Perhaps you remember the mashup phenomenon, like, what, two years ago? Where has that gone? That was pretty fun while it lasted. One of the principles of mashup titling seemed to be the "versus" convention. So ignore the mashed title of the post and see that I really meant to say "Death Cab for Cutie vs. Arcade Fire." Only in this case, it has nothing to do with a mashup and everything to do with classic high school literature comparison and contrast!
The songs in question are Death Cab's "Where Soul Meets Body" and Arcade Fire's "My Body Is a Cage." The latter features a line that my co-workers and I see as an incredibly succinct articulation of a gnostic worldview: "My body is a cage that keep me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key."
Tears came to my eyes as I was driving through western Kansas last Wednesday, not because of boredom, but because I was listening to "Where Soul Meets Body." It contains the most beautiful articulation in semi-pop music of a Christian worldview of embodiment: "I want to live where soul meets body" followed by a number of lines and ideas about living in a fully embodied way with a view toward the transcendent.
I doubt either artist lives or thinks in a way that fully embodies the worldview that their song articulates. But it's fascinating to see these worldviews expressed in music. I want to clarify that hedonism is a more approximate opposite of gnosticism than the Christian worldview. Hedonism focuses on physical gratification without regard for transcendent reality, while gnosticism works for the perfection of the spiritual through eschewing the physical. Christianity is a balance between the two: A full engagement of the physical world, seeking to bring it into submission to the Creator while longing for the Creator to bring heaven back to Earth where all will dwell in unity once again. But what we have today is the attempt to bring peace and concord to body and soul by fully engaging both. "Where Soul Meets Body" provides a beautiful picture of this idea.
It seems to me that it's pretty easy to get this soul and body thing wrong. Most Christians I've know through my life are more gnostic than anything else. There are a few "pagan" gnostics out there, a whole bunch of "pagan" hedonists, and very few Christian hedonists (unless they're titling a book to sell). It's quite interesting to me that a presumably "pagan" musician would come up with this Christian worldview balanced between gnosticism and hedonism.
Is the desire to live "where soul meets body" a natural enough idea that one could come to it without a strong understanding of the Bible and the Christian worldview? Or was Death Cab merely being poetic? Any other options?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Morality infusion
I heard on the radio this morning that French president Sarkhozy is proposing a reformation of the capitalist market system. The key part of the reformation mentioned on the radio was that Sarkhozy wants to infuse morality into the system. The host (in)judiciously juxtaposed Sarkhozy's call with President Bush by saying they were butting heads. Does this mean President Bush opposes morality in the economy? I've tried to be fair to Bush, as hard as that is sometimes. But the next quote was, "President Bush says that the capitalist system has worked fine for sixty years. So why change it?" So maybe he does oppose morality in capitalism.
I can't say French capitalism is the best thing in the world. But I have my suspicions. I hope the meetings of the G20 nations, whether they bring about socialist capitalism or not, do bring morality back to the table. And shame on the American conservatives for lambasting those godless other people for insisting on keeping morality.
I can't say French capitalism is the best thing in the world. But I have my suspicions. I hope the meetings of the G20 nations, whether they bring about socialist capitalism or not, do bring morality back to the table. And shame on the American conservatives for lambasting those godless other people for insisting on keeping morality.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Undermining the parties
I've had thoughts swirling furiously about through my head today.
The first was the realization that I find it really hard to talk to my hardline conservative acquaintances, mainly because I'm not defending a pole. I'm trying to defend a middle ground, and one friend told me I sounded like I was a [political] conservative at heart talking liberal. No, I refuse to go for that. But the realization that it's hard to defend a center rather than an edge is very helpful. My next step will be processing the fact that I probably don't need to be doing any defending of this so-called center.
My next realization was that John McCain is closer to the center than Barack Obama. The thing that will make it very hard for me to vote for McCain is that he seems more prone to foolish military interventions. I think Obama is smart enough, once he gets out of this political season, to do sensible things with the military in Iraq. We know a pull out will take a while. But all my military friends are saying that the Iraqis are pushing hard to make us unnecessary. It's working. Let's help them along and get out of there. So I hope Obama will give the military the resources they need to "get the job done." The only thing more irresponsible than President Bush dragging us in there and racking up a cool $Trillion tab would be to drop everything and run, leaving people ill-prepared to deal with the new vacuum. We would never be forgiven. (And yes, I did say they were people. They all are. Let's not forget that either.) I realize this will take many more billions of dollars, but we need to pay for the sins of our war-mongering leaders by helping to create some sort of peace.
Succeeding that thinking was my absolute desperation for November 5. We need to stop getting mailings talking about non-issues and spinning things. We need programming to get back to its normal vapid self. (I rarely watch TV, but I'm still sick of all the ads.) As I thought about Wednesday morning, I realized that if McCain wins, 90% of my workplace will have drained looks of relief on their faces and will be muttering "Praise the Lord!" all day (week, month). I began to parse that. What does God have to do with any of this. President Bush has been preaching Democracy for seven years. The god(dess) Democracy will take care of her own. If Obama is elected, Democracy has been vindicated. If McCain wins, it's another self-vindication for Democracy. If we bring the God of the Bible into it, the paeans of praise for a McCain win will betray a severe idolatry. People respond that way because they fear Obama and the Democrats. McCain in the White House will allow them to be complacent for another four years. They won't have to trust God, because their status quo will continue. And that is the severest form of idolatry. It is so insidious.
And then I realized that I plan to go to our church's Outlook Forum on Monday night. This is the group that is looking to do ministries strictly outside the church, for no direct benefit of the members, other than to move them beyond fear and complacency. Oh. That would be good. So this is my thought. No matter who wins the next day, we can make the core of both platforms irrelevant. The church needs to make abortion unnecessary by helping teen, low-income and professional moms who are unprepared for a birth either take care of their own child or by offering to adopt. The church needs to canvass poor neighborhoods offering to disburden people (thanks to Rob Bell for telling this story in Velvet Elvis). That undermines the Democratic social programs. They become unnecessary. Then we let the Holy Spirit get hold of wealthy/rich hearts so that they can give away enough money to the church to fund these initiatives and avoid the taxes that the Democrats will supposedly levy. The Republicans would no longer have anything to shout/whine about. An unprecedented era of peace would flow over America. (Whoa. Let's not get carried away.)
The problem with this is that it reveals the true greed, or perhaps insecurity, at the heart of the conservative. I think it also reveals the humanitarian, but very naive, heart of the liberal. The idea of the church taking back its responsibility from the government is not a new one. But I think the idea of undermining the polar parties by taking away their talking points is. I'm really excited about the idea of reducing taxes across the board, or at least initially giving tax credits to those who take part in reducing the government's burden. Plus, governments don't mentor people. People mentor people. Put it terms of discipleship, and you've got the church's mandate. Now if we could just overcome our fear and laziness.
The first was the realization that I find it really hard to talk to my hardline conservative acquaintances, mainly because I'm not defending a pole. I'm trying to defend a middle ground, and one friend told me I sounded like I was a [political] conservative at heart talking liberal. No, I refuse to go for that. But the realization that it's hard to defend a center rather than an edge is very helpful. My next step will be processing the fact that I probably don't need to be doing any defending of this so-called center.
My next realization was that John McCain is closer to the center than Barack Obama. The thing that will make it very hard for me to vote for McCain is that he seems more prone to foolish military interventions. I think Obama is smart enough, once he gets out of this political season, to do sensible things with the military in Iraq. We know a pull out will take a while. But all my military friends are saying that the Iraqis are pushing hard to make us unnecessary. It's working. Let's help them along and get out of there. So I hope Obama will give the military the resources they need to "get the job done." The only thing more irresponsible than President Bush dragging us in there and racking up a cool $Trillion tab would be to drop everything and run, leaving people ill-prepared to deal with the new vacuum. We would never be forgiven. (And yes, I did say they were people. They all are. Let's not forget that either.) I realize this will take many more billions of dollars, but we need to pay for the sins of our war-mongering leaders by helping to create some sort of peace.
Succeeding that thinking was my absolute desperation for November 5. We need to stop getting mailings talking about non-issues and spinning things. We need programming to get back to its normal vapid self. (I rarely watch TV, but I'm still sick of all the ads.) As I thought about Wednesday morning, I realized that if McCain wins, 90% of my workplace will have drained looks of relief on their faces and will be muttering "Praise the Lord!" all day (week, month). I began to parse that. What does God have to do with any of this. President Bush has been preaching Democracy for seven years. The god(dess) Democracy will take care of her own. If Obama is elected, Democracy has been vindicated. If McCain wins, it's another self-vindication for Democracy. If we bring the God of the Bible into it, the paeans of praise for a McCain win will betray a severe idolatry. People respond that way because they fear Obama and the Democrats. McCain in the White House will allow them to be complacent for another four years. They won't have to trust God, because their status quo will continue. And that is the severest form of idolatry. It is so insidious.
And then I realized that I plan to go to our church's Outlook Forum on Monday night. This is the group that is looking to do ministries strictly outside the church, for no direct benefit of the members, other than to move them beyond fear and complacency. Oh. That would be good. So this is my thought. No matter who wins the next day, we can make the core of both platforms irrelevant. The church needs to make abortion unnecessary by helping teen, low-income and professional moms who are unprepared for a birth either take care of their own child or by offering to adopt. The church needs to canvass poor neighborhoods offering to disburden people (thanks to Rob Bell for telling this story in Velvet Elvis). That undermines the Democratic social programs. They become unnecessary. Then we let the Holy Spirit get hold of wealthy/rich hearts so that they can give away enough money to the church to fund these initiatives and avoid the taxes that the Democrats will supposedly levy. The Republicans would no longer have anything to shout/whine about. An unprecedented era of peace would flow over America. (Whoa. Let's not get carried away.)
The problem with this is that it reveals the true greed, or perhaps insecurity, at the heart of the conservative. I think it also reveals the humanitarian, but very naive, heart of the liberal. The idea of the church taking back its responsibility from the government is not a new one. But I think the idea of undermining the polar parties by taking away their talking points is. I'm really excited about the idea of reducing taxes across the board, or at least initially giving tax credits to those who take part in reducing the government's burden. Plus, governments don't mentor people. People mentor people. Put it terms of discipleship, and you've got the church's mandate. Now if we could just overcome our fear and laziness.
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