Friday, August 31, 2007

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Gino Soccio: Try It Out (1978)


Here's one from Montreal's Roman Catholic disco set. Gino says an appropriate thanks to "Jesus Christ" on the "Closer" lp album sleeve from which this track is taken.

(untitled)

Monday, August 20, 2007

Dedicated to David Zahl -- the (hilarious) opening paragraph of Stephen Fry's "The Liar":

"Adrian checked the orchid at his buttonhole, inspected the spats at his feet, gave the lavender gloves a twitch, smoothed down his waistcoat, tucked the ebony Malacca-cane under his arm, swallowed twice and pushed wide the changing-room door."

Friday, August 17, 2007

Working on my sermon...feeling a bit like this:

Kraftwerk: Antenna (1976)

"I'm the antenna (i.e., preacher), catching vibration. You're (i.e., God) the transmitor, give innovation (please)."

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Cranmer quote:

"Surely [God is] raising them up if they think he is bringing them down, and laying them low; surely glorifying them if he is thought to be confounding them; surely making them live, if he is thought to be destroying them."
- Thomas Cranmer to Peter Martyr, written from prison in 1555, not long before his execution

Obviously the band Fashion were inspired along the same lines when they recorded their song: "Love Shadow"

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Polyrock: a great band!

Romantic Me


Working On My Love

Laurie Anderson and Don Matzat on "Superman":

Laurie Anderson: O Superman (1981)

Don Matzat:
"Living in a theology of the Cross never makes you any 'better' than anyone else. Every day in every way you are not getting better and better. In fact, the preaching of Law and Gospel will not lead you to an awareness of your holiness, but rather to greater awareness of the depth of your sin. As a result, you will develop an ever-increasing faith in and appreciation for the redeeming work of (Superman) Jesus Christ."

Monday, August 13, 2007

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Monday, August 06, 2007

Sunday, August 05, 2007

JAPAN: a great band!

Life in Tokyo


Gentlemen Take Polaroids

Friday, August 03, 2007

Buck Rogers Disco:


Now there is a record worth having! Can anyone ID the song?

You can hear my sermon from this past Sunday...

Here -- Click Me!
...

Thursday, August 02, 2007

The Monkees: Porpoise Song

Some more quotes from "Grace in Practice":

"It is crucial to examine the human will...Is the human will an engine for self-help? To put it classically, is the will free or is it bound? To preface this survey of the will, we have to admit that traditional Christian theology is swimming upstream against the surrounding culture. Traditional Christian theology, Catholic and Protestant, rooted as it is in the pessimism of Paul and the radical pessimism of Augustine, understands the will as bound, not free. Everyone else today understand the will to be free. For American people, this is almost a point of personal honor." (p. 103)

"If the will is free, then we do not need someone to save us. We may need a helper, but we do not need a savior. We may scan the horizon for 'a little help from my friends' (lennon/mccartney), but basically life is a matter of 'God helps those who help themselves.' This theology disagrees entirely with that concept of life." (p. 104)

"If you believe in people's free will, you will always judge them when they 'choose' wrongly -- or, as we say today, when they make 'poor choices'. If you understand, however, that these people are not free in their will, then you are able to summon some compassion in your dealings with them. One of the reasons we need to embrace the fact of the un-free will is for the sake of its effect on love... The relation of the un-free will to compassion is that the un-free will enables compassion. You can see this in the various sorts of Christianity encountered in the world. Forms of Christianity that stress free will create refugees. They get into the business of judging, and especially of judging Christians." (pp. 108-109)



"'Free will' creates judgement creates rejections creates flight. The un-free will creates sympathy creates mercy comfort creates change. Actually, there is only despair and hatred in the concept of free will. There is hope and mercy in the concept of the un-free will." (p. 110)

David Elsewhere



Wednesday, August 01, 2007

New mix (from me) posted at Lovefingers.org!


Click Me!

Ashley Null quotes:


"With reason and will both captive to the concupiscence of the flesh, only the intervention of an outside force, the Holy Spirit, could give humanity a new set of godly affections... Confidence in God's gracious goodwill towards them reoriented the affections of the justified, calming their turbulent hearts and inflaming in them a grateful love in return...when Cranmer came to the conclusion that any human goodness followed rather than preceeded justification, he crossed the Rubicon, with Rome behind and Germany ahead." (pp. 100-101)

"A sinner was considered sufficiently 'good' to be a son of God only because God first imputed Christ's goodness to him, not because God made him sufficiently 'good' in his own right beforehand. Thus, by faith in Christ's redeeming work a sinner was justified, and because he was in right-standing with God he was then granted the gift of the Hly Spirit in his heart which brought forth good works in his life." (p. 105)

"the Reformation was certainly a debate over the authority of Scripture but equally a debate over the interpretation of Augustine; for the Lutherans believed that the 'true theology' was essentially Scripture as interpreted in the anti-Pelagian writings of Augustine." (p. 103)