David Batstone -- Not for Sale (2007)
0 Comments Published by Chris on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 10:27 AM.
The current hot topic of justice is the subject of David Batstone's "Not for Sale." Offering detailed accounts of slavery found in the United States and in outside countries, the words flowing from the pages touch close to home. This is not an easy read. Although it is intriguing and heart wrenching, it is also scary, holding stories of which we would rather claim ignorance.The official book of the Amazing Change campaign, this book both challenges and offers hope. Batstone skillfully networks together the different abolitionist efforts such as International Justice Mission and Free the Slaves, showing that this is a joint effort that needs more energy. He writes with passion and high expectations as he challenges readers to become abolitionists, a vocation that he believes still continues. This book tells stories of college students who have made successful efforts towards abolition.
Read this book. I challenge you to read it and to not feel a fire burn inside of you as you read of children soldiers in Uganda, of little girls being enslaved, of women continually tricked into prostitution. My hope is that after reading "Not for Sale" you will be unwilling to except the sight of injustice without digging past the surface.
Labels: books, david batstone, number twenty-three, respond, sk
I've been making short films since the summer before my Senior year of High School. Since then I've made over 70 short films. As to why I make films on my own, instead of just for classes, it's mainly because I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. I believe this is what I was meant to do.I always think of Eric Little from Chariots of Fire when I think about making films. He says that he feels God's pleasure when he runs, and he can't stop running because God made him fast. I feel the same way about making and watching films. When I see a film by directors like Wong Kar Wai, Jia Zhang Ke, Chan Wook Park, or Hou Hsiao Hsien I not only see God in the humanness and artistry of those films, but I feel God calling me to go out there and do the same.
God loves films. He loves new innovative styles and cinematography. And I love films because I see God's beauty and truth in them. He made me to love films, and I'm just doing what he created me to do. That's the amazing thing about movies--they capture God's creation. Films capture humans in God's world, and we can experience so much of God's love, truth, and beauty in his creation through films. And the cool thing about it, is that we experience them through a film in a new, fresh, unique way that we could never do in real life. A minimalist film like Last Life in the Universe shows a real-life situation in Bangkok. But the style of the film makes it extraordinary. The music, the cinematography, the pacing-- all of these things add to this world that would not be there in every day life. Films celebrate the possible beauty of everything! As Christopher Doyle says, "maybe--just maybe--by celebrating the possible beauty in things, films can change the world just a little."
The other huge reason I make films is because I think (I hope at least), that I have something to say that will mean something to someone. I want people to walk out of my films asking big questions. I want people to love people more after watching my films. I want people to love God more after watching my films. I want to challenge people in the messages I bring across.
I hope my latest film Got a Light accomplishes some of that. I hope I showed the beauty of God's world and God's people in this film. The film is showing on at 7 p.m. on April 21, in John White Chapel in Old Main, but people can show up as early as 6 for refreshments.
Labels: mark sanders, movies, number twenty-three, respond
The Light for Darfur Project arose from the desire of students to raise awareness about the situation that has been going on in the Sudan for the past four years. The project will culminate with an event in Johnson Gym on Saturday, April 21st from 4-7 p.m.During the first hour, attendees will have the opportunity walk through a pictorial history of genocide. Dr. Ali Dinar, a native of the Sudan and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, will be speaking at 5 p.m. Students have been hard at work to create a multimedia experience that will challenge you to move from being a bystander to an active participant in the fight against the injustice of genocide. There will be opportunities for prayer support and also monetary support through donations and the purchase of t-shirts. Come and be educated, informed and challenged.
For more information on the Light for Darfur Project, visit our website at http://www.geocities.com/lightfordarfur.
Labels: number twenty-three, rachel veydt, respond
Too often we define the city of New Orleans, by the devastating affects of hurricane Katrina. My perception was proved wrong, after returning to New Orleans for the second time on the spring break missions trips.The people of New Orleans are filled with a spirit of hope, and a commitment to rebuilding their lives and communities. They are not defined by the storm, but rather by their incredible culture, and their perseverance to embrace change and continue the progress being made.
There still is a huge need for volunteers, so if you are interested in volunteering and visiting a unique culture Google Trinity Christian Community, Hollygrove, New Orleans. Or email me at kllandes@geneva.edu.
Labels: kll, number twenty, respond
Donations: $1,216.70
Matched by The Call: $500.00
Total: $1,716.70
Cost of a Well: $5,390.00
Still Needed: $3,673.30
We’re going to take this opportunity to yet again say THANK YOU. We’d have zero bucks without you.
However, we still could use some more. Keep it coming. It’ll help.
Labels: number nineteen, respond, the well fund
Why culture. ish.?
Because that question has to be asked. In an atmosphere where every action is expected to be circumscribed and propped up by mission statements that read like the credo printed on top of bathroom hand dryers, where every endeavor is required to submit a financial plan and detailed cost analysis, where some new and trendy vision of the beloved community is always around the corner, asking to be made immediately real, culture. ish. seeks to make its place somewhere else.
We don't aim to be in conflict with those things, but to exist outside of their tightly-knit world, subsisting in joyous practice. Our aim is not to communicate facts and bits of data. Rather, if we are looking to educate, it is in a deeper and more interactive sense - a mutual education that is found in sharing of ourselves and earnestly listening as we seek to practice a Christian relationship with art and culture, and in drawing those around us into that same ecstatic dance.
--ap
Labels: ap, number nineteen, respond, why culture ish
We often separate knowing from doing. These are not two separate entities, with labels like “good” and “bad,” sacred/secular, etc. Rather, “the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it” ( Ps.24:1). Culture.ish. longs to see life holistically, like the Biblical narrative teaches. This does not, however, mean that Culture.ish. is a priest that baptizes and makes holy everything that it reviews and talks about so that students will know that it is safe and pleasing to God. Culture.ish. is the beginning of a conversation about what it means to live in God's world, to see the world and hear the world the way God does.
It is deism to say that God doesn't listen to U2 and watch The Office, because the Christian God is a God who is involved in our redemption, on a very physical level... “lowering himself...”(Phil. 4). God redeems us by making us discerning participants of this world, to be culture critics, culture lovers, and culture makers and shapers. Culture.ish. places its hopes in God being able to transform Geneva students from a view of a legalism that damns them to a view of God's grace manifesting itself in all the places we sometimes fail to look. The Christian God is huge; we are merely the small and finite creatures. Hopefully Geneva College can be a place where people are known for having "eyes to see, and ears to hear," and hearts and minds to practice wisdom and resurrection. Culture.ish. is an attempt to step faithfully into God’s world.
Labels: gpv, number eighteen, respond, why culture ish
Every Wednesday afternoon the culture. ish. contributors gathers on the third floor of Old Main for planning and conversation. Because one of our hopes in producing culture. ish. is to encourage conversation about popular culture, maybe getting at the “why” of our cultural participation, we thought as a group we should ask the question “why culture. ish.?” Over the next few months the black box will include individual and collect responses to the question “why culture. ish.?” and more fundamentally “why engage culture?” As always we encourage your contributions to the conversation online at www.culture-ish.com.
Labels: ck, number eighteen, respond, why culture ish
