#19 Take the Long Way Home

Bang up to date again. From Supertramp's biggest commercial success Breakfast in America, which produced two other huge singles. This is an atmosphere song - not deep like Mintie's last one. More a song to play in the car, a soundtrack for a tiring day when things aren't so good.

Mind you, I ought to add, that avoiding issues doesn't help in the long-term - just that 5 minutes driving to Supertramp probably won't hurt!

Last FM
Spotify

#18 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Sorry - a bit late for finishing the third quarter of our mid-life crisis.

Surprisingly little to say about such a monster success really: I'm not a huge U2 fan, and only own The Joshua Tree. But I think it's a great album - and maybe U2 suffers for me in that, not only are the first three tracks their zenith, but actually they are three of the greatest tracks of the last 30 years. Getting everything in one go like that (although I also like Pride and bits and pieces from All That You Can't Leave Behind) has probably stalled me going much further with them. Still, there you go:

Spotify

Civil War 5: Darwin again

In other words, even before there existed a secularisation in the US brought on by new immigrants, scientific acceptance of evolution, the higher criticism of Scripture, and urban industrialism, Protestants during the Civil War had marginalised themselves as bearers of a religious perspective in the body politic.

Noll, p.161

Civil War 4

This is one of Mark Noll's summary paragraphs and puts clearly the damage done to theology by the war:

But the Civil War was won and slavery abolished not by theological orthodoxy but by military might and a hitherto unimaginable degree of industrial mobilisation. Although the war freed the slaves and gave African Americans an equal claim to citizenship, it did not provide the moral energy required for rooting equal rights in the subsoil of American society or for planting equal opportunity throughout the land... [the war] did not offer clear moral guidance as to how the mobilisation could be put to use for the good of all citizens. The evangelical Protestant traditions that had done so much to shape society before the war did possess theological resources to address both America's deeply ingrained racism and its burgeoning industrial revolution. But the Civil War took the steam out of Protestants' moral energy...The theology that had risen to pre-eminence in the early 19th century continued to work effectively for vast multitudes in private; but because of its public failing during the war, it had little to offer American society more generally in the decades that followed the war.

Noll, p.160

300!

Well, I wondered whether this blog would be short lived. But my online scrapbook seems to be growing.

It is traditional for me to now say: thanks Minternational!

Invocation 2

The main body of the prayer of invocation, I see as the petition "Hear us in the name of your Son". The relationship between Father and Son is the basis of the Christian approach to God...Christian worship has its logic in the doctrine of the Trinity. It is profoundly trinitarian. Our worship is part of the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. It is part of what has sometimes been called the inner trinitarian conversation. It is part of the homage of the Son to the Father. For this reason, therefore, we worship in the name of the Son. The relationship goes in both directions. Our prayer is part of the outpourng of the love of the Father to the Son. It is in Christ that we share in the fellowship of the house of the Father, that we sit at His table and are fed by His bread and share his cup. Our worship participates in the love of the Father to the Son and in the love of the Son for the Father. When we proclaim the gospel in Christ's name, baptise, and teach what He has commanded in His name, this is part of the obedience of the Son to the Father. But it is also part of the Father's glorification of the Son. In the ministry of preaching and teaching that we perform in Christ's name, Christ is glorified. Human hearts are changed and disciples are made of all nations - and thus the Father is setting all things under the feet of the Son, so that at last Christ is Lord of all. The Invocation therefore, has as one of its cardinal concerns this relationship between the Father and Son.

Old, p.16

Calvin: OT temporal judgments

Reading through the Bible in a year actually increases the sense of physical judgment in the OT, which is far from comfortable. Today read these words from Calvin which are an interesting thought-starter in this area:

Thus as God's benefits were more conspicuous in earthly things [the land, harvests, peace etc], so also were his punishments. The ignorant, not considering this analogy and congruity, to call it that, between punishments and rewards, wonder at such great changeableness in God. He, who was once so prompt to mete out stern and terrifying punishments for every human transgression, now seems to have laid aside his former wrathful mood and punishes much more gently and rarely. Why, on that account, they even go so far as to imagine different gods for the Old and New testaments, like the Manichees! But we shall readily dispose of these misgivings if we turn our attention to this dispensation of God which I have noted. He willed that, for the time during which he gave his covenant to the people of Israel in a veiled form, the grace of future and eternal happiness be signified and figured under earthly benefits, the gravity of spiritual death under physical punishments.

Institutes 2.9.3 (Battles, p.452-3)

He gets everywhere...

Although they have had a go at the quotation in order to emphasise their product. It should read:

You can't get a book long enough, or a cup of tea big enough, or a book long enough, to suit me.

Civil War 3 (providence)

Another interesting stress point concerned Providence. Not only were many on both sides claiming authority from the Bible, they also believed that God was involved in human affairs. This led to commentators and preachers from North and South interpreting events, battles, decisions etc within the context of what God was doing - and with a great deal of certainty too.

But as the war dragged on, fatalities increased, and deeper complexities became apparent, this certainty in providence also became an issue of weakness. Contradictory interpretations, hideous turns of event...and then even after the war, both sides interpreting the outcome as endorsing their view - either as total vindication, or as discipline on a sinful people.

In the midst of this, maybe it was natural to slide towards thinking the real resolution of the war was not God but force of arms, organisation and management, and industrial mobilisation? And so 20th century America?

#17 There is Only You

Posting early for Easter, this is one of my favourite Christian songs ever.

The Smalltown Poets not only have a great name for a band, but really that's their sound too: it's so unassuming it's easy to pass them by. But repeated listens draw you in to one of the most sincere and thought provoking bands around.

There is Only You is a great song about our hearts and God. It's just such a same that it is not available to listen to online, and I have to post the video instead. Especially as the video, as nice as it is, really has absolutely nothing to do with the song (except perhaps the human tendency towards selfishness). So, below are the lyrics and may I advise clicking on Youtube, then clicking back here to see the words, rather than letting the video suggest what the song is about? Also, sorry you can't get the great bass-work on here...

Growing more uneasy with every question asked
It seems you're jealous of my interests
And the graven things I've cast
Waking resolutions of twenty years or more
That I would disallow golden cows my favor anymore

Your wishes set in stone, I broke the first of ten
I've cleared this temple out come take your place again

There is only You
There is only You

Tiptoe from an awkward scene
Not fooling anyone
Am I dumb enough to kneel with my accusers
Or brave enough to run

Petty daggers bounce weakly off my back
I'm leaving breathless gods and secrets in my tracks
Your wishes set in stone, I broke the first of ten
I've cleared this temple out come take Your place again

There is only You
There is only You, believe me
There is only You
There is only You

To a thousand generations
Of the faithful man
You will show Your favor Lord

There is only You (Love earth can't replace)
There is only You, believe me (Heaven can't erase)
There is only You (Find me on my penitent face)
There is only You

Calvin: theft

Calvin expounds the commandments very broadly, and this one for the 8th commandment is a helpful example:

For he who does not carry out what he owes to others [money or honour or good work etc ] according to the responsibility of his own calling both withholds and appropriates what is another's

We will duly obey this commandment then, if, content with our lot, we are zealous only to make honest and lawful gain; if we do not seek to become wealthy through injustice, nor attempt to deprive our neighbour of his goods to increase our own; if we do not strive to heap up riches cruelly wrung from the blood of others...On the other hand, let this be our constant aim: faithfully to help all men by our counsel and aid to keep what us theirs...

Institutes, 2.8.45-46 (Battles, p.409-10)

#16 I Heard it Through the Grapevine

I'm no Marvin Gaye aficionado, but I think this has to be one of the nearest-to-perfect singles ever produced. I don't know what it is, but the atmosphere, production, understated backing...somehow it all works to perfection. That's it really.

Spotify
LastFm

Alongside its quality is, maybe, also that I first heard it in the way it was originally heard: on an old Dansette box record player, with a scratchy 45rpm single (re-released for the jeans commercial, and with a big hole in the middle because we could go down to Braddicks Emporium and by ex-juke-box singles for 10p!)

Civil War 2

Another of Mark Noll's suggestions as to the nature of the theological impact on the authority of Scripture is fascinating. It seems to go like this:

1. The pro-slavery argument was very simple and straightforward: just read the passages of Scripture that plainly talk about slavery - they never condemn it.
2. The abolitionist preachers turn to their Bible to proof text and find this is basically true, and start talking about the overall emphasis of the Bible being respect for all people, demonstrated through loving action. This sounds a bit like not having a good response to point 1, and when seen in the context of a rising liberalism which states the Bible is great but it has bits which more developed peoples need to reject - well, to people who take the Bible seriously it starts to sound like anti-slavery = anti-bible. Support abolition and you will abolish the Bible as well!
3. The more nuanced anti-slavery biblical arguments (which require historical knowledge and a more careful reading of scripture) eg. the disparity between ancient Israelite slavery and the US mass-industry + kidnapping and dehumanising; the fact that Israel were only allowed to buy people from outside the chosen nation - so who are the heathen now? And even if we can identify them, why don't we set them free when converted to Christianity and therefore un-heathened? These required much more thought and theological reflection than the previous two positions.

Noll contends that common-sense and suspicion of those in authority were American characteristics: and as these arguments did not lie plain on the surface, and required intellectuals to articulate, they are suspect.

So, Christians missed the strong argument because it was subtle...and then took extreme positions as a result. And a theological disagreement could then only be resolved by war. War instead of nuance...

#15 Allentown

Only ten left to go!

Jumping forward from Minternational's last one, we get really up to date and trendy - all the way to 1982.

The big problem for Billy Joel in the UK is that he only had one massively successful album really: Innocent Man which was in a sense a 'concept album': a tribute to the music he grew up with in the 1960s. But this one big exposure made most people assume he was a latter day rock 'n' roll wannabe. This pigeonholed him and completely missed the point of what he did - piano based lyric-driven pieces.

I'm not sure which, if any, of his albums would make my list, but the number of individual songs that could be picked is huge, and selecting one is difficult. I've gone for Allentown because it kind of covers several aspects of his work: melodic, lyrical and with a point (mass unemployment in the early 80s).
LastFM
Spotify

I almost chose one which was not a big hit and probably remains an invisible album track:
Vienna

Repentance

It is important to consider how the gospel affects and transforms the act of repentance. In 'religion' the purpose of repentance is basically to keep God happy so he will continue to bless you and answer your prayers. This means that 'religious repentance' is a) selfish, b) self-righteous, c) bitter all the way to the bottom. But in the gospel the purpose of repentance is to repeatedly tap into the joy of our union with Christ in order to weaken our need to do anything contrary to God's heart.

Tim Keller, All of Life is Repentance

Free Church Lent?

Given our free-church tendency to ignore the church calendar, especially any difficult bits, I couldn't help wonder if someone from our sector was behind this.
(from Imago Fidei)