Everyone who creates does so with a purpose. Perusing some of what passes for art (from any era, not just our own), this isn't always patently clear—a lot of paintings, songs, books, etc. look as purposeless as one feels after engaging them. But creation is not possible without at least a modicum of intention, and that intention is the purpose for which the creator creates.
By art, I'm including everything that is not explicitly utile except for recreational or contemplative purposes. It's easy to try to distinguish between art and entertainment, but ultimately the distinction is impossible to maintain: there's simply good art and bad art, art that is entertaining and art that isn't, stupid art and intelligent art, and so on. An attempt to dissociate art from entertainment is wrong both because it elevates art beyond its proper due, and because it simultaneously insinuates that art is not meant to be entertaining or enjoyable.
But properly made art is meant to be enjoyable, even while it's meant to instruct and to direct its audience toward the better life. To make art of this kind, the artist must do so intentionally; good art doesn't come about by accident.
On the reverse of the "entertainment vs. art" coin, attempting to distinguish some attempts from the real or perceived dross that surround them is usually little more than arrogance and posturing either on the part of the artist or his fans. For instance, movies become "art films" to differentiate them from the typical box office hash; novels are called "literary fiction" as opposed to genre titles; avant garde music is "art rock" as opposed to pop. There's some good stuff in these categories, but the only reason to stand by such designations is to make sure everyone knows you aren't just part of the herd, consuming the same intellectual junk food as everyone else.
All that isn't to suggest I'm advocating watching run-of-the-mill movies or reading a bunch of cheap paperbacks, just that we need to recognize the tendency for status-elevation based on our so-called superior tastes. Increasingly, what is often deemed most intelligent is simply transgressive or simply nonsensical; our goal should be to find what is good, not simply to promote our own intelligence by jumping on some bandwagon.
So how do we go about finding the good? If there are objective standards for separating good and bad art, what are they? I don't think they're as difficult as a lot of people seem to assume. There's a pretty widespread attitude that, even if objective standards exist, we can't know them. I vehemently repudiate that notion, and assert that the objective standards can and must be known, especially if Christians are going to engage the arts on any level, either as creators or consumers.
To return to the beginning idea: everything that is created is created with a purpose. If the purpose of the artist is simply to make money, that will be evident in what he creates; if he wants to celebrate sin, he will; if he wants to make a significant statement about God or hunanity, that will be apparent; if he simply wants to create something with lots of explosions and knife fights, he will do just that. It isn't possible for anyone to make anything with no purpose at all, and it isn't possible for them to obscure or hide that purpose.
The first objective standard for evaluating art, then, is found in determining the purpose of the given artwork. This may be more difficult in some cases than in others, but with proper training in logic and reason it's never impossible. A major reason people are often unwilling to analyze a book or movie in this way is because they're afraid the conclusion will force them to give up something they like, which in turn means they're often unwilling to admit this as an objective standard for art analysis, but there is nowhere else to begin evaluation.
If a movie (for instance) passes the first test (i.e., the purpose of the film is legitimate and not merely meant to titillate or shock or violate), the secone step is to determine whether it adequately lives up to its purpose. For instance, the classic Western The Sons of Katie Elder is clearly meant to demonstrate the influence of a good woman on her community, but through directorial ineptitude, poor acting, and clumsy symbolism the point is lost. On the other hand, a movie like Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light is clearly meant to explore the phenomenon of loss of faith and depression from an existential perspective, and ably does so.
These are the two most basic litmus tests for objectively judging a work of art. Both withhold value judgments and allow the audience member to analyze the work based solely on the work itself. If we don't start here, we can hope to make observations only in the most desultory manner, finding elements here and there yet unable to connect them. To avoid this, we must assume an objective base for analysis, and proceed from there.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
"Christian" doesn't make it good.
This is the last post about music for awhile, I promise.
What about music from so-called "Christian" artists? A lot of people assume that if something is labeled Christian, it's acceptable. Plenty of artists seem to think the same thing, pumping the name of Jesus into every song regardless of whether it belongs there.
The fact is, a lot of what passes for Christian is often just as damaging (and, in some cases, more so) as its secular counterparts. Audio Adrenaline (who purvey bad music in addition to bad lyrics) have a song familiar to many called Big House, comparing Heaven (i.e., God's holy and eternal presence) to a place with lots of food and room for football games. This is clearly pernicious art, and should be abandoned by anyone professing the name of Christ.
There are far too many songs like this. Without assuming motive (it's easy to do; a band can pretty much assume an audience for themselves if they append the moniker "Christian" to themselves and their music), we as Christians cannot let this kind of thing stand as Christian art.
To be sure, if there were good music attached to poor lyrics in these songs, they'd still be bad songs in virtue of the lyrics; the fact that the music is so often bad simply adds insult to injury. And I'm not saying there's no good Christian music—far from it. Bands like Gungor and Cush manage to combine insightful, biblical lyrics and very good music that is both accessible and Christ-honoring.
What I am saying is that if a band that claims to be Christian churns out bad music and bad lyrics, we should have the guts to distance ourselves from them. There is nothing honorable in accepting everyone who claims to come in the name of Christ as our brothers and sisters, and there is nothing honorable in letting bad art or bad theology off the hook because it's "Christian."
There's too much good art that is also Christian for us to have to settle for that which is neither good art nor truly Christian. We aren't displaying solidarity by listening to everything "Christian radio" has to offer, just as the early Church wouldn't have been displaying solidarity had they accepted the claims of a heretic like Arius or Nestorius. We aren't doing ourselves or anyone else a bit of good by blindly accepting whatever purports to be Christian; in fact, by doing so we're creating a great deal of harm.
What about music from so-called "Christian" artists? A lot of people assume that if something is labeled Christian, it's acceptable. Plenty of artists seem to think the same thing, pumping the name of Jesus into every song regardless of whether it belongs there.
The fact is, a lot of what passes for Christian is often just as damaging (and, in some cases, more so) as its secular counterparts. Audio Adrenaline (who purvey bad music in addition to bad lyrics) have a song familiar to many called Big House, comparing Heaven (i.e., God's holy and eternal presence) to a place with lots of food and room for football games. This is clearly pernicious art, and should be abandoned by anyone professing the name of Christ.
There are far too many songs like this. Without assuming motive (it's easy to do; a band can pretty much assume an audience for themselves if they append the moniker "Christian" to themselves and their music), we as Christians cannot let this kind of thing stand as Christian art.
To be sure, if there were good music attached to poor lyrics in these songs, they'd still be bad songs in virtue of the lyrics; the fact that the music is so often bad simply adds insult to injury. And I'm not saying there's no good Christian music—far from it. Bands like Gungor and Cush manage to combine insightful, biblical lyrics and very good music that is both accessible and Christ-honoring.
What I am saying is that if a band that claims to be Christian churns out bad music and bad lyrics, we should have the guts to distance ourselves from them. There is nothing honorable in accepting everyone who claims to come in the name of Christ as our brothers and sisters, and there is nothing honorable in letting bad art or bad theology off the hook because it's "Christian."
There's too much good art that is also Christian for us to have to settle for that which is neither good art nor truly Christian. We aren't displaying solidarity by listening to everything "Christian radio" has to offer, just as the early Church wouldn't have been displaying solidarity had they accepted the claims of a heretic like Arius or Nestorius. We aren't doing ourselves or anyone else a bit of good by blindly accepting whatever purports to be Christian; in fact, by doing so we're creating a great deal of harm.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Lyrics matter.
It seems like the question of lyrics should be an easy matter to decide from a Christian perspective, but relatively few Christians seem to give it the attention it deserves. If music itself has an influence on us, surely the lyrics do, and the worse the lyrics the worse the influence. The argument that "I just listen to the music, not the lyrics" is untenable, and should be rejected; everything affects us, and if it's not something good it will affect us negatively.
Nearly everyone acknowledges this on some level, but almost as often as it's acknowledged there's a hint (or a lot) of inconsitency. People who refuse to listen to gangsta rap for the lyrical content will turn around and listen to AC/DC; those who won't listen to AC/DC will listen to Lady Gaga; those who won't litsten to Lady Gaga will listen to Shaniah Twain. Worse, many Christians will simply admit that the lyrics are foul or inappropriate, but listen to the songs anyway, saying that the music is really quite good.
If anyone tries to defend Lady Gaga's music on any level they've got more problems than this post can or will address, but what if the music really is good? Surely, Angus Young is a good guitar player; do we have to throw out his entire body of work just because Bon Scott and Brian Johnson write and sing deplorable lyrics?
Quite simply, yes.
First of all, there will always be an artist with equal or superior skill whose lyrics aren't juvenile celebrations of sin and wrongdoing. But even if that weren't the case, it would be morally wrong to listen to songs glorifying evil whether the music itself is good or not.
This doesn't mean just because a song has profanity or references to immoral behavior we should throw it out and never listen to it. The lyrics of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, for instance, has some pretty dark, sinister, and even depraved content, but Cave's songs are well worth listening to because of the way he deals with such content. Rarely if ever is he outright glorying in wickedness; more often, he's wondering why humans commit evil deeds, what attracts us to it, and whether there's a plausible alternative and solution.
That's a far cry from Highway to Hell or Back in Black which simply celebrate (in mindless fashion, no less) the depths to which humans are able to sink. A song's lyrical content, then, should be judged not on what makes an appearance in the song, but on how that content appears, in what light the songwriter chooses to cast his subject matter, and what he's saying through the song. This is true of art forms in general, not just music, but because music has become so prevalent in our culture and so constantly accessible, it's possibly the most important.
Perhaps even worse than blatant celebrations of sin (which make their way into music of every genre), however, are those songs which are subtle. Pop country is perhaps the worst of this kind; on one hand, artists are singing about their so-called Christian upbringing, while on the other they're talking about bedding hot chicks, getting in fights, and hating people from other nations, all in the name of syncretized American religion.
Any lyrical content that distracts us from the Gospel, or that is directly opposed to the Gospel, or that misrepresents the Gospel, is bad. We can rationalize all we want, but part of denying ourselves is giving up things we like that we shouldn't. I may like listening to Nas or Public Enemy, but there's little to nothing redemptive in their lyrics, and the more I listen to them, the more I'll begin to accept (however unconsciously) their un-Christian worldview. How much better that I should simply give up their music in favor of songs that are thoughtful, wholesome, and good?
Nearly everyone acknowledges this on some level, but almost as often as it's acknowledged there's a hint (or a lot) of inconsitency. People who refuse to listen to gangsta rap for the lyrical content will turn around and listen to AC/DC; those who won't listen to AC/DC will listen to Lady Gaga; those who won't litsten to Lady Gaga will listen to Shaniah Twain. Worse, many Christians will simply admit that the lyrics are foul or inappropriate, but listen to the songs anyway, saying that the music is really quite good.
If anyone tries to defend Lady Gaga's music on any level they've got more problems than this post can or will address, but what if the music really is good? Surely, Angus Young is a good guitar player; do we have to throw out his entire body of work just because Bon Scott and Brian Johnson write and sing deplorable lyrics?
Quite simply, yes.
First of all, there will always be an artist with equal or superior skill whose lyrics aren't juvenile celebrations of sin and wrongdoing. But even if that weren't the case, it would be morally wrong to listen to songs glorifying evil whether the music itself is good or not.
This doesn't mean just because a song has profanity or references to immoral behavior we should throw it out and never listen to it. The lyrics of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, for instance, has some pretty dark, sinister, and even depraved content, but Cave's songs are well worth listening to because of the way he deals with such content. Rarely if ever is he outright glorying in wickedness; more often, he's wondering why humans commit evil deeds, what attracts us to it, and whether there's a plausible alternative and solution.
That's a far cry from Highway to Hell or Back in Black which simply celebrate (in mindless fashion, no less) the depths to which humans are able to sink. A song's lyrical content, then, should be judged not on what makes an appearance in the song, but on how that content appears, in what light the songwriter chooses to cast his subject matter, and what he's saying through the song. This is true of art forms in general, not just music, but because music has become so prevalent in our culture and so constantly accessible, it's possibly the most important.
Perhaps even worse than blatant celebrations of sin (which make their way into music of every genre), however, are those songs which are subtle. Pop country is perhaps the worst of this kind; on one hand, artists are singing about their so-called Christian upbringing, while on the other they're talking about bedding hot chicks, getting in fights, and hating people from other nations, all in the name of syncretized American religion.
Any lyrical content that distracts us from the Gospel, or that is directly opposed to the Gospel, or that misrepresents the Gospel, is bad. We can rationalize all we want, but part of denying ourselves is giving up things we like that we shouldn't. I may like listening to Nas or Public Enemy, but there's little to nothing redemptive in their lyrics, and the more I listen to them, the more I'll begin to accept (however unconsciously) their un-Christian worldview. How much better that I should simply give up their music in favor of songs that are thoughtful, wholesome, and good?
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Praise vs. Worship
Some will no doubt accuse me of making some pretty sweeping statements in the last post, statements that bear support for which I offered little. True enough, so I offer support now.
First: what is a praise chorus? A praise chorus is any Christian song designed for use during a church service, and which is centered around a repetitive phrase or group of phrases (both musical and lyrical) that can be easily learned and remembered. Most church music has assumed this character, presumably to facilitate greater congregational participation, and because knowledge of musical forms has deteriorated to the point where average congregants are unable to follow the frequently complex and difficult melodies and harmonies of traditional hymns.
Second: why are such songs inherently emotional? It isn't because of their lyrics (though those are usually of similar ilk), nor is it dependent on the instruments used. Praise choruses are inherently emotional because they're designed not to elevate the intellect and thereby the emotions, but rather specifically to excite the emotions. If this sounds like a tautology, bear with me.
Complex musical forms require intellectual engagement not only if one hopes to understand them, but also if one hopes to be genuinely affected by them. Praise choruses are deliberately simple in order to appeal to the broadest audience (thereby estranging a large contingent who prefer artistically valid pieces!), and thereby eschew the intellectual aspect of their composition. It's hard to sing a complex melody line, but recognizable chords played in a repetitive progression are relatively simple to sing and can be used over and over with all kinds of lyrics.
It's essential at this point to introduce the idea of the effect lyrics have over a song. In order to keep choruses singable, songwriters must also simplify lyrics, so that not much (if any) thought is required to sing them. When lyrics are thus reduced, any truly meaningful content is similarly diminished or eliminated. One once-popular song consisted mostly of the words, "Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes yes, Lord," repeated ad nauseum. This is meaningless gibberish made to seem pious by the insertion of a particular word (but not the true Word).
What do such songs leave us with? A false sense of emotion. If there is no meaningful intellectual or rational content in a song, and only rudimentary music played in such a way as to elicit a given response, the only conclusion we can make is that the song's purpose is to evoke an emotional response. Of course, as we've attempted to show it's impossible to engender real or actual emotion in the absence of intellectual or rational content, and thus the feelings induced by praise music are empty and nebulous (at best).
Last: why are hymns not merely emotional as well? Hymns are designed to teach us about God even while we praise Him for His greatness, His beauty, and His infallible love. True emotions will naturally follow from such expressions, even very strong emotions, but those emotions will be preceded by apprehendable truths expressed in rational language.
Ultimately, praise music fails at the true purpose all church music should aim for: genuine worship. A feeling is not worship any more than embers constitute a fire. For songs to serve their true purpose in a church context, they must deliberately direct us to known truths about God, not simply toward our feelings about indefinable elements of religious experience. After all, dervishes work themselves into religiously-induced states of pure emotion, but that is in no sense genuine worship of any kind. Why do we suppose our purely emotional music is any different, even if Christ's name is mentioned fifty times throughout?
First: what is a praise chorus? A praise chorus is any Christian song designed for use during a church service, and which is centered around a repetitive phrase or group of phrases (both musical and lyrical) that can be easily learned and remembered. Most church music has assumed this character, presumably to facilitate greater congregational participation, and because knowledge of musical forms has deteriorated to the point where average congregants are unable to follow the frequently complex and difficult melodies and harmonies of traditional hymns.
Second: why are such songs inherently emotional? It isn't because of their lyrics (though those are usually of similar ilk), nor is it dependent on the instruments used. Praise choruses are inherently emotional because they're designed not to elevate the intellect and thereby the emotions, but rather specifically to excite the emotions. If this sounds like a tautology, bear with me.
Complex musical forms require intellectual engagement not only if one hopes to understand them, but also if one hopes to be genuinely affected by them. Praise choruses are deliberately simple in order to appeal to the broadest audience (thereby estranging a large contingent who prefer artistically valid pieces!), and thereby eschew the intellectual aspect of their composition. It's hard to sing a complex melody line, but recognizable chords played in a repetitive progression are relatively simple to sing and can be used over and over with all kinds of lyrics.
It's essential at this point to introduce the idea of the effect lyrics have over a song. In order to keep choruses singable, songwriters must also simplify lyrics, so that not much (if any) thought is required to sing them. When lyrics are thus reduced, any truly meaningful content is similarly diminished or eliminated. One once-popular song consisted mostly of the words, "Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes yes, Lord," repeated ad nauseum. This is meaningless gibberish made to seem pious by the insertion of a particular word (but not the true Word).
What do such songs leave us with? A false sense of emotion. If there is no meaningful intellectual or rational content in a song, and only rudimentary music played in such a way as to elicit a given response, the only conclusion we can make is that the song's purpose is to evoke an emotional response. Of course, as we've attempted to show it's impossible to engender real or actual emotion in the absence of intellectual or rational content, and thus the feelings induced by praise music are empty and nebulous (at best).
Last: why are hymns not merely emotional as well? Hymns are designed to teach us about God even while we praise Him for His greatness, His beauty, and His infallible love. True emotions will naturally follow from such expressions, even very strong emotions, but those emotions will be preceded by apprehendable truths expressed in rational language.
Ultimately, praise music fails at the true purpose all church music should aim for: genuine worship. A feeling is not worship any more than embers constitute a fire. For songs to serve their true purpose in a church context, they must deliberately direct us to known truths about God, not simply toward our feelings about indefinable elements of religious experience. After all, dervishes work themselves into religiously-induced states of pure emotion, but that is in no sense genuine worship of any kind. Why do we suppose our purely emotional music is any different, even if Christ's name is mentioned fifty times throughout?
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
The purposelessness of "praise" music.
What is the real purpose of most church music these days? If it's to worship Yahweh, the eternal and perfect embodiment of intellect, power, beauty, and love, why do so many of the songs lifted to Him betoken and represent none of those things? Why do congregations split over which songs to sing, which instruments whereby to accompany those songs, and any number of similar concerns? I'd venture to say it's because the real reason most contemporary praise music exists is to emotionally manipulate congregations into feeling as though they're worshipping God, whether this is actually what they're doing or not.
In some ways, I wouldn't try to put church music on the same plane as other types of art. Hymns and psalms are specifically designed to help Christians praise and worship God, and to reflect on Him, whereas most art is of a much more universal and less sacramental nature. However, I would urge that church music be held to the same high standard as any other art form, and probably an even higher standard given its purpose.
Contemporary Christians have become obssessed with the suppossedly laudable goal of getting their emotions in the right place about worship. Most of the ancient Church fathers would have agreed that this is largely impossible, at least until essential truths about God had first been grasped and internalized. For instance, it isn't possible to feel the freedom Christ offers through His Gospel until one first understands rationally the claims of Jesus, the nature of atonement, and the existential necessity of conversion, repentance, and sanctification.
The kind of music many (yes, even most) churches favor these days is seemingly designed to bypass the intellect and directly affect "the heart," whatever that nebulous entity might be in today's linguistically challenged culture. To feel God is seen as superior to knowing God, primarily because the intellectual community is seen as merely intellectualizing the faith, and thus separating it from its real-world essence and application. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that's another post altogether.
What's important for this post is that church people could make the fallacy that the life of the mind is somehow unimportant for "real life" and day-to-day experience. It's only by contemplation and study that we can hope to know how God wants us to live. As sinful people, if we let gut-feeling indicate our ethical and behavioral path, nine times out of ten we'll end up doing the wrong thing, and the tenth time when we get it right will be an accident. Studying God's Word, contemplating it, and comparing to it the ideas of other Christians past and present is a vital and essential activity that will trump mere feeling in any circumstance.
Yet the Church has become increasingly anti-intellectual, and this bias has entered the very church service itself. Hymns that teach and illuminate are eschewed in favor of "catchy" songs that evoke emotions, and usually pretty paltry ones at that. God wants us to know that we know who He is and what He's done for us, not simply that we feel good about Him in a vague kind of way.
Obviously, if your Christian life is devoid of emotion, something is wrong. But how can you be sad about Christ's sufferings on your behalf, elated that He has saved you, or anxious to spread this good news, if you don't understand those things at a rational pre-emotional level? Notice that typical praise music avoids negative emotions at all costs in favor of those that will make the singer feel good about himself and about his relation to Christ. So not only does praise music entrench itself firmly in anti-intellectualism, it also denies the negative feelings all Christian ought to feel concerning their sin and their own unworthiness.
The purpose of praise choruses, then, is no purpose at all. If the purpose of praise music is (as I would argue) to make people feel a certain way, it inherently fails because it does not first orient them toward a rationally affirmable truth. People no doubt feel a certain way while singing praise choruses, but it's an inherently empty feeling because it has no foundation. How can we countenance this as God's people? How can we allow our worship of Him to be reduced to a subjective, vapid experience? If we have any sense of who He is, gathered from careful study of His Word, we cannot.
In some ways, I wouldn't try to put church music on the same plane as other types of art. Hymns and psalms are specifically designed to help Christians praise and worship God, and to reflect on Him, whereas most art is of a much more universal and less sacramental nature. However, I would urge that church music be held to the same high standard as any other art form, and probably an even higher standard given its purpose.
Contemporary Christians have become obssessed with the suppossedly laudable goal of getting their emotions in the right place about worship. Most of the ancient Church fathers would have agreed that this is largely impossible, at least until essential truths about God had first been grasped and internalized. For instance, it isn't possible to feel the freedom Christ offers through His Gospel until one first understands rationally the claims of Jesus, the nature of atonement, and the existential necessity of conversion, repentance, and sanctification.
The kind of music many (yes, even most) churches favor these days is seemingly designed to bypass the intellect and directly affect "the heart," whatever that nebulous entity might be in today's linguistically challenged culture. To feel God is seen as superior to knowing God, primarily because the intellectual community is seen as merely intellectualizing the faith, and thus separating it from its real-world essence and application. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that's another post altogether.
What's important for this post is that church people could make the fallacy that the life of the mind is somehow unimportant for "real life" and day-to-day experience. It's only by contemplation and study that we can hope to know how God wants us to live. As sinful people, if we let gut-feeling indicate our ethical and behavioral path, nine times out of ten we'll end up doing the wrong thing, and the tenth time when we get it right will be an accident. Studying God's Word, contemplating it, and comparing to it the ideas of other Christians past and present is a vital and essential activity that will trump mere feeling in any circumstance.
Yet the Church has become increasingly anti-intellectual, and this bias has entered the very church service itself. Hymns that teach and illuminate are eschewed in favor of "catchy" songs that evoke emotions, and usually pretty paltry ones at that. God wants us to know that we know who He is and what He's done for us, not simply that we feel good about Him in a vague kind of way.
Obviously, if your Christian life is devoid of emotion, something is wrong. But how can you be sad about Christ's sufferings on your behalf, elated that He has saved you, or anxious to spread this good news, if you don't understand those things at a rational pre-emotional level? Notice that typical praise music avoids negative emotions at all costs in favor of those that will make the singer feel good about himself and about his relation to Christ. So not only does praise music entrench itself firmly in anti-intellectualism, it also denies the negative feelings all Christian ought to feel concerning their sin and their own unworthiness.
The purpose of praise choruses, then, is no purpose at all. If the purpose of praise music is (as I would argue) to make people feel a certain way, it inherently fails because it does not first orient them toward a rationally affirmable truth. People no doubt feel a certain way while singing praise choruses, but it's an inherently empty feeling because it has no foundation. How can we countenance this as God's people? How can we allow our worship of Him to be reduced to a subjective, vapid experience? If we have any sense of who He is, gathered from careful study of His Word, we cannot.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Appreciation precedes enjoyment.
I'm listening to one of my favorite metal bands as I write this. Scale the Summit plays technical instrumental heavy metal with a strong progressive element. Their appeal is twofold: first, each member of the band is a proficient and experimental musician, and second, in their music one can discern both a rational and an emotional element.
Like a lot of Classical music, Scale the Summit's compositions require careful attention. A cursory listen of many of their songs can be disorienting, for (like the best metal bands) despite their four-piece approach, Summit's pieces are complex in ways popular music is not. Each of the musicians is a virtuoso, but none is a prima donna, making their blend of two seven-string guitars, six-string bass, and drums nothing short of sublime.
That's not to suggest anyone who listents to Scale the Summit will (or should) have exactly the same reaction to their music. What I don't want to imply in my theory of music is that all music can be submitted to a single rigorous test which will force a given piece to have a single effect on everyone who listens to it. I do think all music should be rationally contemplated and judged accordingly, but once that has been accomplished I think a variety of reaction to a single piece actually serves to demonstrate its power, artistic effect, and beauty.
A lot of this goes back to a fundamental consideration in art criticism of any kind: the difference between appreciation and preference. There are many Classical compositions I can appreciate but that I have little predilection for or enjoyment of (most opera comes immediately to mind). The same is true of all music; there's plenty of music I don't listen to that I can nonetheless qualify as good art because it meets certain essential criteria.
Scale the Summit is one of the bands I both appreciate and enjoy. The appreciation is the rational level—throughout all their songs there is attention to melodic themes, an orderliness despite the occasional apparent dissonance, and a structured complexity, all of which point to a proper understanding both of the role of music (to train us to think and feel correctly), and the world in which music is created (a deeply complex though often confusing realm which nonetheless evidences an inherent teleology).
From this appreciation comes my enjoyment. And yes, much of that enjoyment is emotional: a song like Rode in on Horseback calms me even as it elates my spirit, both essentially emotional responses that are at the same time mediated through my intellectual appreciation of the song. Without the intellectual mediation, my "emotional responses" become mere animal instincts, and can be manipulated any way I want them to be.
Trading in rational thought leading to emotional enjoyment for immediate visceral response culminating in mindlessness or mere behaviorism is simply trading freedom for slavery. Good art ought to free our minds and spirits from the selfishness and nihilism of everyday life, but if we approach it with empty minds our only reward will be more emptiness, and its power will be effectually negated. To truly enjoy something, we must first be able to understand it and appreciate it; otherwise, we're ruled by it and kept in a consumerist subjection to the very thing that should elevate our minds, our hearts, and our emotions to a nobler plane.
Like a lot of Classical music, Scale the Summit's compositions require careful attention. A cursory listen of many of their songs can be disorienting, for (like the best metal bands) despite their four-piece approach, Summit's pieces are complex in ways popular music is not. Each of the musicians is a virtuoso, but none is a prima donna, making their blend of two seven-string guitars, six-string bass, and drums nothing short of sublime.
That's not to suggest anyone who listents to Scale the Summit will (or should) have exactly the same reaction to their music. What I don't want to imply in my theory of music is that all music can be submitted to a single rigorous test which will force a given piece to have a single effect on everyone who listens to it. I do think all music should be rationally contemplated and judged accordingly, but once that has been accomplished I think a variety of reaction to a single piece actually serves to demonstrate its power, artistic effect, and beauty.
A lot of this goes back to a fundamental consideration in art criticism of any kind: the difference between appreciation and preference. There are many Classical compositions I can appreciate but that I have little predilection for or enjoyment of (most opera comes immediately to mind). The same is true of all music; there's plenty of music I don't listen to that I can nonetheless qualify as good art because it meets certain essential criteria.
Scale the Summit is one of the bands I both appreciate and enjoy. The appreciation is the rational level—throughout all their songs there is attention to melodic themes, an orderliness despite the occasional apparent dissonance, and a structured complexity, all of which point to a proper understanding both of the role of music (to train us to think and feel correctly), and the world in which music is created (a deeply complex though often confusing realm which nonetheless evidences an inherent teleology).
From this appreciation comes my enjoyment. And yes, much of that enjoyment is emotional: a song like Rode in on Horseback calms me even as it elates my spirit, both essentially emotional responses that are at the same time mediated through my intellectual appreciation of the song. Without the intellectual mediation, my "emotional responses" become mere animal instincts, and can be manipulated any way I want them to be.
Trading in rational thought leading to emotional enjoyment for immediate visceral response culminating in mindlessness or mere behaviorism is simply trading freedom for slavery. Good art ought to free our minds and spirits from the selfishness and nihilism of everyday life, but if we approach it with empty minds our only reward will be more emptiness, and its power will be effectually negated. To truly enjoy something, we must first be able to understand it and appreciate it; otherwise, we're ruled by it and kept in a consumerist subjection to the very thing that should elevate our minds, our hearts, and our emotions to a nobler plane.
Friday, August 17, 2012
How do we account for musical taste?
The person able to happily listen to a long string of bad songs does so from an inability to process the messages inherent in the music itself.
This may sound dangerously akin to the teachings of some fundamentalists who claim heavy metal has the power to dissarrange one's very soul. Far from it, actually: these fundamentalists assume music has some reason-defusing power over individuals, and that there is no way to hide oneself from the deleterious effects of bad compositions.
In actuality, however, there is good heavy metal and bad heavy metal, good folk and bad folk, good opera and bad opera; all stands or falls on the rational propositions inherent in the compositions themselves.
Notice that I'm not talking about lyrical content of songs. A piece may have excellent music and awful lyrics (not likely), in which case I'd toss it out based on the lyrics. Here, however, I'm speaking strictly of the music itself, the notes and the instrumentation.
Why are pop songs so perennially popular? Some would say it's because they're easy to dance to, but I'd counter that complex jazz and a lot of folk songs are just as easy to dance to. Others might say it's because they're catchy and fun to sing along to, but there are many superior songs that are just as catchy and just as easy to sing along with (many even more so than their pop corollaries). The reasons supplied might be endless, but I'd assert that the popularity of pop songs is due to their anti-rational nature.
A "good" pop song is generally considered to be one with a strong beat and maybe a catchy hook, the two most basic elements of music. While I'm in no way opposed to music with a strong beat or catchy hooks, I am opposed to music that offers nothing else. Would we be satisfied if a builder stopped when the framing was done and called his building a house? Do we call a skeleton a human? Why then are we so ready to call the bare bones of music a complete song?
People accept these songs because there's nothing much to wrestle with. There is a rational presupposition undergirding such songs, but it's so simple that it can be easily ignored or just as easily accepted. The message is generally (still speaking of the music rather than the lyrics) "do what your body tells you to do," and that's a message most people like to hear, so they accept it.
The idea that music is somehow divorced from rational thought and experience has led a lot of people to reject the corollary idea that there is music that is inherently good or bad, that music itself has a moral attitude or element. Hence, such ludicrous statements as, "I only listen to Notorious B.I.G. for the beats." If music itself has no moral quality, it seems people would argue, then its lyrics are equally benign if simply ignored.
Modern man is obsessed with his supposed primal nature. Taking a cue from Rousseau, the modern everyman seems to see deep within himself a noble savage given more to instinct and action than to rational thought and reflection. Seeing this mirage, modern man makes himself in that image, thus relinquishing one of his greatest assets and most intrinsic elements: his rational mind. Wherever he can, he finds emotion trumping reason, even in his music.
Therefore taste, to the modern man, trumps all else. If a certain song compels me to a specific emotional response I don't like, I simply avoid that song; likewise, if I like the response, I will listen to the song. This is seen as taste. In the old days, however, taste was monolithic, something you either had or didn't have. If you liked a good song, you had good taste; if you liked a bad song, you had bad taste. The first step toward recovering the proper use of reason as opposed to resigning ourselves to an evolutionary instinct is to regain the concept of taste as an objective standard capable of measuring all music, and all those who listen to it.
This may sound dangerously akin to the teachings of some fundamentalists who claim heavy metal has the power to dissarrange one's very soul. Far from it, actually: these fundamentalists assume music has some reason-defusing power over individuals, and that there is no way to hide oneself from the deleterious effects of bad compositions.
In actuality, however, there is good heavy metal and bad heavy metal, good folk and bad folk, good opera and bad opera; all stands or falls on the rational propositions inherent in the compositions themselves.
Notice that I'm not talking about lyrical content of songs. A piece may have excellent music and awful lyrics (not likely), in which case I'd toss it out based on the lyrics. Here, however, I'm speaking strictly of the music itself, the notes and the instrumentation.
Why are pop songs so perennially popular? Some would say it's because they're easy to dance to, but I'd counter that complex jazz and a lot of folk songs are just as easy to dance to. Others might say it's because they're catchy and fun to sing along to, but there are many superior songs that are just as catchy and just as easy to sing along with (many even more so than their pop corollaries). The reasons supplied might be endless, but I'd assert that the popularity of pop songs is due to their anti-rational nature.
A "good" pop song is generally considered to be one with a strong beat and maybe a catchy hook, the two most basic elements of music. While I'm in no way opposed to music with a strong beat or catchy hooks, I am opposed to music that offers nothing else. Would we be satisfied if a builder stopped when the framing was done and called his building a house? Do we call a skeleton a human? Why then are we so ready to call the bare bones of music a complete song?
People accept these songs because there's nothing much to wrestle with. There is a rational presupposition undergirding such songs, but it's so simple that it can be easily ignored or just as easily accepted. The message is generally (still speaking of the music rather than the lyrics) "do what your body tells you to do," and that's a message most people like to hear, so they accept it.
The idea that music is somehow divorced from rational thought and experience has led a lot of people to reject the corollary idea that there is music that is inherently good or bad, that music itself has a moral attitude or element. Hence, such ludicrous statements as, "I only listen to Notorious B.I.G. for the beats." If music itself has no moral quality, it seems people would argue, then its lyrics are equally benign if simply ignored.
Modern man is obsessed with his supposed primal nature. Taking a cue from Rousseau, the modern everyman seems to see deep within himself a noble savage given more to instinct and action than to rational thought and reflection. Seeing this mirage, modern man makes himself in that image, thus relinquishing one of his greatest assets and most intrinsic elements: his rational mind. Wherever he can, he finds emotion trumping reason, even in his music.
Therefore taste, to the modern man, trumps all else. If a certain song compels me to a specific emotional response I don't like, I simply avoid that song; likewise, if I like the response, I will listen to the song. This is seen as taste. In the old days, however, taste was monolithic, something you either had or didn't have. If you liked a good song, you had good taste; if you liked a bad song, you had bad taste. The first step toward recovering the proper use of reason as opposed to resigning ourselves to an evolutionary instinct is to regain the concept of taste as an objective standard capable of measuring all music, and all those who listen to it.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Is music as an art form exceptionally emotional?
There is no doubt much music is designed to evoke an emotional response, or that the emotions represented by such attempts range from the sublime to the dangerous. Heavy metal is often cited as inducing hatred or anger; pop is said to induce lust; and classical music supposedly puts us in touch with our nobler emotions. No doubt fans of each genre and their typical behavior have strengthened these stereotypes over the years, but whether there's truth behind them remains to be seen.
Certainly a song can make us feel a certain way. If it's fast-moving and cheerful it'll generate one response, while a slow-moving song in minor chords will engender quite another. Does that mean the music has independent power over the listener? No, it only means that humans are quite comfortable relinquishing control in the face of stimulation.
We can put the problem another way. If music is capable of squeezing emotional responses out of us against our will, how is it that six people can have six different responses to a single song? Wouldn't one song make all who listen to it feel the same way? Of course, one might object, music is subjective, so one song will come across differently to different people. But how can this be if music is essentially an emotional and emotion-inducing art form? If there are moods and emotions embedded in the very fabric of musical compositions, how can we resist them, and how can we have different emotional responses from each other?
But some people enjoy opera, and others hate it. Some people are soothed by listening to heavy metal, while others are horrified by it. One person is happy listening to pop songs, another can't change the channel fast enough when one comes on the radio. Why?
Music, like all other art forms, captures and presents the worldviews of its creators. Does it matter that much of it has no lyrical content, or that the lyrics are often indiscernible? Not at all. The primary way music affects us, like all other forms of art, is rationally; whether we realize that or not doesn't keep it from being so. Musicians see the world a certain way, and infuse their art with that vision; the result is always something which we can rationally apprehend.
Diversity among genres is sufficient to prove this. Some heavy metal is exceedingly intricate and complex, built on rules of composition lesser musicians would be unable to comprehend and translate to meaningful compositions. By the same token, some heavy metal is simplistic and devastating in its lack of structure, sufficient only to prove its composers are at best muddled in their thinking, or at worst consciously attempting to spread confusion and nihilism. While both types of heavy metal are capable of generating emotion, they're also able to be subjected to rational analysis, and emotional responses suspended until a conclusion is reached.
If we can't listen to music dispassionately, all music should be banned. What if a particular song is overheard by someone in whom it evokes an emotional response so strong that that person commits a crime, or loses their mind, or simply dies? Such a possibility should not be tolerated.
Yet this is clearly a ludicrous proposition, as is the idea that music can bypass our rational faculties and penetrate our emotions without our permission or complicity. There is no such thing as music without meaning; the meaning of a song may be bad, but it does exist, even in purely instrumental music. The way a song is structured belies its meaning, and can be analyzed on its own terms.
Why do we insist that music is capable of moving us against our will? Is it simply that we prefer to deny culpability, or is it more related to our desire for valid experience as opposed to what is seen as the harshness and coldness of pure reason? Whatever the answer, to assert that music moves us independently of our will is to assert that we are incapable of self-government, and consequently that we are without moral obligation or culpability, lies that have spread throughout the entire fabric of the human race and continue to inform our intellects with untruths of which we may or may not be aware.
Certainly a song can make us feel a certain way. If it's fast-moving and cheerful it'll generate one response, while a slow-moving song in minor chords will engender quite another. Does that mean the music has independent power over the listener? No, it only means that humans are quite comfortable relinquishing control in the face of stimulation.
We can put the problem another way. If music is capable of squeezing emotional responses out of us against our will, how is it that six people can have six different responses to a single song? Wouldn't one song make all who listen to it feel the same way? Of course, one might object, music is subjective, so one song will come across differently to different people. But how can this be if music is essentially an emotional and emotion-inducing art form? If there are moods and emotions embedded in the very fabric of musical compositions, how can we resist them, and how can we have different emotional responses from each other?
But some people enjoy opera, and others hate it. Some people are soothed by listening to heavy metal, while others are horrified by it. One person is happy listening to pop songs, another can't change the channel fast enough when one comes on the radio. Why?
Music, like all other art forms, captures and presents the worldviews of its creators. Does it matter that much of it has no lyrical content, or that the lyrics are often indiscernible? Not at all. The primary way music affects us, like all other forms of art, is rationally; whether we realize that or not doesn't keep it from being so. Musicians see the world a certain way, and infuse their art with that vision; the result is always something which we can rationally apprehend.
Diversity among genres is sufficient to prove this. Some heavy metal is exceedingly intricate and complex, built on rules of composition lesser musicians would be unable to comprehend and translate to meaningful compositions. By the same token, some heavy metal is simplistic and devastating in its lack of structure, sufficient only to prove its composers are at best muddled in their thinking, or at worst consciously attempting to spread confusion and nihilism. While both types of heavy metal are capable of generating emotion, they're also able to be subjected to rational analysis, and emotional responses suspended until a conclusion is reached.
If we can't listen to music dispassionately, all music should be banned. What if a particular song is overheard by someone in whom it evokes an emotional response so strong that that person commits a crime, or loses their mind, or simply dies? Such a possibility should not be tolerated.
Yet this is clearly a ludicrous proposition, as is the idea that music can bypass our rational faculties and penetrate our emotions without our permission or complicity. There is no such thing as music without meaning; the meaning of a song may be bad, but it does exist, even in purely instrumental music. The way a song is structured belies its meaning, and can be analyzed on its own terms.
Why do we insist that music is capable of moving us against our will? Is it simply that we prefer to deny culpability, or is it more related to our desire for valid experience as opposed to what is seen as the harshness and coldness of pure reason? Whatever the answer, to assert that music moves us independently of our will is to assert that we are incapable of self-government, and consequently that we are without moral obligation or culpability, lies that have spread throughout the entire fabric of the human race and continue to inform our intellects with untruths of which we may or may not be aware.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Can art impose emotion on us?
The most common response to the last post will likely be something along the lines of, "I can't help it that [name your art form] makes me emotional. It just does." That may well be. The question is, should it? Are we to be ruled so much by our emotions that they can take control of us against our will, or are we to subjugate them to something much steadier and more stable? Emotions are infamously changeable. Should they rule us?
But, the objection may continue, you don't understand; I can't help my emotion. I don't read these kinds of books, or listen to that kind of music, because they make me feel like such and such. It's not my fault.
In most situations, such shirking of personal responsibility would be seen as a mere pretext, an excuse for behavior known to be wrong or inappropriate. Why do so many accept the same excuse when it's applied to art? How can we take seriously the idea of human culpability if we're going to say our free will can be undermined and even disarmed by outside influences, especially influences as changeable and ubiquitous as music or paintings?
There is only one logical response: we can, indeed, condition our own responses to art. This isn't meant in some Pavlovian sense, where a specific visceral reaction always results from a specific stimulus. Rather, it's meant in the sense that, responsible as I am for my own actions, I have the capacity to first analyze and then respond to art of any kind.
If I see a David Cronenberg film and am not able to control my emotional response, any number of horrible and meaningless things might result. Videodrome alone would be capable of driving me to isolationism, or sado-masochism, or consumerism, or any other number of anti-social evils. Art, then, would be a weapon more dangerous than anything religious fanatics might be able to get their bloodthirsty hands on. Some claim that it is.
On the other hand, if I first subject every work of art I encounter to rational thought, and only then permit an emotional response, the weapon is defused. I may end up disgusted or scared, but I will not end up accepting the worldview inherent in the artwork or its medium. Humans are rational and responsible beings (in the sense that we are responsible for our actions), and therefore we are also capable of this approach to art.
It's not always easy to master our emotions, but it's always necessary. The reason we shouldn't watch Videodrome continuously isn't that it might make us behave irrationally, but that its ideas are devious and pernicious, and (if unfiltered) are able to contaminate our reason and intellect, which in turn will affect our souls. Art can and does impose emotion, but it isn't necessary that it do so. What is necessary is that we govern our emotions with reason and filter art with reason before resolving the experience in an emotional response.
But, the objection may continue, you don't understand; I can't help my emotion. I don't read these kinds of books, or listen to that kind of music, because they make me feel like such and such. It's not my fault.
In most situations, such shirking of personal responsibility would be seen as a mere pretext, an excuse for behavior known to be wrong or inappropriate. Why do so many accept the same excuse when it's applied to art? How can we take seriously the idea of human culpability if we're going to say our free will can be undermined and even disarmed by outside influences, especially influences as changeable and ubiquitous as music or paintings?
There is only one logical response: we can, indeed, condition our own responses to art. This isn't meant in some Pavlovian sense, where a specific visceral reaction always results from a specific stimulus. Rather, it's meant in the sense that, responsible as I am for my own actions, I have the capacity to first analyze and then respond to art of any kind.
If I see a David Cronenberg film and am not able to control my emotional response, any number of horrible and meaningless things might result. Videodrome alone would be capable of driving me to isolationism, or sado-masochism, or consumerism, or any other number of anti-social evils. Art, then, would be a weapon more dangerous than anything religious fanatics might be able to get their bloodthirsty hands on. Some claim that it is.
On the other hand, if I first subject every work of art I encounter to rational thought, and only then permit an emotional response, the weapon is defused. I may end up disgusted or scared, but I will not end up accepting the worldview inherent in the artwork or its medium. Humans are rational and responsible beings (in the sense that we are responsible for our actions), and therefore we are also capable of this approach to art.
It's not always easy to master our emotions, but it's always necessary. The reason we shouldn't watch Videodrome continuously isn't that it might make us behave irrationally, but that its ideas are devious and pernicious, and (if unfiltered) are able to contaminate our reason and intellect, which in turn will affect our souls. Art can and does impose emotion, but it isn't necessary that it do so. What is necessary is that we govern our emotions with reason and filter art with reason before resolving the experience in an emotional response.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Is art emotional?
Historically, emotion was seen as best subjected to reason. A man could certainly feel the gamut of human emotions, but none of them should be instinctual in the sense we tend to mean. For instance, anger shouldn't simply well up on its own and for no real reason; instead, it was the proper response to phenomena or events only after they had been experienced and analyzed.
For instance, if you read a story about injustice, your anger concerning the injustice should stem from your understanding of justice and the nature of its abrogation, rather than simply bursting out on a gut level. It's ironic that far removed ages should hold such a seemingly rationalist view, while our own reason-worshipping era has enshrined emotion (defined simply as an automatic response of any kind to any phenomena and in any circumstance) as the most inherent mark of humanity.
Nowhere is this current attitude more obvious than in the realm of art. Art pieces (whether visual, verbal, or musical) are meant (or at least assumed) to evoke emotional responses before rational ones, if indeed rational responses are even desirable or possible. Hence, museum-grade art is often incomprehensible or highly offensive; if reason doesn't matter, art doesn't have to make sense, it just has to engender a response, preferably a violent or highly visceral one.
This has led to a stereotyping of the artist as an aesthete, one more attuned to his emotions than the common man in the mob, one more likely to be eccentric and socially edgy. So-called artists themselves have embraced this ludicrous caricature, taking on more and more affectation, engaging in scandal, creating art that appeals to the basest instincts in man while avoiding or outright ridiculing what is noble or rational.
In the old days, the artist scarcely mattered. What mattered were his creations, the compositions or paintings or poems he produced. What mattered were the ideas his work expressed, whether they revealed something about mankind, God, or the earth itself. The patron of the arts (whether an educated person or a common peasant) was expected to understand the ideas in the artwork, and to respond accordingly.
Without this order of response (reason leading to emotion), there is absolutely no reason for art. It becomes either mere entertainment or mere stimulus. Anything can drive us mad, or incite lust, or pique our curiosity, and we don't need songs or paintings to help us. We do need help, however, to reflect on the nature of injustice, or to discover it in ourselves, or to be motivated to fight it, and good art can help us do those things.
Of course it's the Gospel that primarily helps us do those things, but a work of art can only really be considered good if it illuminates or reinforces some aspect of the Gospel or of God's nature, and therefore good art serves the Gospel (even good art created by non-Christians). As the Gospel must first be understood rationally to be accepted and to transform the emotions, the mind, and behavior, so good art must first be pondered to be appreciated and to affect the emotions.
Art, then, is emotional, but only after it is rational. Music or books that aim directly at the emotions without taking into account the intellect are destined to be soon forgotten, to have perhaps a passing influence but (being superficial) to leave no lasting impression on society or individuals. Emotion born of thought is true emotion; anything else is merely a response, a knee-jerk reaction ultimately without value and without reason.
For instance, if you read a story about injustice, your anger concerning the injustice should stem from your understanding of justice and the nature of its abrogation, rather than simply bursting out on a gut level. It's ironic that far removed ages should hold such a seemingly rationalist view, while our own reason-worshipping era has enshrined emotion (defined simply as an automatic response of any kind to any phenomena and in any circumstance) as the most inherent mark of humanity.
Nowhere is this current attitude more obvious than in the realm of art. Art pieces (whether visual, verbal, or musical) are meant (or at least assumed) to evoke emotional responses before rational ones, if indeed rational responses are even desirable or possible. Hence, museum-grade art is often incomprehensible or highly offensive; if reason doesn't matter, art doesn't have to make sense, it just has to engender a response, preferably a violent or highly visceral one.
This has led to a stereotyping of the artist as an aesthete, one more attuned to his emotions than the common man in the mob, one more likely to be eccentric and socially edgy. So-called artists themselves have embraced this ludicrous caricature, taking on more and more affectation, engaging in scandal, creating art that appeals to the basest instincts in man while avoiding or outright ridiculing what is noble or rational.
In the old days, the artist scarcely mattered. What mattered were his creations, the compositions or paintings or poems he produced. What mattered were the ideas his work expressed, whether they revealed something about mankind, God, or the earth itself. The patron of the arts (whether an educated person or a common peasant) was expected to understand the ideas in the artwork, and to respond accordingly.
Without this order of response (reason leading to emotion), there is absolutely no reason for art. It becomes either mere entertainment or mere stimulus. Anything can drive us mad, or incite lust, or pique our curiosity, and we don't need songs or paintings to help us. We do need help, however, to reflect on the nature of injustice, or to discover it in ourselves, or to be motivated to fight it, and good art can help us do those things.
Of course it's the Gospel that primarily helps us do those things, but a work of art can only really be considered good if it illuminates or reinforces some aspect of the Gospel or of God's nature, and therefore good art serves the Gospel (even good art created by non-Christians). As the Gospel must first be understood rationally to be accepted and to transform the emotions, the mind, and behavior, so good art must first be pondered to be appreciated and to affect the emotions.
Art, then, is emotional, but only after it is rational. Music or books that aim directly at the emotions without taking into account the intellect are destined to be soon forgotten, to have perhaps a passing influence but (being superficial) to leave no lasting impression on society or individuals. Emotion born of thought is true emotion; anything else is merely a response, a knee-jerk reaction ultimately without value and without reason.
Monday, August 13, 2012
no works were cited in the writing of this post
Among the many lies of modernism, that of intellectual property is particularly pernicious. No one owns thoughts; there are no wholly original ideas; and if truth is the object, what does it matter if a thinker is credited or not? For all the talk of humanism, intellectuals are seldom humanists when it comes to disseminating the concepts they claim will help humanity steady its course and become what it ought to become.
One of the foremost manifestations of this problem is the slavish commitment to constructing elaborate works cited pages in any scholarly work, whether in a book, a magazine article, or a journal essay. Any borrowed thought or fact is revealed as such, and proper tribute paid to the supposed originator. Aside from the fact that this makes reading (at least, reading conscientiously) much more of a chore, this deliberate self-scrutiny is destructive in other ways.
It assumes two things that aren't true: that there are original ideas, and that the originator of an idea has some claim or ownership of it, much like the holder of a patent. As for the first, there is nothing new under the sun. No idea or thought is born brand new in the mind of even the most brilliant thinker, but is instead the culmination of thought before him by which he is influenced. His idea may be a progression or elaboration of a previous idea, but it doesn't belong to him any more than the ozone layer belongs to Germany, or Jupiter belongs to Gambia.
The second idea is worse, however. To assume that each thinker is entitled to (if not monetary, at least) intellectual remuneration for his ideas is to make the development and proper attribution of thought more important than the thought itself. Obviously this has a monetary element (especially in our democratic capitalist society), but it also implies that individual men and women are more important than the larger human community they claim to serve.
Good philosophers, theologians, and scientists do their intellectual work, not for acclaim or honor, but to improve the condition of themselves and other people. Only those who wish for no more than acclaim will insist that they be properly cited wherever their ideas or propositions appear in the works of others.
I'm not saying proofs should be withheld when dubious or unpopular claims are made—showing that you aren't the only one proposing the Chinese beat Europe to the North American continent, for instance, is just good scholarship. But if all ideas are to be attributed properly, every sentence in every book would be cited. Instead, authors selectively cite, thus leaving ambiguous the very substantial and concrete fact that everything they commit to print has been espoused, proposed, or at least introduced by someone before them.
For ancient moderns, the originator of an idea matters far less than the idea itself. If one of my ideas is disseminated (however modified and improved it might be) without my knowledge and with no due recognition attributed to me, what should I care? Especially if the dissemination results in some positive response, why should I care whether I'm cited as the originator of the idea? If I engage in intellectual work for the right reasons, my only concern should be that people engage the ideas, and that their effect is good rather than pernicious or non-existent.
One of the foremost manifestations of this problem is the slavish commitment to constructing elaborate works cited pages in any scholarly work, whether in a book, a magazine article, or a journal essay. Any borrowed thought or fact is revealed as such, and proper tribute paid to the supposed originator. Aside from the fact that this makes reading (at least, reading conscientiously) much more of a chore, this deliberate self-scrutiny is destructive in other ways.
It assumes two things that aren't true: that there are original ideas, and that the originator of an idea has some claim or ownership of it, much like the holder of a patent. As for the first, there is nothing new under the sun. No idea or thought is born brand new in the mind of even the most brilliant thinker, but is instead the culmination of thought before him by which he is influenced. His idea may be a progression or elaboration of a previous idea, but it doesn't belong to him any more than the ozone layer belongs to Germany, or Jupiter belongs to Gambia.
The second idea is worse, however. To assume that each thinker is entitled to (if not monetary, at least) intellectual remuneration for his ideas is to make the development and proper attribution of thought more important than the thought itself. Obviously this has a monetary element (especially in our democratic capitalist society), but it also implies that individual men and women are more important than the larger human community they claim to serve.
Good philosophers, theologians, and scientists do their intellectual work, not for acclaim or honor, but to improve the condition of themselves and other people. Only those who wish for no more than acclaim will insist that they be properly cited wherever their ideas or propositions appear in the works of others.
I'm not saying proofs should be withheld when dubious or unpopular claims are made—showing that you aren't the only one proposing the Chinese beat Europe to the North American continent, for instance, is just good scholarship. But if all ideas are to be attributed properly, every sentence in every book would be cited. Instead, authors selectively cite, thus leaving ambiguous the very substantial and concrete fact that everything they commit to print has been espoused, proposed, or at least introduced by someone before them.
For ancient moderns, the originator of an idea matters far less than the idea itself. If one of my ideas is disseminated (however modified and improved it might be) without my knowledge and with no due recognition attributed to me, what should I care? Especially if the dissemination results in some positive response, why should I care whether I'm cited as the originator of the idea? If I engage in intellectual work for the right reasons, my only concern should be that people engage the ideas, and that their effect is good rather than pernicious or non-existent.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Divine Horror
Sinful man in the presence of God is a more terrifying prospect than any other, with the exception of eternal separation from Him. The immediacy and completeness of our undoing were we, unchanged, to enter Heaven's throne room is incomprehensible and truly awful.
This is divine terror.
Modern man has shined the light of reason in every corner and proclaimed all of them empty of anything but matter, and so his fears are redistributed, refined, in many ways eliminated. If God isn't lurking in the dark, what is there to fear? Sickness, after all, can be cured; crocodiles can't outswim motorboats; airplanes are still the safest way to travel.
These were never the true fears of man, however. Man has always been afraid (and rightly so) of divine judgement, divine retribution, divine displeasure. God hates evil, and all humans not covered by the blood of Christ are subject to His wrath, and there is no fear more legitimate or more complete than the fear of holy destruction at the hands of a wrathful God.
We tend to think of horror in terms of darkness and evil, as though the most terrifying thing we can encounter is anything opposed to or condemned by God. This is a lie we tell ourselves to avoid the truth. The most terrifying thing we can face is God Himself.
Even the redeemed ought to fear God. If He is the ruler of all things, the creator of all things, and the ultimate authority of the universe, can we really expect it to be otherwise? In the Bible, those who confront Him are reduced to babbling, prostration, or ashes. He is the wholly other, the ultimately distinct, the all-powerful, and sinful, small man does right to fear Him.
It isn't stories of demons that should scare God's people: the name of Christ is sufficient to protect us from Satan's minions. We should fear, rather, displeasing God, disobeying Him, incurring in any way the wrath that is rightfully His.
And we should spread this fear like a righteous and miraculous disease among all people. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and we should desire all men to become wise. If we leave this out of our Gospel, we've left the true Gospel for a human one that robs God of His power, and ultimately incurs and deserves His wrath.
This is divine terror.
Modern man has shined the light of reason in every corner and proclaimed all of them empty of anything but matter, and so his fears are redistributed, refined, in many ways eliminated. If God isn't lurking in the dark, what is there to fear? Sickness, after all, can be cured; crocodiles can't outswim motorboats; airplanes are still the safest way to travel.
These were never the true fears of man, however. Man has always been afraid (and rightly so) of divine judgement, divine retribution, divine displeasure. God hates evil, and all humans not covered by the blood of Christ are subject to His wrath, and there is no fear more legitimate or more complete than the fear of holy destruction at the hands of a wrathful God.
We tend to think of horror in terms of darkness and evil, as though the most terrifying thing we can encounter is anything opposed to or condemned by God. This is a lie we tell ourselves to avoid the truth. The most terrifying thing we can face is God Himself.
Even the redeemed ought to fear God. If He is the ruler of all things, the creator of all things, and the ultimate authority of the universe, can we really expect it to be otherwise? In the Bible, those who confront Him are reduced to babbling, prostration, or ashes. He is the wholly other, the ultimately distinct, the all-powerful, and sinful, small man does right to fear Him.
It isn't stories of demons that should scare God's people: the name of Christ is sufficient to protect us from Satan's minions. We should fear, rather, displeasing God, disobeying Him, incurring in any way the wrath that is rightfully His.
And we should spread this fear like a righteous and miraculous disease among all people. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and we should desire all men to become wise. If we leave this out of our Gospel, we've left the true Gospel for a human one that robs God of His power, and ultimately incurs and deserves His wrath.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The End of Knowledge
When I suggested what we see can play us false, I wasn't suggesting we shouldn't look.
God gave mankind rational faculties to be used, the powers of thought and observation in order to expand our minds and our understanding, imaginations to make inferences and to create and foster ideas. Knowledge is a good thing, and it is a God-sanctioned thing.
There are two essential kinds of knowledge: that obtained through study and observation, and that transmitted by God through Scripture. The former must be subordinated to the latter if we're to take the latter seriously to any extent. If the Bible is God's revelation to us, it is the highest and best knowledge we can have (and confessional Christians assert that this is in fact the case).
That doesn't mean knowledge external to the Bible is useless. As God has created all things, all things are worthy of our study. We study history, science, philosophy, art, mathematics, etc., in an effort to better understand people and the world around us; but as Christians, we study theology first, and compare everything else we learn to what we know about God. There is little value in studying anything but God Himself for its own sake, however; instead, we seek to understand in order to glorify and serve Him better.
If the Bible says one thing, why do we assume it means another? Or that "science" (as though it's an entity with independent intelligence and will) can show us where the written revelation of Almighty God is wrong or insufficient or naive? This is the worst kind of assumption, one that threatens the validity of any message we claim to preach from biblical precepts.
Human knowledge that is not subordinated to divine revelation and knowledge is simply rebellion. Of course, non-Christians are able to say true things, but their approach to study tarnishes their ability to study truthfully. God is truth; human knowledge not subjected to God is either untruth, partial truth, or anti-truth. We do not study merely to know (except in the case of God Himself), we study to serve and to obey and to love.
The Medieval thinkers understood this. For men like Thomas Aquinas, the end of knowledge is not knowledge, but love. And this love is not directionless and vague: it is the love of God Himself, who grants us knowledge by His own grace and power. Christians who eschew knowledge and study are faithless to the principles of Scripture; but so too are those who study merely to accrue knowledge for its own sake.
To ignore the world around us is to ignore what God has made, and that is rebellion of a different kind. Yet, all our looking is blindness if we aren't animated by love of the Creator and a desire to subject all things in our various spheres to Him and Him alone.
God gave mankind rational faculties to be used, the powers of thought and observation in order to expand our minds and our understanding, imaginations to make inferences and to create and foster ideas. Knowledge is a good thing, and it is a God-sanctioned thing.
There are two essential kinds of knowledge: that obtained through study and observation, and that transmitted by God through Scripture. The former must be subordinated to the latter if we're to take the latter seriously to any extent. If the Bible is God's revelation to us, it is the highest and best knowledge we can have (and confessional Christians assert that this is in fact the case).
That doesn't mean knowledge external to the Bible is useless. As God has created all things, all things are worthy of our study. We study history, science, philosophy, art, mathematics, etc., in an effort to better understand people and the world around us; but as Christians, we study theology first, and compare everything else we learn to what we know about God. There is little value in studying anything but God Himself for its own sake, however; instead, we seek to understand in order to glorify and serve Him better.
If the Bible says one thing, why do we assume it means another? Or that "science" (as though it's an entity with independent intelligence and will) can show us where the written revelation of Almighty God is wrong or insufficient or naive? This is the worst kind of assumption, one that threatens the validity of any message we claim to preach from biblical precepts.
Human knowledge that is not subordinated to divine revelation and knowledge is simply rebellion. Of course, non-Christians are able to say true things, but their approach to study tarnishes their ability to study truthfully. God is truth; human knowledge not subjected to God is either untruth, partial truth, or anti-truth. We do not study merely to know (except in the case of God Himself), we study to serve and to obey and to love.
The Medieval thinkers understood this. For men like Thomas Aquinas, the end of knowledge is not knowledge, but love. And this love is not directionless and vague: it is the love of God Himself, who grants us knowledge by His own grace and power. Christians who eschew knowledge and study are faithless to the principles of Scripture; but so too are those who study merely to accrue knowledge for its own sake.
To ignore the world around us is to ignore what God has made, and that is rebellion of a different kind. Yet, all our looking is blindness if we aren't animated by love of the Creator and a desire to subject all things in our various spheres to Him and Him alone.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Seeing isn't necessarily believing.
Things in Christianity are pretty black and white. Sin is evil; God is holy; Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father; history is teleological and Providentially ordered. Unfortunately, people have always liked blurring the straight lines until Christian thought is indistinguishable from its secular counterparts. One of the lines perpetually blurred (at least in the Modern and Postmodern eras) is the one between creation and evolution.
It's ironic that scientists who affirm the widespread spontaneity of evolutionary theory like to make fun of those Medieval persons who (presumably) thought creatures like mice and fleas spontaneously generated from piles of dirty clothes or refuse. What's not funny is that many Christians stumble over themselves to defend the faulty Medieval ideas, instead of pointing right back at Darwinism and evolutionism and laughing just as loudly.
It's also depressing when Christians try to impress their secular colleagues and friends by appearing open-minded and accepting both Christianity and evolutionary theory. I'm no real friend of a lot of "Creation science," but I'm also not a fan of syncretization or kowtowing to the supposed secular "authorities." What makes us think Modern man is a better authority on Earth origins than God Himself, who inspired the Genesis account as recorded by its ancient author? If we accept the Bible as God's Word, why do we insist on subordinating it to fallible human observation and theory?
The real reason evolution isn't compatible with Christianity, however, doesn't have anything to do with the fossil record or dinosaurs or the speed of light. Those are phenomena which, despite the loud protestations of Scientists, are open to interpretation. Evolution is inherently anti-Christian because it blurs and twists the straight lines of Scripture.
God created man in His image, with an immortal soul, distinct sexes, and a teleological purpose (the care of planet Earth and the service of Himself). None of this is possible if man emerged by slow degrees from lesser forms, or even from merely different forms—the soul, for instance, would have had to evolve rather than being made by express decree of the Father of all things.
More importantly, the sin nature of Adam imparted to all his children would be a philosophical and theological mistake if he wasn't the first of the species. In fact, there would be a whole slew of folks running around on the earth in complete moral and spiritual innocence (yet, astonishingly, killing animals and each other, and dying of old age) long before our "first father" was even a twinkle in his troglodyte father's eye. This is true even if you take the Eden story symbolically.
I don't profess to know all about science, the nature of physics, etc. Far from it, in fact. But I think we'd all be closer to the truth if we echoed Socrates' words that wisdom is the knowledge that we know nothing. In the book of Job, God declares that only He knows the truth behind the mysteries of nature, having made them Himself, and continuing Himself to control them. If God makes a declaration, who are we to controvert it? Our eyes deceive us, and they deceive our souls, and only God is able to rescue us from ignorance by the knowledge of His Word.
It's ironic that scientists who affirm the widespread spontaneity of evolutionary theory like to make fun of those Medieval persons who (presumably) thought creatures like mice and fleas spontaneously generated from piles of dirty clothes or refuse. What's not funny is that many Christians stumble over themselves to defend the faulty Medieval ideas, instead of pointing right back at Darwinism and evolutionism and laughing just as loudly.
It's also depressing when Christians try to impress their secular colleagues and friends by appearing open-minded and accepting both Christianity and evolutionary theory. I'm no real friend of a lot of "Creation science," but I'm also not a fan of syncretization or kowtowing to the supposed secular "authorities." What makes us think Modern man is a better authority on Earth origins than God Himself, who inspired the Genesis account as recorded by its ancient author? If we accept the Bible as God's Word, why do we insist on subordinating it to fallible human observation and theory?
The real reason evolution isn't compatible with Christianity, however, doesn't have anything to do with the fossil record or dinosaurs or the speed of light. Those are phenomena which, despite the loud protestations of Scientists, are open to interpretation. Evolution is inherently anti-Christian because it blurs and twists the straight lines of Scripture.
God created man in His image, with an immortal soul, distinct sexes, and a teleological purpose (the care of planet Earth and the service of Himself). None of this is possible if man emerged by slow degrees from lesser forms, or even from merely different forms—the soul, for instance, would have had to evolve rather than being made by express decree of the Father of all things.
More importantly, the sin nature of Adam imparted to all his children would be a philosophical and theological mistake if he wasn't the first of the species. In fact, there would be a whole slew of folks running around on the earth in complete moral and spiritual innocence (yet, astonishingly, killing animals and each other, and dying of old age) long before our "first father" was even a twinkle in his troglodyte father's eye. This is true even if you take the Eden story symbolically.
I don't profess to know all about science, the nature of physics, etc. Far from it, in fact. But I think we'd all be closer to the truth if we echoed Socrates' words that wisdom is the knowledge that we know nothing. In the book of Job, God declares that only He knows the truth behind the mysteries of nature, having made them Himself, and continuing Himself to control them. If God makes a declaration, who are we to controvert it? Our eyes deceive us, and they deceive our souls, and only God is able to rescue us from ignorance by the knowledge of His Word.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
The Opposite of Happiness
Joy is not a door that we open or close at will. It isn't a burning in the bosom, a fire in the belly, or a pang in the chest. You don't unroll joy like a flag and pledge your allegiance, you can't manufacture it, and you can't trade it for anything.
If you've ever experienced it, you wouldn't want to trade it for anything. It's a fierceness that rends, a sublimity that transcends, and a fear mixed with wonder that eludes language. Joy is simply the true presence of God.
But it's not an emotion. Joy can induce emotion, to some extent joy must induce emotion, but it also induces and even results from rational thought. As God's presence, joy isn't definable in strict terms, as a chair is definable—it isn't one thing or another.
Why do we so often insist on limiting it to mere emotion? Emotions are changeable, they swing according to external influence, emotions well up in us or diminish. Paul wouldn't expect us to maintain constant joy if it was simply another emotion.
God's presence, however, he can command us to cultivate and maintain. We do this through external means, prayer, reading the Bible, singing hymns, fellowshipping with other believers, pursuing lives of holiness, eschewing sin. These are means of knowledge, primarily, not wells of emotion or feeling.
In the old days, happiness was simply a meetness of incident or coincidence. If two events coalesced to produce a positive outcome, it was a happy occasion. Now, however, happiness is anything that makes us feel good. So, people are always out to make themselves happy.
This new version of happiness is the opposite of joy. God isn't out to make us happy: He's out to make us humans willing to obey Him and glorify Him. He does this through our pursuit of joy, by which He guides us closer and nearer to Himself.
As J.I. Packer has noted, joy is possible even in the midst of spiritual struggle and doubt. This would be impossible were joy simply another emotion like anger or glee. But if joy is the presence of God, it is possible in the worst times and the best, in the midst of struggle and in the midst of ease.
Joy, then, is only attainable through knowledge of the One on whose presence it depends. How can we experience that which we do not know? The experience itself is knowledge, but the experience depends not on simple relationship, but on investigation. Why else would our source of knowledge about God be the Bible, a book of propositional statements, eternal truth, and knowledge?
Happiness isn't unique to Christians. Anyone can feel happy, because humans are feeling beings, and both Christians and non-Christians are humans. Only Christians, however, can experience true joy, the joy that comes from knowing God through the means he's given us. If we lose sight of this, we've lost our faith, and with it the saving knowledge only Christ can give.
If you've ever experienced it, you wouldn't want to trade it for anything. It's a fierceness that rends, a sublimity that transcends, and a fear mixed with wonder that eludes language. Joy is simply the true presence of God.
But it's not an emotion. Joy can induce emotion, to some extent joy must induce emotion, but it also induces and even results from rational thought. As God's presence, joy isn't definable in strict terms, as a chair is definable—it isn't one thing or another.
Why do we so often insist on limiting it to mere emotion? Emotions are changeable, they swing according to external influence, emotions well up in us or diminish. Paul wouldn't expect us to maintain constant joy if it was simply another emotion.
God's presence, however, he can command us to cultivate and maintain. We do this through external means, prayer, reading the Bible, singing hymns, fellowshipping with other believers, pursuing lives of holiness, eschewing sin. These are means of knowledge, primarily, not wells of emotion or feeling.
In the old days, happiness was simply a meetness of incident or coincidence. If two events coalesced to produce a positive outcome, it was a happy occasion. Now, however, happiness is anything that makes us feel good. So, people are always out to make themselves happy.
This new version of happiness is the opposite of joy. God isn't out to make us happy: He's out to make us humans willing to obey Him and glorify Him. He does this through our pursuit of joy, by which He guides us closer and nearer to Himself.
As J.I. Packer has noted, joy is possible even in the midst of spiritual struggle and doubt. This would be impossible were joy simply another emotion like anger or glee. But if joy is the presence of God, it is possible in the worst times and the best, in the midst of struggle and in the midst of ease.
Joy, then, is only attainable through knowledge of the One on whose presence it depends. How can we experience that which we do not know? The experience itself is knowledge, but the experience depends not on simple relationship, but on investigation. Why else would our source of knowledge about God be the Bible, a book of propositional statements, eternal truth, and knowledge?
Happiness isn't unique to Christians. Anyone can feel happy, because humans are feeling beings, and both Christians and non-Christians are humans. Only Christians, however, can experience true joy, the joy that comes from knowing God through the means he's given us. If we lose sight of this, we've lost our faith, and with it the saving knowledge only Christ can give.
Monday, August 6, 2012
No more false alarms.
I'm really back. Equilibrium of a sort has been achieved. Also, I love my wife.
True Love
The Cross is a symbol of relief, but only in the sense that it's first a symbol of judgement. A lot of people seem to think the sacrifice of Christ is simply carte blanche approval of the individual who acknowledges it, and a lot of these people teach this in Christ's name. They see lives as broken pitchers that need to be repaired and filled up with "love," not as dirty jars that need to be cleaned inside and out and filled with the Holy Spirit.
How this doctrine has managed to find its way into Christianity may be argued. I would suggest it's a combination of divorcing the "God of the Old Testament" from the Jesus Christ of the New (they're one and the same), and the Arminian and semi-Pelagian doctrines that have infiltrated the Church so thoroughly and so destructively. Be that as it may, the problem still stands, and even conservative Christians seem increasingly unwilling (or maybe simply unable) to confront it.
Christ crucified and resurrected is indeed our greatest hope, but it is also our greatest indictment. Our sin condemned Him, and our sin required so great a compensation. On the Cross, Jesus Christ suffered true hell: separation from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He became sin on our behalf and was wrenched from the Triune Godhead as punishment for evil he'd never committed, evil that we inherit and perpetrate as Sons of Adam.
Church people have been making a big noise lately about the need for Christians to "love" other people, as if those people won't become Christians unless those already in the fold are nice to them and don't judge them. This is trash doctrine of the worst kind. Of course I'm not advocating nastiness or boorishness; far from it. But if we simply wink at sin in an effort to "get people saved," we've actually helped condemn them to Hell, and possibly ourselves as well.
The Gospel is that we're stained with sin and need deliverance if we hope to gain entry into God's presence, holy and uncompromising as He is. The new gospel states that we're all just people in need of affection and earthly blessing in the form of warm hugs and happy times. Garbage and nonsense! We are bound to show each other our sin in order to illuminate our need for salvation through repentance. Anything less is not love of any kind, but hatred, a willingness to ignore the truth and deny those we seek to reach any of the real blessings true faith entails.
Maybe it's fear that brings this kind of thinking. More likely it's simply a lack of faith, a denial that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to save, or that we're not really in need of eternal rescue from the pit of Hell. Whatever it is, it's not true love. True love is truthful, true love condemns and judges in order to bring about repentance and reconciliation. God's presence isn't crowded with imperfection and sinful people: it's filled with people He's made perfect through His Son, brought alive through death, and purged finally of all shame before entering Heaven.
But what about the sinners and whores Jesus hung out with? some will say. Well, what about them? The case is clear: Jesus spent His time preaching to the lost, calling them not to continue in their old sins but to abandon their earthly lusts, repent, and follow Him. The call hasn't changed. If we accept the Cross as our savlation, we must also admit the unfathomable burden of our sin, the need to turn from it, and the necessity of Christ's true love to save us from lies, hypocrisy, and all the other sins that twist His Gospel into a humanist manifesto without power and ultimately without love.
How this doctrine has managed to find its way into Christianity may be argued. I would suggest it's a combination of divorcing the "God of the Old Testament" from the Jesus Christ of the New (they're one and the same), and the Arminian and semi-Pelagian doctrines that have infiltrated the Church so thoroughly and so destructively. Be that as it may, the problem still stands, and even conservative Christians seem increasingly unwilling (or maybe simply unable) to confront it.
Christ crucified and resurrected is indeed our greatest hope, but it is also our greatest indictment. Our sin condemned Him, and our sin required so great a compensation. On the Cross, Jesus Christ suffered true hell: separation from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He became sin on our behalf and was wrenched from the Triune Godhead as punishment for evil he'd never committed, evil that we inherit and perpetrate as Sons of Adam.
Church people have been making a big noise lately about the need for Christians to "love" other people, as if those people won't become Christians unless those already in the fold are nice to them and don't judge them. This is trash doctrine of the worst kind. Of course I'm not advocating nastiness or boorishness; far from it. But if we simply wink at sin in an effort to "get people saved," we've actually helped condemn them to Hell, and possibly ourselves as well.
The Gospel is that we're stained with sin and need deliverance if we hope to gain entry into God's presence, holy and uncompromising as He is. The new gospel states that we're all just people in need of affection and earthly blessing in the form of warm hugs and happy times. Garbage and nonsense! We are bound to show each other our sin in order to illuminate our need for salvation through repentance. Anything less is not love of any kind, but hatred, a willingness to ignore the truth and deny those we seek to reach any of the real blessings true faith entails.
Maybe it's fear that brings this kind of thinking. More likely it's simply a lack of faith, a denial that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to save, or that we're not really in need of eternal rescue from the pit of Hell. Whatever it is, it's not true love. True love is truthful, true love condemns and judges in order to bring about repentance and reconciliation. God's presence isn't crowded with imperfection and sinful people: it's filled with people He's made perfect through His Son, brought alive through death, and purged finally of all shame before entering Heaven.
But what about the sinners and whores Jesus hung out with? some will say. Well, what about them? The case is clear: Jesus spent His time preaching to the lost, calling them not to continue in their old sins but to abandon their earthly lusts, repent, and follow Him. The call hasn't changed. If we accept the Cross as our savlation, we must also admit the unfathomable burden of our sin, the need to turn from it, and the necessity of Christ's true love to save us from lies, hypocrisy, and all the other sins that twist His Gospel into a humanist manifesto without power and ultimately without love.
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