sustain:if:able kiwi

sara coakley and the future of theology symposium

On 12-13 July 2010, in Sydney, an international symposium on “Sarah Coakley and the Future of Systematic Theology”.

Organised by Ben Myers, with contributors from around Australia, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, Rome. And one Kiwi-in-exile – me! (I’m doing a paper wanting to have a conversation between prayer and the Spirit as it happens outside the faith community – Bono’s public invoking of the Spirit to be present at their concerts is what has got me pondering).

Topics being covered include:

• Does systematic theology have a future?
• Trinity and mysticism
• Priestly and non-priestly prayer
• Embodiment and the body of Christ
• Analytic theology
• Subjectivity and responsibility
• Praying theology
• and a public lecture by Sarah Coakley

More details are here, with a full list of abstracts here.

u2 chapter accepted for publication

News overnight that my U2 conference paper – Sampling and reframing: the evolving live concert performances of “Bullet the Blue Sky” – has been accepted for publication. Date and publisher still to be clarified, but with over 40 papers being submitted for a book of about 15 chapters, I’m stoked.

It’s also my first foray into the arts and music world outside the church, so the whole process – having the chance to present a paper and now have that accepted for publication, is a pretty big tick in terms of what I do and teach (the paper began life as a casestudy in a lecture in my Living the text in a postmodern context.”

Here is the “abstract”:

“Bullet the Blue Sky” is the fourth track on U2’s 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. The song was originally written as a commentary on a highly particularized context, the involvement of the United States military in Central America during the 1980’s. Over time, this highly particularized political context has changed, yet the song has continued to be performed by U2.

Using commercially available concert footage, this chapter will explore the changes and development in the song’s performance, over a twenty year period, with a particular focus on concerts in Paris (1987), Slane Castle (2001) and Chicago (2005).

Following one song over an extended period allows an exploration of how a band can reframe and re-perform their music as the context and culture shifts. (Hint, hint, what churches are seeking to do every Sunday in relation to Bible and church tradition! Ed)

The theoretical frameworks of narrative mapping and analyzing popular culture using the metaphor of sampling will be employed. Narrative mapping allows complex data to be analyzed in real time, as it unfolds, while sampling involves the collage-like re-appropriating of already existing elements in the pursuit of creativity.

Naming these samples, including song snippets, video and theatrical performances, and how they work in relationship to the audience, demonstrates a complex renegotiation of the meaning of “Bullet the Blue Sky” and shows how “sampling” a song might address new contextual and political issues. The application of installation art theory offers insights into the public negotiation of communal memory and provides another window by which to appreciate U2’s live concert performances. (Hint, hint, creativity in the context of gathered worship! Ed)

the spirit, worship, leadership. but outside the gathered?

Some random thoughts have been churning through my head. They are a mix of pastoral encounters with people in hard places, who no longer feel able to pray. And the ongoing tension of being a pastoral leader in today’s post-Christendom context, when the gathered expect my feeding, but the mission task keeps itching. And engaging (through study and reading this week) Romans 8:26, in which the Spirit prays for us.

And wondering if this prayer is embodied, takes shape in the habits of the praying community and the praying leader. As in Anunication, baptism, transfiguration, resurrection, pentecost, the Spirit finds concrete shape in human things, so does this prayer of the Spirit take shape in the prayers of the saints?

And all of this stimulated by watching U2 live in Raleigh. (Yes, yet another U2 reference on this blog. Sorry for being stuck in a moment. This time will pass!).  Third song in is Mysterious ways. At the end, Bono invokes the Spirit. (See a clip here).

He literally names the one who moves us as the Spirit (3:45 “Spirit teach me, reach me), and then shifts from singular to plural (is the “we” the band or the crowd?), inviting that Spirit to come and be present (3:55 “we move with it”). And the lighting switches from being band-centric, to mirror-ball, with white light moving over the crowd (4:08). A magic moment, as for the first time the crowd are lit. 

And the part of me that is not dancing and enjoying, but is paying attention wonders if this is coincidence, or if I am hearing Bono right, and seeing the light correct. Is the Spirit being invoked to be present at a rock concert, to play not just over a band member, but over all those gathered? If so, is this part of Romans 8:26, in which the Spirit is praying for the aches and pains of the gathered thousands, through the words and invitation of a singer, and underlined by a lighting director?

And if so, how to make sense  – theological, liturgical, congregational – of that moment, and other moments, when the Spirit is invoked beyond the gathered church?

Many will have never make this connection I have made. Does this matter? Is this “prayer” still “for” them? Many of them will not consider themselves “Amen-ers” ready to say yes to the work of the Spirit in them. Does this matter? How is this “prayer” still “for” them? But many will go on in the concert to pray and to enact justice on behalf of the One campaign. So is this then their participation in an activity of the Spirit?

Such are the thoughts that wriggle through my head at the moment.

bono: third way’s icon of the month

I’ve been beating my head for the last few weeks around a couple of sentences in a chapter I’m writing: struggling to know how to express what I consider messianic pretentiousness in Bono’s claim in this Youtube video that songs can change the world.

So it was a relief to find Bono’s messianic pretentiousness captured by no less a luminary than Bruce Springsteen, who

observed, when inducting U2 into the rock and roll hall of fame that ‘every good … front man knows that before James Brown there was Jesus’. And Bono, as the Boss suggests, seems to know this better than most.

A quote as part of the December edition of Third way magazine, who have named Bono as their icon of the month. (They do an icon a month and it’s a fantastic resource for cultural studies, which I drew on for my Gospel in post-Christian class earlier this year with every student reflecting on the use and abuses of such things as – Nike, football pitch, play station, widescreen TV – in our world today.)

Which needs to be placed alongside John Drane’s incisive little book Celebrity Culture. John argues that today’s celebrity culture offers a fantastic opportunity for the gospel. Specifically

• that our fascination with celebrities reminds us that for many humans, truth is embodied and experienced as relational and personal
• that we no longer expect our celebrities to be completely perfect. Indeed, that their pain as they struggle to be a person of value is good news, for it portrays a form of honest discipleship that is deeply Biblical.
• the contemporary human fascination with the warts and all of life, including the spiritual search, asks questions about how authentically open are most Christians in their spiritual search

And for a wonderful exposition of this theology of “celebrity culture”, see the Drane’s post on the death of celebrity Jane Goodie.

So thanks Bono, for even if your songs can’t change a world, nevertheless, in your stubbled way, you help me stumble toward my being formed in the way of Christ.

some days are better than others: reseaching U2

I’ve just emailed a UK music producer, John Reynolds. He is responsible for producing the chant by Sinead O’Connor, that begins the live performance of Bullet the Blue Sky on the U2 Go Home – Live from Slane Castle DVD. It’s a gorgeous chant: rich, evocative and moody.

Since I’m researching the evolving live performances of U2, and seeking to turn a spoken 2,500 word paper into a 6,000 word book chapter, I am intrigued:
– Is Sinead singing any particular lyrics, or is she just offering a chant, perhaps as some sort of lament?
– What Sinead might have been hoping to communicate with the chant and how she felt about the way U2 incorporated it into their live performance?
– How the production process evolved, including was it initially requested by U2 or offered by Sinead?

I’ve asked for help on the atU2 forums (yep, part of research is reading fan sites!)

Some days, research is fun! (And is also an excellent excuse to keep me away from writing, which is what I am really meant to be doing).

an advent blessing: some great u2 theology

Following posts on Advent creative prayers stations and Advent creative spirituality2go home prayer activities, here’s an Advent blessing I’m pondering.

It’s not mine. It’s from Bono. At the end of City of Blinding lights, live streamed on the internet from Los Angeles, he ad libbed a new ending:

Blessings, not just for the ones who kneel
Luckily, luckily
We don’t believe in luck.
Grace abounds.
Grace abounds.

Seems to me to be great theology and particularly suitable for Advent. It was so easy for Israel to think they were the centre of God’s world. And so easy for the church and Christians to think today they are the centre of God’s world. But as we are reminded in Psalm 67: 1-2
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us,
that your ways may be known on earth, 
your salvation among all nations.

God’s face shines most fully both on Jesus, and in Jesus. A message not just for the lucky ones, but for all upon whom God’s grace abounds.

worship with? or without you?: worship, community and u2

Great nite (for me anyhow), at last nite’s evening on U2, with what felt like a really good conversation rolling through the discussion time after. It is so much fun (for me anyhow) thinking missiologically and theologically about something that I love! Thanks to Laidlaw College and Opawa for the opportunity.

What I did was develop and extend my October conference paper. Here is some of my last section, titled: Applications for preaching and worship:

Worship as the awakening of communal memory. We tend to turn up to worship as individuals. So do fans at a concert. The songs awaken individual memories. (As in this video of the crowd at a Glasgow 360 concert. Look at the faces, lots of people with awakened communal memories!) Yet U2 also work at creating communal memories, as they namedrop a place, as they reference shared world events (recent examples would be space station, or Michael Jackson’s death). What does it mean for our worship to deliberately create communal memories? For example, lighting a candle to stand with those who grieving. Or the crafting of worship in relation to public holidays, for example recently here in New Zealand, Labour Day to awaken communal memory as to the rhythm of work and leisure.

The purpose of worship. Reading a live concert as an act of installation art offers a definition: the crafting of a space in which people can look at themselves. Seeker sensitive worship told us to ditch the heavier stuff, yet at a U2 concert we find a band playing to thousands of people and inviting them to engage with them in moments of pray (recent examples are for Aung San Suu Kyi) and lament (recently for Iran) and to join social justice (recently for One campaign). These are contemporary expressions of ancient Christian disciplines. In so doing, U2 are inviting people to look at themselves in relation to the world around. Which sounds like a very worthy purpose of worship, for people, in light of the Christian story, to look at themselves in relation to the world around.

a Friday reminder: an evening on u2: for Christchurch fans

The world’s biggest band offers an intriguing case study in contemporary communication.
➢ How to play “old” songs in a new millennium?
➢ How to speak prophetically through changing times?
➢ How to connect across generations and cultures?

Steve Taylor presented a paper “The evolving live performance of U2’s Bullet the Blue Sky” at the first ever U2 Academic Conference, held in USA in October 09.

At AN EVENING ON U2, Steve will:
• Present his paper
• Demonstrate with live concert footage
• Suggest implications for worship and preaching today

7:30-9pm Friday 30 October, auditorium of Opawa Baptist Church, cnr Hasting St East and Wilson Road, Christchurch. Open to anyone. This evening is brought to you by Laidlaw College and Opawa Baptist.

U2 Pasadena webcast as culture making: updated

“Fans are making multi-cam experiences of concerts. Even with trailers. So what will U2 do? When, how will they push back?”

So spoke Matt McGee, founder of U2 fan site atU2, at the first U2 academic conference on Sunday, October 4.

Surely the live streaming of Los Angeles 360 tour concert was U2’s definitive reply? (Updated: an event that became Youtube’s largest streaming event ever, with nearly 10 millions viewers. Not a bad crowd!)

What do you do when every fan is a walking multi-media unit, when your concerts are being live streamed and when your live concert sound and image is being defined on Youtube by cheap cellphone recordings?

In my classes and speaking recently I’ve been using Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. He summarises a range of contemporary stances toward culture:
– condemnation
– critique, with the emphasis on intellectual analysis of culture
– copying culture, in which a subculture develops around the imitation of forms from contemporary culture
– consuming, in which “most evangelicals today … simply go to the movies … [and] … walk out amused, titillated, distracted or thrilled, just like our fellow consumers who do not share our faith.” (89)
– creating
Crouch argues that the first four are problematic, for the only way to change culture is to create more of it.

So apply this to the live streaming. U2 could condemn, with cease and desist legal action. They could critique, making bitchy public media statements. They could do nothing, let themselves be consumed, defined, by handheld cellphones on youtube.

Instead they have created. They have experience in making live DVD, they have the best sound system in stadium, they have the cameras best placed to catch the action, they have the leverage to talk with youtube. So if they send the show out live, get watched by millions around the world, then they get to define the quality on Youtube.

Plus create a promotional goldmine. For instance, in the wash of free publicity throw in an announcement of a return to the US in 2010. Plus become defined as the band who played to the largest audience in the world. And a prediction – it allows them to put a line under the 360 tour, freeing them to release a new album in 2010, complete with new songs, more “pop” to quote Bono, and so repair the damage done by the slower sales of NLOTH.

Whichever way you look, a global webcast is quite some response to the question of fan consumption in a digital age. And Paul McGuiness is a marketing genius. And U2 are a fine example of culture-making in an internet age.

the joy of being a fan: u2 in milano

This is a great video clip:
a man happy in his skin
a creative man, who has found a way to express his creativity
a man who is now captured on video, humming the songs
of another creative man, another who has found a way to express his creativity

the mixing of two creative joys. angst is easier to capture artistically. joy is much hard to capture. the music of U2 has a joyous feel at the moment, the freedom of a group who seem very comfortable in their skin, in their creativity.

much band fandom feels adolescent, like a kid doing rabbit ears behind a live camera feed,
an energy doing it’s best to make itself the centre of the show.

this fandom feels mature, someone who perhaps really has found what they are looking for,
who can “shout for joy if you get the chance” (U2, Unknown Caller).

an evening on u2: for Christchurch fans

For those of you in Christchurch, please pass this on …..

The world’s biggest band offers an intriguing case study in contemporary communication.
➢ How to play “old” songs in a new millennium?
➢ How to speak prophetically through changing times?
➢ How to connect across generations and cultures?
Steve Taylor presented a paper “The evolving live performance of U2’s Bullet the Blue Sky” at the first ever U2 Academic Conference, held in USA in October 09.

At AN EVENING ON U2, Steve will:
• Present his paper (visual here, some content here).
• Demonstrate with live concert footage
• Suggest implications for worship and preaching today

7:30-9pm Friday 30 October, Opawa Baptist Church, cnr Hasting St East and Wilson Road, Christchurch. This evening is brought to you by Laidlaw College and Opawa Baptist Church. To register call 03 3544270 or email chch at laidlaw dot ac dot nz

interactivity in contemporary culture: u2 at creative play

I am constantly intrigued by the way contemporary culture encourages interactivity and human creativity. Like U2’s recent announcement of a 1000 word partnership with here.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The band’s new BlackBerry App gives you the chance to tell the story of a U2 song through the images it inspires for you. We want you to mail us your images – and become part of U2’s mobile album.

1. You interpret. “The songs on No Line On The Horizon evoke different people and places, thoughts and ideas in every listener … Does Breathe take your breath away ? Got a pair of sexy boots ? What or who is Magnificent for you ? … Share the images you associate with certain songs.” In other words, U2 really do write multi-layered songs (scroll to 5th paragraph: I’m the “theological trained acquaintance and actively encourage the creativity of reader-response.

2. You point and shoot. ” Snap your Unknown Caller or capture a moment of Stand Up Comedy.” Because we live in a world awash with digital cameras and cellphones, which provide the vehicle by which interactivity is encouraged.

3. You send in. “All you have to do is select the photo which you think captures a particular song and then email it to us … and we’ll select some to tell the story of each track in the ‘Origami’ section of the Mobile Album. Maybe you’ll find your picture telling the story of one of a song…”

This has immediate transfer into church life.
1. A few months ago at our evening service the theme was Grow in the black of Easter Friday and the white of Easter Sunday. So we encouraged people to shoot digital photos of things, during the week, that inspired awe in them, which were then used the next week in worship.
2. Email out the lectionary text and invite people to send in images of what the text evokes in them. Montage these as the Lectionary text is being read.
3. Invite people to send in photos of their workplace, to be placed on the church website.

What else folks? What are you doing, what have you seen done, in which contemporary culture is utilised to encourage interactivity and human creativity?

u2 concert’s and a world transformed by the gospel

This is part of Laidlaw College information night promotion, short video’s of people responding to the question: so what part of your world do you most want to see transformed by the gospel? Here’s my contribution, reflecting on my recent U2 concert experience

click here to watch 25sec video clip

Check out the rest – other religions, Japanese people, young people, community spirit – here. It’s an interesting initiative – using social networking – specifically Facebook, as a promotional strategy.

u2 conference in the rearview mirror

Having flown home with my U2 conference T-shirt,

and recovered from jetlag and further to my attendance at the U2 conference, I have written a report for my (partial) funders – Laidlaw College. Here is part of it, a rearview mirror reflection on the conference.

Some highlights
1 – Broad appeal: The theme of U2 ensured an incredibly wide range of people, in age, in interest. The fact the many presenters were academics by day, fans by night, ensured a passion and energy that ran throughout the conference.

2 – Being in a world-changing, rather than church-changing conversation: It was great to be in a conversation that began with and in contemporary culture and as a theologian to rub shoulders with Aids activists, writers for Rolling Stone and rock journalists. So much of my work ends up with people saying “What about the church?” In contrast, a dominant conference question was “What about the world?” in relation to social justice and Kingdom activism. That was refreshing.

3 – Networks: The conference allowed me a chance to meet face to face with a number of academic peers in the theology and popular culture field. (Shout out to Andy, Tim (who graciously showed me around Duke University, including a real local eatery!), Beth, Greg Clarke and Jeffrey Keuss.). Being isolated in New Zealand, this face to face contact is vital for developing relationships and networks.

4 – Future openings: Their are plans for a conference book and considerable energy for another conference. There is also a conversation happening with Laidlaw Christchurch and Opawa Baptist regarding me presenting an extended version of my paper in Christchurch (Reframing and sampling: the evolving live concert performance’s of Bullet the Blue Sky), as a sort of “alumni”/public interest gathering.