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For 48 hours starting today (Monday) at noon, there is a premiere of a new video from Nooma, called “She.” I would encourage you to give this a look. Be prepared to watch for around 10 minutes.
It is described like this:
We didn’t have anything to do with our birth. We are all here because some woman somewhere gave us life. Her pain, her effort, for our life. And when a mother gives like that to a child, she is showing us what God is like. But sometimes this part of God’s nature is overlooked. A lot of us are comfortable with male imagery for God. But what about female imagery for God? Is God limited to a gender? Or does God transcend and yet include what we know as male and female? Maybe if we were more aware of the feminine imagery for God we would have a better understanding of who God is and what God is like.
Depending on what circles your theology fits in, this statement could be either very tame or very radical. Either way, I think it is worth watching and thinking about.
There is great beauty and wisdom in some of the writings of the feminist theologians, and it is often a beauty and wisdom that has been forged in spite of deep oppression. However, there is also often great anger, and sometimes this anger leads these theologians to turn the oppressions on the heads of those who oppress them.
The same issue exists in liberation theology. In both cases, it is entirely justified. It is just for the oppressed and ignored to want retribution and to attempt to get it.
But in these issues, as well as issues of violence and war and annoying bosses, justification is not enough for something to line up with the heart of God. Certainly, it was just for Peter, seeing the arrest of Jesus, to cut off an ear or two. Countless other examples, before and after Jesus put the ear back, have occurred and in general we as humans have responded in ways that seek the kind of justice that Jesus didn’t allow.
In light of all this, if I could encourage feminist and liberation theologians, I would encourage them to draw closer to the heart of God as they cry out for the world to remember the things that truly are on his heart. But they must remember the masculine qualities of God as well as the neglected feminine attributes. They must remember the peaceful subversion that is the kingdom of God as well as magnify the neglected cries of the poor and oppressed. It is hard to live like this. But it is essential.
In light of all this, watch the new Nooma video.
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Currently, I’m attending UX Week 2008 in San Francisco. Should you happen to be there, feel free to post a comment.
Anyway, as a brief update, we have this gem from Stephen Colbert, regarding the issue of human rights violations in China:
What are they thinking doing it on their own soil? Isn’t there an offshore military base they can use?
On a more serious note, I think it is incredibly important to be aware of the profundity that is in shows like The Colbert Report. When he says things like this, he is using the art of comedy to speak to us, and hopefully to evoke change.
Great cartoon about some presidential economic trends. Certainly, the cartoon is entirely based on raw data and the data can be interpreted in very partisan ways for both sides, but in any case the data still stands. You can click the cartoon to see a larger version.
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I got an email recently that was advertising a Christian version of iTunes. It described itself like this:
The world needs one place to find Christian music and this is going to be it.
Normally, I would delete such an email without giving any thought to it, and go on about my business. With this one, though, it stuck out to me and started a rabbit trail of thoughts.
Christianity in the United States has done a very good (or very bad, depending on your perspective) job of isolating itself from the rest of the culture. Most of the mainstream Christian music industry already has no contact with the outside world. When artists in this mainstream try to venture into having contact with the outside world, they often get all kinds of horrible treatment from the church.
So, the last thing we need is one place to find Christian music. I love that most of my favorite bands tour with bands that are not necessarily made up of followers of Jesus, and that they have large numbers of fans who are not necessarily followers of Jesus. They play at Cornerstone, and they play on Warped Tour. There are music scenes, especially the current hardcore and metalcore scenes, that have done very well at incarnating themselves into the world, and this is how Jesus would have done it.