perhaps what follows will allow light to peer through the cracks of a dark world
The Soil & the Sun at Mac’s Bar, 4/12/12 (Taken with instagram)
So I’ve lived in Michigan for 5 years now, and until a couple weeks ago, had not heard of the Soil & the Sun, a fantastic chamber rock band from Grand Rapids. Shame on me. Okay, enough chastisement. Let’s get on with the music, and the fact that this is beautifully orchestrated and theologically compelling music. Please enjoy, as I have.
“Sown in dishonor, raised in glory” - 1 Corinthians 15:43
If you like it, check out their whole AudioTree session here.
Carl Hauck (and friends), Audiotree Live, January 28, 2012
I’m not sure I’ve ever met Carl Hauck, but he’s a friend of a friend, and his music is gorgeous. If you’re in the mood for some warm music, let it play. The lyric that jumped out to me is “watch the sun set on the boys in the street, playing God with a magnifying glass / with her hand on his stomach, she whispers to him, “I hope we have children like them.” Great stuff. Enjoy!
Thanks to Matt Enquist for sending this my way.
Bon Iver, “Beth/Rest.” I sometimes wish 80’s pop music had a sense of subtlety in its production so that more of it could have sounded this good. Darn shame. The live dynamics here make for a improvement on the already epic studio recording.
Bon Iver, “Holocene” on SNL. Given my early rise time on Sunday mornings, I never get to watch SNL anymore. So I’m thankful for the internets. Watching this song unfold is a beauty to behold.
Today I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by N.T. Wright, presented by The January Series at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. The content he presented in an hour today will be released in book form on March 13, according to Amazon. I’ve listened to Wright’s lectures online many times, and read many of his works, but this was the first time I’ve seen him lecture in person. It was riveting, compelling, and all those words you use to describe brilliant people presenting brilliant information.
I just want to give a brief recap of what I heard from Wright today, for our mutual edification. Wright believes that the western church has done a disservice to the life of Jesus. Our creeds jump straight from birth to death, and our thinking and theology have suffered accordingly. We’ve underrepresented and overreacted and overreacted again.
What Wright proposes is (unsurprisingly) a balanced approach to Jesus’ life. Using a brilliant metaphor from the world of surround sound, Wright speaks of four primary aspects of Jesus’ story as elements of a symphony coming from four different speakers. This is a four way stereo mix, not mono. Even if we prefer the sound of brass, we still must hear the woodwinds. For Wright, it is essential that we hold four aspects of Jesus’ story in equivocal tension:
- The story of Jesus as the story of Israel
- The story of Jesus as the story of Israel’s God
- The story of Jesus as the story of the founding of the church
- The story of Jesus as Israel’s God, defeating the powers of Caesar
Wright argues that western Christianity has been guilty of silencing 1 and 4 while cranking 2 and 3. We are apt to ignore or spiritualize 1 and 4, skipping straight from “fall” to “redemption” with little theological use for the history of Israel or even the historical-political implications of Jesus himself. We are much more comfortable looking at Jesus’ deity and his calling out of a special people for his service to his glory.
Yet we must allow the whole symphony to play on its own terms. In the final section of his presentation, Wright made an appeal to restoring the tension between kingdom and cross in the Christian life. Jesus’ own life was characterized by the tension between the two, yet we are so often tempted to try to resolve it. And when we do, it is to the detriment of our souls and of the gospel.
Wright painted for us a biblical narrative where kingdom and cross are held together, balanced perfectly through all four speakers. I pray that by God’s grace I can live and lead into just such a well-mixed symphony.
