Here’s a few things to read for your pleasure! I will try to gather a few of these together each week and share with you some of the interesting things I read or saw in the current week. Enjoy.
John McCain for President - here’s some proof.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/006dgrlw.asp
Christian theology can have a sense of humour (kind of).
http://www.robsuggs.com/tales/lastchance.htm
For my brother in Christ, Frank Hart, 10 Best Christian Rock Songs (with number one from the late Larry Norman).
http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/living-with-music-a-playlist-by-daniel-radosh/
From the newspaper I buy in the UK - The Telegraph - the first of three articles on “Slow Parenting”. At the risk of sounding like a smarty pants Brit - every American parent should read these.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2008/03/24/ftparenting124.xml
I will put a few other things together as I read them. Good luck with these!
April 20th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Thanks for the songs … some good tunes. Did you watch the debate “Does Christian Rock Suck?” I watched it, and here is my response:
I enjoyed the debate, but I would like to add a couple of ideas to the mix:
Let me define music (my definition): Music the the artistic expression of human emotion through sound.
Let me define Christianity: People who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ according to historic teachings of the apostles and the church as they find those teachings in the Holy Bible.
So, to the “opponent” in the debate I want to say that his narrow definition of “Rock N Roll” as music that is about sex and hedonism and thus at odds with historic Christianity is just wrong-headed. In short, he says that “Rock and Roll is music that comes from the crotch.” There are many emotions that can be expressed through the musical forms of rock music. There are many parts of the body that can be expressed through Rock and Roll other than the crotch. Hard rock would be a great “setting” for the minor prophets or the maledictory Psalms.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:31 am
Why does that guy say “crotch” it is just stupid if you ask me. The Greeks saw the heart of the animating emotions in somewhere like the gut or stomach. The point is that, pick a body part, the real issue is that great music (and art) comes from the core of the human experience. In that sense I dont think rock & roll is different from Pavarotti singing opera.
Why so much Christian music sucks is because it really is not written from the centre of life’s experience and emotional core. Compare the current crop of Christian music to the psalms. Leaving aside the “well, it is God’s word” argument, the psalms are better because they express the emotional range of real life. Too much Christian music expresses only the narrow range of emotion that is ok to broadcast on the muzac stations that are most (in myexperience all) Christian radio stations.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:12 am
So basically when Christians express their thoughts and emotions through the musical forms recognized as “rock” then the result is Christian Rock. Whether it sucks or not is a matter of how well the thoughts, emotions and music are put together, written, arranged, recorded and delivered. I’ve listened to the radio and I know that Christians don’t have a monopoly on music that sucks.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:19 am
Also, I want the Talking C. S. Lewis Doll and the minor prophet action figures.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:29 am
I have an old Barney doll laying around, think they’d take a trade-in?
I want an Angel Unpretentious! Life’s too short to clean your own house.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
OK, good point about every genre has the “it sucks” sub genre. But I still think that the kind of glib muzac that is produced as christian music is just wallpaper.
The guy makes a point about Dylan’s Christian period - he is right. Dylan’s BAD songs evoke a range of emotion and are good poetically. Can you say that about so many of todays Christian songs - I dont think so.
Oh, and I think we should approach J.I. Packer for a blurb for our blog.