The History of Electronic Music

Hey folks... Little known factoid about me: I love electronic music (techno, industrial, house, acid, etc.).  Just ran across this incredible shockwave interactive presentation on the history of electronic music.

It features 5.5 hours of mp3 samples of electronic music, and about 100 genres.  It is really a great piece of work.

Disclaimer: This site does use quite a bit of profanity.  So if you are one of my youth or parents from Church checking this out, you are warned.  Look at it this way: you get to hear the good, bad, AND ugly of postmodern music over the last 30 years.  Enjoy...

http://www.di.fm/edmguide/#

Also interesting:

http://www2.abc.net.au/arts/soundsliketechno/

Will Candy Canes and Lawyers Bring God's Kingdom on Earth?

Well, I am watching the morning news, waiting for my darling daughter to wake up from her slumber, and I see story number 8,376 on the "Christmas Wars" between "good" evangelical Christians and the "evil" world system.

It seems that another elementary school child in a Texas school district is being used as a puppet by his parents, who are being used as puppets by their pastor(s), to push the Moral Majority Christian platform at school.  Supposedly the kid wants to distribute Candy Canes with the "Story" of the Candy Cane attached, which is actually a Gospel presentation.  The "Gospel Story" of the Candy Cane is actually pretty good.  I share it IN CHURCH about once every other year.

But... 

Santadolatry?

Alright, I am not the biggest "anti-Santa" fanatic in the world.  I used to be, then I became a youth minister that occasionally has to work with young children, and I had a young child of my own.  I mean, I see the Consumerism in the whole thing.  I also hate the Santa-Claus view of God, in which God is benevolent grandpa in the sky who only gives good gifts to good girls and boys.  And, I think that Santa, as we know him in 21st century America, contributes to both consumerism and the Santa ideal of God.

Yet, just as the idea of Saint Nicholas as been co-opted to become the Santa Claus of mass marketing, so also the Santa Claus can be co-opted back to teach about Saint Nicholas and the Spirit of selfless giving that flows from Christ.  If the "Santa Myth" can be "spun" for bad, then it can also be "spun" for good.  So, I do not mind Santa so much anymore.  He is a morally neutral tool that can be used used to serve Jesus just as easily as he is used to serve selfishness.

Luther, Nominalism, and the Nature of the Church

This is an odd post, because it addresses a couple of issues raised by an email from a friend (Steve) in which he asked about some recent posts. Regarding my recent post on Martin Luther and Reformation Day, Steve asked "How can you not like and respect someone that said 'Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men and drink more.....Sometimes we must drink more...and even sin a little to spite the devil....'".  Point taken Steve... I will address this below.

Also, Steve said that he is "very much leaning against the view that the Church somehow is the possessor and distributor of grace" (such as the Catholic view).  He is "much more now seeing that we are called to only be a Proclaimer, and especially a WITNESS as the Church... Anything else seems to me at present to somehow almost "interfere" with the work Christ". He also said that he is re-thinking the sacraments, and is very influenced by some views of Karl Barth regarding the Church and the sacraments.

So, I actually find all of these issues to be related.  In the following post I want to deal with Luther, then Karl Barth, and then the idea of whether or not the Church is a "Witness" to Christ (as Proclaimers), or the continuing "Incarnation" of Christ (as the Body of Christ).  

Could Hell be Redemptive and not merely Retributive?

The following way-too-long article started as a reply to a question about 2Thessalonians 1:8-9.  It morphed into a full-out defense of Hell as a redemptive process, not merely a retributive destination.  It is 9,500 words, and I would appreciate it if you did not comment until you have read the whole thing because some of your objections might be answered later on.

One of my older youth named Chris asked the question that got the ball of wax rolling.  It was basically:

WWCSLD?

Most people who have known me for long know that I am a CS Lewis junkie. I don't really do the Catholic "patron saint" thing, but CS Lewis would probably be my patron saint if I did. I have almost everything he has ever published except for the really expensive three volume set of his collected letters (only have volume 1... Christmas presents anyone?). For me, his books are just below Scripture, and he is one of very few people who write books that I will read more than once. So, just below the Holy Trinity is CS Lewis... Father, Son, Spirit... and "Jack".

Just kiddin' on that last sentence... But everything else is pretty much true.

A thought while cleaning up the Junior High Youth Group's mess...

As I walk around cleaning up bags of disposable junk food and Styrofoam cups left behind by kids who, while essentially good kids, are still so self-absorbed and used to other people picking up after them that they probably didn't realize how horrible they left their own youth room, the thought struck my mind:

In all our activities, all our ministries, we must seriously ask the question:

"Is this forming Christlike people?"

Sadly, I fear that for most of us (myself included) the answer is usually "no".

It is time for a revolution.

Happy Reformation Day

The following is a rant guaranteed to piss everyone off... It is mean, sarcastic, and over-simplified... and I'm not sure if I even believe it all... so read it with a grain of salt (and maybe a cold beer in hand):

Reformation day is a big day for me, because of the sheer magnitude of what Martin Luther was able to accomplish on the Cathedral Door of Wittenburg...

I mean, normally when I have pranked someone, we have put our feces in a paper bag and lit them on fire on someone's porch.  But, there was that one time the football team took up a "collection", and put everyone's feces in the cab of a guy's truck through the back windows.

But nailing feces to a cathedral door?  That is a great prank!  And 95 of them?  How was he able to do that without the vibration of the door causing them to fall of their nails?

Martin Luther is amazing, and will go down in the practical joke annals of all time!!!

Wait, what was that?

Theses, not feces???

Whatever... I guess never mind, nothing special about Reformation Day after all.  No, wait, I feel a rant coming on...

CONNECTING FAMILIES TO CHRIST

CONNECTING FAMILIES TO CHRIST

I love being a youth minister.  One of the most amazing things that I am privileged to do as a youth minister is to watch as young men and women give their lives totally over to the Lord.  To see that "lightbulb" go off over their heads when they realize that Jesus really is real, that He really does have a purpose for their lives, and that they really can know Him personally.  That is an incredible event to be a part of.  But, do you know what is even better than that?  When it happens to WHOLE FAMILIES!

Do you know why?  

Why do Anglicans baptize infants?

The short answer to this question is that we baptize children of believing parents because we feel it is more Biblical to do this than to make them wait until "adulthood" before making them part of the family of God. You see, the "Baptismal theology" of many Protestant groups (such as Baptists and Independent Churches) teaches that baptism is a sort of "acted out" confession of a personal decision to follow Jesus. It is an outward sign of an inward, personal choice to trust Christ. In short, it is a symbol of how we feel about God.

Roundtable on Unity and Authority

OK folks, I have several different types of folk who post on this blog. We are [mostly] Christians who acknowledge the Lordship of the Risen Jesus Christ. I am an Evangelical-Charismatic-Anglican. I have a few sort of emergent Restoration Christians who post. Recently we have been joined in conversation with some fairly conservative Southern Baptists from Fide-O. There is at least one Pentecostal brother who joins in sometimes. And we get liberals, conservatives, evangelicals, catholics, protestants, and everyone in between.

There are five main methods of attaining Christian Unity I know of:

New Look

One of my friends asked me to try something with a white background so it is easier to read long posts... and so, here it is.

Tell me if you like it / don't like it.

Also... does anyone know of another site to get templates? It would be fun to try something more interesting than what blogspot offers, but I don't have time to code the HTML for my own.

May the Lord bless, keep, and empower you, now and always. Amen.

Blogging etiquette and sloganeering

I believe that God made us to be filled with what some call "virtue", and what St. Paul calls "the fruit of the Spirit" (cf. Gal. 5:16-25) or even "the spiritual gifts" (cf. 1Co. ch. 12-13).  In all of these lists "Love" comes up as the first and foremost gift / fruit slice / virtue.  Love may look very different at different times, depending on the need.  Love sometimes comforts and consoles.  Love other times disciplines and rebukes.  The first and foremost thing that Love ALWAYS does is that it always puts the needs and the welfare of others before itself.  Second, it never lies about, curses, or belittles the person it loves, even if it may need to destroy a false idea or rebuke an evil action done by the beloved.

From this central virtue of love then flows various "academic virtues" which should be held to if one is going to participate in a debate on Christ's behalf, and if one does not use these virtues, they are not honoring Christ even if they utter true statements.