The Only Nativity Scene I've Ever Felt Comfortable With

What follows is a post I recently wrote for my Christian Discipleship in a Consumer Society journal, a semester-long assignment regularly making entries for a course at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, where I'm currently in my last year of a Masters of Divinity program. Please comment! I'd love to hear what you think!

As we celebrate the Feast Day of Christ the King and begin preparations for the expectant, hopeful season of Advent, many folks (both Christian and otherwise) are probably not looking forward to the fact that Advent/ "the holiday season" is a time of the year when America's ongoing culture wars are probably the most pronounced. Things like fights over whether a child can mention the birth of Jesus in a public school, debates about whether a Christmas tree or even a nativity scene is allowed on the local town green and a common Christian lament about "the secularization/ commercialization of Christmas" around this time of the year are all too common.

While different understandings of the American concept of church/ state separation, concerns about the commercialization of Christmas and the skipping over of Advent are legitimate and thus are rightfully subjected to "spirited" public debate in our culture, there's one humble suggestion I have for my fellow sisters and brothers in Christ that would lessen tensions around this time of the year... if you have a nativity scene outside your church, make sure it conveys the good news of Christ that it's supposed to. With the exception of the nativity scene Saint John's Lutheran Church on Christopher Street in NYC had up last year, I can't really think of a particular outdoor nativity scene that does a good job of proclaiming the gospel (with some of those "living nativity scenes" as notable exceptions). Now I may think this because I haven't seen enough nativity scenes to make an honest judgement, but I do know that most of the non-Christian friends I talk with about the subject (if they notice them at all) tend to think one of two things about the nativity scenes they see sprouting up around town: 

• Nativity scenes are sometimes offensive. This is because the human characters in nativity scenes are frequently all European American (especially odd since Jesus and everyone else except for perhaps the three kings/ magi would have been West Asian).
• Nativity scenes are sometimes oppressive. For folks whose primary brushes with Christianity have been extremely oppressive, judgmental and perhaps even hateful, a nativity scene that doesn't proclaim the radical hospitality that Jesus is all about can simply become another reminder about all the sinful aspects of Christian history. For folks how have a sort of neutral view of Christianity but don't know the Biblical stories behind the nativity, such scenes can simply look like a bunch of pious "perfect people" standing around an empty manger with a bunch of farm animals instead of a display that proclaims God lovingly frees and welcomes in us sinners of all shapes and sizes.

So, with all that in mind, the two photos you see here are of the nativity scene outside Saint John's Lutheran Church last year in the heart of Greenwich Village. It depicts the nativity in a way that culturally translates... occupiers, a drag queen, a business man, hip-hoppers and a beat poet are all gathered around the manger with Mary and Joseph, expectantly waiting the coming of the Christ-child. What an amazingly creative way to get noticed and more importantly proclaim the gospel in a way culturally translates what Christ's coming is all about!

Many thanks to Pastor Erson for sending these pictures to me, but all the writing above reflects my thoughts and my thoughts alone. Please don't take this post as a challenge at all... I bet there's a bunch of really great nativity scenes out there! Rather, read this as an invitation to share some of those creative ways your faith community has discerned how to proclaim the gospel during Advent and Christmas.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Consumerism, Christian Discipleship and the Digital Age

What follows is a post I recently wrote for my Christian Discipleship in a Consumer Society journal, a semester-long assignment regularly making entries for a course at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, where I'm currently in my last year of a Masters of Divinity program. It's definitely just a bit of free-form, unedited thinking, but I'd love to hear what you think.

So I've been thinking a great deal about the many concepts we've talking about in the course so far, and given that we're almost halfway through the semester, I figured I'd try to articulate my thinking thus far. This won't be pretty, it's just a lot of raw, stream of conscious writing, but here we go...

Throughout the semester something's been hanging on me a bit... I sort of had a general notion that things were changing, that the advent of a variety of web 2.0 platforms and especially social media was revolutionizing how we identify ourselves, what we desire, and how we define ourselves. In other words, I thought social media was changing many of the factors involved in what we create and how we can consume... yet, I could never really articulate what I was trying to get at.

Last week, when discussing Pastor's Zandstra's article "30-cent Deal of a Lifetime," what I was trying to get at became a bit clearer. A major argument of Pastor Zandstra's piece was that we don't primarily purchase/ consume commodities because we desire the physical object, but rather that we desire a certain identity that various commodities signal to others (and ourselves). Essentially, for many millennials, and increasingly folks of older generations as well, Pastor Zandstra's apt observation no longer holds true. With social media revolutionizing the way we identify ourselves and the way we make meaning, a decreasing percentage of the commodities many younger folks buy has very much to do with identity at all. Sure, if I ever buy brand new clothes (I usually just thrift shop), its at LL Bean, primarily so I can return the commodities I purchase once they wear out, but also because the whole woodsy Maine thing is a part of the identity I've constructed for myself. A Facebook profile is such a stronger, more interactive way of signaling identity though, so if my online persona greatly contradicted the whole woodsy thing, folks would probably think of me more based more upon what they see online. In this way (and its only one of two ways I've so far identified), purchasing commodities of a specific brand is increasingly less important in constructing an identity for one's self.

I just analyzed my own spending over the past month in order to provide some factual evidence to back up this idea. Here's the categories I spent on:

- Rent: 26%
- Food: 22%
- Entertainment (mostly beer & concert tickets): 16%
- Health: 10%
- Transportation: 8%
- Books: 8%
- Investment: 7%
- Miscellaneous: 2%
- Charity: 1%

Outside of the charity number being so low (that definitely something I need to work on over the next month), the only category that really has much to do with identity at all is the books (I like identify as a proud member of the liberal intelligentsia haha). The local microbrews and folk-rock concerts can probably be added in as well as having to do with identity (I'm a bit of a hippie), as can the charity (I'm an overly cheap Christian) but that really only makes up one quarter of my spending for the month.

On another level, social media is also beginning to subvert the original purpose of brands to begin with. As we discussed in class, brands only became important when folks began buying commodities from a third-party, rather than directly from a local producer whose reputation the purchaser would have known about. With the advent of modern capitalism, brands were necessary to signal reputation of the producer, since the original producer may have been half a world away from the purchaser. Now however, with social media, anyone can talk about the quality of any sort of product with folks all over the world. Thus, while brands are still important (I'm typing on my MacBook Air right now), the consuming public increasingly has the power to discuss and define a brand, subverting the producer's ability to define their brand to a certain extent.

Two more quick points I'm only starting to think about. I'm in the midst of reading Karl Marx's Capital, and I've started to further nail down the whole identity creation through social media thing. In Marx's read on a capitalist society, the problem with the capitalist class is that they privately own the means of production, and thus can extract surplus value from the laborer, which turn leads to an increasing concentration of capital... did I get it right? If we take as a given that creation identity is a central factor in capitalist consumption, then capitalism is at very least on the verge of changing its form. This is because an increasing percentage of individuals (one third of people globally currently have internet access and another third have mobile phone access), now control their own means of identity production in the form of blogs, Facebook accounts, YouTube accounts and the like. This idea needs to be fleshed out a great deal still, but I'd like to think I'm on to something.

So, what does Christian discipleship look like in this digital age, where the masses increasingly control their own means of identity production? I haven't fleshed this out yet, but I've been repeatedly drawn to a Gustavo Gutierrez quote from A Theology of Liberation when thinking about this:

Men are called together, as a community and not as separate individuals, to participate in the life of the Trinitarian community, to enter into the circuit of love that unites the persons of the Trinity. This is a love which "builds up human society in history." The fulfillment and the manifestation of the will of the Father occur in a privileged fashion in Christ, who is called therefore the "mystery of God." For the same reason Sacred Scripture, the Church and the liturgical rites were designated by the first Christian generations by the term mystery, and by its Latin translation, sacrament. In the sacrament the salvific plan is fulfilled and revealed; that is, it is made present among men and for men... The sacrament is thus the efficacious revelation of the call to communion with God and to the unity of all mankind (Gutierrez 259).

As Christians in community, as the Church, Christ's body on earth, increasingly both has individual and collective access to our own means of identity production, it becomes increasingly easier for God to work through Christian community as a sacrament to the world.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Dostoevsky on Consumerism

A recent post from my "Christian Discipleship in a Consumer Society" journal:

I've been thinking a bunch this week about whether the contemporary "consumer culture" we find ourselves in is really any different than what has come before. Given what my Lutheran theology says about us all being sinners and saints, haven't folks had the same level of desire to consume things, feelings and experiences throughout human history? Last night while reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (I'm a big nerd and reading classic literature is one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday night, for better or worse), I came across a passage that would seem to indicate much of what we are experiencing is nothing new. This quote comes from a portion of the book that as written as the final notes and memoirs of a recently deceased saintly monk, Father Zossima, who serves as the main protagonist's mentor:

Look at the worldly and all who set themselves up above the people of God, has not God's image and His truth been distorted in them? They have science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man's being is rejected altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what doe we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self-destruction! For the world says:

"You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires." That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air.

Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation... For how can a man shake off his habits, what can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less (Dostoevsky 288 - 289).

Is our experience as Christians any different than Father Zossima's (and Dostoevsky's) nearly 150 years ago? I honestly doubt it at this point. If there is any difference however, it seems like it might be a positive. Father Zossima laments that his wider society has rejected the spiritual world entirely in favor of the material. As we've talked a great deal about in our course already however, in our contemporary world, we're often sold or pursue material in order to fulfill emotional or spiritual needs. Perhaps, at least, we have the right desires, but just simply don't know the right way to move toward fulfilling them.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Christian Discipleship in a Consumer Society

So here's the dilliyo (using that word makes me pretty hip right?) This semester at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, where I'm currently a Senior in their Masters of Divinity program, I'm taking an ethics course entitled "Christian Discipleship in a Consumer Society" with Professor John Hoffmeyer. The 'Hoff is fantastic, as is the course so far... we've talked a lot about how in our modern consumer society (it hasn't always been this way), we don't really practice "materialism" in the strict sense at all... while we keep buying way more than we need, we're primarily doing so to purchase the emotions and experiences we desire. This fact definitely has implications for those going into ordained ministry, as a central part of our job is helping folks discover, learn and experience God's love in loving communities.

One assignment we have throughout the semester is maintaining a journal where we jot down advertisements we encounter, insights we have about consumerism, and the like. I figured why not make this journal public, with the hope that it might spark some further conversation both with my fellow Christians and folks currently outside faith communities as well. So throughout the semester, I'll be posting random snippets, commercials and the like in a chronological blog style on a new journal page, which you can find here or by using the "Site Navigation" box on the right of your browser screen. More detailed insights will be posted as normal blogposts as well. You'll find the first longer post below, where I write about how much I crave "pumpkin everything" each autumn. Thanks so much, and I'd love to hear what you think!

Monday, September 9: It's Pumpkin Season!

It's been pretty hard for me to figure out what to write in here... I'm very self-righteous anti-consumerism sort of fellow, or at least I'd like to think I am, so I at least like to pretend I'm not very susceptible to most advertising. A couple days back though when I headed over to the local Wawa for my morning coffee, it hit me that there's one advertising scheme at least that really pulls me in... I love pumpkin everything!

At Wawa for the first time this year, I saw pumpkin flavored coffee, and I absolutely had to have it. While it does taste pretty good, as does most things that are pumpkin (pumpkin beer, pumpkin cream cheese, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, etc.), I'm of course not really into pumpkin everything because of what it tastes like or what it's made of. I crave pumpkin everything each fall because of the feelings, memories and emotions the taste, smell and imagery remind me of... Trips to the local cider mill as a young kid with my dad, great-uncle and brother, where they had all you can drink sweet cider for free... holding a date close under the stars on a cool October night as we rode a haunted hayride in high school... trying to carve an awesome jack o lantern with my mom and messing up but know she could fix it... that's the sort of thing I'm craving when I buy pumpkin everything.

Pumpkin everything is particularly strong pull for me because I so closely associate it with autumn in New England. Having been exiled away from my beloved region for so long, for undergrad and seminary with only a brief respite in between, pumpkin draws me through idealized images of childhood, and even more importantly, a general feeling of home. In reality, I'm mostly spending money trying to return to place that no longer really exists for me, particularly after my mom passed away in 2008, if it ever did. This sense of denial I feel about 'having a home' fits in with the marketing strategy many companies employ of denying folks pumpkin everything throughout a large portion of the year. But anyway, as a Starbucks spokeswoman in this CNBC article states, "This is a time all its own: Winter, spring, summer and pumpkin spice latte season." Even with all this analysis, it doesn't mean I'm going to buy any less pumpkin everything this autumn.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.