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On May 5, 2014 By In Culture, Family and Children

We Told Everyone Gay Marriage Is Perfectly Okay

Remember Gene Robinson? Only a few years ago, he scandalized many by becoming the first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop, and then by marrying his partner.

Welp. Now he’s getting divorced. You can read about it here. He’s sixty-six years old, but apparently the acrimony is too great to continue with the 25-year relationship. Although he wouldn’t say so.

Here’s what he did have to say:

“As you can imagine, this is a difficult time for us — not a decision entered into lightly or without much counseling,” Robinson wrote in a letter. “We ask for your prayers, that the love and care for each other that has characterized our relationship for a quarter century will continue in the difficult days ahead.”

“It is at least a small comfort to me, as a gay rights and marriage equality advocate, to know that like any marriage, gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples.”

Mr. Robinson continued in this vein of acting like a responsible adult. As we all know, in this day and age we’re all French: we pretend to be blase about our lover’s lover and about our bitter divorce. It’s grown-up to be cool about divorce. Be cool, Gene.

“My belief in marriage is undiminished by the reality of divorcing someone I have loved for a very long time, and will continue to love even as we separate,” Robinson wrote in his column. “Love can endure, even if a marriage cannot.”

Love can endure, even if a marriage cannot. Right. I keep forgetting that love is a feeling, not an action.

It’s not like divorce could by definition mean someone’s not loving someone. That’d be ridiculous.

But that’s not the point here anyway. The reason I’m sharing this is to say that Mr. Robinson is right. Just like any marriage, gay and lesbian couples are subjected to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples.

This is not Mr. Robinson’s first divorce. He divorced his wife in 1986. He did so “amicably”, for no other reason than that he could no longer be married. And that was fine. He divorced for no sound biblical reason, and was not defrocked.

Remember when you and I told the homosexual community that marriage was sacred? And then we went and got divorced like everyone else did? That’s what made this okay. We declared marriage profane well before anyone started trying to say that marriage could be something besides what it obviously is.

One thing marriage obviously isn’t is unholy. Or convenient. Or bitter. Or selfish. Or temporary.

Once we said it was those things, we were the ones who changed the definition of marriage.

Originally published at Joffre The Giant.<>seo оптимизация веб а

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On April 29, 2014 By In Books, Culture

Men Without Balls: The Difference Between Elves & Spacers

caves of steel

The Caves of Steel trilogy, or the Robot series, by Isaac Asimov was one of my favorite works as a child. In fact, thanks to my mother, Isaac Asimov was one of my favorite authors as a child; I say that even though I hated Foundation. I loved Galactic Empire, and the Black Widower stories, and The Gods Themselves. I believe my introduction to him was my mother’s copy of The Stars, Like Dust, a title which caught me with its beauty and punctuation at age nine.

I will tell you the three things that impressed me most about the Robot series, in which a human and android detective combine to solve murders while awesomely revealing and expounding to the reader sci-fi tropes of far-reaching societal consequence. (bam!) The first was the dark, warm, and hardly understood feels evoked by the romantic tension between Lije Bailey and Gladia in The Naked Sun, the second was the exploration of Earth public restroom etiquette in Caves of Steel (men never ever ever spoke to each other), and the third was the deleterious effect of the incredibly long lives of the Spacers on them individually and on their society.

Spacers, who were descended from the best Earth had to offer, and had departed purged of all disease, ruled every part of the galaxy they had explored. And they did not permit the short-lived and disease-ridden Earth-dwellers to leave their planet and pollute the cosmos. They lived for 300 or more years, feared death, lacked initiative, moved slowly, and craved safety.

Recall that the largest literary loom that loomed in my childhood was The Lord of the Rings. In that tapestry, the immortal elves were doomed to leave the world to men. They were the first children, and lived forever, but knew that the second children, doomed to die, had a fate beyond death that brought them closer to the Creator (although that is only explicitly stated in The Silmarillion, which I read years later). There is undoubtedly a bittersweetness to the elves’ immortality, but that never robbed them of this: they blessed their world. The elves were crafters and gardeners and musicians and smiths and architects and poets. They made beauty appear everywhere they went.

I loved Lije Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw so much as a kid. I’m telling you, I read his adventures over and over again. But I knew, even as a child, what the difference between the worlds of Asimov and Tolkien were. There was no God in Asimov, and there was in Tolkien.

“If you were to die now,” says Hans Fastolfe the Spacer to Lije Baley the Earther, “you would lose perhaps forty years of your life, probably less. If I were to die, I would lose a hundred fifty years, probably more.” Spacers fear death, and the murder in their midst is too terrifying for them to contemplate.

Meanwhile, from the Wars of Beleriand to the dawning of the Age of Men, the elves, a noble race but not without their moral failings, not only continue to make beautiful things, but continue to lay down their lives for their world and for Men.

What’s the difference between elves and Spacers? I’ll tell you.

Elves know where they go when they die. They go to be in the light of Ilúvatar, who is a Christ-figure. In fact, they don’t have to die to go there; they can sail there if they wish, though Men may not. The ones who stay love Creation, and will die for it, knowing what their blessed fate is.

C. S. Lewis feared that without the God of Christ we would become “men without chests”. I believe we have become such men. But there is another organ missing. We don’t live to 350 and own 10,000 robots, but we do live to 90 and own 3 robots. That apparently is enough.

We are the men without balls.

Originally published at Joffre the Giant.<>реклама на легковых автомобиляхпрайсы на контекстную рекламу

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On April 29, 2014 By In Culture

Sex as a Demon

“Sexual desire, without Eros, wants it, the thing in itself; Eros wants the beloved. When natural things look most divine, the demoniac is just around the corner. But Eros, honored without reservation and obeyed unconditionally, becomes a demon. The real danger seems to me not that the lovers will idolize each other but that they will idolize Eros himself.” (C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves)

C.S. Lewis is a master of the human heart. He understood the dangers that come, not only with hurt and pain, but with pleasure and joy.  We assume that it is the wicked things that destroy us. But all too often it is that which is beautiful and enjoyable that becomes a bloodthirsty demon.  Why? We replace the Creator with the creature.  The creature, the thing, the experience, becomes our god.  The moment we do that we have brought home a dragon that will eventually eat us.

All areas of human experience are prone to this idolization.  But there is no area so easily worshiped today as sex.  Our culture is hyper-sexualized.   Our commercials are filled with sexual innuendo or scantily clad women. Our teenage daughters wear more to bed than they do on the street.  Television shows and movies are filled with sexual imagery. Songs are filled with sexual lyrics. Magazines have articles on how to have a better sex life.  Christians write books on how to have a better sex life.  Pastors preach sermons on how to have a better sex life. Apparently, a better sex life is the way to happiness.

In this pursuit of sex what people want is not a particular man or woman but a particular experience.  A man watching pornography does not want the porn star. He wants what the porn star can supposedly give; a sexual high. A woman who sleeps with men at the drop of a hat or dresses with most of her body showing is not looking to please a particular man. She is trying to get a particular experience.  Often, even the Christian, because he has been catechized by our culture, is looking for a particular sexual experience.  In other words, we bow down and worship sex. It is our god, our great savior.  It is the transcendental experience that will get us closer to God.

What are some of the effects of this idolization of sex?

  1. Women are degraded. Because women are the weaker vessel they become objects.  They are there to provide a sexual high.  This does not stop with marriage. Many men still view their wives this way after getting married. She is there, not be loved, but to be used.
  2. Children are sexualized. Pedophilia is a natural extension of the idolization of sex.  A woman (or man) cannot provide a certain experience maybe a child can.
  3. Perverted acts become part of the normal human sexual experience: handcuffs, dressing up as the opposite sex, having numerous partners, watching pornography together, sodomy, etc.  The idol sex is supposed to provide a certain experience. However, she always comes up short. So we try more and more things.  I remember an interview with mass murderer Ted Bundy. He talked about how he started out reading and watching pornography. Then he went to strip clubs. Then he took cheap feels on women in crowded places. Then he slept with prostitutes. Finally, he kidnapped, raped, and killed women.  Of course, not everyone goes that far. But in our hearts, many of us walk that same path. The man who leaves his wife for a younger, more attractive woman is a miniature Ted Bundy.
  4. We are never satisfied.  Idols always take. They never give. Idols promise, but never deliver. They say, “You too can have amazing sex and be fulfilled.” But in the end the sex leaves you empty and dead. Oh, there may be a temporary pleasure. I am sure the fruit tasted good to Adam and Eve. But that pleasure fades.  As Adam drove his spade into the rock hard ground under the hot sun outside the Garden, I doubt he thought that fruit was worth it. Idols give salt water to a thirsty man.
  5. This might seem odd. But one effect of idolizing sex is that sex itself is degraded.  It becomes a means to an end. The end is an experience.  Thus sex becomes like a hammer. It is a tool to provide a certain service.  Here again C.S. Lewis:  “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. ” When sex becomes an idol we lose the joy of sex.

How do we fight the idolization of sex?

  1. Worship  God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Believe that only He can provide everlasting satisfaction and joy. Bow down before God and you will not bow before sex.
  2. Remember sex is intended to be act of love between a man and woman married to each other. The point of sex is not just so you can experience something. The point is to give. That is what love is. Again, C.S. Lewis, “Say your prayers in a garden early, ignoring steadfastly the dew, the birds and the flowers, and you will come away overwhelmed by its freshness and joy; go there in order to be overwhelmed and, after a certain age, nine times out of ten nothing will happen to you.”  If we do something to have a certain experience we will often be disappointed. But if we go to do what we are supposed to do then we will usually be satisfied.  So too with sex.
  3. Sex,  like any gift, must be used to love God and our neighbor. These two commands put fences around our sex life. Any act or thought which does not love God or love my neighbor is sin.
  4.  The idolization of sex will not be defeated by treating sex as dirty. Sex is a gift from God to be enjoyed within the bounds of the marriage bed.
  5. Sex is a gift from God designed for certain purposes, including conceiving children, providing pleasure, protecting one’s spouse from temptation, and making a man and woman one flesh. It is not designed to provide a transcendental, spiritual experience.  As Mrs. Elizabeth Elliott said somewhere, “Sometimes sex is a sandwich. Sometimes it is a steak.” If you can’t enjoy the sandwich then sex has become an idol.
  6. Beware of always wanting more from your sex life. Beware of the slow creeping lie that there is something better and if you just do this or buy that or watch this then you can have a better sexual experience. Pull that weed up immediately and learn to be content with what God has given you.
  7. Beware comparing your sex life with someone else’s.  Most of us have seen examples of sex on screen or read about sexual experiences. The temptation is to compare our sex life with what we have seen or read. This is devastating to a real, enjoyable sex life. It does not matter what the world or other people are doing in their beds. Enjoy your spouse  without a thought for the expectations of the outside world. You will be happier and your spouse will be too.
  8. Be satisfied  with who you have. The grass is not greener.

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On April 22, 2014 By In Culture

Foundational prog albums – Selling England by the Pound

Selling England

If you click and enlarge the picture you can see good ol’ Charlie Brown pulling out his well-worn vinyl copy of Selling England by the Pound.

Selling England by the Pound – Genesis (released in 1973)

I remember several times as a teenager watching the British comedy show Monty Python’s Flying Circus on my local PBS affiliate. I loved some of the more obvious zaniness and several of the buffoonish skits. However, I always felt that the broader contours of the humor were beyond my grasp. In retrospect, much of Monty Python’s humor was beyond me. The colloquialisms were foreign, the surrealism was unfamiliar to me, and the social situations involving prime ministers, knights, gumboots, vicars, civil servants, and the like were just too…British. I was (and still am) a United States Midwesterner and, while I appreciated the hilarity of the physical humor of silly walks or the “Gumby” skits, it wasn’t until I was older that I realized the deep cynicism lurking behind government grants for silly walks or a statement like, “I would put a tax on all people who stand in water.” Taking something serious (for example, wanton over-taxation) and sending it up through silliness is distinctly British and is something that ended up profoundly shaped my worldview, my sense of humor, and the way I look at things like oppressive governmental entities.

Many newbies to progressive rock probably feel the same bewilderment I felt toward Monty Python when approaching the early albums of the British band Genesis. During the mid-1980s Genesis produced highly accessible music that allowed them to sell millions of records, play worldwide to sold-out stadiums, and shill for Michelob beer. This massive success no doubt sent new fans scurrying for the band’s back-catalogue. What awaited those bandwagon fans was a lot of idiosyncratic music with song titles like “Squonk,” “Robbery, Assault & Battery,” and “Wot Gorilla?” If fans managed to white-knuckle it through those late-1970s albums and worked all the way back to the early-1970s where Genesis was fronted by Peter Gabriel they were greeted by aggressively quirky songs like “Stagnation,” “The Return of the Giant Hogweed,” “Harold the Barrel,” and “Get ‘Em Out by Friday.” Anyone expecting “In Too Deep,” “Invisible Touch,” or even “Sussudio” was in for a rude awakening.

Genesis was a band that formed out of several friendships fostered in the British boarding/public school system. They released an ill-conceived first album in 1969 entitled From Genesis to Revelation that found them sounding much more like a third-rate Bee Gees knockoff than the prog rockers they would become. The band’s first proper album (Trespass) was released in 1970 and reflected a far more progressive rock edge, although in a very undeveloped form. It was followed by Nursery Cryme in 1971, Foxtrot in 1972, and Selling England by the Pound in 1973.

The band’s unusual songs were coupled with a live act that was equally daring. Gabriel regularly appeared on stage wearing bizarre costumes like a bowler hat, a red dress, a fox head, and a flower headdress as he acted out the characters from Genesis’ songs. This combination of highly idiosyncratic music and musical theater showmanship brought the band tremendous notoriety and helped solidify their reputation as an edgy live act.

After the jump I will explore Genesis’ Selling England by the Pound track-by-track.

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On April 15, 2014 By In Culture

Foundational prog albums – Close to the Edge

Close To The Edge

If you click and enlarge the picture you can see good ol’ Charlie Brown pulling out his well-worn vinyl copy of Close to the Edge.

Eddie [Offord] roused himself sufficiently to play back one of the album tracks called ‘Total Mass Retain’.

“What does ‘Total Mass Retain’ mean!” protested Bill [Bruford].

“What’s wrong with ‘Total Mass Retain’?” demanded Jon [Anderson]. “I had to think of something quickly.”

“Why not call it ‘Puke’?” asked Bill.[1]

—

“In 40 years’ time, along with three or four other albums from that era, people will pick out Close to the Edge and say, ‘That’s what progressive rock was all about.’”[2]

Close to the Edge – Yes (released in 1972)

Few bands personify the worldview and ethos of progressive rock better than the band Yes. The band formed in 1968 around a nucleus of bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Peter Banks, vocalist Jon Anderson, and drummer Bill Bruford. Keyboardist Tony Kaye was added a bit later and the first version of the band was complete.

Yes began their career as a cover band performing tunes by The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and The 5th Dimension. Instead of performing the hits of these artists verbatim, Yes would add long instrumental sections of their own composition, extending the songs to epic lengths.

The first incarnation of Yes proved to be short-lived. After two largely unsuccessful albums, Banks was out of the band in 1970. He was replaced by Steve Howe. Kaye would leave the band a year later and was replaced by Rick Wakeman. The Yes of Anderson, Squire, Bruford, Howe, and Wakeman would comprise what many fans consider to be Yes’ greatest lineup.

Over the span of eighteen months (March 1971 to September 1972) Yes released three of the finest albums of the first wave of prog: The Yes Album, Fragile, and their masterpiece, Close to the Edge. Close to the Edge contained the perfect storm of three dynamic songs, performed by the right five musicians, recording under the oversight of the right producer and engineer (Eddy Offord), and everyone performing at the peak of their potential. The album also featured a brilliant album cover and gatefold sleeve by graphic designer Roger Dean.

As for the songs, Close to the Edge is an album full to overflowing with beauty and goodness. The songs also might be overflowing with lyrical truth. However, vocalist Jon Anderson’s lyrics are notoriously cryptic and quite difficult to interpret. Guitarist/keyboardist Kerry Livgren of the band Kansas summed up the ambivalence that many fans have with Yes’ music when he wrote, “Yes…should have been everything I liked, but for some reason they weren’t. They made use of esoteric and quasi-religious themes, but they sometimes went so far with their lyrics that it struck me as almost corny. But The Yes Album, Fragile, and Close to the Edge were musically excellent.”[3]

Dr. Brad Birzer has stated that he has heard Close to the Edge is about the Protestant Reformation. Although I have been unable to find any scholarly works or papers to verify Birzer’s assertion, he very well may be correct. Most of the scholarly commentary on the album’s title track point out that the lyrics are influenced by Hermann Hesse’s book Siddhartha. Regardless, we can certainly say that the album contains some images and concepts that may be biblical. I’ll point those out as we explore all three of the songs on this classic album.

Note: For the purposes of this review I used the 2013 Steven Wilson remix of Close to the Edge as a reference. Wilson spoke recently about his approach to remixing this iconic album here. If you can spring for the Wilson remix (especially the Blu-Ray version) it is well worth the money.

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On April 9, 2014 By In Culture

Building a Prog Foundation – Five Starter Albums

five_prog

We have arrived at the point in our show where, having set the stage with a brief history and addressed some “what and why” questions, we are ready to get down to brass tacks and give consideration to a variety of prog rock artists, albums, and songs. In forming this list I worked from the assumption that the average Kuyperian Commentary reader would have little to no familiarity with progressive rock. So my recommendations are geared toward the prog newbie and not so much toward a seasoned listener familiar with every nook and cranny of the genre.

If you are a seasoned consumer of progressive rock you will undoubtedly look at my list and find a quibble here or there. “I wouldn’t have recommended ______ by _______. I would recommended _______ by ______ instead.” Recommended lists are by no means definitive and I am assuming that. However, someone has to be the navigator on this prog journey and and I’m the one wearing the tour guide hat, coat, and dungarees. Nevertheless, prog fandom inspires vigorous debate like few other rock music genres. Proggers are a spirited lot, active on Internet message boards, able to write thousands of words about the glories of mid- 70s Italian prog, or argue to the death that everyone but them has completely overlooked obscure prog artists like Ozric Tentacles or Grobschnitt. Let’s just say that, if you’re looking for a series of recommendations from the skinny branches of the prog rock tree, prepare to be disappointed.

Finally, when compiling lists like these, I try never think in terms of a “best of” list. Therefore, this list (nor any other lists in this series) should not be misconstrued as being my picks for the “five best prog albums ever.” Leave the “best of” list discussions for athletic competitions and the Guinness Book of World Records. This is all about my opinions of what would suffice as suitable listening for a Kuyperian Commentary prog newbie. Your mileage and recommendations will surely vary.

This list is meant to address foundations. The following are five albums that I believe I could give any prog rock newbie and they would come away feeling as if they had a solid knowledge and understanding of what makes for good prog rock. If you look at the picture above you’ll see a spoiler snapshot giving away my choices for this list.

Let’s consider briefly each album in chronological order and then, over the next five posts, we will attempt a deeper, track-by-track dive into my “foundational five albums of progressive rock.”

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On April 9, 2014 By In Culture

Obedience is the Door to Joy

Reformation begins with a Spirit-given desire to submit fully and completely to the Scriptures. It does not matter whether this reformation begins in the home or the church or in the community. Sitting humbly under the Word is an essential ingredient.

In my home one of the ways I have worked towards reformation is by getting my children to obey me. This is not easy in our culture where both authority and submission are despised. By getting my children to obey, I am learning to obey. But as with any good thing there are dangers. One of the great dangers of teaching my children to obey is to view their obedience as the goal instead of the means to a greater goal. The Westminster Shorter Catechism very succinctly names the goal we should have in life:

Question: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: The chief  end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

In another delightful phrase that I, unfortunately, just found, The Belgic Confession says that God is the “overflowing fountain of all good.” (Article I) The goal is enjoying God, not obeying him. Now, you cannot have joy without obedience. But it is possible to have a type of obedience that does not lead to joy. It is possible to teach our children to obey without ever leading them through the door to joy.

Do we teach them to obey so they might enjoy the goodness of God? Do we view obedience as a door to a mansion where all the rooms are filled with the wonders of God or do we view it as the last stop on the train? Is teaching our children to obey a way setting them free or a way controlling them? Let me use the dinner table and bedtime as examples of what I mean.

At our table we have rules. These are not written in the Bible, but they are “house rules” that my wife and I have set up for our table. If I was going to use a Bible verse to justify these rules it would be Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another.” Manners at the table are a way of being kind. Some of these rules are: wait until mom and sisters are seated before the men sit, chew quietly, do not interrupt, do not eat with your fingers (with exceptions for pizza, fried chicken, and PB&J), etc. The point of having and enforcing these rules is not just to keep our children under control. These rules make our table a place of joy. (Needless to say it does not always work out this way.) We sing at the table. We tell jokes and puns. We tell stories. We listen to stories, even from the littlest ones. We ask questions. We discuss world events and events in our homes. We learn what our children are thinking and what they care about. None of this is possible without obedience. But obedience is not the goal. The goal is joy around the table.

Bedtime is the same way. I do not make my children obey at bedtime so I can simply say, “Bedtime” and they all snap to it. I teach  my children to obey at bedtime so we can pray together, talk a bit, maybe sing. In other words I teach them to obey so we can end the day enjoying God and each other.

The goal in all of life is to find great joy in God, his people, and his world. Obedience is a door to this goal, but it is not the goal itself. To stop and sit in the door of a great house would be an insult to the master of the house.

Here are three questions to consider:

First, are you teaching your children to obey? Do you know that by allowing them to disobey you are keeping them from enjoying God and this world? Disobedience brings bondage.

Second, you parents who are trying to get your children to obey are you leading your children to joy through obedience or are you sitting in the door examining the hinges? Is your house filled with joyless obedience? If you have obedient children, but no joy then neither you nor your children are being obedient, no matter how well they listen.

Third, parents how do you view your own obedience? Do you view obedience as a means to enjoying God? Or do you view obedience as the end, the goal itself?

This was originally posted at Singing and Slaying.<>cifrolom.comнадежная раскрутка а

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On April 4, 2014 By In Culture

Why enjoy this music? – What is in progressive rock for the mature believer

I grew up in a home where my parents took both my brother and me to church almost every Sunday. The memories I have are of a conservative Bible Church full of good people who loved the Lord and sought to glorify God in word and in deed. My teenage years directly coincided with the explosive growth of contemporary Christian music (CCM). All of the cool kids in our youth group owned cassettes by artists such as Petra, Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, and Whiteheart. A smaller subset of ultra-cool youth group kids owned cassettes by Steve Taylor and Stryper.

Then there were the square peg/round hole kids like myself who, although they enjoyed and owned some contemporary Christian music, also really enjoyed so-called “secular music” by artists such as Genesis, Rush, Van Halen, and Journey. This was a problem. My church youth group promoted the ministries of people like Bob Larson and Al Menconi (remember them?) who proclaimed that “secular rock & roll” was “the devil’s diversion” and that what was needed was a 30 day “Christian music diet” in order to flush out the bad stuff.[1] Much of this gained little traction with me, even when it was accompanied by a late-night showing of A Thief in the Night at a youth group all-nighter. For the most part I continued to enjoy Judas Priest and Bryan Adams right alongside Rich Mullins and DeGarmo and Key

Fast-forward to 2014. Many Christians freely interact with all sorts of “non-Christian movies,” especially in critiquing a movie’s story and worldview. Students attending Christian academies (especially classical Christian academies) participate in “great books” or Omnibus programs where they are expected to read The Koran, On the Origin of Species, or Mein Kampf alongside City of God, Institutes of the Christian Religion, and Mere Christianity. In the areas of movies and literature Christians are learning more and more to understand the culture and how to bring the Christian worldview to bear in the arena of ideas. We have learned (rightly, I believe) that sifting through a thing thoughtfully in order to keep the wheat and reject the tares pleases God much more than a wholesale, retreatist rejection of the whole shooting match. Realizing that unbelievers are able to tell a story that correctly reflects God’s truth, beauty, and goodness is to realize that God pours out his common grace on believers and unbelievers alike, even if unbelievers remain strangers to God’s redeeming grace.

And yet I fear that, in the area of music, too many thoughtful Christians are stuck in a reactionary Christian ghetto with no desire to strike out and explore other musical aspects of God’s world. A wise partaking of and engagement in rock music–especially progressive rock music–is what I am after in this series of posts. If Christians are mature enough to interact thoughtfully and honestly with Immanuel Kant, Edgar Allen Poe, and The Communist Manifesto then they should be able to interact thoughtfully and honestly with Pink Floyd, Marillion, and the song “BU2B” by the band Rush.

One reading of pop music history claims that punk rock came along in the late 1970s and almost overnight rendered progressive rock obsolete “dinosaur music.” Punk rockers may or may not have “hated” prog rock, but I believe we can say beyond a reasonable doubt that punk rock gloried in the overthrow of tradition, adhered to the ethos of ugly anarchy, and believed in the supremacy of revolution. How else can one explain explain a song that exclaimed, “I am an anti-christ/I am an anarchist/Don’t know what I want but I know how to get it/I wanna destroy the passer by.” If the punkers rejected the proggers because the latter loved truth, beauty, and goodness while the former did not, then so be it.

But I expect better things of Christians, especially Christians that regularly partake in great books, big ideas, and meta-narratives. J. S. Bach’s B Minor Mass is beauty nonpareil, but Yes’s piece “Awaken” is also quite glorious in its way. Handel’s Messiah is a soul-stirring (albeit slightly over-performed) masterwork, but the song “The Underfall Yard” by Big Big Train also excels by celebrating creation–with an undercurrent of Ecclesiastes “all is vapor” melancholy–in ways that are deeply rousing, incarnational, and dare I say it, Christian.

So why partake of progressive rock? Because it is there, because it frequently tells amazing stories with a distinctly Christian worldview (sometimes even intentionally), and because Christians can and should affirm truth, beauty, and goodness wherever they find it.

It is time for mature, thoughtful Christians to expand their music horizons beyond J. S. Bach, Handel’s Messiah, great hymns of the faith played on the pan flute, and the Gaither Homecoming videos.  My hope is that the rest of this series will help you expand those horizons by exploring the glorious mess that is progressive rock music.

1. Never mind that, in retrospect, much of the “Christian music” meant to flush out the bad stuff was, in the words of C. S. Lewis, “fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.”

—

Derek Hale has lived all of his life in Wichita, Kansas and isn’t a bit ashamed about that fact. He and his wife Nicole have only six children–four daughters and two young sons of thunder. Derek is a ruling elder, chief musician, and performs pastoral duties at Trinity Covenant Church (CREC). Derek manages a firmware lab for NetApp and enjoys reading, computers, exercising, craft beer, and playing and listening to music. But not all at the same time. He blogs occasionally at youdidntblogthat.tumblr.com.<>сколько стоит реклама в гугл адвордс

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On April 4, 2014 By In Culture

My Dad in the Mirror

by Marc Hays

20140404-101508.jpgAbout five years ago, I was 35, which is the age my dad was when I was 6. When I was a kid, my dad would take pity on me during the lengthier sermons at church to entertain me. He would tuck his thumb inside his fingers and allow me to attempt to pry his fingers open, thereby freeing his thumb from its bonds. It seems like that could become a raucous game during the sermon, but I guess I knew better, because it never got out of hand. Speaking of out of hand, that was the goal, but I was never able to free his thumb out of hand either. What I did do was spend hours looking at his hand–memorizing his hand. Around the time I turned 35, I looked down and saw my father’s hands attached to the ends of my arms. It was both pleasant and startling. I was pleased because I love my dad and hope that I am becoming like him in more ways than just physically. It was startling because when I was six I thought my dad was pretty old, and there I was with hands showing the signs of 35 years of use.

This morning as I was leaving for work, I stopped in front of the mirror to see if any hairs on my head were sticking up in embarrassing directions, and I used my hands to resituate my hair into a somewhat presentable arrangement. As I wiped down the cowlicks, there stood my dad in the mirror, reorganizing his mop on top before he rushed off to work. It was just plain freaky. Added to the motions of my hands and arms resembling my dad, I realized that my hair lies on my head just as his hair lies on his head. Once again, I’m not complaining, just realizing that as I age I become more and more like him.

This Sunday, I will be ordained a ruling elder at St. Mark Reformed Church in Brentwood, Tennessee. My dad is the pastor of St. Peter Presbyterian in Mendota, Virginia. He is driving in this weekend to lay hands on me as I once again become more like him, as he once again participates in reshaping me into a new man.

For forty years now, my Heavenly Father has been using my earthly father to make me the man that I’ve become. From my father’s genes that make my hands look like his and my cowlick pop up in the same place, to the habits that he’s both intentionally and inadvertently instilled in me over the decades, I am becoming more and more like him.

All this to say, “Thank you, Father,” and to say, “Thank you, father.” I know I am not here by any leverage I have over my own bootstraps. I have been blessed in time and in space by God’s gracious purposes and providences, manifest through the man on whose shoulders I still stand. I am dwelling in houses I did not build and drinking from cisterns that I didn’t dig. May God’s gracious covenant succeed through me to the next generation as it did from my father’s to me that the earth may be covered with Jesus’ glory as the waters cover the sea.<>производство рекламных конструкцийпродвижение а в интернете стоимость

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On April 2, 2014 By In Culture

What do you mean by this music? – Moving toward a definition of progressive rock

A week ago I offered the opening salvo in what I hope will be a series of posts extolling the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness through progressive rock music. Last week’s post mentioned briefly the difficulty in coming up with anything approaching an “all-inclusive definition” of what is or is not progressive rock. The problem is that musical genres are often imposed by music fans or record label marketing departments. Most musicians refuse to think in terms of genres and are often surprised after the fact that their latest album is “the best New Age album ever” or “a definitive work of prog rock yumminess.” Therefore, one set of fans believes it is self-evident that their favorite group is the very epitome of neo-thrash-punk-ska-disco icon while another set vehemently disagrees and swears that the same artist is the best proto-rockabilly-emo-folk band on planet Earth. Each group of fans digs in their heels, the Internet message boards generate more heat than light, and the whole thing ends up degenerating into name calling and hurt feelings.

Several book-length studies have been written on the topic of progressive rock [1] and those books all deal at some point with the volatile topic of defining the boundaries of the genre. I have perused all of the books listed below and wish to offer Edward Macan’s broad outline in his book Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture as the most helpful for our purposes here. Macan moves toward a broad definition of the genre by looking at prog’s musical style, its visual style, and its lyrical style. Along the way he breaks things up thusly [2]:

Musical style

  • Instrumentation and tone color – In progressive rock the standard rock band configuration of one or two guitars, a bass guitar, a keyboard/piano, and a drum kit was augmented to include all sorts of non-traditional rock music instruments such as the flute, violin, oboe, harp, church organ, 12-string acoustic guitar, and various percussion instruments. In addition, prog keyboardists such as Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, and Tony Banks were early-adopters of rapidly developing synthesizer technology.

  • Classical forms – Many British rock groups such as The Rolling Stones, Cream, The Yardbirds, and Led Zeppelin relied heavily on the language of the American blues to shape their sound. Many early prog artists (especially those from Britain) either downplayed or ignored altogether urban American blues influences in favor of the more sophisticated musical devices (i.e. suites, fugue/counterpoint, statement/development/recapitulation, and odd time signatures such as 7/4, 9/8, and 11/16). Prog musicians also preferred the longer, broader sweep of European classical music, largely rejecting the concept of the “three-and-a-half minute pop song.”

  • Virtuosity – Since much early prog either downplayed or rejected blues-based musical forms–including jazz–the virtuosity demonstrated by prog musicians had less to do with a jazz-based language and more to do with the classical music-based idea of virtuosity best exemplified by violinist Niccolò Paganini or pianist Franz Liszt.

  • Modal harmony – Prog musicians made use of the seven modern modes [3] or other exotic scales (and their corresponding chords) in order to achieve a specific musical mood. Classical composers such as Richard Wagner, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and Olivier Messiaen popularized the use of these modes and scales in classical music.

Visual style

  • Album cover art – Prog rock developed in the age of the long-playing phonograph record. Many prog rock artists saw album covers as another way to create a mood or (using today’s marketing jargon) “brand themselves” through the use of recurring visual themes, fonts, and iconography on album covers. Prog bands also made use of gatefold sleeve technology in order to expand further the visuals attached to the enjoyment of their music. The full enjoyment of prog rock music involved not just listening to the music but also receiving a satisfying visual experience, as well.

  • The concert experience – A progressive rock concert experience often became an extension of the artwork created for the album cover as prog rockers sought to implement parts of the album artwork into their stage show in the form of backdrops, logos, costumes, bass drum heads, etc.

Lyrical style

  • Surrealism – Influenced by authors such as T. S. Eliot and Hermann Hesse, prog rock lyricists sought to create lyrics that were vague, sarcastic, ironic, obscure, or that could be understood in more than one way. Many prog rock lyrics featured a distinctively British, Monty Python-esque whimsy.

  • Countercultural idealism – Several prog rock lyricists utilized the hippy idealism of the late-1960s to confront and deconstruct the social issues of the day.

  • Resistance and protest – Influenced by the folk protest songs of the 60s (as well as the works of Eliot and Hesse), many prog rock lyricists offered scathing critiques of Western consumerism, imperialism, the growing threat of technology, and Randolph Bourne’s concept of “war as the health of the state.”

  • Utopian vision (mythology, mysticism, sci-fi themes) – Prog rock lyricists often drew upon literary sources as diverse as J. R. R. Tolkien (especially his Middle Earth cycle), Eastern spiritual writings such as the Shastric scriptures, and the science fiction writing of authors like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov to construct an agrarian, vaguely spiritual world that was at once suspicious of technology yet nevertheless intrigued by space exploration and time travel.

In sum, I wish to posit that progressive rock is a style of music based upon the instrumentation of blues-based rock music, yet with the blues elements stripped away in favor of elements found more commonly in classical music. Improvisation takes place, but in manner that is more tightly controlled than in jazz. The common rock instrumentation is augmented with instruments not traditionally found in a rock setting. Progressive rock is concerned with creating a distinctive visual experience through the use of striking album cover artwork that often is transferred over to the concert stage. Finally, the lyrics of progressive rock are frequently topical, spiritual, or narrative in nature. The prog rock lyricist unfolds their ideas–often over the span of 15 to 20 minutes–through the use of literary devices such as sarcasm, whimsy, irony, and obscurantism.

Although this might seem like an exhaustive amount of detail about a musical genre, this barely scratches the surface of what could be said about progressive rock. There is a whole world of prog sub-genres that further muddies the waters over what properly constitutes prog. It isn’t enough to establish that a musical artist is or isn’t prog in the first place. The argument then proceeds as to whether said artist is “Canterbury,” “symphonic prog,” “neo-progressive,” or some other microbrew sub-genre.

I also realize that this post has been rather thin in biblical content. In my next post I will attempt to atone for these transgressions by delving briefly (emphasis on briefly) into a few reasons why a Christian should care at all about this music and hopefully provide some ground rules for the faithful enjoyment of progressive rock.

I will let former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford have the last word on defining progressive rock. In his uniquely British way, Bruford succinctly summarizes the type of person(s) responsible for the engineering the first wave of prog rock greatness.

The release of King Crimson’s album In the Court of the Crimson King in 1969 signalled [sic] the emergence of the mature progressive rock style that reached its commercial and artistic zenith between 1970 and 1975 in the music of such bands as Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, ELP, Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, and Curved Air.

Demographically, progressive rock was a music from south-east England, overwhelmingly made by nice middle-class English boys like me. The musicians’ backgrounds were strictly white-collar, and their parents were often downright distinguished. Never working-class, it was rather the vital expression of a bohemian, middle-class intelligentsia. [4]

1. Among the best are Hegarty, Paul, and Martin Halliwell. Beyond and Before: Progressive Rock since the 1960s. New York: Continuum, 2011. Lambe, Stephen. Citizens of Hope and Glory: The Story of Progressive Rock. Stroud: Amberley, 2011. Macan, Edward. Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Martin, Bill. Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1998. Romano, Will. Mountains Come out of the Sky: The Illustrated History of Prog Rock. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat, 2010. Stump, Paul. The Music’s All That Matters. Chelmsford: Harbour, 2010.
2. The following is a summary of chapters two through four of Macan’s book.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode#Modern. The names of the seven modern modes are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian.
4. Bruford, Bill. Bill Bruford: The Autobiography: Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks, and More. London: Jawbone, 2009. p. 115.

—

Derek Hale has lived all of his life in Wichita, Kansas and isn’t a bit ashamed about that fact. He and his wife Nicole have only six children–four daughters and two young sons of thunder. Derek is a ruling elder, chief musician, and performs pastoral duties at Trinity Covenant Church (CREC). Derek manages a firmware lab for NetApp and enjoys reading, computers, exercising, craft beer, and playing and listening to music. But not all at the same time. He blogs occasionally at youdidntblogthat.tumblr.com.<>обслуживание веб овраскрутка в интернет

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