NPR’s Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s coverage May 11, “Same Bible, Different Verdict on Gay Marriage,” now has over 12,000 Facebook shares and 1400 comments. In the story, Hagerty does her best to have pastors on both sides of the debate use the Bible in their reasoning. Frankly, I thought the story handled the complex issue fairly well until the throwaway ending, “Of course, conservatives say that the best blueprint for God’s kingdom on earth does not spring from what you read between the lines of the Bible, but what you read in black and white.”

I wasn’t the only one disturbed by this line. At Religion Dispatches Peter Laarman writes a public letter to NPR citing exactly that problematic closing line: “NPR should be embarrassed to broadcast an ostensibly analytic piece that concludes by giving a free pass to the literalists and by reinforcing the notion that those of us who read the Bible for its core message are really not reading it at all.”

For those wondering about the supposed clear Biblical mandate for “Christian marriage,” Rev. David Lewicki in “The Case Against Christian Marriage” outlines 8 — count them, eight! — points that significantly complicate the argument that “the BIble is clear” about marriage.

The actual issue, of course, isn’t what the Bible decrees about marriage in 21st century America, but how we read what the Bible does say. News coverage of exegetical approaches are few and far between, and I don’t expect news organizations to report the clear fact that the Bible — read as a historical document — says nothing specifically addressing constitutional amendments in North Carolina. But reporters do need to make clear that any question related to Christian marriage and Biblical mandate is one of Biblical interpretation.

President Obama, thank God, used a Christian argument (though a soundbite one, for sure) to explain his support of same-sex marriage. For that, I am extremely grateful since the marriage question is one tied inextricably to justice, civil rights, and neighborly love — all values at the heart of my Christian faith rooted in scripture. That said, a recent experience at a regional Lutheran gathering still has be thinking about the best way to frame the debate.

The Northwest Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA) met last weekend at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Several controversial matters came before the assembly including “A Resolution in Opposition of the Marriage Amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution.” (Minnesota faces a similar marriage amendment vote this November as did North Carolina last week.) After some debate, the resolution to oppose the marriage amendment passed overwhelmingly — it wasn’t officially counted, by I’d guess 2/3 or so voted in favor of the resolution. I was heartened.

What continues to bother me, however, is the fact that the resolution itself quotes previous assembly actions and an ELCA social statement “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” but not scripture. On the other hand, materials supplied by congregations opposed to the proposal reference scripture many times (plus Lutheran confessional documents). Similarly, those who spoke on the floor of the assembly mirrored these practices. Those speaking in favor of the resolution did not tend to quote scripture while those speaking against the resolution read from scripture at length.

And so, the question remains: can Christians who support same-sex marriage (or, at least, oppose constitutional amendments) use scripture at the heart of their arguments? Or, are we ceding the “black and white” ground of the Bible to Christian conservatives employing a certain way to read the Bible?

image by shezita

• Vincent Miller’s, “Understanding Digital Culture“
• Heidi Campbell’s, “When Religion Meets New Media“
• Craig Detweiler’s, “Halos and Avatars“
• Lynch and Mitchell’s, “Religion, Media, and Culture: a reader“
• David Morgan’s, “The Sacred Gaze“

In “Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality” Rachel Wagner, an Associate Professor of Religion at Ithaca College, explores how religion is encountered online as well the religious nature of online experiences such as gaming and rituals. It is at this interplay of what some of have called “religion online” and “online religion” where Wagner excels. For instance, after addressing the popularity and exploration of virtual reality Wagner asks if “our desire for the virtual can in fact be viewed at least in part also as a hunger for the real — for a sense of meaning, order and definition in our own real lives” (14)?

In 10 chapters and 266 pages Wagner covers an enormous gamut of material. Her citations are significant (though nearing distracting at times, due to their frequency) and her journey through such a variety of disciplines is most impressive. For example, chapter 1, entitled “The stories we play: Interactivity and religious narrative” includes a discussion of “textuality,” authority, how narratives interact with games, fate, the Bible, and system theory to set before the reader the full picture of a rich analysis of religion and internet culture. Indeed, part of her project is to bring “disparate conversations together” (11).

For my work, I found Wagner’s discussion (in various chapters) of the virtual to be particularly interesting. In her classic connection-heavy approach, she helpfully sums up:

Some see the virtual as the opposite of the physical; for others, it is ‘unreal’ when compared with the sacred; for others it is a ‘realm’ of its own; for others, it is an imaginary and not a ‘place’ at all. For others, it is a mere designator of space, a territorial marker, such that ‘virtual space’ is as real as physical space, it’s just in a different, well, place (78).

Later, I enjoyed her more direct musing on the virtual as it connects to religion. The virtual is “a space into which something might erupt…it is a space in which the transcendent might appear” (97).

As you can probably tell, Wagner is good at drawing connections between ideas that might seem opposite. She helpfully discusses, for instance, how we fragment, splinter, and distribute ourselves in games, social media, with avatars, and more even as we go online to seek community and connection — wholeness.

Readers of Godwired will get an amazing about of exposure to a variety of fields — both of theory and practical studies — in a form that is readable and nuanced. I look forward to reading more of Wagner’s work, for I enjoyed Godwired — and not just virtually.

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Greetings, Adam! Thanks for participating in this blog tour. I spent 10 years at Hope Lutheran in Fargo, and through that connection I picked up on your work with The Project F-M. I’ve been enjoying following your blog for some time now. I’ve been all the more interested reading about your studies at UND in Religious Communication and Digital Life. You posed the following question to me:

When Christians gather for worship, they often refer to their church as “the body of Christ.” In claiming this, they seek to emphasize the communal nature of worship. But one congregation is just that one congregation while the body of Christ is all believers everywhere. How might technology used in worship connect believers across town, across time zones, and even across all time?

My initial thought is that we are already connecting with the body of Christ across time and space without the need of any modern technology at all! Our Scripture, liturgy, prayers, and hymns are all the expressions of a long history of global Christianity in which we participate. I get what you are saying, though, and some of that participation can feel rather minimal when it mainly consists of an occasional song from an African or Central American background. Further, I suspect many Lutherans, for example, feel more connected with the 16th century reformers than they do with the Christians in the Baptist or Presbyterian churches down the street. Worse, I know that many times we don’t have much communion in church with the person in the pew in front of us beyond the sharing of the peace. Can the use of technology in worship do anything about this?

It may be coming sooner than we think, but I’m not ready yet for the kind of thing envisioned by Google’s Project Glass. (Check out the video on that page if you haven’t seen what this is about.) Basically it is a way of continuously connecting the real world with the virtual world. I’m trying to imagine being in worship with a pair of these glasses on. It might be great to have access to the Bible text and check out a cross-reference or pull up the history of a hymn as we are singing it. But do we want to be able to summon everyone’s Facebook status as we look around the sanctuary in order to build greater community?

I just happen to be reading an article by John Fea on “rooted cosmopolitanism.” Though he is reflecting on institutional loyalties and the tendency to equate success with being somewhere else, I like the contrast of encouraging both the rootedness of life within a community and the broad perspective of being a global Christian. There are both technological and non-technological things we can do to increase our sense of connection within the congregation, but I do like the possibilities offered by technology to connect globally. I’ve been an advocate for the Sister Parish organization. Their goal is to promote

inter-cultural and ecumenical understanding by establishing linkages between churches in the United States and faith-based communities in Central America. The linkages are based on direct, person-to-person contact, with delegates living in each other’s homes and sharing each other’s realities.

It’s a wonderful effort and is often a life-changing experience for the participants, but it takes a lot of coordination and money. The person-to-person contact is critical, but this kind of interaction can both be promoted and sustained through technology. I think it would be fantastic to connect with a congregation from somewhere else around the world using something like Skype. (Yes, there are technology challenges, especially in developing regions of the world, but it’s becoming apparent in a place like Africa that smartphones are eventually going to allow everyone access to the Cloud.) To use virtual media to give a face and voice to real Christians around the world would be a helpful corrective to the complacency evident in much of Christianity in the United States. Instead of just praying for or contributing money for those who are hungry, we could actually connect with them. Or we could hear directly about the challenges facing Palestinian Christians or the persecutions experienced by Malaysian Christians or share the joy of the lively and growing communities of faith in Africa. I think it’s possible, and I’d like to think that our biggest problem will be trying to figure out time-zone issues!

And now a question for you and your readers: When you are in worship, are you seeking both a local and global connection? If the connections were only possible through technological media, would it still be real and meaningful?

I’m still compiling my research and making it pretty in a big paper for an Independent Study on digital religion that I’m taking at the University of North Dakota. But, dear readers, here’s a few quick little unofficial reflections:

Why do pastors use two Facebook accounts? In my interviews, the reasons are mixed but several spoke of a bad experience with a pastoral care situation or congregational member interaction on their Facebook walls. Often, pastors feel as if these interactions become out of their control, and they wish to avoid their Facebook walls as places inciting conflict — among the congregation, and between parishioners and Facebook friends unconnected to the church. Many of the pastors (all, maybe?) had Facebook profiles before they took their current calls, so they consciously chose to interact with parishioners on a new separate page. Several pastors also noted that they didn’t want to bore — or push away — their non-churchy friends by talking pastor stuff on the Facebook wall all the time.

Boundaries? Big time. Many pastors spoke of seeking clear boundaries in their ministry, and that in their view having two Facebook accounts makes healthy boundaries easier to manage. Some only check their professional account while at the church. Most are careful to friend parishioners on their personal accounts to avoid the perception of different treatment for parishioners friended on both accounts. Others anticipated the challenges of leaving their congregation in the future and noted an “easy break” would be made simple by deleting their professional account and starting another in their new call.

Practically, how do they distinguish the accounts? Pastors use a variety of approaches. While some use identical names on both accounts and simply have different profile pictures, others use middle initials or middle names on one account or the other to distinguish them. Some people put “Pastor” in the title of their professional account. Others simply use a church Facebook page for their professional interactions.

Challenges.  There are many, but overall most pastors who use separate accounts recommended them as a positive thing for their ministry, and they encouraged other pastors and future pastors to carefully consider opening two accounts (though it’s — I think — technically against Facebook rules). That said, pastors noted the challenges of having friends who interact with them on both accounts, of practically managing two accounts, of whether to reveal the existence of both accounts to congregation members, and how to manage Facebook groups with two accounts.

I’m not ready for any formal conclusions quite yet, but I will say that I went into this project as an advocate for pastors to use only one Facebook account. While I haven’t quite changed that position, hearing the stories of pastors with two accounts has really complicated my understanding. Several pastors I spoke with had clear and valid reasons for having two accounts. In fact, I’d go as far to say the two accounts made them better pastors and more faithful individuals outside the congregation. So, much more later including interesting exceptions to my points above, but I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

An exegetical essay of mine went up today at ON Scripture, a wonderful project of public theology hosted by Odyssey Networks. The project has a partnership with Huffington Post’s Religion work, so it also appears at that site. I’m going to start regularly posting some essays at my new Huffington Post portal which, honestly, is pretty sweet for a youngish blogger like me.

Here’s the intro, but why don’t you read the full version at either ON Scripture or Huffington Post.

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Acts 8:26-40: Castrating Our Customs

Adam J. Copeland

Some people call them “thin places,” locations where the gulf between heaven and earth narrows and we fully sense God’s presence. Many people find these thin places in nature. Others discover them in the familiarity of a favorite book, a worshiping community, or a touching song. Though these thin places are inherently unpredictable, we can aid in their creation. Like Philip in Acts 8, we can run to join what the Spirit is already making possible.

Taking a chance

Philip did not know what to expect next. An angel of the Lord had told him to take a certain road, “a wilderness road” from Jerusalem to Gaza. Without protest, without questioning, Philip “got up and went” (Acts 8:27).

What did Philip expect to find on that wilderness road? He already had been involved in several unexpected Spirit-filled moments. In Samaria, when Philip preached about Jesus, people were miraculously healed of their diseases. Even a local magician, amazed at the great power of Peter’s holy signs and miracles, asked to be baptized.

What holy surprise would be next for Philip? He did not know, but already he had been primed to expect new and wondrous works of God.

Walking down that wilderness road, we might imagine Philip’s frame of mind to be similar to someone today anticipating a flash mob or Occupy protest. Often protests and other out of the ordinary events catch us off guard and cause us to reassess our world as it is. The comedy group Improv Everywhere specializes in creating these novel spaces, glimpses of another way of seeing and living.

As Peter makes his way down the road contemplating what might be next, another character appeared, odd and surprising in his own right: the Ethiopian eunuch.

For the rest, read the full version at ON Scripture or Huffington Post.

This week, Mary Hess, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota will respond to questions from noted bloggers. Next week, Mark Vitalis Hoffman, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg will respond. I’m honored to be included in the dialogue next week.

Not unconnected to the Blog Tour is the news that the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg is entering into a partnership with Luther Seminary to offer an MA in religion and media. The first course in the program will be a two week intensive held on Gettysburg’s campus during the last two weeks of August. Because this is a brand new program, and there aren’t many publicity materials available yet, LTSG (Gettysburg) is offering full scholarships for tuition, room and board for that class for early applicants to the program. Details here.

Down the road the program will include a variety of online options, so students who don’t want to relocate to Gettysburg might be interested in following it’s future. The program hopes to attract a diverse array of students — media professionals who’d like to deepen their knowledge of religion (including multiple faiths, not simply Christianity), pastoral leaders (both ordained and lay) who would like to stretch into social media and digital storytelling as a locus of pastoral practice, emerging scholars who would like to “dip their toes into the water” with an MA that has a theological emphasis before going on to do PhD work, and so on.

So, check out the program (despite their admittedly iffy website) and follow the Blog Tour. In my experience, anything Mary Hess is connected to turns out well, so I’m eager to see the blog tour and program progress.

Sam Benshoof may have been just doing his job with he wrote The Forum newspaper promo article April 26, but let the record show that, contrary to the article’s opening lines, this man is not rejoicing that the Expo is in town. And, let’s not kid ourselves: the Big Boys Toys Expo will most definitely not be for all of us.

Will there be readings by our local poet laureate, Jamie Parsley?

How about sessions on knitting, art, and dance?

Would a gay couple truly be welcome? (Would that be before, or after, the Hooters contest?!)

Will there be presentations on good parenting, developing communication skills, health and wellness, religion and spirituality?

No. Instead the Expo seems all about perpetuating dangerous gender stereotypes that hurt us all and desensitize us to this drivel. That it does so with such boldness makes it all the more problematic.

According to the article, the Fargo Big Boys Toys Expo is organized by The Forum itself! After the launch of the SheSays section, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. But, really…a Hooters Pageant? The prospect of that, I hate, even more than macho.

image by Stillsearc

Interdisciplinary study is at the heart of digital religion studies. David Morgan’s book, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice is a fine example of how a scholar bridges two scholarly fields with depth and clarity, namely art history and religion.

At the heart of Morgan’s project is the wish to expand our understanding of religion to one that includes the study of images: “I wish to show how visual studies can contribute to the scholarly understanding of religion. The value of theoretical reflection should be measured, finally, by the contribution it makes to illuminating the actual objects of study: the visuality of religion” (27). To set the foundation of his argument, Morgan uses the first three chapters to define and describe basics of visual theory as they intersect religion. For example, Morgan describes how several religious traditions use images to communicate with God, or at least “the unseen, mysterious, and potentially uncontrollable forces that are understood to govern life” (59). In doing so he draws on a wide array of sources including Buddhist pilgrims interacting with statues in Thailand, Eastern Orthodox iconography, and West African masks used to invoke spiritual forces.

Next, Morgan deals at length with iconoclasm and the idolatry some associate with visual culture. His thoroughgoing overview—broad in both history and geography—helps give the reader a wide grasp of iconoclast history and approaches. American readers might particularly enjoy his discussion of the political, legal, and economic implications of patriotic images such as the Iwo Jima memorial, flag images across history, and the relatively recent destruction of Baath party statues during the Iraq war.

The third and final section, “The Social Life of Pictures” particularly considers family and gender issues, as well as national icons. Several images from early American religious tracts and Sunday School programs give the reader an idea how faith and gender were perceived and imaged over the course of American history. Discussion of national icons includes images of ubiquity and use of Jesus portraits, the Bible, and flag images.

Ultimately, Morgan concludes suggesting by what standards his book and other cross-disciplinary ventures might be measured: “Unless scholars are able to show that they learn something more about religion by understanding how it happens visually, the visual culture of religion has little to recommend it as a field or method of study” (257). By the points, however, Morgan has clearly shown that images can help scholars register everything from religious social change to moral discourse, from patriotic stridency to prayer life. Morgan argues persuasively that we cannot understand religious practice in full (both historic and present-day) without considering the power of images in shaping believers. His argument, as well as his interdisciplinary method, has surely convinced this young scholar.

1. When dealing with conflicted situations, Stains says up to 80% of the work is prep work. Such work might include pre-meeting conversations, participant prep, communication agreements, visioning structures, and planning questions that elicit fresh full speaking. Prep work considers questions like, “What words relating to the issue do you find hurtful?” “What is it about this community that matters to you?” “What would it take to bring your best self to the meeting?”
2. Quality of conversation drives the quality of community. So, quality conversation helps move conflicted situations from reactive speaking to reflective speaking, from listening to find fault to listening to understand, from speaking with slogans to speaking personally, and from defending positions to addressing deep concerns.
3. Random group dynamic issue: need an easy way to have everyone in a group respond to a question for two minutes, but actually keep things to two minutes? Use, well, a watch. Here’s how. As the first person shares, the facilitator is holding the watch and quietly times 2 minutes. When the time is up, the facilitator walks the watch over to the sharer who stops talking as the watch is handed over. That person then times the person next to them, simply handing the watch over if the speaker reaches 2 minutes. And so on around the circle. It was the perfect way for 15 people to share in a timely way. (Do note: I’m not suggesting this for a group in conflict, but Bob used it for our workshop and it went amazingly smoothly.)

Many workshop participants attended as part of their preparation to lead conversations in Minnesota concerning the November ballot amendment to ban gay marriage. One program that sounds particularly interesting (though seems to have a low online profile) is the Minnesota Council of Churches Respectful Conversations Project. I hope we can bring it to Moorhead!

Curious about transforming conflict through respectful conversation? PCP has a ton of great resources posted on their website.

The Presbyterian Publishing Corporation made an exciting announcement yesterday. The content list for the 2013 Presbyterian Hymnal “Glory to God” is now available online!

As a member of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song I can say that list represents years of prayer-filled discernment (and hundreds of anguished votes). Surely, the contents will now be met with thanks, praise, and criticism. That’s how this process works. That’s how, I suppose, God works through the process.

As the countdown to announcement neared, I wondered what language would accompany it. What’s the appropriate verb for such an announcement?

Would the list be “released?” Would the list be “prayed into the world?” Would the list be “offered,” “revealed,” or “shared?” The question of language — obviously, not a new one for the committee — is a tricky one.

Communicating that the list as “released” might give the impression that the committee was some sort of secret society hiding its work from the world instead of a group of dedicated musicians and pastors who love the church and made decisions with the whole church in mind.

“Revealed” recalls secrecy too, and smacks of a magic trick.

The word “given” is a possibility perhaps since it reminds of giving gifts, of parties and celebrations. But gift giving can also be manipulative, especially if the giver requires something in return. Also, some gifts are neither expected nor wanted. Some congregations will say it’s not time to get a new hymnal. It’s a gift they didn’t ask for.

“Suggested,” on the other hand, isn’t quite strong enough. The committee worked for four long years studying, praying, discerning, and making decisions in light of many factors. The publishing company (not the General Assembly) dedicated major financial resources to the task. There’s no perfect way to compile a hymnal, but a committee of dedicated folks seems like the best, most Presbyterian, process. “Suggest” just seems a little weak for what we’ve put into the project, for the quality of the product.

“Offered” might be on the right track. Like an offering, the list is given to the glory of God. Like prayers and blessings, the content list is an offering for the benefit of others. So, maybe that’s the right word. But, on the other hand, the list is not a wager, not an invitation to the church to say “I see you those 800+ hymns and raise you an ‘Onward Christian Solider.’” So maybe “offer” isn’t quite right either.

During the Good Friday service I attended last week I winced when the congregation sang, as instructed, stanzas 1, 2 and 4 of “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” in the ELCA hymnal (Evangelical Lutheran Worship). It was a long service, and the worship planners surely had their good reasons for omitting the third verse. But, it’s one of my favorite; anticipating Monday’s Presbyterian hymnal announcement, I needed to sing Paul Gerhardt’s text loud and clear:

What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
Oh, make me thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never out live my love to thee.

After four years of work, I’m not quite sure what language we might best borrow to announce the list. In any case, though, it’s online now. Check it out here. And, please, be kind, for it’s sometimes difficult to find the words. All our work, though, was for the glory of God.