Welcome to the Centre for Theology & Philosphy's discussion forum!
The Centre for Theology and Philosophy is on a roll (not literally) with it's new website, located here. As part of the rollout of the new site, we've added a News section as well as this discussion forum at which you're now looking.
On the News section we will be updating you all on the whereabouts of the key players of the Centre as well as the relevant activities of the fellows and members involved. And, when those opportune moments arise (i.e. those with cameras provide their generous spoils), we hope to post pictures of the various events so that you all may see the canvas of faces and vistas represnted by those involved with the Centre.
The Belief and Metaphysics conference is coming up in Granada, Spain from September 15th through the 18th. Conor Cunningham has posted a description and call-for-papers here. Pictures and descriptions of last year's conference are generously provided by James K. A. Smith in this CoTP news posting.
Because this is a discussion forum, I'll see if I can write something provocative:
Within my initial field of study (computer science), all we are taught is efficient methods of organizing data as well as efficient ways of processing this data. We study computer architecture from the ground up so that we can understand how the registers and cache of a CPU work on the low level, but also how to code at the high level which abstracts all of this so that things do what we tell them to do (for the most part).
However, once I entered the "job field" as a web programmer, I was not prepared for having to deal with the sheer "force" of the market that the sales people tell me I have to acknowledge in one way or another. The usual mantras about competition are spoken, the usual business books about figuring out who moved one's 'cheese' are distributed, and even some of the sales people, while one or two graduated from the same Christian university I attended, read from Sun-Tzu's The Art of War on a regular basis so that our 'market share' will be 'maintained.'
Yet, even with the clients we do have, the way in which we are persuaded to retain those clients is not merely talked about in a way that might typically use fear to frighten us into thinking we won't be able to "put food on the table" any longer, but what's seemingly worse is that if we 'lose' some client, then our 'competitors' will snatch them up. And we can't have that. In other words, even to continue on the course of current operations defines itself against the other.
In company meetings, a salesperson slipped up one time and said, "The competition was literally killing each other over this one." While I often smirk at this misuse of the word 'literally,' in this instance, I can't help but wonder if at some ontological level, that the competition really is afflicting real violence upon each other.
With this in mind, does anybody have any thoughts to offer on different ways to think about working within this structure? Considering my company is owned by a larger one that is publically traded (I won't mention which one in this space), I admit that am cynical about attempts at persuading minds to think differently about what a market is. While many of those with whom I work are Christians, equally many are not.
I'm just kind of throwing this out there as a conversation starter. Any thoughts? Anybody with similar experiences? I know those working within the university systems must have experiences not too dissimilar from my own in regards to how management or boards of directors see where that 'bottom line' is.
Peace,
Eric
Comments
I've tried reading some of Milbank's stuff, but it goes over my head. Guess I should try again.
Anyways, great site!
Posted by: Marco Funk | April 10, 2006 09:26 AM
Marco, thanks for the kind words about the site!
Yeah, keep trying with Milbank. It definitely helps if you can find somebody to help explain his interactions with the postmodern lingo. Oddly, I find myself enjoying his writing these days!
Peace,
Eric
Posted by: Eric Lee | April 10, 2006 05:14 PM
Hi Eric,
I am a bi-vocational pastor and I live in both worlds. I think you are correct in seeing how the logic of the market infects everything we do and becomes the air we breathe really. I think much of the American church is captive to that same logic, all the while assuming it's some sort of Biblical principle. Anyway, I'm not sure how to deal with it other than trying to bring in a different perspective at the opportune moment.
Posted by: Darrell | April 11, 2006 10:53 PM
I don't know about the whole Christians in Business thing, but yesterday I was vaguely scoping around some website and discovered all this marketing stuff for churches, where demographics, advertising, fly-posting, advanced cognitive sales techniques et al are used to attempt conversions. They even talk about churches in terms of the services (pun not intended) they provide, as if it is some kind of contract negociation. I was pretty shocked by this, particularly by the ones where surveys and focus groups are used to convert 3rd world countries. So many of the markets worse aspects have bled into American Christianity itself. Combine this with the apocalyptic stance, the Rapture stuff, and you have an incredible combination.
Posted by: Alex | April 19, 2006 09:58 AM
I share your sentiments on the use of market strategies in Church and society. I have been thinking deeply whether Darwin's model of natural selection is really natural or rather the replication of the bellicious and hierarchised society he grew up. Given time, I would like to attempt to write provocative titles such as Christianity as War: The Ambiguities of a metaphor and Preaching the Good News in the Context of Advanced Capitalism: Faith, Wealth, Health and the Gospels. Hope I will live long enough to achieve this dream.
Stanislas
Posted by: Stanislas | August 10, 2006 11:10 AM
Having pondered this issue somewhat, I think I've come to different conclusions to others posting here. To jump ahead from the original question a little, is it wrong for the Church to employ commercial marketing techniques in order to win new converts? It's important not to let a distaste for corporate culture become our overriding concern against which all others are judged - in other words a false religion in itself, no better than capitalism. The methods used to reach the unconverted need to be judged according to how effectively they fulfill this aim; given that businesses using demographic data, focus groups, advertising and so on have grown to such an extent they dominate the globe, collectively winning millions of new converts every day, it seems reasonable for churches to employ these same techniques for a better purpose. What must *not* be allowed, however, is for marketers to tamper with the 'product', the Gospel itself. Just as bad, perhaps worse, would be theologians and church leaders playing the same game. Unfortunately, I fear this is what has happened. There's also a reactionary movement, creating silver-haired, islands of sanctuary, where inhabitants of the Kingdom of God dwindle gradually into extinction.
To change the world, we need to play it at its own game. Given that what we have to offer is inherently far superior to everything else - the true and living God - all that is needed is a breaking down of barriers to access. Imagine a person who has lived in some degree of isolation such that they have no concept of currency, but are otherwise at least averagely intelligent, healthy and so on. Such a person might choose a shiny 50p piece over a wad of crumpled £50 notes. Nobody with an understanding of their value wouldn't make that mistake, knowing they could buy many thousands of almost identical coins with the paper money and have much more besides. Why should people be any different with respect to religion, where the value diffentials are far higher, given that they are presented with the choice and given the information they need to choose correctly? The challenge is getting that information out, offering God as the infinitely superior alternative to money as the ultimate value, in the face of stiff competition that may rightly be regarded as 'Satanic': utterly opposed to God, humanity, and in a sort of proud self-condemnation, similar to that of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost. Against such a foe, perhaps there is even room for Sun Tzu and his army of marketers (although I'll admit to not having read the Art of War, not even as adapted for marketing).
I hope that hasn't turned out as too much of a rant. I'm trying to include these ideas and a good few others in an essay I'm writing at the moment, although confronted by the barriers of my own ignorance and stuck in Pattaya, Thailand, without my library for another week I'm not sure it will be finished before something else catches my attention. Still, perhaps I've provoked a few thoughts here, which would be sufficiently satisfying, especially if they contradict what I've posted in which case I'd be extremely interested to read them
Posted by: Tim Lees | August 24, 2006 08:22 PM
Hi Eric,
It is exciting to see this website off to a great start, and I look forward to further news and postings. Even if dense, Milbank is an provocative writer with persuasive arguments against the movement of the West in the direction of onto-theology.
Daniel Haynes
Posted by: Daniel Haynes | December 11, 2007 10:58 PM