How do Newspapers still exist?

How do Newspapers still make money? The fact is you can get more information and sometimes more reliable and better quality information from Wikipedia and other internet sources such as RSS. Then why do Newspapers still make money? What's the point?

Christendom and Kingdom of God Part II

So if the Kingdom of God is the new focus of post-Christendom Christianity what does this mean?

I have a proposal: where as the old Christendom paradigm was based on a Roman Imperial M.O. ("Constantinian") the new paradigm is not post-Christendom but rather a new Christendom paradigm based not on the Roman Imperial M.O. but a liberal-socialist model (not quite marxist or anarchist but a stange blend of the two, with classical liberalism on the side).

Why?

Usually the language of KoG is used to associate the notions of social justice and politicial ciritque with the gospel. Although I believe that justice and critique are part of the gospel (even the word 'gospel' contained political connotations in the first century Roman world) I wonder if such a strong association between the KoG and a radical socialist Christendom has potential. Potential to change paradigms and potential to expand a often highly individualized gospel based on justifying phantom sins (by phantom sins I mean preaching forgiveness without going into the depths of what we need forgiveness for or the outcome of forgiveness).

And is this the right potential anyways?

I think there is more to say about this new Christendom paradigm, which draws from the radical reformation but is distinct from it by rejecting it's two-worlds dualism.

Christendom and Kingdom of God

Recent missional and other Christian writers have attacked a church paradigm called 'Christendom'. This cultural paradigm for the church assumes that the church should have some sort of cultural control on state and society. The critique of this view has long been part of the traditions of the radical reformation and has since flourished in certain evangelical-glocal Christian circles.

Now I have to say I agree with the critique almost entirely, at least the parts I understand of it. I totally see how being ecclesial-centric can actually harm both our ethics and seriously damage any worthy christology. Yet what I find interesting is how often in these anti-Christendom literatures they speak about the centrality of the Kingdom of God (KoG). The KoG, a term founded heavily in the synoptic gospels and sparsed through the New Testament is a term referring, clearly in study of the gospels, to a non-spatial political-spiritual entity where the entire Cosmos is put under the reign, or rule, of God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I make this distinction from a view of the KoG being a nation-state type entity rather than it being a 'religion-with-out-religion' (Caputo) and politics-without-politics that it truly resembles.

My point here is how spot on these new writers are when they contrast Christendom (which essentially is a Imperialist way under the guise of Christianity) with the Kingdom of God (which is a biblical idea about the anti Imperial community of Gift which comes through the work of Christ).

My rant is now over, but I will flesh these ideas out in the future more.

Slavoj Zizek as a commodity fetish.

Next time you're in a chapters look at how many Zizek books there are in the philosophy section. He's become a cultural commodity, part of pop culture philosophy (or philosophy of pop culture). It's interesting the ways he's described by reviewers. Just go to Amazon and read some of them. He's called things like 'scandalous' and 'counter-intuitive' and any other word under the sun made to present as the Rock Star of Philosophy. A regular marxist commodity fetish.

Interesting Video

More on Dead Denominations

I was thinking about this whole dead denominations thing a bit more and I think I can explain what's happening better. Younger people see God's work as more holistic than older generations. What I mean by that is they see the work of God in things like taking a friend out for coffee who is going through a rough time as giving to God, they see sponsoring a child through World Vision or Compassion as giving to God, they see personally giving money to missionaries (or through agencies like Gospel for Asia) as giving to God. But giving tithes on sunday morning? They don't see that as so sacred as the older generations do because they see giving as being a way the live not something they do only at church. Sure they might throw in a couple bucks here and there, but certainly not 'ten percent' (which is not really a biblical eccliessiological thing anyway).

This will certainly lead to denominational break downs within the next few decades.

Shiny Things

Two bigs things in the history of Money happened in the 20th Century. The end of the supremacy of the pound, and the beginning of the supremacy of the American dollar. But even bigger than these two things is something that happened in the 1970s when Gold parity with dollars lost it's momentum. Now I'm no historian, but the fact is Gold has been a motivating factor behind human behaviour and politics for thousands of years. People who had gold in the past always had access to food and land, or the potential access to food and land. Gold was extremely valueable.

Why? Why is Gold so valuable? Why has gold become the cause of the deaths and lives of millions, the recreations and destructions of whole civilizations?

Why?

Because it's shiny!

WE LIKE SHINY THINGS.

It's absurd.