Vicky interviews Leonard Sweet

Vicky July 5, 2012 9 Comments

Leonard Sweet has a brilliant mind and we’ve had great conversations about spirituality and technology whenever our paths have crossed at conferences.

Len is an American theologian, church historian, pastor and author. He is the E. Stanley Jones Professor at Drew University, New Jersey and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University in Portland. He’s also an advocate of contextualising Christianity into digital culture and is regularly voted one of the most influential Christian leaders in America.

His new book VIRAL is about social media and its impact on Christian spirituality. It seems like his book will be of interest to this community, so I asked Len to come hang out with us at CyberSoul and talk about the book’s themes.

Vicky: Welcome to CyberSoul!

Len: Thanks, it’s great to be here!

Vicky: So, you have a new book called Viral. I’ve started to read it – you begin the book mentioning the correlation between “Logos and Logo”. Tell us about that.

Len: We live in a world that communicates, not in words or points, but in narratives and metaphors (I combine the two words into one—narraphors).

We have come to translate the Greek word “Logos” as “Word” or “Reason,” but it can easily be translated as “Sound” or “Speech” or even “Story.”

In a world that comes with a “logo” for every brand, a “logo” for every “logos,” it is important to remember that in Jesus the “Logos” and the “logo” became one: The Message and the Messenger are the same.

The “Word” became “flesh,” the “Story” became a “Story-teller.” The Message and the Medium are one.

Here is where the rubber hits the road: every church has a mission statement. And every mission statement is words. How many “image” statements have you heard of? How many “stories” are used to communicate a church’s unique mission?

Vicky: Indeed! We do seem very ‘words focused’ in our approach to mission statements. I love the idea of using more ‘narraphors’ as you call them! Ok, tell us about your passion for digital culture – why does it matter to you?

Len: God is always “up to something.” I’m always looking for what God’s “up to.” One of the biggest things Jesus is “up to” today, it seems to me, is teaching us that each one of us is a missionary.

Missional is who we are, because it is who God is.

Not because you grew a church or traveled overseas or went on a trip. But because the first word of Jesus’ mission statement, the mission statement that he gave us, is “Go into all the world.” We are the “sent ones.” All disciples of Jesus live in a missional state of sentness.

In fact, when all of life becomes a mission trip, you are a pilgrim on life’s greatest journey. But what is the first thing that a missionary does who “goes” into “all cultures?” You learn the language of the culture that you’re in.

We need to learn the language of this TGiF culture (Twitter, Google, iPhone, Facebook). And this TGiF culture speaks in narraphors, not in words.

So we need to learn to speak missionally, which means narraphorically.

I’m trying to help followers of Jesus speak the language of the culture, and lift up the name of Jesus in a way that this culture can hear his name and receive his gift.

Vicky: So, your book identifies two cultures – the Gutenbergers and the Googlers. How would you sum those up?

Len: It’s my way of talking about the “modern” vs. “postmodern” divide, except I think we’re now post-postmodern. Generational distinctions have been replaced by cultural distinctions.

The main cultural divide is between those who were raised on print technology and a “book” mentality, the Gutenbergers, and those who were raised on digital technology and a TGiF mentality, the Googlers.

I was born BC (Before Cellphones, which were invented by Martin Cooper in 1973). All my kids were born AC. I don’t see one culture better than the other.

In fact, all ages are equidistant from eternity. But you live the age God gives you, even though it’s not the age I would have picked (I’m a Victorian age person at heart).

In the book I try to show the blessings and curses of Gutenberg culture and Google culture. I also try to show the challenges of what it means that God has chosen us to ride the roller-coaster of this axial cultural transition.

Vicky: Obviously this is a ridiculously broad question, but overall do you think social media is something more helpful or more harmful for our spirituality?

Len: Social media can be used for good or ill. Just like books. The first people to adopt Gutenberg technology, after the printing of the Bible, were the pornographers.

Jesus gave us a key to how we are to interact with every culture in the real “Lord’s Prayer” (John 17). We are to be “in” this Google culture, but not “of” it.

So with every use of social media, we ask ourselves “How can I be ‘in’ Twitter but not ‘of’ Twitter? How can I be ‘in’ Facebook but not ‘of’ Facebook?” Jesus asked his disciples: “What do you more than others?”

Disciples of Jesus have a distinct identity that ought to frame everything we do, every technology we use. If we live that Jesus identity, then we can use social media for the glory of God.

Vicky: Thanks Len! Really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

{If people would like to read Len’s book, you can get it here in the USA http://tinyurl.com/c5faqag and here in the UK http://tinyurl.com/cnd9j99 }

Over to you:

Any thoughts on the interview above?

Do you like the idea of Jesus the Logos and the Logo?

Are you a Gutenberger or a Googler? What are the pros and cons of each of those cultures?

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http://graememark.blogspot.com/ Graeme Mark

I would go further and suggest we are a species that communicates in narratives and metaphors. It’s not new. It is very evident in traditional societies. Information goes into our brains and creative expression of it comes out.

When “words and points are sown”, pictures and stories and songs and poems and films and sculptures are harvested.

The difference between the word and the art is the same as between the seed and the yield.
Luke Leadbetter

I’m a googler, and I think that’s pretty apparent to anyone who knows me or of me. I do like writing and reading, but I am a digital native at heart. I’d completely agree with everything that Len has said. I think that our transition into postmodernism has taken down the ideals of grand narratives and instead left us with smaller narratives or ‘narraphors’.

As for the logos and logo in relation to Jesus bit,I didn’t entirely understand that, but I do like the generalisation that Jesus is the logo of the church and us :)
http://twitter.com/zugzwanged Alastair Roberts

A few questions and comments:

1. What are some concrete examples of ‘narraphors’? I think that I have a sense of the sort of thing to which Sweet is referring, but I am not entirely sure.

2. It seems to me that we are at risk of employing categories such as ‘narrative’ and ‘metaphor’ as if they were univocal. My impression is that the form of our narratives has changed markedly over the years. The form of the premodern narrative differs markedly from the form of the modern and from the form of the postmodern narrative. As Walter Ong and others have observed, such things as the detective novel and thick, rounded characters tend to follow the advent of print and widespread literacy. In a similar manner, I suspect that the contemporary world is producing new forms and conceptions of narrative and characterization. My work is on the subject of typology and its relationship to liturgy, and it seems to me that, in many respects, this is a peculiarly premodern approach to narrative and characterization. Rather than speaking of narrative as if it were a constant, I wonder whether we need to be more attentive to the new forms of narrative that are coming into existence in our day and age.

It seems to me that many of the same things can be said, mutatis mutandis, about metaphor. For instance, the metaphors in the Song of Songs are quite distinct in their nature from those to which we are accustomed, maintaining a far greater metaphorical distance, but with a seemingly lower consciousness of the separation that we associate with metaphorical language. I wonder whether Owen Barfield has a point in arguing that the metaphor is something that undergoes a historical development in its very nature.

3. Are word-based and image-based mission statements really that interchangeable? What gains and losses come with a different form?

4. What exactly would an ‘image statement’ look like? Is an image something that can naturally be articulated in a ‘statement’?

5. In adapting to the vernacular, the Christian faith has always also adapted the vernacular to itself, and has powerfully transformed the conceptual frameworks of many languages in the process. What are some of the ways in which the Christian faith should not adapt to the form of ‘the language of TGiF culture’? What are some of the ways in which the Christian faith should and can adapt the language of TGiF culture to itself?

6. Should we be more attentive to the plurality of online ‘dialects’, with different social media representing different linguistic realms? We experience this difference, for instance, when a new form of social media comes along. For instance, when I first started using Google+ a year or so ago it was interesting trying to explain it to users of Twitter and Facebook. Google+ fosters quite different forms of interaction, online personae, and relationships from Twitter and Facebook, and one really needs to immerse oneself in it for a while to understand. I wonder whether we shouldn’t be more careful to identify the strengths and weaknesses of these particular dialects and their associated linguistic communities. I posted some extreme rough comments that touched on this subject at one or two points on this earlier today.

Social media can create a sort of tribalism. Tweeters, Redditers, Plussers, etc., all have linguistic and social norms and modes of interaction distinct to their communities, norms that can be confusing and opaque to outsiders. In speaking of a language of TGiF culture, I fear that we risk eliding these differences. Even within the acronym TGiF, we have three generations of online interaction – first wave online documents and search (Google), second wave social media and the social network (Twitter and Facebook), third wave mobile and apps (iPhone – and Twitter works well in this generation too). Each of these generations has a distinct form of networking and language. However, many of the ways that we speak about the Internet fail to appreciate these developments and differences.

7. I would like to hear Sweet say more about the ways that our distinct Christian convictions and practices can provide us with controls that form and inform our use of social media. At what points, if any, must we say ‘no’ to social media, for instance? Speaking of being ‘in’ but not ‘out’ strikes me as a little vague by itself.
HCButcher

While I’d like to respond to all of your points, I would simply suggest that you read some of Len’s books, if you’re interested to know more. (Maybe “I Am A Follower” would be a good one, or “Nudge”)
I would propose that narraphore is exactly Len’s way of affirming that narrative and metaphor are both changing and responding to current culture. Image statements are just that – a way of engaging in a dialogue of the narraphore of the image in its breadth and depth and particular and universal storying. Words on paper, by design, signify/refer to narrow, individualistic interpretations rather than investigation in community (which images invite).
Your point #7 makes me chuckle. . .”in but not of” is a classic Jesus narraphor: “vague” – yes, requiring dialogue and communal discernment – yes, “controlling” – no! Control and boundaries are gutenberger paradigms. Embodying and incarnating the story is the way that googlers will bring the gospel, use the new technologies and welcome others into the journey.
- http://twitter.com/zugzwanged Alastair Roberts
  
  Thanks for the reading recommendations. Unfortunately, given the vertiginous pile of books on the desk next to me, they might have to wait for a little while. :-/
  
  Not being entirely sure how Sweet uses the concept, I can’t comment on how narraphor functions within his thought. However, while, as you observe, the category appears to suggest an evolution of a new form of narrative and metaphor, Sweet also seems to be trying to defend the isomorphism of contemporary ‘narraphor’ categories with those of Scripture. My concern is that we don’t short circuit the relationship here. The contingency and novelty of narraphor needs to be stressed and the strangeness of biblical categories grappled with.
  
  I wonder whether those accustomed to ‘narraphors’ risk merely imposing such categories upon a text that is quite distinct in character, rather than more receptively discerning forms that are more natural to the text itself. Such things as narraphors are not merely a chosen way that we narrate reality, they can be integral to the manner in which we perceive reality. As such, they can prevent us from seeing that which isn’t ‘narraphoric’ in character and distorting other narratives by the imposition of an alien form. For instance, I really do not believe that Christ’s parables function in the way that we are accustomed to our ‘narraphors’ functioning. While there are definitely similarities of which we should take note, there are also profound differences (also we can overstate the non-narrative character of previous forms – what is the creed if not a potted and condensed narrative?).
  
  Christ’s parables, for instance, depend for their operation upon a far more premodern, symbolic, and typological form of narration. Our understanding of storytelling and metaphor creation tends to rely far more directly upon the independent and autonomous creativity of the individual storyteller. They are self-standing creations. However, Christ’s parables find their meaning in relation to a far thicker social narrative and symbolic world than any we have experienced. Rather than being autonomous creations, they are manipulations and operations upon existing and established symbols and narratives. Individuals inhabiting such a world would also articulate their own identities in such a manner. I suspect that it was not until the Romantic era, for instance, that the autotelic ‘personality’ started to become an accepted form as distinct from the ‘character’ defined in terms of an objective social narrative and norms. Of course, as we are accustomed to a particular way of narrating and sense-making in our world, we can fail to see the effect that it has upon us and how different we are from all who preceded us.
  
  Do images really invite investigation? While they can encourage engagement, the image seldom makes a claim that can be either proved or refuted. Rather than making a verifiable or falsifiable statement, the image makes an impression. The image doesn’t really invite dialogue at all. Nor, one might argue, does the story. Rather, dialogue is something that presupposes a measure of a common story and a narratable world.
  
  I would suggest that, far from being less individualistic than our Gutenberger forebears, we are more so. The objective pole of narrative and meaning has been so weakened that, although we may experience corporately, we interpret ever more privately and individualistically.
  
  Control and boundaries continue to be important, and powerfully shape our online existence. Control and boundaries determine levels of online access, the ontologies that structure our online existence and identities, forms of interaction, etc. Our online activity is not amorphous, we are just less conscious of its form and the way that we conform to it. Unless we render the question of controls and form explicit, it will merely exert its influence upon us unawares.
  
  I am definitely not an apologete for the Gutenbergers. I have written extensively about the damage caused by Gutenberg’s invention in the past. My point is that, although the position of the Gutenbergers is heavily compromised, ours is no less so, and we would recognize this, if only we were prepared to be more attentive to the way that modern technology structures our existence. Approaches that laud new technologies and criticize those of the past risk being blind to the pitfalls that are most immediate to us, and merely repeat the failures of technology-blind generations of the past.
- http://twitter.com/zugzwanged Alastair Roberts
  
  I posted a few reflections on the category of narrative and narraphor within this post last night (see point 3).
HCButcher

Nice job, Vicky! New website looks great :)
Mark

Len said that “We live in a world that communicates, not in words or points, but in narratives and metaphors”. This may be true, but I sometimes wonder if this is all irrelevant postmodern jabber! Have we made it all up make ourselves feel better because of the powerless of Christianity, due to all out tired Chrisitian rhetotic? Secondly, I am not even sure it is all very relevant or where culture (especially Chrisitan) will end up! I’m thinking in particular of deliverence ministry, we need words to excercise this ministry and set people free, all this nonsense about narratives may be helpful in ivory towers of theology, but does anyone even care? It”s a pretty middleclass discussion (like Christianity as a worldview is mostly on the West). The people in my world Workingclass, are not interested at all in all this rhetoric. Thirdly, The problem for some Chrisitians is that words, have not featured enough as an empowerment for people to communicate effectiviely in Postmodern Culture! I am thinking of the Prosperity Gospel that is growing and now seen amongst many as Orthodox Christianity, or at least as a move of the Holy Spirit who is restoring biblical principles back into the church! This whole system of theology is based on the Power of Words! Another interesting thing is one of the pioneers of the Prosperity Gospel Kenneth Copeland was one of the first to use technology and media to communicate the Gospel and is even pioneering the way now!
http://twitter.com/lrwhitney Lindsey Whitney

Great interview! I have been meaning to read this (it’s been bookmarked!) for a while, but I’m glad I finally sat down to do it. Sure makes me want to read Leonard’s book. I think I’m personally caught right in between the Gutenbergs and Googles… I love blogs and chatting online, but I also check out 6 books from the library (and read them) every 2 weeks. I think there is so much benefit in both!

Lindsey @ GrowingKidsMinistry.com