Fall On Your Knees!

What Christmas celebration would be complete without another link to the most horrible-yet-heartfelt cover of O Holy Night?

O Holy Night

I don’t know about you, but this takes me straight back to the offertory special vocalist at church when I was a kid. The guy who only got one or two shots at the microphone per year and had to make it count.

“You know it was… divine.”

Fuhgetaboutit: Redemption, Vulgarity, and Art

So I have a confession to make.  Granted, a lot of my sleeplessness recently has much to do with caring for a newborn baby boy.  But before this, for about the length of Serena’s pregnancy, the two of us have been helping ourselves to vigorous doses of HBO megahit, The Sopranos, via DVD.

 

The Sopranos

Before I go any further, I would never recommend viewing this series to anyone who has serious conscientious objections to gratuitous violence, sex scenes, nudity, drug use, vulgar language or general human depravity being displayed in your home.  I realize that with that last sentence I opened up a huge can of implication with regard to my own viewing temperament, but know that the show was only on for adult consumption – well after the kids were fast asleep.

 

Now personally, I didn’t get a visceral rise out of scenes that included topless dancers at the Bing, much less scenes of violence or illicit drug use.  Perhaps if I had watched 10 or 15 years ago it would have been a different scenario.  Also, the way the show was done made these scenes so commonplace that the viewer can allow such displays to fade into the periphery.  Again, big opening for anyone who would like to judge my maturity here.

When the last scene of the final episode of the final season ended last night, I had a moment of deep introspection while the credits rolled.  I won’t spoil the ending for anyone who is in the middle of it, but it occurred to me that, in this tragicomedy, life was displayed in a gritty and realistic, if heightened, frame.  Too often, and especially in the circles I most often run with, art is only appreciated when it’s free of ugliness, vulgarity, depravity, and deep ethical conflict — and instead reflects a feel-good, sugarcoated version of heightened fantasy.  As I thought further about this today, I realized that, while I may take some heat for watching The Soprano family spiral into destruction, the entertainment many Christians consume without a tinge of guilt — those romantic comedies, action movies and a lot of what’s on TV —  would be banned without a seconds thought by our grandparents.  What does this say about culture and Christianity?  Do we slip further and further away from purity as time goes on, or has our sense of propriety and the role of art in communicating ethics and morality shifted?  Can the Gospel be preached by reflecting off the morality tale of the Sopranos?  Maybe not in most of our churches today.  But does that mean such shows and films are bereft of redemptive value?  At what point is art impossible to redeem for spiritual discussion?

The Candidates: On Record About the Economy

With so much partisan line-drawing going on in the past few weeks, I found this series of articles from the Tennessee Journalist helpful and refreshing.

In their own words: “As with the rest of the series, the first half of each installment is the politician’s self-described plan, while the second half will be detailed information about the politician’s history on the issue.”

John McCain on the Economy

Barack Obama on the Economy

From “Core Doctrines” to “Core Practices”

George P. Wood at AG Think Tank asked for some feedback on the AG General Council’s interest in drumming up support for our four core doctrines: Salvation, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Divine Healing, and the Rapture of the Saints.

I offered my two cents (and about a dollar more thrown in for good measure) here.

Roadshow California Roll

Following an evening of preaching, reading, singing and dancing, the cast and crew of the Church Basement Roadshow left town at around 10:30 p.m., pulling out of the Sequoyah Community parking lot and beginning the long trek through darkness to Portland after the “Rollin’ gospel revival” wrapped up its’ final California event in Oakland last night. Revivalists Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette have been at this for just under ten days, and have clearly found the rhythm of life on the road even as the subtle cracks of fatigue become apparent. But they’re giving it a whoop, and a push, and they’re giving it all they’ve got; and the Oakland show was no exception to the rule.

These are guys on a mission:

Come on down to a lively hootenanny

Grab a tambourine and all your neighbors! It’s The Church Basement Roadshow – A Rollin’ Gospel Revival!

No, really. Grab a tambourine and come on out to Oakland on Saturday, June 21 @ 7pm. Featuring music from The Cobalt Season and a lively, old-timey revival with Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette. And seriously… you’re invited to dress up circa 1906 and bring an instrument to join the revival band. Start growing those mutton chops, gents…

UPDATE: Now you can get a ride from BART…