Dave Faulkner. Musings of an evangelical Methodist minister.
Belatedly discovered that Sue Rinaldi has started blogging. She always has been one of the more interesting charismatic worship leaders (or lead worshippers) – not narrowly confined within stereotypes and expectations but thinking deeply and sensitive to the culture. This post chronicles some observations of Leonard Sweet (himself pretty learned) about forever learning. It contains a few reminders I would do well to pay attention to.
Technorati Tags: Sue+Rinaldi, Leonard+Sweet, learning
Further to my previous post on Thursday, I got an email this morning from Joe Rhodes of the Los Angeles Magazine. He has interviewed Burnett for the July issue. The piece is not available online, but he kindly sent me a PDF of it. If you’re anywhere near LA I highly recommend you buy it and read it. There is so much about his history, music, art and spirituality.
With Joe’s permission I quote the final paragraph of the interview, because it restates and develops the quote I gave in Thursday’s blog:
“I am interested in getting away from the world of ideas and more into the world where science and religion and art are all the same thing,” he says. “I’m interested in what all those things say about life, about something outside of you and inside of you at the same time. Getting to that place between heaven and earth where, you know, it’s neither one.”
Seems to me like a healthy belief that all truth is God’s truth, leading to an openness about when and where God may speak, rather than thinking God is constricted within a religious straitjacket of our making. And of course we are called to live somewhere between heaven and earth now, in that time of overlap between the kingdom of God that is breaking in and the kingdom of darkness.
Technorati Tags: T-Bone+Burnett, Joe+Rhodes, Los+Angeles+Magazine, music, God, spirituality, science, art
It’s a long download, even on broadband, but leave it downloading while you do something else and then watch this:
Technorati Tags: George+W+Bush, Dubya, U2, Sunday+Bloody+Sunday
After fourteen years without releasing any of his own music T-Bone Burnett is back. He even now has his own website and a MySpace page. (Fans will previously have known how difficult it was to track down anything close to first hand online.) Last month he released both a wonderful 2-CD compilation entitled Twenty Twenty and a CD of new recordings, The True False Identity.
Burnett is well known in Christian art circles for his famous quote,
“You can sing about the Light, or you can sing about what you see because of the Light. I prefer the latter.” (Credit: JesusJournal.com)
In an interview to promote the new releases he comes up with another thought-provoking insight for Christians in the creative arts:
“Where I want to go with my work and with my life is that place
that’s between heaven and earth. It’s neither; it’s ether,” Burnett
says. “That’s the place I feel comfortable — that’s where I feel alive.”
Technorati Tags: T-Bone+Burnett, Christian, music, art, Twenty+Twenty, The+True+False+Identity
From an interview with Sufjan Stevens in issue 41 (July 2006) of The Word magazine by Graeme Thomson:
Aside from the 50 States Project, the other aspect of Stevens and his music that has been much discussed is his devout Christian faith. He is understandably reluctant to talk about it in too much depth, having discovered it motivates a lot of questions that he finds odd and unanswerable. His music certain expresses a certain euphoria and wonder at the mysteries of the world, yet you would struggle to define it as specifially religious. Stevens’s own take on it is that “if you believe in an omnipotent God, you yield yourself to that God, and of course everything you do is about that relationship. My songs are always about that, but they’re also about aliens from outer space and serial killers and pre-marital sex and all these other things that make up the world we live in. To me, it’s all about life and life is all about God.”
Here is someone with a whole-life view of faith.
Technorati Tags: Sufjan+Stevens, music, faith, religion, Christian
Here is a quote from the man I shall always speak of as Miami Steve Van Zandt in issue 41 (July 2006) of The Word magazine:
When it comes to entertainment and religion a certain amount of separation and mystery is necessary. If you look on stage and you see exactly the same as you are, what is there to aspire to? What is there to inspire you?
Something in there for evangelicals, charismatics and liberals to contemplate. When ‘exactly the same’ is about identifying rather than being remote, it’s OK. But evangelicals reduce it to God the celestial chum, charismatics to God the boyfriend and liberals to, “It’s all right, we (dis)believe the same things as you do.”
Naturally we are nervous about a form of separation which is ‘holier than thou’. Our more recent history as the Church, however, has been to combine the wrong version of separation with the wrong version of ‘exactly the same’. We have become pedestrian Pharisees. We have proclaimed holiness but superficially. It has either been the tick-list of dos and don’ts or it has been the shallow assumption that if everyone is converted the world will automatically become a better place – forgetting that justification needs to be followed by disciples who are sanctified. Witness Rwanda if we want one of the most horrifying examples of that going wrong: not too many evangelicals boast about the twentieth century East African Revival any more.
Mystery has been preserved by the more sacramental section of the Church, although not always helpfully. It has been reduced to theories of the Real Presence and the resulting arguments. Mystery has been resisted by evangelicals and liberals in captivity to the Enlightenment, both of whom in different ways believe that everything is open to explanation.
I am early in a journey of working out what a healthy ‘separation and mystery’ might be. We need a separation, a difference, that is winsome. It needs to be incarnated. Somewhere in the life of Jesus is surely the model. He was ‘exactly the same’ yet clearly different. We need a practical pneumatology (theology of the Holy Spirit) that grounds the Spirit’s work in our lives as being every bit as much in the world as in church activities. John Wimber went a certain way in this respect with the ‘gifts of the Spirit’ being used outside church boundaries; we need more regarding other aspects of the Spirit’s work.
Likewise when it comes to mystery. The parables are a mystery to most of Jesus’ audience. Only on two or three occasions does he explain the meaning, and then only to his inner circle. Mostly they are a mystery if not a tease. It is left to the listeners whether they respond to this narrative teasing. And no wonder we have endless arguments about the meanings of the parables (even before we get to reader-response theories!).
Part of my early response to the issue of mystery is this. My main church has recently bought a digital projection system. They now request a PowerPoint presentation for every sermon. But I have decided to resist the idea of producing PowerPoint slide shows that are lecture notes, with every heading and sub-heading plus the punchy quotes. Instead I am trying to find visuals for each point I make in a sermon: my hunting ground has been Flickr, because the images are of a higher quality than using Google Image Search.
This are just hybrid thoughts. But maybe they can provoke a discussion in the Comments. What are the other ways in which we might portray a healthy ‘separation and mystery’?
Technorati Tags: Steve+Van+Zandt, E+Street+Band, Bruce+Springsteen, Word+magazine, entertainment, religion, holiness, mystery, evangelicals, charismatics, liberals, Rwanda, East+African+Revival, sacramental, Real+Presence, Enlightenment, Jesus, pneumatology, Holy+Spirit, John+Wimber, PowerPoint, Flickr, Google+Image+Search
The Flaming Lips, psychedelic rock band du jour, are known for their joyful embrace of atheism (see songs such as ‘Do You Realize??’ which jauntily celebrates death as the end of everything, for example). In the July 2006 (issue number 152) edition of Mojo magazine, Wayne Coyne of the band describes briefly where his attitude to religion began:
When I was 12 years olf my mother worked at a thrift store. And she took toys and clothes that no one wanted and she would take them over to the church. People from the neighbourhood would come into the church and they would thank God for these wonderful toys and clothes. My mom would be like, “You saw me bring them, you saw me bring them to the damn church! Don’t thank God! Thank me!” I suppose I’ve inherited that kind of attitude to religion.
The simplest and smallest of things and faith goes. A lack of appreciation for one woman’s acts of kindness and that’s that. Theologically, you could say the neighbourhood people were right to thank God: “all things come from you and of your own do we give you”, etc. It’s the same thing that Miroslav Volf was at pains to affirm in his book Free Of Charge, which I blogged about in Lent (particularly relevant to this discussion is chapter 1).
But does not purity of theological view divorced from love turn orthodoxy into heresy? I recall a theological student who did a placement with me leading a midweek study group on homosexuality. “Of course I gave them the biblical view,” he told me afterwards. I knew what he meant, and I too believe that the followers of Jesus should conduct sexual relationships solely within the lifelong covenant of marriage, which is between a man and a woman. But I still don’t think he gave them the full biblical view if he only talked about the rights and wrongs and didn’t begin from a point of affirming God’s love for all. Isn’t the most fundamental statement about God in the whole of Scripture that ‘God is love’? (That to me is where Calvinism makes its most fundamental error, in beginning from God’s sovereignty.)
Technorati Tags: Flaming+Lips, atheism, Mojo+magazine, Wayne+Coyne, God, religion, Miroslav+Volf, Free+Of+Charge, orthodoxy, heresy, homosexuality, God+is+love, Calvinism, sovereignty+of+God
The Flaming Lips, psychedelic rock band du jour, are known for their joyful embrace of atheism (see songs such as ‘Do You Realize??’ which jauntily celebrates death as the end of everything, for example). In the July 2006 (issue number 152) edition of Mojo magazine, Wayne Coyne of the band describes briefly where his attitude to religion began:
When I was 12 years olf my mother worked at a thrift store. And she took toys and clothes that no one wanted and she would take them over to the church. People from the neighbourhood would come into the church and they would thank God for these wonderful toys and clothes. My mom would be like, “You saw me bring them, you saw me bring them to the damn church! Don’t thank God! Thank me!” I suppose I’ve inherited that kind of attitude to religion.
The simplest and smallest of things and faith goes. A lack of appreciation for one woman’s acts of kindness and that’s that. Theologically, you could say the neighbourhood people were right to thank God: “all things come from you and of your own do we give you”, etc. It’s the same thing that Miroslav Volf was at pains to affirm in his book Free Of Charge, which I blogged about in Lent (particularly relevant to this discussion is chapter 1).
But does not purity of theological view divorced from love turn orthodoxy into heresy? I recall a theological student who did a placement with me leading a midweek study group on homosexuality. “Of course I gave them the biblical view,” he told me afterwards. I knew what he meant, and I too believe that the followers of Jesus should conduct sexual relationships solely within the lifelong covenant of marriage, which is between a man and a woman. But I still don’t think he gave them the full biblical view if he only talked about the rights and wrongs and didn’t begin from a point of affirming God’s love for all. Isn’t the most fundamental statement about God in the whole of Scripture that ‘God is love’? (That to me is where Calvinism makes its most fundamental error, in beginning from God’s sovereignty.)
Technorati Tags: Flaming+Lips, atheism, Mojo+magazine, Wayne+Coyne, God, religion, Miroslav+Volf, Free+Of+Charge, orthodoxy, heresy, homosexuality, God+is+love, Calvinism, sovereignty+of+God
Back yesterday from two weeks’ holiday at the wonderful Torridge House (well, more like a mini-break than a fortnight away, really: we lost the first nine days of fourteen to illness – mostly the children). Here are a couple of things I noticed while we were away:
Firstly, the trivial: I bought a birthday card for my youngest nephew who will be eight tomorrow. It came with an ‘I Am 8’ badge. It came with a warning: ‘Not for children under 36 months’. So how many eight-year-olds are under 36 months, then?
Secondly, a little more profound: I read a wonderful interview with Paul Simon about his new CD Surprise in the June issue of The Word magazine. Simon, a Jew, has long reflected religious and somewhat Christian themes in his songwriting, at least in the style if not in the substance. Here are two parts of the article. It’s well worth rushing to the news stands to get a remaining copy.
The first quote goes like this:
Nearly six years ago, backstage at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, just before one of the exultant shows Simon put on in support of You’re The One, he described a spiritual awakening he had experienced that made it much easier for him to enjoy his music for its own sake and to share his audience’s pleasure in it.
“I became very aware of how grateful I was to be alive and what a blessing it was,” he said, as tears welled up in his eyes. “I had a great feeling of gratitude and awe. It was a powerful realisation, a spiritual thing. I don’t want to trivialise it by describing it when you can’t describe it.
“It loosened everything up,” he continued, “like, ‘This is a big old jingling universe, and you’re just jingling along with it.’ I had this thought that the only thing God requires from us is to enjoy life and to love. You don’t have to do anything but appreciate that you’re alive – and love. That’s the whole point. All the rest of the stuff is … You like to make music? Fine, go ahead. Make sure that if you do that, what people get from it is joy.”
My thoughts on the above: what a wonderful way into the spiritual life: gratitiude and awe. Simon’s statement that ‘the only thing God requires from us is to enjoy life and to love’ sounds rather like Ecclesiastes. And the permission to do what you like here is not self-indulgent, if a requirement of bringing joy to people is laid on following our passions.
The second quote is not at length. It’s just a part of the interview where Simon is discussing the lyrical and musical themes of Surprise.
Wartime Prayers, written during the build-up the the Iraq invasion, laments that “People hungry for the voice of God/Hear lunatics and liars” … As Surprise‘s sonic landscaper [Brian] Eno – along with engineer Tchad Blake – helped Simon discover sounds that evoke the simultaneous sense of apocalyptic peril and spiritual possibility.
A brief observation or two: I’m an evangelical, I am ‘hungry for the voice of God’. But how easy for that hunger to become desperation or a desire for the spectacular. One of the ways in which Christians fall for dangerous false prophecy is because it appeals not only to the ego but also to the desire to be part of something ‘significant’. We often can’t cope with the ordinariness of life, and the spiritual life.
And then that lovely idea of holding together both apocalyptic peril and spiritual possibility: if only we could do that in a positive sense rather than the Left Behind-style nonsense. Instead of playing on people’s fears or ourselves retreating due to fear, what if our response was full of hope and grace? What might that mean? It’s too late in the evening for me to explore that now, so I leave the thought hanging …
Technorati Tags: Torridge+House, Paul+Simon, Surprise, The+Word+Magazine
Back yesterday from two weeks’ holiday at the wonderful Torridge House (well, more like a mini-break than a fortnight away, really: we lost the first nine days of fourteen to illness – mostly the children). Here are a couple of things I noticed while we were away:
Firstly, the trivial: I bought a birthday card for my youngest nephew who will be eight tomorrow. It came with an ‘I Am 8’ badge. It came with a warning: ‘Not for children under 36 months’. So how many eight-year-olds are under 36 months, then?
Secondly, a little more profound: I read a wonderful interview with Paul Simon about his new CD Surprise in the June issue of The Word magazine. Simon, a Jew, has long reflected religious and somewhat Christian themes in his songwriting, at least in the style if not in the substance. Here are two parts of the article. It’s well worth rushing to the news stands to get a remaining copy.
The first quote goes like this:
Nearly six years ago, backstage at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, just before one of the exultant shows Simon put on in support of You’re The One, he described a spiritual awakening he had experienced that made it much easier for him to enjoy his music for its own sake and to share his audience’s pleasure in it.
“I became very aware of how grateful I was to be alive and what a blessing it was,” he said, as tears welled up in his eyes. “I had a great feeling of gratitude and awe. It was a powerful realisation, a spiritual thing. I don’t want to trivialise it by describing it when you can’t describe it.
“It loosened everything up,” he continued, “like, ‘This is a big old jingling universe, and you’re just jingling along with it.’ I had this thought that the only thing God requires from us is to enjoy life and to love. You don’t have to do anything but appreciate that you’re alive – and love. That’s the whole point. All the rest of the stuff is … You like to make music? Fine, go ahead. Make sure that if you do that, what people get from it is joy.”
My thoughts on the above: what a wonderful way into the spiritual life: gratitiude and awe. Simon’s statement that ‘the only thing God requires from us is to enjoy life and to love’ sounds rather like Ecclesiastes. And the permission to do what you like here is not self-indulgent, if a requirement of bringing joy to people is laid on following our passions.
The second quote is not at length. It’s just a part of the interview where Simon is discussing the lyrical and musical themes of Surprise.
Wartime Prayers, written during the build-up the the Iraq invasion, laments that “People hungry for the voice of God/Hear lunatics and liars” … As Surprise‘s sonic landscaper [Brian] Eno – along with engineer Tchad Blake – helped Simon discover sounds that evoke the simultaneous sense of apocalyptic peril and spiritual possibility.
A brief observation or two: I’m an evangelical, I am ‘hungry for the voice of God’. But how easy for that hunger to become desperation or a desire for the spectacular. One of the ways in which Christians fall for dangerous false prophecy is because it appeals not only to the ego but also to the desire to be part of something ‘significant’. We often can’t cope with the ordinariness of life, and the spiritual life.
And then that lovely idea of holding together both apocalyptic peril and spiritual possibility: if only we could do that in a positive sense rather than the Left Behind-style nonsense. Instead of playing on people’s fears or ourselves retreating due to fear, what if our response was full of hope and grace? What might that mean? It’s too late in the evening for me to explore that now, so I leave the thought hanging …
Technorati Tags: Torridge+House, Paul+Simon, Surprise, The+Word+Magazine
Big Circumstance 