Artifact 1: The Next Christians

For my artifact, I attended to a January Series event. The lecture was called “The Next Christians: How a New Generation is Restoring the Faith.” The speaker was Gabe Lyons, who is famous for his book “The Next Christians.” Lyons lecture mainly focused on the Christian interaction with our current culture. He explained the two kinds of Christians in today’s society—the separatist, and the cultural Christian. Separatist only spend time with people who think like them, act like them, and share their beliefs. They only listen to certain kinds of music and watch certain kinds of movies. Overall, they seclude themselves from the world in order to remain holy. Cultural Christians, on the other hand, tend to blend in with the rest of the population. These Christians do no stand out--the word “Christian” is simply a label. Both separatists and cultural Christians fail to see the full creation-fall-redemption-restoration story--they only see half. Separatists look only at the fall and redemption part. For these separatists, redemption is solely about escaping the material world, rather than working at renewing it. In contrast, cultural Christians focus on creation and restoration. They fail to see the need to redeem what is fallen—rather than standing out in opposition to fallen culture, they fit right in.

As followers of Christ, we are to be neither separatists nor cultural Christians. Instead, we are called to be restorers, or a vision of how things ought to be. As restorers, we are to be provoked. This means that we are not to simply critique and condemn culture, but we are to get involved in it and take action. As Lyons explained, humans are called to help create the world as it should be and use their God-given gifts to help restore culture. However, in order to restore culture, we must first become engaged in it.

In conclusion, I believe that our interaction with culture is extremely important. We must not become separatists and seclude ourselves from everything materialistic and evil in the Empire. In order to bring the Kingdom of God into culture, we must be involved in culture. However, we should not let ourselves become so well adjusted to culture that we fit right in, becoming “cultural Christians.” We must work at becoming restorers, bringing the backwards Kingdom of God into our society.

Discussion Questions:

1. How can we avoid being separatists and cultural Christians, and seek to be restorers in today’s society?

2. How can we engage in culture and use our gifts to help reform it?

Glee

For my artifact, I decided to watch an episode of the show Glee. The show is an all-American musical drama aired on Fox television network. It takes place at a high school and focuses on one particular musical club that deals with competition, relationships, sexuality and social issues.

In the episode I watched, the musical club, also known as the Glee club, had to perform at a sectional competition in order to continue to move on Regionals. Throughout the episode many of the characters dealt with relationship issues not only amongst each other in the group but with their parents and families as well. Many of the parents of the teens in the group believed that the club was ingraining into their children an unrealistic vision for their future. Like most American parents in our society, they wanted their children to pick a more successful path for their future which would bring in more income. Rather than looking at the gifts and talents God had blessed their children with, their focus was on money and how only that would benefit them in life.

Money can be very deceivingly evil in our society today because like the children on the show, often people are forced or encouraged to disregard the talents and skills which God created them with and blessed them with in order that they can gain wealth in money. Our culture pushes us to believe that in order to be successful we need to have a high paying job and more money than we know what to do with. The evil makes us believe that we won’t be good enough unless we have are the “top dog” of our class. God redeemed us though and created us each with different skills and abilities. With His truth living in us, we can know that we don’t have to have the best job or the most money, but that rather we can follow our dreams for the joy that He showers us with in that is priceless.

When the club members on the show decided to follow their dream of performing rather than the high paying routes their parents were pushing them towards, they discovered that the joy they received in that was worth more than falling into the lies of society.
What dreams are we giving up in order to be something somebody else wants us to be? What talents and blessings from God are we throwing away at the cost of listening to the lie of society that only money can buy us true happiness?

"Good Hair" Dorm Film Post

On Monday night some classmates and I watched, “Good Hair.” I will be completely honest, being the only bi-racial girl in the group I was really nervous to go see this film and I had my doubts as to how my fellow classmates would react. I am pleased to report that the dorm film experience was informative, friendly, and not at all awkward.

After Chris Rock’s daughter asked him why she didn’t have good hair, Chris took on the journey across the world to gather information on the pressures put on African American women as they strive to get the stereotypical “good hair”. This movie is a funny commentary yet a well-researched study about the true racist attitudes towards African American’s hair and what it has caused. My perspective of this movie was thoroughly influenced by my own ethnicity. I myself have asked my mother why I had to get the type of hair I have instead of her silky blond hair. I am an African- American and Caucasian mix and therefore have incredibly curly hair that comes with similar pressures and insecurities that African American women in this movie face. I was so shocked to watch about the amount of time, energy, money, and pain women got through on a weekly basis to get their hair from its natural “nappy” state to “good” quality, or straight. Women can do this by getting their hair relaxed which is a chemical process that is time-consuming, expensive, painful, and unhealthy for your hair. Processes like this start at the young age of only three years old. Chris Rock also does research on weaves and how very expensive they are and where the hair comes form. The information was simply appalling.

After reading several film reviews I saw how the general public viewed this film. One critique, Jenifer Merrin, stated that according to the film, “People with 'good hair' (i.e. straight hair) get better jobs, are more popular, and have better sex lives. On the flip side, 'Nappy' hair is ugly. 'Nappy' hair is also black.” Statements like this are sad but this is indeed the theme that the movie portrays to its audience. Another reviewer, Jeannette Catsoulis says, “One of the happy consequences of “Good Hair” should be a radical increase in white-women’s empathy for their black sisters.” Being mixed I do know what it is like to be defined by your hair. In this movie good hair is defined as straight hair and the implications of this give into a billion dollar industry. This film certainly opened my eyes and I vow to not be judgmental of African American women’s hair now that I know the severity of what they have to go through in order to avoid judgment.