A Reformed Biweekly 74th Year of Publication | August 26, 2019 | No. 3099 $2.50 Theme Issue: The Smart Phone News. Clues. Kingdom Views. DYING TO THE GENIUS OF YOUTH Rising to ministry in Christ. | Peter Schuurman – what we worship – is the keel of our spiritual life. My local small group is just finishing The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church (2018) by John Seel. This writer is insistent that we need to move beyond the nega- tive research studies that claim young adults are narcissistic, en- titled and lazy, caught in the spin of self-centred, middle-class Mor- alistic Therapeutic Deism. In fact, Seel claims that young people are the carriers of a new paradigm of Copernican proportions, and this paradigm is not only more holistic SATIRE, SACKED and true (more right-brained), it’s more Jesus-like. Risk-averse news outlets axe political cartoons. The message of the book is a warning to Christians: Change Angela Reitsma Bick your ways, or like the self-satisfied Titanic you will crash and drown on the iceberg of the new cultural ON JUNE 26, MICHAEL de Adder stopped printing daily political frame! Current membership de- posted to Twitter his cartoon of cartoons completely on July 1st, cline in the church is a symptom U.S. President Donald Trump after outrage over an anti-Semitic of the church’s increasing irrele- golfing next to the bodies of two illustration of Israeli Prime Min- A FRIEND TOLD ME HE AND HIS WIFE HAVE A HABIT OF SITTING OUT vance – its pride, its judgmental migrants: it was based on a haunt- ister Benjamin Netanyahu in its on the front porch on Fridays after work and just having sweet conver- attitude, its disembodied emphasis ing photo of asylum-seeker Oscar international edition. Times car- sation about the week. His teenage daughter approached them last week on doctrine. Instead, what youth Alberto Martinez Ramirez and toonist Patrick Chappatte wrote and innocently asked, “Why do you sit here and talk?” want is a body of Christ that is his young daughter. Though the on his blog that “this is not just After they briefly explained the preciousness of this ritualized time more relational and experiential, drawing was never published in about cartoons, but about jour- as a couple, their daughter responded: “Why not just text each other?” more open to mystery, spirit, print, de Adder was fired from a nalism and opinion in general.” As if that would be more efficient and normal. He then recognized that beauty and justice. In a word: it New Brunswick newspaper chain Media outlets are shrinking, leav- his daughter lives in a different world: she has never known a world needs to be more authentic – not a few days later. His employer ing little appetite for risk. People without texting. fake or cool, but like real people stated that the image was not a seem to take offense more quickly. Numerous congregations today are focusing their attention on young who connect with the “longings factor in their decision, but the We’re polarized, with no patience adults. In some circles, it’s become an obsession. The young adults want and losses of others in a manner event prompted other Canadian for anyone else’s point of view. bands! They want crowds! They want to see passion! that is deeply human.” Our focus cartoonists to express concern These are all reasons why a free What do young adults want, and is what they think they want what should not be on inviting youth to over censorship in news outlets, press is needed more than ever, they really, really want? This is the first thing Jesus asks young adults join “us” in the church, but rath- particularly with respect to Don- including visual commentary and around him in the gospel of John (1:38). Not because his mission was er “joining together on a shared ald Trump. humour, Chappatte says. “Who to give them what they want, but because it’s a way to get right to the spiritual pilgrimage to a yet unde- South of the border, the will show the emperor Erdogan heart of things – or rather, to the soul of things. Our desires, our loves clared destination.” 168-year-old New York Times that he has no clothes, when Continued on page 3 Continued on page 2 MAIL TO: PM# 40009999 R9375 PM# 4 | Hyperconnected 10 | The slow beauty of bread 14 | Mobile learning News SATIRE CONTINUED Turkish cartoonists can’t do it?” “By choosing not to print edi- torial cartoons in the future, the Times can be sure that their editors will never again make a poor cartoon choice,” cartoonist and syndicator Daryl Cagle told the Washington Post. He runs the syndicate that Christian Courier uses. “Editors at the Times have also made poor choices of words in the past. I would suggest that the Times should also choose not Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte, New York. to print words in the future – just to be on the safe side.” Cartoons in CC Angela Reitsma Bick Christian Courier subscribes to an international syn- Angela is Editor of Chris- dicate of 60 cartoonists, which includes Patrick Chap- tian Courier. This caricature was drawn years ago by her patte, formerly of the NY Times. Interestingly, during friend Faith Erin Hicks, Ca- President Obama’s time in office, the number of car- nadian cartoonist & author toons for and against him were roughly equal. In 2017, of Comics Will Break Your Heart. however, the syndicate had to change its formatting: so many cartoons depicted the new U.S. administra- tion negatively that it created a special section called “Trump-Friendly Cartoons,” at a 1:10 ratio to the rest of the site. Cartoonist Dave Whamond, Calgary. Smart phone sketches For this theme issue on the Smart Phone, we’ve includ- ed political cartoons from around the world. As you’ll see, the devices have become as ubiquitous in caricature as they are everywhere else! Page 1 cartoons: Rick McKee, Georgia, U.S. (top) and Gatis Sluka of Latvia (bottom). This box: Paresh Nath from the United Arab Emirates. 2 AUGUST 26, 2019 | CHRISTIAN COURIER News GENIUS CONTINUED “And this only thing . is every- thing.” PRECIOUS GENIUS What must first occur is that Meanwhile, some friends and we – adults, millennials, Gen Y I read another book that gave a and whatever – kill our story. It seemingly opposite message: An- sounds harsh, but what Root is drew Root in Faith Formation in simply saying is that we must en- a Secular Age (2017) argues that ter the death of Christ, and our starting from anxiety about de- false stories – that we are good, cline in the church is to configure that we are smart, that we must be our faith as first of all about in- beautiful or successful – must be stitutional membership, and that crucified with Christ. misses the soul of things. That One we have be liberated from is to say, it too easily misses the these oppressive and paralyzing aim of faith as centred in the ex- narratives, we enter into a new perience of our mystical union story of being united with Christ with Christ. and his kingdom. Now our story Secondly, the oft-proposed is “I am ministered to; I am grate- solution to waning faith – to fo- ful; I am gifted to be a minister, cus on the youth and what they too.” want – further exaggerates what Finally, and perhaps most im- our culture fetishizes: the “genius portantly, the household of faith of youthfulness.” This not only can be a friendship of rest. When denigrates what is elderly and an- tempted to make worship a con- cient; Root argues it reinforces a tinuation of the culture of perfor- consumer culture of cool that must mance, hype and spectacle, God’s constantly re-invent itself in order ministry invites all to come, be si- to survive. Being hip is an end- lent, find rest and pray. The body less pursuit that can only exhaust of Christ – at its best – makes and paralyze those caught up in space in which we can receive, its spell. To a large degree, the cult let the old stories die, and be born of authenticity is part of the prob- into a fresh plot. When Christ’s lem: it magnifies the “Big Me” passion directs our pilgrimage, (David Brooks’ term) of expres- we are freed from the pressure to sivist individualism that leaves perform for God, to feel intensely so many disconnected and lonely. spiritual, or to demonstrate our Community requires at least some fervent commitment to the faith. compromise with something larg- I have named a number of books er than yourself. Some conformity about youth adults, and they arise to an agreed pattern of life. from people with lots of experi- Faith, insists Root, is about dy- ence with young adults. But we ing to our self, our self-branding still need to have conversations and our self-sufficiency and -en with each other, and consult each tering a “negation of negation” in other. Just as not all churches and Christ, a death that leads to a new adults fit the stereotypes suggest- story and new life. This is what ed of them, so not all young adults young adults need, and if they per- fit what the studies assess about haps dug down deep enough into their generation. Talking to young their desires, they would find they adults – from church and beyond really want this: God’s help and – is a best practise.