All posts by Phil

Bookselling, Music, Religion

The Bible Is Not an Instruction Manual, Browsing, and Holding Attention

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Isn’t it curious how the Bible is not an instruction manual? Some preachers and parents talk about it as if it is one, but if we know anything about actual instruction manuals, we know the Bible is nothing like them.

It’s mostly narrative history, even the prophecies fall into this. The gospels are not direct proclamations of good news, like what the angels declare to the shepherds from the skies, and the epistles, which are the most direct instruction, are more like single lectures from a larger course.

The Lord gave us a Bible with songs, proverbs, stories, and rules that require interpretation for a modern audience. Deuteronomy is the most like an instruction manual, and it isn’t something today’s believers can treat like a guidebook. Even the fourth commandment trips us up.

What we have in Scripture is the most marvelous book ever written. It shows us who we are apart from our vain imagination, and it shows us something of the majesty of the Almighty. It offers us the words of the Holy Spirit for feeding our hearts and minds from the hand of the author of our lives. It’s closer to a devotional than a manual.

This post may show how much Jared C. Wilson has influenced me, because when I looked up Midwestern Seminary’s For the Church site for something on this idea, I found two of Jared’s posts. From his book on the church, “The Bible is Not an Instructional Manual,” and again last year on the statement that the Bible is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

Here are some other posts.

Bookselling: Jeremy Anderberg suggests intentional browsing. “There are a lot of great books published every year — every month! — but publishers are increasingly putting all their marketing power into a smaller group of titles, in hopes of ensuring that coveted bestseller or celebrity book club status.”

Chekhov: What would it mean to live in the light of Christ’s resurrection?

Cowboys: Craig Johnson, author of the Longmire series, talks about them in this interview.

“One of the big misperceptions about cowboys is that they were only dumb, itinerant, agricultural workers, when, in fact, most people of that period were self-educated. Heck, one of the most referred to books as being read by the cowboys in Louis L’Amour’s novels is Plutarch’s Lives.”

“I was having lunch with the Wyoming Office of Tourism, and they were telling me how much they loved the books, and I asked them why? They said that even though Absaroka County is fictitious I use all the businesses, landmarks, roads, and trails so that it’s easy to tell the tourists where they are. I’ve always found it’s easier to remember the truth, even when writing a novel.” (via Books, Inq)

What Holds Us? “Such attentiveness – call it curiosity or engagement with our surrounding — is a form of reverence and gratitude, and likewise an admission of willful ignorance: we learn little when we ignore our world.”

I don’t intend to start adding music to my Saturday posts, but I listen regularly to traditional music like what Julie Fowlis sings here and I want to share it. This whole album is marvelous.

A set of traditional songs starting with “Fodder for the small stirks”
Music

Easter Singing: Welcome, Happy Morning!

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The Choir of Christ Church, Georgetown, Washington, D. C. performing “Welcome, Happy Morning!”

Venantius Honorius Clematianus Fortunatus (530-609) wrote the original text to our Easter hymn today. When I looked for a video of it, I found several recordings of a version that includes the first of these verses before moving into less Christocentric thoughts. The words below come from the Trinity Hymnal and are performed in by The Choir of Christ Church above.

This weekend is what life on earth is about. Praise the Living God who made us and redeemed us for his own glory. Happy Easter, everyone!

1 “Welcome, happy morning!”
age to age shall say:
hell today is vanquished;
heav’n is won today.
Lo! the Dead is living,
God forevermore!
Him, their true Creator,
all his works adore.

2 Maker and Redeemer,
life and health of all,
thou, from heav’n beholding
human nature’s fall,
of the Father’s God-head
true and only Son,
manhood to deliver,
manhood didst put on.

3 Thou, of life the author,
death didst undergo,
tread the path of darkness,
saving strength to show;
come then, True and Faithful,
now fulfil thy word,
’tis thine own third morning;
rise, O buried Lord.

4 Loose the souls long prisoned,
bound with Satan’s chain;
thine that now are fallen
raise to life again;
show thy face in brightness,
bid the nations see;
bring again our daylight;
day returns with thee.

Blogs, Socials, Music, Uncategorized

Denials, the Digital, and the Awesome

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I’m trying to decide if the apostle Peter is a good example of saying the quiet part aloud. When someone notes that an activist or someone has said the quiet part out loud, they mean this person has admitted to principles or goals his people usually leave unsaid or even deny. And Peter is famous for speaking his mind.

On Good Friday, we remember that Peter told Jesus he would die before he denied Christ. “Peter said to him, ‘Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!’ And all the disciples said the same” (Mt. 26:35 ESV). But he did deny the Lord, and I assume the others did too by running away.

When Jesus filled the fishermen’s nets to overflowing, Peter said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk 5:8 ESV), saying immediately what the others may think later, that they were unworthy to stand so close to a holy man. Many years later, Paul had to rebuke Peter for holding Gentile believers to an unholy standard, implying they should maintain Jewish habits in order to be right with Christ (Gal. 2:11-14).

With these and other examples, Peter shows himself to be a great example of a Christian who can’t keep his act together, who lives in continual repentance for not living what he actually believes. In this way, perhaps it’s right to say he says quiet things aloud, and by doing so, he helps us recognize or reject what he says. We can say we do believe that and it’s wrong, or we do believe that and it clashes with other professed beliefs.

Or perhaps we deny that we will ever reject Christ, and then we hear ourselves rejecting him. Don’t let that be your final word. Christ’s work on the cross is enough to flood your entire life and raise you to a new life with him.

As for other things:

Internet: How is the Internet shaping us? How has it formed our habits and changed our values? Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age (via Keith Plummer)

Social Media: “The thought of those in our ministries being drawn away by a stranger through a screen is gut-wrenching.” But influencers don’t have the physical proximity we do. (via Keith Plummer)

Gospel: “The one thing the gospel never does is nothing.”

Sci-fi: Why do some space movies achieve awesome grandeur and others do not? ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and the elusiveness of awe

And as meditation on the grief of Holy Saturday, here’s a Chopin prelude.

Khatia Buniatishvili performs Chopin’s Prelude in E minor Op. 28, no. 4
Music

Sunday Singing: Unto My Lord Jehovah Said

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“Unto my Lord Jehovah said” piano accompaniment of the Elbing tune

This arrangement of Psalm 110 first appeared in the Irish Psalter of 1898. It’s paired with the Elbing tune in the Trinity Hymnal, which I’ve shared above, but other hymnals arrange this text with at least two more tunes.

I offer it here today in that strange Palm Sunday attitude of singing praise to Christ the King, even as the Jerusalem crowds shouted Hosanna in ignorance. They didn’t know the irony of their words. They wanted Jesus of Nazareth to be a political king who would overthrown Rome, but he was the king of kings whose kingdom was not of this world.

1 Unto my Lord Jehovah said:
At my right hand I throne thee,
till, at thy feet in triumph laid,
thy foes their ruler own thee.
From Zion hill the Lord shall send
thy scepter, till before thee bend
the knees of proud rebellion.

2 Thy saints, to greet thy day of might,
in holy raiment muster;
as dewdrops in the morning light
thy youths around thee cluster.
The Lord hath sworn and made decree,
thou, like Melchizedek, shalt be
a kingly priest for ever.

3 The Lord at thy right hand shall bring
on rulers desolation;
the Lord shall smite each heathen king,
and judge each rebel nation.
He, swiftly marching in his wrath,
shall quaff the brook upon his path,
and lift his head in glory.

As an alternative, let me also share this 9th century French hymn, “Gloria, laus et honor,” performed by Harpa Dei.

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Publishing

Conforming to a Hot Topic World

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Many weeks ago, I was in a small group that considered how we might tell we were conforming to the world (Romans 12:2). I suggested one way would be to notice where and how we self-censor, which is a touchy subject for the 21st century social media user.

On one hand, social media encourages us to say outrageous things and to share our opinion on every topic we can articulate into at least a gif. And Christians may recognize this danger and their own ignorance and regularly avoid hosing down the Internet. That’s good.

On the other hand, social media has enabled small groups of people to pose as massive mobs to shout down, dox, and ruin the lives of anyone they target, so we may avoid commenting on select hot button topics to avoid getting caught by such a mob. That’s the self-censoring I’m talking about. It makes me uneasy to talk about it even now.

I’ve argued with myself over whether I should state one of my opinions, well-founded and potentially life-changing as they usually are. I wonder if I shouldn’t stick to posts on books and writing in order to stay in my lane, as it were. But sometimes I just retweet a link or someone else’s opinion because it’s important and I want to amplify the reach. If I hold back because the topic is too hot, is that conforming to the world?

Here’s a troubling video on the censoring publishers are doing to select authors poke the bear by not conforming to unspoken expectations.

Also, a woman with experience in college diversity efforts couldn’t overcome the mindset of her own office. “Orthodoxy superseded all else: collegiality, professionalism, the truth.”

A proper feature: Esquire magazine has published its own feature of author Brandon Sanderson, and with over 5,000 words, it’s what you’d expect from a feature article. It’s good and interesting, pulls in some relevant criticism, and remains positive overall.

More sensitive: New Agatha Christie novels have been submitted to sensitivity readers and thus altered for modern, ahem, sensibilities. The copyright holder, Agatha Christie Limited, has the author’s great grandson at the helm and, I suppose, responsible for this.

Publishing among friends: Publisher Richard Charkin has written about his years in the British book business. “In fact, agent-editor ‘negotiations’ makes it sound more adversarial than it actually was. Editors and agents were usually friends, and had often worked together previously. All too often this led to an unhelpful tendency among some editors to see “management” as the enemy, and they would readily side with their authors and agents against the company that employed them.”

Fiction, Reviews

Dark, Stirring Sequel in Kotar’s ‘The Curse of the Raven’

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Something about the voice enchanted Llun. It awoke forgotten images of sharp mountain peaks and waterfalls at dawn, images associated with a childhood longing that flared in his heart whenever he listened to his mother sing a ballad of Old Vasyllia.

“I will gladly pay the price of my life,” said Llun.

“You do not know what you are saying.”

The Curse of the Raven, the sequel to The Song of the Sirin, appropriately focuses on the oppression suffered by everyone who survived the fall of Vasyllia. Llun the Smith keeps his thoughts to himself, while almost everyone else in the city parrots approved words and tries not to upset the overseers or their enforcers, the “dog-men.” But he couldn’t keep himself from making beautiful things or adding unnecessary ornamentation.

He is pulled into the enemy’s chambers where they imply he would be useful to them for a project they won’t describe. He is fairly certain that any job they give him will be the last one he ever does, but the enemy won’t make a demand, preferring to hint. They give him time to think about it.

I could give you ninety percent of the plot in three more paragraphs, because the story takes only 84 pages. It’s a good side story that allows time to pass while Voran, the hero of the larger story, is doing small things offstage. Another twenty pages are given to the first chapter of book three, The Heart of the World.

In these few pages, we feel the significant dread smothering the kingdom and have an opportunity to wonder if their hope for salvation is in vain. The Russian spirit still comes through in the nature of the oppression and neglect of the people, which keeps this book in the spirit of its predecessor.

I look forward to the next one.

Music

Sunday Singing: Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched

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“Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched” by Joseph Hart

Today’s hymn is one version of London language teacher Joseph Hart’s 1759 hymn, which seems to have many versions among its many publications. I’m more familiar this version, but the version I offer here is the one in the Trinity Hymnal. The 1852 tune is by Welsh composer William Owen.

  1. Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,
    Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
    Jesus ready stands to save you,
    Full of pity joined with pow’r:
    He is able, (3x)
    He is willing, doubt no more. (2x)
  2. Come, ye needy, come and welcome,
    God’s free bounty glorify;
    True belief and true repentance,
    Every grace that brings you nigh,
    Without money, (3x)
    Come to Jesus Christ and buy. (2x)
  3. Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
    Lost and ruined by the fall;
    If you tarry till you’re better,
    You will never come at all:
    Not the righteous, (3x)
    Sinners Jesus came to call. (2x)
  4. Let not conscience make you linger,
    Nor of fitness fondly dream;
    All the fitness He requireth
    Is to feel your need of Him:
    This He gives you, (3x)
    ’Tis the Spirit’s rising beam. (2x)
  5. Lo! th’ incarnate God, ascended,
    Pleads the merit of His blood;
    Venture on Him, venture wholly;
    Let no other trust intrude:
    None but Jesus, (3x)
    Can do helpless sinners good (2x).

Bookselling, Poetry, Reading

Refusing or Finding Peace, Quiet Moments, and Satisfying Reading

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We live in a world that wants healthy bodies with clear minds but we eat junk food and deny the nutritional difference.

“For to set the mind on the flesh [the things of the world, only what we can see] is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:6 ESV).

In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard writes,

As we increasingly integrate our life into the spiritual world of God, our life increasingly takes on the substance of the eternal. We are destined for a time when our life will be entirely sustained from spiritual realities and no longer dependent in any way upon the physical. Out dying, or “mortal” condition, will have been exchanged for an undying one and death absorbed in victory.

Of course that destiny flatly contradicts the usual human outlook, or what “everyone knows” to be the case. . . . We find our world to be one where we hardly count at all, where what we do makes little difference, and where what we really love is unattainable, or certainly is not secure.

He notes that Aldous Huxley thought it natural to yearn for moments of escape from the pain or monotony of living and that perhaps a new drug would be developed to help us out. He says Tolstoy became overwhelmed by the seeming futility of everything, “until he finally came to faith in a world of God where all that is good is preserved.”

We will not find peace until we acknowledge the fount from which it springs.

New Book: Poet and Author Marly Youmans has released a new narrative poem, Seren of the Wildwood. She shares a couple reactions in this post. “Marly is a gifted visionary, her many published works reflect her unique talents, in Seren she presents a tale of no particular time or place, magical yet not absurdist, familiar yet surprising.”

Ordinary Life: “If we are concerned with what’s practical, the day will come when we will look back and it will be clear to us that there was nothing more practical than prayer, nothing more practical than perseverance, and nothing more practical than praising the triune God even when evil was pressing in on us.”

Ordinary Gratitude: A mom buys her kid a yellow raincoat, tweets about the reaction, and goes viral.

Poetry: Take a moment to consider Seamus Heaney’s “The Railway Children” from the book Station Island. Just a snippet here: 

We were small and thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. 

Reading: “Much of mankind’s boredom derives from its inability to find satisfaction in a shelf of books.”

Photo: A painted 1969 Volkswagen, Yuma, Arizona. 2003. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Authors, The Press

An Overpromising Article on Sanderson Smells like Rage-Baiting

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Yesterday, WIRED published a curious story by Features Editor Jason Kehe with this title and subtitle: “Brandon Sanderson Is Your God: He’s the biggest fantasy writer in the world. He’s also very Mormon. These things are profoundly related.”

In over 4,000 words, he tells us Sanderson is a bad writer, his fans and family are overly devoted nerds, and his guest bathroom is awesome. He says he spent two days at a Dragonsteel conference talking to fans, many hours with the author in his home and over meals, and that he, the reporter, hates Hugh Jackman. There are many words on the opinions and efforts of the reporter himself. But what is the relationship suggested by the subtitle? That Sanderson is a millionaire fantasy writer and a Mormon. Can you feel the profundity dripping from that statement?

I can’t decide what this article actually is, because it isn’t a feature of a popular fantasy author. It could be an attempt at a substantive observation that Kehe couldn’t produce. It could be a salvaged second draft, because Kehe wanted to write about Mormonism using Sanderson as an anchor but WIRED didn’t want to publish it. Or it could be rage baiting, a piece written with the simple goal of saying, “Hey, kid, you know that thing you like? It stinks.”

Maybe it is an attempt at substance and the reporter (or the magazine) doesn’t have the depth to swing it. It also checks all the boxes for rage baiting. YouTube already has several reaction videos, and Twitter is not reserving its disgust.

Kehe seems to know all the mechanics of good writing, so I hope he finds better subjects for expressing them or a healthier publisher.

A Little More: Here’s a great contrast of this article with one from another magazine about another artist, written by Shane Morris of the Colson Center.

The Press

Rolling Stone Editor Sidesteps Key Details in FBI Raid Report

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Last October, Rolling Stone a story entitled, “FBI Raids Star ABC News Producer’s Home,” with this lede:

AT A MINUTE before 5 a.m. on April 27, ABC News’ James Gordon Meek fired off a tweet with a single word: “FACTS.” 

The network’s national-security investigative producer was responding to former CIA agent Marc Polymeropoulos’ take that the Ukrainian military — with assistance from the U.S. — was thriving against Russian forces. Polymeropoulos’ tweet — filled with acronyms indecipherable to the layperson, like “TTPs,” “UW,” and “EW” — was itself a reply to a missive from Washington Post Pentagon reporter Dan Lamothe, who noted the wealth of information the U.S. military had gathered about Russian ops by observing their combat strategy in real time. The interchange illustrated the interplay between the national-security community and those who cover it. And no one straddled both worlds quite like Meek, an Emmy-winning deep-dive journalist who also was a former senior counterterrorism adviser and investigator for the House Homeland Security Committee. To his detractors within ABC, Meek was something of a “military fanboy.”

The report describes the quick raid and says multiple sources believed it to be an FBI raid focused on James Gordon Meek. The article says, “Meek appears to be on the wrong side of the national-security apparatus.”

But according to NPR’s David Folkenflik, Rolling Stone reporter Tatiana Siegel had originally included an important detail about the reason for the raid. “Siegel had learned from her sources that Meek had been raided as part of a federal investigation into images of child sex abuse, something not publicly revealed until [February 2023]. Why did Rolling Stone suggest Meek was targeted for his coverage of national security, rather than something unrelated to his journalism?”

According to Folkenflik, Noah Shachtman, Rolling Stone‘s editor-in-chief, covered up the pornography angle without Siegel’s collaboration. Siegel moved to another magazine weeks later.