The Hollow Men

Fawkes, Peirs. “The Return of the Yuppie” Photo. Psfk.com 3 Jan. 2007. 16 Dec. 2009.

Deconstructing the Emerging Church: Wading in Holy Wars

Writing a 20 page research paper on the emerging church movement seems to be the living definition of "biting off more than i can chew".There seems to be no limit to books I can read on the subject, podcasts I can listen to, Lectures I can attend. After reading about ten books and countless internet and blog articles I start to realize that most of what i am reading is the same thing over and over again

"emergence is the movement of the church in a cultural shift toward postmodernism"

what the heck does that mean? sounds like a trendy twitter topic #postmodernism. And in the sentiments of Dan Kimball, most of those who are emergent realize they aren't philosophers and aren't up to defending the concept of postmodernism. It's a grass roots movement, charicterized by the fact that it has no centralized location, no creed or system of beliefs outside of a few basic ideas around orthapraxy and the McLaren Generous Orthadoxy. Which teriffies the baptists and my only complaint is how am i suposed to present my evidents in my research paper as credible and true if there IS no offical source? It's great to talk about at starbucks, it proves harder to... well... prove.
Of course there are plenty of people to shoot it down, plenty of people to yell from the pulpit about the dangers of emergence, that it's a bunch of hippies who want to sit around and pull the bible apart and ignore basic truth. That it's all a cult, a hoax, something to be afraid of.

well, i mean, they said that about EVERY church movement when it started.. didn't they? Come to think about it, somebody is going to freak out about the new no matter what. So a certain amount of hostility toward the movement is to be expected. right?
The main draw of this movement seems to be that when people walk into a church that is making efforts to "emerge" or speak with someone who considers himself emerging, and those people have been jaded and hardened towards God and any sort of mettanarrative (trendy postmodern word #mettanarrative) find something accessable.
You hear delightful phrases like
"i just didn't feel judged"
"They don't seem fake. very authentic"
"I didn't want to have anyhting to do with Jesus before, but now i do"

As people who love Jesus very very much, and as humans who in our nature are terrified and addicted to the New, can we rightfully dismiss this movement? If it is taking love to places that were unacessable by other methods, then i cast my lot with these crazy hippies. count me emerging.

Obama vs. Fox

I am very fascinated by the Obama/Fox news controversy. As I mentioned in my ap language class forum, i think it's a argument of definition. All the sudden we as an audience begin to wonder "what is news?" and my big question "is someone wrong just because they disagree with Obama?" I know that Obama's famous line is that he 'welcomes the tough questions', but if so, i have to ask, why is it that the orginization which is asking tough questions the one that Obama attacks?
It doesn't add up to me.
Its also sort of frustrating to me that he and his administrations point of attack was to declare that fox operates like a "talk radio". Here again, argument of definition. I believe this is a dangerous thing for a president to do, because historically as a people American's have accepted or at least highly considered a President's opinion as truth. Much different than Bono or the Jonas brothers saying that they think Fox is like talk radio, a president is in the dangerous position of people really believing what he says, simply because he says it. Or simply with "great power comes great responsibility".(spider man yess)
and while we're at war, home sick with swine, losing property value and our jobs, aren't there better ways a president can spend his time than to attack Fox?

working bibliography

Mallory Searcy
Research Paper Bibliography
10/24/09


McLaren, Brian . A Generous Orthodoxy. El Cajon: Zondervan, 2004.
Myers, Joseph. Organic Community. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007.
McKnight, Scot. "Five Streams of the Emergent Church". Christianity Today. October 22, 2009
.

Miller, Donald. Blue Like Jazz. Colorado Springs: Thomas Nelson, 2003.
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff
Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature vol. 10. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, l984.

Tomlinson, Dave. The Post-Evangelical. Glasgow: Triangle Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
1995.

Caputo, John. What Would Jesus Deconstruct?. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

Wuthnow, Robert. After Heaven. Los Angeles: University of California Pres., 1998.

Webber, Robert. The Younger Evangelicals. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002.

Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995.

Brewin, Kester. Signs of Emergence. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007.

McLaren, Brian. A New Kind of Christian. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.

the 23 psalm

The 23 psalm

Sometimes words flow out
In streams. Like jets of water
From the hoses by the track
Icy. Grass flavored on my
Sweat
Like creeks of peace
Making rivets in my face
He restores my soul

Other times, words are beats
Drum drum drum
Stop. Stitch. Short.
Staccato dreams, like incoherent
Phrases. lost in my head or trapped in
Inexpressibility.
Being trampled at breakneck speed.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow

Then there is
Summer in a sailboat
Stung by jellies in the
Alive places. Where dolphins
Are too shy to admit they
Stop. Start. Stop. Start.
Stucatto. Come when we sing
Sailor songs at the top of our lungs.
Now we are at the
Smoother melody for

The lord is my Sheppard. I shall not [wait till the
hose water taste and the dolphins wink]
I shall not want.

GEICO -logos appeal

"If you want cheap car insurance with great service then GEICO is the company for you"
(line on geico.com)

This is an appeal to logic because it declares that GEICO has something that somebody (the consumer) wants. If you are that person- who wants cheap car insurance with great service (which GEICO places a good deal of hope on the fact that you are that type of person) then GEICO argues that logically you will want GEICO. presumably because they are the sort of company which has cheap car insurance with great service. It's an appeal to reason.

Anthropologie

Anthropologie
This picture presents an ethos and pathos argument. The emotional apeal shows in the fact that the only things for sale are the sweater and the white bracelet. (the store doesn't even sell men's clothing) yet the picture is of the man and women walking arm-and-arm through the forest. The whole picture itself is peaceful and beautiful- which sends the picture to our senses that buying/wearing the clothing will be peaceful and beautiful.
It also makes a ethos appeal because of the dark colors and fine way the picture is presented. clearly this store is not "limited- too" it leaves the impression that the store is more expensive- and a better quality. It's "charicter" argument is that anthropologie is about quality and subtlety.
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and plus i seriously seriously love anthropologie. but that isn't an argument:)

I am constructing an online writing portfolio as a rough draft for the one i submit to colleges. Please check it out! Your comments help me figure out which pieces should go and which should stay! Mallorysearcy.blogspot.com

Thoughts on Obama's speech to the schools

quote:
[i]Originally posted by KelseyA[/i][br]Before I watched the speech, one of the news channels were interviewing some parents about their thoughts on the President talking to students. One woman said ''I send my children to school to be educated, not indoctrinated.''


Um... unneccessary?"


thank you so much! haha I read up on the controversy before hand and talked it over with a few people and when I read your thoughts on it I quite literally "laughed out loud".Just as those screaming for soviet-esq socialist reforms give liberals a bad name, those who heckle a president for encouraging thier kids to "stay in school" make conservatives look just as mentally off.It was, as was stated by my fellow classmates, an inspirational speech. I really did enjoy watching it because for a second I felt as if I wasn't being lied to, or manipulated, I felt like I could believe it. However much we agree or disagree with Obama's political points or even his belief in education inasmuch as he's probably not a huge fan of homeschoolers, I think we can agree that he was using his incredible influence to inspire students to work hard.The most compelling moments in the speech were when Obama spoke of his own childhood, the first lady's childhood and three other studends from all over the country. Obama's use of pathos was made truely effective when he cut through the usual "try hard" stuff and got to the heart of the issue- which is, of course, the heart of the student.most unaffected students who would detach themselves from his words simply because he's "the president" would have to reconsider when he began to reveal that he struggled in school and felt alone because his dad left him when he was 2. I think in Obama's speech he was sensitve to the fact that kids aren't won by statistics, they're won by something they can believe in, something they can relate to.I wouldn't say I'm Obama's #1 fan, but I was proud of him today.

bumper sticker argument assignment

This bumper sticker blames former President Bush for the War on Terror and more specifically American soldiers going to fight. It uses pathos- the pain and fear of a child or loved one leaving home to war. By using these very real fears and feelings it creates an emotional apeal to blame President Bush. I disagree with it because i believe President Bush is not single handedly responsible for American Soldiers going to war, and that it is a losely based emotional apeal.

Talent without craft is like fuel without an engine; it burns wildly but accomplishes nothing' -robert mckee

If Everything's An Arugment...

It's a movie review my family found around a year ago. We read it to each other every once in a while for the pure joy of it. Certainly the kind of argument I'm interested in.:)



After watching this movie, I just couldn't stop talking about it. Mind you, not in the since that someone can't stop talking about a great book or show, but more along the line of how someone can't stop talking about their colonoscopy during a diner conversation. In other words, after seeing this you can't help but try and remove the stain it left on your very soul by vomiting out the experience onto others.This movie entered with the tag line of being "written by two of the six writers of 'Scary Movie'!" What they forgot to mention is that the two who wrote it were only responsible for writing the credits and all the jokes deleted for the sake of not causing mass suicide. Put more delicately, this movie almost makes Pootie Tang look Oscar worthy, which ironically enough was made fun of in the last Scary Movie for being horrid. Coincidence? Yeah, not even some sort of Karma dealing fiend would wish this movie upon the world."So," you ask, "What makes it so bad?" I bet your thinking that all of the funny stuff was in the previews, right? No, actually there was no funny content in the previews at all, it just seemed that way when taken out of the context of the movie. Much the same way "Hogan's Heroes" was funny to people who weren't in Auschwitz during the Holocaust, the previews are funny to those who haven't seen the movie. When you actually see the movie, you start to ask, "Why was that funny in the preview?" The answer: You can see pretty flowers if you ignore the fact that they are growing from the corpse of a man who died during a freak green house accident.Do yourself a favor, rent a History channel documentary on the history of documentaries and hit yourself in the head with a hammer. It'll be twice as funny, make three times more sense, and be only a fifth as painful.

status stalking.

I've discoverd that despite my efforts to make my twitter page something that everyone i know follows, my facebook status updates have done just that. it's reaching scarry preportions. random mom's of my brother's friends will mention in conversation that they knew about "suchandsuch" because they faithfully read my status on facebook. my mom's voice student who i don't know who's in the 7th grade- let's call her Mary. Mary said she reads my status and commented to my mom during a lesson that "mallory knows everyone!" .. creeper!!!
this is good. really. but it's.. weird.
now, a word of explaination- my statuses are NEVER "Mallory is tired" or "mallory just got home" they're more along the lines of "saw a sunrise and started thinking about materialism, maybe it's just cause i wen't to LA for vacation, maybe it's worth thinking about." or sometimes movie quotes "now about this hotdog to hotdog bun ratio. why for the love of mustard are there never enough buns?"
see, it's worth reading. the idea was to make it interesting.

being known around the community and keeping a clean rep on the web has givin me tons of jobs and singing opportunites. it's a super good thing.

but lately it's realy given me the urge to write things just to see what people do, because i know they read this so much. things like
"Mallory is home with the swine flu"*
or
"Mallory is moving to arkansas"**

*not true
**really not true

but how funny would it be if i did that? i mean AT MINIMUM over a hundred people read my status. people would FREAK. haha.
but i can't do that. i have to be very professional and never say anything stuipid on facebook.
but luckily no one reads my blog:):)
...yet

first thoughts

We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
-oscar wilde

Surely your goodness and your mercy surround me day by day
-king david

too poor to invent charicters i just talk about me, because i find myself so.. incredibly.. interesting
-donald miller

every life comes with a broken heart dying here to be made whole. we are the lost souls with the second start, following the Builder home. there's a temple i've found in the strangest part where the stones are built of souls. where the builder himself has promised "love i'm never gonna let you go"
-jon foreman

where you live should not decided whether you live
-bono

seek to understand not to be understood
-st. francis of assi

the church is a whore and a mother
st. agustine of hippo

human kind cannot bear very much reality
-t. s. elliot

like and equal are two entirely different things
-madeline l'engle

to love another person is to see the face of God
-victor hugo