Saturday, September 01, 2007

Ignoring the thinkers

From Ken Myers' recent letter to Mars Hill subscribers: a sobering statement on Christians and their leaders.

I sense a growing level of uncritical identification with contemporary culture; Christians whose experience and assumptions have been shaped only by "culture affirming" institutions.

While there is a number of wonderfully insightful books by Christian authors who see the underlying dynamic of many cultural conventions (books about technology or commodification or narcissism or our addiction to entertainment or the state of modern marriage), the insights of such prophetic thinkers seem to be ignored by celebrated Christian leaders and hence by most Christians. It is easier to keep a big church program running if you don't introduce too much cognitive dissonance between what you say on Sunday and what advertisers and entertainers and professors and miscellaneous experts say the rest of the week.


One way to stop ignoring Christian thinkers is to listen to Mars Hill Audio. They now have a free podcast called Audition. I recommend it; the latest edition is an interesting analysis of the John Roberts' led Supreme Court.

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