Have a look at this vid of behavioral economist Dan Ariely describing an interesting experiment involving fake fashion – you know the ones – you find “Gucci”, “Prada” handbags and sunglasses being sold for £5 at street vendors all over London. In the experiment he discovers that wearing fake fashion items seems to . . . . “empower” the owner/wearer to cheat more – to be less honest.

Hmmmm . . . .

I find this all rather interesting. Firstly I find the desire for, the need to buy “fake” anything – let alone “fashion” items fascinating. It is the search for status (often unnecessary status), it is the aspiration towards excessive wealth (which has its own negative social and personal effects), I could go on and on . . .

Two things pop out for me that, in this scenario, are directly connected to theology. First there is that bizarre desire to be seen, and to be seen as somehow out of the ordinary, or important. Jesus criticises the religious leaders of his day for wearing tassels, expecting to be greeted in the market place, invited to dinners, and offered the place of honour. It would seem that this particular defect has not yet been winnowed from our indie community at least. Second, there is deception . . . . no deception is not really the right word . . . there is a sense of not being wholly “real” or “honest” – something that from the reference point of the teaching of Christ is . . . well . . . . . just a bit dodgey, no?

“Alternatively, if one denomination unexpectedly adopts an aggressive policy of buying shares in another, then the resulting volatility will make it hard accurately to assess the underlying reality.”

Mark Vernon’s essay in the Guardian Online playing with the imagery of possible parallels between the language, dynamic, and psychology of the eddies of spiritual and religious flux is a fun read – and given the often unstable nature of the Indie climate – rather thought provoking.

This essay in Religion Dispatches is really compelling. The politics of the impending health care reform in the US, while fascinating, is of no interest to us here (if you’re a regular you’ll know we don’t do anything but indie thinking and issues), rather the discussion about how a mythology takes shape.

The “key” feature is how a group takes an image, and “re-interprets” it (sometimes at the expense of its “real” meaning or substance). Which is what is certainly happening in the case of the current debate in the US. But here’s my question – for good or for ill, how have we indie folk done this, and how do we continue to do it?

How have we taken “images” from our inherited language about “church” and “catholicism” and re-interpreted them; what has been the “cost” of this re-interpretation? Has it hemmed us in, or liberated us? Does it inspire, or merely trap us in the cage of old, un-healthy models of religious expression?

“Liberal” churches may be sabotaging themselves by reducing the commitment of their members – so suggests a recent report in New Scientist. The persecution of early Christians may have had a dramatic effect on the spread of Christianity because the sacrifices of martyrs and confessors instilled in others the idea of sincerity: “few would willingly give their life for an ideal they did not believe in”.

Once people believe they are more likely to undertake or endure similar displays of committment. Through a mathematical model, the study suggests that this becomes a “self-reinforcing loop” enabling the belief system to persist over time.

The suggestion is that communities that expect a higher level of committment as displayed through particular behaviour endure and grow whereas those communities which do not eventually dissipate. Comparing liberal Protestant churches and fundamentalist Protestant churches appears to prove the point.

How is this relevant to OC/IC communities?

I dare say that today there might be a few confessors out there, but not too many martyrs. So lets look at the effects of more down to earth forms of “costly sacrifices”.

The study suggests that acts of sacrifice, or self-denial/renunciation by religious leaders has a stronger overall impact on the commitment of others. So, how many of our OC/IC leaders and clergy are regularly participating in the life and community of other churches? From the stand point of a visitor/observer/participant – if my local indie bishop, priest or lay leader is heavily involved in another tradition then this indie thing must not be worth my own personal investment.

This opens the door to the next question, assume our leaders are setting the example, are we doing enough to cultivate, and encourage “membership” through the right of chrismation? That is to say – if our leaders have “sacrificed” the (false) safety net of another church, then are we also encouraging the same within the community as a whole? In short are we actively giving people a reason to give a confident “yes” to the OC/IC way of life, and be willing to whole heartedly throw in their lot with us?

Keeping in mind the above two points, how might the common practice of open communion affect committment to, identification with our OC/IC communities?

Finally, in our history can we point to as an exemplar of commitment to the OC/IC ideal? I can think of a few, such as Varlet and Ofiesh, how about you?

Since dabbling more and more in social media networks like Twitter and Facebook I’ve noticed something emerging in the vocabulary of other Christians online. More and more believers refer to their being a “follower of Jesus” or some variation thereof, avoiding or consciously rejecting the more typical “Christian”. I (perhaps mistakenly) thought that this was a product of the Emergent movement, thought it was rather neat and left it at that. Until, I read this post at FaithLab that suggests that it is a conscious decision rejecting the baggage laden “Christian”.

The post goes on to raise some interesting questions: “No doubt, the term “Christian” has baggage. Does it mean a hard-nosed, judgemental, Bible-literalist churchgoer? Or can it also label a humble, quiet, spiritually active follower? What about believers who are not church-goers? Christianity has always had a tremendous diversity of expression. But in our media-saturated world, unfortunately it seems that terms are given meaning by one particular group or approach. How do we define ourselves when we don’t fit that stereotype?”

I confess that since becoming more aware of how religion – and especially Christianity – is portrayed in various media sources, I’ve become more aware of some of this “baggage”. I’ve always approached this awareness through my personal conduct as a believer, a theologian, and a cleric – recalling the line in the morning prayer that says, may I not be the cause of embarrassment to the faith. But, is the praxis of a single individual enough? Krista Tippet talks movingly about the scope of our ability to transform the world in the latter half of her book Speaking of Faith, and says that all we can hope to accomplish is that one to one, individual activity that expresses the core of our belief and tradition.

Over the past decade or so I’ve heard many thoughtful arguments within our own OC/IC community about dropping or changing the labels we use to describe or refer to ourselves. The one that usually gets the axe is “catholic” largely because of its association with the Roman Catholic church (which we are not). Another – interestingly enough – is “church”; this term is laden with associations of institutionalisation, buildings, politics, and hierarchy.

Should we consider changing our terms? What benefit is there in doing so? Should we not instead strive to re-claim the true meaning of the existing language, or is that a lost cause?