Against the Stream

N. T. Wright Sings Bob Dylan

Well, this wasn't something I was expecting to see today, but well worth sharing.

 

And, as long as we're doing pop eschatology, here's Sinead O'Connor singing Peter Tosh's "Downpresser Man":

 

Good Music

 

A. K. M. Adam offers some reflections on what is it that makes good music, well good:

I’ll being by stating the obvious: Good music can be identified, most of the time, by good musicianship. Skill, technique, precision, virtuosity, all contribute to a performance I might admire.
 
OK, counterexamples first: Much punk rock, and a lot of old-timey music (to name just two genres) place little emphasis on technical musicianship. ‘Anarchy in the UK’ as performed by John McLaughlin and Buddy Rich would… lack something. They might bring something else to it, but I’m not saving my farthings for their cover version.

I think one reason why I never gravitated to punk as a teenager (despite liking a great deal of it now), was that sense that there wasn't much going on there musically. At the time, I was heavy into progressive rock and jazz, so heavy riffing on a few simple chords didn't do it for me. Over time, a lot of what I didn't like back then began to grow on me, and I think that my teenage musical tastes have diversified retrospectively as I've gotten older.

But that said, I agree that musicianship is an important indicator of what makes good music good. And I also agree with Akma's follow-up point:

One of the besetting problems of musicianship in popular music is the sense of formality, sterility, that sometimes attend it. One of the afflictions of popular music in the 70’s came from the sense that rock musicians were trying so hard to prove their worthiness that many of them adopted painfully over-serious, over-technical styles that just didn’t rock (and often didn’t satisfy the serious audiences they were trying to impress). Musicianship blends over to ‘professionalism’ (in the pejorative sense) and commercialism, too. When Rich caught me out for disliking music for being ‘popular’, much of what he was right about involved my lack of interest in bands that struck me as so professional that I didn’t feel especially drawn to them. ‘Commercial’ generally tastes bad to me.

On the one hand, I think the criticism of prog as "sterile" is overblown, and usually lodged by people who never took the time to really pay attention to what was going on in progressive rock. They got lost in the strange modes and time signatures, and failed to realize that a lot of progressive rock is actually very witty. Sometime the jokes are musical, and if you don't know what's going on musically you'll miss it. But a lot of the time the joke is in the lyrics or the general attitude.

As someone who is on the congenitally over serious side myself, I have to admit that I missed it a lot myself. Aside from Frank Zappa, who Akma mentions, most prog didn't strike me as being obviously funny. And of course, for Zappa, most of the time the joke was wrapped up in a lot of offensive material. But of course, often Zappa's whole point was that he was trying to offend you. So actually getting offended made you the punch line. In that way I often see South Park as an extension of Zappa's attitude in a different genre.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of wit lying beneath the surface of allegedly sterile progressive rock, if one takes the time to look.

But on Akma's concluding point I couldn't agree more. The problem with much of what passes for popular music today isn't that it isn't technically proficient. It is! But it's been test marketed and genericized to such an extent that any human emotion or artistic worth has been sapped out of it entirely. It may be on many levels perfectly acceptable music to listen to, but it has no great impact on the listener. While not every occasion calls for dissonance and sharp edged lyrics, the degree of homogenoization that has taken place in pop music today makes it very difficult for me to listen to. Which is why I seldom tune in to the radio anymore.

That and morning DJs. I hate morning DJs!

Gooble Gobble One of Us

At Stuff Christians Like, guest blogger Paul Angone discusses the tendency among many Christians to attempt to claim "secular" musicians as belonging to the Christian fold:

Jon Acuff already wrote about arguing about the faith of U2, but the list of Secular-Christian, Christian musicians is longer than the Levitical laws.  Such reputable artists include Collective Soul, OneRepublic, Justin Bieber, Jessica Simpson, Regina Spektor, The Fray, Miley Cyrus, Jewel – the list holds no prejudice to genre or style. If Google says they’re Christian, then it must be so.

Creed was driving the train for years with star-struck Christians climbing aboard — Five Iron Frenzy t-shirts quickly being replaced by Scott Stapp looking pensively towards the sky with arms wide open.

Mumford and Sons was the main addition to the list from 2011. Songs like “Awake My Soul” and “Sigh No More” leading countless people to the Lord, of this we are sure. Sure “Little Lion Man” and its chorus of F-bombs confused the equation a bit. But those F-bombs were nothing more than explosions of authentic-emotional-truth. Nothing more. And when in doubt, we’ll just turn that song down in the office. Problem solved.

He offers several reasons why this is done, partly to aid in evangelism, partly to offer a guilt free listening experience, and partly to be able to come across to the world at large as "cool."

Although I don't relate to music or society the way many evangelicals do, I have to admit that there is a part of me that likes to discover that my favorite bands and I share a religious worldview. It's never really bothered me if they don't. I mean, I listen to some of the most profane, vulgar, and anti-religious music without batting an eyelash or thinking that it matters much in terms of my faith. But when I discover that a band or a musician is "Christian" without belonging to the "Christian music" genre, I feel both glad to have that connection and pleased that my sense of good taste doesn't create a conflict between my religious beliefs and my preferred music. Given much of the dreck that passes for Christian music, I'm always happy to know that there is music that I can connect to thematically that doesn't require me to suffer through the horror of CCM.

Since I have the Mountain Goats in regular rotation in iTunes, I'm always struck by the Biblical and theological literacy of John Darnielle's writing, but from everything I've been able to gather, his relationship with religion is deeply ambivalent. At times he has identified himself as an atheist, and at other times a Christian, but always in either case with a foot in the other camp. I find this comforting, insofar as I often feel like I too have a foot in both camps, even though I am quite clearly by default and by intention a Christian.

At the end of the day, I think the desire to share a link of this kind with people we respect or admire is probably at least partly rooted in a degree of insecurity -- the suspicion that we really aren't as plugged into something real or meaningful as we think we are. Or perhaps its the feeling of being validated by the connection, the idea that despite our doubts, our shared worldview testifies that we are on to something true. And again, perhaps its the desire to feel like we have something worthwhile, and its recognition by "the world" enables us to continue to insist on its worth.

Whether the people we want to insist on including in our club actually want to be included of course, is another matter.

Doing Church "Differently"

Reluctant Xian has something to say about the trend toward making churches "hip":

Spare me the hip.

Do you try to connect people to God?  Do you try to tell the story of a world in desperate need of Divine intervention in the person of Jesus?  Do you try to help people see how God is active in the world?

If you do, then you don’t do church differently; you do it in the way it has always been done.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  I’m a reluctant Christian at times because, well, church branding has become a business taking its cues from contemporary advertising.  In the need to feel relevant, so many places just end up fading into the same melange of commercials bombarding people daily.

What I think Christians and churches should be asking themselves is: are the symbols and mediums we use deep in meaning?  Do they reflect a fullness that exemplifies the fullness of God?

How about we spend our time on that rather than spend time trying to convince people that we “do church differently.”

Don’t do church differently.  Tell the story.  Invite people into a relationship with the God shown through the Christ.

And turn off the advertising machine.  It’s not different.  And although it tries to be hip, it is not.

There are also some harsh words for the shallowness of much contemporary Christian worship music:

Churches have always sung a variety of songs, some contextual and some more reflective of their ancestors.  Ancient Christians sang new songs, ancient Jewish songs, and then some new Christian songs to ancient Jewish music.  You could say the same of any church you go in today.  Amazing Grace done on electric guitar comes to mind.

I would argue, however, that this trend of church songs having only one theme (some variation of “Jesus loves me personally” or “God is awesome”) is fairly recent (within the last 70 years).  That newness, though, doesn’t make it different…I think it should invite us to evaluative questions like, “Is this really the best we can do in expressing our thoughts about God in song” or “Is God other than awesome?  Is Jesus more than just for me?”.

It’s clear those questions aren’t being asked in many circles.  Please, someone, ask those questions.  Mumford and Sons is writing songs with more theological depth than most anyone in the world of CCM.*

I have to say, tired as I am of more traditional liturgical styles, and the general sense that churches have become places of pomp and circumstance with little spiritual substance, I agree with the point being made here, both with regard to the idea that much of what passes for "hipness" in church is in fact very ancient, and with the critique of the vacuousness of most contemporary Christian music.

I worry about the cult of personality that seems to pop up in churches that are idolizing the "new" at the expense of the traditional, at the same time I think that worship needs to become more experimental. 

As for the music, well, is it absolutely necessary that it be so excruciating? What I wouldn't give for a worship service where the music is a combination of traditional hymns and Sufjan Stevens with some Mountain Goats thrown in for variety. Can someone get on that for me?

That's How the Light Gets In

"What would the world be like if Christians actually believed in a humble God? If following a God of poverty and humility led them to abandon their opinions, prejudices, and judgments so they could be more open to love others where they are, like God?

Francis went about the world following the footprints of Christ, not so he could look like Christ, but because they were the footprints of divine humility. He discovered that God descends in love to meet us where we are and he found God in the most unexpected forms: the disfigured flesh of a leper, the complaints of a brother, the radiance of the sun, in short, the cloister of the universe. The wisdom of Francis makes us realize that God loves us in our incomplete humanity even though we are always running away trying to rid ourselves of defects, wounds and brokenness.

If we could only see that God is there in the cracks of our splintered human lives we would already be healed," - Ilia Delio, in The Humility of God.  (via Andrew Sullivan)

Bonus Leonard Cohen:

 

 

Felicia Day Is Cool

Taking a break from theo-blogging to dip into nerd blogging. Hope you don't mind.

In Your American Skin

"Is it a gun/is it a knife/is it a wallet/this is your life":

 

Sometimes it feels like nothing ever much changes.

He Has Raised Me From the Pit and Set Me High

I'm on a Mountain Goats kick again. It happens every couple of months I just start listening to the Mountain Goats constantly and/or trying to play MG songs on my guitar. In that vein, I came across the following quote from John Darnielle, which resonates deeply with me. Speaking of Psalms 40:2, my favorite Mountain Goats song, he says:

There's a number of different ways of feeling holy and connected with God. One way you can get really close to God is to sin as hard as you can. Because there's only one person, in theory, who can save you from that. His whole job, in a sense, is to absolve you of sin, to forgive you of sin. You're not supposed to, but you can test God by doing a lot of terrible things. If you directly intend to offend him, though, it would probably be the most direct, in a sense-- this is kind of Hare Krishna stuff, where they talk about the different ways you can stand with God. One is as a lover, but another is as His enemy. Because when you are engaging with someone in a position of enmity, that is also a very intimate relationship. 

So these people are doing some bad things and one of them, the one who sins, is sort of experiencing a connection to God in the depths of his degradation-- which I think is almost a universal experience. When do you cry out to the God you don't believe in? When you hit bottom. That's the moment at which you are going to sort of know Him best. I don't even know, when I say Him, if I should put it in quotes or not, because I don't want to sound like I'm actually saying that. But I'm also saying that your ideas of God will come to rest upon you in your moment of profoundest degradation, which is kind of what that song is about.

And of course, the video:

 

George Harrison and the Weakness of the Flesh

Via Andrew Sullivan, a link to Andrew Furguson's article on George Harrison's relationship with religion. Write's Furguson:

The theme that emerges from this dog’s breakfast involves Harrison’s split personality—or as he might prefer to put it, his dual nature, the yin and yang—as a religious seeker on the one side and a decadent, heedless rock star on the other. If you had even a passing acquaintance with Harrison’s career you know about the religion part, but nobody in the movie or book ever gets specific enough to fill us in on the other half.

“He had two personalities,” Ringo says. “One was this bag of [prayer] beads, the other was this big bag of anger.” Yoko Ono seconds that emotion: “He had two aspects,” she says. “Sometimes he was very nice. Sometimes he was [long pause] too honest.” Paul McCartney, coy as ever, says, “He was my mate, so I can’t say too much. But he was a guy, a red-blooded guy, and he liked what guys like.”

I read such things, and I guess I'm always surprised at the surprise. Whether it's George Harrison or St. Augustine, the fact remains that all human beings have such split personalities. Some of us make lean more heavily on one dimension or the other, but both -- hedonist and spiritual seaker -- are always there.

Sullivan, though, has trouble grasping a different aspect of Harrison's spiritual life.  In light of his early rejection of Christianity, where did "My Sweet Lord" come from?:

So why, one wonders, the explicitly Christian - and ecumenical - lyrics of the song? I have been able to relate to this song both when I was far more tradition-bound in my faith and since. Harrison may not have been an "orthodox" believer - but neither was Jesus.

On the one hand, let me second that final sentiment, but Sullivan makes a mistake in assuming that the "Sweet Lord" Harrison is singing about is Jesus. The Lord being addressed (quite explicitly in fact) in the song is Lord Krishna. That said, I'm always happy as a Christian to appropriate the sentiment for my own religious purposes, and often do so while singing along in the car.

Punk Professors

Matt Yglesias makes an intriguing point about the intersection of punk rock and academia:

I think the punk scene and the humanistic branches of the academy have some important things in common. They both involve a kind of deep rejection of the logic of market exchange.

I sort of see Matt's point. Academia does serve as a refuge for a great many people who aren't really eager to submit to the demands of ordinary life in capitalist society. Academics don't keep the same schedules that people with "real jobs" typically do. We often produce work that is of little to no inherent commercial value, and we often speak meaningfully and forcefully about the need to "keep our integrity, man!"

On the other hand, as some of Matt's commentors point out, Academia, like punk rock, depends for its rejection of a capitalist ethos on the tolerance and largesse of precisely the capitalist system that, either implicitly or explicitly, we are engaged in the process of rejecting.

On the other, other hand, the liklihood that I'll have a chance to compare myself to Joe Strummer again any time in the foreseeable future is exceedingly unlikely (except in the sense of "Joe Strummer was a really good guitarist, as opposed to Scott Paeth, who isn't"), so I'll take my opportunities as they come!