CIY Revisited: A Dialogue with Slim: Part 3
Slim’s Latest ResponseBen Lee’s Recent Post on Related Topics
I included Ben Lee’s post because, whether unknowingly or in the spirit of unabashed plagiarism, he’s engaging the same kinds of questions that Slim and I have been trying to answer in our exchange of posts.
Ben, if you’re reading, why not hook some brothers up with some links?
Anyway.? Slim’s post.? We’ve wandered away from the CIY conference proper to a larger discussion of youth culture and youth ministry, and I think we’re digging into some interesting things.? I’m glad we’re doing this exchange of posts, not least because I’m getting a better grip on the varieties of concerns that youth ministers are voicing.? For instance, because our youth group took its first CIY trip that I’ve been here for this year, I didn’t know that the teen week had just recently started calling for conference attendees to bring along their phones for text messages.? I’m also relieved to read that some youth ministers, Slim included, see that as a bad move.
I’m also relieved to see that Slim, and presumably other youth ministers, see the culture of perpetual rapid stimuli as marketed to rather than demanded by? teens.? Back at Milligan my views on the origins of cool bordered on the conspiratorial (reading this book
The biggest problem with Slim’s last post is that he gave me nothing with which to disagree, so I’ll have to come up with something else to say… ah, I know!
I actually became aware of Twitter’s various uses (as I noted in a comment on Slim’s blog, I didn’t know it was a company in its own right until I read it there) when my 58-year-old dad told me that he was using Twitter during Cubs games to simulate the bleacher-bum experience while listening to the Cubs on the radio.? He said there’s about the same mix of smart baseball analysis and mindless obscenity on the text feed as there would be in the stands.? It occurred to me then that, given an institution as serious as Cubs baseball, one could make something as strange as Twitter work for the way that we teach one another as Church.? In fact, although I wonder how handy Twitter would be in a standard Eucharist-centered Sunday service, I could certainly see its relevance for youth group meetings that strive for something more free-wheeling and interactive.? If a real live, people-in-the-flesh community chose to use Twitter as a teaching tool, some really cool things could happen.
So to take what Slim and I both have been saying in these posts in another direction, there’s no such thing as technology-in-itself.? The obsessive use of Facebook, which threatens to bring the hierarchical world of high school cliquedom home, to a place where before the losers in that game could at least flee it, is bad not because it’s digital but because, ethically, it takes away a moment of respite from those who need it.? The deafening noise of a rock-concert song service is bad not because they have guitars and lights but because it takes away the sensual experience of singing-along and boxes in the energy that should come from all those in the hall.? And Twitter, if used to give boldness to kids who otherwise might not speak up in a youth-teaching environment, encouraging them to work with and explore the narratives and ideas and proclamations of the Christian faith, is GOOD!
I suppose I’m hitting on my main objection to some of the things about the CIY Believe! conference (just had to get in the gratuitous exclamation point), namely that, although the conference does several things (which I’ve written about in previous posts) that let students interact with the Christian tradition in creative ways, it does other things that, as far as I’m concerned, mimic an advertising/entertainment culture dedicated not to letting kids articulate themselves as human beings created and redeemed by a loving God but to turning kids into unthinkingly ironic, isolated and silenced spending machines.? It’s not that the organization has bad motives or anything of that sort; it’s just that they’d do well to reexamine those particular parts of their practices.
So as I send it back to Slim (who may want to return to some earlier posts or just respond to this one or even call this little exercise to a close, if he’s so inclined), my central points remains not that technology, sound, or anything else is good or bad or even makes any sense in a vacuum but that youth workers, both paid and volunteer, always have before us the task of analyzing and evaluating the ways that this or that device relate to us, the kids with whom we work, the content of the Gospel, and a dozen other things.? Working with teenagers should command serious thought from us, and when it doesn’t, may God have mercy.
by
O.K., sorry for not hooking some brothers up. I have been reading y?all?s posts and it reminded me of something I wrote a while back ? so I reposted it, but have not had much time think through much more of a response.
But I will say? that for thousands of years youth ministry (a.k.a. catechesis) was a matter of mentors from within the community elucidating the practices in which the community was actively engaging in as well as the theology that gave those practices meaning. It seems that part of the condition of youth ministry today is that it has little to point to in terms of concrete practices of the larger congregation.
Take baptism for instance. Even if CIY presented a fabulous illustration of baptism, the problem is that the youth understand baptism via a complex network of associations that is not necessarily shared by their local congregation. What happens when a congregation of three hundred people witness a baptism, and the meaning and significance of that act is understood in a hundred different and sometimes conflicting ways? This phenomena is dramatically different than being raised in a community that forms the way the complex network of associations are made with the words, stories, images, practices, and traditions made at baptism and the SHARED stories, images, practices, traditions, and traditions that were not mentioned. The condition now is that pop-culture forms the way those complex network of associations are made.
Put another way, if we were to ask 10 youth who had been catechized in the early church what stories, scripture texts, images, practices, and traditions form their understanding of baptism I think they would have a similar network of meaning. If you asked 10 youth who have been catechized in the church in modern America I think that you will a) find a pathetically shorter list of stories, scripture texts, images, practices, and traditions, and b) they would be remarkably different and more ambiguous.
Part of the reason for this is that the value of those things has shifted. What used to give value of the church?s shared stories, images, practices, and traditions was their location in worship. Now, the modern church assumes the value of those things are in their capacity to participate in the spectacle (to borrow Baudrillard?s terminology), or it?s capacity to be a simulacrum. This is what conferences like CIY do well ? they know how to take all the sacraments and turn them into a Baudrillardian spectacle that would rival any marketing firm in Manhattan.
Don’t sweat it, man–I had a feeling it was more than coincidence that your post appeared when it did, and I was just testing the water to see if I was right.
What you say about catechism is fair enough, assuming that there’s a culture called “Church” coherent enough to sustain such narratives. My concern with that sort of position is that none of the living generations of Christians in 2009 in the places I’ve worshiped has enough of a shared base even to start basing catechesis in those symbols, stories, and practices that you rightly mention.
In other words, to continue what Slim was saying, it might be worthwhile to think of youth ministry as a cross-cultural mission that aims at (re-?)establishing some kind of basis for the common life you point to. I recognize that some particularly close-knit homeschooling enclaves might already have that, but if youth ministry concerns itself at all with the children who don’t already live in the sort of symbolic community that you’re describing, I think that some kind of translation-towards the kids might be a valid precursor to the translation-into that you have in mind for them as a later aim.
I also have my doubts about your way of construing interpretive communities. If, as Macintyre says, a living community is a community debating its own core, I would imagine that even a congregation well-versed is going to see a fair number of different meanings in the one baptismal phenomenon before them. I’d almost suspect (though I need to get back to my dissertation, so I’ll leave it as an almost-suspicion) that a congregation well-catechized in the text of Scripture might come up with more and wilder interpretations of the phenomenon for having those tools in their belts.
So whereas I do have criticisms of the CIY experience (that I’ve flogged to death already, I’m sure), I’m inclined not to worry too much about the spectacular aspect of the weekend, especially since I’m not entirely convinced that spectacle and worship are mutually exclusive. But once again, I’m going to have to remain not-entirely-convinced for the moment and throw it to you and Slim (and other readers, if you’re out there) to help me think on this.
Part of what I was intending to imply was that I think other conversations need to take place before the one we are having now. You mentioned that it ?might be worthwhile to think of youth ministry as a cross-cultural mission that aims at (re-?)establishing some kind of basis for the common life you point to.? So we are to convince youth that this sort of common life is efficacious for them to establish but not for the ones conveying it? Part of the mission paradigm is that people are sent out of a preexisting community with its shared stories, images, practices, and traditions (which enables them to comprehend the Gospel), and then attempts to find appropriate shared stories, images, practices, and traditions of a foreign community that will enable them to comprehend that same Gospel (I?m not delineating my own theory of missions, but merely trying to summarize a particular point of which both Catholic and Protestant agree, as many of my missionary friends have conveyed).
I?m aware that a living community is continually debating its own core, and that there is going to be a range of interpretations, particularly on baptism. One of the implications of what I was saying is that the way in which an earlier church community had differing interpretations is categorically different from the way a modern American church community has differing interpretations. For instance, Henri de Lubac has argued that for thousands of years the church fathers have interpreted scripture in ways that yielded a wide range of meanings, some of them being ?wild?. However, it was not all up for grabs and they could not interpret it in just any ol? way. What he argues is that there are certain shared assumptions that allow for a particular kind of diversity. I, like de Lubac, am down with diverse interpretations and communities arguing about what it means to be a community. What I want to put my finger on is what makes that sort of conversation much more difficult today than it was in the previous age. The issue is not the youth, but the community attempting to catechize the youth. Or, to ask the question, which community is arguing the core of their identity?
With regards to the spectacle, I?m not really sure what you mean by that word, but I was trying to give a bit of context to the way I wanted to use it. The issue is not that it is a ?spectacle? per se, but that it is a particular kind of spectacle. Part of Baudrillard?s critique/observation of modern culture is that, more and more, what gives something its worth is its participation in the game of mass image production. If Christians play this game in the same way as pagan society, then we are accepting certain assumptions about what gives something its worth, which might be contrary to the gospel (Kenneson makes a similar observation in terms of the church playing the game of marketing. That is, practices and activities of marketers and image producers are not value-neutral activities). I?m not arguing that spectacle has no place in the context of worship. I?m arguing that big conferences uncritically play the game I?ve described, and have unwittingly assumed values and assumptions that are contrary to the gospel.
But, of course, I?m sure that?s hardly the last word.
First of all, no Bogarting the blog title. You don’t see me coming over to your site and giving you things to throw in the hopper. Throw me a bone here.
My point in the initial series of posts is that, indeed, the CIY conference where I was a volunteer sponsor did play into some of the things you’re writing about–in particular the isolating noise and overstimulation seemed to me to do damage, as media, that the content did not overcome. However, part of my thesis is that the weekend was not a monolith but articulable into better and worse moments. In other words, I was attempting to keep open the possibility that a large-hall assembly such as the CIY conference might be able to do things well and towards edifying ends that other contexts wouldn’t be able to do as strongly. The allegorical tale, including the baptismal spectacle, seemed to do those things.
Such is not an uncritical endorsement of every moment but an attempt to see one thread at the conference, specifically the allegorical fable, as a genuinely catechetical event.
Now to backtrack to your prior question, I’ve not read any de Lubac (he’s on my amazon.com wish list), but I do wonder what a diversity-so-long-as-it’s-our-diversity approach looks like. Historically, I’ve seen soft-minded ecumenism and I’ve seen sectarian dogmatism, but the Aristotelian mean is harder to locate historically. In the meantime, I’d say that the Brent allegory does resonate with the practices of the congregation that I serve at the moment, not as a replacement for but as a commentary upon the baptism and the teaching-of-baptism that happens in classroom settings, homilies, and other moments. As a missionary moment, it situates the commentary on the ritual (not the ritual itself) in terms of science fiction epic, the sort of thing that has played out in a number of recent films and teen novels. I agree that it’s a spectacle, but so is Spenser’s Faerie Queene and its grand baptismal metaphor at the end of book one. So is the middle section of Beowulf. So is the initial rescuing-Neo-from-the-power-plant sequence in The Matrix. None of those three is identical with Christian worship, but any of them, like Brent’s allegory, could spur the kind of reflection that I’d count as a positive. (I also don’t think that Brent’s allegory or The Matrix can hold a candle to Beowulf or The Faerie Queene, just for the record.)
I agree with you that every congregation’s ministry has to encompass folks of all ages, and I agree that self-examination starts with the adults. I also think (as a good Campbellite) that the real life of Church happens in the local congregation. That said, I do think that poetic moments (in the Aristotelian sense) such as Brent’s allegory do serve a good purpose, namely the translation of ritual into literary vernacular, even if the pounding noise and visual overstimulation do not impress me nearly as much.
I feel like I’m repeating myself now, so I’ll kick it back to you. Thank you again for helping me think through these things–I’m not convinced yet that the Postman/de Lubac critique voids the benefit of such events, but that’s hardly the last word.
(Yes, I can use that line. It’s my freakin’ site!)
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First of all Nate, you make me smile and I reminisce with fond delight our conversations of yore.
I agree that the weekend is not a monolith but has better and worse moments. I also think that there s plenty of possibility that a large-hall assembly such as the CIY conference might be able to do things well and towards edifying ends that other contexts wouldn?t be able to do as strongly.
My comments where not intended to dismiss or debunk your observations, but rather, share what I feel are dangers and pitfalls that must be consciously addressed. It may be that CIY functions as a valid form of catechesis that it is well worth continuing. But just as Jesus mentions, there are times when we have to cut off our right hand and throw it away. The issue here is not whether or not the hand can do some good ? I think that is implied and cannot be ignored. This issue is to carefully analyze the cost of keeping that hand and whether or not it is worth keeping. The reality of Jesus? words is that we might loose something that is very helpful, and might even handicap us, but the loss would be worth it.
But to be sure, I haven?t dismissed it yet, and am also grateful for our conversation.
P.S. Did you really mean to imply that Desiderus? reading of scripture was free from ideology and prior philosophical convictions? And how exactly does the character of the text get disclosed?
Maybe that?s another discussion for another post. Either way, let us continue to write/think.
Proverbs 27:17
Dangers and pitfalls, yes. I think I’ve addressed those. But I’d call for amputating a hand rather than the arm from the shoulder on out. That’s my point.
I don’t have the text in front of me, but I remember the amputation suggestion having to do with causing hamartia. My point is that the isolating noise and the distraction do indeed cause the meeting to miss a mark but that the allegorical drama does not. What mark do you see such things missing?