Presbymergent

I love my post-modern culture. I think I understand it well-enough, and I certainly embrace (and embody) it most of the time. But are there ever times when my “emerging faith” calls me to cry out against the times? This time of year, one such case stands out pretty clearly: Consumerism.

If the industrial era was acquainted with consumerism, and the modern era flirted with her, then surely post-modernism slept with her and made LOTS of babies (mostly plastic ones in a post-modern assortment of sizes, shapes, and bright neon colors).

Enter the Emerging Church, which (to its credit) takes post-modern tendencies like deconstructionism, subjectivity, and diversity right in stride without skipping a beat. But what does this conversation have to say about consumerism? Better yet, what actions back up the voices in the conversation?

I do hear lots of voices. Mostly in the form of a never-ending stream of books from emerging authors. Don’t get me wrong — I love these authors, and I consume every word on every page of just about every book I read from them, and they have been more than helpful. In fact, there probably wouldn’t be anything emerging if not for the books. But therein lies the problem: I consume what often seems like the flagship product of the Emerging Church — books.

That in itself isn’t entirely bad. Books are great. I’m an English major; I love books. The Bible is a book. But books are decidedly tangible, material, products that both cost money and generate money, not just for their authors, but for large publishing companies as well.

There are exceptions. I hugely admire Shane Claiborne, who practices what he preaches at The Simple Way, and gives away all the proceeds from his book Irresistible Revolution to a slew of noble causes and organizations.

I’m also not against authors making a living (especially because I hope to be one, and make one someday) and being compensated for their time and effort. But there seems to be something wrong with the idea that the very best in emerging ideas and resources:

• are available primarily to those with the cash to keep buying them
• are protected by strict copyright laws designed to limit the spread of information
• often generate more revenue for their publishers than for their authors
• are not freely available as shared online resources for all

This is where we could take a lesson from the Open Source community, where software is written by talented programmers, and reflects many of the qualities emergents aspire to: it’s generative, collaborative, open, transparent, free, good, and people are passionate (or “evangelical”) about it. Just ask anyone who uses Firefox, Linux, or OpenOffice.

Or consider the rapidly changing music industry, where artists are experimenting with creative ways to share their music with listeners — the band Radiohead recently released their album In Rainbows directly from their website (bypassing record labels) where listeners can pay whatever amount they feel is appropriate, including nothing. All indications thus far are that sales are strong, fans are happy, critics are happy, and the artists still receive more than they would have through traditional distribution methods.

Even closer to the literary medium is Creative Commons — an organization that allows writers (and artists and composers, etc.) to retain some rights while giving others (like the right to distribute and share) away. Cory Doctorow, a respected and award-winning science fiction writer who released his first novel both in print (through a publisher) and online (via Creative Commons license) has this to say:

However an author earns her living from her words, printed or
encoded, she has as her first and hardest task to find her
audience. There are more competitors for our attention than we
can possibly reconcile, prioritize or make sense of. Getting a
book under the right person’s nose, with the right pitch, is the
hardest and most important task any writer faces.

All forward thinking writers should read the full text of Doctorow’s article, which is deeply insightful and visionary.

I guess it all boils down to this: In the emergent conversation, are we writing the things we’re writing because we want to sell books, or are we writing the things we’re writing because we want to change the world? Do our ideas, our theologies, really belong to us or to they belong to a King and a Kingdom that transcend profit? And if it’s possible to give those ideas away, to reach more people, (while still selling books and supporting the labor of the thinkers and writers), isn’t that worth trying?

I visited the Emergent Village website today, and noticed two interesting things, side by side at the bottom of the page: A Creative Commons license for all of the web content, and a disclosure that Emergent Village is underwritten by a grant from Abingdon Press. My first instinct was to be cynical: Why is the leading voice in the conversation financed by the corporation that stands most to profit from it? But my second (and better) instinct was this: Perhaps both paradigms (traditional publishing and P2P information sharing) can co-exist, and even help each other. And if it works with a website, couldn’t it work with all these books?

So here’s my challenge to any and all Emergent Authors, both aspiring and accomplished, from an avid reader, supporter, and customer:

1. In addition to selling your books through traditional publishers, consider making them available for free online distribution as well, through Creative Commons, or another similar open source license. I doubt your sales (or livelihood) will suffer significantly, but I’m confident that your audience will expand, which will benefit not only you in the long run, but also your audience, the Emergent Conversation, and the Kingdom of God.
2. If that’s too big a leap, consider making some or all of your earlier works available for free distribution online — especially if some of them have gone out of print, or are otherwise difficult to obtain. Again, you might pick up a few new readers who will then go out and buy your latest.
3. In the process of making your words and ideas more available, less exclusive, and less profit-driven, you’ll undermine the consumeristic tendencies of our post-modern culture, live up to the words and ideals of the Emerging Conversation, and set an example of generosity and sharing that are entirely fitting companions to the gospel we proclaim.

I promise I’ll still buy your books. And attend your conferences. And tell my friends about you. And maybe, just maybe, in the midst of this hijacked consumer holiday we call Christmas, the gift of your words to a hungry and hurting world might remind us all of another gift from long ago — a gift given freely to all people, from the Author of the universe, on a star-filled night in Bethlehem.