I recently got the chance to speak to a Jr. high and high school group about Christian art and how it is our responsibility as believers to make the best works possible to glorify God. After giving the talk I was convicted about my rule as a worship leader. I don't have an official rule, but in the Bible study my wife and I attend I typically lead the worship. I've long felt that there needs to be new worship music written in the Church, music which better glorifies God. So I decided that since my thesis is (basically) finished, I should work on writing some new songs. For the last hour I played the guitar and tried to come up with something, but everything I write sounds superficial, phony, mediated, trivial, or irreverent. I want to write something that evokes that loving awe we should have for God, something which isn't focused on "me" and "I," something that sounds like it is humble before the Lord instead of just saying it is. I don't know where to start. Any ideas? Help? Pointers? Advice?
For some of my other thoughts on this topic, read this old blog post.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Mumbles Hip-Hop Reviews Points, Thoughts, and Stories
This review is a little disappointing. No one can accuse us of denying the bad reviews. Although, technically we get a 7/10, the language suggests otherwise. However, it does end on the optimistic note that they believe the next album will be better. What do you'all expect, this is our first album!
"The album consists of nice instrumentals and a mixture of west coast and alternative Hip Hop. Noneuclidean and Offbeat both provide very positive raps and their lyrical content is very poetic and they demonstrate that in each track the art of story telling and opinons."
Read the Entire Mumbles Hip-Hop.com Review here.
"The album consists of nice instrumentals and a mixture of west coast and alternative Hip Hop. Noneuclidean and Offbeat both provide very positive raps and their lyrical content is very poetic and they demonstrate that in each track the art of story telling and opinons."
Read the Entire Mumbles Hip-Hop.com Review here.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Discovering Truth in Literature
It is one of the most fulfilling feelings in life to read a passage from a book, hear a lyric, or see a painting which perfectly captures some deep truth about life that you have always felt but have never been able to articulate. Today, in the Antelope Valley where I live, it is dark, gloomy, and overcast. I think I have always felt a deep melancholy when night falls and the world around is flooded with false lights struggling futilely against the darkness. It seems to have inherently held a symbolic meaning for me, suggesting the hubris of man and yet also his desperate desire to live life indifferent to, or in denial of human and natural corruption. I was reading Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native today and was surprised to find that Hardy finds this same symbolism in man's war against the night:
Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature. It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against the fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say, Let there be light. (The Return of the Native)When I find art perfectly reflecting Truths like this, Truths that I cannot express in direct language, it reaffirms for me the purpose, and value of art.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Review/Article on the Road
The following is an article I wrote and shopped around to see if I could get it published. I figured since the Road was just given a Pulitzer, someone would be interested in an article, but no luck. I'm tired of getting rejection letters, so I'm just going to post it here. Enjoy!
Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, John Updike. Which of these authors is not like the others? Last year, the New York Times put out a list of the “Best Work of American Fiction of the Past 25 Years.” Toni Morrison’s Beloved earned the top honors, but the first runner-up was Blood Meridian, perhaps the most brutally violent work of all of American literature, written by a reclusive resident of Texas named Cormac McCarthy. Before the New York Times published this list, McCarthy’s greatest claims to fame would likely be the film adaptation of his novel All the Pretty Horses (the novel version of which was an honorable mention on the list along with two other McCarthy novels) staring Matt Damon and the repeated claims of aging literary critic Harold Bloom that Blood Meridian is one of the best works of American fiction of all time. According to Bloom, and many others, McCarthy will likely become as well known as Morrison, Roth, DeLillo, and Updike in the coming years. What is so surprising about this is how greatly McCarthy’s works differ from those of the other great contemporary American authors. While Morrison attempts to wrestle with what it means to be haunted by the past, the events and effects that slavery and racism brought about, with what it means to be African-American, McCarthy writes about American soldiers who scalp Indians for the Mexican government without any commentary on colonization, oppression, or race relations. While DeLillo explores the new, commercialized horror of living in a world completely submerged by the media and late-capitalism, and ironically laments the mediation of death and the futility of dieing authentically, McCarthy strips the world of all superstructures and ideals and focuses on one question: why live? In the author’s latest work The Road (which was just chosen by Oprah for her book club and awarded a Pulitzer on Monday), he moves further ideologically from his postmodern contemporaries and seems to make a claim for the importance of religion in both our personal and intellectual lives. In doing so, he crafts a gripping tale of survival and the transcendent importance of a father-son relationship.
The Road follows the story of a father and son (who remain nameless throughout the novel) as they learn how and why they should survive in an utterly desolate world. The father and son make their way south through a wasted earth (destroyed by some unspoken disaster), avoiding bands of cannibals, and searching for canned food, all the while questioning if they are the “good guys” or not. The Road might sound more like a 70’s B-movie than a work of great fiction, but that’s all part of McCarthy’s genius: he is able to place his characters in settings that are typically used to explore social or political issues and yet never address those issues. We don’t know what happened to the earth, all we are told is that there was “a series of low concussions” and that the father started filling his bathtub right away. McCarthy carefully leaves nearly all possibilities open: it could have been a natural disaster, a meteor, a nuclear war, just about anything. Each of these possibilities opens up a set of related political issues that would necessitate commentary, and I doubt any of his contemporaries would have passed up such a chance were they in his shoes, but McCarthy has bigger fish to fry.
It is easy to read The Road as an exploration of nihilism, or at least extreme pessimism, if you ignore the father/son relationship. The landscape of the novel is a wasteland like no other: brutal, ugly, gray, and a mere shell of the world that had been. The man and the boy are perpetually hungry, cold, and alone. The reader is propelled through the narrative by a sense of impending tragedy. But amongst this darkness shines the light of the boy and his father. There are essentially three worldviews presented in the book: the mother, the father, and the boy. The mother of the boy kills herself before the story takes place because she believes that they are doomed: “Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us.” The father believes that life is worth living, but only to keep his son alive. Finally, the boy challenges both of his parents worldviews by believing in a Christ-like, love-thy-neighbor philosophy when his neighbors are cannibals. He rejects the rationalist beliefs of his mother and the humanist stance of his father, and in doing so makes a claim for the validity of faith---Christian faith at that, in the modern world.
The boy was born into the demolished world; his only connection to the culture and society of the past is his father. What is so striking about this character is that he remains the moral center of the novel without having ever been exposed to the ideas of morality and ethics from modern culture. In fact, much of the novel is comprised of the father acting to keep them alive and the boy questioning whether or not the actions were moral, whether or not the acts made them the “good guys.” In this role, the boy seems to function as a Christ-figure (a fact that is not missed by the father who once suggests to a destitute old man that the boy might be a god: “What if I said that he’s a god?” (145)). At one point in the story, the cart which they use to carry all their supplies is stolen by a starving bandit. The father catches the thief and forces him to strip down and put everything he owns in the cart. The boy protests, “Papa please dont kill the man,” knowing that without food and covering he will die. But echoing the Old Testament ethos of an “eye for an eye,” the father contends that his actions are just since the thief, “didnt mind doing it to us.” After they leave the man to die, the boy cries and confronts his father:
The boy here urges his father to have a Christ like love and turn the other cheek. To which the father replies:
This claim to be “the one,” the “I am,” in the context of this conversation clearly establishes the boy’s symbolic representation of Christ. By the end of the novel it is apparent that McCarthy wants to suggest that Christianity, albeit an unorthodox version, might be the only way to live (or to desire to keep living) in our world filled with violent and selfish people.
The Road might be one of the best works of apologetics published in 2006; it is also a captivating tale of a father/son relationship and a suspenseful horror story. It seems that one of the greatest authors of our time is not an atheist member of the postmodern intelligentsia, but a reclusive old man in Texas who writes of bloodshed, death, violence, truth, love, and faith.
Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, John Updike. Which of these authors is not like the others? Last year, the New York Times put out a list of the “Best Work of American Fiction of the Past 25 Years.” Toni Morrison’s Beloved earned the top honors, but the first runner-up was Blood Meridian, perhaps the most brutally violent work of all of American literature, written by a reclusive resident of Texas named Cormac McCarthy. Before the New York Times published this list, McCarthy’s greatest claims to fame would likely be the film adaptation of his novel All the Pretty Horses (the novel version of which was an honorable mention on the list along with two other McCarthy novels) staring Matt Damon and the repeated claims of aging literary critic Harold Bloom that Blood Meridian is one of the best works of American fiction of all time. According to Bloom, and many others, McCarthy will likely become as well known as Morrison, Roth, DeLillo, and Updike in the coming years. What is so surprising about this is how greatly McCarthy’s works differ from those of the other great contemporary American authors. While Morrison attempts to wrestle with what it means to be haunted by the past, the events and effects that slavery and racism brought about, with what it means to be African-American, McCarthy writes about American soldiers who scalp Indians for the Mexican government without any commentary on colonization, oppression, or race relations. While DeLillo explores the new, commercialized horror of living in a world completely submerged by the media and late-capitalism, and ironically laments the mediation of death and the futility of dieing authentically, McCarthy strips the world of all superstructures and ideals and focuses on one question: why live? In the author’s latest work The Road (which was just chosen by Oprah for her book club and awarded a Pulitzer on Monday), he moves further ideologically from his postmodern contemporaries and seems to make a claim for the importance of religion in both our personal and intellectual lives. In doing so, he crafts a gripping tale of survival and the transcendent importance of a father-son relationship.
The Road follows the story of a father and son (who remain nameless throughout the novel) as they learn how and why they should survive in an utterly desolate world. The father and son make their way south through a wasted earth (destroyed by some unspoken disaster), avoiding bands of cannibals, and searching for canned food, all the while questioning if they are the “good guys” or not. The Road might sound more like a 70’s B-movie than a work of great fiction, but that’s all part of McCarthy’s genius: he is able to place his characters in settings that are typically used to explore social or political issues and yet never address those issues. We don’t know what happened to the earth, all we are told is that there was “a series of low concussions” and that the father started filling his bathtub right away. McCarthy carefully leaves nearly all possibilities open: it could have been a natural disaster, a meteor, a nuclear war, just about anything. Each of these possibilities opens up a set of related political issues that would necessitate commentary, and I doubt any of his contemporaries would have passed up such a chance were they in his shoes, but McCarthy has bigger fish to fry.
It is easy to read The Road as an exploration of nihilism, or at least extreme pessimism, if you ignore the father/son relationship. The landscape of the novel is a wasteland like no other: brutal, ugly, gray, and a mere shell of the world that had been. The man and the boy are perpetually hungry, cold, and alone. The reader is propelled through the narrative by a sense of impending tragedy. But amongst this darkness shines the light of the boy and his father. There are essentially three worldviews presented in the book: the mother, the father, and the boy. The mother of the boy kills herself before the story takes place because she believes that they are doomed: “Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us.” The father believes that life is worth living, but only to keep his son alive. Finally, the boy challenges both of his parents worldviews by believing in a Christ-like, love-thy-neighbor philosophy when his neighbors are cannibals. He rejects the rationalist beliefs of his mother and the humanist stance of his father, and in doing so makes a claim for the validity of faith---Christian faith at that, in the modern world.
The boy was born into the demolished world; his only connection to the culture and society of the past is his father. What is so striking about this character is that he remains the moral center of the novel without having ever been exposed to the ideas of morality and ethics from modern culture. In fact, much of the novel is comprised of the father acting to keep them alive and the boy questioning whether or not the actions were moral, whether or not the acts made them the “good guys.” In this role, the boy seems to function as a Christ-figure (a fact that is not missed by the father who once suggests to a destitute old man that the boy might be a god: “What if I said that he’s a god?” (145)). At one point in the story, the cart which they use to carry all their supplies is stolen by a starving bandit. The father catches the thief and forces him to strip down and put everything he owns in the cart. The boy protests, “Papa please dont kill the man,” knowing that without food and covering he will die. But echoing the Old Testament ethos of an “eye for an eye,” the father contends that his actions are just since the thief, “didnt mind doing it to us.” After they leave the man to die, the boy cries and confronts his father:
Just help him, Papa. Just help him.
The man looked back up the road.
He was just hungry, Papa. He’s going to die.
He’s going to die anyway.
The boy here urges his father to have a Christ like love and turn the other cheek. To which the father replies:
You’re not the one who has to worry about everything.
The boy said something but he couldnt understand him. What? he said.
He looked up, his wet and grimy face. Yes I am, he said. I am the one.
This claim to be “the one,” the “I am,” in the context of this conversation clearly establishes the boy’s symbolic representation of Christ. By the end of the novel it is apparent that McCarthy wants to suggest that Christianity, albeit an unorthodox version, might be the only way to live (or to desire to keep living) in our world filled with violent and selfish people.
The Road might be one of the best works of apologetics published in 2006; it is also a captivating tale of a father/son relationship and a suspenseful horror story. It seems that one of the greatest authors of our time is not an atheist member of the postmodern intelligentsia, but a reclusive old man in Texas who writes of bloodshed, death, violence, truth, love, and faith.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Absurd Pursuit of Happiness
Today I read this article: The Pursuit of Happiness in Perspective by Darrin M McMahon. The premise is that our modern society has gained an altogether unhealthy obsession with "happiness." McMahon sees examples of this phenomenon throughout modern life. What was particularly interesting to me was the underlying idea (which he hints at in his conclusion) that happiness cannot be attained directly. Instead, we must believe in a purpose for our existence which will in turn make us happy. To me, at least, this is an example, evidence, of God's creation. We are creatures who cannot find happiness in the pursuit of happiness but only in the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
McMahon also suggests that nearly all major modern religions have pandered to this obsession; Why become a Christian? Why because you'll be happy of course! Are you unhappy with your current life? Live a fulfilled life (I.E. happiness) with Christ! Anyone who has spent time in or around the Church has heard or read statements similar to these. Notice how uncomfortably related these words are to a diet pill ad: Are you unhappy with your current life? Live a fulfilled life as a thin person! Or perhaps a dating service: Are you unhappy with your current life? Live a fulfilled life with that special someone!
It's true. I am more joyful, more fulfilled as a follower of Christ than when I was not. But McMahon's accusation about the modern Church cannot be ignored. One outcome of my faith is joy, but to isolate this one effect and represent it in the same manner as pharmaceutical companies sell diet pills is to trivialize Christ's work on the cross and to reduce my personal relationship with Christ to the equivalent of mystical Zoloft.
In reality, my walk with Christ often times involves suffering, in fact, it always does. Suffering, sorrow (HE was a Man of sorrows. Consider that for a moment.), persecution, etc. We must be conscious in our language, witness, and articulation of the Gospel so that unbelievers like McMahon will see the Christian faith not as another "option" in the narcissistic quest for happiness, but rather as Truth; a Truth that demands our all, even our happiness--for a time.
McMahon also suggests that nearly all major modern religions have pandered to this obsession; Why become a Christian? Why because you'll be happy of course! Are you unhappy with your current life? Live a fulfilled life (I.E. happiness) with Christ! Anyone who has spent time in or around the Church has heard or read statements similar to these. Notice how uncomfortably related these words are to a diet pill ad: Are you unhappy with your current life? Live a fulfilled life as a thin person! Or perhaps a dating service: Are you unhappy with your current life? Live a fulfilled life with that special someone!
It's true. I am more joyful, more fulfilled as a follower of Christ than when I was not. But McMahon's accusation about the modern Church cannot be ignored. One outcome of my faith is joy, but to isolate this one effect and represent it in the same manner as pharmaceutical companies sell diet pills is to trivialize Christ's work on the cross and to reduce my personal relationship with Christ to the equivalent of mystical Zoloft.
In reality, my walk with Christ often times involves suffering, in fact, it always does. Suffering, sorrow (HE was a Man of sorrows. Consider that for a moment.), persecution, etc. We must be conscious in our language, witness, and articulation of the Gospel so that unbelievers like McMahon will see the Christian faith not as another "option" in the narcissistic quest for happiness, but rather as Truth; a Truth that demands our all, even our happiness--for a time.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Yet Another SoberMinded Album Review
Yeah, I know we released this album almost a year ago, but whenever we find a new place to send the CD to get reviewed we usually take the time to send it. Although our sophomore album is a ways off due to my studies, this album review might be just what you need to get you to finally break down and buy "Points, Thoughts, and Stories."
I just found this review by Trailblazin' Ministries, and it's quite favorable:
"When I talk about Christian rap, an album that speaks to more than just the Bible, but society at large & how we can put Christ in it. Points, Thoughts, and Stories is a solid album, and a definite pick-up for those who like music that makes you put on your thinking cap."
Read the full review here.
Reading things like this really makes me want to continue doing Hip-Hop. Although they point out a few flaws in the album, they are nothing I would disagree with. And they seem to get it. I was really concerned when we recorded this album that we would sound too preachy or corny. But God really worked through us to make something that was descent. I was also worried that no one would get it, that if we were able to avoid cheesyness would instead fall into pretentiousness. But from the few reviews we've received in seems that people understand our ideas and are not put off.
Now if I can only finish this stupid Thesis maybe we can get working on the next albun...
I just found this review by Trailblazin' Ministries, and it's quite favorable:
"When I talk about Christian rap, an album that speaks to more than just the Bible, but society at large & how we can put Christ in it. Points, Thoughts, and Stories is a solid album, and a definite pick-up for those who like music that makes you put on your thinking cap."
Read the full review here.
Reading things like this really makes me want to continue doing Hip-Hop. Although they point out a few flaws in the album, they are nothing I would disagree with. And they seem to get it. I was really concerned when we recorded this album that we would sound too preachy or corny. But God really worked through us to make something that was descent. I was also worried that no one would get it, that if we were able to avoid cheesyness would instead fall into pretentiousness. But from the few reviews we've received in seems that people understand our ideas and are not put off.
Now if I can only finish this stupid Thesis maybe we can get working on the next albun...
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
McCarthy and Oprah?
I have just finished writing 110 pages in my thesis on Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Yesterday I wrote 9 pages to finish it, and then revised 7 more. Today I finished revising the first chapter. I have been completely overwhelmed with this author, his critics, his works, his words, his ideas for the past two years culminating to this point where my thesis is almost complete. Then I happen to check my RSS feed for the Looking Closer Blog and see this article stating that Oprah has chosen The Road to be in her book club. And McCarthy himself, mister-I-don't-give-interviews, is going on TV to be interviewed by Oprah.
I vomited slightly in my mouth.
Just to give some perspective, this would be like JFK coming back from the dead and giving an interview to Donald Duck, a deaf, mute, Donald Duck in a coma. On TV.
I vomited slightly in my mouth.
Just to give some perspective, this would be like JFK coming back from the dead and giving an interview to Donald Duck, a deaf, mute, Donald Duck in a coma. On TV.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
The Cult of the Underdog
How much of our politics, tastes, desires, beliefs, and buying practices is based on our love of the underdog? It has been long understood that Americans love to root for the underdog, so well understood in fact, that people, movements, and parties are clamoring to be identified as the underdog. There are a million examples of this in our culture right now, if you know to look for them, but just a few of my favorites are the claims by the right and the left that the media is biased in favor of the other side, the claims by both creationists/ID proponents and the scientific elite that the other group has more money/publicity, and the claims by people of faith and atheists that the other side rules the country. If you are perceived to be the underdog, people will support your cause, so instead of arguing why their particular party/ideal/program/belief is better than the others, many people/groups seem to spend more time making arguments about how the other people/groups are more popular than they are. This is truly a result of our mediated society which decides most important issues based upon ad campaigns and media presentation.
Typically, these petty debates don't occupy much of my musing time, but the recent rise of "New Atheism" has made me deeply concerned. For those of you who have not heard of the "New Atheism" I would encourage you to go read Gary Wolf's definitive article on the subject published in Wire called The Church of the Non-Believers. It's quite long, but it details many of the perspectives from the movements founders and leaders. Essentially, "New Atheism" is a militant branch of atheism which rejects religious tolerance and intellectual pluralism on the belief that religion is dangerous to open societies. The notion that people who believe in a scientifically disproved "God" could be allowed to vote based on that belief is both frightening and unjust to the "New Atheists" like Chris Hedges. Although most of these thinkers have not said so in as many words, many of them would prefer some sort of law which prevented people of faith from voting in order to protect democracy from what they view as primitive, ignorant, and irrational ideas. The similarity to this militant and intolerant atheist to communist purges and other forms of intellectual totalitarianism seems blatant and is not entirely lost on Wolf and other commentators.
But what seems to be driving this movement is the commonly accepted belief that Christians (fundamentalists at that) rule the nation and are leading us into political ruin. Some of this argument can be blamed on Bush's open Christianity (although history should have taught us well that popular figures who claim to be believers are often found to be either liars or of very weak faith), whether you support his presidency or not. If atheists are the underdog, then the ruling group (the Christians) must be corrupt and dangerous. Indeed, a quick search through various popular internet sites (like Digg and even YouTube) shows how strong this movement has become founded upon the idea that Christians are in power and are oppressing the nation. Statistics seem to support this claim too. I won't bother to search for any specific poll, but any number of studies have shown that the majority of people belief in a God, and most of them believe in a Christian God at that. These statistics and the claims that Christians run the nation might come as quite a shock to most Christians, most Christians would argue quite the opposite. The removal of religious images in many government buildings across the nation has been cited by some as evidence of an increasing secularism. So whose the underdog? The truth, naturally, is somewhere in the sticky middle. Steven Weinberg in a review entitled A deadly certitude on Dawkin's instrumental book, The god Delusion claims that while most people claim to have some religious faith, the postmodern belief in relativism (and its PC disguise "tolerance") has left our society essentially godless:
Typically, these petty debates don't occupy much of my musing time, but the recent rise of "New Atheism" has made me deeply concerned. For those of you who have not heard of the "New Atheism" I would encourage you to go read Gary Wolf's definitive article on the subject published in Wire called The Church of the Non-Believers. It's quite long, but it details many of the perspectives from the movements founders and leaders. Essentially, "New Atheism" is a militant branch of atheism which rejects religious tolerance and intellectual pluralism on the belief that religion is dangerous to open societies. The notion that people who believe in a scientifically disproved "God" could be allowed to vote based on that belief is both frightening and unjust to the "New Atheists" like Chris Hedges. Although most of these thinkers have not said so in as many words, many of them would prefer some sort of law which prevented people of faith from voting in order to protect democracy from what they view as primitive, ignorant, and irrational ideas. The similarity to this militant and intolerant atheist to communist purges and other forms of intellectual totalitarianism seems blatant and is not entirely lost on Wolf and other commentators.
But what seems to be driving this movement is the commonly accepted belief that Christians (fundamentalists at that) rule the nation and are leading us into political ruin. Some of this argument can be blamed on Bush's open Christianity (although history should have taught us well that popular figures who claim to be believers are often found to be either liars or of very weak faith), whether you support his presidency or not. If atheists are the underdog, then the ruling group (the Christians) must be corrupt and dangerous. Indeed, a quick search through various popular internet sites (like Digg and even YouTube) shows how strong this movement has become founded upon the idea that Christians are in power and are oppressing the nation. Statistics seem to support this claim too. I won't bother to search for any specific poll, but any number of studies have shown that the majority of people belief in a God, and most of them believe in a Christian God at that. These statistics and the claims that Christians run the nation might come as quite a shock to most Christians, most Christians would argue quite the opposite. The removal of religious images in many government buildings across the nation has been cited by some as evidence of an increasing secularism. So whose the underdog? The truth, naturally, is somewhere in the sticky middle. Steven Weinberg in a review entitled A deadly certitude on Dawkin's instrumental book, The god Delusion claims that while most people claim to have some religious faith, the postmodern belief in relativism (and its PC disguise "tolerance") has left our society essentially godless:
According to a recent article in the New York Times, American evangelists are in despair over a poll that showed that only 4 per cent of American teenagers will be “Bible-believing Christians” as adults. The spread of religious toleration provides evidence of the weakening of religious certitude.So whose the underdog? Well, Biblically we know that believers have been and always will be the underdogs in the world, and certainly the ethics, morals, values, and beliefs that most people hold in American are not in agreement with the teachings of Christ; however, currently, the "right-wing" religious movement does (did?) have consider power and influence. Time will tell if the Church will look back on the last 8-10 years as a golden area or a time where the Faith was mediated, comodified, and marketed for the political and commercial benefit of others. Either way, as believers we must avoid the Cult of the Underdog, and strive to understand the world and our culture as it is. Instead of entering into debates on whose the real loser or intellectual outcast, we must strive to glorify God and edify man by excelling at everything we put our hands to do: artistically, politically, culturally, personally, physically. So that whether we are the underdog or not, the world will know that we love God and our neighbors, and that our Faith is a primitive belief in nonsense; a belief only of hillbillies, children, and the elderly, but rather a belief with a long intellectual tradition held by great minds throughout history, founded upon rational (yet complex) truths, and personal application which allows for the value of the human individual and existence.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Evil and Human Nature in Fiction
I've been meaning to blog about this for over a week I think. Mark Bertrand recently posted a blog discussing a recent World Magazine interview of writer Andrew Klavan (I know, this already sounds confusing but bare with me). Unfortunately World Mag requires a subscription to read their articles, but trust me, the mag is well worth the cost. If I could afford a subscription I'd have one myself...If you are like me and can't read the original interview, there are some great quotes on Bertrand's blog. Bertrand quotes the interview:
In this sense, Klavan seems to argue that Christian symbolism is life itself. Symbolism is typically used to suggest something that is on some level foreign to the setting of the work of art. For example, In Moby Dick the whale himself is symbolic of many things, not the least of which is the horribly sublime power of God. Melville uses the whiteness, among other things, to highlight this aspect of the whale's symbolism. The symbol here functions to allude to some quality that is not inherent in the natural image of a whale. But in light of Klavan's view of symbolism, there is no need for the artist to use any symbols at all to allude to God, since it is the very nature of His creation to allude to Him.
Calvin Seerveld bases his whole aesthetic upon allusiveness, which basically means that the core of art is that it alludes, and in the case of good Christian art it alludes to God. If Klavan is correct, then all a Christian artist needs to do in order to make an excellent work is to accurately portray their subjects. If they do this, then they will be alluding to God since His creation itself alludes to Him.
I'm going to have to consider this idea further before I can make a judgment, but one of my first reactions is concern since this idea seems to imply that the greatest form of Christian art is the realist work, which, to me, seems to stifle creativity and privilege skill. Let me know what you think.
Becoming a Christian actually made me less likely to use Christian symbolism and structures in my work because now I see Christ's presence underlying all of life -- I don't have to place Him there artistically.
In this sense, Klavan seems to argue that Christian symbolism is life itself. Symbolism is typically used to suggest something that is on some level foreign to the setting of the work of art. For example, In Moby Dick the whale himself is symbolic of many things, not the least of which is the horribly sublime power of God. Melville uses the whiteness, among other things, to highlight this aspect of the whale's symbolism. The symbol here functions to allude to some quality that is not inherent in the natural image of a whale. But in light of Klavan's view of symbolism, there is no need for the artist to use any symbols at all to allude to God, since it is the very nature of His creation to allude to Him.
Calvin Seerveld bases his whole aesthetic upon allusiveness, which basically means that the core of art is that it alludes, and in the case of good Christian art it alludes to God. If Klavan is correct, then all a Christian artist needs to do in order to make an excellent work is to accurately portray their subjects. If they do this, then they will be alluding to God since His creation itself alludes to Him.
I'm going to have to consider this idea further before I can make a judgment, but one of my first reactions is concern since this idea seems to imply that the greatest form of Christian art is the realist work, which, to me, seems to stifle creativity and privilege skill. Let me know what you think.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
One Sided Posts about Thomas Kinkade
In doing research for various essays in my grad program I've had to read books of letters from or to a famous authors: C.S. Lewis, Mary Shelley, etc... Often times these books of letters only have one party's letters in a series of correspondences, which forces the reader to imagine what the other person wrote in reply. There is a strange joy to be had in reading these half known dialogues. In this spirit of such books, I've decided to post a series of posts I've recently made on a form about Thomas Kinkade's "art" and whether or not it is good Christian art. I'll leave it up to you to imagine how the other party replied. Please let me know if this format is too annoying.
First Correspondence:
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. In regards to what art in dialogue with PoMo would look like, I would say that it would be art that addresses the relevant issues that form the foundation of postmodernism: alienation, comodification, the ubiquity of the media and advertisements, data overload, finding meaning as an individual in an increasing large global community, knowing Truth, etc...So it would be a work of art that would not just provide answers, but also acknowledge the validity of these problems. I can give a negative example of this, but no positive one pops into my head right now: Thomas Kinkade's art alludes to the answer to all these problems: Christ, however, he utterly fails to recognize the problems, or that any problems (death and decay for example) exist in the world. And here he fails because he shuts off communication with the audience. (In this sense he is a great example of how someone who fails to be in dialogue with modern issues can communicate as little as the PoMo artists who are utterly nonrepresentational.).
In music I believe these is a positive example of what I am saying in an artist like Sufjan Stevens who is able to communicate to a modern audience and recognize their concerns and yet allude quite successfully to Christ as the ultimate answer (isn't this the artistic equivalent to Paul's divinely inspired attitude of being "all things to all people"?)
I can't readily think of an example of literature, except perhaps O'Connor or Cormac McCarthy, but he is not publicly stated that he is a Christian.
Anyway, I hope that answered your question? If not, let me know and I'll try again.
-alan
Second Correspondence:
The commercial success of an artists in no way reflects his/her ability to create good art, or to speak to their audience in a meaningful way. The popularity of a pop group in music, for example, is not based on their ability to communicate to the important issues of their audience's lives; if anything, popularity often signifies that an artist has trivialized issues in order to appeal to the largest possible audience (think of the topics/themes of almost all pop music: childish accounts of love and sexuality, prideful boasting, ignorant materialism...). In addition, if popularity was evidence of good communication between artist and audience we'd have to judge postmodern art as good too (in regards to communication), because it is wildly popular in our culture and has been for decades, from films to music to those extremely popular "splatter" paintings that hung in 35% of the homes in the 1980's.
While I agree that it is good to meditate on beauty and peace, I do not believe that this must, or should be done at the expense of Truth, and I am deeply concerned about the effects and themes of Kinkade's work. Kinkade's work trivializes the suffering in the world, and in a sense is almost opposed to Christianity because it presents a world which in no way needs a savior. The idyllic settings might evoke a sense of peace and comfort, but they are not based on the peace and comfort of God, but of a false history. They present to us beautiful settings: rustic old cottages which function to suggest a past without sin or corruption or sorrow, a longing for a time (1700-1800's) where our country was free from godlessness, a time that never existed. This glorifying of the past is dangerous because it neglects the issues of the present. If Kinkade speaks to a modern audience, he is encouraging them to ignore our present problems in favor of an illusionary past. In addition, there is no sense of the groaning of creation, its corruption, or our sin and corruption. Kinkade paints the world as if Adam and Eve had not eaten the apple, a world that is peaceful and comforting because it does not need a savior, it is already perfect. So if Kinkade speaks to us, he speaks only of our desire for perfection, but not of our need of a perfecter in Christ. There is nothing wrong with dwelling on beauty, when, however, an artist exclusively dwells on fantasy he/she runs the risk of creating an idol, a poor alternative for the heaven that awaits us. Forgive me if I sound divisive about this, I certainly do not believe that there is anything wrong with enjoying his paintings, but I do question their status as good works of art which give glory to God.
-a.n.
Third Correspondence:
I preface this all with the statement that what particularly concerns me about Kinkade is not that he creates works that disregard the existence and effects of sin, but that he almost exclusively creates such works. This, I believe, constitutes a lie about one of the central (scratch that, THE central) issue of our existence: we are fallen, we need Christ.
I agree with all the qualities of God that you outlined, how can I not? But one that was missing was Christ as savior, and again, I cannot see how Kinkade's works point to Christ as savior. As for their alluding to heaven, what they actual refer to is perfection, and as Christians we know perfection will only come for us in heaven, so to a believer we can make the connection between the idyllic painting and heaven, but that connection (as far as my knowledge of his "works" goes) is not inherent in the painting at all. In other words, Kinkade gives us a perfect world, but there are no symbols/images in that world that allude to heaven or God, just to perfection broadly. Which means that to an unbeliever they are seeing the deification of nature/the past, something that Kinkade took from the Romantic movement. In this sense, his works are almost transcendentalist (do they not evoke the very secular poems of Wordsworth? or Walt Whitman?). More on this later.
As for the paintings causing a sinner to long for Christ because they see the perfection in the painting, since the paintings do not point to Christ/heaven in their imagery or symbolism, how could the unbeliever make that connection? Is there something in the presentation of "perfection" that inherently points to Christ? On some level I would say yes, but for the most part, our society is filled with images of "perfection" (a false, worldly, human view of perfection, like Kinkade's presentation of perfect nature) that rarely ever point to Christ. For example, most commercials present perfect families, perfect relationships, perfect cars, perfect laundry soap etc...of course, from the stand point of God, these things are not perfect, but then neither is the rustic cottage and landscape of Kinkade's paintings. We are a culture obsessed with perfection, particularly finding perfection outside of Christ (I.E. plastic surgery), like in idyllic scenes of nature. Therefore, if Kinkade's presentation of "perfection" as past landscapes points to God's perfection, so do the presentations of "perfect" families in TV commercials.
As far as Biblical texts/principles that support the idea that art should reflect the fall, well since the entire Bible, the entire Bible is devoted to the fall and our redemption in Christ, I would say that this might be the cornerstone principle of the Bible. The Word of God does not present answers without addressing questions, or solutions without problems. David's psalms are an example of that. His poems range from lamenting his sin, asking for vengeance, and glorifying God's creation. Or take the Old Testament stories which give accounts of sin and redemption.
What is True if it ignores our need of Christ by misrepresenting the world as sinless and uncorrupted? If his paintings were of God (like David's psalms of praise), then Kinkade would be making art that is True, but his subject in his paintings is not God, but nature and a rustic past. This is a crucial distinction. The beauty, peace, order, delight, creativity (since Kinkade is directly stealing from a 19th century style, it is safe to say that he is far from creative), and perfection present in his paintings do not come from God, but from nature. Only if we assume that he is giving glory to God through nature can this be seen as Truth; however, since the works of art in and of themselves glorify nature, how different are they from the romantic/transcendentalist movements of the 1800's in American which gave birth to the New Age movement and the deification of nature in our culture? Perhaps I am mistaken about his work, is there a way that he clearly symbolizes in his work that the world he is presenting represents the perfection of heaven rather than the glorification of the corrupt world as a replacement for heaven? If he is clear on this, if he does show that the real world is not perfect but that heaven is, then perhaps I am wrong. But if a work of Christian art fails to meet the first criteria set by Paul in Phil 4:8, Truth, then can it be good Christian art?
This is what Hans Rookmaaker speaks of righteousness in regard to art:
"Righteousness in art does not mean that, in fiction or on the stage for instance, everyone must be upright and good. That would be against truth. Reality is different. The Bible includes plenty of descriptions of wickedness and evil...Righteousness is a Biblical term with many overtones, including mercy and grace" (Modern Art and the Death of a Culture).
Concerning showing the purity of God through a pure painting, how does this show the purity of God? God is pure unlike the world, how would painting the world as a lie (pure) give glory to God? Purity ought to be in art, but that means purity in relation to sin, does the art promote or cause sin? But that does not mean that we can ignore the existence of sin, because to do so is to ignore the need for a savior.
Kinkade's style comes from the romantic landscape paintings of the 1800s. Here's Rookmaaker's description of that period:
"peaceful, restful, rustic, with a kind of contentment and almost sentimental poetry. There are the woods, the old oak tree, the stream and little waterfall, the peasant folk with their cattle, and the beauty and golden sunshine of a fine summer's day. There is nothing of the agitation and problems of the larger world with its ever-changing culture, its revolution and counter-revolution. It is the world of contented people living away from the turmoil amidst the beauties of the world that remained untouched by the new industrialization. It is the world 'at its best', it is almost eternal (even if almost secular) bliss"....It was a kind of escapism."
And that is what I believe the function of Kinkade's paints is, to allow people to escape the Truth about the world, its corruption, their sin, and need for Christ and to dwell on the false presentation of the world as perfect. Yes, creation reflects God's perfection, but creation itself is not perfect. To present creation as perfect is to confuse creation and creator, to form an idol and to lie about the True reality of the world.
First Correspondence:
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. In regards to what art in dialogue with PoMo would look like, I would say that it would be art that addresses the relevant issues that form the foundation of postmodernism: alienation, comodification, the ubiquity of the media and advertisements, data overload, finding meaning as an individual in an increasing large global community, knowing Truth, etc...So it would be a work of art that would not just provide answers, but also acknowledge the validity of these problems. I can give a negative example of this, but no positive one pops into my head right now: Thomas Kinkade's art alludes to the answer to all these problems: Christ, however, he utterly fails to recognize the problems, or that any problems (death and decay for example) exist in the world. And here he fails because he shuts off communication with the audience. (In this sense he is a great example of how someone who fails to be in dialogue with modern issues can communicate as little as the PoMo artists who are utterly nonrepresentational.).
In music I believe these is a positive example of what I am saying in an artist like Sufjan Stevens who is able to communicate to a modern audience and recognize their concerns and yet allude quite successfully to Christ as the ultimate answer (isn't this the artistic equivalent to Paul's divinely inspired attitude of being "all things to all people"?)
I can't readily think of an example of literature, except perhaps O'Connor or Cormac McCarthy, but he is not publicly stated that he is a Christian.
Anyway, I hope that answered your question? If not, let me know and I'll try again.
-alan
Second Correspondence:
The commercial success of an artists in no way reflects his/her ability to create good art, or to speak to their audience in a meaningful way. The popularity of a pop group in music, for example, is not based on their ability to communicate to the important issues of their audience's lives; if anything, popularity often signifies that an artist has trivialized issues in order to appeal to the largest possible audience (think of the topics/themes of almost all pop music: childish accounts of love and sexuality, prideful boasting, ignorant materialism...). In addition, if popularity was evidence of good communication between artist and audience we'd have to judge postmodern art as good too (in regards to communication), because it is wildly popular in our culture and has been for decades, from films to music to those extremely popular "splatter" paintings that hung in 35% of the homes in the 1980's.
While I agree that it is good to meditate on beauty and peace, I do not believe that this must, or should be done at the expense of Truth, and I am deeply concerned about the effects and themes of Kinkade's work. Kinkade's work trivializes the suffering in the world, and in a sense is almost opposed to Christianity because it presents a world which in no way needs a savior. The idyllic settings might evoke a sense of peace and comfort, but they are not based on the peace and comfort of God, but of a false history. They present to us beautiful settings: rustic old cottages which function to suggest a past without sin or corruption or sorrow, a longing for a time (1700-1800's) where our country was free from godlessness, a time that never existed. This glorifying of the past is dangerous because it neglects the issues of the present. If Kinkade speaks to a modern audience, he is encouraging them to ignore our present problems in favor of an illusionary past. In addition, there is no sense of the groaning of creation, its corruption, or our sin and corruption. Kinkade paints the world as if Adam and Eve had not eaten the apple, a world that is peaceful and comforting because it does not need a savior, it is already perfect. So if Kinkade speaks to us, he speaks only of our desire for perfection, but not of our need of a perfecter in Christ. There is nothing wrong with dwelling on beauty, when, however, an artist exclusively dwells on fantasy he/she runs the risk of creating an idol, a poor alternative for the heaven that awaits us. Forgive me if I sound divisive about this, I certainly do not believe that there is anything wrong with enjoying his paintings, but I do question their status as good works of art which give glory to God.
-a.n.
Third Correspondence:
I preface this all with the statement that what particularly concerns me about Kinkade is not that he creates works that disregard the existence and effects of sin, but that he almost exclusively creates such works. This, I believe, constitutes a lie about one of the central (scratch that, THE central) issue of our existence: we are fallen, we need Christ.
I agree with all the qualities of God that you outlined, how can I not? But one that was missing was Christ as savior, and again, I cannot see how Kinkade's works point to Christ as savior. As for their alluding to heaven, what they actual refer to is perfection, and as Christians we know perfection will only come for us in heaven, so to a believer we can make the connection between the idyllic painting and heaven, but that connection (as far as my knowledge of his "works" goes) is not inherent in the painting at all. In other words, Kinkade gives us a perfect world, but there are no symbols/images in that world that allude to heaven or God, just to perfection broadly. Which means that to an unbeliever they are seeing the deification of nature/the past, something that Kinkade took from the Romantic movement. In this sense, his works are almost transcendentalist (do they not evoke the very secular poems of Wordsworth? or Walt Whitman?). More on this later.
As for the paintings causing a sinner to long for Christ because they see the perfection in the painting, since the paintings do not point to Christ/heaven in their imagery or symbolism, how could the unbeliever make that connection? Is there something in the presentation of "perfection" that inherently points to Christ? On some level I would say yes, but for the most part, our society is filled with images of "perfection" (a false, worldly, human view of perfection, like Kinkade's presentation of perfect nature) that rarely ever point to Christ. For example, most commercials present perfect families, perfect relationships, perfect cars, perfect laundry soap etc...of course, from the stand point of God, these things are not perfect, but then neither is the rustic cottage and landscape of Kinkade's paintings. We are a culture obsessed with perfection, particularly finding perfection outside of Christ (I.E. plastic surgery), like in idyllic scenes of nature. Therefore, if Kinkade's presentation of "perfection" as past landscapes points to God's perfection, so do the presentations of "perfect" families in TV commercials.
As far as Biblical texts/principles that support the idea that art should reflect the fall, well since the entire Bible, the entire Bible is devoted to the fall and our redemption in Christ, I would say that this might be the cornerstone principle of the Bible. The Word of God does not present answers without addressing questions, or solutions without problems. David's psalms are an example of that. His poems range from lamenting his sin, asking for vengeance, and glorifying God's creation. Or take the Old Testament stories which give accounts of sin and redemption.
What is True if it ignores our need of Christ by misrepresenting the world as sinless and uncorrupted? If his paintings were of God (like David's psalms of praise), then Kinkade would be making art that is True, but his subject in his paintings is not God, but nature and a rustic past. This is a crucial distinction. The beauty, peace, order, delight, creativity (since Kinkade is directly stealing from a 19th century style, it is safe to say that he is far from creative), and perfection present in his paintings do not come from God, but from nature. Only if we assume that he is giving glory to God through nature can this be seen as Truth; however, since the works of art in and of themselves glorify nature, how different are they from the romantic/transcendentalist movements of the 1800's in American which gave birth to the New Age movement and the deification of nature in our culture? Perhaps I am mistaken about his work, is there a way that he clearly symbolizes in his work that the world he is presenting represents the perfection of heaven rather than the glorification of the corrupt world as a replacement for heaven? If he is clear on this, if he does show that the real world is not perfect but that heaven is, then perhaps I am wrong. But if a work of Christian art fails to meet the first criteria set by Paul in Phil 4:8, Truth, then can it be good Christian art?
This is what Hans Rookmaaker speaks of righteousness in regard to art:
"Righteousness in art does not mean that, in fiction or on the stage for instance, everyone must be upright and good. That would be against truth. Reality is different. The Bible includes plenty of descriptions of wickedness and evil...Righteousness is a Biblical term with many overtones, including mercy and grace" (Modern Art and the Death of a Culture).
Concerning showing the purity of God through a pure painting, how does this show the purity of God? God is pure unlike the world, how would painting the world as a lie (pure) give glory to God? Purity ought to be in art, but that means purity in relation to sin, does the art promote or cause sin? But that does not mean that we can ignore the existence of sin, because to do so is to ignore the need for a savior.
Kinkade's style comes from the romantic landscape paintings of the 1800s. Here's Rookmaaker's description of that period:
"peaceful, restful, rustic, with a kind of contentment and almost sentimental poetry. There are the woods, the old oak tree, the stream and little waterfall, the peasant folk with their cattle, and the beauty and golden sunshine of a fine summer's day. There is nothing of the agitation and problems of the larger world with its ever-changing culture, its revolution and counter-revolution. It is the world of contented people living away from the turmoil amidst the beauties of the world that remained untouched by the new industrialization. It is the world 'at its best', it is almost eternal (even if almost secular) bliss"....It was a kind of escapism."
And that is what I believe the function of Kinkade's paints is, to allow people to escape the Truth about the world, its corruption, their sin, and need for Christ and to dwell on the false presentation of the world as perfect. Yes, creation reflects God's perfection, but creation itself is not perfect. To present creation as perfect is to confuse creation and creator, to form an idol and to lie about the True reality of the world.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
A Poem, a Blasphemer, and a Defense of the Ugly in Art
Ok, so here are two things of interest for today:
On Beauty: Axiom #4: Your Job is Not to Make Pretty is an interesting post by an Arts Pastor which argues that part of the believing artist's mandate for Truth is to tell the Truth about the "Good stuff, Mundane stuff, and Fallen stuff." While I agree with him, I would have to suggest one concern, and that is that the artist must keep the commandment to "love thy neighbor" or else any of these "stuffs", but particularly the "Fallen stuff" can become a stumbling block for others. Other than that qualification, I agree with his argument. The essay is brief and a good read for Christian artists.
The second article comes from ABC News and is a write up about the work of "The Rational Response Squad" and their "Blasphemy Challenge," wherein people call in to their internet radio show and publically blasphemy the Holy Spirit to show their atheism and support of atheists. By itself, this group would just seem like a bunch of pathetic attention seekers in a culture which loves to be shocked; however, as the article points out, this is really just another part of a new movement in atheism which seeks to actively attack Christianity as a dangerous idea. This new movement reminds me of Schaeffer's analysis of why the Romans could not tolerate the Christians and persecuted them while allowing most other religious to co-exists with their society: Christianity provides a basis to judge the actions of a government and its people, and while most religions then and now do not deny the validity of other beliefs and religions, Christianity claims to be the only truth, and absolute truth is a dangerous idea.
On Beauty: Axiom #4: Your Job is Not to Make Pretty is an interesting post by an Arts Pastor which argues that part of the believing artist's mandate for Truth is to tell the Truth about the "Good stuff, Mundane stuff, and Fallen stuff." While I agree with him, I would have to suggest one concern, and that is that the artist must keep the commandment to "love thy neighbor" or else any of these "stuffs", but particularly the "Fallen stuff" can become a stumbling block for others. Other than that qualification, I agree with his argument. The essay is brief and a good read for Christian artists.
The second article comes from ABC News and is a write up about the work of "The Rational Response Squad" and their "Blasphemy Challenge," wherein people call in to their internet radio show and publically blasphemy the Holy Spirit to show their atheism and support of atheists. By itself, this group would just seem like a bunch of pathetic attention seekers in a culture which loves to be shocked; however, as the article points out, this is really just another part of a new movement in atheism which seeks to actively attack Christianity as a dangerous idea. This new movement reminds me of Schaeffer's analysis of why the Romans could not tolerate the Christians and persecuted them while allowing most other religious to co-exists with their society: Christianity provides a basis to judge the actions of a government and its people, and while most religions then and now do not deny the validity of other beliefs and religions, Christianity claims to be the only truth, and absolute truth is a dangerous idea.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
"Your Soul Just Died" Tom Wolfe's Exploration of the Future of Neuroscience
Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died.
In this article from 1996 Tom Wolfe, of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test fame, examines the new, hip field of neuroscience. The article is well written and witty, but what is particularly interesting is the connections he draws to values, morals, justice, and the soul in light of work being done in this field. As neuroscientists claim with increasing confidence that man is determined by his genes, the politically correct attempt at equality between people comes to be seen as working against our natural state; our desire to see life as filled with value and to find morals outside of ourselves to govern our actions also appears ludicrous. Wolfe, however, does not see this as a good thing at all. In fact he even hopes that those who are advancing this field (and it's handmaiden in evolution) will lose out so that our society will not fall into decay:
In this article from 1996 Tom Wolfe, of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test fame, examines the new, hip field of neuroscience. The article is well written and witty, but what is particularly interesting is the connections he draws to values, morals, justice, and the soul in light of work being done in this field. As neuroscientists claim with increasing confidence that man is determined by his genes, the politically correct attempt at equality between people comes to be seen as working against our natural state; our desire to see life as filled with value and to find morals outside of ourselves to govern our actions also appears ludicrous. Wolfe, however, does not see this as a good thing at all. In fact he even hopes that those who are advancing this field (and it's handmaiden in evolution) will lose out so that our society will not fall into decay:
Unless the assurances of the Wilsons and the Dennetts and the Dawkinses also start rippling out, the lurid carnival that will ensue may make the phrase "the total eclipse of all values" seem tame.Although this article is quite long, it is worth the read and as it discusses the fall of Marxism and Freudism and the rise of sciencism. The title of the article comes from Nietzsche's idea that "God is dead," which the German philosophy presented as a historical fact about 19th century Europe's abandonment of religion. Wolfe argues that the next step away from God is the idea that the soul is dead, which he believes a "prophet"/scientist will soon proclaim, thus leading to an age of utter immorality (amorality) unparalleled in our history. At times the article seems dated (such as the mention of the Sega Genesis), but the mention of David Berlinski and Michael Behe as two men who were challenging established science is interesting. This article also shows some of the complications in neuroscience that Pinker fails to adequately address in his article as I previously pointed out.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Narnia Article to Be Published?
I just got notice today that an essay I wrote on C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wordrobe (a comparison of the film and book versions) might be published in a collection of essays on Narnia. You can read an early, blog version of the essay here.
Steven Pinker, Consciousness, and a "New Morality"
I think I'm going to start posting links to articles of interest here, maybe everyday. Sometimes I'll include commentary, other times I'll just let you read and comment yourself. Today's link is to a Times article article written by Steven Pinker, esteemed professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Harvard and good friend/co-conspirator with Dawkins, in which he argues for a "New Morality" based on the existence of consciousness. His argument could be summarized thus:
You'll notice that there is a significant logical step missing here: Suffering is absolutely bad. And of course, based on a purely evolutionary/materialistic worldview he is simply unable to make this claim, which is why he leaves the premise out. Nevertheless, it is a good read, easy, short, and it is important because it presents a worldview which Christians are being forced more and more often to confront:
The Mystery of Consciousness
All humans are conscious,
Conscious people can suffer,
therefore it is morally right to keep all people from suffering.
You'll notice that there is a significant logical step missing here: Suffering is absolutely bad. And of course, based on a purely evolutionary/materialistic worldview he is simply unable to make this claim, which is why he leaves the premise out. Nevertheless, it is a good read, easy, short, and it is important because it presents a worldview which Christians are being forced more and more often to confront:
The Mystery of Consciousness
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Road and Transcendence
As some of you know, I am currently writing my Master’s thesis on Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. My basic thesis is that although many have read or reacted to the book as a work of nihilism, the novel is actually hopeful and preoccupied with the existence and/or voice of God. Some critics, like Harold Bloom, have been arguing for some time now that Blood Meridian will be remembered as one of the greatest works of American fiction, perhaps the best for the 20th century. So as you can imagine, I have been scouring all of McCarthy’s works and influences for support for my thesis.
The Road is McCarthy’s latest novel and is in some ways even better than Blood Meridian. In the novel, McCarthy gives us essentially the same dark, brutal, inhuman world of Blood Meridian and some of his earlier works, but this time there are very clear and moving points of hope. This hope is centered around the interaction of a father and his son as they attempt to survive in a post-apocalyptic world by walking down the road. They encounter cannibals (a constant threat), harsh weather, utter desolation, ugliness, and starvation. Yet McCarthy crafts the relationship between these two characters such that neither they, nor the reader feels hopeless. In fact, there are many Biblical references and even a few discussions about God in the book. However, the last two pages seem to leave the hope the Man and Boy have open to interpretation. On the last page, a women tells the boy “that the breath of God was his [the father] breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time” (241). She says this in response to the boy as he prayers to his father rather than God, who he can’t seem to pray to. The question thus becomes, is McCarthy advocating a humanist/existentialist religion where “transcendence” (the materialist equivalent at least) lies exclusively in each person and eternity is merely our act of remembering all that has gone before us, or is there an actual God in this novel? Or a third possibility?
What I would like to suggest is that the end of The Road should not be interpreted as a claim for an existentialist pseudo-philosophy, but rather by examining the relationship between the Man and the Boy we can see that McCarthy is clearly making a claim for transcendence in the novel. Specifically, the theories of Peter Berger, Professor of Sociology at Rutgers, from his book A Rumor of Angels will be applied to The Road in an attempt to explain the irrational, unquenchable hope in the Man and the Boy.
As my lovely wife pointed out to me, probably the most repeated word in The Road is “okay,” and it is used in various meanings. On one level, “okay” merely means “alright,” “sure,” or “fine,” but it’s important to keep in mind that it can also mean “everything is in order; tomorrow or the next moment will be alright.” Although I could have found several passages in the novel which have this layered meaning of “okay”, I choose the following one and leave it up to the reader to find others:
Throughout The Road the Man and the Boy are struggling to survive, but what is remarkable is that they keep trying. On one level at least the father has hope for survival because of the boy, in fact we learn early in the novel that his wife claimed that the Man was only kept from death by the Boy, a claim that is not stated without a sense of condemnation or contempt. It is much harder, however, to justify the hope that the Boy has. The Boy was born after the catastrophe that demolished civilization, which means there was no culture to instill in him a desire to live and a hope for the future; no church, school, government, counselor, psychologist, doctor, teacher, TV, poem, novel, song, or philosophy. If anything, everything that the past culture stood for must seem senseless and wrong to the Boy who now sees only the ruins. One cannot believe that his parents taught him to have this hope since any claim for hope from his father would be countered by the glaring absence of a mother who believed that there were no reasons left to live. Neither religion, philosophy, citizenship, nor family could have instilled in the Boy a belief in the possibility for a better future that would be strong enough to withstand the all but unspeakable horrors he faced in the world. Nature, meanwhile, offers little help either. The world the Boy is born and raised in is completely hostile, ugly (at one point the Man laments the loss of beauty), and lacks even the basic pleasures and comforts. Which brings us to what I believe is the heart of the novel and Camus’s famous question for philosophy: why live?
While the Man has all of Western history and its influence and the preservation of his son to keep him going, the Boy has not been nurtured nor taught by nature to have a hope in tomorrow, yet he does. He constantly is convinced that things will be ultimately, “okay,” although he does have moments of fear. While certainly part of the boy’s motivation is the love of his father, there is more to his love, and it is here that Berger enables us to understand the importance of the Boy’s belief that everything will be “okay:”
The Boy’s hope defies rationality except as a signal of transcendence. Rationally, we must side with the Boy’s mother and ask the Man to kill his son, but hope persists. In addition to a hope in the future that keeps them both moving, they also enact one of Berger’s “prototypical human gestures” throughout the novel as the Man reassures his son that everything is okay. Consider all the moments in the novel were the father comforts the child in light of Berger’s argument from ordering:
It is my claim that the Man and the Boy’s hope and belief in order is “a statement about reality as such,” a statement that ultimately there is hope and order, although perhaps not in this life. In addition, this hope and order is transcendent; it is not a hope contingent on human relationships, a mere hope in our ability to really love and remember someone; rather, McCarthy seems to be clearly claiming that through human relationships we can find innate in us a hope for the future and a belief in ultimate order that is a signal of a transcendence beyond this life. I’ll close with this scene from the novel which again shows the character’s unquenchable faith:
The boy suggests to his dad that there are people alive somewhere, and his father tells him “no.”:
Perhaps if anyone is interested (not that that has stopped me before…) I’ll write a more theological explication of McCarthy’s idea of God in every man, an idea found in The Road and The Sunset Limited.
The Road is McCarthy’s latest novel and is in some ways even better than Blood Meridian. In the novel, McCarthy gives us essentially the same dark, brutal, inhuman world of Blood Meridian and some of his earlier works, but this time there are very clear and moving points of hope. This hope is centered around the interaction of a father and his son as they attempt to survive in a post-apocalyptic world by walking down the road. They encounter cannibals (a constant threat), harsh weather, utter desolation, ugliness, and starvation. Yet McCarthy crafts the relationship between these two characters such that neither they, nor the reader feels hopeless. In fact, there are many Biblical references and even a few discussions about God in the book. However, the last two pages seem to leave the hope the Man and Boy have open to interpretation. On the last page, a women tells the boy “that the breath of God was his [the father] breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time” (241). She says this in response to the boy as he prayers to his father rather than God, who he can’t seem to pray to. The question thus becomes, is McCarthy advocating a humanist/existentialist religion where “transcendence” (the materialist equivalent at least) lies exclusively in each person and eternity is merely our act of remembering all that has gone before us, or is there an actual God in this novel? Or a third possibility?
What I would like to suggest is that the end of The Road should not be interpreted as a claim for an existentialist pseudo-philosophy, but rather by examining the relationship between the Man and the Boy we can see that McCarthy is clearly making a claim for transcendence in the novel. Specifically, the theories of Peter Berger, Professor of Sociology at Rutgers, from his book A Rumor of Angels will be applied to The Road in an attempt to explain the irrational, unquenchable hope in the Man and the Boy.
As my lovely wife pointed out to me, probably the most repeated word in The Road is “okay,” and it is used in various meanings. On one level, “okay” merely means “alright,” “sure,” or “fine,” but it’s important to keep in mind that it can also mean “everything is in order; tomorrow or the next moment will be alright.” Although I could have found several passages in the novel which have this layered meaning of “okay”, I choose the following one and leave it up to the reader to find others:
“Are you still scared?Peter Berger’s essential argument is that there are what he calls “signals of transcendence” in our lives, and in “prototypical human gestures” which point to a supernatural element to existence. By “signals of transcendence,” Berger means: “phenomena that are to be found within the domain of our “natural” reality but that appear to point beyond that reality. In other words, I am not using transcendence in a technical philosophical sense but literally, as the transcending of the nature, everyday world that I earlier identified with the “supernatural.” (53). He breaks down these “prototypical human gestures” into several foundational arguments; I will use two of these arguments to attempt to better understand McCarthy’s novel: the argument from hope, and the argument from ordering. Both of these arguments are related to the use of the word “Okay” in The Road.
Yes.
We’re okay.
Okay.” (172).
Throughout The Road the Man and the Boy are struggling to survive, but what is remarkable is that they keep trying. On one level at least the father has hope for survival because of the boy, in fact we learn early in the novel that his wife claimed that the Man was only kept from death by the Boy, a claim that is not stated without a sense of condemnation or contempt. It is much harder, however, to justify the hope that the Boy has. The Boy was born after the catastrophe that demolished civilization, which means there was no culture to instill in him a desire to live and a hope for the future; no church, school, government, counselor, psychologist, doctor, teacher, TV, poem, novel, song, or philosophy. If anything, everything that the past culture stood for must seem senseless and wrong to the Boy who now sees only the ruins. One cannot believe that his parents taught him to have this hope since any claim for hope from his father would be countered by the glaring absence of a mother who believed that there were no reasons left to live. Neither religion, philosophy, citizenship, nor family could have instilled in the Boy a belief in the possibility for a better future that would be strong enough to withstand the all but unspeakable horrors he faced in the world. Nature, meanwhile, offers little help either. The world the Boy is born and raised in is completely hostile, ugly (at one point the Man laments the loss of beauty), and lacks even the basic pleasures and comforts. Which brings us to what I believe is the heart of the novel and Camus’s famous question for philosophy: why live?
While the Man has all of Western history and its influence and the preservation of his son to keep him going, the Boy has not been nurtured nor taught by nature to have a hope in tomorrow, yet he does. He constantly is convinced that things will be ultimately, “okay,” although he does have moments of fear. While certainly part of the boy’s motivation is the love of his father, there is more to his love, and it is here that Berger enables us to understand the importance of the Boy’s belief that everything will be “okay:”
“Human existence is always oriented toward the future. Man exists by constantly extending his being toward the future, both in his consciousness and in his activity….An essential dimension of this ‘futurity’ of man is hope. It is through hope that men overcome the difficulties of any given here and now. And it is through hope that men find meaning in the face of extreme suffering” (61).
The Boy’s hope defies rationality except as a signal of transcendence. Rationally, we must side with the Boy’s mother and ask the Man to kill his son, but hope persists. In addition to a hope in the future that keeps them both moving, they also enact one of Berger’s “prototypical human gestures” throughout the novel as the Man reassures his son that everything is okay. Consider all the moments in the novel were the father comforts the child in light of Berger’s argument from ordering:
“A child wakes up in the night, perhaps from a bad dream, and finds himself surrounded by darkness, alone, beset by nameless threats. At such a moment the contours of trusted reality are blurred or invisible, and in the terror of incipient chaos the child cries out for his mother. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, at this moment, the mother is being invoked as a high priestess of protective order. It is she…who has the power to banish the chaos and to restore the benign shape of the world….She will speak or sing to the child, and the content of this communication will invariably be the same—“Don’t be afraid—everything is in order, everything is all right.
All of this, of course, belongs to the most routine experiences of life and does not depend upon any religious preconceptions. Yet this common scene raises a far from ordinary question, which immediately introduced a religious dimension: Is the mother lying to the child? The answer, in the most profound sense, can be “no” only if there is some truth in the religious interpretation of human experience. Conversely, if the ‘natural’ is the only reality there is, the mother is lying to the child—lying out of love, to be sure, and obviously not lying to the extent that her reassurance is grounded in the fact of this love—but, in the final analysis, lying all the same. Why? Because the reassurance, transcending the immediately present two individuals and their situation, implies a statement about reality as such” (54-55).”
It is my claim that the Man and the Boy’s hope and belief in order is “a statement about reality as such,” a statement that ultimately there is hope and order, although perhaps not in this life. In addition, this hope and order is transcendent; it is not a hope contingent on human relationships, a mere hope in our ability to really love and remember someone; rather, McCarthy seems to be clearly claiming that through human relationships we can find innate in us a hope for the future and a belief in ultimate order that is a signal of a transcendence beyond this life. I’ll close with this scene from the novel which again shows the character’s unquenchable faith:
The boy suggests to his dad that there are people alive somewhere, and his father tells him “no.”:
“I don’t know what we’re doing, he (the boy) said.(It is important to note that the boy eventually does see. Not only does the Man have hope for tomorrow, that hope is not unfounded).
The man started to answer. But he didn’t. After a while he said: There are people. There are people and we’ll find them. You’ll see” (206).
Perhaps if anyone is interested (not that that has stopped me before…) I’ll write a more theological explication of McCarthy’s idea of God in every man, an idea found in The Road and The Sunset Limited.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Banality and Abstract Art and Scienticism and Pinker
The Chronicle of Higher Education posted an article by Kirk Varnedoe, a professor of art history at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J. The article is a concise, but poignant definition of abstract/modern art and its purpose, role, and meaning(lessness). Part of what made this post so compelling for me was that Varnedoe does something in the article that works along with a general observation I have been trying to sort out. Varnedoe quite consciously defines a role of art that works contrary to the meaningfulness that humans innately ascribe to art, and in order to somehow reconcile his belief in the ultimate meaninglessness of art with this human imperative to make art meaningful Varnedoe resorts to a linguistic slight-of-hand in which he utilizes religious terminology and all of the connotations therein to fill his nihilistic aesthetic with the illusion of meaningful meaninglessness:
The only analogy that Varnedoe can find to explain the purposefulness he places in the act of "making" is the way one has faith, and although he specifically claims that he is not advocating a religious-like faith, he cannot expect either himself nor his audience to be able to divorce their understanding of "faith" from the connotations raised from the history of Judeo-Christian influence on religious thought. While he might desire to craft a system of art that operates outside of meaning and absolute value, on a fundamental level he lacks the very language to make such a claim. Sometime perhaps I'll expound on how I believe this principle is very useful in exploring much existential philosophy as well.
In a bit of utterly unrelated reading, Steven Pinker, the noted Harvard professor of psychology, has written an article on the recent Harvard Report of the Committee on General Education. In it, Pinker exposes his typical scientism, dismissing the language of the report which calls for the education of students on issues of the potential dangers of science (nuclear weapons, biological warfare agents, electronic eavesdropping, and damage to the environment) and ranting about the absurdity of putting "Reason and Faith" in the same sentence. Pinker argues that all issues of religion are not fit for the university and that giving religion importance in univeristies "is an American anachronism." At the heart of Pinker's diatribe is the belief that faith is useless to discovering truth on any level:
I'm done.
Abstraction has been less a search for the ultimately meaningful ... than a recurrent push for the temporarily meaningless: that is, things that are found not often in exotic realms but rather on the edges of banality, familiarity, and the man-made world. It is the production of forms of order that are not recognizable as order, but vehicles of feeling that appear utterly dumb. Abstract art is a symbolic game, and it is akin to all human games: You have to get into it, risk and all, and this takes a certain act of faith. But what kind of faith? Not faith in absolutes, not a religious kind of faith. A faith in possibility, a faith not that we will know something finally, but a faith in not knowing, a faith in our ignorance, a faith in our being confounded and dumbfounded, a faith fertile with possible meaning and growth.
The only analogy that Varnedoe can find to explain the purposefulness he places in the act of "making" is the way one has faith, and although he specifically claims that he is not advocating a religious-like faith, he cannot expect either himself nor his audience to be able to divorce their understanding of "faith" from the connotations raised from the history of Judeo-Christian influence on religious thought. While he might desire to craft a system of art that operates outside of meaning and absolute value, on a fundamental level he lacks the very language to make such a claim. Sometime perhaps I'll expound on how I believe this principle is very useful in exploring much existential philosophy as well.
In a bit of utterly unrelated reading, Steven Pinker, the noted Harvard professor of psychology, has written an article on the recent Harvard Report of the Committee on General Education. In it, Pinker exposes his typical scientism, dismissing the language of the report which calls for the education of students on issues of the potential dangers of science (nuclear weapons, biological warfare agents, electronic eavesdropping, and damage to the environment) and ranting about the absurdity of putting "Reason and Faith" in the same sentence. Pinker argues that all issues of religion are not fit for the university and that giving religion importance in univeristies "is an American anachronism." At the heart of Pinker's diatribe is the belief that faith is useless to discovering truth on any level:
...the juxtaposition of the two words makes it sound like “faith” and “reason” are parallel and equivalent ways of knowing, and we have to help students navigate between them. But universities are about reason, pure and simple. Faith—believing something without good reasons to do so—has no place in anything but a religious institution, and our society has no shortage of these. Imagine if we had a requirement for “Astronomy and Astrology” or “Psychology and Parapsychology.”Notice how Pinker equivocates faith with pseudoscience, such an absurd and irrational comparison must either be blamed on dishonesty or a fundamental misunderstanding about the role and definition of faith or astrology.
I'm done.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
My First Impressions in English 580: Ethnic Literature
These are some thoughts I wrote during my first and/or second class in English 580. Get out of them what you will.
We are not psycologists, we should not pretend to be.
Without moral foundation, this entire discussion is literally meaningless.
Absurd generalities.
The power struggle is everything. On what basis?
Sloppy, stroppy scholarship.
All that's left is history and politics. But history is contrived and politics is the science of oppression.
Establishing perfect definitions, which is impossible and contradictory.
Fiction should not be realist in action, but "as it should be" which means giving the oppressed a voice and agency. But fiction must also be realistic in regard to character.
No simplification.
Difference:
-Kinder and Gentler
-Increases happiness in the world (but only as an aside)
"Situate Authors"-no one speaks for all, just their gender, sex, identity, and/or ethnicity.
"Perhaps difference helps the nation" Perhaps?
We have to politicize the text.
We have to include politics and power.
"The self/other binary is wrong!"...said the self.
Labels demean, but stereotypes disenfranchisement.
All men stereotype women.
It is absolutely wrong that men create an absolute definition of women.
We are not psycologists, we should not pretend to be.
Without moral foundation, this entire discussion is literally meaningless.
Absurd generalities.
The power struggle is everything. On what basis?
Sloppy, stroppy scholarship.
All that's left is history and politics. But history is contrived and politics is the science of oppression.
Establishing perfect definitions, which is impossible and contradictory.
Fiction should not be realist in action, but "as it should be" which means giving the oppressed a voice and agency. But fiction must also be realistic in regard to character.
No simplification.
Difference:
-Kinder and Gentler
-Increases happiness in the world (but only as an aside)
"Situate Authors"-no one speaks for all, just their gender, sex, identity, and/or ethnicity.
"Perhaps difference helps the nation" Perhaps?
We have to politicize the text.
We have to include politics and power.
"The self/other binary is wrong!"...said the self.
Labels demean, but stereotypes disenfranchisement.
All men stereotype women.
It is absolutely wrong that men create an absolute definition of women.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Another SoberMinded Album Review
Here's the latest review of our album:
"In the end, SoberMinded reminds us that Christian rap is not a cheesy alternative, but fulfilling and skillful hip-hop music that places purpose and meaning above material goods. With a more acoustic approach production-wise, the rappers/producers provide an overall optimistic perspective on life and successfully relate the teachings of Christianity to modern issues. While, content-wise, it is not for everyone, anyone can appreciate the chemistry between the two MCs and their lyrical abilities. It is an album worth hearing and provides easy transition from mainstream to more "spiritually minded" music.
Music Vibes: 7 of 10 Lyric Vibes: 8 of 10 TOTAL Vibes: 7.5 of 10"
Read the Entire RapReviews.com Review here
You can buy the album on our myspace page through Paypal or through the Maddtapes online store.
"In the end, SoberMinded reminds us that Christian rap is not a cheesy alternative, but fulfilling and skillful hip-hop music that places purpose and meaning above material goods. With a more acoustic approach production-wise, the rappers/producers provide an overall optimistic perspective on life and successfully relate the teachings of Christianity to modern issues. While, content-wise, it is not for everyone, anyone can appreciate the chemistry between the two MCs and their lyrical abilities. It is an album worth hearing and provides easy transition from mainstream to more "spiritually minded" music.
Music Vibes: 7 of 10 Lyric Vibes: 8 of 10 TOTAL Vibes: 7.5 of 10"
Read the Entire RapReviews.com Review here
You can buy the album on our myspace page through Paypal or through the Maddtapes online store.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
An Unusual Topic for me But....
I have to make this short because I'm swamped with work, but I had to post something. Read this Times article and notice how the Times will comfortably allow scientists to posit an "intelligent designer" if that designer is some computer engineer and the world is actually just a dream. The world is "fine tuned", therefore there must be a designer, therefore it's probably some dude in his parents basement who has mad programming skills and a Pentium 4000 with a 10000000 Zillahertz processor. This magazine gives more credit to a "The Sims: Real World" hypothesis to explain our universe than the idea of God. Could you imagine the Times giving an Intelligent Design scientist the same space to talk about the fine tuning of our universe? And notice that the article concludes with a lone scientist challenging this "super-computer" idea by saying that the computer would have to be impossibly big. If this were someone like Guillermo Gonzalez who would argue that the designer could actually be (dare we say it?) GOD, there is no way the Times would have only one scientist rebutting the argument. Note the absurd lengths mainstream media and scientists will go to to explain away signs of design. One final thought, could it be that this, absurd postulation about reality is much easier for people to accept than the existence of God because a computer program makes no demands upon our lives and is, in fact, "cool", while accepting God's existence demands everything of us. Ok, enough of my rambling, read this, it's short:
Top scientist asks: is life all just a dream?
Top scientist asks: is life all just a dream?
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
New SoberMinded Album Review
Check out the following review for our album "Points, Thoughts, and Stories":
"Easily among the best independent and underground hip-hop releases of the year. It pushes intellectual and moral points while remaining relevant to people of any or every religion. I'd love to take a couple days and write a full review on it, but am way too tied up with all the music we're getting nowadays. Either way, this is a permanent fixture on my iPod, so I highly recommend checking it out whether or not you're a fan of christian rap..." Read Entire HipHopLinguistics.com Review
For more info check out SoberMinded's myspace page.
"Easily among the best independent and underground hip-hop releases of the year. It pushes intellectual and moral points while remaining relevant to people of any or every religion. I'd love to take a couple days and write a full review on it, but am way too tied up with all the music we're getting nowadays. Either way, this is a permanent fixture on my iPod, so I highly recommend checking it out whether or not you're a fan of christian rap..." Read Entire HipHopLinguistics.com Review
For more info check out SoberMinded's myspace page.
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