Quite simply, this is one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard, with the latest item on my "Things to do before I die" list being to hear a live performance of Gorecki's Third Symphony. Your move, RTE Concert Orchestra.
I said last night that Ben and Jerry's Karamel Sutra is the best argument we have for the existence of God. I was wrong. This is the best argument we have...
Perhaps I'm an old-fashioned romantic, perhaps I suffer from an acute case of sentimentality, but whatever the reason, I sometimes hear a piece of music and think "That would be a great song for someone to walk down (up?) the aisle to."
The latest is Hanan Townshend's instrumental version of "Welcome, Happy Morning", a hymn penned by St Venantius Fortunatus in the 6th Century and given music by the Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan in the 19th. I came across it in Malick's The Tree of Life, with its soft piano tones forming the background to Jack's discovery of a girl as desirable. These are wonderful scenes that capture the distance, awkwardness, and strangeness of young love as well as its wonder, and the music fits in perfectly.
Indeed, I wonder if the unsung words of the hymn were not intended to elliptically resonate throughout the film, so near are they to the vision of the work.
“Welcome, happy morning!” age to age shall say:
“Hell today is vanquished, Heav’n is won today!”
Lo! the dead is living, God forevermore!
Him, their true Creator, all His works adore!
Refrain
“Welcome, happy morning!”
Age to age shall say.
Earth her joy confesses, clothing her for spring,
All fresh gifts returned with her returning King:
Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough,
Speak His sorrow ended, hail His triumph now.
Refrain
Months in due succession, days of lengthening light,
Hours and passing moments praise Thee in their flight.
Brightness of the morning, sky and fields and sea,
Vanquisher of darkness, bring their praise to Thee.
Refrain
Maker and Redeemer, life and health of all,
Thou from heaven beholding human nature’s fall,
Of the Father’s Godhead true and only Son,
Mankind to deliver, manhood didst put on.
Refrain
Thou, of life the Author, death didst undergo,
Tread the path of darkness, saving strength to show;
Come, then True and Faithful, now fulfill Thy Word;
’Tis Thine own third morning; rise, O buried Lord!
Refrain
Loose the souls long prisoned, bound with Satan’s chain;
If you're one of those people who've decided biblical scholardom is not the place for you, then Stanley Hauerwas's essay in the festschrift for New Testament scholar Richard Hays (who, I have it on extremely reliable information, used to be called "Chip" in college) makes for terrifically comforting reading. Here are some of the gems:
Hays at one time thought it crucial to maintain the distinction between "what it meant" and "what it means" to insure that the Scripture can judge the church. I do not know if he still thinks such a distinction is necessary, but from my perspective such a distinction only insures that members of the Society of Biblical Literature can judge the church.
The reader will note that I avoid using the language of "interpretation" because I think such language suggests that the text has "a meaning" which then must be interpreted. Such a view reproduces the habits of liberal Protestant theologians who assume the language of Scripture needs to be demythologised to meet the epistemic standards of modernity.
To try to isolate the "meaning" of a word from its use is to assume that language is one thing and what the language depicts is something quite other. As a result language and the world are understood to be externally related to one another in a manner that language users are positioned as spectators rather than performers. The presumption that a dualism exists between language and the world hides from us that "the world" is constituted by language and that there is no way to transcend language to speak about language.
Theology isn't about saying something new, but about the way we put things today given what has been said yesterday. (Which is another way of saying what Barth said at the beginning of Church Dogmatics.)
Craig Hovey doesn't say anything new in this quote, but the way he puts it is as good as I've read.
...modern (secular, liberal) states morally form citizens who willingly submit to the state's formation on grounds that the state has legitimacy so long as it does not claim moral authority.
There is a little known story in one of the gospels where Jesus offered people -- sculptors, shepherds, farmers, leaders, authors, bloggers, speakers -- the chance to spend two days conversing and sand-surfing with him, all for the cost of 25 denarii. Spaces were limited, however, with only the first 12 people eligible to avail of this once-in-a-lifetime offer to sit at the feet of Jesus for what was, admittedly, a hefty sum. Still, as the Lord himself said in response to his critics, "This is the co$t of discipleship."
For those who don't know, Rob Bell used to be a pastor. Now, he is offering 90 people the chance to spend two days conversing and surfing with him. Why is Rob Bell doing this?
"Because
sometimes we need to drop what we’re doing, step out of our routine,
breathe in some fresh air, and be reminded that we signed up for a
revolution."
Apparently the price of that fresh air is $500, with the Rob Bell foundation revolving to the tune of $90,000 for four days of pastoral work. This is an abomination of biblical proportions.
With Pussy Riot making Russian Orthodoxy topical, now is as good a time as any to post my essay chronicling some of the key moments in Orthodox history, from its birth up until right before the attempt at its life. That is roughly a millenium of history; needless to say, I have at times run roughshod over it, and doubtless there are more than a few "facts" relayed that are no such things. This was my first piece of historical work, and I was sort of making it up as I went along. (Making up how to do it; not making up the history. Well, maybe a little of that to.)
The conclusion is probably unwarranted given what I wrote before it, but from all the reading I did that didn't make the cut or that was shoehorned into a footnote I knew there was more to Orthodoxy than it being a handmaiden for the state (or the state being a handmaiden for it). My regret is that I didn't have the space, or perhaps the creativity and courage, to tell the more Christlike side of the Orthodox story. History is usually not written with that side in mind, so it would have taken more effort to find sources that describe the beauty and truth that the Orthodox faith and its saints infused into the lives of Russians. I didn't mention the holy fools, the sobornost, the iconostasis, Rublev, and a host of other people, events and things that make Russian Orthodox history far from monolithic. Perhaps some day I will.
Yet given the current controversy, what I wrote seems at least in some way explanatory and close to the truth of one side of Russian Orthodoxy. You can have a read here:
God does not react. God acts out of the infinity of his being, his every action a manifestation of what has been true from the beginning. This is another way of saying that God is impassible; and if David Bentley Hart is to be believed, it is another way of saying that God is love.
I was thinking about this in relation to redemption, which is often spoken of as a reaction. Specifically, God's reaction to our sin problem. Redemption through and in Christ is therefore God's response to our action. This is how I have always thought of things, and it's why I wasn't quite convinced when Kevin would say something outlandish like "We are redeemed before we are created." I had decent reasons for rejecting that statement, or so I thought, the most forceful being that it seemed to me to make our disobedience necessary to the story of reconciliation. Ivan Karamazov's refusal to accept that the suffering of a little girl could be justified by some greater good was my refusal, and still is. But it is precisely at this point that God being our redeemer before he is our creator shows itself to be good news, for it shows that our evil was not necessary to God being the giver of every good and perfect gift. Creation itself is an expression of the God who redeems, and in the immanent life of the Trinity, we are loved before we are. Indeed we have, all of us, been loved into being, therefore no sin, no suffering has been a necessary evocation of divine love. It was there in the beginning. As Hart says,
God does not have to change or suffer in order to love us or show us mercy -- he loved us when we were not, and by this very "mercy" created us -- and so, as love, he can overcome all suffering.
Blue Like Jazz is one of the key books in the Emergent/Emerging/Emerged canon. I haven't read it, but it has been recommended to me by friends. I have, however, seen the recent film adaptation, and the verdict is...I didn't hate it. In fact it had plenty going for it - likeable characters, a decent portrayal of that new-world-of-college experience where you stumble upon friends and try new things, and -- if Portlandia is to be believed -- a fairly accurate depiction of the quirk-fest that is Portland, Oregon.
The story is that of Donald Miller, a southern baptist living in Texas who experiences the hypocrisy of Christians first-hand and decides to leave it all behind -- his home, his family and friends, his identity -- in order to create a new self in a strange place, filled with lesbians and atheists. Not much of those in southern baptist circles, I imagine. (For the record, Donald Miller does not transform himself into a lesbian atheist called Donna Ditchkins, but if there are any film makers reading this, I think I've spotted a gap in the market.)
There is also this girl -- of course there is -- and it is Miller's relationship with her vis-a-vis his relationship with God and the Church that forms the spine of the film. If the previous sentence made you sigh, rest assured, it's not quite what you fear. Of course the film has problems. As much as Southern Baptists might deserve it [I once asked a lecturer in college what the difference was between the American Baptist Association and the Southern Baptist Convention, and his answer was "Thought"] they are probably justifiably angry at being portrayed solely as hypocritical, fundamentalist nutjobs. Which feeds into the second problem, namely, the lack of Miller the Southern Baptist. His new life in Portland would have been much more affecting and intriguing if we had seen more of his old life in Texas. Other than Don's hair becoming a little cooler, it wasn't quite clear what changes occurred in Reed College. Or should I say, the changes were assumed changes rather than manifest. For example, we assume Miller wasn't the kind of person who let a lesbian sleep beside him in his bed, but we don't fully know, therefore the moment loses force. Finally, there was a few too many "here's a random, funny incident from college that may or may not help with the telling of this story" moments for my liking.
Still, I came in a little sceptical, but came out wanting to read Blue Like Jazz. Since the book is almost always better than the film, then I may just have to dip into the Emergent/Emerging/Emerged canon once more. *sigh* (ps - Is that a closed canon?)
I was thinking about the relationship between rural Ireland's faith in God/Catholic Church and rural Ireland's faith in Cumann Lúthchleas Gael. The church and the club are intertwined at several levels in the recent history of Irish society, but I wonder how natural the marriage was between the two? I have heard various reasons for the decline in Irish religiosity in recent years. As much as I appreciate football and hurling and the people who love and play it (a small portion of whom are related to me), I'm tentatively going to put the Church/G.A.A. relations (coupled with the move of young people from countryside to city) on the stand for questioning.
My hyopthesis is: Anything that takes up as much time, intellect, emotion, work, and conversation as the G.A.A. has is bound to take its toll on the amount time, intellect, emotion, work, and conversation one has for God and his work. This isn't to portray God and hurling as inherently inimical. But it is to question the way things -- both in the church and in the club -- have been practised. D'Unbelievables capture this practice brilliantly in the following skit:
The decline, I suppose, comes when young people leave their parish and enter college life or work life in the city, bringing with them a wealth of knowledge and love (or resentment!) for hurling or football but not much of either for their Catholicism. The parents' passion for Irish sport is faithfully handed down, but not their devotion to the parish church.
Is this another example of secularisation? The statistics might say so, but I'm not convinced. Yet truth be told, I don't know what I'm talking about. But I know there are readers who do (know what they're talking about), so if you could tell me why I'm way off the mark or point me to any relevant resources that'd be appreciated.
