Bono

As I delve deeper into the world of iPod (and all things thereto/thereof) I am exposed to more and better content of the 'blog' world. In general I"m referring to podcasting. Let me say this before I move any further along. You don't need an iPod to subscribe to/listen to a podcast. Don't fall under the same misunderestimation that I did. I am sure that there are several ways that you can listen to podcasting, iTunes being the best. Okay, back to the post. The majority of podcasts are basically just audio blogs. Just people who feel like they've got something to say, and wanting to be heard rather than read. And I must admit, I'm guilty of that as well on some of my podcasts. Ok, I feel the pressure of moving on to the actual ChristianArts related post. I'm getting to it.

So I was digging through the iTunes podcast directory and I was able to find an interview with Bono, the lead singer of the Irish rock band, U2. (Yea, right, like he needs an introduction) The guy who did the interview was the head dude (that's an official professional term) of Rolling Stone magazine, Jann S. Wenner. I was really quite impressed by the entire interview. It is a five part series, and is close to three hours in total. But it was pretty amazing.

I find it quite rare to be able to sit there and have a very interesting man talking about subjects that I care about, and have him basically whispering in my ear (wearing my headphones). As Bono mentions, as he reminisces about listening to Bob Dylan in his headphones, it's quite intimate. You feel like you are actually getting to know that person. There were so many subjects covered in that several hour long interview that it makes it quite difficult for me to try to comment upon all of it. So, I suppose that I'll try to limit it to just a couple of things.

The first thing that I was taken by is the accent. I love the Irish accent. There is something intelligent, yet getting-stabbed-in-the-back-of-an-alley toughness about it. He is very engaging simply by his voice. Hence the name, Bono Vox.
The second thing that I have marveled at for quite some time, is the ability to profess your Christianity, while in the very same breath, spouting $h!@$%^ curses. Bono does a good job of taming his tongue (but Jann could care less what kind of trash comes out of his mouth), but I know that a certain portion of the cursing is somewhat of a cultural thing. When I was over in Dublin I discovered that the majority of Dubliners used the F-word as an adjective. It's not that they were necessarily trying to curse, more along the lines of adding color to the language. (Okay, so Bono's Irish. So Skaggs, what's your excuse? ha ha ;-)

The third and final thing that I will comment upon (I'll let you listen to the rest) is his deep care and compassion toward the hurt and dying in Africa. It is obvious that his heart breaks for those people. So much so that he had to re-visit Congress TEN TIMES in his initial stab at shaking money out of the American tree. He has created an organization called D.A.T.A. which stands for debt AIDS trade Africa. He's met with President George W. Bush, and has done work with former president Bill Clinton. He is a champion for people suffering in Africa. As an interesting side-note, one of the reasons that he really loves going to Africa is that he is completely unknown there.

This is a bit of a different twist to the kind of posts that are typically on here. More of a 'spread the word about the Bono podcast' than anything else. I really think that it is worth it to check it out when you have some time to kill. I always like to have the box of my American Christianity opened up by hearing others points-of-view on life.
God Bless and enjoy!
Matt

P.s. Blatant self-plug follows.

P.p.s. If you would like to get involved in the world of podcasting (as a spectator that is) then simply click on the button below to subscribe to my podcast. It's not the greatest, but it gets better with every passing day. I have learned some really great things lately, and I hope that it shows. Just click on the podcast icon below to subscribe.

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Good Things Come in Small Packages.

Hey everyone,
This isn't very long, but it's definitely worth posting...and on point!

"We do not need more people writing Christian books, what we need is more Christians writing good books."
- C.S. Lewis

With the recent Lewis craze, I thought it appropriate. With the subject matter of this blog, I thought it applicable. With the content of the quote, I thought it accurate.

Continue reading "Good Things Come in Small Packages."

The Art of Space

I was pointed to this site by an engineering friend. I was stunned and delighted by the idea presented.

PARK(ing)
(Make sure to view the photos to get the full impact of the project.)

My question is this: can a green, growing space within an urban fortress of concrete be considered "art"?

My answer would be "yes."

Consider this quote by the composer Haydn, when he felt he was too tired to continue his work:

A secret feeling within me whispered, "There are so few happy and contented people here below, sorrow and anxiety pursue them everywhere; perhaps your work may, some day, become a spring from which the careworn may draw a few moments' rest and refreshment."

If that doesn't describe the PARK(ing) project, I don't know what does.

If art is meant to arrest the attention, make people see life in a new way, and challenge their perceptions, this does that, too. And if art at its best is a reflection of God's creation, then bringing pieces of God's creation to places where they have been obscured fits that bill as well.

Interestingly, it's clear that the creators did not think of this as "art," but as an urban revitalization project, if a temporary one.

So does this qualify as Art? Does art have boundaries of materials or intention? Is this just a fun way to spend a couple of hours?

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Review of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord

I want to be honest from the start and tell you that when I first saw an article about this book, I was skeptical. Anne Rice is a fairly young Christian, coming out of years of studying and writing about very dark things. There has been a lot of hype about this book and how the former queen of all things dark is now attempting to write a first person narrative of the early years of Christ. Also noted in the articles I've read has been the fact that she relied on many extrabiblical sources, such as the apocryphal gospels. So yes, I was skeptical.


Nonetheless, I picked up the book, and was - I admit - quickly hooked. She's a great writer, and this is a really good story. Now the very first chapter contains a story that I immediately recognized from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus causes the death of another child, using his divine power, and then raises the same child from the dead. For those not familiar with this gospel, let me just quote Wikipedia a site which attempts to present a balanced view of most things:

The text describes the life of the child Jesus, with fanciful supernatural events. One of the episodes involves Jesus making clay birds, which he then proceeds to bring to life, an act also attributed to Jesus in the Qur'an, thus indicating the text may have had substantial influence on Arabic tradition by the 7th century. In another episode, a child disperses water that Jesus has collected, so Jesus makes the child's body wither into a corpse, and another child is killed by Jesus when he accidentally bumps into him.

When Joseph and Mary's neighbor's complain, they are miraculously struck blind by Jesus. Jesus then starts receiving lessons, but arrogantly tries to teach the teacher instead, upsetting the teacher who suspects supernatural origins. Jesus is amused by this suspicion, which he confirms, and revokes all his earlier cruelty. Subsequently he heals a friend who is killed when he falls from a roof, and another who cuts his foot with an axe.

Note that Rice also uses the story of the clay birds. Here is what Rice has to say about her use of this source in her "Author's Note" to the book:

Then there were the legends -- The Apocrypha -- including the tantalizing tales in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas describing a boy Jesus who could strike a child dead, bring another to life, turn clay birds in to living creatures, and perform other miracles. I'd stumbled on them very early in my research, in multiple editions, and never forgot them. And neither had the world. They were fanciful, some of them humorous, extreme to be sure, but they had lived on into the Middle Ages, and beyond. I couldn't get these legends out of my mind.

Ultimately, I chose to embrace this material, to enclose it within the canonical framework as best I could. I felt there was a deep truth in it, and I wanted to preserve that truth as it spoke to me. Of course, that is an assumption. But I made it. And perhaps in assuming that Jesus did manifest supernatural powers at an early age I am somehow being true to the declaration of the Council of Chalcedon, that Jesus was God and Man at all times.

For those interested, here is a link describing that Council. I would agree with the dual nature of Christ - that is basic theology. But I don't think her explanation gives adequate validation to her use of a non-Biblical source that so clearly contains false assertions about Jesus.

At this point some may think that I am being too dogmatic in my approach to this book. Perhaps so. I will say that I did not find fault with Rice's reliance on certain Catholic beliefs about Mary - for example her perpetual virginity. Rice takes the traditional Catholic view that James was a son of Joseph from a previous marriage and that although he took Mary as his wife, they did not have relations. That's not how I read the scripture, but its also not all that important. I was willing to go along with her on that issue, because I don't think it reflects one way or another on the character or nature of Christ.

I did take issue, however with a variance that Rice seems to have taken from scripture. The climax of her book takes place when Jesus is eight years old and returns to the the Temple with his family. She works in the account (from Luke 2:41-52) of Jesus getting left behind at the temple for three days. This works nicely into the arc of her story. However, a close reading of Luke will reveal that this in fact happened when Christ was twelve years old, not eight. Not hugely important I suppose, but it does reveal a willingness in Rice to ignore scripture in order to make her story work.

For those who still think I'm taking these details too seriously, let me say this. I am familiar with two other fictionalized accounts of biblical stories. There are more, I'm sure, but the two that I am most familiar with are Paul by Walter Wangerin Jr. and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I read the first of the two (my wife read the second) and while I don't recall finding any discrepancies between the ideas in Paul and the Biblical account, I didn't pay as much attention. Why? Because it doesn't matter that much who Paul was. Was he tall or short? Nice or mean? Doesn't really matter.

But it does matter who Jesus was. Every detail matters. Why? Because this was God incarnate. So any detail of who he was, reflects directly on the nature of God. That's no small thing - but it seems to me that Rice is treating it as a small thing. Yes, its a fictional account, but let's be honest - even a fictional account is an attempt to affect how the reader views the details of the non-fiction event. For Rice to pull in material from such clearly false sources as the Infancy Gospel seems inexcusable.

I would love to be able to recommend this book. It is enjoyable, and I think there's some good aspects to it, but I think that all of it is outweighed by Rice's treading too carelessly on sacred ground. Worse, I get the impression that she has plans to continue the series, and delve further into the early life of Christ. I hope that if she does so, she'll do it with more care.

Let me conclude by saying that I do think some good will come of this book. Rice has a huge following, and I hope and pray that many who are far from Christ will read this book and become intrigued - perhaps even come to saving faith. But overall, I think that she has overstepped herself - putting too much trust in her own research and the praises she has heard from years of success, and not enough trust in the years of diligent study and prayer by the rest of the body of Christ.

Continue reading "Review of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord"

Discussion Topic 2 - Gerard Manley Hopkins

Alright folks, time for another discussion topic. Let's talk about Gerard Manley Hopkins. Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry on him. The short story is that he was a well educated man who decided to become a Jesuit priest. He continued to write some amazing poetry, such as the following:

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge & shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast & with ah! bright wings.

According to the Wikipedia entry, he struggled with feeling that his love of poetry prevented him from being fully devoted to his religion - which is interesting since his poems are, and have been, so effective at moving others to worship God. Some of his work was accepted, but not published by a Jesuit journal, which he took as a rejection.

You could take a lot of directions with this, and I'll leave it open, but here's some interesting questions.

• Where are the Christians creating this level of art in our day?
  
• How does the rejection of his poetry by the Jesuit order in his day mirror our expectations of priests/pastors in our day?
  

A reminder - don't respond in comments to this post, but go ahead and make a complete post, preceding the title with "DT2" so that its clear you're talking on this subject.

Continue reading "Discussion Topic 2 - Gerard Manley Hopkins"