Pop Culture Fridays (Sat. edition): T/F, Day 1

The crown jewel of cultural experiences here in Columbia, MO---the True/False Film Festival---kicked off its sixth installment Thursday night. My first films were both yesterday; here are a few quick impressions/observations:

1. Reporter: Here, Eric Daniel Metzgar catalogues the trials and travels of NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof as he leads contest winners on a journalistic expedition, the goal to document the suffering of people in the eastern Congo and produce a report that will both inform and motivate his readers back in the States. This film provides the best articulation I've witnessed of the two questions that I wrestled with upon entering journalism school (and with which I wrestle daily):

First, how do you motivate people to care about vast amounts of suffering when, as the film reminds us, we see "one death as a tragedy, a million deaths as a statistic?" Centering around the notion that "compassion is an unstable emotion," we see Kristof earnestly grapple with the psychological, ethical and journalistic questions that complicate the job of the reporter.

Secondly, what is the future of journalism? Kristof and Metzgar examine the precipitous decline of print journalism and what an online-only world means for investigative reporting and advocacy journalism.

The film provides no easy answers but asks the right questions and asks of us that we consider our own culpability and our own conviction relative to the great suffering incurred by the world's peoples.



2. Sounds Like Teen Spirit: And, now...for something completely different...UK director Jamie Jay Johnson captures the ups and downs of Europe's biggest little singing competition in charming and cheeky fashion. Johnson provides an insider's look into the world of Junior Eurovision contestants, each seeking to make their countries proud and their voices heard. This film was a delight and a nice change of pace from the heaviness of Reporter. A wonderful film that deserves a wide audience.

1 movie already down today (No Impact Man) and 2 more to go (Burma VJ and Food, Inc.). More on those tomorrow...

Addendum...

Had a great opportunity to hear Matthew Smith play last night; in light of my post yesterday, I thought the following John Newton lyrics (which Smith has reset to fresh, new music) were appropriate. May this be the Church's attitude throughout the economic crisis and future storms to come:

The Lord Will Provide
Though troubles assail and dangers affright,
Though friends should all fail and foes all unite;
Yet one thing secures us, whatever betide,
The scripture assures us, the Lord will provide.
The birds without barn or storehouse are fed,
From them let us learn to trust for our bread:
His saints, what is fitting, shall ne’er be denied,
So long as it’s written, the Lord will provide.

We may, like the ships, by tempest be tossed
On perilous deeps, but cannot be lost.
Though Satan enrages the wind and the tide,
The promise engages, the Lord will provide.
His call we obey like Abram of old,
Not knowing our way, but faith makes us bold;
For though we are strangers we have a good Guide,
And trust in all dangers, the Lord will provide.

When Satan appears to stop up our path,
And fill us with fears, we triumph by faith;
He cannot take from us, though oft he has tried,
This heart–cheering promise, the Lord will provide.
He tells us we’re weak, our hope is in vain,
The good that we seek we ne’er shall obtain,
But when such suggestions our spirits have plied,
This answers all questions, the Lord will provide.

No strength of our own, or goodness we claim,
Yet since we have known the Savior’s great name;
In this our strong tower for safety we hide,
The Lord is our power, the Lord will provide.
When life sinks apace and death is in view,
This word of his grace shall comfort us through:
No fearing or doubting with Christ on our side,
We hope to die shouting, the Lord will provide.

What does the Church have to say about saving/spending?

I won't be blogging much the first half of this week...much to be done on my thesis + I plan to blog frequently at week's end about the Ryan Adams & the Cardinals concert and the True/False Film Festival. I did want to share an article which absolutely expresses my heart when it comes to Christian engagement with the economy. Good stuff from Collin Hansen at Christianity Today whose work is always solid. Here's just one passage of many which stood out:

When what's good for Americans is bad for the economy, then you know something is wrong. This is the church's opportunity to help our neighbors and reform our own behavior. We can model for our neighbors a lifestyle that shows more isn't always better. We can respond in faith to this latest crisis, displaying trust in the God who fortifies us against the stock market's ups and downs. We can follow the example of the Acts church, whose members with financial means cared for those less fortunate.

Rounding out the week: February 15-21

One of my favorite bloggers, Ezra Klein, often posts a set of links under the title "TAB Dump" in order to draw attention to stories/topics he may not have time to blog about/analyze. That's kind of what I'm doing here...below are a few of the things that caught my eye this week:

• First, a post I wrote for Faith In Public Life's blog entitled "Visiting the "least of these."" Check out FPL's newly redesigned website---it looks great!
• A Christian Post article about the website invisiblepeople.tv which uses raw footage and video interviews to give a voice to America's truly voiceless---the homeless. This is what mainstream journalism should be doing.
• Finally, here's a terrific article by Sasha Abramsky over at Mother Jones. Read this piece "America on $195 a Week" and tell me that, in this economic crisis, we can't finally debunk the dangerous myths which tell us the "invisible hand" of the market works for everyone and that the only people who can't achieve the American Dream are those who are too lazy or dishonest to hold down a job. Read as Abramsky profiles Aubretia Edick, a 58-year-old Walmart employee in NY state who "often skimps on food, some weeks spending little more than $10 on groceries, about one-quarter what the federal food stamp program calculates is needed for three "thrifty meals" a day" yet "hasn't resorted to handouts." Heartbreaking stuff.

Pop Culture Fridays: U2-{Please}

As a massive fan of U2, I would be reticent to rank their album Pop as one of their best. Yet (in my excitement over their impending new album) I've returned to it recently and forgotten how many songs from that record still stand on their own.

Goofing around on YouTube the other day, I came across a great live performance of my favorite song from Pop, "Please." I remember watching this performance on TV as a high school student; though it's marked as being live from Rotterdam...this is actually from the U.S. version of the MTV Video Music Awards. I love the song's slow build/slow burn (best evidenced live) and I love how understated Bono's stage presence is here...standing in place, wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up. That's especially notable because, at the time, they were in their "golden lemon/PopMart" phase, doing shows at the scale of the image above.

This makes me sad...

This Christian Post article is a great reminder that, as evangelicals, we have some long strides to take in reaching our culture. I can see Columbia's Islamic Center from where I go to school; it should inspire me to seek out friendships with those of other faiths. I think Carl Nelson puts it best in his quote below...We must demonstrate the love for all people that our God has while being willing to have tough, challenging conversations that point to the Gospel:

A surprisingly small portion of evangelical leaders in America have had contact with Muslims in the past year, a new survey revealed.

Only 33 percent of leaders on the board of the National Association of Evangelicals, the nation’s largest evangelical body, said they have had a serious conversation with a Muslim in the past year, according to the February issue of the NAE’s Evangelical Leaders Survey.

An even a smaller number, 27 percent, of the evangelical respondents said they live or work near a mosque.

The vast majority have had no close contact with an Islamic institution (73 percent) or individual Muslims (67 percent).

“Several who said they have not talked with Muslims expressed regret and want to have conversations,” commented Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“The large majority of Evangelical leaders who have not experienced Islam first-hand are either ignorant of Islam or are getting their information from secondary sources,” he said. “I assume that the reverse is also true; that a majority of Muslims are neither connected to nor informed about the faith of Evangelical Christians.”

According to the CIA World Factbook, Muslims make up 0.6 percent of the U.S. population. In comparison, Protestant Christians account for 51.3 percent of the population in America. Among those that reported having serious discussions with Muslims, some indicated that the talks were through formal interfaith dialogues, professional ministry or international travel rather than personal friendships.

One denominational executive admitted that “except from a distance at an airport, I have not even seen a Muslim with which to have a conversation,” according to the NAE. Some evangelical leaders, however, reported positive personal interactions with their Muslim neighbors.

An evangelical leader from Minneapolis said he lives within blocks of two mosques. He shared that during Easter he had discussions with a “kind, hard working young [Muslim] family man” about the two religions’ beliefs concerning the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“We honestly knew very little about each other’s religious beliefs, but learning about Islam first-hand from a kind, hard-working young family man was very helpful,” said Carl H. Nelson, president of Minnesota Association of Evangelicals. “My convictions did not change, but I realized how important it is to understand and engage the belief system of someone who does not yet know Jesus as the Son of God.”

Another evangelical leader, from a Hispanic church in California, recalled that a Muslim meeting place in his neighborhood was vandalized last year. Members of his church had helped clean up the meeting place and had sent them an offering.

The NAE survey questioned 100 members of the NAE board of directors that includes heads of evangelical denominations with about 45,000 local churches, executives of para-church organizations and colleges. The NAE claims to represent over 50 denominations and about 30 million constituents.

Jennifer Riley
Christian Post Reporter

We Are All Tax Cheats Now

Given my fellow journalists' unsettling curiosity about all things Palin, this story about the Alaska Governor and some unpaid taxes seems a bit undercirculated. It seems the great "reformer" has been extra-mavericky when it comes to the taxes on "nearly $18,000 in expenses she charged the state for living in her home outside Anchorage instead of at the state capital..."

It will be interesting to see how the GOP spins the latest news about their down-to-earth darling, especially in light of their eagerness, of late, to pounce on the Geithners and Daschles of the world.

I don't bring this story up to tag Palin (while it appears she made a definite mistake, it's not of the magnitude we saw with some of the Cabinet nominees), nor do I mention it to let Daschle or Geithner off the hook (seriously, guys). In fact, I wish to make the opposite point. It's time to lift the partisan wool from over our eyes when we look at ethics violations and abuses of power.

Without fail, when a member of the majority party commits an error, the minority party is quick to label them the party of corruption. Dems do it when the Republicans are in power; the GOP is all too happy to reciprocate. Each group is happy to create a narrative utilizing their opponent's past five or so scandals to deem them inherently corrupt, failing to note that their own closet is manned by a skeleton crew.

Issues of ethics and power should not send us red-faced or blue-faced into our respective corners and, they should not send us scrambling to play a home version of the Shift-The-Blame Game (I think Parker Bros. has a patent pending). Instead, they should unite us around the causes of justice and transparency. If each of us have, in some small, partisan way, felt the sting of scandal, we should be all the more vigilant about rooting out scandal, no matter what capital letter sits next to a politician's name.

Branding: Are We Marked for Life?

Several times a semester, my church hosts a discussion called Theology at the Forge, which takes place at Forge & Vine, an eatery in downtown Columbia. TATF is designed to take us outside the walls of the church and engage in conversation about how our theology and our worldviews come to bear on some of the biggest political, social and cultural issues of the day. I'm leading tomorrow night's discussion, entitled "Branding: Are We Marked for Life?" Below, you'll see a description of the event. If you're in Columbia tomorrow night around 7, meet us at the Forge and join the dialogue.

Experts tell us that by grade school, American kids are familiar with hundreds of logos. Whether it’s swooshes or golden arches, companies and advertisers work together to create unforgettable images that build customer loyalty. But branding is about more than just selling a product. It’s about selling a way of life. From culturally accepted catchphrases to commercials which debate what kind of computer best represents us, branding has left an indelible mark on our society, affecting the way we view our money, ourselves and each other. Are the brands we buy simply harmless economic choices or do they reveal something about our personality and beliefs? Is it ethical for companies to try and create lifelong customers through marketing in schools? And what of upstart movements to make pervasive branding a thing of the past? The answers to these questions may reveal more about our own brand of thinking than we realize. Bring a few friends, an opinion and an open-mind, and grab a table, food and drink in the upstairs lounge at the Forge & Vine downtown. All ideas are welcome.

Pop Culture Fridays: Only 2 more weeks...

Exactly two weeks from today, I will be in the most glorious haze...

I will just have seen this great performer (in an equally great venue) the night before and will be heading into a weekend where I will get all the documentary fun I can handle...

Until then, I wait in eager anticipation with Adams & The Cardinals' latest to tide me over. Here's an excellent performance from Letterman's show...this song, "Cobwebs," is my favorite off the new record. What gets lost (just ever so slightly) in the live setting here is the beautiful, percussive, bell-like quality that Adams and Neal Casal get from their guitars. Great song.

Randall Balmer on The Daily Show

Author/scholar Randall Balmer was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night discussing his book God and the White House. You can read more about/watch the interview from the Faith in Public Life blog where I posted it earlier today.

Last year, I read and enjoyed Balmer's helpful history Protestantism in America (co-authored with Lauren Winner); while I'm not always in lock step with his politics or his theology, I always find Balmer's analysis insightful and thought-provoking.

Pop Culture Fridays: What Lost Teaches Us About Community

I may be one of the 6 people left in America who hasn't seen an episode of Lost. The concept seems fascinating; there is no good reason I have missed the show. A combination of grad school busyness and a bent toward situation comedies is probably, at least in part, to blame. This far behind, I have had a hard time finding the motivation to catch up.

Still, the impact wasn't lost on me when reading Regina Nigro's analysis of how the show paints an important picture of community. In America Magazine, a Catholic publication, Nigro writes that the popular drama has reinforced the oft-neglected concept of interdependence. Specifically, Nigro suggests "The “live together or die alone” credo has been a steady refrain throughout the show’s run, underscoring what has become a central theme: the value of living in community."

The show not only presents discussion on this theme but bolsters the theme in its very structure. Nigro writes: "The significance of individual choice extends even to the show’s narrative style. "Lost” employs parallel storytelling (juxtaposing a character’s pre-crash flashback with a current island crisis), providing several points for meditation on the nature of good and evil, people’s obligations to one another, the power of love and the endless struggle between faith and doubt. Placing moral crisesin the context of a struggle for survival lends a sense of urgency to the choices made..."

She continues:"...While “Lost” is too nuanced for simple allegorical mapping, the island is essentially our world writ large. While we are not plagued daily by murderous polar bears, an ominous “smoke monster” or creepy forest whispers, the island setting merely makes the challenge of living in community more apparent. The consistent message is that treating each other with dignity, respect and love is paramount; and it is no coincidence that every second chance awarded is oriented toward living together, not dying alone."

In every discipline I've studied (theology, politics, journalism, etc.), it has become glaringly apparent that perhaps our greatest sin, both individually and socially, is the sin of self-absorption, irresponsible independence and isolation. Our politics fails when leaders only look out for their interests; our communities struggle when neighbor will not lift a hand to help neighbor; we cannot be an instrument of God's grace or truly experience spiritual communion when we are only out to please self. John Piper speaks of our trading God's glory for lesser things; this "exchange" comes in the service of our self-glorification and contentment.

What Nigro sees in Lost is a lesson for our everyday lives and for the larger-scale decisions we make. When we give up our rights to ourselves, we are not losing, we are rather gaining. We become embedded and ingrained in community rather than setting ourselves up for loneliness, despair, spiritual emptiness.

It has famously been said that no man is an island. Perhaps it is the very purpose of the men and women on this TV island to remind us of that.

Aarik Danielsen's 2008 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack or The Audacity of Rock

I commemorate the end of every year with a year-in-review CD, compiling all the music that captivated me most and best expresses the year I had. It took me a bit longer to cull everything I loved from 2008 but here is the final tracklisting (I don't usually make dual-disc mixes, but this was a good year...):

Disc 1:
1. coldplay:: lovers in japan/reign of love
2. death cab for cutie:: cath...
3. yesan damen:: monuments to ambition
4. beck w/cat power:: orphans
5. break and repair method:: calling all electrical prints
6. anna ternheim:: little lies
7. jakob dylan:: will it grow
8. matthew perryman jones:: when it falls apart
9. jenny lewis w/elvis costello:: carpetbaggers
10. my morning jacket:: alumnium park
11. the black keys:: I got mine
12. lucinda williams:: tears of joy
13. the war on drugs:: a needle in your eye #16
14. fleet foxes:: mykonos
15. the decemberists:: valerie plame

Disc 2:
1. snow patrol:: take back the city
2. m83:: kim and jessie
3. r.e.m.:: man-sized wreath
4. tv on the radio:: golden age
5. ryan adams and the cardinals:: cobwebs
6. john mellencamp:: my sweet love
7. ray lamontagne:: you are the best thing
8. the hold steady:: sequestered in memphis
9. old crow medicine show:: highway halo
10. giant sand:: stranded pearl
11. bon iver:: creature fear
12. the national eye:: the farthest shore
13. scouts:: whiskey echo lima lima
14. coldplay:: death and all his friends