrets of the primal `pre-Christendom' apostolic church - and the church in modern China. Why were/are they so dynamic, whereas mainline churches over time suffer from what sociologists call `the routinisation of charisma'?
Historians have often accepted the claim that the conversion of Emperor Constantine (ca 285-337) resulted in the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be brutal and lax.
Hirsch suggests that the prevailing expression of church (Christendom) has become a major stumbling block to the spread of Christianity in the West. The `Christendom paradigm' doesn't work very well any more.
On the other hand the Chinese churches grew in spite of the following:
1. They were an illegal religion.
2. They didn't have church buildings.
3. They didn't have scriptures (the Chinese had underground, partial copies).
4. They didn't have any central institutions or professional forms of leadership.
5. They didn't have seeker-sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, or commentaries.
6. They made it hard to join the church.
One commentator has said that in this book Alan has challenged our thinking, our vocabulary, and `hopefully our way of doing church in this century' - particularly with the `Jesus yes, Church no' generations. Thus we have the phenomenon again where more people are coming to faith in small informal groups but don't want the organized part of the religion to be part of the deal.
Alan has several things going for him. He's read and digested the thinking of great missiologists like David Bosch. He was a missionary pastor - of an `alternative' church: the `South Melbourne Resoration Community'. I've spoken at this church (`church?'), and spent a weekend away with them. It was truly one of the rare communities of faith and hope which I could recommend to those on the `margins'.
He was also, later, a `denominational officer' who tried to plant these ideas into the thinking and praxis of established churches, with, he says, mixed success. And he is now the founding director of the Forge Mission Training Network.
How do we discover our missional DNA (mDNA)? What caused the early churches to grow from 25,000 to 20 million in 200 years? How did the Chinese underground church grow from 2 million to over 100 million in sixty years despite considerable opposition, and without professional leaders, training facilities, or buildings?
Hirsch identifies six elements of Missional DNA:
· Jesus is Lord
· Disciple Making
· Missional-Incarnational Impulse
· Apostolic Environment
· Organic Systems
. Communitas
Wonderful principles, which are very hard to apply in practice. Why? My contention would be that the radicalization of family-units which imbibe a Western consumer culture with their muesli every day is a very challenging and difficult task. Parents want a `safe place' for their children - in `church', as everywhere else. They want peer-reinforcement of Christian faith and values for their teenagers. They look to the weekly gatherings of the Christian community to provide spiritual food for the journey, which in terms of work-stress or family-stresses may be a real battle. So they bring expectations `to church' as they do to every other facet of their privileged lives.
Christian communities come in four varieties (as do commercial retail enterprises) - megachurches (= shopping malls), boutiques, franchises, and `parish churches' (= corner stores). Many `emerging church' folks I meet despise the megachurch model, but they shop at supermarkets, for convenience and to save time. They're at home with technology - they have lots of powerpoint presentations, and audio-visual effects - but are (healthily) wary of multiplying committees and programs. Above all, they know that re-jigging the `ministry mix' won't bring life and health and peace to their community-of-faith. But on the other hand, they too can easily form `clubs-for-people-like-us' and forget their missional mandate.
Alan Hirsch writes: `We cannot consume our way to discipleship.'. (On this see also Ron Sider's `The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience' and Robert Webber `Ancient Future Evangelism'). The alternative? A covenantal approach to discipleship.
We have in Alan Hirsch an idealist, who is also a pragmatist. There are many diagrams, and excellent footnotes for further study.
Alan Hirsch is coauthor, with Michael Frost, of The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st-Century Church. Another good read.
Rowland Croucher
Starts out full of promise; ends up as same old stuff.......2007-04-10
Hirsch's book starts out like he is going to rattle some cages but then, he leaves the New Testament and degenerates into sociological bafflegab. He is neither a dilligent exegete nor a careful historian. Save your money. This book will be added to the scrapheap of failed theories. Better to buy a book that tells how to do it the Jesus way.
Amazon.com
The Condition of Postmodernity is David Harvey's seminal history of our most equivocal of eras. What does postmodernism mean? Where did it come from? Harvey, a professor of geography and a key mover behind extending the scope and influence of the discipline of geography itself, does a thorough job here delineating the passage through to postmodernity and the economic, social, and political changes that underscored and accompanied it. As he clearly states, the rise in postmodernist cultural forms is related to a new intensity in what Harvey terms "time-space compression," but this new intensity is a qualitative rather than quantitative change in social organization, and it does not point to an era beyond capitalism as "the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation" remain unchanged. Unlike Fredric Jameson (whose equally rewarding Postmodernism stands as the twin pillar to Harvey's critique), who explicitly relies on Ernest Mandel's periodization of late capitalism, Harvey eschews a narrowly economic focus, the limits and contradictions of production that have led to the rise in the service sector, and takes a more multidisciplinary approach to his history. As comfortable discussing Manet as he is labor markets, Harvey is an excellent writer, and The Condition of Postmodernity is an exceptionally informative and enjoyable read. --Mark Thwaite, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
A great deal has been written on what has variously been described as the post-modern condition and on post-modern culture, architecture, art and society. In this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience. But the book is much more than this: in the course of his investigation the author provides a social and semantic history - from the Enlightenment to the present - of modernism and its expression in political and social ideas and movements, as well as in art, literature and architecture. He considers in particular how the meaning and perception of time and space themselves vary over time and space, and shows that this variance affects individual values and social processes of the most fundamental kind. This book will be widely welcomed, not only for its clear and critical account of the arguments surrounding the propositions of modernity and post-modernity, but as an incisive contribution to the history of ideas and their relation to social and political change.
Customer Reviews:
Good lord.......2005-09-16
Wow, this book is about as dense as the crust of the earth. It takes at least a few reads over to understand what the arguments are. While the arguments in this book are very well articulated, I found myself wanting to shoot myself in the face sometimes while reading this book. It can be really boring, but brings up some very interesting ideas of 80's culture and society.
Po-Mo Schmomo?.......2003-03-04
Ask ten academics about what to call our present fin-de-siecle epoch and you'll get ten different labels, but "postmodernism" seems always the default term. Although it's twelve years old, Harvey's book is the best I've read about the pluralistic fabric we daily inhabit. It's edifyingly reader-friendly (especially compared to some of the Franco-drunk rhetoricians out there trying to get a handle on our current world). In precise prose Harvey outlines the shift to our information-as-capital paradigm since the mid-sixties, and the causes of the growth of the temp sector and "just-in-time" production capabilities. Harvey traces the arrival of "flexible accumulation" to the collapse of Fordist production practices in the 1966-73 waves of recession, but covers far more than just economic factors--architecture, art, literature, cinema--without any self-conscious Neo-Marxist whistling-in-the-dark. In his project to articulate a new (meta?)narrative, Harvey's book will probably give post-structuralists a new constellation of ideas to obfuscate with hip terminology and dense prose...
Manuel Castell's "The Rise of the Network Society" is another good book along these lines.
Best overview of modern/postmodern condition I have found.......2002-08-22
This is a great overview of concepts that are, by definition, very fractured. Harvey clarifies and pulls together a number of seemingly disparate elements in a masterful manner. Though this book could work as a good introduction to these concepts, I think readers with some background in the major writers of modernism and postmodernism will get more out of it. Dogmatic postmodernists may be put off that Harvey has the "temerity" to suggest that postmodernism might be an extension of modernism or that he finds some good in modernism and some excesses in postmodern approaches but, they should get over themselves and realize that their insistence that "all meta-narratives are bad" is their own meta-narrative. Overall, Harvey manages to convincingly express his ideas while maintaining a remarkably evenhanded approach. I especially enjoy the fact that he avoids the postmodernist tendency to ignore the complexities of modernism and, thus create a postmodern meta-narrative about the modernist project.
Excellent overview of modernity and post-modernity.......2001-11-27
David Harvey's "Condition of Post-Modernity" provides excellent representational cases to show the differences between modernity and post-modernity. Although sometimes difficult to follow (I had problems with the chapter pertaining to architecture), Harvey uses enough examples (i.e., economics, art, cinema, etc.) to make sure one understands the differences between post-modernism and modernism. The economic chapter, "Fordism and Flexible Accumulation" is particulary good and shows the gradual transformation from a modernist to a post-modernist economy and society. I was disappointed, however, that Harvey didn't have a complete section focused towards the differences between modernist and post-modernist lit.
Excellent overview of modernity and post-modernity.......2001-11-27
David Harvey's "Condition of Post-Modernity" provides excellent representational cases to show the differences between modernity and post-modernity. Although sometimes difficult to follow (I had problems with the chapter pertaining to architecture), Harvey uses enough examples (i.e., economics, art, cinema, etc.) to make sure one understands the differences between post-modernism and modernism. The economic chapter, "Fordism and Flexible Accumulation" is particulary good and shows the gradual transformation from a moderninst to a post-modernist economy and society. I was disappointed, however, that Harvey didn't have a complete section focused towards the differences between modernist and post-modernist lit.
Customer Reviews:
more art than philosophy.......2007-08-19
however, is philosophy not an art? perhaps this question is the most illuminating one with regard to this book. I described it to a friend as "shamanism meets psychoanalysis in a 19th century drawing room." Of course this description is inadequate but it made me laugh. The "rigor" of this book takes place in a different form, in a different plane, from analytic thought. Where one might oversimplify analytic philosophy and call it linear with its pretensions of precision; this sort of philosophy has depth and shading, it has contours; it seems as though the mind of God has gone fractal in this book. Of course it is not perfect, but all philosophy necessarily must fall short of the mark if we are so ambitious as to set the "mark" as "truth." Deleuze and Guattari understand the shortcomings of language as a conveyance of truth, of its inherent incomprehensibility; in reaction to this insight they have decided to have fun, to play within the field of reference and see what comes out. One of the more interesting treatises you will ever read, even if you don't finish. I suppose you could say it is the lunar to the solar pretensions of reason and logic.
Abstractionist Exploitation.......2005-09-28
For all its cleverness, the kind of dodgy, edgy, self-important prose that lures wannabe philosophers into its trap, this book is one incorrect premise after another, one humanocentric argument posing as "ecological" thought on top of another.
Deleuze and Guattari refer to "wolves" that are not wolves, "rhizomes" that have nothing to do with rhizomes. They favor the symbolic half of a metaphor over its physically realizable counterpart to the point at which a rhizome could be anything vaguely multiplicitous and knotty and branchy--at which point it ceases to be a rhizome and becomes what the quasi-philosopher loves: a product to be sold.
Ecology is a science, and not as soft a science as its made out to be by those who haven't lately picked up an ecology textbook or read the history of its development. There's far more fashion to "science studies" than rigor, and D & G fall right into the mode of conflating ecology with other disciplines and methods. Interdisciplinary is fine; undisiciplined isn't. Like Andrew Ross, D & G are dilettanti. They dabble and play and get clever and, in this case, use fundamental natural facts as exploitively as any lab tester, hunter, or junk scientist that science studies likes to indict.
In the chapter on Freud's Wolf-Man, D & G save us from one projected and hyperbolic interpretation of a dream to their own worse one. In correcting Freud for his misuse of both dreams and wolves, they essentialize the species, make assumptions about wolf behavior, and provide a vague replacement for Freud's symbolism of lesser value. Lesser because they fail both to recognize the fairy tale images behind Freud's analysis (the goat/wolf conflation, the tree symbol) and to cite source work backing their declarations about wolves, the real animals they invoke several times in the chapter. This is an abstraction of convenience, and while dabblers in environmentalism from the sidewalk-bound perspective of Theory and Cultural Studies might find it enticing, they should also find it about as corroborated as a high school research paper with a bibliography gleaned from a couple of hours on the internet.
Likewise the "rhizome" chapter, foundational to the book. D & G make ridiculous statements about rivers being "without beginning or ending" about the rhizome being "always intermezzo," and other hyperbolic claims that serve their purpose of using the nonhuman world to fulfill entirely humanocentric claims and spins. A river has a source and a mouth, and the concept of interconnectedness so cherished by those who would use ecology to justify any cobbled amalgam of thoughts they have can, as it does here a thousand times, turn to mere rationalization and exploitation.
An analytical philosopher would indeed find this book to be nonsense, but not because Deleuze and Guattari are pressing the philosophical envelope with new ideas. They cite themselves (!) several times--and not just in references to prior pages that follow a thread of the text. They employ transparently circular logic, arguments spun off of premises that are only premises because D & G repeat them. Fundamental logic and argumentation work--not because they're patriarchally dominating forms of rhetoric that keep us from seeing the world as it is, but because they come from the world as it is. The very structure of argumentation demands corroboration ultimately from the basic laws of nature.
My one star rating of this act of charlatanism isn't because the book is poorly written. It's because the book gives us all the tools we need for an irresponsible, rationalized, finally damaging environmental thought--one posing as some new map of the world, some new ecology. There is no new ecology. There is only the gathering, the accrual of fact, that ensues from our increased understanding of the raw material out of which we hammer our civilizations.
Deleuze and Guattari only know our civilizations, and those not as well as their tremendous egos would assert. They paint nature in their own image, start the cult of Deleuzians, and profer a tempting "philosophy" that ends in the bait and switch typical of current cultural studies. In the end, what has any wolf, any rhizome, any river, gotten out of the grand Deleuzians?
The only reason to read this book is to find out what's happened to the brains of an unfortunately sizeable number of academics. It saddens me to know where the interdisciplinary work of philosophy and ecology could go if it weren't dragging around this dead weight.
The Crowning Achievement Of (Post)Modern French Philosophy.......2005-05-20
That this book is receiving one star, given the title of my review, should surprise no one.
Look, say what you will; I am a classically trained, analytic, Anglophone philosopher with a penchant for clarity and rigor. That is where I stand. If you are looking for a text which purports to be theoretical, and yet is obviously densely literary and aphoristic, perhaps I don't understand what you're on about, and perhaps you don't either.
This book is neither clear nor rigorous. Where it doesn't mutate truly elementary understandings of science (not to say that either Deleuze understands what the difference between science and pseudoscience is), psychology, and economics to suit its incoherent purposes, it avoids any understanding whatsoever.
The philosophical work contained herein is non-starting. That is, it is not philosophy, as it is neither argumentative, interpretive, nor logical. There are no discernible conclusions (which is not to say that there are none in this pig latin dog's dinner, but they probably aren't deduced from premisses ) where there is anything like 'argument' at all.
To say that I'm missing the point, you'd first have to show that such work can have a point. That it violates hard-won conventions of philosophical discourse, which are taken as primitive (I can't tell you how many times the Law of Excluded Middle was violated), is not a victory for this work. It is a setback. That it has not been translated into English, but rather some retarded cousin of English, is perhaps partly to blame for my lack of understanding. I tend only to be able to read natural languages.
But then, again, perhaps my rhizomatic foreshortening (to wit: to SHORTEN is also to LENGTHEN) is in part quasiculpable (that is, retrodogmatically) as a blamematic(viz. contraposto) which tends inter alia to produce (and re-produce, as Malreaux reads Sartre in referential milieus of Darwinian technologies of traffic control) my congnitive disfunctionabilities.
I recommend the work of W.V.O. Quine if you're looking for a 'philosophy of our time,' as one reviewer suggested we must.
Works Well with Techno Music.......2005-01-03
This is a fascinating work whose multidisciplinarity and complexity challenge any library taxonomy: once I saw it filed under psychiatry. All the same, classical analytical thinkers fail to understand "A Thousands Plateaus" in its own terms, irritating conventionally trained intellectuals (and those who vote this review "unhelpful").
In addition to criticizing master narratives (psychoanalysis, Marxism and structuralism), "A Thousand Plateaus" provides a radically different mindframe for conceptualizing the emerging realities of globalization and subjectivity formation. Nomadology and schizoanalysis are new styles for accessing and assessing mobile and metamorphic identities in an age of digital capital and semiotic flows. To wit, Foucault declared that this century is Deleuzian.
Certainly, it is much easier to read commentators. Yet, my favorite way to get into this book is by plugging loud techno trance music on my headphones, reading it as pure Power Poetry, "harnessing its forces" as Deleuze puts it: a war-machine that undermines monolithic thought, opening up multiple possibilities for the renewed experiencing of the self and reality. (Deleuze and Guattari claimed to have had hallucinations while writing the book).
Book translator Brian Massumi suggests that "A Thousand Plateaus" may be better handled like a music album, freely and pragmatically. Deleuze himself continously entices us to create affect, and employ philosophy; not as the cultivation of dead closed concepts, but to foster multiple thinking...
Long live the barbarian nomads of reason!
October 17 2004 - a review.......2004-10-17
I don't normally bother reviewing books. However I had to respond to something another reviewer said:
"you can't read this while listening to music, trust me"
Actually you can but I recommend the music of anti-essentialists, Phoenicia's "Brownout" is an excellent soundtrack to the plateau on the refrain. The text of the book is the opsign of time-images, music, or, rather, sound, of deterritorialisation is the sonsign. Fittingly, the releases from Germany's Mille Plateaux label are really good for reading these works.
I can't recommend this book enough but I will give some advice in your approach:
1. Even though this might seem the most intimidating entry to D&G's thought I suggest it anyway. Compared to "Difference and Repetition" or "The Logic of Sense" this is a walk in the park when it comes to penetrating the prose.
2. Don't expect a book of philosophy where an argument is clearly defined and developed. This is nothing like that. It's a work of "nomad thought", just try and follow what's happening *before* you judge it.
3. Come back to it. Regularly. Your appreciation and engagement will deepen as your knowledge of Deleuze's oeuvre deepens. You won't 'get it' at first but you have to enter his work somewhere. Eventually you'll realise this is a challenge to develop new ontologies, you were never meant to get it. You were and are meant to think it in new directions. After all, that's the basic lesson of the return.
4. Read widely. I really recommend Rodowick's 1997 book "Gilles Deleuze's Time Machine". On the surface Rodowick is working with the cinema books but the cinema books themselves are philosophical works developing Bergson. If you grasp Rodowick's less dense (though just as challenging) argument for deterritorialised thought you'll be on your way. Another area: Nietzsche's concepts of return, the will to power and active/reactive force is crucial. Read Deleuze's Nietzsche book.
5. The geology stuff isn't a metaphor, it's an isomorphism. If nothing else read DeLanda's "Immanence and Transcendence in the Genesis of Forms" in the 1999 book "A Deleuzian Century" (edited by Ian Buchanon).
And last but certainly not least, Deleuze & Guattari's work is playful, enjoy the challenges they set you. You'll never see the world the same way again.
Book Description
Many have heard of the emerging church, but few people feel like they have a handle on what the emerging church believes and represents. Is it a passing fad led by disenfranchised neo-evangelicals? Or is it the future of the church at large? An Emergent Manifesto of Hope represents a coming together of divergent voices into a conversation that pastors, students, and thoughtful Christians can now learn from and engage. This unprecedented collection of writings includes articles by some of the most important voices in the emergent conversation, including Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, and Joe Myers. It also introduces some lesser known but integral players representing ''who's next'' within the emerging church. The articles cover a broad range of topics, such as spirituality, theology, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, sex, evangelism, and many others. Anyone who wants to know what the emerging church is all about needs to start here.
Book Description
Since its original publication in 1987, Channels of Discourse has provided the most comprehensive consideration of commercial television, drawing on insights provided by the major strands of contemporary criticism: semiotics, narrative theory, reception theory, genre theory, ideological analysis, psychoanalysis, feminist criticism, and British cultural studies.
The second edition features a new introduction by Robert Allen that includes a discussion of the political economy of commercial television. Two new essays have been added—one an assessment of postmodernism and television, the other an analysis of convergence and divergence among the essays—and the original essays have been substantially revised and updated with an international audience in mind. Sixty-one new television stills illustrate the text.
Each essay lays out the general tenets of its particular approach, discusses television as an object of analysis within that critical framework, and provides extended examples of the types of analysis produced by that critical approach. Case studies range from Rescue 911 and Twin Peaks to soap operas, music videos, game shows, talk shows, and commericals.
Channels of Discourse, Reassembled suggests new ways of understanding relationships among television programs, between viewing pleasure and narrative structure, and between the world in front of the television set and that represented on the screen. The collection also addresses the qualities of popular television that traditional aesthetics and quantitative media research have failed to treat satisfactorily, including its seriality, mass production, and extraordinary popularity.
The contributors are Robert C. Allen, Jim Collins, Jane Feuer, John Fiske, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, James Hay, E. Ann Kaplan, Sarah Kozloff, Ellen Seiter, and Mimi White.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Overview of Media Studies Methodologies.......2002-07-04
In a critical writing course I taught in Spring 2002, I used Channels of Discourse, Reassembled as the core text for the course readings. The many chapters within are written by the best of the best in the fields of media studies and cultural studies, and the methodologies are presented in an easy-to-read manner which is informative and full of examples and case studies. This is an excellent book for media studies students, as its chapters lay out the basic information they should know about many of the methodologies often used in media criticism.
Customer Reviews:
a conversation between four persons with an interlocutor .......2007-06-19
This book is simply not a conversation (at least not for one of the participants). Further, Mark Driscoll doesn't seem to be listening to any of the other people who contribute to this book.
Driscoll's chapter seems to be a recycled piece of propaganda. His positions are "backed" by scripture references over 200 for his 15 pages. He advocates a "Biblicist" tradition that reads as a very reformed position (with the possible exception of a modified Arminianism or Wesleyanism). Driscoll's responses to the other person's chapters are especially revealing as he labels the other person's positions and then rejects them. For example he dismisses Karen Ward as the pastor of an "average" church and then even questions here leadership because of her gender. He mentions Dan Kimball's cool hair. I found Driscoll's "contribution" to the book to be of very little value. Further, he doesn't seem to be engaged in the emergent conversation unless you count the fact that he recommends Leslie Newbigin and Gruder's books on his website.
John Burke's chapter speaks of the messiness of ministry. He advocates a place where people are accepted and engaged by persons who attempt to incarnate Jesus.
Dan Kimball moves to explain how he moved from being Dispensationalist position to a missional theology. This missional theology is much more mysterious and adventurous than a mathematical puzzle.
Doug Pagitt seeks a theology which is embodied. This theology must be contextual and he argues for thinking in relational terms. I suppose that this chapter aligns most closely with what I think of when it comes to the emergent church.
Karen Ward takes the local theology of the "apostles" of the "Church of the Apostles" located in Seattle. She advocates a communal listening to the Scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary. Her chapter is an ad hoc correlation of comments from the theological soup of her congregation.
The Theologianhood Of The Believer..........2007-05-03
...is what emerging churches are about, at least according to this book (with the exception of Mark Driscoll's contributions). I say "contributions" because each of the five contributors not only writes a chapter of his/her own, but responds to each of the chapters by the other contributors. So by the time you've finished the parts written by the contributors, you have a pretty good idea of what the contributors are thinking about things.
In addition, this book contains some context for the conversations of the contributors, provided at the beginning and end by evangelical theologian Robert Webber. He contends American evangelical Christianity is at the beginning of the fourth of four roughly twenty-year cycles, seeking how to interact with a post-Christian, neo-pagan culture, finding that the questions to which they have answers aren't being asked anymore.
The placement of the names on the cover is a pretty accurate reflection of where the contributors are theologically. The only change I would make is swapping Karen Ward and Doug Pagitt.
Each of the five contributors have different diagnoses of the problems with American evangelical Christianity in the early 21st century:
Mark Driscoll says the problem is watering down the truth of Scripture, giving Jesus a makeover to make him more attractive to our culture. His prescription is to unapologetically present the message of Jesus as told by an authoritative Scripture. As I read his words, I remembered Bible teacher J. Vernon McGee saying "The chief sin of the church is ignorance of the word of God."
John Burke says the problem is that American Christians are both hypocritical, unchanged in their character and behavior, and judgemental, believing they have a monopoly on truth. His prescription is to invite people to come as they are, recognizing it might take a while for changes in people to take place.
Dan Kimball says the problem is that we're still stuck with those dispensational end-time charts, and scared that someone is going to ask a question to which we don't know the answer. His prescription is to create a worshipping community of missional theologians, people who are well-versed in the study of the nature of God, and inquiring into religious questions.
Doug Pagitt says the problem is any number of assumptions about the way we do theology, an unwillingness to address new questions raised by scientific advances, and an unwillingness to think about the increasing rate of cultural change. His prescription is to challenge these assumptions and address new cultural realities.
Karen Ward says the problem is the modern pastor-as-CEO model. Her prescription is an apprentice model of discipleship, distributing as much of the mentoring as possible. Her prescription also involves a metaphor of theology as the cooking of tasty, nutritious food, as opposed to the metaphor of theology as architecture.
Robert Webber provides a helpful summary of the contributions in his conclusion section. In my opinion, Webber's Appendix 2, "What is the Ancient-Future Vision?" and Appendix 3, "A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future" should have been placed immediately after the conclusion section, because Webber just wasn't finished commenting. It is unfortunate that some readers of this book won't read these parts because of where they are placed.
I considered my complaints about the placement of names on the cover, and the placements of the appendices to be insufficient to take the fifth star away from a revealing book about American evangelical Christians in the early 21st century.
Full Disclosure: I attend Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Doug Pagitt, one of the contributors, is my pastor.
A great look at the diversity of the Emerging Churches.......2007-04-20
After a while, studying the Emerging Church leaves you wondering if any of the major figureheads of the movement really agree on anything. Robert Webber has created a "boy band" (with one girl) of the Emerging Church with this book - putting together the right blend of different leaders from the movement to show five representative streams and make it an entertaining read all at the same time.
Although the idea may have originated to show the commonality between Emerging leaders, what is better highlighted is the diversity of belief between these folks. Through reading this book you learn what makes a Dan Kimball who he is and how that is different from the approach that a Karen Ward will take.
The book shows the commonalities found in the Emerging Church in a more inductive way. The Emerging Church's focus on those who do not know the faith yet is very apparent, and the missional philosophy of church is a major factor. Additionally, a general feeling that the things that these pastors were taught in seminaries didn't give them all that they needed. Dan Kimball who went to a Baptist seminary goes on and on about the Nicene Creed which was probably not taught all that much. Karen Ward, educated in the ELCA (she actually grew up as an LCMS Lutheran) expresses a dissatisfaction with how she was taught theology as a "big theology" instead of a more localized effort. Lastly, an overwhelming warm fuzzy feeling prevades the book. I don't think this is a mistake, these Emerging Church leaders don't see each other as enemies even when they disagree which says things both good and bad about the movement.
This book is also a rare look into what many theologians want to know about the Emerging Church, the specific theological beliefs of the Emerging Church. However, rather than finding specific theological beliefs, what the reader finds is theological beliefs from all sorts of different Christian traditions (liberal protestant, post-evangelical emergent, Calvinistic conservative, etc) tied together by a sense of urgency and purpose.
There are specific ideas about favorite theological "picking points" in the book. Scripture's role, the Trinity, and substitutionary atonement are all addressed. It would be remiss, however, for someone to claim that this book clears up how the Emerging Church sees these issues as a whole. It appears that the Emerging Church has beliefs, but they are far from homogenized as of yet.
Instead, what the reader finds is a clearer understanding of how they might fit into what this "Emerging Church" looks like. Five of the Emerging Church's most popular pastors seek to show not only the unity that they feel in being "emerging" but in the diversity that they express through their different takes on things from Baptism to ideas about physics.
It's a good read and I would recommend it to anyone who is far enough along in their research to know at least a few of the names in the book. If you don't know who Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, and Doug Pagitt are - you should spend a little more time getting to know the movement before you read this book.
Driscoll gets both stars...the others: Zero.......2007-03-29
I was pretty apprehensive about reading this book. I really didn't know what to expect and didn't know really what the approach was going to be with this book. To be honest, the only reason that I picked up the book is because I went to the Resurgence Conference and Mark Driscoll was one of the contributors. I am glad I didn't "judge" Driscoll for being a part of this book before I read this, because I thought he was distancing himself from the people that contributed to this book. After reading, let's just say that Driscoll is definitely NOT a part of what is commonly known as the Emergent church and he is really a lot different than those a part of the wider used term, "emerging church."
The only thing that I got from this book, besides Driscoll admonishing the other contributors (Burke, Kimball, Pagitt, Ward), is to make sure that our theology is put into practice. I can say that it did make me think from that perspective. Outside of that, this book was very shallow and far from, and I mean FAR FROM, biblical ecclesiology. Mark Driscoll had to continually "exhort sound doctrine" to these other "pastors" and return them to the Scriptures. Driscoll was the only pastor that truly held to Sola Scriptura, while the others look more to our culture and those around them to form their ecclesiology, orthopraxy, and most dangerous: orthodoxy.
The two "pastors" that people need to really be warned of is Doug Pagitt and Karen Ward. They are far from Christendom (which they would admit and happily accept) and should not be given an ear to listen to. Burke and Kimball were on the edge but still held to the complete authority of Scripture, although I would definitely not adhere to a lot of the ways that they practice their theology and more specifically, their ecclesiology.
Again, Driscoll was the lone bright spot and because of the far reaching post-modern ideas of the other contributors, Driscoll sounded like John MacArthur more than an emerging pastor. Througout the discussion, just when you thought Driscoll was getting "soft" he "brought it" again.
As far as the frame of the book, it is set up to give each "pastor" a chapter with the other four being able to respond to that pasor's contribution. The original intent was for each author to show their thoughts on the Trinity, the atonement and Scripture. I found only Driscoll's chapter to be the only one who "followed the rules." But, what else should we expect from these emerging leaders? The sad thing is that since the authors were so shallow, Driscoll was forced to defend basic orthodoxy and wasn't able to give a great in depth study or defense of the above said topics.
If you would like to read about these different views on the emerging church, I guess it is okay to read, but it is just so messed up as far as their thinking on how church should be run that it is hard for me to recommend. I am glad I read it so that I could see that Driscoll is NOT Emergent in any way. He is far from Pagitt and McLaren and should be seen as the lone bright spot out of these that contributed to the book.
Please be discerning if you pick this book up and like a Berean, test all teachings to Scripture.
Disturbing modern trends........2007-03-21
This is a study that should be read. I find the evolving of Evangelicalism most troubling. Mark Driscoll is one of the founders of the emerging church. He too is now troubled by where this movement is headed. I figured the church had seen the worst with the "seeker-sensitive" movement, but this is one step further to the left. I realize in this post-christian era we should expect anything, but this movement is becoming most unbelievable! Truly these are the "last days" that Christ warned us about.
Average customer rating:
- Well-written but disturbing
- It's true, they are.
- What a pleasant surprise!!
- Can you say . . . "evangelism"?!?
- Better than I expected
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More Ready Than You Realize
Brian D. McLaren
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Evangelism
| Christianity
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
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A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN
ASIN: 0310239648 |
Book Description
A book on evangelizing postmoderns by an experienced pastor-writer who is successfully involved in it.
Customer Reviews:
Well-written but disturbing.......2007-02-21
This is an engaging and readable book. The author is a former college English professor, and his sophistication is evident. He knows how to write and how to structure a book in a subtle, intelligent way.
While I give this book an "A" for style, I must give it a "C" for content. Why? Simply because it reinvents evangelism in a way that is often unfaithful to the New Testament. What do I mean by that?
1. There is no sense of urgency in this book. Evangelism here is a leisurely, almost desultory process. There seems to be no danger of anyone dying in their sins (cf. John 8:24; Mark 1:15).
2. There is, in fact, little or no mention of sin, judgment, or the need for forgiveness (cf. Acts 10:42-43). Evangelism is "influencing all of one's friends toward better living, through good deeds and good conversations" (page 15). McLaren portrays Christianity, in my view, as an improved form of Epicureanism--the art of living well.
3. There is a tendency to reinvent Christianity by making it more tolerant, more pluralistic, more in tune with humanistic secular values. There is no sense of the exclusiveness Jesus himself claimed (cf. John 14:6; Matthew 7:13-14). There is no call to holy living, only a vaguely defined "new way of living" that tiptoes around issues like homosexuality (pages 29-30).
4. There is evidence of a curious self-loathing. McLaren is ashamed of much of what passes for Christianity and Christian evangelism. "I think a lot of us would become a lot better Christians if we spent less time at church" (page 89). He characterizes traditional evangelism as "sales pitch," "conceptual conquest," warfare, argument, threat, and ultimatum. But the apostle Paul was not ashamed to reason and persuade with passion (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:10-11; Acts 17:17; Romans 1:16), nor did he hesitate to use military metaphors to describe his ministry (Ephesians 6:10-20).
5. There is no cross in this ministry (cf. Matthew 10:38-39; 16:24). It is feel-good religion and "have it your way" disciple-making. Evangelism is a "relational dance," "a spiritual friendship," a friendly conversation. Paul, on the other hand, talks of "insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities" (2 Corinthians 12:10). Evangelism without sacrifice has little to do with the teaching of Jesus.
While this book is winsome, it is equally worrisome. In an effort to be "postmodern," it deconstructs evangelism and reconstructs it in its own vaguely self-indulgent image. As McLaren writes, "if we see evangelism as relational dance. . .I believe we will find our whole understanding of what it means to be a Christian will begin to change" (page 160). God help us. That is precisely the danger I see in this book.
It's true, they are........2007-01-09
This book was one of my assignments for a seminary class and it was fantastic. McLaren does an excellent job of conveying how to enter someone's journey and walk alongside of them. I actually used this model and joined a non-Christian's journey. The Lord really used it and he has dropped the "non" from Christian.
What a pleasant surprise!!.......2006-11-07
To be perfectly honest, I was prepared to hate McLaren's book. I think that I'm about as modern as a person can be, so much of the postmodern conversation irritates me. In the past, I have written and spoken about my thesis that it is impossible to be both postmodern and a Christ-follower. Given that context, I expected that McLaren would just irk me throughout the book.
Instead, I thought that his approach to evangelism was engaging, winsome, and compelling. Somehow, it just felt more "right" than much evangelism that I've either experienced or heard about. McLaren just seemed to be more authentic, real, natural, and relational and less hokey, contrived, scripted, sterile, and academic than the approaches with which I am most familiar. I found his story of Alice to be utterly fascinating.
Given all of that surprised enthusiasm for his approach, I see the primary disconnect as the reality that it depends on the initiative of a curious, postmodern seeker. Without Alice initiating all of their contact, I don't know what McLaren would suggest. Does he just get lucky that people are so excited to learn more about his understanding of the faithful Christian life? I loved his answers to her questions, and I loved watching her progress through her new understanding of faith. But what about the individual who doesn't ask questions? Are they to be simply ignored or left alone?
With that caveat aside, I expect that I'll probably reread this book. This is some new territory for me, but it just resonated with how I've been processing some things lately. Maybe I've got a hint of postmodern thought in me after all!!!
Can you say . . . "evangelism"?!?.......2006-08-12
Can you say, "evangelism"?!? Brian McLaren can! And we better develop that ability ourselves. How do you take somebody who has all sorts of opinions about what Christianity is -- and doesn't want much of anything to do with it, thank you very much -- and encourage that person to explore their deepest questions, guiding and nurturing and trusting that God is doing something here, slowly helping this person to become receptive to a message they might never have heard because of all the baggage that they bring with them to the conversation?
McLaren offers a helpful little book that tells the story, mainly through lots of email conversations, of nurturing one young woman into a transformative faith experience. It's a little synecdoche about doing evangelism in the postmodern world.
Better than I expected.......2006-05-13
I've read three books on evangelism this week - two that promote a formulaic hit and run method, and this book.
I expected to not like McLaren's book but I did. I'd categorize it as a "must read."
I was a little nervous when I reached the question "Why did Jesus have to die?" But seeing the question in context relieved any concerns. McLaren handled this question well ans, in context, it was a perfectly orthodox question - and answer.
Giving it five stars does not mean I agree with everything included in th book. It does reflect the level of recommendation.
Customer Reviews:
Post-Nuclear Philosophical Fallout.......2007-05-08
If, as William Barrett once remarked, existentialism is "philosophy for the atomic age," then the atomic age's look into the future - by way of Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition - is nothing short of a nightmarish vision of what post-nuclear philosophy would be like. If the Cold War was ultimately the product of two totalizing visions - the two remaining totalizing visions of the modern age, namely liberal democracy and socialism - locked into prolonged, agonizing conflict behind facades such as international diplomacy, then the postmodern condition is the worldview of a world brought back from the brink of total annihilation. Postmodernism, claims Lyotard at the beginning of his book, is "incredulity towards metanarratives" (xxiv). Rather than seeking a new way of understanding the world en toto - a new totalizing vision/metanarrative - the postmodern condition backs away from the philosophical One and seeks what it seeks - itself or, rather, the disparate fragments that indicate the existence of itself - among the philosophical Many. As Lyotard also writes, postmodernism "refines our sensitivity to differences" - the exact opposite of the totalitarian visions that caused so much death in the 20th century.
The Postmodern Condition is a work that is as fascinating as it is complicated. Lyotard is heavily interested in the question of legitimation - specifically, how knowledge is made and validated. What defines knowledge? One could, in many ways, see this work as fundamentally epistemological, for he spends a considerable amount of time in this work focusing on how it is that the university system, in particular, can survive if knowledge is both under the sway of the forces of capital and no longer considered emancipatory. I am not entirely sure if Lyotard wants a return to a pre-postmodern world; the book is written in such a straight, matter-of-fact style that it is hard to tell whether or not he is for or against that which he writes of. Perhaps there is some irony in the fact that he appears so disinterested in describing a worldview - or, perhaps better, an anti-worldview - in which the notion of disinterested knowledge or unbiased reporting is conceived as being nothing more than a fiction. If there is any irony here, it is of the driest sort.
There is a certain Marxist hue, however, to many of the analyses contained in these pages. The ability of economic interests to determine the shape of research in a university with the subsequent result that some knowledge is found to sell and other kinds aren't - that which sells is therefore seen as more legitimate than that which doesn't - causes Lyotard considerable concern. Rather than philosophy or metaphysics being seen as capable of validating claims - truth, he notes, is no longer the main concern - science proves itself by way of its functionality. What it does and how that makes life on earth better becomes the sine qua non of our own material interests - and knowledge is therefore conceived as material, rather than ideal/metaphysical. There is no meta-language game that serves as the ground for other games: what matters is what you can *do* with a particular type of research, or a given object. Science is thus isolated from other fields, just as philosophy is. There is no longer a "queen of the sciences." Knowledge, in a holistic sense, is thus fragmented and all is placed under the final sway of capital - or, more specifically, market forces. Lyotard's analysis is nothing short of brilliant.
Included as an appendix to the present volume is one of Lyotard's most widely re-published essays: "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?" A short work - not quite 10 full pages in length - it is a perfect compliment to Lyotard's longer consideration of the matter. However, unlike the Report, the appendix deals little with the question of scientific knowledge, and much more with aesthetics. Whereas the Report is concerned with academia, the appendix turns towards popular culture, specifically fashion: "Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture" (76). Thus, the appendix can be scene as something like the popular counterpart to the more densely argued Report - popular in its focus, and in terms of the audience that it is geared to. Whether or not this means that postmodern philosophy is ultimately intended to leave the academy - the philosophical-institutional One - where knowledge cannot be validated and live, instead, among the philosophical-cultural Many remains a point of debate still today. Perhaps this is good reason for believing, then, that we do live in a postmodern age - and Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition remains as prescient (future anterior) for understanding that age as ever.
One of the must read works on postmodernism.......2007-01-02
This work, by Jean Francois Lyotard, is one of the signature works of postmodern theory. Say what you will of this perspective, this book is necessary reading in understanding the subject. This is not an easy work; however, those who persevere will be rewarded with interesting insights, whether or not one agree with postmodern thinking.
Lyotard defines Postmodern thought in contrast to modernism. Modernism, he claims, is ". . .any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse of this kind [i.e., philosophy] making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth." Postmodernism, in turn, is ". . .incredulity toward metanarratives."
Science and technology, especially information sciences based on computers, are increasingly an important commodity and the focus of worldwide competition. Knowledge and political power have become linked. Thus: ". . .[W]ho decides what knowledge is, and who knows what needs to be decided? In the computer age, the question of knowledge is now more than ever a question of government."
A central issue then becomes who has access to the information, since access will produce power. Lyotard sees it as inevitable that bureaucrats and technocrats will be the ones to master this basic resource of power, information. This will strengthen their hand in political circles. Research is expensive, and the pursuer of truth must purchase equipment to make the scientific process work. Thus, wealth begins to set the agenda for the scientist; scientists will go where the bucks are! The criterion for research becomes less the quest for truth and more "performativity," what is the immediate or intermediate payoff, performance value, of the scientific process and of technology. Power helps to shape what research gets funded.
Lyotard argues that the Postmodern moment should emphasize "paralogy," or dissensus. He argues: ". . .it is now dissension that must be emphasized. Consensus is a horizon that is never reached. Research that takes place under the aegis of a paradigm tends to stabilize; it is like the exploitation of a technology, economic, or artistic 'idea.'"
Postmodern science, in his view, encompasses: "The function of differential or imaginative or paralogical activity of the current pragmatics of science is to point out these. . .'presuppositions and to petition the players to accept different ones. The only legitimation that can make this kind of request admissible is that it will generate ideas, in other words, new statements." Thus, new statements, new presuppositions maintain science as an open system of discourse, characterized by paralogy (dissensus) as individuals strive to generate new knowledge, not imprisoned by existing consensus on what one should study and how one should study it.
This book is difficult reading, but to understand postmodernism, this is one of the works that demands that readers confront its arguments, whether in agreement or not.
Challenging and relevant.......2006-09-19
The basic analysis is correct. For some time the conditions of information-overload, de-legitimation of authoritative sources, lack of acceptibility of grand stories about reality or human history, has resulted in a condition of dislocation/disorientation, reaction, and disempowerment that is very confusing, and very bound up in abusive power structures, the confusions of language and over-loaded symbols and games of language, and struggle to communicate.
The text is very difficult to process, it is a translation from French, and his use of very large conglomerate terms makes it difficult to join together the meanings contained within some of his terms, reading it often is an experience of information overload built into his language.
The challenge he presents is relevant whatever one may think about 'postmodernISM' itself. There is great value in the descriptiveness of his explorations and speculations. He saw years ago how the coming information overload and delegitimation of authoritative sources was coming, and now in the internet age he is as relevant as ever, particularly with the challenge faced between the dis-communication between Islamic culture and the West.
I do not affirm or endorse 'postmodernISM' or the sort of radical relativism or extreme focus upon language games that are associated with postmodernISM -- I find these troubling. But I also find the conservative reactions to postmodernism to be extremely troubling. The condition of information overload, delegitimation of what was once considered authoritative information, the erosion of confidence in grand metanarratives of human nature or history, the symbolic overload resulting from contact between cultures and symbol systems, all of these conditions are very real, and the internet age has made the crisis more acute. There is no hiding from it, yet it is not pleasant to behold, to affirm it/endorse it as good, or to try to deny it as if one can return to some past simplicity, is equally problematic/impossible to maintain.
I think this work is very important to sorting out the problems of our times, albeit the answer is not clear, and reading Lyotard makes clarity seem yet more distant. Yet read Lyotard we must, if we wish to deal with these issues.
Provacative and significant work.......2005-10-18
I'm mostly taking it upon myself to write this review in response to much of the negative criticism it's been getting here. First, Lyotard's claim that metanarratives have been dismantled is an observation of the world he sees around him, NOT a political tactic that he's endorsing. The elements of specialization and performativity that function as tiny legitmating narratives are what have done this, and Lyotard feels that something should be done IN RESPONSE to it. In fact, what he says we should use as the major political touchstone in the somewhat fractured environment is in some sense a metanarrative: justice.
Second, it's simply disingenuos to say that the actions of science don't derive their legitimacy from the government or big business. Lyotard doesn't mean that empiricism as an epistemological framework comes from governmental authority, but scientists' opportunities to use it come from such authority. Evidence for this? The National Science Foundation, governmental grants to research universities--the evidence is all around us.
Finally, Lytoard doesn't exactly say all this is bad. There are negative consequences to it--dislocation due to specialization is one of the major ones--but he's not an ignorant man and isn't saying that we should destroy the methods of science or try to go back to the way things were in the sixteenth century.
And though there is some element of practical advice in this essay, it's not wise to come to it as if it were a manual for how to lead the revolution. That's not what it's intended to be; it was, after all, funded by the university system.
nice!.......2004-09-03
A fine book that espouses a Post-Modern philosophy, akin to Baudrillard, Derrida and others.
Most people who come to this book, so do because they would like to know what Post-Modernism is.
Well, a definition would require some sort of truth, some sort of objective character (rather than agreement between the speakers), and, well, according to Post-Modernism, there probably isn't any (so long as we have an understanding of time, and the translation of the perceptual into the conceptual, and how mistranslation is at any time possible, and without guarantee.) However, you can still get your own idea, your own truth, to use Nietzsche's expression, of what Post-Modernism is. That, I suppose, would be the main reason to read this book, rather than to appear chic and cultured, and to know about everything that is in vogue intellectually, which can motivate many people to read many a book.
"To be edified without ostentation."
Also recommended: Toilet: The Novel by Michael Szymczyk (A Tribute to the Literary Works of Franz Kafka)
Book Description
Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture presents a biblical, Christian worldview for the emergent church—people who are not at home in the traditional church or in the secular world. As exiles of both, they must create their own worldview that integrates their Christian beliefs with the contemporary world. Exiles seeks to integrate all aspects of life and decision-making and to develop the characteristics of a Christian life lived intentionally within emerging (postmodern) culture. It presents a plea for a dynamic, life-affirming, robust Christian faith that can be lived successfully in the post-Christian world of twenty-first century Western society. This book will present a Christian lifestyle that can be lived in non-religious categories and be attractive to not-yet Christians.
Such a worldview takes ecology and politics seriously. It offers a positive response to the workplace, the arts, feminism, mystery and worship. Exiles seeks to develop a framework that will allow Christians to live boldly and courageously in a world that no longer values the culture of the church, but does greatly value many of the things the Bible speaks positively about. This book suggests that there us more to being a Christian than meets the eye. It explores the secret, unseen nooks and crannies in the life of a Christian and suggests that faith is about more than church attendance and belief in God. Written in a conversational, easy-to-read style, Exiles is aimed at church leaders, pastors and laypersons and seeks to address complex issues in a simple manner. It includes helpful photographs and diagrams.
Customer Reviews:
you are not alone!.......2007-08-27
If you sometimes feel like the desire and passion to live like Jesus puts you in unusual places doing His work and you wonder if this is "authentic", this is the read for you. I do church every Sunday, but I do more church outside of church (hiking trails, gay bars and events and business networking events) and, not only am I not alone, I am in a group of exiles who worldwide are trying to follow what Jesus would be doing were He here. He is not here in the flesh and expects us to carry on. I am an exile and I felt encouraged and unified by reading this book.
Great ideals...but exiles hurt, too........2007-08-16
I read this book after being involved in an emerging church full of exiles. There's so much I recognise and agree with in this book, which I think accurately portrays the feelings, reasoning, and practical implications of those who are rejecting the current church.
My one criticism of this book is that it seemed to be so angry - not just passionate - and very hard-line. The arguments and experiences need to be heard, but you can't continue to build a church on your anger toward what you define yourself against. I think Mike's disdain for pastoral care of the hurting also assumes that exiles are happy to go from a painful, abusive church to throwing themselves into mission in a victorious, confident experiment, where my experience is that a lot of us want a rest and need to deal with our issues before we inflict our woundedness all over others. I'm not saying we should be the perfect, healed, whole Christian...I'm just aware of how bitter and angry an exile can become.
A rebirth of the Christian movement.......2007-07-26
I have been a Christian for over 50 years. But for many years I have felt like an outcast by the leadership of the Christian community. I got great comfort from reading this book and connecting with the fact that there are millions of people around the world who are returning to true message of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself was an "exile" and went to the masses with His message, instead of employing the "come to us" philosphy of the modern day church. Michael Frost does an outstanding job of telling you where the modern church is going wrong and helps you to find the pathway to the missional movement.
Imagination.......2007-07-11
This book has taken me close to a month to read. It's not that it's a difficult read or deep on theology. It was just a slow read for some reason. That was the only negative for me (that and a few pages Piper's hedonism). This is one of the best books on the church I have ever read. The middle part of the book (Dangerous Promises & Dangerous Criticisms) was by far worth the price of the book. For anyone thinking of gathering collectively as a community, this is a book that would be beyond helpful. And I think every pastor still in a "gathered/organized" church should read this before they attend another Sunday service. It's not heavy on theological talk but it's basically the theology of the church as exiles in a culture foreign to God's kingdom. I'll say this . . . it's the only thing that has gotten me inspired, imagining, and dreaming again about our future in gathering as a community.
typical Church bashing.......2007-05-24
In reading this book I found cheap ideas and cliche church bashing. If you liked A New Kind of Christian then you would like this. The only redeeming quality for me was that he tried to add leftist politics into the mix. Although I'm not leftwing politically, I do appreciate the attempt to bring some balance, even if it is to the opposite extreeme, somewhere in the middle is where we should be. But it does make for some good discussion. But I honestly felt like I wasted my money by buying this.
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