And we're back

Check, check ... is this thing on?

OK, then. Comcast seems to have me all set up here in my new digs. They're quite accommodating if you ask politely and say the magic word (not "please" -- "Verizon"). So we now resume our irregularly scheduled blogging.

- - -

Thank you Trevor et. al. for sticking up for Rich Mullins in comments. Mullins did write the unfortunate worship anthem "Awesome God," but he also wrote quite a bit of music that doesn't make me want to run screaming from church.

Mullins died in a car crash in 1997. There's a nice obituary here which gives a bit of background on the man who, when not playing music, taught it to elementary school children in a Navajo reservation in Arizona.

I'm quite fond of his final recording project, The Jesus Record, recorded with the excellent Ragamuffin Band. Had the songs from that album -- songs like "Man of No Reputation" or "Hard to Get" -- become as ubiquitous as "Awesome God," then our megachurches might be very different places.

I actually met Mullins once, in 1994, in a bar in Macomb, Ill. The summer of '94 was a Very Bad Time for me, but my old partner in crime, Dwight Ozard, thought that hanging out with that band of Ragamuffins would do me some good. As usual, he was right. I never met any of them again until a few years ago, when one of the Ragamuffins came to town to sing "Man of No Reputation" at Dwight's funeral.

Anyway, in Mullin's defense, here's his song "Hard to Get."

- - -

Re: Hawker's Christian Music Story -- a post from the archives: "Teetotalist gift shops."

I used to enjoy calling area "Christian Bookstores" to ask for things like Donne's Holy Sonnets or The Brothers Karamazov. It was smart-alecky fun, and the point was a legitimate one, but I quickly realized that the poor souls on the other end of the phone were, themselves, the victims of the very thing I was trying to criticize.

The Christian-brand bookstores and publishing houses could easily follow Barnes & Noble's lead by producing and marketing affordable editions of older classics now in the public domain. My guess is that the reason they haven't done so, at least not on a similar scale, is that they've already calculated the potential sales from the shelf space of such a collection of books and determined that it couldn't compete with the sales they're already getting from the Precious Moments and other Jesus Junk now occupying that space. The flip-side of that blame-the-consumer argument, of course, is to note that they may be getting the chicken-or-egg of it backwards.

- - -

Is it accurate to say that a Navajo reservation is "in" Arizona? I mean, technically (if only technically, since our history with all such treaties is that they're honored only to the point of inconvenience) ... technically it's sovereign territory and thus not really a part of Arizona. I mean, if you want to go there, you have to go to Arizona, but once you're there, you're not really "in" Arizona anymore, right?

So maybe it's accurate to say the Navajo reservation is in Arizona geographically speaking, but not politically speaking? Anyone have any expert insight on this?

- - -

P.S.: I haven't yet figured out how to turn off Typepad's annoying new comments-per-page limit, but I was able to switch it from the extremely irksome 25 to the slightly less irksome 50 setting. Feh. If anyone has a script to work around this new feature, please let me know.

Comments

[Lila]

Karen: I HATE THAT SONG!! I won't go so far as to claim it's part of the reason I left the (Episcopal) Church, but it's certainly one of the reasons I'm not tempted to go back.

[R. Mildred]

No, they didn't secede.

1) whether or not they did, they theoretically could have, therefore my original point stands.

2) your links suck, here's some actual statements by Lakota leaders refuting the statement by the LFD. Mea culpa.

[patter]

If memory serves, Rich Mullins didn't write "Man of No Reputation." It was included because it was one of his favorite songs.

[Tonio]

Although I strongly oppose games of chance on principle, I love the poetic justice of Native American casinos. Modern electronic slot machines are designed like Skinner boxes, providing just enough occasional winnings to keep people addicted. Seems fitting to use this despicable technology to fleece the people who brought so much death and misery to Native Americans. I see the same poetic justice in tobacco.

[MikhailBorg]

Tonio, my mother, sister, one of my closest friends, and (until last year) my fiancee have all been addicted to tobacco.

Unless they've been keeping dark secrets from me, not a one of them ever did anything bad to Native Americans, nor have they ever supported anyone who did.

There's no poetic justice of any kind there.

[peatey]

Is Lesotho in South Africa?

[Tonio]

There's no poetic justice of any kind there.

You're right in principle. My point is that for any group that has suffered as much as the Native Americans, it would be completely understandable if they didn't care about the distinction between the perpetrators and their descendants. If I as an outsider were to ask them to care, it would feel to me like I was denying or dismissing their pain as unimportant.

[Boze]

The official last of Christian artists whom you can take seriously as Christians and artists:

Rich Mullins
Jars of Clay
Bono (he's peering over at me from the side of the screen, so I couldn't have left him out)

Which works of literature can you conjure that are *really* Christian? I don't mean in the Real True Christian sense, but in the sense of adhering to Christianity as it was generally taught and practiced prior to the mid-twentieth century.

My list would include:

Paradise Lost
Les Miserables
Pilgrim's Progress
The Brothers Karamazov
The Poetry of William Blake (I don't very much like the metaphysical poets, and so I exclude them from the list, but you could place them here as well)

Somewhat more controversially:
Most of Shakespeare's plays
The Harry Potter novels

[Gary]

The Teetolaist Gift Shops link brought up a point that I meant to ask a couple of weeks ago when a similar idea was mentioned in a LB post. Do non-ecumenical-leaning churches say the standard creeds? And if so, what do they think they mean, especially that part about the "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church"? Do they just think that every christian born before their particular non-denomination came into being went straight to hell?

On completely unrelated topic, I would like to rant a bit on trying to find a new church. I grew up Methodist, but am open-minded about trying other denominations. But I'm having a terrible time actually finding out what anybody actually seems to believe. Everything, if it's even mentioned on a website is couched in code words and generalities. Usually it's just vague platitudes with a few bible verses ensuring everybody that yes, we're Trinitarian, and maybe they'll mention "we don't like gay people," or "the Bible is always right," so I know I can cross them off the list. Now I get that not everybody is a biblical scholar, I understand that you can't say, "we're a Calvinist, Premillenial Dispensationalist congregation." But I'd appreciate a bit more detail, thank you.

Of course, like I said, there are also the code words that I'm now having to learn. "Open and affirming" means NOTHING to most lay people. How is that helping the lonely, disaffected gay youths you're trying to attract? Even worse was this gem on the bible: "Because it is inspired by God, it is truth without any mixture of error." Perviously, I was under assumption that the "inspired" camp was not neccessarily the same as the "inerrant" camp. Now I don't know what to think when I see something like "We believe the Bible was inspired by God".

[MikhailBorg]

My point is that for any group that has suffered as much as the Native Americans, it would be completely understandable if they didn't care about the distinction between the perpetrators and their descendants.

Well... no, it wouldn't be understandable if they didn't make the distinction.

Assuming I have an ancestor who was personally responsible for the slaughter of the men, women, and children of an Indian tribe (I'm pretty sure I don't, but then I'm not one for genealogy), I wouldn't be real proud of that ancestor, but I still wouldn't feel real understanding if the descendant of one of the survivors chose to start shooting at me.

There really isn't any moral foundation for punishing people for things they, themselves, didn't do or have authority over. Are you American? If so, would you be okay with an Iraqi killing you in revenge for the death of his child in the war?

Which works of literature can you conjure that are *really* Christian?
In haste- off the top of my head - some classics and 2 modern SF authors:

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Michael Flynn, Eifelheim
Leo Tostoy, Anna Karenina
T.H.White, The Once and Future King
Connie Willis, The Doomsday Book and Passages

So what's on everybody else's list?

[Tonio]

There really isn't any moral foundation for punishing people for things they, themselves, didn't do or have authority over.

I absolutely agree. Keep in mind that I'm not claiming that such punishment is moral. I'm simply defending the motivation behind it. I'm defending the right to feel pain and fear and and distrust and outrage. I'm not necessarily talking about a desire for vengeance. I'm asking how a Native American or an African-American or an Iraqi can ever feel safe.

[Raj]

peatey: Is Lesotho in South Africa?

Lesotho is located within the borders of South Africa. It is, however, a separate nation, not part of South Africa.

[pat greene]

Anonymous, I have had more than one conversation, online and off, which started "I don't really like SF, except for Connie Willis..." Doomsday Book (and its comic sequel, To Say Nothing of the Dog) are two of my favorite books *ever*.

[Amaryllis]

anonymous at 3:14 was me.
And I loved To Say Nothing of the Dog.

[zigforas]

To add to the "official list" of "Christian artists whom you can take seriously as Christians and artists" :

Derek Webb. I like Derek Webb for many of the same reasons I like Rich Mullins, although Webb's critique of social/political concerns and the Christian conscience tends to be far more direct than any of Mullins' work ever was. I love his album She Must and Shall Go Free, but Mockingbird merits mention for its boldness. I saw him on tour for this album twice, both nights in churches, in front of what we can safely assume were majority conservative evangelical audiences. And, among other things, in front of these audiences, he sang these lines from "A King and a Kingdom":

There are two great lies that I'’ve heard:
'The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”'
And that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class Republican
--And if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

That takes conviction, and guts.

"New Law," also from Mockingbird, and "I Repent," from I See Things Upside Down, are other good examples of his work. "New Law" begins with the lines, "Don't teach me about politics and government; just tell me who to vote for. And don't teach me about truth and beauty; just label my music. And don't teach me how to live like a free man; just give me a new law. I don't wanna know if the answers aren't easy, so just bring it down from the mountain to me---I want a new law."

--------

Also, Bruce Cockburn. "If I Had A Rocket Launcher", anyone?

[zigforas]

To add to the works of literature list: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I don't know that Russell is a practicing Christian (in fact, I think I remember reading somewhere that she is a recent convert to Judaism), but this sci-fi work was probing, honest, and deeply moving. It's on my list of "must-reads."

-------

Amaryllis: I love Connie Willis. Especially Doomsday Book and Passage, which I read last summer.

This is one of my favorite passages, from her short story "Chance" in Impossible Things:

“I’m not talking about sin,” Elizabeth said. “I’m talking about little things that you wouldn’t think would matter so much, like stepping in a puddle or having a fight with somebody. What if you drove off and left somebody standing in the middle of the road because you were mad, and it changed their whole life, it made them into a different person? Or what if you turned and walked away from somebody because your feelings were hurt or you wouldn’t open your window, and because of that one little thing their whole lives were changed and now she drinks too much, and he killed himself, and you didn’t even know you did it…I didn’t make him kill himself and I didn’t make her get a divorce, but if I hadn’t turned and walked away from them that day, everything would have been different.”

[zigforas]

To add to the works of literature list: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I don't know that Russell is a practicing Christian (in fact, I think I remember reading somewhere that she is a recent convert to Judaism), but this sci-fi work was probing, honest, and deeply moving. It's on my list of "must-reads."

-------

Amaryllis: I love Connie Willis. Especially Doomsday Book and Passage, which I read last summer.

This is one of my favorite passages, from her short story "Chance" in Impossible Things:

“I’m not talking about sin,” Elizabeth said. “I’m talking about little things that you wouldn’t think would matter so much, like stepping in a puddle or having a fight with somebody. What if you drove off and left somebody standing in the middle of the road because you were mad, and it changed their whole life, it made them into a different person? Or what if you turned and walked away from somebody because your feelings were hurt or you wouldn’t open your window, and because of that one little thing their whole lives were changed and now she drinks too much, and he killed himself, and you didn’t even know you did it…I didn’t make him kill himself and I didn’t make her get a divorce, but if I hadn’t turned and walked away from them that day, everything would have been different.”

[zigforas]

Apologies for the double-post; Typepad bears me ill-will.

[e. nonee moose]

I mean, technically (if only technically, since our history with all such treaties is that they're honored only to the point of inconvenience) ... technically it's sovereign territory

If you really want to make a right winger angry, point this out to them. The idea of Indians having sovereign terrority in the United States just galls them.

[Bugmaster]

Regarding the reading list, I think that A Canticle For Leibowitz would qualify. In fact, so would Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, though this may not be apparent at first.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I was disappointed with Michael Flynn's Eifelheim. I expected something as good as his Firestar, but instead, I got something basically mediocre...

[Amaryllis]

Bugmaster: yeah, I'll give you Small Gods. Nothing wrong with a good cautionary tale.

And I like Eifelheim, but I haven't read anything else by Michael Flynn. I'll make a note of Firestorm.
I didn't care much for the modern, framing sections of Eifelheim, but you have to admit that the priest and the villagers in the 14th-century sections took seriously the Christioan duty of caring for the stranger in need, to the extent of sheltering and aiding some pretty strange strangers.

And since my first list was heavy on the Brit-lit, let's throw in a couple of Americans: Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn ("all right, I'll go to hell!" -didn't Fred do a post on that one?), and that Victorian perennial, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

[Tim Lehnerer]

@Bose: Oh, come on. No love for Johnny Cash as a Christian and an entertainer? That just hurts my feelings.

[Bugmaster]

yeah, I'll give you Small Gods. Nothing wrong with a good cautionary tale.

It's not just a cautionary tale, though, IMO. I think it's a religious (or, if you prefer, "spiritual") book; it just doesn't have much respect for organized religion.

And I like Eifelheim, but I haven't read anything else by Michael Flynn. I'll make a note of Firestorm.

It's Firestar, actually. It's an excellent book; probably one of my all-time favorites.

[Karen]

Lila, my church only sang that song once in the fifteen years I've been a member, and we long-time members still talk about how much we hate it.

I'm kinda surprised that, in a discussion of Christian art, no one has yet mentioned Dorothy L. Sayers essay "The Mind of the Maker." She asserts in that work that the first responsiblity of the Christian artist is to be skilled at her craft. In support of this theory she states that the carpentry shop in Bethlehem never produced a leaning table or an uncomfortable chair. By her standards, L & J are clearly of the Devil's party.

[Amaryllis]

Bugmaster: It's Firestar, actually. It's an excellent book; probably one of my all-time favorites.
Thanks. I'll put it on the "to be read" list, under the correct title. :)
Gotta read, not to mention type, more carefully.

[car]

I loved Rich Mullins, back in the day when I was steeped deep in church. I remember the morning after he died - I was driving to a weekend job (about a half hour drive), and heard it on NPR. I was stunned, screamed "Nooooo!" and after the story was over frantically switched to the Christian station to find out more. Not. A. Peep. Other Christian station - same. Third Christian station (hey, I was in the midwest), same. Nothing. Not a word, not a station break, nothing. They were all running on their preferred megamedia preset feed, and nothing was going to interrupt it. I switched back to NPR and got more info. I hadn't liked Christian radio before that, and that was the final straw that made me stop listening from then on.

[Tonio]

I avoid Christian radio like contaminated meat, because all the stations I've encountered have been of the D. James Kennedy variety. I cannot listen to such commentary without becoming angry. (I usually encounter such stations while looking for NPR stations in unfamiliar towns.) Contemporary Christian music is easy to identify, because the production and vocal delivery usually sounds like Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA."

[patter]

Contemporary Christian music is easy to identify

And because it's all derivative: every singer is a Somebody Famous wannabe, every melody sounds like it could've been written by

[patter]

somebody in the Pop Music Production Mill.

(Sorry -- premature ExPostulation)

[Chris]

Re "Small Gods":

Try to picture Buck finding Nicolae catatonic in the desert of death, stripped of everything except the knowledge of the horrors he has committed, and knowing all those horrors, and *still* reaching out and taking his hand and helping him walk to the other side, because that's simply what Buck would do...

No wait.

I'm not Christian, so I don't see myself as authorised to say whether "Small Gods" is a Christian book or not. All I can say is, it is one of the most *human* books I know.

[pat greene]

Chris, I feel that way about most of Pratchett's work. (OK, I said I didn't like SF, Pratchett is, as a friend of mine once said, a genre unto himself.) My own personal favorite is Night Watch, which, in addition to having a time-travel plot (which it has in common with my favorite works by Willis), has the question of "what makes us, *us*? And if we could live everything over, what would that be like?" Not to mention great bits about the nature of heroism, and some decent theory on city planning (i.e., the really important parts of a city are not the big imposing government buildings.)

[pat greene]

Oops, sorry about the lost close italic tag.

[Bugmaster]

Yes, Small Gods is definitely one of the most human books I've read (as are most of Pratchett's books, in fact -- including those not from the Discworld cycle, such as Only You Can Save Mankind)

"So I give the signal and a few hundred of us attack thousands of them? And he dies anyway and we die too? What difference does that make?"

Urn's face was gray with horror now.

"You mean you don't know?" he said.

[Bugmaster]

Italics. I no want.

[Boze]

"@Bose: Oh, come on. No love for Johnny Cash as a Christian and an entertainer? That just hurts my feelings."

Oh, and Johnny Cash. He's fantastic.

One of my favorite bits of dialogue in any movie is in "Walk the Line":

Producer: Your listeners are Christian, church-going men and women. They don't want to hear about criminals and thieves and murderers.
Johnny: Then they're not really Christians...

[Nenya]

Yes, I've had Pratchett (particularly Sam Vimes and Night Watch) running through my head all week, from videos of police brutality to revelations that the President & close associates knew about torture as it was happening. Cable Street & the Glorious 25th of May, yes indeed.

(Bellatrys actually did an essay on this way back in early 2005...and remarked that Night Watch came out before Abu Ghraib hit the news. Published 2002, and chilled me at the time.)

[Tonio]

Producer: Your listeners are Christian, church-going men and women. They don't want to hear about criminals and thieves and murderers.

Johnny: Then they're not really Christians...

As much as I love Cash's music, I admit that I don't understand his joke. Similarly, I sometimes listen to a radio show where the host professes belief in God but stages bits that appeal to the prurient interest. (It's not Stern, btw.) On an intellectual level, I know that some people believe in a god without believing that the god is watching everything they do in order to punish them for doing bad things. But on an emotional level I don't know how a belief in a god doesn't automatically lead to the latter belief.

[Spalanzani]

Tonio: "As much as I love Cash's music, I admit that I don't understand his joke."

The point, I think, is that "criminals and thieves and murderers" are exactly the sort of people that Jesus hung out with (what do healthy people need a doctor for, and all that), so a "Christian" audience not wanting to hear about those people shows that their concerns don't match up with their supposed role model.

[Tonio]

The point, I think, is that "criminals and thieves and murderers" are exactly the sort of people that Jesus hung out with (what do healthy people need a doctor for, and all that), so a "Christian" audience not wanting to hear about those people shows that their concerns don't match up with their supposed role model.

Many Christian leaders claim that entertainment about "criminals and thieves and murderers" glamorizes such people, particularly for younger audiences. They imply that one cannot be around such people, even in a fictional form, without being influenced by them to some degree. They seem to make a distinction between a code of conduct for Jesus and a code of conduct for Christians.