my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
Quite often I hear phrases that really boil my blood. Usually it's when people are teaching really bad ideas about God, especially to young teenagers. Since you guys are my friends here, I think you probably know this. I believe I contemplated hiring a teen-aged actor to yell obscenities at a youth pastor recently when a friend was telling me about the "little talk" that youth pastor was giving (I mean, what are they gonna do, kick the kid out? He clearly needs Jesus).
It's a little intense, however, to get an elevated heart rate from someone who I agree with. Musically, you have your Pedro the Lion, who I think I have talked about before. The band (actually one guy, who is now doing solo work?) writes really indie-rock sounding music, and he puts out lyrics like "You were to busy steering the conversation toward the lord
to hear the voice of the spirit begging you to shut the fuck up
You thought it must be the devil trying to make you go astray
Besides it couldn't have been the lord because you don't believe he talks that way"
While those lyrics are potentially shocking (though probably not to anyone here, I think that is the 3rd time I've quoted that in the 'Journal), they seem to fit pretty well with the angsty-music.
and then you have your Derek Webb...
Today I went here Free Derek Webb. When you go there Derek Webb will give you a free record, if you will give him 5 e-mail addresses.
Webb's "Mocking Bird", which is what is up on the site, is pretty amazing. He is a little more direct lyrically than Pedro, but it is set against this nice acoustic pop music-the juxtaposition is a little jarring, and perfect. Actually he is a lot more direct-SHIT, It's hard to explain, so here are some lyrics:
NEW LAW
(vs. 1)
don’t teach me about politics and government
just tell me who to vote for
don’t teach me about truth and beauty
just label my music
don’t teach me how to live like a free man
just give me a new law
(pre-chorus)
i don’t wanna know if the answers aren’t easy
so just bring it down from the mountain to me
(chorus)
i want a new law
i want a new law
gimme that new law
(vs. 2)
don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
i prefer a shot of grape juice
don’t teach me about loving my enemies
don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
just give me a new law
(pre-chorus/chorus)
(bridge)
what’s the use in trading a law you can never keep
for one you can that cannot get you anything
do not be afraid
do not be afraid
A KING AND A KINGDOM
vs. 1)
who's your brother, who's your sister
you just walked passed him
i think you missed her
as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives
'cause we married in to a family of immigrants
(chorus)
my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom
(vs. 2)
there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him
(chorus)
(bridge)
but nothing unifies like a common enemy
and we’ve got one, sure as hell
but he may be living in your house
he may be raising up your kids
he may be sleeping with your wife
oh no, he may not look like you think
I am, in the parlance of The Big Lebowski, "calmer than you are", in appearance right now, but I am steamed. My heart rate is definitely elevated.
Derek is awesome. He is beating the American church around the ears, exactly the way I wish I could. He knows what he knows, and he has found a great way to say it. I haven't...not yet.
In the meantime I will say some things that I have been thinking, and thinking about posting here:
I am finally interested in politics. I still like to ignore it when I can. I still hate it. I still find it difficult to find the smallest piece of hard truth to stand on. But the "Religious Right" or the Church in America, or whatever you want to call it, has greatly helped me change my mind.
I registered to vote a couple of weeks ago. I probably would've registered as a Democrat, but in TN you don't register for a party. I registered so I could vote against a TN law banning gay marriage.
I'm not going to turn into one of those people who is always talking about the whole mess, and I will resist with all I have turning into the kind of person who feels for their political party like a Texan feels about his local High School football team.
Some issues are starting to look a little clearer.
I can't believe that Christianity is supposed to be so heavily political. The only time I see of Jesus mentioning with politics in the Bible, he is trying to convince people that he isn't being political. He said "pay your taxes", he didn't say "get bent out of shape about what they are spent on." He didn't try to ban Roman homosexuality. He didn't try to get the Jewish parties in power. He didn't try and keep people from working on the Sabbath, which would clearly have undermined the values that the Jewish kids interacted with and learned from.
He said a lot about people focusing on non-eternal subjects and missing the point of life.
One night I came home late, and I got to thinking about James Dobson and the things I have heard him say; how many times I have heard him imply that if I didn't personally get involved in his ideas of Christian politics that America Christians would get persecuted, that America itself would crumble. I got scared. James Dobson scares me. He scares me because he has a lot of great things to say about raising kids and getting along with your spouse, and because of that he has people's trust, and now he can insight a lot of trouble.
I got scared because I know people who have gone to Focus on the Family's year-long program for college students that gives "students a life-changing, semester-long experience that helps them develop a healthy Christian worldview and equips them to use this understanding to shape their culture. Participants receive college credit while undergoing intensive training on topics like public policy, the decline of the family and the church in society. They're also afforded opportunities to interact with renowned religious and political leaders and to complete an internship related to their future career field."
"...healthy christian worldview...shape their culture...public policy...renowned religious and political leaders..."
It literally gives me the shivers.
I am scared because I am reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", and I have seen, historically, how a people can allow a government to do outrageous things, if they are unhappy enough, or afraid enough.
I have no problem with people invading my privacy. I have some embarrassing stuff out there, but it's really not an issue for me. It can be really bad news though, when political enemies can be attacked by the state.
I do have a problem with the idea that America-the great welcomer of peoples-might end be headed back into another period of isolationism. It is actually a comforting thought to realize that the U.S. has come and gone through paranoia before, it took Pearl Harbor to pull us of it last time. And I guess if prohibition worked out, maybe I don't need to put to much energy into worrying about the gay marriage issue.
At this point, with admittedly little knowledge about what it would really mean, I would rather be a victim of terrorism, than see this country stop offering itself open to people.
I guess that is a very insensitive thing to say, but I think a few years of trying to live less for myself, and by my own power, has made me think that perhaps that should apply to nations as well as people, and that might not be true.
It crushes me to hear about violent deaths at home and abroad. It crushes me to hear about kids growing up without families here in the States. I just finally realized that white middle class America's answers don't seem to work across the board, and I guess I have now publicly shaken off the last of the ideas I took on myself when I was a Sunday School kid who took it all for granted.
LOVE IS NOT AGAINST THE LAW
politics or love
can make you blind or make you see
make you a slave or make you free
but only one does it all
and it’s giving up your life
for the ones you hate the most
it’s giving them your gown
when they’ve taken your clothes
it’s learning to admit
when you’ve had a hand in setting them up
in knocking them down
(chorus)
love is not against the law
love is not against the law
(vs. 2)
are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend
‘cause you cannot choose your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same
could you find a way
to love them both the same
to give them your name
my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom
It's a little intense, however, to get an elevated heart rate from someone who I agree with. Musically, you have your Pedro the Lion, who I think I have talked about before. The band (actually one guy, who is now doing solo work?) writes really indie-rock sounding music, and he puts out lyrics like "You were to busy steering the conversation toward the lord
to hear the voice of the spirit begging you to shut the fuck up
You thought it must be the devil trying to make you go astray
Besides it couldn't have been the lord because you don't believe he talks that way"
While those lyrics are potentially shocking (though probably not to anyone here, I think that is the 3rd time I've quoted that in the 'Journal), they seem to fit pretty well with the angsty-music.
and then you have your Derek Webb...
Today I went here Free Derek Webb. When you go there Derek Webb will give you a free record, if you will give him 5 e-mail addresses.
Webb's "Mocking Bird", which is what is up on the site, is pretty amazing. He is a little more direct lyrically than Pedro, but it is set against this nice acoustic pop music-the juxtaposition is a little jarring, and perfect. Actually he is a lot more direct-SHIT, It's hard to explain, so here are some lyrics:
NEW LAW
(vs. 1)
don’t teach me about politics and government
just tell me who to vote for
don’t teach me about truth and beauty
just label my music
don’t teach me how to live like a free man
just give me a new law
(pre-chorus)
i don’t wanna know if the answers aren’t easy
so just bring it down from the mountain to me
(chorus)
i want a new law
i want a new law
gimme that new law
(vs. 2)
don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
i prefer a shot of grape juice
don’t teach me about loving my enemies
don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
just give me a new law
(pre-chorus/chorus)
(bridge)
what’s the use in trading a law you can never keep
for one you can that cannot get you anything
do not be afraid
do not be afraid
A KING AND A KINGDOM
vs. 1)
who's your brother, who's your sister
you just walked passed him
i think you missed her
as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives
'cause we married in to a family of immigrants
(chorus)
my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom
(vs. 2)
there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him
(chorus)
(bridge)
but nothing unifies like a common enemy
and we’ve got one, sure as hell
but he may be living in your house
he may be raising up your kids
he may be sleeping with your wife
oh no, he may not look like you think
I am, in the parlance of The Big Lebowski, "calmer than you are", in appearance right now, but I am steamed. My heart rate is definitely elevated.
Derek is awesome. He is beating the American church around the ears, exactly the way I wish I could. He knows what he knows, and he has found a great way to say it. I haven't...not yet.
In the meantime I will say some things that I have been thinking, and thinking about posting here:
I am finally interested in politics. I still like to ignore it when I can. I still hate it. I still find it difficult to find the smallest piece of hard truth to stand on. But the "Religious Right" or the Church in America, or whatever you want to call it, has greatly helped me change my mind.
I registered to vote a couple of weeks ago. I probably would've registered as a Democrat, but in TN you don't register for a party. I registered so I could vote against a TN law banning gay marriage.
I'm not going to turn into one of those people who is always talking about the whole mess, and I will resist with all I have turning into the kind of person who feels for their political party like a Texan feels about his local High School football team.
Some issues are starting to look a little clearer.
I can't believe that Christianity is supposed to be so heavily political. The only time I see of Jesus mentioning with politics in the Bible, he is trying to convince people that he isn't being political. He said "pay your taxes", he didn't say "get bent out of shape about what they are spent on." He didn't try to ban Roman homosexuality. He didn't try to get the Jewish parties in power. He didn't try and keep people from working on the Sabbath, which would clearly have undermined the values that the Jewish kids interacted with and learned from.
He said a lot about people focusing on non-eternal subjects and missing the point of life.
One night I came home late, and I got to thinking about James Dobson and the things I have heard him say; how many times I have heard him imply that if I didn't personally get involved in his ideas of Christian politics that America Christians would get persecuted, that America itself would crumble. I got scared. James Dobson scares me. He scares me because he has a lot of great things to say about raising kids and getting along with your spouse, and because of that he has people's trust, and now he can insight a lot of trouble.
I got scared because I know people who have gone to Focus on the Family's year-long program for college students that gives "students a life-changing, semester-long experience that helps them develop a healthy Christian worldview and equips them to use this understanding to shape their culture. Participants receive college credit while undergoing intensive training on topics like public policy, the decline of the family and the church in society. They're also afforded opportunities to interact with renowned religious and political leaders and to complete an internship related to their future career field."
"...healthy christian worldview...shape their culture...public policy...renowned religious and political leaders..."
It literally gives me the shivers.
I am scared because I am reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", and I have seen, historically, how a people can allow a government to do outrageous things, if they are unhappy enough, or afraid enough.
I have no problem with people invading my privacy. I have some embarrassing stuff out there, but it's really not an issue for me. It can be really bad news though, when political enemies can be attacked by the state.
I do have a problem with the idea that America-the great welcomer of peoples-might end be headed back into another period of isolationism. It is actually a comforting thought to realize that the U.S. has come and gone through paranoia before, it took Pearl Harbor to pull us of it last time. And I guess if prohibition worked out, maybe I don't need to put to much energy into worrying about the gay marriage issue.
At this point, with admittedly little knowledge about what it would really mean, I would rather be a victim of terrorism, than see this country stop offering itself open to people.
I guess that is a very insensitive thing to say, but I think a few years of trying to live less for myself, and by my own power, has made me think that perhaps that should apply to nations as well as people, and that might not be true.
It crushes me to hear about violent deaths at home and abroad. It crushes me to hear about kids growing up without families here in the States. I just finally realized that white middle class America's answers don't seem to work across the board, and I guess I have now publicly shaken off the last of the ideas I took on myself when I was a Sunday School kid who took it all for granted.
LOVE IS NOT AGAINST THE LAW
politics or love
can make you blind or make you see
make you a slave or make you free
but only one does it all
and it’s giving up your life
for the ones you hate the most
it’s giving them your gown
when they’ve taken your clothes
it’s learning to admit
when you’ve had a hand in setting them up
in knocking them down
(chorus)
love is not against the law
love is not against the law
(vs. 2)
are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend
‘cause you cannot choose your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same
could you find a way
to love them both the same
to give them your name
my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom