The Murder of Christian Morality: The Orient Express

If I murder you, that is a sin. Once upon a time no one would argue with the death penalty being appropriate. Now things have changed. The murderer is sick and needs understanding. Think what a traumatic experience it was to commit a murder! Poor lamb, they say. And lawyers like Clive Stafford Smith suggest that since a life has already been lost, it is not worth spoiling another too - namely that of the murderer.

This shifting in the "cultural norm" of morality (not God's law, which is unchanging, but the perception of what is generally agreed amongst people) dictates the stories we can tell. Think of the most recent adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. It's a simple story: a child was brutally killed and the murderer got away with it. Everyone who loved the child boards the same train as the killer and they murder him. In the original story, Poirot is sympathetic and holds the truth of the death a secret. It might be rough justice, but it is justice nonetheless and if the police cannot fathom who did it, he will not tell them.

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Tohu and Bohu

Before creation, there was Tohu and Bohu - confusion and emptiness.

Each day of creation banished tohu and bohu more and more.

Light established clarity, where darkness brought confusion.

Light revealed the subsequent creations - plants, birds, fish animals - and a world so far from empty as to be full of goodness.

The creation of man was the final abolition of confusion, for man was commanded to rule Eden. With the order for all creatures and life to be fruitful and multiply, the world was to be less empty, every day, every year, everywhere.

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Tavener: Man’s Requiem to himself

“After the funeral service for Diana, Princess of Wales, choir singers from all over the world hurried to find copies of Song for Athene, which was sung at that service, so that they too could enter that ethereal, comforting, deeply personal and uniquely imagined sound world.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/15/sir-john-tavener-appreciation-bob-chilcott

John Tavener certainly did invent his own world, one in which it was possible to reconcile contradictions of belief. The man who struggled to express “universalism” in his music was born into a Presbyterian family. Those beliefs could have shaped him into a great Christian composer. Instead, he abandoned them to ride the waves of Catholicism, then the Orthodox church, and latterly to invoke Hindu and Muslim ideas within his pseudo-Christian framework.

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To Blame for the Abuse

http://www.channel4.com/news/sex-scandal-five-uk-music-schools-implicated-exclusive

Channel 4 news have broken the silence surrounding the scandal of sexual abuse at the UK's most prestigious music schools. One lady's words in this latest report are impossible to forget.

She taught at one of these colleges, where sexual contact with pupils was - allegedly - rife. She said it was not just tolerated, it was normal. She was asked by the journalist whether she had considered blowing the whistle on it all. She had thought about doing so, but she had counted the cost in the knowledge that they would close ranks. In other words, she would have lost her job.

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The Music of Funerals

The antithesis is sharpening.

Funerals are now taking on a new complexion in England. Some are religious and some are humanist. And people are becoming so indifferent as to the distinction that, more often than not, they do not tell you it will be humanist until you are outside the door of the "Church".

The fact that a funeral is classed as humanistic does not remove religion. In my experience, humanists always need music. 

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Depression

Katharine Welby, daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been speaking about her "battle with depression". Met by tremendous sympathy, she has responded by launching the public presentation of the "Happiness Course". This is an Alpha-course lite - positive thinking and no Gospel. One might ask why the daughter of the Archbishop thinks this is a wise move, given her profession of faith as expressed on her own site. Where is the common ground?

The common ground is in the language of humanism as determined by one word: depression. Miss Welby thinks of depression as a disease, an affliction, a trial. She is bold in doing so, in the face of a Church that likes to pretend that as role models to the world, Christians must be perfect. And that is why she will be welcome to everyone - Christians will have sympathy and humanists will rejoice to see a Christian who admits that she still has problems.

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Whatever happened to Reformed worship?

Tim Challies is highlighting a free to download recording of The Church's One Foundation.

http://www.challies.com/articles/hymn-stories-the-churchs-one-foundation-free-download

His introduction spells out how important hymns are to the Church, and especially as a means of teaching. He selects Exodus 15 as an example of this latter point, which is curious. The songs of Scripture, namely the Psalms, are designed (according to the Holy Scriptures) to record, thank and praise (see Rev. Romaine's Hymns Most Perfect for more information). They are not designed to teach. That might be a side effect, but it is not the purpose of songs. The song in Exodus 15 records, thanks and offers praise. It is a proclamation relating to the specific experiences of the Children of Israel - not a homeschooling sing-song to let the kids know what is going on and why.

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When Hate is Cathartic

A controversy is looming. Margaret Thatcher's death is being celebrated by the Left's appropriation of the song Ding Dong the Witch is Dead from The Wizard of Oz film. Its presence in the charts would usually necessitate it being played in Radio 1's Sunday-evening Top 40 countdown. Since this manipulation of the charts has been contrived to register hatred of the late former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, some say that it should not be played.

Mark Biddis, who has led the campaign for the song to reach no. 1 believes it would be tantamount to censorship if the song was not played. He obviously values censorship as a "sin", whilst not thinking there can be anything wrong in promoting an Orwellian style "minute of hate" for those who do not mourn the passing of Margaret Thatcher and have chosen to celebrate instead.

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The non-Christian nature of music

There is no jihadist Bach-equivalent, writing Soli Deo Gloria at the top of stirring musical masterpieces. Islamist “religious zeal” leads to lack of music appreciation and the quenching of creativity. All Western music was officially banned in northern Mali in an August 22 decree issued “by a heavily bearded Islamist spokesman in the city of Gao” Morgan reports. The decree referred to such music as “the music of Satan.” It informed the Malian people that “Qur’anic verses must take its place.

from The Sound of Silence in Mali - November 1, 2012 - Faith J. H. McDonnell

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/the-sound-of-silence-in-mali/

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UKIP, Flanders and Swann

The bunting is out for the maverick voice, as UK councils turn purple towards UKIP. People on the street tell the media that they're not racists - they just like the idea of Border control. And the media pretends to understand.

The pace of change is frightening. People are expected to cope with the loss of national identity, merged as it is today in the spectacle of multi-culturalism. Those people who have voted for UKIP may be the same ones who have begun to wonder why they alone lack the right to an opinion in a country they call their own.

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How not to Wright a Song

This is a video of N. T. Wright, former Bishop of Durham, also known as "Tom". His ability to sell theological books seems to know no bounds. And now he also sings, after a fashion.

Comments could be made about the music. It might be said that it is cheap artistry to steal someone else's song and change the words (which it is). It might be said that his lyrics barely scan and that the song itself makes precious little sense.

But setting all that aside, what we have is N. T. Wright sticking two fingers up (musically speaking) at Creationists and doing so with the cockiness more commonly found in posturing and inebriated adolescents.

And therein lies the other problem.

This is a former Bishop of the Church of England. Where is his sobriety? Where is his reverence? How can he even think of singing flippantly of the Fall and even consider "why did we have to fall, I don't know, it doesn't say" as a tolerable sentiment?

Wright performed 3 songs for the private group and the comments on that site are perhaps more enlightening than the songs themselves, as it is assumed by one contributor that having Tom Wright sing anything comes under the umbrella of "Psalms, hymns and Spiritual songs".

As a parting shot, the former Bishop is quoted as having said of the evening that he had not had so much fun in a long time. One shudders to imagine "fun" as a requisite for Rev. George Whitefield, for Hugh Latimer, Thomas Bilney, for William Tyndale, or any of the other Englishmen who have lived and died as ministers of Jesus Christ.

Show - don't tell (The Wind and the Lion)

Christians in art say that they make films as they do in order to communicate the Gospel message. So they usually have a strongly "Christian" perspective in terms of characters, setting, even story. And because it has been regarded as a sine qua non of Christian film that there should be an absence of the real, dirty, sinful world (violence, language, sex, drugs, smoking, dancing ...) this has made sure that many Christian films are sanitised bubbles.

Watching The Wind and the Lion last night brought home an alternative view.

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Mortality, Music and Culture

The death of Whitney Houston is yet one more victim of humanistic "music". I speak of the culture which separates music from the Christian faith and tells musicians that they are special, wonderful, gifted, extraordinary, remarkable people. Such praise is hollow because the musician knows

  1. how much hard work is involved

  2. how ordinary they are.

No one is that praise-worthy. Some are wealthy. Some are famous. Some are adored. But these three factors only exacerbate emptiness if they are not ignored and if the glory is not given to God.

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