Mozart's Primitivism

What does Wolfgang A. Mozart have in common with Sid Vicious?

"It is true that one doesn’t normally speakof Mozart and Sid Vicious in the same breath, but they do have this in common: primitivism. Rock’n’roll began as a primitivist movement, and it renews itself with mini-primitivisms, of which punk is just one example. To see Mozart as a primitivist is a little harder, since his style is so identified with the civilized and the rational, things we think of as anti-primitive, and yet the Classical movement in music, like its companion neoclassicism in art, owed everything to the primitivist desire to begin anew by stripping away the false and inessential. Écrasez l’infâme. To the Baroque’s heavy sauces, multiple courses, and thickly layered combinations of tastes and textures, the Classical would propose a nouvelle cuisine." (read whole article)

Why Cultural Elites Attack Religion

This Spiked-online article examines the vitriolic attacks often directed at religion.

The Father of Ireland

This article from the Independent has an interesting story about the use of Y-chromosome research to identify a famous common Irish ancestor.

We are...amused

Is heart health a laughing matter? Apparently so.

Critiquing Richard Dawkins

This article from the Guardian calls “Richard Dawkins’ latest attack on religion” an “intellectually lazy polemic not worthy of a great scientist.”

(via DangerousIdea)

Brits Give

This TimesOnline story tells how British evangelicals outgive practically everyone else.

(via CTMag Weblog)

Book a film

Is the book always better than the movie as many seem to assert? That all depends.

(via Arts and Letters Daily)

Will Going to Church Make You Rich?

I’ve got no patience for the health and wealth gospel peddled by some televangelists. But this article from the Economist is rather intriguing.

Excerpt:

“Some of the occasional churchgoers must wonder whether they might benefit from turning up more often. If they did so, they could gain more than spiritual nourishment. Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims that regular religious participation leads to better education, higher income and a lower chance of divorce.”

I’ll be back. Just going to check my bank balance.

What if Christmas Never Happened?

No Christmas means no Christianity. And without Christianity, Western Civilization would have turned out very differently (assuming such a thing as Western Civilization would have existed at all beyond the time of the Roman Empire). Rodney Stark of Baylor University has written a new book: The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House), where he puts forward the thesis that only in the crucible of Christian Europe could science and capitalism have been produced, with the result that the technological advancements we have today, as wrought by science and capitalism, are being enjoyed by many.

This essay is an adaptation of his book.

Stark writes:

“The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.”

“For the past several centuries, far too many of us have been misled by the incredible fiction that, from the fall of Rome until about the 15th century, Europe was submerged in the Dark Ages — centuries of ignorance, superstition, and misery — from which it was suddenly, almost miraculously, rescued; first by the Renaissance and then by the Enlightenment. But, as even dictionaries and encyclopedias recently have begun to acknowledge, it was all a lie!”

“It was during the so-called Dark Ages that European technology and science overtook and surpassed the rest of the world. Some of that involved original inventions and discoveries; some of it came from Asia. But what was so remarkable was the way that the full capacities of new technologies were recognized and widely adopted. By the 10th century Europe already was far ahead in terms of farming equipment and techniques, had unmatched capacities in the use of water and wind power, and possessed superior military equipment and tactics. Not to be overlooked in all that medieval progress was the invention of a whole new way to organize and operate commerce and industry: capitalism.”

“Through all prior recorded history, slavery was universal — Christianity began in a world where as much as half the population was in bondage. But by the seventh century, Christianity had become the only major world religion to formulate specific theological opposition to slavery, and, by no later than the 11th century, the church had expelled the dreadful institution from Europe. That it later reappeared in the New World is another matter, although there, too, slavery was vigorously condemned by popes and all of the eventual abolition movements were of religious origins.”

(via Arts and Letters Daily)

Still laughing...

...over this picture.

Bible Translations

New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III has posted some bible recommendations on his blog, although his dislike of the English Standard Version triggered some disagreement in the comments section. His main concern seems to be the issue of gender inclusiveness. And Wayne Leman continues the discussion on his blog.

Alan Jacobs on Lewis

Leave it to Alan Jacobs to write the most interesting article on C.S. Lewis I've read this past week. (via CT Weblog)

Interesting Narnia article

Peter Chattaway has written this article, "The Paganism of Narnia".

Is the hype worth it?

As Sunday’s church bulletin was given to me I could not ignore the front cover: an image from the new Narnia film. At that point I knew something was afoot. I already knew the sermon was going to be Narnia-related. That I have no problem with. Referring to and quoting Lewis, with his many insights into the Christian faith, can be helpful in bringing out a theological point. But with the publication of this bulletin, our church (and I suspect many others) has officially become an arm of the marketing division of the Walt Disney Corporation. The copyright on the back cover (in small print) tells it all. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is the effort to hype this film as a ‘Christian story’ missing the point? Hard to say. In the book The Pilgrim’s Guide, Christopher Mitchell, theology professor at Wheaton College and director of the Marion Wade Center, writes:

“The vividness with which Lewis perceived the potential eternal destinies of every man and woman compelled him to direct a greater part of his energies toward the saving of souls. Lewis perceived evangelism to be his lay vocation, and the means by which he expressed this evangelistic impulse were his writing and speaking….Lewis said without qualification that ‘the salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world’….the idea struck him that the gospel could be ‘smuggled into people’s minds’ by means of fiction….in answer to the question…’Would you say that the aim of…your own writing is to bring about an encounter of the reader with Jesus Christ?’, he replied, ‘That is not my language yet it is the purpose I have in view.’” (pp.3-5)

So, at its core, Narnia seems to be evangelistic work. But, any subtlety that Lewis used in his fictional works is being obliterated by the campaign by churches to get non-Christian friends and relatives into the cineplex. The great thing about his fiction is the way that one could enjoy the story without being aware of the Christian themes in them. Some themes are obvious, some less so. Lewis probably cared more that a good story was being experienced, and if the reader could make a connection with the religious elements, then fine. If not, then too bad. I view all this preaching about the film to be similar to when a writer makes a point in poetry and then is forced to explain herself, in prose, what each line in the poem means. It’s all just so, well, obvious.

On the other hand, I guess one could say, “Who cares?”, or as the Apostle Paul might say, “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”

Anne Rice

In case anyone missed this, Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice has become a Christian (or at least has returned to her childhood religious beliefs). The thing that impresses me is the careful thinking she did before returning to the Church. She even read a few evangelical scholars and in particular speaks very highly of N.T. Wright.

In Defense of Narnia

In response to the scathing attacks by His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman, Michael Nelson, professor of political science at Rhodes College, has written a brilliant defense of C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia by pointing out that neither Lewis nor his stories are racist, sexist, or warmongering. (originally linked at Arts and Letters Daily)

Sermons on Narnia

It turns out that even my pastor has caught Narnia fever. He’s going to do three sermons on C.S. Lewis in December. I suppose it’s easy to have a bandwagon mentality considering the vast coverage that the film is receiving in not only Christian magazines and journals but also in the mainstream media. Unfortunately, one can only do so much in a sermon on a Sunday morning. I would recommend reading the following Hollywood Jesus blog, especially for the analyses of all seven books. And with regard to the life and works of Lewis, one of the best sites is C.S. Lewis: 20th-Century Knight. One could spend a lot of time following all the links to papers and other Lewis sites. Of course, although Lewis is probably my favourite writer (if he isn’t he’s definitely in the top three), there are others who deserve attention. Dostoyevsky, for example. Once you read The Brothers Karamazov you may wonder why you wasted your time on all the pap and fluff that usually passes by one’s eyes. The great mysteries of life are often best explored in works of fiction. Lewis and Dostoyevsky provide some of the best of those works.

Women in the Church

This CT article reminded me of the nasty battles that occur in Christian circles regarding the role of women in the Church as well as in the home. There are two main views: complementarianism and egalitarianism. I pitch my tent in the egalitarian camp. In my view, women can hold any office in the church hierarchy including senior pastor and moderator of the General Assembly. And in the home I don’t think the biblical data supports the concept of male “headship” as it is commonly thought of. Two books I’d recommend (and there are many being published these days by evangelical presses) are Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality by Rebecca Merrill Groothuis and Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry by Stanley Grenz and Denise Kjesbo.

For an excellent online examination, check out this series at the Christian-Thinktank. It’s a bit lengthy so I’d especially recommend reading section 4-Women in the NT and the Early Church, and especially the fourth article, Paul and Women which looks at the controversial passages such as 1 Cor. 11, 1 Cor. 14, 1 Tim. 2, Eph. 5.

Why Bother with Harry Potter

One response that we can expect from certain Christians whenever a new Harry Potter book or film is released is a good old fashioned book burning. Another response is the attempt to ban the book in public or school libraries. Obviously, parents have a right to impose reading restrictions on their own children as they see fit. Other Christians, however, see value in reading the books and viewing the films.

This article from CTMovies provides a brief look at why Christians of all people ought to read the Potter series.

Also worth reading is this First Things article by Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College.

And one of the best websites that looks at the Christian and redemptive themes in the books and films is HogwartsProfessor.com.

Who Made God? Pt.3

Third, one could appeal to the scientific evidence and ask the question, “The universe hasn’t always existed. Where did it come from?” Big bang cosmology tells us that our incredibly fine-tuned universe, all matter, energy and space, had a beginning to its existence. In other words, there was a creation event. Anything that begins to exist has a cause. Therefore, the universe had a cause (and God seems to be the best candidate). We also know that time itself, as Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose discovered around 35 years ago, had a finite beginning concurrent with the big bang. Since space and time are created entities, then whatever, or whomever, created them is not just another spatio-temporal being but would exist outside space and time.

Now, time is the dimension where cause and effect take place, and it is linear. The universe is confined to a single dimension of time moving in only one direction. Anything that begins to exist (such as the universe) has a starting point along this time dimension and is caused by something else. The law of causality tells us that effects follow their causes. But since God created time and is not limited to it, he can operate outside of our time dimension and not be subject to the law of causality. Consequently, if God is not subject to the law of cause and effect, He has no cause or beginning. This means that He has always existed. This is in concord with the traditional concepts of God. He must be eternal and necessary. He depends on nothing else for his existence. Non-theists who object should remember that they have always said that the universe was eternal and uncaused. Unfortunately, the scientific evidence has shown this position to be unacceptable. (Slight digression: And those who appeal to the existence of infinite universes to explain the fine-tuning of our universe are themselves stuck with the question of origins, to wit, where did all those universes come from?)

All three responses to the question of God’s origin, taken together, make for a cumulative case for God as the uncreated, Creator of the universe (Of course, I’ve presented only a short, lay-person written summary. I suggest reading the linked books for more detail). Even if not everybody is satisfied with what I’ve presented, that’s fine. I’m just trying to point out that when it comes to the existence of God and His nature, the realm of science and philosophy is still very much occupied.