Emerging church bloggers who have been so kind to participate in interviews with me so far have offered me a glimpse of their lives on, beyond and with the screen. For some (and I apologise that I’m not at the stage when I can say how many or take liberties to identify them yet), especially those under the age of thirty, the blog has been a tool to consolidate thoughts and feelings about faith. Ideas and emotions make sense to them when they post it online, like writing in a dairy or thinking out loud. These bloggers report that connecting to others online through their sites happened accidentally, organically, when an unknown readership appears in comments. Within a small time frame, their blogging evolved from a private enterprise to a humble introduction to strangers and acquaintances who make surprise visits to their site.

For these bloggers the Internet has become an extension of the mind, an online memory that becomes a collective memory for the community of readers. Bloggers construct an image of themselves on their sites, that develops with each posted memory and interacts with other online identities.

The interviews have so far revealed that use of the Internet varies widely between bloggers, depending on their access to a connected computer, and the time they have at their disposal to “be online”. But for the majority the computer is a devoted companion. Bloggers are connected both at home and at work. Owning a laptop computer with satellite broadband or WiFi is the greatest pleasure, being online in the lounge room with the television, catching public transport or at the dinner table. Interviewees have reported that not only they have made the Internet readily available to them, but how they have made themselves available online, responding as readily to an email or IM alert as they would a ringing pone or knock at the door. The world behind the computer is just as present to them, generally speaking, than the world inside their office, classroom or dining room.

Brasher tells of the significance that the entry of the computer into society has on religious identity:

Like the words vassal, lord, citizen, and proletarian before it, the word cyborg paints humanness in a historical context. It discloses how the organization of contemporary social and political life is working in consort with computers as the reigning means of production to influence the range of humanness possible in our era. (Brasher, 2001: 145)

Religious bloggers seek to make cyberspace a godly place, and in doing so seek a transformation of both the Web and the users therein. Religious bloggers present a challenge to not only how we view “being online”, but how we view “being religious”, as individuals and as communities, churches, and structured organisations. Consequently, religious bloggers offer us a new approach to understanding of what it means to be human, that may be seen by traditional religious eyes as potentially revolutionary.

Revolutionary, mainly as it calls Christianity to account for the fact that its narratives, symbols are based in pastoral roots, and the doctrines that are formed are based on conceptions of humanity that are born from these symbols. The most contentious of these that I see for the emerging church movement is the theme/meme of “incarnation”. Bloggers talk of the importance of missional community and practice that is infromed by incarnational theology. But what does it mean to talk of belief in and response to incarnational theology in a place where we do not take our bodies? This is a paradox that emerging church bloggers must negotiate daily, and I contend that they do so with vigour (and I’ll talk about this in Thesis 5 I think).

Technorati tags: online religion, religious blogging, emerging church

As an extreme ENFP, while the actual work towards any goal can be slow, boring, really slow, and really really boring, and tedious too, at times, the construction of personal and professional goals can be quite energising. As such, before I really know when I’ll ever get around to writing this bloody first chapter, I’ve built for myself a table of contents for my thesis. It’s only rather descriptive at the moment, without any major conclusions. But it offers a glimpse of some of my research concerns and interests.

My supervisor didn’t seem to mind it at all, which was refreshing, and we had some discussions about some of the themes and section titles. Then he dropped a question which threw me, but I, ever ready for the difficult questions, looked out the window and said “Looks like rain”. And by the time he turned back from the window I was gone.*

So, Paul, what are your theses regarding emerging church bloggers?
I’m going to give this question a shot here - nothing too serious, just some general ramblings that I’ve had about oz emerging church bloggers since I’ve started this whole research project thing. By no means are they definitive, merely descriptive, and subject to complete turns of mind. I know the list will change and grow. Please let me know what you think about them. Since I tend to ramble a bit I’ll post each thesis separately.

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*I would just like to clarify that this didn’t actually happen. It was an attempt at humour to highlight my general lack of preparation and not meant to imply that my supervisor is in any way gullible. He is, in fact, extremely smart, not to mention friendly and full of class. I did attempt an answer to the question and found the conversation terribly insightful and helpful. Without it this post would not be possible.

Once again, I forgot to renew some library loans, so began the trek to the new Dalton Mcaughey Library at the new Centre for Theology and Ministry to return some books I’m yet to read. There I happened to see a couple of old lecturers and one of the administrative staff I used to really like walking down the corridor. As I approached them I raised a hand to say hi and watched them pass me by, as if I were an odourless fart wafting through the hall.

I left the building feeling very upset. Surely they would remember me; I completed two courses there and spent seven years with them. It’s not like they receive 4000 enrolments a year. I walked back to the tram stop racking my brain to uncover some event where I may have done them enough wrong to deserve a deliberate snubbing. I remember as students we used to make jokes about them a bit (just the usual stuff about being stuffy old guys in academia) but I never recall saying anything terribly disrespectful about them (because I had a lot of respect for them), and I am confident that the friends I had there weren’t girly swats who run to the teacher with pieces of gossip.

By the time I boarded the tram I was less upset, and more rested in the knowledge that I have found evidence of what academic life can do to you; weather down your social skills. They’re everywhere, those guys who walk through the halls and alleys of universities lost in thought about Pannenberg or Judas or tomato soup, ever reminded that their school has cloistered them from the real world, where smiles and nods and hellos are important and not everyone has a tardis for a brain.

Please don’t let me turn into one of them.

I’ve been listening to ABC Radio National podcasts while on the train to uni, and I’ve just heard an interview on The Religion Report with John Carroll, author of The Existential Jesus. Carroll is a literary criticism of, mainly, Mark’s Gospel, with bits of the other three books thrown in. Now, I’m not really into purely literary criticisms of the Bible for, while I enjoy literary criticisms (having done majors in both biblical studies and literature), I feel unsatisfied by people’s conclusions of biblical works as “a good piece of writing” without getting into how and why people write and read texts as sources of belief.

But Carroll’s interpretation of Mark’s writing of the pivotal conversation between Jesus and Simon Peter is intriguing me (even though I’m not sure if I agree just yet - would love to know what you reckon). Mark sets the two with the other disciples in Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus asks Simon who he is. When Simon answers him, Jesus names him Peter (petros). We have always read this scene as the birthing of the church, where Peter, though later exposed as a failed follower, is exulted as the founder of the religion.

Yet Carroll wonders whether there’s a link with the name Peter (petros) to other references in Mark’s story. Earlier Jesus explains to his audience the meaning behind symbols in his own parable. In there is a note about stony ground (petrodes) onto which seeds are thrown. The seeds begin to bud with delight but their roots cannot find hold and they wither in the sun within a day. Carroll makes another connection to Mark’s rendition of Jesus healing of the withered hand in the synagogue, to highlight that “withering” is an important theme in the narrative.

For Carroll, Mark is not establishing the church in this scene in Caesarea Philipppi; Mark is removing the foundation. Years of stories told of the life and work of both Jesus and Peter that had created the fledgling religious world in which Mark writes, the evangelist recognises that the church is not founded. The discipled life is not strong or enduring or good. It is withered, rejoicing for only a day before the pressure gets too hard and faulters, denies and betrays. This scene is not to be read as the start of something new for the church; it is a sigh of despair.

Carroll sees Mark as the founding tragedy of Jesus, a story where we see a great teacher who ends up, in The Religion Report’s host’s, Steve Crittenden’s words “his only student”. And for Mark, not even the church can survive him. For Mark, the church lives a constant doom, never to endure as a social institution, but forever to live for a day in the sun, only to cower under pressure and wither in the heat.

You can get a copy of the transcript and the audio here.

Technorati tag: John Carroll, The Existential Jesus.