In no particular order… David Bentley Hart: The Experience of God: Being,Consciousness, Bliss Watch Hart give a lecture on “Beauty as Knowledge of God” here. N.T. Wright: Paul and the Faithfulness of God Tom Wright talks about his Magnum Opus here. Malcolm Gladwell’s: David and Goliath – Underdogs, Misfits, and …
Broken Cisterns He is as zephyred winds upon the soul, They said, And cloudless cloister skies Yawn over the galeless haven of the heart. Strange, no one said His love would be A vague unrest in all my deepest peace… They spoke with sighs of flowery cloister ways And of …
The new Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott) album is streaming on NPR’s First Listen! Check it out here. Plus – Here are a few of the tracks available for stream and download over at the Son Lux BandCamp site…
…Christians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.
That doesn’t mean in any way that we withdraw from the world, but rather we want to serve our Christian and non-Christian brothers and sisters as much as possible by trying to find ways to live cooperatively in a manner that does not need to resort to violence.
To think however that we can give you a nonviolent foreign policy is just not going to be the case. Because we first of all don’t think about what we would do if we were president. We worry about how in the world as faithful followers of Christ we ever ended up being president! But that doesn’t mean we’re not trying to find ways for both Christians and non-Christians to live lives with as little violence as possible…war serves as the great liturgical event for Americans, where we sacrifice the youth of the present generation to show that the sacrifices of the youth of the past generations were worthy. So war becomes the great ritual moral renewal of the American society. - Stanley Hauerwas (Interview in The Atlantic – What Makes America so Prone to Intervention?)
“A man’s soul is as full of voices as a forest . . . : fancies, follies, memories, madnesses, mysterious fears, and more mysterious hopes. All settlement and sane government of life consists in coming to the conclusion that some of those voices have authority and others not.” -G.K. Chesterton
It is dogma that is the drama-not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving-kindness and uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death-but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen, and they may not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that a man might be glad to believe.
I often get asked about where to find contemporary liturgical music. Here are two new releases that are historically and artistically informed, yet contemporary in their expression. My wife and I will be using a few of these tunes re-worked for our local congregation. They also stand alone as great …
Over the course of the last week, several people have asked me how to begin using the Book of Common Prayer. Here is a brief introduction for those who might be interested in exploring this historic resource for individual and corporate prayer. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (1979 edition) Tradition is the …
My wife and I were privileged to have participated in the Iconic Life: Baptism and Music Conference on April 20th. It was a fascinating and fruitful time, and a joy to connect with other music directors and pastors from the Central Valley. We were reminded of how blessed we are to be serving in a local …