Staying busy again this week, little time to post. This may be it for the week. However, you can now see some of what I’m reading when I have a little time here and there in my “Recent Reads” section in the sidebar. Here’s a few other things…

Faith & politics

In the first part of this interview with Brian McLaren, he’s asked about the church’s involvement in politics. He says he believes the “Religious Right” has “hit its high tide” and could be on the verge of falling apart. He has two primary concerns, the first being that there won’t be any Christian alternative to take its place. Secondly, he says:

I’m also concerned that the religious right will have left such a bad taste in the mouth of both the political world and the culture at large that there will be a reaction against any expression of faith in the public sphere.

That may very well be the bigger concern. McLaren offers his own thoughts on how Christian politicians could make a difference:

What we should be asking is, how do we help our government be the kind of government that is pleasing to God? What I would hope is that people who are in the Republican Party who are followers of Jesus would use every bit of their energy and power to help the Republican Party reflect more and more the values of Jesus. And that Democrats who follow Jesus would do everything in their power to help the Democratic party do the same thing more and more. Now in that way, you are actually more aligned, you’re a stronger ally, with your fellow Christian in another party than you are with the people in the same party who have no higher allegiance than their partisan agenda.

Sounds great to me, but the next question is: are there people out there who are willing to do this?

eMusic update

I’ve added about a half dozen albums to my save for later, plus a few others that I want some singles from. I’ve downloaded 4 full albums this week, but I now have 14 on my list, so I’ve trying to decide what I’m going to do with my last 27 downloads.

Song of the year

One album I downloaded this week was All Star United’s Love and Radiation. One of the things I’ve always liked about All Star United is their sarcasm and poking fun at the Christian music industry and American Christianity in general. Not for the fun of it, but rather because certain things deserve it. ASU singer and songwriter Ian Eskelin reminds me somewhat of Steve Taylor, although Taylor was even better at it (and, by the way, I really miss him. I wish he would record music again. It’s been 14 years! But I digress.)

A song on their new album called “Song of the Year” questions the motiviation behind some Christian songwriters and suggests that for some it’s not really about what it should be. It’s about putting in the right buzzwords and topics for creating a hit, and not really about the One who (supposedly) inspired the song. I like it. Here’s the second verse, which made me laugh.

Testimony testimony
testimony testimony
I’ll never be the same
Holy holy worthy worthy
something something something something
That rhymes with Jesus’ name
That oughta do
Guess I’m through
Time to canonize
I like to write movies too
About Christian superheroes
who join forces to ward off
the anti-christ!

A later bridge says that “God’s still unimpressed with our radio success”, and the chorus ends with the line “something’s gone really wrong if we’re chasing the song of the year.” While I listen to a number of artists out the CCM industry, I do think there are a lot of problems with it, the first being it’s existence in the first place. I don’t think there even needs to be such an animal. If you’re doing good work, you should be releasing it to the general market. If not, you probably shouldn’t be releasing it anyway.

And, by the way, are there any old, unattractive Christian musicians out there? Everyone I see appears to be young and good-looking. Is that the image Christians want to project to the world? Oh, wait. The world isn’t seeing or hearing any of it, because it’s only on “Christian radio.” So, then, is that the image we want to show young Christians who are listening to this music? God wants you to be thin and attractive?

Sorry if this is rambling on. I’m tired and have a lot of things going on right now. Anyway, just something that bothers me a little.

By the way, other downloads this week - Jamie Randolph, Andrew Bird, and my favorite this month, The Avett Brothers. I’m really wearing it out. Check this out - a recent performance by The Avett Brothers on Conan O’Brien’s show:

The reservation

I watch Seinfeld reruns whenever I see them on, and I saw “The Alternate Side” (episode 28) last night. This has always been one of my favorite scenes from the entire series.