My brother is an excellent drummer musician, and part of the Air Force Band. They played last night in Warner Robins with Lonestar.
He routinely plays all over the world, including a tour of just about everyplace in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you’ve heard of the Iraqi/Afghan city on the news, he played there.
Here he is on TV. He’s famous.
If I had a truck, it’d be a wolf truck. Like this one.
I mean….that is a big wolf.
A post last week I posted on an article about music. It garnered one comment that was a perfect example of Fundamentalist criticism (more on that later).
‘Send Me’ - Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.
This isn’t really my thing, but I respect it as valid Christian (teaching) music. Because while I can think of many personal/cultural reasons not to like it, there are no valid Biblical arguments to say it’s not right. Every criticism will first visit a cultural angle, then ‘hook’ that cultural angle up to scripture and hijack the authority.
Meanwhile, Tom Schlueter’s article “music is never neutral” was also picked up by a Christian music blog. I like this blog, but definitely sourced in western church music–which is a style all its own. Look at this from a review of Holy Holy Holy:
The descent of the ‘c’ phrase contains a marvelously constructed sequence of detail. The descending fourth in m. 13 is followed immediately by another descending fourth in m. 14. After these initial two leaps, we can watch as the descending intervals narrow sequentially: mm. 14 and 15 conclude the hymn with descending third, a descending second, and finally, a repeated prime. Mirroring the narrowing descent is the rate at which the descent occurs: in mm. 13 and 14 the descending fourths require two beats to occur; in m. 15, the descent of the third takes only one beat of time; the descent of the second and unison increased to the eighth note level, dawg.*
* Randyism mine
Holy Holy Holy is a great traditional Hymn. And this analysis is spot on…for the western hymn genre. In fact, you could even do a similar analysis of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by GnR, or even the Beatles.
But while music is universal, genre and tradition is not. There is a world of music out there and this analysis wouldn’t make sense in other types/styles. More importantly, this analysis (while good) is traditional in nature and not Biblical.
Thus, the cultural judgments continue. And that’s fine, as long as we see that for what it is.
Turns out there’s some compelling evidence that car seats are no more effective in preventing injuries to children than regular seatbelts. In fact, in some cases they are actually worse.
Fortunately, there is nobody out there who would benefit from such a pointless rule, and eventually cooler heads will prevail and we’ll change our laws to be more sensible. No siree…nobody would have any kind of vested interest in everyone running out and buying a bunch of expensive equipment we don’t need. Yep, the safeguards and intelligence built into government and market forces will ensure such a situation never occurs on a massive, entrenched scale.
Just another reason why setting up governments and consumerism (especially state government) as diety is a bad idea.
Car seats. They just feel safer.
Our fam saw Wall-E last weekend…great movie. Go see it.
But the poor lil’ fella seems to be upsetting quite a few people.
Social conservatives think it’s leftist propaganda. Once again these great communicators make it sound like pollution, improper/inadequate waste disposal, and corporate-consumerism-as-diety are conservative ideals. Thanks guys!
Meanwhile, the movie negatively portrays fat people.
But this is the best. (thanks Brian!)
Wall-E is a copyright criminal. That’s right, his blatant disregard for the livelihood of content producers could subject him to hundreds of years of prison time and millions of dollars in damages.
Yes, this is funny. But it’s also true. His actions would all be violations of federal law. (US, although the article refers to canada).
The only thing saving him is that the material he copied would theoretically be public domain in 700 years. I say theoretically, because it’s likely that Disney would lobby to have copyright extended indefinitely by then.
I mentioned a bit about Acts 17 a ways back.
Consider this:
Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for In him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your own poets have said, For we are indeed his offspring.
29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
Pretty amazing to see scripture whack the arrogance of theological fuddy-duddies and emergent heretics all at once huh?
This scripture is written to a culture much like ours. We should listen.
In the beginning, God created the animals and the plants. Then he gave us a garden.
Of course, humans messed that up. But we still had the Earth and its resources, even though it was going to be much more difficult to survive.
Turns out, a great deal of these resources were those original animals and plants that had been crushed under the earth. They died with residual energy in their bodies, and under the pressure and heat of countless tons this energy was converted to a very handy medium.
It was available to burn.
Now we travel daily at incredible speeds. We fly across the sky and toss metal into space with the roar of a flame. Even on oppressively hot days we feel a cool breeze. When the earth doesn’t want to yield a crop, we set energy on fire and break the ground with the power of thousands of men and animals.
But too many people have picked up on this trick. And now we can’t harvest the dead stuff quickly enough.
We’re going to hear lots of junk from politicians and analysts as we come to terms with something nobody understands. It’s the speculators! We should drill for more dead animals! We should find something else to burn!
The bottom line is this: Nothing we’ve encountered until now is as powerfully versatile as oil. It has played a huge part in the prosperity of mankind, and I believe that’s by divine design. However there is not enough production capacity to keep up with world demand, especially as we use it for flawed intentions.
For the first time the world as a whole wants more energy than it can conceivably produce. Even in the land of plenty where we think nothing can touch us, we’re going to be greatly affected by this.
My brother did this musical at our church when he was little. My friend and current music minister played the part of Psalty way back then. Funny!
One of the fundamentalist blogs I follow is Slice of Laodicea. Like most fundamentalist thought, I usually agree 100% and disagree 100%. Why? Because the logical positions in fundamentalism are usually sound, but the reasoning is not. (That’s a whole other post.)
Today the commentary was on music and if it is ever “neutral”. The position was that “Music is not neutral”.
Agreed. Music is not some ambiguous ‘thing’ that floats around. It definitely conveys information.
The problem is that, for a variety of reasons, what music conveys is definitely NOT the same for every person. Yet it is also universal. It is a strange contextual blend of culture and brain chemistry.
My brother, who has a Masters in music and tours the world with the Airforce band, is adamant about the cultural nature of music. He’s got goofy instruments from all over the place to illustrate this.
So, as usual, the logical position is true…but the reasoned position is not:
Music is not neutrual ~> Music conveys a set of universally defined information
What music does convey is a culturally defined set of information, with a subset of universal information defined by our shared humanity.
But this is the fundamental problem with fundamentalism. It expands the “fundamentals of the faith” to include a whole array of culturally derived fundamentals. Then it applies Biblical authority to that inclusion.
So the cultural nature of music makes it a prime target because fundamentalism is primarily cultural. This is seen in the article as one set of trumpets is describes as “fleshly” and one “reverent”. The flawed reasoning tips its hand here. In trying to make the point about the differences in communication, it immediately makes a cultural judgement, then applies Biblical authority through the labeling process.
This is not an article that says “music is not neutral”. This is an article saying that “my taste in music defines what the Bible says is right”.
Another example. I have heard the swing band versions of “sacred” Hymns. Some were inconsistently executed musically, but one that sticks out is “it is well with my soul”.
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
If you grew up hearing only the organ/piano version of that…any other version is going to sound trivialized and silly. If you’ve written off dancing music as “fleshly”, then you’re going to think it’s downright evil. But that has reasoning has nothing to do with anything inherent the music. It’s pure culture.
But when you think about it, they joy conveyed by swing music could actually match the joy of the lyrics perfectly. It’s not just…*sigh*….well with my soul. My soul is WELL with it. It’s downright joyful. It could actually be that the swing version more accurately represents the thought in line with scripture.
So in looking at these things. We have to be very careful that things are in their proper place. Biblical Truth is Biblical Truth. Culture is culture.
Ironically, when they crticize music fundamentalists tend to be the very thing they hate the most: Relevant to their culture.
Here we go…now that Congress has kept our cable bills low, and reduced the cost of healthcare…they’re going to take on the ongoing energy crisis…er nobody panic!
I can’t wait.
I’m starting to think of the more offbeat results of what is sure to be some of the silliest legislation to come out of D.C. in awhile. So far I have two things I can think of.
First: Lower speed limits will actually increase diesel use. (You didn’t think that a Democrat congress and president wouldn’t lower the speed limit did you?) When trucks have to go slower, they’ll spend more time idling for breaks and overnight stops. They burn about 1 gallon per hour to idle. This will add about 50-100 “fuel miles” to the average long haul, and increase the cost of transportation due to additional transport time
Second: Our descendants are going to think we were all ugly due to the use of compact flourescents. Congress, apparently unhappy with the fact that we still make something in the U.S. (if people weren’t so busy making lightbulbs..maybe they could get back out there and consume! consume! consume!), has mandated that we switch to Chinese made CFL’s by 2012.
Do an experiment and take a digital picture and some home video under a regular light bulb, then compare with a CFL. The CFL has a green, flickery hue to it. It looks terrible.
So kind of like we all think the 70’s was alot yellower than it is now, kids born from now on are going to think the past is much more flickery-green than it really is/was.
And I’m still waiting to see if the unholy pale light from the CFLs bleach out our entire houses.
Or rather I should say “a review of 3 of the songs from Chicago’s ‘lost’ album”.
Or maybe I should say “a review of 3 of the 30 second iTunes clips from Chicago’s ‘lost’ album”. Because there is no way I’m buying this.
Last week Chicago released a long lost album that was originally rejected by their label. Probably because it was 1993 and they weren’t wearing flannel.
The title is “The Stone of Sisyphus”. Yeah.
There were a few of us back in youth choir who liked Chicago. This was in that strange age where you’re bridging the gap between watching WWF (on purpose), burning stuff in the back yard, reading comics, rolling houses, and realizing that girls may not think any of that is cool.
So if music was a part of your life, you were looking for a soundtrack to bridge that gap. Chicago seemed like they might offer some insight. I mean, these guys were always singing about the ladies. And I mean always singing about the ladies. So maybe there were some kernels of wisdom there.
Still, most of us guys kept our occasional Chicago listening secret except for a few notable slip ups (I sang “look away” for our junior year talent show in high school). This secrecy was for obvious reasons.
Thus, the first thing I have to say is why in the world would Chicago release an album with the letter combination “S-I-S-Y” in the title?
Back then, anytime we pushed play on a Chicago album…there was always this unspoken question. “ummm….is this ok?” But in our little internet-less cocoon world in 1988, you could rationalize it.
Now, the cold, pixelated title of this album screams “NO! It wasn’t ok! It was just as bad as you feared!”
(You freakin’ Internet! Now you’re travelling back in time to humiliate us!)
What was wrong with the numbers? Couldn’t they just have called this “48″ or whatever number they’re up to now?
You know…forget it. Review’s over.
One of the RSS feeds I read is Newsweek’s “On Faith”. Most of the time it’s watered down, mass-media religious McArticles. But sometimes there are decent items.
What I’ve noticed recently is that everyone’s Chi is all out of whack over the “Love Guru” movie. Apparently, you don’t mess with the Hindu faith.
I’m waiting to see if they’ll all focus their collective intention over the portrayal of Jesus in the upcoming “Hamlet 2″ movie.
If you can handle the off-color nature, here’s the trailer of Hamlet 2. If you don’t want to watch it, just imagine a song called “Rock Me Sexy Jesus”.
Personally, while I certainly won’t be seeking out “entertainment” that mocks Jesus…I’m not going to get too hyped up about it. This is foretold in scripture and expected from the world. Christ Himself indicated these things would go on. And to be honest, as someone who was hopelessly in need of a savior, I’m not going to throw too many stones.
Meanwhile, holy cow, check out the outrage over the “insensitivity” over the “insults” to the Hindu belief system:
When a Line is Crossed
Silly Stereotypes are not Sharp Satire
“Love Guru” Ridicules Hindu Concepts
Silly Comedy is not Social Commentary
Laughter is Healthy for Religion, Mocking is Not
The Demise of Humor
Here’s an example of what’s going on now:
This is a test scheme for the “referral engine” of the site. We’re putting in a bunch of test accounts, then making sure everything flows right. We’ll also ensure commissions work correctly.
When it’s done, musicians will have a quick way to assemble albums, then push the music out to their fanbase using any of the modern pricing models. From there, the referral/commission engine will provide the fuel for the fans to tell their friends about the project.
Coming soon! Pretty exciting stuff.
As I mentioned, China is lowering their gasoline/oil subsidies and it’s moving the oil market a bit. Still around $130/bl, but it’s telling that we see more and more mainstream media indicators that the price spikes may be more about global demand and less about random things like the weak dollar, etc.
Along those lines, here are some interesting facts about SUV’s in China. They are the fastest growing car type in China. Of course, these are percentages and not total numbers (which are probably miniscule compared to the US).
But you have to extrapolate this out a few years. Total world oil output slowing dramatically, and the most populous and fastest growing economy in the world is starting to dig Humvees…..
10 years ago the Chinese were riding bicycles and mopeds, while the U.S. was guzzling 12 mpg in their SUV’s. 10 years from now it might be the opposite.
My most excellent wife took the chillun’s out to get fish tonight.
This means we’re going to have to screen all of our visitors. I’m worried about PETA operatives sneaking cameras in to check for mistreatment. Then they can make nekkid posters about the plight of domesticated fish.
For the record, we are complying with all laws, regulations, and Biblical guidelines for the care of Bettas in the great state of Alabama. By 3 year olds and 9 year olds.
Fish-Fish is currently sleeping in my son’s room, and Fin is having his first tea party. Here is the evidence.
No, this isn’t the title of a new, trendy youth service. This is my prediction of where things are going in regard to churches and ministries if the world energy situation re-aligns (which I think it is doing right now).
In the future, I think groups of Christians will meet in a more distributed, local fashion. These smaller groups will be linked via technology. Spiritual leadership will be more formally centralized, and administrative leadership will be more disitributed.
Some places are starting to do this already, with multiple campuses and home small group meetings. But current scale is way, way lower than it will eventually be. I’m thinking it will be 30-40 formal locations (the local strip mall, the clubhouse at apartments, the old taco bell), and a whole bunch (maybe hundreds) of home locations.
Why? Efficiency and community.
For example, with regard to efficiency:
So it’s starting to get mighty inefficient to have thousands of people hitting the road and rollin’ to the church house. At a minimum, we’re starting to look at 4-5 dollars per trip to church per member. It doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up. And in the aggregate it’s kind of silly.
And these are conservative numbers. It would be pretty realistic to increase that round trip figure and lower the average fuel efficiency. What about 10-15 dollars per round trip? Are we going to expect everyone to pay $120/month in fuel to go to church on Sunday’s and Wednesdays?
I think God’s church needs to start thinking about this. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with large, central church buildings at all. In fact, I think they’re great. But they grew up in an era of really cheap go-juice, and a huge building with hundreds of SUV’s will become more and more impractical. The megachurch of the future will probably not have a huge building–just lots of people staying connected in local branch meeting places.
Acts 17:32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, We will hear you again about this. 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
This is Christianity on the Internet.
This here innerweb is largely a collection of western thought, people who think western thought, and people who post and converse in western thought. Western thought and philosophy is commonly understood to be based on ancient Greek culture. Our schools and universities are based on this, as are our government. It has even influenced the way Christians go about ministry.
Think about this….how many little-g gods are there on the internet? How much philosophy and open air discussion? How much top of the mountain blogging goes on? The ‘Net is the Areopagus for modern times. It has no real set agenda or purpose, yet it facilitates lots of ’stuff’ in the mode of Greek thinking.
Thus, Paul talking with the Greeks is a huge study. Intellectually, we are far, far more like the greeks in this passage than we are to Paul. Paul learned like a Hebrew, not a Greek (which makes his speech so incredible).
So I start with the last passage because it is so typical on the Internet. It goes like this:
* Christian brings something up
* Non-Christians mock using terms like “praise Jeebus” and the like.
When Christians go online and talk about their faith, there will be no shortage of mockers. It’s part of the culture.
But some will join and believe.
So here it is!
Amazing. Check out manual on sabatoge from the O.S.S.. (The O.S.S. eventually became the CIA).
Read the handy tips on page 28 or so. Remember that these are things they recommended to destroy and organization’s effectiveness.
(11) General Interference with Organisations and Production
(a) Organizations and Conferences
(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal
experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.”
Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications,
minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable”
and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction
of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
And these are good too:
(b) Managers and Supervisors
(1) Demand written orders.
(2) “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
(3;) Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver it until it is completely ready.
(4) Don’t order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted,
so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
(5) Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don’t get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior
work.
(6) In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.
(7) Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant
products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.
(8) Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant.
(9) When training new workers, give incomplete
or misleading instructions.
(10) To lower morale and with it, production,
be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
(11.) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
(12) Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.
(13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.
(14) Apply all regulations to the last letter.
(c) Office Workers (^L) Make mistakes in quantities of material
when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.
(2) Prolong correspondence with government
bureaus.
(3) Misfile essential documents.
(4) In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done.
(5) Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone.
(6) Hold up mail until the next collection.
(7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.
(originally from this blog)
(HT to my brother in law, Ash, for the heads up on the link)
Looks like Wilcox County Alabama is hit hardest by the gasoline price spike.
Makes sense. Rural areas have lower incomes and longer drives. The windy, two lane roads are less efficient. They also rely more directly on gasoline for routine employment activities.
As gasoline prices go higher, it’s conceivable that many of the rural areas could have a difficult time with any populated existence. The lower income people in these areas will gradually be cut off from the ability to be there. It will be sadly interesting to see where that invisible line moves as the price climbs higher. The line will move closer and closer higher populated areas, and there will be many more of us caught outside of it than we realize.
We’re getting a taste of what’s to come with this. It’s difficult to imagine because nobody alive has ever dealt with a permanent increase in oil costs.
Our famly ‘merican SUV is getting new tires, and I commented on how oil prices are probably affecting everything automotive including tires. The comment from the nice fella at the desk was “yeah, it’s pretty bad right now…it affects just about everything we do”.
Catch the implication. Right now.
Underlying our collective psyche is this idea that oil/gasoline prices will inevitably come back down. And by down, we mean “back to normal”.
Prices probably will come back down due to a variety of factors. The biggest one I see is the removal or curtailing of subsidies in India and China.
Did you know that India and China artificially fix gasoline prices? That’s right, two of the largest and fastest growing populations in the world are paying artificially low prices for gasoline. They do this because the government pays for the increase in costs (massive trade surpluses with the US are handy). These governments aren’t stupid….they see the benefits of a population with access to cheap go juice.
(It’s another indicator of how massively increased consumption is a strategy for the developing world. Again I ask: where is all this new oil production going to come from?)
So prices will likely go down short term. But this ride has just been 2-3 years. Care to think past 5-10?
Start preparing for a world with 10-15 dollar/gallon gasoline. Start thinking even higher.