Rachel Held Evans wrote an essay to explain why so many people of her generation avoid church. Evans quotes approvingly from one of her friends, who went looking for a worship service that is "not sensational, flashy, or particularly 'relevant'." What that friend wanted instead wasn't relevance or affirmation, but an invitation to full membership in what she called "the life of an ancient-future community."
That phrasing rankles me because I'm older than Evans and her peers, and more attuned to the syntax that aspiring theologians unwrap like a fresh deck of cards when they're trying to prove that they're intellectual and compassionate. The poetically liturgical "Ever ancient, ever new" captures the same insight as "ancient-future" without threatening to veer off into the mail-order shamanism that looks to places like Stonehenge and Sedona for whatever dignity it can borrow.
Unfortunate word choice aside, I'm glad that Ms. Evans and her friends have come around to the idea that the timeless trumps the trendy. She needn't be smug about what she calls the "Millennial" ability to sniff out hypocrisy, however -- that just means that even younger people realize we're all sinners.
Four years after abandoning an evangelical Protestant church community whose spiffy worship services were unable to assuage her doubt and disillusionment, Evans now considers herself an Episcopalian. I cheered when she used part of her essay to plug ritual and sacrament:
"You can get a cup of coffee with your friends anywhere, but church is the only place you can get ashes smudged on your forehead as a reminder of your mortality," she wrote. "You can be dazzled by a light show at a concert on any given weekend, but church is the only place that fills a sanctuary with candlelight and hymns on Christmas Eve. You can snag all sorts of free swag for brand loyalty online, but church is the only place where you are named a beloved child of God with a cold plunge into the water. You can share food with the hungry at any homeless shelter, but only the church teaches that a shared meal brings us into the very presence of God."
Evans rounded out her examples by capping them with a summary worthy of huzzahs: "What finally brought me back, after years of running away, wasn’t lattes or skinny jeans; it was the sacraments."
Good stuff, that. And yet I fear that Rachel Evans will eventually be disillusioned again, because despite that wonderful acknowledgement of ritual and sacrament, she also writes that the magnet that drew her back into church wasn't truth so much as Episcopalian "inclusivity." The big red doors of her church are open to all, she's happy to say: "conservatives, liberals, rich, poor, gay, straight and even perpetual doubters like me."
But of course those doors are open to all. That's not an Episcopalian distinctive; it's a mark of authentic Christianity that every Christian communion has inherited to a greater or lesser degree from the original fellowship organized by Jesus and headed by Saint Peter. To call the church "inclusive" is to call it "catholic."
Wittingly or not, Evans has transposed the vocabulary of the church fathers into a key she finds easier to sing. If that helps her meet the obligation we all have to live the Great Commandment, it's a wonderful thing. But if Evans (or anyone else) clings so tightly to inclusivity that the embrace leaves no room for the other marks of the church, then there's a problem, because "one," "holy," and "apostolic" sit at the same table that "catholic" does. To put one mark of the church in front of the others is to risk jettisoning faith when your own congregation falls short of that mark.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Wolcott with a swing and a miss
I don't often see my sister, but she knows I've dabbled in media criticism, and so she recently mailed me commentary by James Wolcott that in print was called The Sweet Smell of Disgrace and on the Vanity Fair web site was re-packaged as Brian Williams, Rolling Stone, and the Rise of the "Media Culpa."
In print and in pixel, Wolcott has fun with mixed metaphors and false gravitas. But if you read the essay, you get the impression that Wolcott laments not the well-publicized screw-ups of his fellow journalists, but the web-driven accountability for those screw-ups. It's the "yippee-kay-yay cries of Schadenfreude from the usual rodeo hands on the Internet" that irritate Wolcott more than "promiscuous copycats" and marquee names brought low. Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly are the names that Wolcott cites, one dinged for false memories and the other for "serial exaggeration."
That work in front of a camera and behind an anchor desk tends to encourage a "flexible" relationship with truth is hardly news, is it?
Wolcott would have done much better to examine the upper-middle-class progressive biases that he shares with Williams and O'Reilly, but does not admit to having. At least two things function as tells there:
One: Wolcott writes that debunked stories of sexual assault on college campuses "did considerable damage after their credibility crumpled," and by that he means that fraud at the heart of those particular stories couldn't help but damage the preferred narrative of the Predatory College Male. An essayist with an eye on the reputations of students falsely accused would have recast the same sentence to point out that the debunked stories actually did considerable damage before their credibility crumpled.
Two: On the basis of precisely nothing, Wolcott declares that Bill O'Reilly (by default the "conservative" in his analysis, if only because Brian Williams needed a counterweight) has respectable TV ratings because he "functions as the angry white man's apoplexy supplier" and "his average viewer is Grandpa Simpson, shaking his fist at a cloud."
Wolcott does not seem to fathom that there are "angry white men" who can't stand Bill O'Reilly. As one such recently pointed out, "O'Reilly is a pretty thoughtless man, given to the sort of rantings of the Lunchbucket Philosopher, basing his philosophy not on Judeo-Christian teachings, as he never tired of cliche-ing, but on his visceral gut reactions."
In other words, pace Wolcott, Bill O'Reilly has not earned enough respect among conservatives of either gender (read: people whom progressives seldom pal around with) to be a preferred "apoplexy supplier." O'Reilly is actually more of an apoplexy target, especially now that -- like the progressives he occasionally challenges -- he's decided that appeasing terrorists, and arguing with women who do not appease terrorists, is the better part of valor. "No Spin Zone"? It is to laugh.
Wolcott would know that if he'd read or talked to a few "angry white men" instead of writing them off as cartoon characters. He might also know that no one following the news needs help from professional contrarians to work him- or herself into a proper snit, because ignorance and injustice are easy to find, even if not always in the places where our mandarins look first.
In print and in pixel, Wolcott has fun with mixed metaphors and false gravitas. But if you read the essay, you get the impression that Wolcott laments not the well-publicized screw-ups of his fellow journalists, but the web-driven accountability for those screw-ups. It's the "yippee-kay-yay cries of Schadenfreude from the usual rodeo hands on the Internet" that irritate Wolcott more than "promiscuous copycats" and marquee names brought low. Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly are the names that Wolcott cites, one dinged for false memories and the other for "serial exaggeration."
That work in front of a camera and behind an anchor desk tends to encourage a "flexible" relationship with truth is hardly news, is it?
Wolcott would have done much better to examine the upper-middle-class progressive biases that he shares with Williams and O'Reilly, but does not admit to having. At least two things function as tells there:
One: Wolcott writes that debunked stories of sexual assault on college campuses "did considerable damage after their credibility crumpled," and by that he means that fraud at the heart of those particular stories couldn't help but damage the preferred narrative of the Predatory College Male. An essayist with an eye on the reputations of students falsely accused would have recast the same sentence to point out that the debunked stories actually did considerable damage before their credibility crumpled.
Two: On the basis of precisely nothing, Wolcott declares that Bill O'Reilly (by default the "conservative" in his analysis, if only because Brian Williams needed a counterweight) has respectable TV ratings because he "functions as the angry white man's apoplexy supplier" and "his average viewer is Grandpa Simpson, shaking his fist at a cloud."
Wolcott does not seem to fathom that there are "angry white men" who can't stand Bill O'Reilly. As one such recently pointed out, "O'Reilly is a pretty thoughtless man, given to the sort of rantings of the Lunchbucket Philosopher, basing his philosophy not on Judeo-Christian teachings, as he never tired of cliche-ing, but on his visceral gut reactions."
In other words, pace Wolcott, Bill O'Reilly has not earned enough respect among conservatives of either gender (read: people whom progressives seldom pal around with) to be a preferred "apoplexy supplier." O'Reilly is actually more of an apoplexy target, especially now that -- like the progressives he occasionally challenges -- he's decided that appeasing terrorists, and arguing with women who do not appease terrorists, is the better part of valor. "No Spin Zone"? It is to laugh.
Wolcott would know that if he'd read or talked to a few "angry white men" instead of writing them off as cartoon characters. He might also know that no one following the news needs help from professional contrarians to work him- or herself into a proper snit, because ignorance and injustice are easy to find, even if not always in the places where our mandarins look first.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
I want to party with these people
カントリー・ロード aka 'Country Roads' @ AMERICAN DIGEST
Passing along a nugget about a young band called "Goose House" from Gerard at American Digest: John Denver still has Japanese fans. I love it.
Passing along a nugget about a young band called "Goose House" from Gerard at American Digest: John Denver still has Japanese fans. I love it.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Stocking "Song Heaven"
Any blog that launches with a bouquet for Steve Goodman's iconic "City of New Orleans" seems bound to impress, especially when its author glides seamlessly from fond remembrance of that great old song into an honest look at how frustrating a day can be when you don't have anybody to sing at least the chorus with. Posts like that are workouts for the soul. While I don't feel up to the same high standard at the moment, I was much taken with Faith's speculation about the possibility of a "song heaven" where the best stuff goes.
The "Billboard 100" and the annual lists of "Best Rock Songs of All Time" hawked by Rolling Stone are old hat, but the criterion about which Faith was speculating has more to do with genius than with sales figures. That, I think, is why the spark for her post was struck by Mr. Goodman, rather than by better-known tunesmiths like Mr. McCartney and Mr. Lennon, who were wildly popular but not always keenly insightful. Imagine -- it must be said -- is a crap sandwich. I Wanna Hold Your Hand cannot be called a Profound Comment on the Human Condition. Hey Jude aspires to greatness, but remains a crescendo in compelling disguise.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that there actually is a "song heaven." There are grounds to believe that there might be: C.S. Lewis, riffing on a suggestion offered by Thomas Aquinas, once suggested that music is the speech of the angels (not for nothing did Aquinas divide angel ranks into "choirs"). Beyond that, some of us who believe that the Good, the True, and the Beautiful all come from and return to a divine author are sure that there is a place for great music among those perfections, and that greatness ultimately adheres to or reflects an objective standard.
What qualifies something for "song heaven"? With apologies to the blogger who inspired this post, canonization of that kind can't depend solely on the reputation of the songwriter.
Any tune in the "heaven" conversation has to be durable, memorable, singable, popular, and keenly observant.
Frankly, I did not want to make "popular" a criterion, but without that, people like me would promote so many obscure tunes into song heaven that singalongs would be difficult. I think songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and Claire Lynch should be famous, but they aren't, so they have to settle for heavy rotation on my own playlists rather than having their work acclaimed by the masses.
Because this is "song heaven" we're speculating about, everything on the foregoing list is non-negotiable. For example, I really enjoy the Blues Traveler song, "Hook," but it would not qualify for song heaven because it's not easy to sing, and it hasn't been around long enough to prove itself durable. I also like Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon," circa 1983 (Remember that?), but even I can't pretend it's keenly observant, or give it a pass because the harmonica part rocks.
"Let It Be," on the other hand, is a shoo-in for song heaven (McCartney was in top form there) -- and so is Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville."
If you don't think Buffett was keenly observant, then you missed the moral arc that moves the singer from "It's nobody's fault" to "Hell, it could be my my fault" to "It's my own damn fault."
That's meathead to mensch in three verses -- sounds like repentance, you betcha. I've said that for years.
Although Margaritaville ends with the shrimp overcooked and the salt shaker still missing, the singer has also come to a glimmer of wisdom, even without the "frozen concoction" that helps him hang on. Perhaps it's the same optimism that would later mark Wasted on the Way.
The "Billboard 100" and the annual lists of "Best Rock Songs of All Time" hawked by Rolling Stone are old hat, but the criterion about which Faith was speculating has more to do with genius than with sales figures. That, I think, is why the spark for her post was struck by Mr. Goodman, rather than by better-known tunesmiths like Mr. McCartney and Mr. Lennon, who were wildly popular but not always keenly insightful. Imagine -- it must be said -- is a crap sandwich. I Wanna Hold Your Hand cannot be called a Profound Comment on the Human Condition. Hey Jude aspires to greatness, but remains a crescendo in compelling disguise.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that there actually is a "song heaven." There are grounds to believe that there might be: C.S. Lewis, riffing on a suggestion offered by Thomas Aquinas, once suggested that music is the speech of the angels (not for nothing did Aquinas divide angel ranks into "choirs"). Beyond that, some of us who believe that the Good, the True, and the Beautiful all come from and return to a divine author are sure that there is a place for great music among those perfections, and that greatness ultimately adheres to or reflects an objective standard.
What qualifies something for "song heaven"? With apologies to the blogger who inspired this post, canonization of that kind can't depend solely on the reputation of the songwriter.
Any tune in the "heaven" conversation has to be durable, memorable, singable, popular, and keenly observant.
Frankly, I did not want to make "popular" a criterion, but without that, people like me would promote so many obscure tunes into song heaven that singalongs would be difficult. I think songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and Claire Lynch should be famous, but they aren't, so they have to settle for heavy rotation on my own playlists rather than having their work acclaimed by the masses.
Because this is "song heaven" we're speculating about, everything on the foregoing list is non-negotiable. For example, I really enjoy the Blues Traveler song, "Hook," but it would not qualify for song heaven because it's not easy to sing, and it hasn't been around long enough to prove itself durable. I also like Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon," circa 1983 (Remember that?), but even I can't pretend it's keenly observant, or give it a pass because the harmonica part rocks.
"Let It Be," on the other hand, is a shoo-in for song heaven (McCartney was in top form there) -- and so is Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville."
If you don't think Buffett was keenly observant, then you missed the moral arc that moves the singer from "It's nobody's fault" to "Hell, it could be my my fault" to "It's my own damn fault."
That's meathead to mensch in three verses -- sounds like repentance, you betcha. I've said that for years.
Although Margaritaville ends with the shrimp overcooked and the salt shaker still missing, the singer has also come to a glimmer of wisdom, even without the "frozen concoction" that helps him hang on. Perhaps it's the same optimism that would later mark Wasted on the Way.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Bookworm strikes again
Military men are often more romantic, she says, than their peers who have not served in the profession of arms. She's right. Read her post all the way through for the top-shelf insight into vulnerability with which she finishes.
Both the military man and the romantic cheer for the underdog, and both ultimately succeed only if they're willing to engage at close quarters, which is why General Lewis "Chesty" Puller or one of his brothers-in-arms from WWII once encouraged men of the First Marine Division by roaring something like "We're surrounded. They can't get away from us now!" Even aphorisms with no known attribution back Bookworm's thesis: "Only the strong can be gentle," comes to mind, as does "All's fair in love and war."
Ignatius Loyola was a romantic and a soldier. Ditto Joan of Arc, and Robert E. Lee, even if there is some controversy as to whether he was the general who said "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."
I know a little more about Lee than the other two worthies in the foregoing paragraph: You have to be a romantic to fight on principle for what Confederate survivors would remember as "the lost cause" -- and Lee turned down command of the Union armies to offer his services to the state of Virginia instead, even though his background as an engineer certainly gave him an appreciation for the Northern industrial might that he knew he would have to face in battle.
On the other side of the ledger in that conflict, Union hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was known both for his fighting prowess and his soft heart. You could also make an interesting case for Chamberlain's wartime boss, General Ulysses S. Grant, as being a closet romantic. Grant was stubborn and hard-drinking, to be sure, but he was also utterly loyal to anyone he respected, smitten by horses, and happily married to Julia Dent, the sister of his college roommate.
Both the military man and the romantic cheer for the underdog, and both ultimately succeed only if they're willing to engage at close quarters, which is why General Lewis "Chesty" Puller or one of his brothers-in-arms from WWII once encouraged men of the First Marine Division by roaring something like "We're surrounded. They can't get away from us now!" Even aphorisms with no known attribution back Bookworm's thesis: "Only the strong can be gentle," comes to mind, as does "All's fair in love and war."
Ignatius Loyola was a romantic and a soldier. Ditto Joan of Arc, and Robert E. Lee, even if there is some controversy as to whether he was the general who said "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."
I know a little more about Lee than the other two worthies in the foregoing paragraph: You have to be a romantic to fight on principle for what Confederate survivors would remember as "the lost cause" -- and Lee turned down command of the Union armies to offer his services to the state of Virginia instead, even though his background as an engineer certainly gave him an appreciation for the Northern industrial might that he knew he would have to face in battle.
On the other side of the ledger in that conflict, Union hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was known both for his fighting prowess and his soft heart. You could also make an interesting case for Chamberlain's wartime boss, General Ulysses S. Grant, as being a closet romantic. Grant was stubborn and hard-drinking, to be sure, but he was also utterly loyal to anyone he respected, smitten by horses, and happily married to Julia Dent, the sister of his college roommate.
Durable wordsmithery
Neo-Neocon's close reading of lyrics in the Left Banke song "Walk Away Renee" is a treat to read.
Friday, April 3, 2015
Chesterton for Good Friday
Joseph of Arimathea did better than he knew, said G.K. Chesterton.
Chesterton's musing is of a piece with another startling reconsideration provoked by someone else's gift-wrapped insight.
Here's what I mean: The irony of "putting to death the author of life" is something I've heard priests expound on in Good Friday sermons over the years (Peter's poetic phrasing in Acts 3:15 is marvelous), but I don't remember anyone dragging Pontius Pilate into the parlor game of "who was the first evangelist for Jesus?"
That question is an occasional pastime among Christians who know just enough theology to mull it over with friends, because while Scripture identifies John the Baptist as Jesus's herald and two brothers as the first apostles whom Jesus himself called, Scripture also offers glimpses of other possible contenders for the "early evangelist" crown: John's mom is in the mix for having asked her much younger relative how she (Elizabeth) was so blessed as to receive a long visit, in that famous "Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Similarly, old man Simeon at the Temple realized he was in the presence of the Messiah before Jesus was old enough to walk, although we don't know whether Simeon lived long enough afterward to share his joy with anyone other than Mary and Joseph.
Some thirty-three years later, the centurion who grasps the significance of the Temple veil being mysteriously torn from top to bottom when Jesus dies can't help but exclaim, "Surely this man was the son of God!" -- and that insight makes him something of an unexpected evangelist, too.
But how does Pilate -- "cowardly lion" and career politician -- come within hailing distance of evangelization? The Church Fathers explained, but I can't quote them from memory, so I'll settle for this insight from Fr. Robert Barron:
"In an absolutely delicious bit of irony, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, places over the cross, the declaration, in the three major languages of the time, that Jesus is the King, effectively de-throning Caesar and becoming, despite himself, the first great evangelist."
Chesterton's musing is of a piece with another startling reconsideration provoked by someone else's gift-wrapped insight.
Here's what I mean: The irony of "putting to death the author of life" is something I've heard priests expound on in Good Friday sermons over the years (Peter's poetic phrasing in Acts 3:15 is marvelous), but I don't remember anyone dragging Pontius Pilate into the parlor game of "who was the first evangelist for Jesus?"
That question is an occasional pastime among Christians who know just enough theology to mull it over with friends, because while Scripture identifies John the Baptist as Jesus's herald and two brothers as the first apostles whom Jesus himself called, Scripture also offers glimpses of other possible contenders for the "early evangelist" crown: John's mom is in the mix for having asked her much younger relative how she (Elizabeth) was so blessed as to receive a long visit, in that famous "Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Similarly, old man Simeon at the Temple realized he was in the presence of the Messiah before Jesus was old enough to walk, although we don't know whether Simeon lived long enough afterward to share his joy with anyone other than Mary and Joseph.
Some thirty-three years later, the centurion who grasps the significance of the Temple veil being mysteriously torn from top to bottom when Jesus dies can't help but exclaim, "Surely this man was the son of God!" -- and that insight makes him something of an unexpected evangelist, too.
But how does Pilate -- "cowardly lion" and career politician -- come within hailing distance of evangelization? The Church Fathers explained, but I can't quote them from memory, so I'll settle for this insight from Fr. Robert Barron:
"In an absolutely delicious bit of irony, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, places over the cross, the declaration, in the three major languages of the time, that Jesus is the King, effectively de-throning Caesar and becoming, despite himself, the first great evangelist."
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