twitter

"Twitter is a great tool
to overthrow Middle East dictators, 
but too limited to expose heretics in Christendom" 
-Rod Hodgman - http://tiny.cc/4wuf1
(hey, that almost fits the 140-word limit for Twitter)

Christianity before and after 2004

"Not Many of You Should Presume to Be Bloggers:Theology Before Facebook, Theology After Facebook"
by John Dyer:

....Throughout the history of public theological debate, there was one constant—those debates only took place between a few select people—Moses, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and so on—who gained respect through a lifetime of scholarship.

But the invention of social media, like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, created a radical departure in communication. In pre-2004 Christianity (that is, Christianity before Facebook was invented), only a small group of Christian leaders and teachers had access to the printing press—but today everyone has WordPress. In pre-2004 Christianity it was difficult to become a published author, but today everyone is surrounded by dozens of "Publish" buttons...  full article

The Web and Global Voices: Ethan Zuckerman

From TED:

About this talk

Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don't even know.

About Ethan Zuckerman

Ethan Zuckerman studies how the world -- the whole world -- uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms
-TED, Link

:

@Xianity

Drop everything, and follow @Xianity on Twitter.
That's all I'll say..except check out:

1) the current feed ,
2 maybe some "greatest hits" collections:
10 Hilarious Tweets of @XIANITY
and 10 More Hilarious Tweets of @XIANITY

3)An interview with the anonymous author behind it all

Sweet Twitter Theology

Leonard Sweet article:
"Twitter Theology: 5 Ways Twitter Has Changed My Life and helped me be a better Disciple of Jesus"

David Crowder: Twitter Will Kill You:

David Crowder: Twitter Will Kill You:

see also:

Flutter, the new Twitter:


see also:
"Girl Falls Into Manhole While Texting, Parents Sue"

Into the Twittersphere

Twitter: Is Brevity The Next Big Thing?

• Twitter: Is Brevity The Next Big Thing?

  by Steven Levy
• "Maybe the best thing about Twitter is its potential. The founders are willing to see where users will take the service. At this point, Obvious is concentrating on making the service ubiquitous and is taking in exactly zero in revenue. 'We want millions of people to use and enjoy this,'says Williams. 'Hopefully, we'll know how to make money by then.'"

hire someone to listen for you

"I don't think you can hire someone to listen for you."
-from a fascinating article on companies hiring microbloggers to Tweet for them
(which also reveals that Shaq writes his own Tweets, while Brittney and Barack do not.)

• My Twitter
• Church Twitter..uh, so far, I wrote 'em both (:
  

What Would Postman Twitter?
McLuhan?
Shane Hipps?

if restaurants can embrace Twitter, and distrust top-down...

....why not the church?

"Now 4 Restaurant 2.0:
Thanks to Twitter and the Web,
L.A. is obsessed with the Korean tacos of America's first viral eatery.":

In many ways, Kogi's rapid rise reflects the same cultural moment that produced Barack Obama; youthful, urban, multiethnic, wired and communal, both brands resonate with a grassroots generation that distrusts top-down messaging and prefers to learn from peers, often online. The question now is whether L.A.'s Twitter-fueled Korean taco truck is merely a fad (more like, say, Howard Dean)—or, as the Kogi copycats are hoping, a model for the future..
-Newsweek, story

"A New Kind Of Conversation"

Even though young people hardly ever do email anymore;
they text
(see Leadership Journal 12/08, "Emailing is so 2006")..

And even though blogging is maybe "modern"
and perhaps past its peak;
it's Facebook or Twitter/micro-blogging
(see "Blogging? So 2006!"),


I obviously still believe in blogging...

and even recently read

"A New Kind Of Conversation: Blogging Toward a Postmodern Faith,"

an intriguing 2006 (!! (: ) book (orginally posted as a blog):

"While postmodernism is typically discussed in traditional book form--an edited volume with essays--the format of this book seeks to place the discussion in a form that is consistent with its content. Using the motif of the blog, A New Kind of Conversation is an experimental book that enters into this conversation with five evangelical leaders (Brian McLaren, Bruce Ellis Benson, Ellen Haroutunian, Mabiala Kenzon, and Myron Bradley Penner) acting as the primary bloggers."

A bit skeptical of the title (capitalizing on McLaren title similarity) and format at first, I really enjoyed the book and recommend it. Not just because the "bloggers" and "commenters" helpfully interact with each other..

...but because several times one of them suceeded wonderfully in the primary task of the book: helping us grasp what the postmodern shift means for the church.
I'll simply share some of my favorite moments where this happens
related to topics I believe are key to the shift:

metanarrative, simulacra, bibliotary and spiritual formation/education.

On metanarrative, Robinson addresses a huge misunderstanding of a phrase invoked as the very heart of postmodernity:

"So often one hears Lyotard's famous summary of postmodernity as "incredulity toward metanarratives" as postmoderns aren't interested in any grand metanarrative at all. ..The Bible of course is a grand metanarrative. What many Christians are reacting against in postmodernity is not Lyotard's definition of postmodernity, but a neo-Lyotardism that takes this rather complex understanding of 'metanarrative' and simplifies it to meaning 'we must be suspicious of all grand stories.' ..but let's get Lyotard right...(What he actually ) said is that postmodernity is ultimately skeptical when anybody presents a grand story and then sayts it is true because Reason proves it to be so."
-Bob Robinson, p, 20

Bruce Ellis Benson (pages 7-8) is also helpful clarifying the metannaratives issue (as is James K.A. Smith in "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church"

On simulacra, Penner nails it:

"North American evangelical subculture--with its televised programs and church services, its theme parks and bumper stickers, and like paraphernalia; and its ability to turn anything remotely related to Christianity into a consumer product--is waiting for a sustained sociological-theological anaylsis in terms of Baudrillard's categories as a nihilistic fixation on simulacra and hyperreality."
(Mylon Bradley Penner, p.38)

I have written much on simulacra here.

I have also written much on biblolatry (here ),
but Penner says it more concisely and with a punch:

"We evangelicals often run perilously close to validating the charge from our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters who find the Protestant emphasis on Scripture a form of 'bibliolatry.'
We need, in other words, a view of Scripture that captures and embodies the truth that'The Holy Scriptures are the highway signs: Christ is the way.'"
-Penner, p. 90

Finally on spiritual formation/education...
I recently taught (if that is the right word anymore...that is precisely the point) a course on leadership for Latin American Bibkle Instiutiute; we used Leonard Sweet's postmodern-sensitive "Summoned to Lead,"
and I allowed "experimental" final projects: instead of a typical research paper or final exam, I allowed more creative projects.
They excelled (photo). It beat spitting out answers crammed into short term memory onto an exam sheet,
Instead, we were greatly impacted (and will remember our "finals" the rest if our lives as we were exposed to holy art..one brother even wrote a song). This was spiritual formation,
and academic integrity.

Which brings us to Scot McKnight's comments in the book:

"there has come in our day a new understanding of education, which is in part much of what is going on in all spiritual formation perceptions by Christians, and this new understanding of education is more after a holistic telos. In other words, we are no longer permitted as professors to 'inform' students simply by 'lecturing' to them and then 'testing' to see if they have 'learned' what they should know. More and more, the outcome-based educational theory asks us to decribe what we want our students to be able to 'do' when they finish our course or our major or school, and then everything has to be shaped to develop these outcomes if we wish to be genuinely an educational institution.

(p.91).

Check out this book; it will be of great use..in 2006 (:
....and beyond.

Colbert and Sweet on Twittering

Colbert on Twittering:


Len Sweet podcast on Twittering...the new "Village Green."