I’m a sucker for a good bit of other person promotion. And it’s probably time I mentioned Goannatree anyway.
It’s a good place to read intelligent scholarship from a Christian who is into literature, the arts and all sorts of culture.
This week Goannatree is running a book giveaway to encourage lurkers out of the woodworks – and probably to score a swag of new readers. So get along, check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
Another post, another YouTube video…
As I mentioned earlier, Matt Redman, who is responsible for a few cringe worthy "worship" songs, is undergoing a bit of a Copernican revolution. He has realised that some of the soppiness in his songs can be a little bit over the top, and not quite Biblical.
I’m glad he uses the framework he does to assess his songwriting (and that of others).
"In the Bible you don’t see a lot of people coming up to Jesus and saying you’re beautiful"
Here’s the second Muse song from the upcoming album – The Resistance. It’s less Queenish than the last one.
The tracklisting includes quite a few songs with “symphony” in the title. Which is pretty exciting in and of itself…
Unfortunately the YouTube video was pulled for violating copyright. Here’s a link to the song on the Muse website.
Two interesting tidbits to add to my crusade against cringe worthy Christian music…
The first, is an opinion piece in The Age where an atheist journo went along to a PlanetShakers experience*… it’s got all the echos of the South Park episode I mentioned a few weeks back – just so you know I wasn’t exaggerating the issue here’s a quote…
“Christian pop, ’80s power anthems, Metallica meets Cheap Trick. A mosh pit for Jesus was jumping with teenagers in rapture and a balcony of Planetkids went off for Christ. Music blared from the stadium sound system while the screen seduced us with slick videos edited so fast the phrase ‘‘subliminal image" kept popping into my head. Lyrics flashed up: "Come like a flood and saturate me now." I wondered what Freud would have made of the disproportionate use of such words as ‘‘come’’, ‘‘touch’’ and ‘‘feel’’, and the phrases "move within me" and "being filled". My favourite was "King of Glory, enter in".”
Secondly, There’s apparently an article somewhere where Matt Redman – cliched songwriter extraordinaire – repents from his ways of writing love songs to God. I’ll find that article when I get home and update this post.
*As a side note – this gonzo journalism thing where atheists try to experience Christian stuff from a true outsiders perspective is an interesting phenomena and is probably worth listenting to for those people trying to catch the atheist cultural zeitgeist. Other examples are the Guardian’s Alpha experiences and the Friendly Atheist Hermant Mehta’s book on his experiences in churches that he went to after an ebay campaign where confident churches could buy the right to try to convert him.
There’s new Muse coming out this year. Huzzah. Here’s the first track to be released from their new album – they released it in chunks and it made its radio debut today…
Three nights of Chamber Music done and dusted. I’m feeling as cultured as one of those Yakult yoghurt drinks…
I can tell my bassoons from my oboes… So I thought I’d share that culture with you.
For those not interested in US race politics here’s a quick snapshot of a story going on in the US now that will make this post make sense…
An African American professor was arrested in his own home recently for breaking into his own home. The police were called by a neighbour, who didn’t recognise the guy as the home owner. The guy told the police that he was the homeowner, established this fact, and was still taken to the police station – Barack Obama commented on the situation, which is inappropriate given the separation of powers between executive and judicial arms of government. Everybody got mad. Then Obama invited the professor and the police man around to his house for a beer so they could have some laughs and move on with life…
Pretty cool hey. It’s a bit like To Kill A Mockingbird – because it’s about Racism, and a guy who knows the law really well doing his bit for reconciliation and to bring equality to the legal system.
Anyway, XKCD has produced this comic strip – which was funny.
Peter Costello has a piece in the SMH on proposed changes to the discrimination laws, he chooses to focus particularly on the ramifications of changing this legislation for Christian schools.
“At present, discrimination statutes don’t apply to religious bodies and their schools on the grounds of freedom of religion. So a parliamentary committee has recommended options to extend the power of the state over the province of religion. One proposed change is to restrict the freedom of religious schools to choose their employees on the basis of their religious faith.”
I’m not apologist for Christian schools – they can create unhelpful monocultural microcosms that can cause problems for people engaging with the world later in life. On the flipside, they are really helpful institutions where children receive a better than average education at the hands of teachers who actually care about their development…
Forcing religious schools to make employment decisions free from preference to religion sounds equitable – but there’s no way a Christian School would hire an atheist teacher – they’d find other reasons to not hire them. It’s almost impossible to police. So it’s not a concern.
It is dumb though. And it’s the reason that Christians should push for a clear separation of church and state. It cuts both ways.
Inspired by the CEC and their inability to open their mouths/hit keys on their keyboards without mentioning the words “Nazi” or Hitler, and by one of my favourite sites – New Math by Craig Damrauer – I’ve produced this. My own new maths on Godwin’s Law…
The nuttiness of the Citizen’s Electoral Council knows no bounds. Their latest press release comes complete with a 10 minute video of awesome badness. They’ve uploaded it badly on YouTube (it doesn’t work properly) – so you’ll have to check it out here.
They hate the Greens more than I do.
“Do you believe the world is overpopulated? Do you believe the world’s human population should be reduced?
If so, you are a sucker for a lie invented by the highest levels of the British oligarchy going back to the rapacious East India Company, and its Venetian ancestors, which lie is now about to be turned into official public policy in the form of cap-and-trade, through the efforts of the modern British oligarchy’s World Wide Fund for Nature and agents Prince Philip, Sir Crispin Tickell, Sir Nicholas Stern, and Al Gore.“
“The 10-minute LYM video is a preview of a planned feature documentary on the roots of the modern Green movement, going back to the evil race-science called eugenics, which was heavily promoted by the aristocracy of Europe in the early part of the 20th century, turned into public policy by Hitler, and repackaged post-war as the environmental movement, by leading eugenicist Sir Julian Huxley and his co-founders of the WWF in 1961, the Nazi-educated Prince Philip and Nazi Party-member Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.“
You’ve got to watch the video. I especially love where they say they’ve thrown down the gauntlet to Al Gore. Lyndon LaRouche challenged him. At a CEC conference. That nobody heard of, except the people they spam with media releases. I’d hardly call that a gauntlet throw down.
You must watch the video. And check out the CEC website – everybody who disagrees with them is a Nazi (including Obama, the climate change movement, and anyone pushing swine flu panic).
The fun starts at 7.07 where the narrator puts on a British accent.
They really need to think about the whole Godwin’s Law thing…
Steve Fielding is in trouble – because if these guys are for you, you’re going wrong somewhere.
The best bit
Stories about missing children are always concerning – sometimes they end “well” – it’s unclear just how well this one has ended – but a 12 year old who was missing overnight rocked up at school today… I’m surprised no sub editor has used that heading yet.
I posted something about this movie a while back – and now the trailer is out. The equation is simple Ninjas + Assasins = Awesome. The trailer is pretty violent.
More details about the movie here.