A Brief Dialogue into Meaning and Intentionality for the Protestant Church in America

A loaded word in the vocabulary of our modern reality today is certainly culture. While living in the context of Western Civilization, it seems there is constant debate over culture, often inciting culture wars. Yet it is in the thick of dialogical milieu on culture where we find much of our media intake centered on things like politics, the Kardashians, and sports. Granted, there’s much more than just these three topics I haphazardly just threw out. However, I did just mention three topics that seem to dominate a lot of our conversations. Why is that? How have our politics, celebrities, and sports become this unavoidable juggernaut and three-headed dragon lurking and ready to ambush each of us on Facebook? That’s just culture, I guess.Keeping up with the news has become draining in this Information Age. Staying relevant on current world issues has become impractical, though it is the ideal most of us still hold to. Recently, I found myself sick of the news cycle and in search of something different, I went to the online platform Reddit. Reddit is an online social site that’s more-less purposed to newsworthy material, but also funny content. One attractive quality about Reddit is that it is not run by major news factories like CNN or Fox, and so its algorithms for picking the news naturally “feels” more trustworthy to me. This can be ascertained by scrolling under the “What’s Popular” tab of Reddit’s website. I will usually scroll mindlessly underneath this tab of Reddit until I find a chuckle from a few posts, and after feeling satisfied with my news intake, I leave. However, where news can take on an entirely other form is on the “sub-Reddit” section. Sub-Reddit’s are mini-online boards where users can post specific news and content. For example, I follow a host of sub-Reddit accounts dedicated entirely to poking fun at my favorite rock band, Radiohead. Now all of this, Sub-Reddit’s and U.K. rock bands might sound quite foreign to you, especially if you have never heard of Radiohead, much less cared to follow a sub-Reddit dedicated to poking fun at its fans. But a significant thing happens on these Sub-Reddits from a website that was dedicated to just giving me the news. Its shift is in form, from general news to specific content. It’s true that I could care less about most of the content under Reddit’s “Popular” tab, but only until it intersects with something I care about, then it takes on more meaning for me.My point in exemplifying this phenomenon and my fandom for Radiohead on Reddit, is that Reddit has made it possible for me to connect to a larger community, one that allows for and shows itself as having vested similar interests of mine (i.e. Radiohead). However, this kind of community is strange. It exists entirely and only through the internet. Online community. There is absolutely nothing physical about this community except that all its participants physically exist someplace else in relation to me. In this community, we discuss our thoughts and opinions concerning Radiohead by sharing memes, posting news articles and comments. I can access the community conveniently and whenever just by logging online. Yet no one in this community of Radiohead fans are physically present together. It feels oddly inorganic.This past summer I made the decision to attend an actual Radiohead concert. The decision to go happened when my friend John asked me months in advance to come with and I obliged by paying him $100 for the ticket. The concert was held in Chicago at the sold-out United Center. The two of us had bleacher seats and we sat next to each other nodding along to the rock ballads, occasionally singing along. The experience was one of the best I’d ever had at a concert before. From the amazing light production to the double-encore, it was a wonderful time with John. I will always remember that night because I genuinely felt it.Thinking back to that night, John and I were intentional to do something together that we both liked. We did this by purchasing overpriced tickets, but it resulted in the making of a memory. This memory did not happen accidentally. John and I were both intentional in the act, yet either one of us could have settled for not going and checking Reddit the following day for the highlights from the concert. Indeed, I relived part of the night the following day by reading comments posted to my Sub-Reddit community of Radiohead fans by users also at the same concert. But I would have totally missed out on a great concert if settling for Reddit was what I had decided to do over paying the $100 and meeting up with John the night previous.Here’s where I will come to my thesis on culture and media. It is primarily concerned with intentionality. I believe that it is our responsibility to foster meaningful messages in today’s culture of immediate and inorganic communication. We must strive for the physical presence of one another and not just be content settling for community online. I explain this model by examining the relationship between culture and power. I will then focus on the role nostalgia has in our lives, specifically the relationship between repetition and meaning. Finally, I will propose a different way of approaching culture that is in connection with a Christ-centered community.Culture-MakingIn class discussions, we discussed the sociological toolkit. Using this kit as a model can be helpful to understanding how culture works. In a simplified sense, inside the kit we find two concepts: internalization and externalization. The theory is people, to remain inside a community, must show internalization of certain ideals found within and represented by a community. This is actualized by an individual’s attempt to externalize, thus proving what’s been internalized within the individual. Examples of externalization include but are not limited to: art, writing, pledging, etc. Externalization is a natural response and perfectly follows the internalization process. By manifesting into reality with something observable (externalization), the people already inside the community (in-group) can now judge upon whether a that individual belongs or does not belong. Granted, this is theory, I’ll hope to provide a few practical examples. I will give two showing how community and culture are fostered, like the toolkit suggests. For my first example, I’ll use myself as a student at Moody Bible Institute.Before I could be fully considered a student at Moody Bible Institute I first needed to commit to the ideals of Moody’s community guidelines. This meant that I needed to read over the student life guide of Moody. After coming to the end of its guidelines found within the Student Life Guide (SLG), I then had to decide (internalization): I was either going to sign in agreeance, implying compliance (externalization) or not sign. Now, if I had decided not to sign Moody’s life guide, then I would effectively be dismissed from anymore consideration its community and would not be able to attend. It is important to note that I do not believe I am making an oversimplification here. As an institution, Moody will always impose its ideals upon individuals desiring to be part of it. My status as one of its member was entirely dependent upon my own will to commit, uphold, and recreate its current culture. When I decidedly signed the life guide, I effectively “externalized” my own desire to be part of Moody’s community.For the second example, I will use citizenship in America. Americans born on American soil automatically received their citizenship status simply by being. But for those who are immigrants, an arduous procedure of paperwork and tests must first be completed before legal citizenship can ever be granted. Full compliance of the immigration process is vital to an individual’s “externalization” of his/her desire to become part of the community of the United States. This process of immigration is just another example of how we see the sociological toolkit manifest. Now that we have discussed culture-making using two examples of the sociological toolkit, it is time to turn look at one more way internalization/externalization manifests through the effects of nostalgia.NostalgiaIn his article, Chuck Klosterman of Grantland once asked the question, “What if the feeling we like to call ‘nostalgia’ is simply the byproduct of accidental repetition?” (2011). The question I have for Klosterman is, what does he mean by accidental repetition.In the article Nostalgia On Repeat, I believe Klosterman was commenting on the process of making meaning when he says, “the byproduct of accidental repetition.” An example that might help us here is by reminiscing to your younger self. Probably each one of us has at least one favorite song/band from when we were in high school. Mine was Fall Out Boy. When I first listened to Fall Out Boy in high school I immediately became their biggest fan. I never put much thought behind why I liked listening to them; I simply liked listening to them. They sounded edgy and my friends, also full of teenage angst, listened to them as well. I listened to so much of Fall Out Boy’s tracks that to this day I could probably sing along to half their catalogue. But suppose if back in my high school days, I had been as just intentional with listening to classical music, say Tchaikovsky, as I was with listening to Fall Out Boy? In this alternate reality where I chose Tchaikovsky over Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, do I turn out any different as a person? I’d venture to say that I would be a much different person today, at least in so far as musical tastes are concerned. The point here I wish to exemplify in Klosterman is that by suggesting “accidental repetition” in meaning here, we are then implying more control over what is meaningful to ourselves than we may fully realize. In this vein of thought, Klosterman puts the icing on the cake:

“Maybe it’s not that we’re overrating our memories; maybe it’s that we’re underrating the import of prolonged exposure. Maybe things don’t become meaningful unless we’re willing to repeat our interaction with whatever that “thing” truly is.”

I believe that if we simply realize the control we possess in making meaningful things, we can turn nostalgia on its head. Instead of doing things purposelessly like before (i.e. mindlessly listening to Fall Out Boy on repeat), I can choose to be intentional about the things I choose to consume and repeat. The bottom-line of it, we must all make decisions, especially if we want meaning in our lives. As Christians, it is imperative, that we are making decisions about what should or should not be considered important.As one last aside before moving on from nostalgia, I do believe that some things in each of our lives inevitably are becoming “accidentally meaningful.” Like riding the same public transit train to work every day, the smell of burnt coffee reminding us of our late-grandfather’s home, etc. Repetition cannot always be controlled. But where it might be, it should worth exploring in the theoretical approach of making meaning. In the next section, I will examine what this intentional choosing of meaning practically looks like, in the church, in community, and in personal living.Embracing Christian CommunityIn the book by Miroslav Volf Exclusion and Embrace, Volf states that,

“...the identity of a person is inescapably marked by the particularities of the social setting in which he or she is born” (19).

Volf discusses Christians in such a light that identity is center stage and a major factor inside a community. As Christians, we are all part of community and includes all believers in Jesus Christ. Yet, each one of us as believers comes from different social settings, contexts, and backgrounds. This is practically exemplified in the sheer number of churches and denominations within Christianity–and some might even lump Roman Catholics into the same discussion. It is in this conversation that Volf advocates for a theological stance toward all Christians of that of embrace.Embrace is a radical concept because it involves setting aside preconceived notions of “the other” in hopes of achieving even greater unity within the body of Christ. In working toward better unity in the body, embrace is critical. Holding to a theological stance of embrace involves understanding the current factors already in power positions, like for example culture. After recognizing these powers, Christian embrace seeks to bring people under the power and rule of Christ and out from their previous bondages. One might link to the Gospel of John for examples of lightness and darkness, which are simply helpful illustrations of the power struggle all people face.Furthermore, embrace is an intentional act. Embrace is in act that requires going out from and bringing back in. As Christians, we all have the same spirit of God living inside of us. Therefore, we should take seriously this act of embrace of going out and bringing in. Embrace is seen riddled all throughout Scripture, but the greatest act of it was exemplified in the God-man Jesus Christ dying on the cross. Jesus Christ on the cross is him literally stretched out with arms and hands out, pierced for all of humanity. As believers who have faith in this Jesus, we have been accepted into him. Christ’s act on the cross was willful and intentional, but certainly not accidental. In response to what Christ has done, believers should aspire building intentional communities with Christ at the center. It is when Christ is at the center that the most meaning can be achieved. For the remainder of this essay, I will give two practical examples of what I believe intentional community might and could look exemplified in the common church acts of communion and liturgy.CommunionCommunion is the special act in which Christians break bread and drink wine together in physical company. This specific act of Christian worship is incredibly important within the theology and practice of the church. It is what Christ instructed each of his disciples to gather and do before his crucifixion on the cross. Today, this same significance has not been lost. Today, Christians of the world have the responsibility of partaking in communion. Yet, in contrast to its original paradigm, communion done today has looked much different in the context of our Protestant and Western church services.

What if our communion looked different, not just in presentation (passing wafers and juice cups), but was reimagined back to its original meaning and significance (broken body of Christ shed for humanity)? Perhaps I am suggesting a more traditionally catholic approach to communion, however I do believe Protestant churches could use a lesson here. What might this look like? It would look a lot like congregant participation, like members filing down the center aisle to receive the bread wine. The physical presence of their pastor/parishioner in front of them; walking back to their seat while contemplating the elements held in each hand. This is not merely a thought example; this kind of church communion takes place every other week at my home church at Covenant Presbyterian. I believe that these are the sorts of “intentionally extra steps” that prime churchgoers, like myself, to contemplate the Lord’s Supper and attempt a more meaningful, communal experience of the Christian faith.

LiturgyThe word “liturgical” had a particularly unwholesome stench around the time of Reformation event because of its link to Roman Catholic and this has carried through until recent. But some churches in today’s age are returning to liturgy as a way of making meaning out of the traditional service. I believe there is meaning to be found in liturgy for the church; repeated acts of the body of Christ.Liturgy is a matter of why the body gathers; it reveals the purpose behind the acts. Brian Kammerzelt in the book Ministry Media Matter, puts it:

“The Church’s liturgy is always a direct reflection of the church’s understanding of why she gathers. The liturgy simplifies the question ‘Why do we gather?’ with claiming, ‘We gather to do this!’” (33).

Liturgies might look like simple prayers spoken in one voice by all the congregants. More examples of liturgy include the portions of the service dedicated to confession of sin; praying for the world; passing the peace; worshipping in song. Many churches do these, however there still feels a disconnect. It’s how we do these things that’s perhaps just as, if not more important than what things we do. Well-purposed liturgies have intentions of involving the entire body of Christ with believers embracing believers.One final benefit of a liturgical churches is that by nature, worship is more participatory. The pastor up front; the elderly lady in the back; the children in Sunday school; all being taught in awareness they are magnifying the same God together when they come and participate together in the body. This is the unity prayed for in John 17 on a practical level; unity like this did not happen by mere chance.In conclusion, I believe the act of Communion and the liturgical service both serve as examples for how Christians might make use of the inherent meaning in Christ. By advocating for greater church body unification and more intentionality behind decisions we make, we might hope future believers develop more meaning in their lives. I believe it is the Christians task to steward the meaning in their lives well, while not wrongly viewing themselves as the makers of meaning. Rather it is though the stewardship by being intentional that produces inclusivity within the body of Christ, greater unity and more meaningful and participatory messages of the Gospel. To avoid having responsibility in the stewardship of meaningful messages, by default the call Christ has been neglected, to be intentional within Christ-centered communities.

Work Used

Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation by Miroslav Volf, Book 1996Nostalgia on Repeat by Chuck Klosterman, Published article 2011To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of  Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davison Hunter, Book 2010Ministry Media Matters by Brian Kammerzelt, 2018 Edition