Media, Society, and Faith
Tony delivered this sermon at Church's Media Council: Church and Media Network in Derbyshire, UK on June 8, 2010
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- What it means for Tony to be Evangelical
- How the name Red Letter Christian came about
- It’s about time for the church to take Jesus seriously
- Joke: You know you’re getting old when you go to a wedding and the bride’s grandmother looks better to you than the bride
- You can not serve both God and money
- Soren Kierkegaard said “I wish he would have said you “should not.”
- In the book of Revelation, the word Babylon was a code name for the Roman Empire; the dominant political socio-economic system. Today, Babylon is the US, the UK, France … Babylon is the dominant political socio-economic system in which you live.
- Revelation 18 says that the Babylon’s of the world will fall
- Why do the systems fall? Systems use limited resources – the US consumes 43% of all the world’s resources
- The first reaction to the fall of Babylon will be: Rev. 18:11 “the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn for her since no one buys their cargo anymore”
- The reason why Babylon has to fall is because to sustain Babylon necessitates the resources that are limited
- There is a naivety that we can stop human trafficking by just arresting all of the bad guys that are trafficking women from Eastern Europe.
- The media has portrayed a sexist culture. The failure of the Evangelical community was that it didn’t align itself with the feminist movement.
- Just because you put Christian words to music doesn’t make it Christian. People are being manipulated with a sexist mentality.
- We have watched the media, in order to sell goods, in order to nurture our consumerist culture have nurtured the propagation of sex for underage women
- The church is so busy picking on gays it can’t be concerned about the sexism that has pervaded the dominant culture in their own congregations.
- If you were to ask a university student why did your parents tell you to come to school, the answer would be: We were told that we ought to get a good education because if we get a good education you get a good job, and if you get a good job you’ll make a lot of money, and if you have a lot of money you will be able to buy a lot of stuff. That’s what it’s all about, stuff.
- James Cone the foremost black theologian in America blames the consumerist culture for the delinquency that has run rapid in minority groups of young people
- Robert Merton one of the deans of American sociology laid out a chart where one of the main themes is that every society prescribes that there are certain goals that they should aspire to and it prescribes certain ways of reaching those goals
- The crime rate will go up as long as the consumeristic goals are not challenged
- We have to become environmentally concerned. Can you in fact maintain the lifestyle that we all have embraces and say “I’m serious about environmentalism?”
- If the major export of Iraq had been mushrooms instead of oil we probably wouldn’t be there at all
- Democracy is not where you have a free election and the majority rules, Democracy is when it’s safe to be in the minority
- We can not solve any of the great problems facing us in today’s society unless our lifestyles change
- Mainline denominations have been in decline. The pulpit has to be conducive to what is being propagated
- Martin Marty says that we shouldn’t call them mainline denominations anymore, we should call them “sideline denominations”
- Tony talks about his black church in West Philadelphia and student recognition day.
- Titles vs. testimonies
- When Babylon falls, which group will you be in, the merchants weeping, or the angels singing?
-Q&A session
- Q: In the BBC interview, you said in the context of what happened in Cambria that God was not in control, can you explain that further?
- A: John 14:40, 1John 5:19, Ephesians
- Q: The traditional Evangelical view is that we are defined as stewards of creation. What do the Red-Letter Christians think our relationship is to nature?
- A: Psalm 148
- Q: The trouble is, I’ve grown up, and I really hate to say this, but 35 years ago, some of us became Charismatics, we joined small Christian communities, we gave up on mammon, and since then, managed to accumulate lots of titles. We knew some of this then, and we failed to implement it. You’re reminding us of it now, thank you very much, so how do we implement it?
- A: Christians have to learn to live in community and not individualistically. Must have a plausibility support group
- Q: Should Christians work in the media?
- A: Of Course
Keywords: 1 John 5, ads, Babylon, beer, Buick, Coca Cola, Colbert Report, community, consumerism, democracy, Ephesians, evangelical, feminist, Glen Beck, human trafficking, internet, James Cone, John 14, John Stewart, Jordache, love, Mainline denominations, Martin Marty, media, nature, power, Psalm 148, Red Letter Christian, Revelation 18, Robert Merton, Rush Limbaugh, sexism, sexist, sideline denominations, sociology, Soren Kierkegaard, St. Francis of Assisi, testimonies, titles, TV, West Philadelphia, Willard Waller
Reference ID: 06082010
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