Archive for the ‘Post-Modernism’ Category

12
Apr

The World Can Sing The Praises Of Our God

   Posted by: Doug Tags: , NT - Ephesians, Psalm 67, ,

Psalm 67

God be merciful to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us,

That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.

Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You.

Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously, And govern the nations on earth.

Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You.

Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, our own God, shall bless us.

God shall bless us, And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.

How is it that songs of joyful praise from all the nations to our God will come about?  This question presupposes that the nations will want to do such a thing. We are assured by the scriptures that indeed the command to disciples the nations will be brought to completion and that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. Thus, the gospel will indeed bring the nations to want to sing of the blessedness of our own God! Further, the question presupposes that the nations will be able to sing His praises.

I recently came across the work of Eric Whitacre and his virtual choir. The video below is his own explanation of what he has accomplished.

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Toward the end of his clip he talked about two things that struck him as a result of this project:

1) Human beings will go to any lengths necessary to find and connect with each other…

2) People seem to be experiencing an actual connection…not just a virtual connection…

These two things don’t surprise me because indeed we are created as image-bearers of the Truine God – who has an infinite capacity and desire to connect socially. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have loved each other perfectly throughout eternity, and have made us to yearn for connection with Him and one another. This social connectivity in manifested in so many ways over the last six thousand years that we could not possibly imagine them all. Chief among the ways that the Bible tells us that we are to be connected to other people, by the Spirit of God, is to speak to one another in song (Eph. 5:18-21). In so doing we learn to lay down our lives for one another in mutual submission and love.

Fascinating to me is the phenomenon of social media and how people actually feel some connection with people, virtually, that they wouldn’t feel without it. While I neither understand it, nor do I think all of it is edifying, it is without doubt very important to our world today.

In some way, when seeing the work of Whitacre and his virtual choirs, it occurs to me that this is indeed an expression of the human race united together in song and beauty. It puts me in mind of what it is like for God, each Lord’s Day, when He hears the songs of His beloved children singing to Him in worship.  It puts into perspective precisely what is happening when we sing together each week, along with millions of other believers around the world. If only we could see and hear what God Himself experiences – it seems to me that we would have a much larger and more healthy view of the world – and the goal of the kingdom of God. It would cause us to long and labor all the more to see the nations be glad and sing for joy along with us!

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4
Sep

“Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation “

   Posted by: Doug

In this marvelous lecture, James K.A. Smith posits that all of life is both religious and liturgical. He sees the importance of ritual and patterns of life in the formation of the cultures in which we live. For him, “formative institutions” are those institutions that want to shape our identity by shaping what we love.

The Church, in its liturgical function, in its worship, is a culture that can reshape the broader culture by giving us a greater understanding the role of liturgy and ritual generally.

This lecture is a bit long – but well worth the time invested.

James K.A. Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Congregational and Ministry Studies at Calvin College and a notable figure in contemporary theology.

His work is undertaken at the borderlands between philosophy, theology, ethics, aesthetics, science, and politics. Informed by a long Augustinian tradition of theological cultural critique–from Augustine and Calvin to Edwards and Kuyper–his interests are in bringing critical thought to bear on the practices of the church and the church’s witness to culture.

He is the author of numerous books, including “The Devil Reads Derrida–And Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts” and his most recently released “Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation.”

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23
Aug

Liquid Life

   Posted by: Doug

Liquid Life

Liquid Life

I have significantly mixed thoughts about this book.

One the one hand I found it a fascinating description of modern (post-modern) life. His descriptions of the difficulties people face within an ever-changing world was both revealing and horrifying, especially for those who have nothing outside of this way of living by which to gain perspective and solidity. Christians have faith in God that can provide a means of overcoming the fears and hopelessness of the liquid life that non-Christians struggle with. But to the extent that Christians have compromised their faith, or bought into the assumptions of liquid life, they too will feel the affects of insecurity and inability to cope with life as it is.

Something I am most thankful for about the book is his very thorough and helpful description of the problems of consumerism. Critics that I have read over the years of the post-modern world inevitably discuss materialism and consumerism, but I struggled to see the importance of the point being made, until now. Bauman helped me to see that the assumption of consumerism is that every need and desire that people have, all solutions to problems, and relief from every pain and anxiety can be bought and sold. Instead of belief in God and faith that He will provide all that we need, modern belief is that only other people will, through things that we can purchase and consume, provide all that we need or want. To the extent that our culture has turned away from faith in a good and loving heavenly Father that delights to bless His children – to that extent we are condemned to find alternatives in shops, and only in shops.

On the other hand, I found the book a bit exasperating because it reads mostly as a description of modern life without offering any commentary whether this is either a good or bad way of living, or what the alternatives are. This is just the way of things. It offers no solutions or hope. His final paragraph revealed what I suspected all along: He doesn’t know what to think about it all. He wrote:

“We feel, guess, suspect what needs to be done. But we cannot know the shape and form it will eventually take. We can be pretty sure, though, that the shape will not be familiar. It will be different from everything we’ve got used to.”
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