expressive individualism

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 8 of the Gospel for Everyone. 

In this episode we continue our series on "Understanding the Times" and we dive deeper into the discussion of having a Biblical Worldview. 

We also establish that the Word of God is authoritative truth.

Sermon Texts: Mark 1:21-28; Matthew 28; Revelation 22:18-19; Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 24:35

Resource:   Live no Lies by John Mark Comer

While I haven’t seen it, there is a new play about teenagers that’s gathering steam in a new York city theatre. Billed and reviewed as a coming of age comedy, the play is about a church, it’s youth pastor, and it’s youth group. Of course, as one who was a youth pastor and who now trains youth pastors, I’m interested! But it’s the title of the play that not only fuels my interest further, but which gives me pause along with cause for concern. The play is titled “Your Own Personal Exegesis.” If you’re unfamiliar with the term exegesis, it’s the task which all responsible bible scholars, preachers, teachers, youth pastors, and parents should engage in by working to understand the true meaning of a biblical text. It requires a host of tools and skills that have been passed down throughout church history. And that’s why the title concerns me. Your own personal exegesis insinuates one feels their way into the text’s meaning. And while that is happening for many, it needs to stop.

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 7 of the Gospel for Everyone.  

Over the next few episodes, we'll be looking at the topic we call "Understanding the Times" - where we will do a deep dive of some issues and situations we as Christians are facing today in the world, and how to best be prepared for them.  We'll be really focusing on the importance of having a Biblical Worldview.

Scripture references for this episode:  1 Chronicles 12:32; Acts 2:38-40; Romans 13:11-14; John 8:44

Satisfying personal desires has become the definition of the "good life." Follow this notion far enough and it leads to distorted definitions that end in moral chaos. If you want to understand cancel culture, you've got to start here. This episode will explain five outcomes of this approach to life and offer biblical correctives to each one.

Resources:

• The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution - Carl R. Trueman
• Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution - Carl R. Trueman

Satisfying personal desires has become the definition of the "good life." Follow this notion far enough and it leads to distorted definitions that end in moral chaos. If you want to understand cancel culture, you've got to start here.

Resources:

• The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution - Carl R. Trueman

In this episode, we discuss suffering and persecution. These complex topics deal with the problem of evil and real lives of people. They often surface our presuppositions of godliness and theological anthropology.

Suffering and the Goodness of God - https://amzn.to/3odUAnE

“What Does It Mean to Weep with Those Who Weep?” Kevin DeYoung - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/what-does-it-mean-to-weep-with-those-who-weep/

Sign up for the Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/chasedavis

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Enroll now for our 7-week Life Worth Living Course through Grace Farms: http://gracefarms.org/life-worth-living. The course runs from May 4 to June 15, and we expect it to fill up quickly, so don’t wait to sign up!

One of the most prominent visions of the good life present in Disney films could be called "expressive individualism," perhaps best captured by the phrase "you do you." In this episode Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Matt Croasmun interpret and unpack the ethics of the authentic self, belonging, and the implicit visions of flourishing life in two contemporary classics from Disney: Frozen and Moana.

Support the For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Show Notes

• Who is my most authentic self? How can I become who I truly am? 
• Matt Croasmun’s course at Grace Farms: http://gracefarms.org/life-worth-living
• How would your life change if the idea you were reading about were true? 
• “Aim to become indigenous to a place” Robin Kimmerer
• What way of being human is particular to you?
• Disney and the quest for the self 
• Charles Taylor: “Our most essential responsibility is our responsibility to ourselves to become our most authentic self “
• If we strive for uniqueness, what happens to universal values?
• Moral relativity in Charles Taylor 
• What if we hurt each other on the way to becoming ourselves?
• ‘Let It Go,’ the anthem that’s everywhere
• Reading the song to mean ‘you do you’ is a shallow reading
• Our values run deep in our culture, entertainment, and mythology 
• Elsa’s hidden, dangerous powers: ‘conceal don’t feel’ 
• The disciplined, buffered self 
• “But freedom as ruleless-ness is too shallow a reading”
• In becoming her authentic self, Elsa knows she is at risk of hurting Ana
• Elsa is saved by Ana’s love, which allows her to have her powers without hurting anyone 
• Resolution is not isolation
• Every child belting ‘Let It Go’ is missing part of the resolution 
• Our society tells the movie: “just be yourself, other people be damned,” missing the emphasis on love and acceptance of each other 
• Frozen stands in a line of post-modern reinterpretations of fables that celebrate the villain 
• Elsa was supposed to be the villain, but ‘Let it Go’ was so humanizing they changed the story 
• The Nietzschean impulse to discard moral framework 
• Elsa is expressing her ‘will to power’ when she sings, " No wrong, no right, no rules for me" 
• By making the villain the hero, the writers get beyond good and evil 
• The recovery of the pre-modern moralist villain 
• Turning to Moanna: 
• Moanna discovers that her true self is in tension with the way of her people. She wants to travel, but her people say, “The island gives us what we need”
• When she learns that her people are actually voyagers, it draws her into relationship with her grandmother 
• We know what she means when she belts, ‘I am Moanna” 
• Taylor calls it ‘The Horizon of Significance:’ he wants to celebrate particularity, without an overemphasis on difference 
• What matters can’t just be random. You must give an account 
• The cosmology of Moanna: taking the power of nature and giving it to humans
• Moanna provides an account for how magic relates to its cosmology, where Frozen’s magic comes out of nowhere
• Our choices should be free and also meaningful 
• Frozen highlights the dignity of the return to ordinary life, whereas in Moanna, all of life is transformed into adventure. This is the heroic life. “To be truly human is to aim for something that is beyond the ordinary life”  - Matt Croasman
• “But what about the Hobbits!” – Ryan McAnnally-Linz
• How these stories charm and influence our theology must include a critical look at the culture we are inside of 
• “None of us are in a vacuum.” Film as a stream of meaning that we’re already swimming in 
• “At the end of the day, ‘you do you’, is the thin way of finding our way into a ‘thicker meaning:’ how to live as the individual whom God created”

One of main developmental tasks of the adolescent stage is the journey to forming one’s identity. In today’s world, some of the most compelling, dangerous, misdirected cultural messages are leading kids down wrong paths as they look for answers to the question, Who am I? Dr. Carl Trueman has written a great new book that helps us understand and address these issues. We love chatting with Carl about his practical, hope-filled, and theologically informed cultural observations. Today is no exception as Duffy Robbins and I learn from Carl and his new book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution, on this enlightening episode of Youth Culture Matters.

In recent years, researchers have sounded the warning that narcissism is on the rise in our culture, particularly among the emerging generations. If this is true, the tendency towards following self rather than following God will thwart our spiritual growth and development. Where does this focus on self come from? How is it being manifested in our lives? And what can we do to lead ourselves and our kids into a lifestyle of allegiance to God and service to others, when the world encourages us to look out for number one? We’ll be talking about the tendency towards too much focus on me, myself and I, on this episode of Youth Culture Matters.

Walt and Jason begin the podcast with a discussion about a new college course, social media replacing drugs, social media and violence, the cost of raising a child, shortening sports broadcasts because of the shortening attention spans of Millennials, and the epidemic of stress among kids.