Worship and Popular Culture Perils & Possibilities

1. Worship and Popular Culture Perils & Possibilities Steve Yeagley Associate Dean for Student Life Adj. Prof., Youth Ministry

2. Pruitt-Igoe July 15 | 1972 | 3:32 p.m.

3. “For Jenks, modernism failed as mass housing in part because it failed to communicate with its inhabitants who did not like the style, understand it or even know how to use it.” Murphie & Potts, Culture and Technology

4. “Postmodern architecture emerged partly as an attempt to redeem this failure of communication. The rigorous austerity of modernist aesthetics was dismissed as elitist. Postmodern design and architecture sought, according to Jenks, to communicate to its users ‘through a variety of styles and devices.’” Murphie & Potts, Culture and Technology

5. Double Coding “The combination of the new and the old; and the ability to communicate with both elite and popular opinion.” Murphie & Potts, Culture and Technology

6. How can we create worship that is habitable by all?

7. High Culture Gourmet Meal Grandma’s Casserole McDonald’s Hamburger Popular Culture Folk Culture B. Forbes and J. Mahan, Religion and Popular Culture in America

8. High Culture Gourmet Meal • Often in written form – literary magazine, opera score, gourmet cookbook • Limited audience • Addressed to those with superior backgrounds or sophisticated taste B. Forbes and J. Mahan, Religion and Popular Culture in America

9. Folk Culture Grandma’s Casserole • Often transmitted orally – family recipes, local legends, regional customs • Local audience • Contained within family, community, or other local and regional groups B. Forbes and J. Mahan, Religion and Popular Culture in America

10. Often transmitted through mass media • Large audience • Becomes widespread and popular with many different kinds of people and groups Popular Culture McDonald’s Hamburger B. Forbes and J. Mahan, Religion and Popular Culture in America

11. High Culture Gourmet Meal • Often criticized as: • Elitist • Inaccessible • Irrelevant McDonald’s Hamburger Popular Culture • Often criticized as: • Formulaic • Second-rate • Superficial • Harmful

12. Folk Culture • comes from below • authentic • active participation • “of the people” Grandma’s Casserole McDonald’s Hamburger Popular Culture • imposed from above • commercial • passive consumption • “for the people” McDonald/Hoggart

13. High Worship Gourmet Meal • Respect for tradition • Aesthetic excellence • Intellectual rigor

14. Folk Worship Grandma’s Casserole • Regard for local customs • Authentic expression • Everyday wisdom

15. Popular Worship • Attention to current trends • Emotional exuberance • Market-driven messages McDonald’s Hamburger

16. Postmodern Plate

17. Nairobi Statement on Worship and Culture Worship has certain dynamics that are beyond culture. Worship resists the idolatries of a given culture. Worship reflects local patterns of speech, dress, music, and other cultural characteristics. Worship reflects the richness of the body of Christ in other times and places. Lutheran World Federation, 1996, http://www.worship.ca/docs/lwf_ns.html

18. The Relationship of Worship and Popular Culture: Three Angles 1. Worship in popular culture. 2. Popular culture in worship. 3. Popular culture as worship.

19. American Idol

20. God/ True Idol/ False Opposition

21. “Some might still wonder what in God’s name …has happened to an arguably ‘Judeo-Christian’ culture when a ‘reality’ show can become so popular by promoting idolatry in such a conspicuous fashion in a traditionally idol-aversive and ostensibly ‘God-fearing’ nation thereby transgressing the primary Judeo-Christian commandment? Or, how is it possible for self-confessed religious contestants to desire and court idolatry and its attendant worship on a scale unimaginable to the golden calf idolators of old without fear of transgressing their own faith/God in the process? SabatinoDiBernardo, American Idol(atry): A Religious Profanation

22. Religious Impulse / Desire to Worship

23. “One may read this as a sacralization of the secular as the secularization of the sacred continues its nominalizing path through traditional religious institutions.” SabatinoDiBernardo, American Idol(atry): A Religious Profanation ‘Secular’ ‘Sacred’ Popular Culture As Popular Culture In Worship

24. “American Idol may just be the latest ‘entertainment’ that taps into a reservoir of unfulfilled religious longing—whether on the part of the performer/idol or fan/idolator. The secular has not chased out the sacred, nor have the gods fled, they have just undergone a migratory journey—a religious emigration.” SabatinoDiBernardo, American Idol(atry): A Religious Profanation ‘Secular’ ‘Sacred’ Popular Culture As Popular Culture In Worship

25. “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.” “For as I have walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To An Unknown God.’” “Now what you worship as unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

26. Pop Goes the Church

27. Mount Corinth Missionary Baptist Church

28. Popular culture is a mediated culture.

29. The Spectacle

30. “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles.” Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

31. An Anthropological Introduction to You Tube. Michael Wesch, Kansas State Univeristy, Digital Ethnography, http://mediatedcultures.net

32. The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images. Guy Debord

33. Society of the Spectacle “In this society, individuals consume a world fabricated by others rather than producing one of their own.” Best & Kellner / Guy Debord

34. Hyperreality (Baudrillard) “For many, the world of media fantasies is more real than everyday life; hyperreal video or computer games are more fascinating and alluring than school, work, or politics (often understandably so); porno videos simulate sex in abstraction from the problems of real relations with others; and hyperreal theme parks like Disney World and simulated environments are more attractive than actual geographical sites…

35. “The hyperreal is thus the death of the real, but, a theological death: the real dies only to be reborn, artificially resurrected…” Best & Kellner

36. “The world of the spectacle thus becomes the ‘real’ world of excitement, pleasure and meaning, whereas everyday life is devalued and insignificant by contrast.” Best & Kellner

37. In the early stages of spectacle society, people sat more or less passively in front of a movie or television screen. Media and technology were powerful control mechanisms that kept individuals watching and consuming, rather than acting and doing.

38. The new stage of spectacle society, according to Kellner, is more active due to the interactivity of computers and virtual reality.

39. Gary Brolsma: NumaNuma Video The Internet enables ordinary individuals to make their everyday life a spectacle.

40. Worship and Participatory Culture: Wikipedia Worship and Open Source Culture

41. In a Wikipedia world, everyone can contribute

42. More than half of online teens are content creators • 57% of online teens create content for the internet • 33% of online teens share their own creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos • 19% have remixed online content to create their own works Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2005

43. Participatory Culture (Henry Jenkins) Participatory culture is one: 1. With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement 2. With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others 3. With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices 4. Where members believe that their contributions matter 5. Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created)

44. Participatory Culture (Henry Jenkins) Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. Not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued. In such a world, many will only dabble, some will dig deeper, and still others will master the skills that are most valued within the community. The community itself, however, provides strong incentives for creative expression and active participation. Henry Jenkins, et. al., Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, http://newmedialiteracies.org/

45. “Open Source” Development

46. “Build contributed in collaboration with the community.”

47. Open Source Principles • Deng, Feng. “What Is ‘Open’? An Economic Analysis of Open Institutions” January 10, 2008. Retrieved from http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8888/. • Collective Good. Open source is about the production of a collective good. • Participatory. Open source turns consumers into producers. Everyone has an opportunity to be part of the production and decision-making process . • Emergent. Open source products have no clear roadmap or final design in mind. They unfold.

48. Unpredictable. Open source projects rely on highly variable human input that cannot be predicted or controlled. • Shared. In open source there are no property rights or proprietary rules – the results belong to everyone. Everything is shared in common. • Voluntary. People participate freely in open source projects. No contracts are involved. • Transparent. Open source projects are developed transparently. Everyone can see what everyone else is doing.

49. Stanley Hauerwas: The Work of the People

50. Karl Haffner: Open Source Worship