On a far more pleasant note, I stumbled across this on my way to something else.

There is no picture (which seems to overlook the primary appeal of YouTube), but the audio more than makes up for a lack of video. Beethoven, though I don't number him among my favorite geniuses, was still a genius, and what Andras Schiff explains about the "Moonlight" Sonata is worth your hearing.

Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 2.

For extra credit, there is also in the "Related Videos" [sidebar right] Schiff performing the Goldberg Variations.

Enjoy.

And not daring to offend the ardent masochists in our readership, I heartily recommend an Irish sacred concert. It's "like drinking Starbucks with Irish cream in it". This man is singing about his God: "what our God is like", to use his words.

I leave you to draw the unsubtle conclusions.

I do believe that Machen saw clearly the consequences of the choices being made a century ago.

To speak today about a necessary relationship between knowledge and piety or of an inevitable correlation between culture and Christianity is to invite an inarticulate but heartfelt resentment.

If you speak to most people about raising the level of worship, you will get tepid agreement and adamant resistance: the problem is the other guy. And when you pursue the issues with them beyond the point of generalities, they get very skittish. One group thinks you just want to lose the guitar and the drums in favor of the organ and the piano. They never ask if a solution might lie in choosing Parkening's guitar over Dino's piano. No, that would require some spine-chilling thought.

Another group knows deep down that what you really want is not a functioning liturgy, you want the harpsichord and baroque violin, or even worse, the lute and the gamba. No one has ever thought to ask me if I would prefer J.S. Bach performed on a kazoo or Ron Hamilton performed on the organ at Alkmaar.

And don't even get us started on chant!

And because we cannot speak intelligently to the merits of the liturgy of the past, the argument dies out and the battle resumes. There is no way some people will worship to the chant, and should that ever prove to be the remedy, they will swear off all remedies. If it's not less-Bach-and-more-rock, then it's less-rock-and-more-schlock.

Speaking intelligently about these things is the problem. Attaching a cultural significance to any of our preferences just cannot be done.

Religious leaders have achieved the "spiritual and intellectual indolence" Machen described. If several generations have not known what he calls "the desire to know and the love of beauty", what is left that is worth the pursuit? If you don't want understanding and beauty, what will you settle for?

For my part, I am going to suggest that all there is to pursue is a secondary virtue. In the case of fundamentalists, it would be doctrinal purity and separation; in the case of evangelicals, relevance and a pretext of "reaching the lost". [As though there is any evidence of success behind that strategy.] In short: unreliable indicators of spiritual vitality. Whether we look at Majesty Hymns or "Rush of Fools", we all know something is broken; we just don't want our side to bear the cost of repairs.

Evangelicals know that orthodoxy is not a claim they can make, and they also know that orthodoxy is not worth the bloodshed it will require. I've seen no credible response to Wells, but when will the ETS ever find the pencil and paper to write one?

Modern culture is a tremendous force. It affects all classes of society. It affects the ignorant as well as the learned. What is to be done about it? In the first place the Church may simply withdraw from the conflict. She may simply allow the mighty stream of modern thought to flow by unheeded and do her work merely in the back-eddies of the current.

That indeed has been our choice. We have the fundamentalist eddy, the neo-evangelical eddy, the "missional-model" eddy, the "attractional-model" eddy, the seeker-service eddy....

How's that working out for us, folks?

Tell me something: if a cultural alien came to your door and asked for ten examples of Christian culture, what would you show him?

Or would that be one of those things there's no point talking about?

In February of 1913, the International Exhibition of Modern Art took place on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. It would not be an exaggeration to say it rocked the intellectual world. Elsewhere J. Gresham Machen had been giving some serious thought to modernism (ideas which inspired and informed the works on display at the New York 69th Regiment Armory), culture and Christianity. The Princeton Theological Review published those thoughts in, as it happens, 1913. If you've never read them, you should do so. He is not commenting directly on the Exhibition, of course; he is observing the whole cultural environment and the modern indifference and hostility to piety.

Machen articulated what he understood to be the problem: "Our whole system of school and college education is so constituted as to keep religion and culture as far apart as possible and ignore the question of the relationship between them." He argued that Christianity might be subordinated to culture, it might destroy culture, or it might consecrate culture.

Despite all we can do, the desire to know and the love of beauty cannot be entirely stifled, and we cannot permanently regard these desires as evil.

And

The chief obstacle to the Christian religion today lies in the sphere of the intellect.

These are interesting conclusions to have drawn at that moment in man's history. These are not conclusions we have drawn, obviously. What American evangelicalism did was indeed to stifle any effort to create favorable conditions for the reception of Christianity. Instead it made "our theological seminaries merely centres of religious emotion".

Matt Olson recently reminded me of this tragedy. I do believe Dr. Olson has helped create a place where the desire to know and where the love of beauty can most certainly be stifled, and where these desires can be regarded as evil. The zip code is 54119.

But DocMatt, or whatever we should call the successor to DocO, is airing his mind on "Current Issues and Trends" here. There is a good amount of unintentional humor contained in his remarks, although I'm not sure Machen would be laughing. One line got a great laugh from his academic audience: he's talking about "no-point Calvinism". There's "no point talking about it".

There really is quite a bit in his talk that entertains. I won't go through the whole list now, but Dr. Olson is not a scholar, obviously. He is a politician, and apparently word has filtered back to him that support for his college is perhaps less solid than it might be. There are "issues" out there. "Issues" and "trends". And he means to deal with them and reassure us that his college is just the place to send the young and ill-informed.

I think one of the funniest lines was this: "When we begin to take our opinions and our lists and our conclusions and dogmatize them, I think we're in trouble." [mark: 27' 20"] I'm sorry, you just have to know the history of fundamentalism to appreciate the humor in that remark. He's a regular Jerry Seinfeld. Can any of us hear the voices of Norris, BJIII, R.V. and Jack Hyles as they echo down the sacred halls of separatism? When we begin to take our opinions and our lists and our conclusions and dogmatize them, I think we're in trouble.

But my point in making this comparison is not to amuse you. We are a gnat's whisker away from the centennial of Machen's warning; less than one academic generation away. Ask yourself how well we have surmounted the obstacle Machen described?

American fundagelicalism has told people they can be cool and hip and well-adjusted and wealthy and off drugs, that they can have great marriages and rewarding careers and more fun, celebrate wonderful Christmases and have rewarding friendships, intimacy with their god, a comfortable retirement and sexual satisfaction....

If someone were to come to your church office and ask what the relationship is between knowledge and piety, what would you tell him?

Would you tell him it's not an important question? Would you tell him it is an important question but you don't have an answer?  Would you tell him it is an important question but the answer is warmly disputed and therefore there's no point in talking about it? Would you tell him there is an answer but we dare not be dogmatic about it?

Would you make up an impromptu answer?

Would you tell him his question is not as important as having a barber's chair located between him and your baptistry?

_______________

I mention this chuckle-headed tragedy to put the problem into a context. A Christian has this irritating way of defining "his culture" as that subset of ideas he approves of, and what he disapproves of is someone else's culture. Soon his culture is limited to his denomination, then his local church, then his own home, and pretty soon the only culture he'll have to answer for is that culture represented on his side of the bed.

Some culture, hunh?

I don't believe we are going to solve this "culture" problem; that ship has sunk. But the next time you are warned about the significance or the consequences of some exciting new idea or promising innovation, remember how different J. Gresham Machen and Matt Olson are.

There is a sad—even macabre—fact about fundagelicals: they have very little interest in culture for the sake of its virtues. They can speak at length about the virtues of sport, cars, airplanes and guns, or movies about sport, cars, airplanes, and guns, but you can't ask them which subway line will get you to the museum or the best place to park for the concert hall. You can visit their churches, campuses and homes and find nothing but kitsch. Seriously, everything on their walls is merely decorative, devotional or commemorative; like their hymnbooks, they really don't reward scrutiny.

Of all the professors I've had, only one paints. Not one composes (unless he's being paid to), none writes poetry. One plays a guitar and one yodels. I did visit the office of an art professor on Wheaton's campus which had an original painting hanging on the wall.

So it is a little disturbing when the media bring to our attention the outrages of Robert Mapplethorpe or Lisa Miller or Dan Brown or Ray Boltz or some new, provocative movie, and all of a sudden they have something trenchant to say about culture.

Very odd, this ad hoc expertise.

But my point, or at least my main point, is not to knock their skills. Maybe most have no skills and hanging their work would only be vain and offensive. But it never strikes them as vanity or effrontery to speak as though they possessed an understanding of culture.

This may seem like nit-picking to you, and no doubt, as some have already noted, my "attitude" requires stricter oversight, but I think it's more important than you might suppose. We are now watching the suspenseful transmogrification of Emergence, or the Emergent/emerging, missional community/movement thingy.

What we were promised was "goodness, experience, questions, mystery, community, and humility". What we are getting is shrill intolerance, hate and profanity.

For those of you with the stomach for a philistine shrew, I recommend you take the time to read this. Some of you may want to give it a pass: Makeesha hardly has the intellectual discipline (or a vocabulary) adequate to the expression of her resentments, but read it to make sense of the reaction of her readers. What they admire in her bad prose and blunt profanity is her directness, authenticity, honesty, and openness.

Someday I hope to be admired for my directness, authenticity, honesty and openness, but for health reasons I am not going to hold my breath.

I mention this not only because it is relevant to an understanding of the snake oil we call emergence, but because of the affected indignation of people like Rick and X. Don't be bullied by people like Makeesha or Tony Jones or the nakedpastor. This sort of coarse tribalism has nothing at all to do with culture.

Don't be a sucker for this game of three-card monte.

Walk right by.

Last year-end I was enjoying some of the work of Gheorghe Cucu, which, according to our Romanian correspondent, is pronounced exactly as you might be embarrassed to pronounce it. They are selections from the orthodox liturgy performed by the Chorus of the Banatul Philharmonic of Timisoara on a Romanian label, Electrecord.

And this is something you might enjoy listening to as well. These works were not permitted public performance (unless without words) by the communists, and for some of us are a nice little stash of unsecreted beauty.

magnatune.com/artists/albums/kyivchamber-praiselord/

You might not want to listen to this in one long sitting (total playing time: 69' 38); for some of this you might require a palate cleanser. But this is good stuff you should know about and stuff I hope you can enjoy.

I love it.

How might we know a low view of worship when we see one?

I am tempted to reply by saying that if we were to cram ourselves together in a deep-sea submersible—such as the ALVIN, thoughtfully depicted below—and descend until the glass in the portholes cracks, we will be roughly at our present level of worship. It wouldn't be a scientific measurement, but we would be ballparking it.

Others will disagree, of course. Some, like the president of Soundfroth perhaps, will argue that his gang is shipping some very high quality merchandise this year.

Days later, when I stopped laughing, I might pull out some compositions by JSB, Mendelssohn, Dvorák, Rachmaninoff, or Pärt and ask if his editorial standards committee could detect any discrepancies between their work and that of  JSB, Mendelssohn, Dvorák, Rachmaninoff, or Pärt. I'm quite sure I will get the answer I have always gotten and we would get into a long-and-heated about the fact that these men were not high-ranking separatists, or that none of these men wore an eye-patch or travelled with Steve Pettit long enough for them to assure us that these gentlemen "checked". They would probably put red dots on all the sheetmusic of JSB, Mendelssohn, Dvorák, Rachmaninoff, or Pärt.

So rather than rummage through all those flea-market opinions again, I will suggest a different answer. Let's not compare the bad to the good (as this presents all sorts of difficulties for uncritical minds), let's instead observe the effects of their work.

Go to church. Take with you a printout of the paragraph below. Try to finagle a seat on the platform. If that's not possible, try the balcony. Then watch the people. Watch them when they sing. Watch them when the offering is taken. Watch them when they read Scripture to themselves. Watch them when they pray. Now compare what you see with Tozer's description of worship:

"A humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder." It is delightful to worship God, but it is also a humbling thing; and the man who has not been humbled in the presence of God will never be a worshiper of God at all. He may be a church member who keeps the rules and obeys the discipline, and who tithes and goes to conference, but he'll never be a worshiper unless he is deeply humbled. "A humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe." There is an awesomeness about God which is missing in our day altogether; there's little sense of admiring awe in the Church of Christ these days.

As I said before, the hearts of the people are turned to all manner of wretchedness and profanity so that what is offered as worship is in fact self-indulgence. Self-indulgence is the exact opposite of worship: we have it precisely backwards. We do not care about God or the perfection he demands of us, we care about us and what we prefer, what we can "relate to," and "what it means to us".

I shouldn't have to belabor this point: we have had numerous people, some of them evangelicals, some of them fundamentalists (who, by the way, think the sun rises and sets on their separation and their "Christ-honoring music"), say explicitly this. And there is no arguing with these people. They will quibble with any standard of goodness or beauty you can find in the Bodleian and the Library of Congress both.

They have written book after book about what is wrong with the music they keenly dislike, so we know the concept of "inadequate" or "defective" worship exists in their minds. But they have no objective way of telling us what that is. And when they try, they tell us about plants growing slower or cows giving less milk when they listen to rock music.

Or flashbacks. Rock can give you flashbacks.

So I will suggest that until we are prepared to speak intelligently about the good and the beautiful, we should ask ourselves why those people in our churches give no evidence of awe and admiration.

I think that could be a practical place to start.

I must offer a caveat, though: this is not the right thing to do. In fact I think it is a stupid thing to do; it's like telling someone to re-invent the wheel. But until one is prepared to take the advice of wheelwrights, I suppose this is the only alternative.

Maybe we will have to start with large round rocks and jam tree trunks in the middle.

What follows is an oblique and public response to various unrecognized premises underlying a handful of recent [private and off-line, thus no links] conversations. I call it a catechism, but it is really only catechism-esque. It does not attempt a complete, systematic answer as catechisms do, and it certainly does not attempt to answer the questions that philistines suppose are important. Questions 3, 4, and 5, for example, are synecdochic: the principle applies not only to the instrument but to the performance and the work.

So this answers the questions that ought to be asked but aren't. It addresses premises which the philistines won't consider but should.

Given our grim state of affairs, I recognize this is a complete waste of effort. I do not imagine that anything remotely like serious reflection will follow. I do not think the church wants to fix what is broken. I do not believe those who currently profit from their own appetites are inclined to repent. So you must understand that this is rather an academic and theoretical exercise, but I offer it hoping that such an exercise can still provide some guidance when answering fools and degenerates.

THE DISSIDENS CATECHISM

Q: What is the chief end of man?

A: The chief end of man is to love God and worship him aright.

Q: How is God to be worshiped?

A: God is to be worshiped in every human thought and conscious act, but he has most specifically commanded that men praise him with song.

Q: Upon what instruments is man to worship God?

A: Upon the Bösendorfer, the Stradivari, and the Gofriller.

Q: Why these instruments?

A: Why not these instruments?

Q: Who's asking the questions here?

A: We seek to worship on these instruments because they give greatest expressive power to the worshiper and permit the subtlest nuance of our art.

Q: Does art belong in worship?

A: There is no true worship without art in the same way that there is no statement of truth without grammar. A desultory recitation of mundane facts about God does not constitute worship. God's simplest act demands our most scrutinizing imagination and our highest expression of admiration (hence the need for the Bösendorfers...). Trite statements ambivalently executed on inferior instruments are not just unworthy of God, they are unworthy of man.

Q: What is the result of artless worship?

A: The hearts of the people are turned to all manner of wretchedness and profanity so that what is offered as worship is in fact self-indulgence.

Q: Can children and those yet untrained in the canons of art nevertheless worship?

A: It is possible for the young, the naïve, and the parochial to utter partial truths with varying degrees of skill, but the immature and untrained cannot—by definition—speak cogently to the affections and obligations of all men everywhere.

Q: Why are naïve, parochial, and merely subjective expressions to be discouraged?

A: All naïve and parochial expressions are to be discouraged because they fall short of human capacities, they do not accord with the example of scripture, nor do they aspire to that perfection we see in Heaven.

Q: What if the audience does not understand the art?

A: The only proper audience for worship understands everything.

Q: What is to be done with the immature and the naïve?

A: The immature and the naive are to be instructed: they are to be shown what is best in order to develop the proper judgment without which worship is not possible.

Q: Does this mean that worship belongs only to the virtuoso?

A: Worship does not belong only to the virtuoso any more than health belongs only to the physician, but the physician has a fuller and disciplined understanding of what it takes to maintain health. The sick go to a doctor rather than an enthusiastic or well-meaning duffer hoping his good intentions will substitute for skill.

Q: What is to be done with the philistine?

A: The philistine is to be put to death. The philistine that dies in the city is to be given to the dogs to eat, and the philistine that dies in the country is to be given to the birds of the air to eat.

Q: Now can I get a less provocative answer?

A: The philistine is to be encouraged to confess his sins and worship the one and true God.

Q: Does God reject all inferior worship?

A: It has been said that God is easy to please but hard to satisfy. God demands perfect obedience: he does not accept the partial and intermittent compliance that we find appropriate given our preferences or our own judgment of things. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, heart, strength and mind, by which we are intended to understand that we do not love the Lord our God at whatever level of incompetence our ambient culture has left us.

God is certainly capable of accepting the modest things we offer even as he accepted the modest offerings of the poor in Israel. What he does not accept is the diseased and the lame. And in addition to this, in accepting the modest thing, God is looking on the heart. Here we are judging the fitness of the offering, not the disposition of the heart.

Q: Does a high view of worship disadvantage the common churchgoer?

A: In no way; that is like arguing that one can't enjoy a dish until he memorizes the recipe.

This error flows from a profound misunderstanding of the nature of man and art. It is often supposed that the "rules of art" are arbitrary and arcane precepts that comprise the meaning of a work. It assumes without evidence that art is appreciated only by the knowledgeable. A beautiful melody is a beautiful melody whether or not the listener understands how the composer did it or whether or not he can explain it in a university.

If a musical idea is transformed or developed during the course of the performance, it is transformed and developed for everyone listening. The level of appreciation may vary between novice and expert, but the effect the composer intended registers with every careful listener.

And to suppose that inept melodies or undeveloped ideas are especially suited to the common man is simple bigotry.

Q: Why ought all of this to be important to us?

A:  This ought to be important to us because this is the chief end of man.

I experienced mixed emotions when I heard that Tony Jones was stepping down as National Coordinator of EmergentVillage. First there was a foreboding that my declining years would contain a lot less laughter.

And I won't deny that I was more anxious than Phil. 4:6 permits me to be: never has such a slap-dash, impromptu collection of religious dropouts ever been less well coordinated, and the last thing this world needs is a well-organized collection of religious dropouts. What if fate begins to play fast and loose with this arrangement and a leader emerges?

Just think about that the next time you feel drowsy while driving. You won't blink for the next 20 exits.

But I will miss Tony's lectures on Church History. From his interviews with Marie and Pastorboy to his sins against the mandolin, no one was ever tempted to confuse Tony Jones with a thoughtful person; there was an absence of gravitas in everything he did. He was amusing to watch: Tony made Barney the Dinosaur look like the Beast of Revelation.

(He even reworked his website to make himself appear more intimidating. Gone is that dorky image of a boy looking up at you from a sandbox. Now he looks like he wants to be confused with a logger or a soldier of fortune.)

Going also is this promising movement.

The "vibe" and the "ethos" have gone. Cohorts have already split. Disputes over the meaning of words have arisen. Some advise us to abandon the word emergent. Some people are already blacklisted.  Spokesblokes are becoming dissatisfied with the ethos, and they begin showing an inordinate interest in karpos.

(This is especially interesting to me. These people claim to be not Christians but "followers of Jesus", but to read St. Mark's account of the man, fruit was an important element in Jesus' ministry. Jesus said very little about water systems, "fair trade" and "gender equality", but what he said and did in connection with fruit-bearing strikes me as intriguingly portentous.)

Trucker Frank has vanished as a rôle model for church planters, and to my knowledge no seminary has hired him to chair any pastoral theology department.

Doug Pagitt is setting up a blogtalkradio schtick in his run for office in the state of Minnesota. Gone is the trombone abuse and The Roadshow That Bombed Everywhere. In fact, I will miss that gimcrack ad campaign/book tour/self-promotion scheme that made Tammy Faye and Jan Crouch look like such classy dames.

The movement has given us nothing in the way of art, goodness, experience, love of narrative, community, or humility, and the only mystery connected with the movement is what the word eschaton really means.

But our readers ought to take heart.

The going of Tony means the coming of a successor, and there are all sorts of people ready to step up and take ownership of this religious calamity. This is probably my favorite so far: Troy Bronsink (with knit cap, requisite glasses, soul patch and malfunctioning equipment) looks like he's serious about continuing the high standards of leadership Tony set during his administration.

Be on the lookout for further developments.

The Christmas of 2008 was grotesque and lingering.

Up at Schloss Dissidens darkness had fallen and the elderly gentleman morosely putted this year's Christmas present, a piece of coal, with last year's Christmas present, a stick, across the marble floor of his library. Between the fluted arches above the fireplace was the mounted head of an elk, his nose garnished with a red cotton ball placed under the cover of darkness by some insolent staff member.

The glad and golden hours of which the Christmas poet spoke so confidently had not come swiftly on the wing as expected. Instead, the philistines abroad in the world were emboldened to share with us their feelings about "the holidays". One Canadian dunce who thinks of himself as an artist trapped in a pastor's body fashioned something for us that is neither artistic nor pastoral. Nor clever.

But I do think it is indicative enough to assault you with.

This selfsame dunce had a good cry while meditating on the promise of the "first Christmas". [cucullus non facit monachum] You can go there for the whole thing or you can read an excerpt here:

I had a strange and surprising experience yesterday. I went into a store that sells fair trade goods from all over the world. It's an interesting place. Ethereal, New Age music playing. Incense burning. My wife and daughter browsed around looking at their very unique handmade items. I checked out several things. There were 3 or 4 ladies serving people. They were very helpful and friendly. It was packed with stuff and with people. I picked up a vile of aroma therapy perfume called "Rain" and sniffed it. I liked it. I want some. I made my way over to a corner were some handmade banners were hanging inscribed with wise sayings from Mother Teresa, Zen Masters, Nelson Mandela, Buddha, Jesus, Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Confucius, and so on. As I was reading the sayings with the aroma of "rain" still in my nostrils, I suddenly noticed that I was feeling very emotional. I was embarrassed and almost left the store. Instead, I maintained a level of control, just allowing my eyes to be misty and my throat slightly choked up. My heart was welling up with waves of incredible feeling. I walked around the place enjoying the rich atmosphere of peacefulness, calm, joy, and solidarity. I felt genuine unity among all of us in that store. More than any other store, including the Christian book store, this one seemed to promote, even unconsciously, the good will toward all people that the angels promised on that first Christmas. Oh, may it be!

I do hope his Christmas stocking contained a "vile of aroma therapy perfume" along with a lavender sachet and perhaps a nice lace handkerchief.

Elsewhere there was this:

Ever notice how responsive reading in church tends to make us all sound like the Borg? Creepy!

And another promising artist tries his hand at some run-on poetry here:

Twas the Night Before Preaching

Twas the night before preaching and all through the church
not a person was stirring much less were they screaching

The Gospel was hung by the pulpit with care
in the hope that St. Jesus would soon be there

The Christians were nestled all snug in their beds
While vision of rapture danced in their heads

While Christians all settled down for a long winters nap
And the devil got ready for a debilittating rap

When out in the sky that rose such a clatter
I ran out to see just what was the matter

What did I see, Jesus you guess
Now ask Him to do what it takes to fix your mess.

I give at this point.

Have a Great Jesus Christmas.

Bill

He did that all in one sentence and never even had to reach for the dictionary. It's a kind of Christmas Miracle!

And walking by a television one might have seen EWTN broadcasting a tale of gregarious insects and a stolen fruitcake. We cannot tell you the end of the matter because we didn't stay to watch it, but we are confident that it brought glory to God in the highest.

And all the world is filled with the bleat of deluded and sentimental religious folk who, though conspicuously covered in tinsel, powdered sugar and scotch tape, assure us that they are ever mindful of "the true meaning" of the season. So they celebrate this most holy thing by juxtaposing misplaced sentiments and professions of piety. Because mixing the sacred and the profane is what the righteous do.

We were told that whereas the church once "focused on logic, evidence, proof, answers, scholarship, reasons, arguments, and appeals to authority", it would now " focus more and more on beauty, goodness, experience, questions, mystery, community, and humility".

Ironic, isn't it?