Christianity & Culture....

hmmm.....

2006-09-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
For those who still look at this blog, i just want to point out another blog of mine that i have created for another class. its willonsite.blogspot.com

I will from time to time still put something here that is C&C. (hopefully).

ahh..summer....sortof....

2006-08-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

well summers almost over and i didn't blog...haha
so here my entry for August.

almost time to go Back!

In Retrospect.....

2006-04-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

So…..for a large part of March, we had to do a book study on My Name is Asher Lev. It is a good book, because it raises the question of when art or just a creative mind becomes dangerous or controversial to a community. For Asher, drawing is one of his greatest strengths and it is also his passion in life. Throughout school, one of the things he does is daydream and draw. This passion in his life will soon over take him, making him steal paint on one occasion and draw a picture of the Rebbe (A key figure in his community) on Chumash(Torah, Pentatuch, first five books of the Bible) on another occasion. Asher is overzealous with his work. Now obviously, passion overtook Asher in his quest to draw and in this case it was dangerous to the community, not particularly just these two incidents, but when he becomes older and experiments with different types of art that can be controversial to a very uptight society.

Naturally, artwork can become dangerous, it can be very controversial. It expresses our emotions in ways that plain words cannot say. But the question that I want to ask all of you is…should we express our creative minds whether it is through poetry, movies music, etc even though we know it will be controversial, not necessary to the public, but to the church?
What do you guys think??? Or how about other people who makes controversial art, should we watch,read, hear, whatever or should we advoid such people???

Heres something that i have read recently

2006-03-26T20:34:00.000-08:00

I thought this was a really well written post from http://fcov.blogspot.com/, so much that I will post it here:

Satan's Meeting
Satan called a worldwide convention of demons.
In his opening address he said, "We can't keep Christians from going to church."
"We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth."
"We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their saviour."
"Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken."
"So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish dinners, BUT steal their time, so they don't have time to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.."
"This is what I want you to do," said the devil: "Distract them from gaining hold of their Saviour and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!"
"How shall we do this?" his demons shouted.
"Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered.
"Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow."
"Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles."
"Keep them from spending time with their children."
"As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!" "Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice"Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive." To keep the TV, VCR, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly."
"This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."
"Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers."
"Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day."
"Invade their driving moments with billboards."
"Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.."
"Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives. "
"Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night."
"Give them headaches too! "
"If they don't give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere."
"That will fragment their families quickly!"
"Give them Santa Claus to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of Christmas."
"Give them an Easter bunny so they won't talk about his resurrection and power over sin and death."
"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive."
"Have them return from their recreation exhausted."
"Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead."
"Keep them busy, busy, busy!" "And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences."
"Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Jesus." "Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause." "It will work!" "It will work!"
It was quite a plan! The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busier and more rushed, going here and there. Having little time for their God or their families. Having no time to tell others about the power of Jesus to change lives. I guess the question is, has the devil been successful in his schemes?

Does "BUSY" mean: B-eing U-nder S-atan's Y-oke?

These are my thoughts for today...

2006-03-20T18:29:00.000-08:00

Well… yesterday was the end of a long, but wonderful weekend. You see, at our school we had a youth conference, a revival retreat if you will. The theme was missions, specially “hard to ignore”. What is hard to ignore in the world today? You might ask.. Well, one of the things is poverty or destitution. There is so much food that the world provides, it is a wonder why people starve at all. And the answer is the way that people distribute food is flawed, more than a billion people are lacking basic necessities, while the ones that are wealthy, develop health problems due to the amount of nutrition that is in western food these days. It is true that a lot of these poverty people are unable to find a job especially people who are in third world nations, but here in Canada, with the state-of-the-art tech, its health care and welfare system you would think that we would be able to eliminate beggars, but that’s not the case. Therefore, I have determined that most beggars here beg not because they lack money but because they lack hope. Hope for a better future, hope that can change their lives.

What is hope?
One of Webster’s definitions of hope is “to expect with confidence” As Christians, we have hope because we know that Jesus is gonna come back, and that God will triumph over the Enemy. Non-Christians don’t know where to put their hope in, so they put it on material things like computers, cars or work/school or relationships bf/gf/wife/husband, friends whatever. And because the world is not perfect, people get frustrated when the hope that they place on these earthy things break. Hope is important and to know where to put hope is imperative.

What do you think?

umm.....for the class????

2006-03-14T16:53:00.000-08:00

Last class we were discussing movies & the fine arts and how you could use them as a tool for sharing the Good News. I remember our prof us that if we have any poetry, we should put them on the blog. After looking at the poems that I have on poetry.com, it occurred to me that I did not have poems that were written to God or about Xianity in general, nor were they about culture. So I have decided not to post my poems here, but if you goto poetry.com and search for Wilbert Yee, you will find them there.

BUT after lots of searching though the archives I found one so here it is:
Fly with Me
Day by day
Like a sight that I will remember,
You amaze me
Though the world
Will fade away
I know that
Your love will stay
Soar with me
As I rise to you
And I will never
Fully understand You
But I know that
You are my God, my Friend, my Saviour
And I know that
Whatever the problem is
You are in control

lets make a movie!!

2006-03-09T19:41:00.000-08:00

As requested by our prof,, we have to post our ideas for a movie based on the theme of “to be in the world, but not of the world” so here is a rough and incomplete plot outline of my movie entitled Alan Li

Alan Li is about a young atheist billionaire and his encounters with non-Christians and Christians, both conservative and liberal. Everyday Alan struggles with the question that all people at one point or another think about and is “what is the meaning of life? Why am I here?” Alan interacts with fellow seekers trying to find answers. Along the way, he encounters Xians, some who avoid the culture influences while others embrace it openly to the point where they have no distinction between other religious or atheist people. Since Alan cannot fully answer his own questions, he drowns out the curiosity by making money, attaining fame, and chasing women.
Alan has a bitter history, he is emotionally hurt partially because of his strict upbringing by foster parents (his own were killed in a car accident when he was 3). The main reason why he is bitter is the lost of his beloved fiancée, who was killed on September 11 2001. All his friends tried and failed to comfort him and to this day he has not fully recovered from that lost. Many of his Christian acquaintances also tried to comfort him, but instead of making him feel better, they indirectly made him bitterer towards God for losing her. He has a younger sister who is a Xian and attending a local Bible College. Eventually, this brings Alan to the college, and he finds himself interacting more with theologians, Biblical scholars, pastors, missionaries and Christian workers. He sees Xians who are dedicated to the work of God, and he also see those who do almost nothing except partying and playing video games. He still hasn’t found what he is looking for, someone to comfort him, someone to love him.

To be continued….

I am not someone who likes “Hollywood endings” (sudden happy endings), for this story it would mean that Alan becomes a Xian. I don’t think it would do Mr. Li justice if he suddenly became a Xian, rather I think an appropriate climax to this story would be that he kills himself out of despair and the end would be everyone trying to figure out just what happened.

The other part of this assignment was to think of who would play the part of Alan. Frankly I don’t know many Asians that would be suitable for this kind of character who is dark and bitter and isn’t a martial artist, so I looked at all the current celebrities and decided that maybe Russell Crowe, Adrian Brody or Christian Bale (Russ and Adrian would research the part very thoroughly and Christian would have the right emotions quite easily ) Next, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep (STRICT foster parents, the mother would be a reminiscence of the mom from the Manchurian Candidate) , Natalie Portman, Keira Knightly(sweet gf here, happy with life, happy with Alan) and finally the sister could be Lindsay Lohan, Mandy Moore or Hilary Duff. (We’re going for the bratty spoiled baby sister here) Young Alan(there is flashback) could be played by Hayden Christensen or some young 14-18 year old kid.

Feel free to comment, suggestion or ask questions

A collection of random thoughts

2006-03-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

ok,, i'll start off with a question,,, did anyone watch the oscars last night? and if so did any of you expected Crash to win best pic instead of Brokeback??

so,, here i am thinking about the media, mostly the impact that Hollywood has affected society, not just USA, but other countries including Canada. Do u think that the movie industry follows what the social and culture norms are? or do you think that it is the driving force behind our culture? To me, its a little of both actually, the media has a powerful influence that reminds people of what the society is like and what society ought to be like. What do you guys think???

Should Xians put being in the arts, being in the media as a piority because to a certian degree, media does influence people, should we try then to speak up on Xianity? How you might ask? Write to the local newspaper...put up more blogs like this...and the list goes on. Would that be benificial or not to the society? What do you guys think???

My thoughts for today

2006-02-25T11:13:00.000-08:00

so as i was thinking of another social issue that was not discussed is euthanasia (assisted-suicide or mercy killing) i don't know much about this topic and i don't know if this is an important issue that the Church needs to address. So, what do all you people think about this topic?

Again like most of my other posts, i am on neutral ground--i am not for it nor am i aganist it, i just want to know what you think.

wait,, one more thing for today......

2006-02-18T21:05:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of nationstates.net? it’s a simply online game I can’t really explain it but check it out…its really neat!

things to ponder about.........

2006-02-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, I was thinking of what I can talk about with Xianity and Culture….. and then I thought that maybe I should discuss about morality and immorality. I think that morality goes up and down, some periods in time are better than others and some are worse. But the end result is that each peak that our society has in morality vs. immorality is less compared to the previous peak, therefore morality is on a downward line if you see it as an average on a XY graph. One argument to support my answer is from the timeline of movies. Back in the 30s-early 60s mainstream movies didn’t have anything that was suggestive, much violence or swearing. If you look at the movies today, almost all movies have such content, even in family movies. Most movies in those days are considered to be so tame by todays standard that some people might fall asleep watching it! I have a movie that was made in the early 60s call The Manchurian Candidate (BTW Great movie you gotta see it, not the remake that just came out last year but the original with Frank Sinatra) , at the time it was very controversial for its violent content, now…its tamer than some Disney Movies! And I am thinking…with all the stuff that people now see in movies, how does this impact our culture? How does movies like Brokeback Mountain and TransAmerica influence (because they will) our society, our churches on the social issues such as homosexual marriages, gender confusion/operations? And wouldn’t you agree that this is just the tip of the iceberg when we look back at all of this in 5,10 years?....i don’t have answers to any of these questions really,, but what do you people think?

heres a video.....

2006-02-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

i found this some time ago,,,, its a man dancing in various parts of the world.

"Matt travels around the world and dances. Quit his old job of as a programmer to do this."

hilarious! enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaluLFfv0EI

expressions of worship....

2006-01-29T00:02:00.000-08:00

Here are my thoughts for today….imagine that you were pasturing a church, and a person wanted to read a poem that he or she wrote dealing with his or her struggles with God in a worship service. Now, you read the poem and it was really good, well thought out, but it contains profanity and will offend the congregation even though it deals with human struggles in a raw and honest way. The person is a believer who just came back to the church after years of absence and this person is very unstable both emotionally and spiritually. This means that if you decline or ask to clean up the poem this person would be personally offended. Now would you let the person openly read the poem or would you tell this person to clean up the poem before he or she reads it to the congregation in a worship service?

Now in a worship service, expression of worship in all the forms (eg music, dance, drama etc) should not be discouraged rather encouraged, but do you think that having a poetry reading with colorful language is going too worldly and not God-centered?

What is Christian Music?

2006-01-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

For my first class post, I will be talking about Christian music.
What seperates Christian music from secular music is the lyrics. I wouldn't mind listening to almost all kinds of genres if they had lyrics that glory God. However, i know many people base Christian music on the artists who sing them. if the musician is a Christian than automatically the songs that he or she sings is Christian. Does this mean that secular songs can be "redeemed" if they are sung by Christians? There are many main-stream bands that are out there who are Christians, but they don't sing songs that your local Christian book might carry. Should we label them as Christian bands?

Another thing is...what about playing secular music in a worship service? Could and would it be helpful in leading people to Christ? personally, i would never use non-Christian music in a worship service because i don't think that worldy lyrics could bring people closer to God. what do you think?

Those are my thoughts on CM right now... feel free to leave a comment.

Welcome!

2006-01-11T21:08:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,
This is my little blog and for the duration of the next four months (University Experiment) I will be sharing my thoughts on Culture and its effects on the Christian Church. At the end of the four months...if i cannot find the answer to questions such as "How much culture should influence the church?" then at least I would have a better understand of culture and its influence in the church and vice versa.

Feel free to post comments and enjoy your visit.

Willyz