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Abstract
While the popular media and evangelicalism frequently dismiss the Burning Man Festival as little more than an excuse for hedonism, careful analysis reveals that the festival represents a complex and meaningful experimentation with alternative forms of self and community. Most importantly for the American church, this experiment in intentional community represents a significant social expression of the rejection of various facets of modernity, including Christendom culture. With the Western cultural shift to post-Christendom and a move from an institutional form of religion to a spirituality of seeking, Burning Man is missiologically instructive.
Several of the major world religions trace their origins to transformative religious experiences in the desert. Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad each had significant spiritual experiences in the desert which presaged or inaugurated their respective calls to prophethood or ministry. Other individuals who have sojourned in the desert have likewise had dramatic spiritual experiences which have brought them to new understandings of self and community. The possibility for personal and spiritual transformation in the desert continues into the 21st century, although in a sense which differs significantly from what many Americans have come to be comfortable with in traditional expressions of religion. For thousands of people from throughout the United States as well as the international world, an experiment in intentional community surrounding a burning effigy in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert provides the siren song for a week-long expression of creativity, festivity, spirituality, and a new sense of self.
In this paper I will attempt to provide a window into this cultural phenomenon, known as Burning Man, through my observations, studies, reflections, and participation in this community. But given the complexities of Burning Man, and the sheer experiential overload provided by participation in the festival, my analysis will likely fall short of providing what is necessary for the reader to adequately understand. Perhaps an illustration from popular culture will help communicate this point.
In the 1999 cinematic surprise hit The Matrix, the main character Neo searched for answers to his growing displeasure with life in mainstream society. Something didn’t quite seem right, but he had heard that a man named Morpheus could provide the answers to his predicament, and in so doing explain the mysterious Matrix he had heard so much about. Finally, Neo and Morpheus met, and Neo made the decision to follow the truth wherever it may lead in his quest to understand not only himself, but also his world and its relationship to the Matrix. But just as Neo was about to take the first steps of his journey, Morpheus explained the limitations of description and the best path for understanding with these words: “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” In like manner, I must acknowledge at the outset the limitations of my ability to convey an adequate understanding of Burning Man. If you really want to understand it, you have to see it for yourself.
But even with the limitations of description and understanding, I hope to convey my conviction that Burning Man is a significant cultural, social, and spiritual phenomenon worthy of our careful consideration. In terms of methodology, I approached this subject matter through the review of scholarly and popular books, dissertations and theses, journal articles, and other written sources; Internet resources including the Burning Man website, and regional “Burner” Yahoo! groups; participant observation through attendance and participation at the 2006 festival, as well as personal discussions with participants during the event; and a process of reflexive ethnography, an analysis of a culture where a scholar attempts “to distance oneself from what is given as ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ in order to examine the structures within which one lives and acts” (Gilmore & Proyen 2005, 67). This balance between academic and popular study, as well as participant observation, should provide us with the necessary perspectives to come to some basic understanding of the Burning Man phenomenon. Given the space limitations of this essay, the description and analysis which follows should be considered an introduction to the subject matter.
Origin, Historical Summary, and Community Values
Before consideration of the significant features of Burning Man and what this festival means, it will be helpful to look briefly at how it all began. While there are many popular myths surrounding Burning Man’s origins, the festival had a modest beginning on Baker Beach in San Francisco, California in 1986 with about twenty participants. The spontaneous event came about as Larry Harvey and Jerry James burned a wooden man on the beach in honor of the Summer Solstice. The event became an annual phenomenon in San Francisco with the size of the wooden figure slowly growing even as the crowds grew each year. In 1988 the figure became known as “Burning Man,” and during this time the event was discovered by members of the San Francisco area Cacophony Society, self-described in its newsletters as “a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society” (Doherty 2004, 36). The promotion of the burn in the society’s newsletter helped increase the number of the participants which rose to over 300 in 1989, and to 800 by 1990. The growing crowds on a beach in San Francisco, coupled with a large burning effigy, eventually attracted the attention and concern of local law enforcement, and the decision was made to change the location and time of the event, resulting in a move to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert in connection with the Labor Day weekend.
Over time the festival has continued to grow and evolve. In 1992 Burning Man saw the increasing involvement of San Francisco area artists, and by 1993 the artistic emphasis was substantial even as the festival functioned as an experiment in intentional community. In its origins as well as its continued development, Burning Man includes strong and continuing influences from California’s Bohemian cultures.
In 1995 the collective camps that make up the Burning Man Festival came to be known as “Black Rock City,” which included a thriving theme camp culture, the Black Rock Gazette onsite newspaper, and radio stations to service its 4,000 participants. By 2005 the wooden Man had grown from a modest eight feet set ablaze by two men on a beach, to reach a current height of forty feet as a rotating wood and neon figure in the Black Rock Desert involving over 35,000 people from across the United States and around the world. Estimates for the 2006 festival were for 40,000 participants, and the event gives every indication of continued popularity and participant growth, with media coverage expressed beyond the Reno area (100 miles south of Black Rock Desert) to include national and international coverage.
Beyond consideration of Burning Man’s origin and history, it is helpful to understand the core ethical values that are expressed and embodied by the community and required of all participants. These include participation, radical self-expression, radical self-reliance, gift giving, and leave no trace.
Burning Man is not an event or community in which an individual can merely go and watch in voyeuristic fashion, although given some of the sensationalized practices at the event no doubt many have tried. The organizers of Burning Man emphasize that the festival represents a participant process where active involvement is required in building the community and in expressing its ideals.
This act of participation takes place through another of the community’s ideals in the form of radical self-expression. This takes many forms, from nudity, body painting, and costuming, to the creation of various forms of art, including sculpture, painting, and architecture, to art cars licensed by the DMV, the Department of Mutant Vehicles.
These acts of self-expression take place in a desert environment which facilitates radical self-reliance. Given the harshness of the desert with no vegetation or animal life, extremes in temperatures, as well as blinding wind and dust storms, participants survive in this environment through reliance on themselves and their cooperative efforts with other Burners.
While interacting with other community members, economic activity takes place primarily through a gift giving economy. Participants bring a variety of gifts to the festival that are freely shared with other participants as expressions of appreciation, and at times in barter fashion for wanted or needed items. The only exception to this comes in the form of coffee and ice as the only commodities available for purchase. A consumer economy is deeply frowned upon within Burning Man, so much so that an effort is made to hide corporate logos on items brought to the event, including those on rented trailers and recreational vehicles used by Burner campers.
The final community value comes in the form of leave no trace. Burning Man takes place on federal land under the control of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and use of the land requires a post-festival cleanup that literally leaves no trace behind and no damage to the desert. When we consider the week-long activity of 40,000 festive people constructing a temporary city out of nothing, much of which is burned at the conclusion of the festival, Burning Man’s continued success at leaving no trace in compliance with BLM requirements is nothing short of amazing, and a testimony to the intense devotion Burning Man participants have to living their community values.
Festival Analysis
As I mentioned in my introduction, Burning Man is a complex cultural and social phenomenon, and in order to grasp the various facets of meaning within it I will utilize an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon sociology and anthropology in order to understand the meaning of the festival. Although Burning Man eschews doctrine and dogma, and sternly resists fixed meanings for its activities, some general conclusions can be reached about the basic meanings of the festival even while acknowledging the desires of participants “to keep the event free from the prison of interpretation, explanation, and the insidious net of Meaning” (Davis 2005, 15).
As we draw upon these disciplines, sociology will help us to understand the context for Burning Man participants as social actors in the broader culture, while anthropology will help us understand what they do within the sub-culture and community of Burning Man. I will then turn to the disciplines of theology and missiology in order to understand a few of the implications of the Burning Man festival for a Christian audience.
Sociological Analysis: Cultural Context and Social Participants
The Burning Man Festival must be understood within its cultural context of Western late modernity/post-modernity. Within this context, sociologists have noted that for some time America has been undergoing a shift from what one writer has described as a “spirituality of dwelling” to a “spirituality of seeking” (Wuthnow 1998). By this it is meant that for many people a shift has taken place in expressions of religiosity or spirituality wherein individuals have moved from placing trust in religious institutions as the primary places for religious engagement to the autonomy of the individual who looks within herself/himself. This self-orientation in spirituality involves an experiential dimension which draws upon a variety of sources in eclectic fashion in order to create individualized expressions of “Do-It-Yourself” spirituality. Another scholar has characterized this shift as representing a quest or seeker culture within an increasingly diverse spiritual marketplace (Roof 1999).
Within this cultural context it is also helpful to consider the demographics and spiritual perspectives of Burning Man participants. Analysis of demographic data from 2001 compiled by the Burning Man organization reveals that while festival participants are diverse in terms of generational representation, and run a spectrum from children to senior citizens, the two major demographic populations are Generation X and Baby Boomers (Gilmore 2005, 296-309). Geographical representation of Burners shows a majority coming from California, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado, with important percentages also coming from Oregon, Washington, and New York.
The social location of many Burners provides an important facet in understanding their spiritual perspective, and consideration of survey responses in the area of spiritual identification is helpful as well. As part of her ongoing research into the Burning Man community as discussed in her Ph.D. dissertation, Lee Gilmore reports on what she labels as the “Alternatives.” They represent “the largest single subgroup, totaling 31 percent of all respondents, [and] were those participants who explicitly stated that they thought of themselves as ‘spiritual, but not religious’” (Ibid., 44). She contrasts her survey research results with Wade Roof Clark’s analysis among Baby Boomers, particularly his category of “metaphysical seekers and believers” (Roof 1999, 203), and finds a “common quality” among the studies which coincides with the “religious frames” voiced in Burning Man responses revealing “a generalized rejection of normative, traditional Western religious orientations” (Gilmore 2005, 48).
Considerations of self-identity are also helpful in understanding Burning Man. The crisis of modernity has brought about a change in how people understand themselves and how they relate to and participate in social groups. Some sociologists have noticed an increasing identification of individuals with various subcultures which share a set of interests, beliefs, and an ethical consciousness which functions as a form of social identity. This process has been referred to as the retribalization of Western culture, and with it has come the rise of various “postmodern neo-tribes” (Maffesoli 1996; Cf. Turner in Taifel 1982, and Watters 2004). This concept is applicable to participants in Burning Man who share a common commitment to artistic expression and a values-based lifestyle in opposition to the “default world” of mainstream culture. Thus, Burning Man might be considered a broad post-modern neo-tribe with various expressions of distinct neo-tribes within it.
The rise of neo-tribes should be understood in light of considerations of divergent concepts of self and its fragmentation in late modernity/post-modernity. Linda Woodhead has described a situation in which four forms of model selfhood exist in this cultural environment. In connection with this she has also discussed the fragmentation thesis which states there has been a “decentring and destabilization of human identity” in modernity (1999, 54). While this concept is widely accepted among scholars, nevertheless we might also note there is “counter evidence, which suggests that strong and stable identities are still alive and well in the modern world” (Ibid. 55). Woodhead provides us with several points that must be taken away from this discussion. First, a less romanticized view of pre-modernity in grounding the self, and a more nuanced understanding of modernity is needed among scholars. Second, there are a “large number of cultural possibilities which compete for the self in the contemporary context” (Ibid., 66). Third, there are “multiple sources of contemporary selfhood” which “ground very stable identities as well as many different kinds of identity crisis and fragmentation” (Ibid., 69). And fourth, Christianity itself “is involved and implicated” in the conflicting strands of selfhood in modernity, and should not “pretend to stand aloof from the problems of modern selfhood and offer a timeless solution” (Ibid.).
As we will see below, the issue of self in late modernity is significant in understanding both self and its relationship to community for the participants of Burning Man.
Anthropological Analysis: Meanings Within Community
Having looked briefly at sociology to understand the cultural context and social participants of Burning Man we now turn our attention to anthropology in order to understand the meanings of the activities within the festival.
The late anthropologist Victor Turner’s work has been influential in the scholarly analysis of Burning Man. Turner conducted research on rites of passage among African tribes, and expanded on a set of ideas proposed by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep. As Turner studied the experiences of tribe members undergoing a process of transition during the performance of rites of passage he identified three concepts as parts of this process which involved separation, liminality, and aggregation. This then resulted in feelings of social cohesion which he labeled “communitas.”
In the separation process, individuals move from regular participation with the tribe in the mundane world, and then enter a liminal or threshold space where they work together through the performance of rituals. They then experience aggregation or a return to their tribe with a new status resulting from these experiences. The result for those who have gone through this process is an experience of communitas, a strong social bond among individuals who have worked together through common ritual experience. Although Turner’s work focused on “traditional” pre-modern tribal societies, and although he has been criticized for utilizing an idealized framework applied universally to other cultural contexts without appropriate modification, scholars have found it helpful to apply his communitas concept to modern industrialized societies. Here a distinction must be made in that while Turner applied the label “liminality” to tribal cultures, he referred to liminal-like “liminoid” experiences in industrial societies.
An application of Turner’s observations and concepts provide an interesting perspective when applied to Burning Man activities. Participants travel from around the country and experience separation from the mundane world. The desert of Nevada then becomes a liminal or liminoid space of shared ritual expression “removed from the context of theology” (Gilmore 2005b, 45). At the conclusion of the festival, Burners leave the desert playa as they return to the “default world” and thus achieve aggregation. Through this process Burners frequently express a strong sense of communitas or belonging, so much so that for many the experience of community during the week of Burning is the preferred reality that Burners long for the remaining 51 weeks of the year. Scholars have recognized this liminal (or liminoid) process at Burning Man and have described it as “reflexive modernity’s equivalent to premodern ritual liminality” (Hocket 2005, 74). This then becomes “a ritualistic means by which participants can liminally, reflexively, and critically create ‘distance’ from their ‘normal’ sociocultural existence” (Ibid. 75).
Yet as important and popular as Turner’s concept of liminality is in Burning Man studies, it is not without its difficulties. As mentioned above, Turner’s work continues to be debated, and its application to Burning Man is somewhat problematic in that in his focus it referred to a “non-sensual and homogeneous field of liminal ritual” (St. John 2000, 51). This is surely not the best understanding of Burning Man which involves a major expression of sensuality and a multiplicity of contested meanings. As we will see below, consideration of an additional concept, the Temporary Autonomous Zone, may be helpful in modifying Turner’s notion of liminality and provides us with another perspective for analysis.
Hakim Bey is a subversive poet and libertarian-anarchist philosopher. His concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)/Immediatist Project is important (Bey 1991), and provides us with the means to recalibrate Turner’s concept of limen or liminality (St. John 2000, 53). While Bey is obscure about the exact nature of the TAZ, he describes it as “essentially an immediate community ? ephemeral, unmediated sociality, a kind of experimental laboratory for ‘Immediatism’… which ‘exists’ in information-space as well as in the ‘real world’” (Ibid., 56). Thus, the TAZ represents a temporary and “immediate community” that is “non-mediated, non-authoritarian, [and] non-hierarchical,” and which provides “a context for the nonviolent alteration of existing structures” (Ibid., 55). It includes the goals of conviviality, creation, destruction, a reconstruction of values, and the necessity of being a community as a basic rule (Ibid., 56). These goals and the basic rule are paralleled in Burning Man, and thus in both contexts, participation represents an “anarchical moment of becoming paralleling the limen” in Turner’s communitas (Ibid., 58). The consideration of Bey’s TAZ alongside Turner’s concept of liminality provides additional considerations not often found in academic studies of Burning Man. First, as noted above, the TAZ provides a means of recalibrating the concept of liminality beyond Turner’s “limited theoretical lens” (Ibid., 63). Second, the concept of the TAZ appears to come closer to describing the phenomenon of Burning than does Turner’s unqualified communitas. Third, the TAZ concept reminds us of the anarchist nature of the social space created by Burning Man participants in their creation of temporary community.
Continuing with anthropological insights, anthropology of pilgrimage presents another perspective in understanding a facet of Burning Man. Anthropology of pilgrimage seeks to understand the “cultural and social significance of human travel” (Badone & Roseman 2004, 1). Alan Morinis defines pilgrimage as “a process undertaken by a person in quest of a place or a state that he or she believes to embody a valued idea” (Morinis 1992, 4). It involves a number of elements which minimally include “the religiously motivated individual, the intended sacred goal or place, and the act of making spatial effort to bring about their conjunction” (Bhardwaj 1997, 2). The important factor in the understanding of pilgrimage is the pilgrim’s motivations and aspirations rather than the destination which need not involve a shrine or other elements usually associated with pilgrimage in traditional religious contexts. Pilgrimage then may be understood as a sacred journey, and Morinis has developed a typology for such journeys (Morinis 1992, 10-14), and as applied to Burning Man, pilgrimage in this context is probably understood best as initiatory, defined as those pilgrimages that “have as their purpose the transformation of the status of the participants,” or perhaps as devotional, defined as those pilgrimages which “have as their goal encounter with, and honoring of, the shrine divinity, personage, or symbol” (Ibid., 14; emphasis added).
While neither Burning Man participants nor casual outside observers of this community tend to think of participation in this festival in terms of pilgrimage akin to religious pilgrimage in Christianity to Jerusalem or Islam to Mecca, nevertheless, understanding participation in the Burning Man Festival as a type of spiritual pilgrimage echoes other expressions of pilgrimage in secular culture as a means of reconnecting with the sacred (Digance & Cusack, 2001).
With a few insights into Burning Man provided by sociology and anthropology we are now in a position to have a basic understanding of this festival. Here Graham St. John’s thoughts on ConFest, an alternative culture festival in Australia, are also applicable to Burning Man. St. John describes ConFest as “a liminoid counterworld of permission, [where] participants experiment with desired sources of authenticity as a means of (re)creating their identities” (St. John 2000, 177; emphasis in original). He further describes this as a place with an “explicitly festive component … wherein participants may ‘stray from the paths’ … and in which “participants are permitted to ‘play out’ (‘down’, ‘across’, ‘up’)” (Ibid.). This festive counterworld experiment serves as “an alternative cultural heterotopic community, that is, an alternate social gathering invested with multiple meanings” (Ibid., 229; emphasis in original). Within this heterotopic community participants create and discover meaning and purpose through ritual and art and thus achieve new understandings of self and community. It should be understood that Burning Man is not the only such alternative culture or alternative lifestyle event. In addition to ConFest in Australia mentioned above, similar cultures and events exist such as Woodford/Maleny Festival and Radical Faerie Gatherings also in Australia, Rainbow Gathering in the United States, and Glastonbury in the United Kingdom (St. John 2000).
Major Missiological Issue
One of my research tasks involved identifying a major missiological issue for consideration. Given the complexity of this topic, and that this essay represents an initial foray into such areas, my discussion will likely raise more questions and issues for discussion than it provides answers. My hope is that other evangelicals will join me in exploration of and experimentation in these areas.
As I thought about missiological issues while biking across the desert playa of Burning Man a number of possibilities came to mind such as community, festivity, and art. Any and all of these are great candidates, and it is difficult to limit consideration to one element in a multi-faceted and interrelated complex of ideas. But the more I have thought about this issue I believe the key is community, understood against the backdrop of the desires for radically different expressions of this within cultures that challenge conceptions of the self and emphasize hyper-individuality.
Recall our previous discussion of Victor Turner’s work in the area of liminality as it relates to communitas and its application to Burning Man. Participants leave their mundane senses of self and community and enter a threshold state where they engage in ritual and festivity in pursuit of common goals to eventually return to the mundane world. As a result of the shared experiences from the liminal process participants are transformed resulting in strong social bonds and a sense of community that transcends that found elsewhere.
Indeed, this strong social bond of community in Burning Man exists not only during the annual event in Nevada, but also year-round as expressed and maintained in both the real world and virtual communities. Expressions of the Burning Man community maintain their social bond through a number of regional Burns held at various locations throughout the United States, and through the Internet. In fact, the social bond between Burners created through the liminal process is so strong that the virtual community they have created has been described by one scholar as a form of “e.kklesia” (Partridge 2006, 163). Just as the early church went through a liminal process and became an assembly (Greek ekklesia) or community, so Burning Man participants experience a liminal process and become a community through the main annual festival, regional gatherings, and virtually/electronically (e.kklesia).
Yet despite the strong feelings of communitas that come about as a result of the liminal experience of Burning Man, there are significant challenges to this sense of community in the form of questions related to the nature of self in post-modernity, and the temporary nature of community found in Burning Man.
In relation to the challenges of defining self we noted above Woodhead’s remarks concerning conflicting strands of self-identity as well as issues related to the stability and fragmentation of the self in late modernity/post-modernity. While Burning Man participants yearn for a new sense of identity and community in connection with the festival, they continue to face a diversity of choices in self-identity that is subject to the forces of globalization, urbanization, and consumerism which foster a sense of hyper-individuality at the expense of true community. Terry Muck suggests that the way forward through these difficulties is the construction of a religious self that relates to transcendence in a post-self age (Muck 1998). Muck states that this concept of religious self will provide understanding “that allows for both individual personhood and a thorough dependence on context and community” (Ibid., 121).
Second, Burning Man’s desires for community are challenged by its transient nature. Despite strong feelings of community, the festival is a Temporary Autonomous Zone, limited to one week a year and anything beyond this in a permanent sense of community remains a utopian (or heterotopian) ideal.
We must also keep in mind that the challenges to Burning Man in the areas of identity and community within post-modernity are also shared by the church in the West which inhabits the same social space. What kind of community must the church be in order to speak meaningfully to Burning Man and similar expressions of alternative culture? We may not like the answer. The kind of Christian community that is waiting to be built in the twenty-first century West must be radically different than what many conservative evangelicals are likely to be comfortable with if it is to resonate with Burning Man as a Bohemian arts-inspired community. A robust Christian community in this context must be qualitatively different as a sacred space that encourages social experimentation and which embraces the values and ideals of self-expression, creativity, festivity, sensuality, art, care for the environment, and which challenges rampant consumerism.
Writing in the 1960s at the beginnings of the counter-culture movement, Harvey Cox commented on the need for a “metainstitution” that could meaningfully engage society’s need for festivity and fantasy. The features of this metainstitution should be noted as they have the potential to speak meaningfully to those in the contemporary counter-culture such as Burning Man: This ‘metainstitution’ must have a number of characteristics. In order to animate fantasy it must cultivate the symbols that opened men to new levels of awareness in the past. It must be in effective touch with the most advanced artistic movement of the day and with historical and transhistorical images of the future. It must teach men to celebrate and fantasize. But above all it must provide a fertile field where new symbols can appear. Since man is body and heart as well as brain, it must include affective and ritual components. Finally, it must be a part of the culture in which it lives but sufficiently free so that its fantasies are not pinioned and hamstrung by present expectations (Cox 94-5).
I will return to consideration of this metainstitution at the conclusion of this essay.
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Awesome! Thanks for providing this rich encyclopedic treatise - makes me want to attend next year.
Very interesting to read. In the summer I work with a lot of people like this, and indeed some of them this year wanted to attend Burning Man, though I don't know if they ever did. This has helped me to understand them a bit more.
I was also wondering if you have ever checked out the Orthodox Christian Church as a Christian answer for these people at Burning Man. I mean the Orthodox are historical being the oldest Christian group still around, and they retain strong links to their past. Their call to lead the Christian life is way more than just the alter call, and I think their worship would satisfy any need for fantasy. I personally have seen or experienced nothing else like it. Just a thought. Thanks for sharing yours.
There really isn't much value in this blatantly pagan ritual that contributes to the godward trek of the Christian. Certainly there are some interesting aspects in the phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse crass godlessness.
I appreciate the comments on this article and hope that it continues to stimulate thinking related to the emerging church and missions in the post-modern and post-Christendom West.
As to Stephen's comments on the possibility of Eastern Orthodoxy being of interest and relevant to Burning Man participants, I think this falls short of being culturally relevant. We need to approach this as a subculture just as a missionary overseas would approach another culture and seek appropriate forms of engagement and the cross-cultural communication and embodiment of the gospel. I attemt to suggest one such approach in my next article on this, a missional apologetic that will be posted on the Ooze in January.
Ast to Spencer's comments, I find these unfortunate, and an example of the frequent closed mindedness we evangelicals often bring to alternative spirituality communities such as Burning Man. As my paper above indicates, Burning Man is culturally complex and it represents far more than mere godlessness as some evangelicals tend to write dismissively and superficially. In addition, Burning Man is not Pagan, although Pagan elements can be found within it. We simply have to do our homework on this, and demonstrate empathy for this subculture in post-modernity.
I just don't see the necessity of being "open-minded" to an "alternative" spiritual community. Isn't Christ the _only_ way to the father, in his own words?
While burning-man may be culturally complex, and there may be more to it than the patent dismissals that are given it, it is essentially pagan and evokes pagan imagery and practice. This article casually sweeps aside the accusations pointed at the festival about being a drug/sex/pagan festival as if they are untrue, but all of these elements are not only present, but a huge part of the "festivities," along with the art and community and whatever else.
Now, I don't believe a situation exists where one cannot learn of Christ, but to say that a festival such as this is a spiritual experience for us to learn from and emulate, well I find that not just hard to follow, but absurd.
Shepherd, thank you for reading the article, and for passing along your comments. Please allow me to respond to some of the items you mentioned.
First, while Christ is indeed the way in which God has chosen to reconcile the world with Himself, this does not mean that Christians do not have a responsibility to understand the various subcultures and people groups of the world as we seek to incarnate the gospel in their midst, and this includes the Burning Man subculture. In order to appropriately communicate Christ in deed and word we must be open minded, otherwise we will not understand those we seek to communicate with. This approach has been used in the history of Christian missions, just as Paul understood the various types of Pagan subcultures and used differing means of communicating with them (e.g., contrast Acts 14 with Acts 17).
Second, an examination of Burning Man and the academic literature surrounding it indicates that Burning Man is not properly understood as Pagan in the sense of Neo-Paganism, even while it draws upon the symbolism and religious ideas of various religions and spiritualities, including Neo-Paganism. Before Christians can say they disagree with Burning Man they must truly understand what they disagree with, and what they may find of value as well.
Third, my article does not casually sweep aside allegations of drugs, sex, and Paganism at Burning Man, but points out that the festival is far more than this, and that Christians and other critics have ben too quick to stereotype and dismiss this subculture in such a fashion. Our understanding and critique must have more complexity and depth. This is only fair to Burning Man adherents, and the only intellectually responsible thing to do. Perhaps we could paraphrase Jesus: "Judge others fesitvals as you would have them judge your Christian faith."
Finally, as to whether Christians can learn from Burning Man vs. merely having something to say to them, in the history of Chrisitan missions there is a long history of the recognition of the Spirit's moving in cultures and religions long before Christians arrived on the scene, and the church has learned to appreciate aspects of her own faith in light of the encounter with the religious other. As an example in the Burning Man context, Protestants have lost touch with a theology of festivity in connection with our liturgy, our celebration of the religious calendar, and in our expressions of worship and community. We can learn these lessons from Burning Man, if we have "ears to hear."
I appreciate your comments and concern, but this article is hardly absurd. Indeed, superficial dismissals by Christians such as yours appear to be the ones that are problematic. The Ooze community can do better. We have to if we want to speak with relevance in the post-modern West.
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Awesome! Thanks for providing this rich encyclopedic treatise - makes me want to attend next year. Posted by Jon Redux | Posted at 12/14/2006 8:49 AM
Very interesting to read. In the summer I work with a lot of people like this, and indeed some of them this year wanted to attend Burning Man, though I don't know if they ever did. This has helped me to understand them a bit more.
I was also wondering if you have ever checked out the Orthodox Christian Church as a Christian answer for these people at Burning Man. I mean the Orthodox are historical being the oldest Christian group still around, and they retain strong links to their past. Their call to lead the Christian life is way more than just the alter call, and I think their worship would satisfy any need for fantasy. I personally have seen or experienced nothing else like it. Just a thought. Thanks for sharing yours.
Posted by Stephen | Posted at 12/15/2006 6:27 AMThere really isn't much value in this blatantly pagan ritual that contributes to the godward trek of the Christian. Certainly there are some interesting aspects in the phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse crass godlessness. Posted by Spencer | Posted at 12/20/2006 3:52 PM
I appreciate the comments on this article and hope that it continues to stimulate thinking related to the emerging church and missions in the post-modern and post-Christendom West.
As to Stephen's comments on the possibility of Eastern Orthodoxy being of interest and relevant to Burning Man participants, I think this falls short of being culturally relevant. We need to approach this as a subculture just as a missionary overseas would approach another culture and seek appropriate forms of engagement and the cross-cultural communication and embodiment of the gospel. I attemt to suggest one such approach in my next article on this, a missional apologetic that will be posted on the Ooze in January.
Ast to Spencer's comments, I find these unfortunate, and an example of the frequent closed mindedness we evangelicals often bring to alternative spirituality communities such as Burning Man. As my paper above indicates, Burning Man is culturally complex and it represents far more than mere godlessness as some evangelicals tend to write dismissively and superficially. In addition, Burning Man is not Pagan, although Pagan elements can be found within it. We simply have to do our homework on this, and demonstrate empathy for this subculture in post-modernity.
Posted by John W. Morehead | Posted at 12/20/2006 7:12 PMI just don't see the necessity of being "open-minded" to an "alternative" spiritual community. Isn't Christ the _only_ way to the father, in his own words?
While burning-man may be culturally complex, and there may be more to it than the patent dismissals that are given it, it is essentially pagan and evokes pagan imagery and practice. This article casually sweeps aside the accusations pointed at the festival about being a drug/sex/pagan festival as if they are untrue, but all of these elements are not only present, but a huge part of the "festivities," along with the art and community and whatever else.
Now, I don't believe a situation exists where one cannot learn of Christ, but to say that a festival such as this is a spiritual experience for us to learn from and emulate, well I find that not just hard to follow, but absurd.
Posted by Shepherd | Posted at 12/24/2006 8:26 PMShepherd, thank you for reading the article, and for passing along your comments. Please allow me to respond to some of the items you mentioned.
First, while Christ is indeed the way in which God has chosen to reconcile the world with Himself, this does not mean that Christians do not have a responsibility to understand the various subcultures and people groups of the world as we seek to incarnate the gospel in their midst, and this includes the Burning Man subculture. In order to appropriately communicate Christ in deed and word we must be open minded, otherwise we will not understand those we seek to communicate with. This approach has been used in the history of Christian missions, just as Paul understood the various types of Pagan subcultures and used differing means of communicating with them (e.g., contrast Acts 14 with Acts 17).
Second, an examination of Burning Man and the academic literature surrounding it indicates that Burning Man is not properly understood as Pagan in the sense of Neo-Paganism, even while it draws upon the symbolism and religious ideas of various religions and spiritualities, including Neo-Paganism. Before Christians can say they disagree with Burning Man they must truly understand what they disagree with, and what they may find of value as well.
Third, my article does not casually sweep aside allegations of drugs, sex, and Paganism at Burning Man, but points out that the festival is far more than this, and that Christians and other critics have ben too quick to stereotype and dismiss this subculture in such a fashion. Our understanding and critique must have more complexity and depth. This is only fair to Burning Man adherents, and the only intellectually responsible thing to do. Perhaps we could paraphrase Jesus: "Judge others fesitvals as you would have them judge your Christian faith."
Finally, as to whether Christians can learn from Burning Man vs. merely having something to say to them, in the history of Chrisitan missions there is a long history of the recognition of the Spirit's moving in cultures and religions long before Christians arrived on the scene, and the church has learned to appreciate aspects of her own faith in light of the encounter with the religious other. As an example in the Burning Man context, Protestants have lost touch with a theology of festivity in connection with our liturgy, our celebration of the religious calendar, and in our expressions of worship and community. We can learn these lessons from Burning Man, if we have "ears to hear."
I appreciate your comments and concern, but this article is hardly absurd. Indeed, superficial dismissals by Christians such as yours appear to be the ones that are problematic. The Ooze community can do better. We have to if we want to speak with relevance in the post-modern West.
Posted by John W. Morehead | Posted at 12/25/2006 1:36 PM