The 25 Best Albums of 2009

1. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective release more quality music in a year than most groups put out in a decade. And in 2009 they produced some of their most compelling, mature, and artistically sophisticated music yet. Merriweather Post Pavilion is an album without peer, a truly remarkable achievement. In a year of singles, this proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the art of the album is alive and well. While full of great tracks, the real star is the single, “My Girls,” which is my pick for song of the year. Merriweather Post Pavilion is an instant classic.

2. Dan Deacon, Bromst

Dan Deacon’s first major release, 2007’s Spiderman of the Rings, revealed a new force in indie electronic music—a true mad genius. But it wasn’t until he produced Bromst that the world saw the magnitude of his talent and the beauty of his madness. Deacon is a conservatory-trained musician, and in his new album he reveals his training in all its grandeur, producing some of the most compelling tracks of the year. The opening song, “Build Voice,” immediately demonstrates what a gift this album is. As great as Merriweather Post Pavilion is, Bromst was my personal favorite of the year.

3. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear have steadily become one of the hottest young bands making music today—and for good reason. Their 2004 debut, Horn of Plenty, instantly put them on the map; with 2006’s Yellow House, they catapulted to stardom, even touring with Radiohead (Jonny Greenwood actually said Grizzly Bear was his favorite band). With Veckatimest, named after a small island in Massachusetts, they have topped themselves once again, producing one of the most mature and refined albums of the year. Songs like “Two Weeks” and “Ready, Able” are proof that these are some of the best songwriters in the business today.

4. jj, jj nº 2

Very little is known about this new Swedish pop group, except that their debut album is one of the most beautiful and enchanting releases in recent memory. A truly infectious album, jj nº 2 is arguably the biggest crowd-pleaser of 2009.

5. Fever Ray, Fever Ray

Fever Ray is the solo project of Karin Dreijer-Andersson, who is the other half of The Knife, which she co-leads with her brother, Olof Dreijer. Fever Ray’s self-titled debut release this year is a dark, moody, atmospheric album which, in my opinion, even surpasses The Knife’s superb 2006 album, Silent Shout. As great as the songs themselves are, Fever Ray is best enjoyed through the magnificent music videos.

6. The xx, xx

Yet another remarkable debut album! The xx are a three-piece British band who produce super-chill dream pop. They don’t bowl you over with bombast; instead they envelop you in a subtle atmosphere of lush vocals and rich harmonies. While still a very young group, their self-titled debut reveals great promise. This is a group to follow closely in the future.

7. Flaming Lips, Embryonic

In a year of debuts, it is especially welcome to see an old favorite return to classic form. And that is precisely what the Flaming Lips accomplished with their two-disc Embryonic. The psychedelic space rock of the Lips is well-known, and albums like The Soft Bulletin (1999) and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) are widely (and rightly) considered some of the best albums of the last few decades. However, the group took an awful detour with 2006’s At War with the Mystics. It is thus truly welcome to see them produce their best music in a decade with Embryonic. The real stand-out track is the now-famous epic closer, “Watching the Planets.”

8. Girls, Album

The story of Christopher Owens—specifically his being raised in the Children of God cult, known today as The Family International—is now legend and will not be repeated here. What will be repeated is the extensive praise for the debut album of his band, Girls, based in San Francisco. The album, entitled Album, is clearly the product of a man with serious emotional baggage, and in this debut Owens pours his heart out. The result is a refreshingly honest and naked artistic achievement. But it’s also musically compelling in every way. While I have doubts about the possibility of any follow-up living up to the quality of this debut—what a debut!

9. Röyksopp, Junior

Röyksopp has been making some of the best dance music anywhere, and 2009’s Junior might be their definitive statement—a grand album that overwhelms the listener with the its sonic depth and sheer exuberance. While “The Girl and the Robot” is the superb sing-it-in-the-shower single, another stand-out track is “This Must Be It,” featuring Karin Dreijer-Andersson of Fever Ray and The Knife (see above). In truth, the whole album is dance-pop perfection.

10. Bat for Lashes, Two Suns

Bat for Lashes is the stage name of British synch-rock artist, Natasha Khan, who first appeared on the scene with Fur and Gold in 2006. Her latest is a concept album focusing on Khan’s alter ego, Pearl. The sound of the album bears some similarities to Fever Ray, though not as creepy and with a broader musical palette.

11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz!

12. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca

13. Wild Beasts, Two Dancers

14. Blue Roses, Blue Roses

15. Florence and the Machine, Lungs

16. Neko Case, Middle Cyclone

17. Memory Tapes, Seek Magic

18. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

19. Antony and the Johnsons, The Crying Light

20. David Bazan, Curse Your Branches

21. The Big Pink, A Brief History of Love

22. Megafaun, Gather, Form and Fly

23. A Camp, Colonia

24. St. Vincent, Actor

25. Drummer, Feel Good Together

Honorable Mentions (not necessarily the next on the list, but albums that I enjoyed and feel deserve some recognition):

• The Rural Alberta Advantage, Hometowns
• Volcano Choir, Unmap
• Patrick Wolf, The Bachelor
• Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career
• Viva Voce, Rose City (go Portland!)
  
• Discovery, LP
• The Lonely Island, Incredibad
• Lily Allen, It’s Not Me, It’s You
• Dan Zimmerman, Cosmic Patriot (I know Dan personally. He's a wonderful guy. Buy his album.)
• The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love

Considering Oral Roberts

Ted Olsen has an article in today’s Christianity Today which seeks to correct the obituaries regarding Oral Roberts and his connection with the so-called “Prosperity Gospel.” He cites Mark Silk and The New York Times as bad examples, and then writes the following:

But Silk and the Times may be confusing Roberts and another Tulsa resident, Kenneth Hagin, who is far more widely recognized as the man who joined Pentecostalism with the Faith Movement (also called "Word-Faith," or derogatively, the Prosperity Gospel or "Health and Wealth" gospel). Many scholars would credit Baptist E. W. Kenyon as the father of the teaching, and many other names would be more closely associated with it than Roberts (Kenneth Copeland, for example). The Dictionary of Christianity in America explicitly states that Roberts is "not fully identified with the movement [but] has close doctrinal and personal ties with many faith teachers." And in fact one of the first major critics of the Word-Faith movement was an Oral Roberts University theology professor, Charles Farah. (ORU's Howard Ervin was another vocal critic.)

Olsen is certainly right to complicate the overly simplistic connection between Roberts and the Word-Faith movement that prevails in mainstream media. And yet, a closer look at Olsen’s article complicates his thesis. Olsen himself goes on to complicate matters, and by the end, one is left wondering how exactly we should view Roberts vis-à-vis the Prosperity Gospel. This post is an attempt to clarify these matters. I should mention up front that I am not associated with Pentecostalism in any way, nor do I have any real knowledge of Roberts and his writings. I am simply offering some reflections on Olsen’s article.

To begin, we must note that Olsen only cites two obituaries. That hardly warrants the bold title: “Why the Oral Roberts Obituaries Are Wrong.” Maybe there are other obits which make this connection in an overly simplistic way; I don’t know. But based on the headline alone one gets the impression that everyone has misunderstood Roberts, and Olsen is here to set the world straight.

Second, Olsen’s article goes on to show that Roberts had a complicated relationship with the Word-Faith camp. While there is no direct causal relationship, there is certainly affinity. Citing David Edwin Harrell, Olsen writes that “Oral's beliefs ‘were not far from those of the moderate faith teachers,’ but argues that his identification with them was more in ‘a return to his cultural roots’ and had little to do with theology.” In pursuing mainstream respectability and legitimation, he later moved away from his Pentecostal roots and affiliated himself with the United Methodist Church. Later in life, however, he returned to Pentecostalism—and in full force. In the 1980s and beyond, Roberts was often indistinguishable from the Word-Faith televangelists, as his infamous “emotional blackmailing” in 1987 attests. (Olsen says that tying Roberts to the televangelism scandals is “somewhat inaccurate,” but isn’t this just another way of saying that Roberts is indirectly rather than directly connected to them?) This is where Olsen’s narrative begins to unravel. Essentially, he wants to make the last 30 years of Roberts’s life irrelevant for evaluating his legacy. Maybe there’s some basis for that, but any life-narrative which all-too-conveniently excludes the last third of a person’s existence is deeply suspect.

Third, and most importantly, Olsen fails to interrogate the theological relationship between Roberts and the Prosperity Gospel. While Harrell differentiates between their theologies, we need to look more carefully at this. I’ll admit again that I have not read Roberts’s theology, so I’ll stick to what I do know: that Roberts advocated the position that faith can and often does bring miraculous healing of the body, and that we should expect such healings within the church. While it may be true that Roberts did not personally preach that faith can also lead to monetary “healing,” are we supposed to buy in to the claim that the two are unrelated? Even if one does not necessarily lead to the other, can there be any doubt that the faith-healing position of Roberts opened the door to the Prosperity Gospel and made such a position viable within modern Pentecostalism?

A further historical point is worth making: both Roberts and the Word-Faith movement are modern derivations of the “new measures” movement inaugurated by Charles Finney in the Second Great Awakening. For the best account of this, see Ted Smith’s remarkable book, The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice. Smith shows how Finney’s preaching was rooted in issues of respectability, novelty, individual autonomy, and cults of personality—all elements on full display in the life of Oral Roberts and the entire Word-Faith movement.

The deepest bond between them, however, is not historical or causal but rather theological. Both believe that the rewards of faith are to be experienced here and now within this present life. That is, both believe in a radically realized (or perhaps realizing) eschatology, and both believe that eschatological beatitude consists in temporal blessings and bodily perfection. To put it differently, both advocate a “theology of glory,” rather than a “theology of the cross.” Both seem to find their inspiration more in King Solomon than in Jesus of Nazareth.

At the end of the day, Olsen’s attempt to distance Roberts from the Prosperity Gospel feels forced. By contrast, the statement by the New York Times that Roberts was the “patriarch” of the Prosperity Gospel seems about right. He may not have directly brought the Word-Faith movement into existence, but he clearly laid the historical and theological foundation for its prosperity (no pun intended) within American Pentecostalism. And isn’t that what being a patriarch is all about?

“Jesus and Faith”: a new article

I have a new article in the latest issue of the Journal of Reformed Theology. The essay is titled, “Jesus and Faith: The Doctrine of Faith in Scripture and the Reformed Confessions.” I begin by looking at the Catholic-Protestant conflict over the nature of faith. I then summarize the New Testament witness to faith, examine whether the Reformed confessions do justice to this witness, and conclude by suggesting some theological possibilities for a contemporary pisteology within the context of a confessional Reformed theology.

There isn’t anything really special about it, but it raises some soteriological—including christological and pisteological—issues that must be addressed in contemporary Reformed theology. Overall, the paper falls in that category of essays that offer a close analysis followed by suggestive reflections. Hopefully, others will find its treatment of this topic helpful and informative.

Here is my concluding paragraph:

To conclude, the Reformed confessions present a doctrine of faith as a divine gift that includes a necessary human response. The doctrine is historically situated in the context of a dispute with Roman Catholicism about the very nature of faith. Against the Catholics, the Reformers emphasize the nature of faith as a heartfelt trust in Christ and the gospel of justification. Their employment of Scripture toward this particular end results in a heavy emphasis upon the Pauline epistles to the neglect of the Synoptics, Hebrews, and James, in addition to other texts. In particular, the confessions fail to provide a satisfactory understanding of the relation between the person of Jesus and the nature of faith; christology and pisteology are not mutually implicated in that while faith is directed to Jesus, Jesus is not similarly “directed” toward faith, so to speak. The problem is represented by the relationship between Son and Spirit, which seems to involve a bifurcation between objective and subjective, past and present. Recent exegetical work, as well as the theological resources of Calvin, Barth, and Agamben, to name just a few, offer fruitful and creative ways of integrating Jesus and faith today.

The Case for a Christocentric-Missional Universalism

This will be old news for many, but I figure it is worth pointing out for those who might be interested. I wrote an essay for Testamentum Imperium on election and universalism, and in it I offer my most mature argument for universalism. The first half is a critique of double predestination, which I view as the only other viable alternative to universalism, and the second half is an exegetically-based argument that focuses primarily on Romans 5 and the Pauline distinction between reconciliation and salvation.

The key difference between this essay and my blog series on universalism is the emphasis on mission. To get a sense of my argument, here is a passage from my conclusion:

The form of Christian universalism offered here is certainly not pluralistic (“all religions lead to God”). It is rather strictly christocentric in nature: Jesus Christ alone is “the way, the truth, and the life.” No one may come to God except through him. The difference from traditional evangelicalism is that everyone will come to God through him, because everyone has come to God in him. At the same time, I am proposing a universalism that does not diminish the importance of the church’s mission of proclamation in the least. In fact, it seeks to make such activity truly meaningful within the Reformational emphasis on sola gratia. Here there is no compulsion to “get as many saved as possible,” as if we have the responsibility to “get people into heaven.” There is no need to scare people into salvation. Instead, when our reconciliation to God is our starting-point, we are able to go forth in joy and gratitude for what God has done for us already. We are able to preach truly “good news.” We are able to say with a straight-face, “God loves you precisely as you are”—not “God loves you” insofar as you repent of your sins or say this prayer or join this church. There is no soteriological instrumentalization, either of Jesus or of the church’s mission. Instead, we are able to proclaim the glorious news that sin and evil will not and cannot have the last word, because the powers and principalities have already been conquered by Jesus Christ. Death has been defeated, evil destroyed, and hell emptied. There is nothing left to do but acknowledge this fact with grateful hearts, giving thanks to God by going forth with this word on our lips as we proclaim what God has done.

[Download the .pdf here.]

Christopher Morse on God’s eternal rejection of hell

“By identifying the coming judgment as the coming of Jesus Christ, Christian confession entails the refusal to believe that what is ultimately defeated and rejected is ever other than the opposition, in whatever personal and corporate form of denial, betrayal, and crucifixion it takes, to being loved into freedom. . . . The eternally ‘rejected,’ the ‘unsaved,’ and the ‘lost’ is all that is within us and within the world which denies, betrays, and crucifies the love that comes to set us free. . . . Christian faith refuses to believe that the grace of being loved into freedom ultimately stops coming or ceases to be. . . . When such grace is confessed to have ‘descended into hell,’ then hell is acknowledged to have no dominion that can prevail. There is in the proclamation of the gospel no basileia of hell that is at hand, but only a basileia of heaven. Hell has no eternal dominion. If what God eternally rejects throughout all creation, with the fire of a love that remains unquenchable, is every opposition to our being loved into freedom, including our own, then the hellfire and damnation of Judgment Day is precisely the one true hope of all the earth. The old question of whether or not grace is ‘irresistible’ only becomes a problem when theology forgets Who it is whose judgment is confessed to be coming. What else is the Crucifixion if not the resistance to grace? What finally does a Resurrection faith refuse to believe, if not that the resistance to grace is ever its cessation?”

—Christopher Morse, Not Every Spirit: A Dogmatics of Christian Disbelief (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press, 1994; 2nd ed., 2008), 340-41.

Hegel against Glenn Beck

“Since the man of common sense makes his appeal to feeling, to an oracle within his breast, he is finished and done with anyone who does not agree; he only has to explain that he has nothing more to say to anyone who does not find and feel the same in himself. In other words, he tramples underfoot the roots of humanity. For it is the nature of humanity to press onward to agreement with others; human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds. The anti-human, the merely animal, consists in staying within the sphere of feeling, and being able to communicate only at that level.”

—Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977), 43.

Barth Blog Conference: The No-God and God’s No

Over at Der Evangelische Theologe, my own contribution is now available to read. My essay is entitled, “The No-God and God’s No: Barth’s Exegesis of Romans 1 in Romans II.” There is also a response by Halden Doerge.

Theosis and Mission: A Dialogue with Michael Gorman

I am presently working on a book review of Prof. Michael Gorman’s new book, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, which is an excellent analysis of Paul’s theology. While I have questions regarding his argument for theosis in Paul’s epistles, I recently pressed him on what I see to be a lack of mission in his interpretation. Michael has now posted our conversation for others to see and comment on. These are still inchoate thoughts that, if I have more time later, I might flesh out into a full post. For now, though, I welcome your feedback.

2009 Karl Barth Blog Conference

The 2009 Karl Barth Blog Conference will begin this Sunday, Aug. 16 on Der Evangelische Theologe. The topic is Barth’s interpretation of Romans 1. Be sure to check back for updates.

Where have I been?: a brief update

Things have been rather quiet around Fire & Rose as of late. There are many reasons for this, but here are the most important:

1. I’ve been taking care of this guy.


2. I have been studying French for a reading exam that I have to take in September.

3. I have been working on many book reviews—six or seven, I think. Despite my best efforts, I have resigned myself to the fact that I won’t get them all done before classes start in the fall. Some of the books I am reviewing include Paul D. Jones’s The Humanity of Christ, Michael Gorman’s Inhabiting the Cruciform God, and Daniel Treier’s Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture.

4. I am also working on a semi-top-secret project of my own, which has now reached 130,000 words. The book-length essay examines the God-world relationship in all its facets.

5. I hope to switch, yes, to a new site, with my own URL. This will happen at an undetermined time, so don’t worry about changing links quite yet.

6. Did I mention I am watching my son, Aidyn, full time while my wife works? Everything changes in that scenario, and blogging was just the first thing to go. Sorry.

Album Review: So Elated, So Elated

So Elated, So Elated
Joyful Rice; 2009

The era of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) as we once knew it is over. If the world of Christian music in the 1990s was marked by a not-so-subtle attempt to “outdo” the “secular” world (e.g., Newsboys, OC Supertones, DC Talk), the new millennium has brought a radically different attitude. The new generation is tired of kitsch and ostentation, sentimentality and super-piety, the Religious Right and social subcultures. And musical tastes have changed as well. Instead of punk and ska and post-Nirvana alternative rock, American youth today enjoy the subdued folk-rock of Iron & Wine and Fleet Foxes and the brainy indie rock of Arcade Fire and the Decemberists.

Moreover, young Christian artists are no longer interested in maintaining the artificial distinction between so-called “Christian music” and “secular music.” These evangelical labels have (thankfully) been given a quiet burial, and in their place young Christians today are interested simply in making and hearing good music. Certainly there have always been groups of Christian artists with this attitude: Pedro the Lion, Starflyer 59, and Joy Electric quickly come to mind. But what distinguishes the current musical climate is the fact that this former minority-niche view has gone “mainstream.” As a result, the doors have opened wide for young independent artists to explore their ideas and musical sensibilities without the straitjacket of what Walter Kirn once called the “evangelical alternaculture,” in which “everything gets cloned in mainstream culture and then leached of ‘sinful’ content.”

Into this new situation, artists from the ’90s, such as David Bazan (Pedro the Lion, Headphones) and Derek Webb (Caedmon’s Call), have adapted their music to fit the times. And while it is interesting to see how established artists have changed over the years, we are seeing the proliferation of young Christian artists whose musical sensibilities have clearly been shaped by the fall of CCM and the rise of a new generation. These artists are taking advantage of the digital era, making the most of a worldwide web that enables the quick spread of music around the globe. One such group is So Elated, the latest effort by Chicago-based singer-songwriter, Ben Thomas, who is joined here by fellow band members Luke Harris (upright bass, mandolin), John Dudich (guitar, vocals) and Matt Brennan (percussion).

Released back in January, the debut self-titled release by So Elated is a perfect example of this new era in so-called “Christian music.” For starters, they do not call themselves a “Christian band,” nor is their music “Christian music.” The adjective “Christian” is dropped altogether—and for good reason. In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle famously quipped, “Christian art? Art is art; painting is painting; music is music; a story is a story. If it’s bad art, it’s bad religion, no matter how pious the subject.” And later, after writing the term “Christian art,” she adds, “by which I mean all true art.” This is the perspective of So Elated. Instead of using artificial labels to distinguish themselves, So Elated lets the music speak for itself.

On first listen, it is immediately apparent that Ben Thomas and company were influenced heavily by Bazan and Webb—both of whom are cited as influences on their website and in press releases. (That’s not to suggest that these are the only two influences, since there are clearly many others, but these two have a special significance.) The opening track, “The Ache of Going Without” (which you can hear on their website) is the most obviously influenced by Bazan’s oeuvre. The steady, simple guitar chords and an uncannily Bazan-like vocal delivery indicate very clearly where Ben Thomas was finding his musical inspiration. In a way, for those with ears to hear, the song serves to indicate the kind of album the listener should expect: if you identify with the music found on records like Achilles Heel and Mockingbird, then keep listening—you’ll feel right at home.

If the opening track hearkens back to Pedro the Lion, a number of the other tracks are more clearly influenced by Derek Webb. Two, in particular, are worth focusing on in depth: “Redemption” and “Open My Heart With Knives.” Where Bazan tries to avoid speaking directly and didactically about issues of faith and religion—opting instead for the posture of the rebel on songs like “Foregone Conclusions”—Webb tackles these topics head-on. And most of the songs on So Elated follow in Webb’s footsteps, both musically and lyrically. To further the comparison just a bit, Webb tends to write two kinds of songs: those that say something positive about the version of faith which he envisions and seeks to practice (e.g., “My Enemies Are Men Like Me”), and those that sarcastically criticize the version of faith he has left behind or wants others to leave behind (e.g., “A Savior On Capitol Hill” and “A King & A Kingdom”). So Elated have both kinds of songs: “Redemption” represents the affirmative aspect, and “Open My Heart With Knives” the critical. What makes So Elated such a promising band is that they do both kinds of songs with more subtlety and simplicity. Webb is often far too didactic, and So Elated seem to have struck a more healthy and musically satisfying balance between him and Bazan.

In “Redemption,” So Elated present a message of Christian universalism—a topic that has received a fair amount of attention on this blog. The opening verse speaks about how every aspect of creaturely life has been changed by Christ: “the blood I bleed was transfused by you” and “everything I need was redeemed by you.” The second verse is more reminiscent of Webb’s penchant for controversial lyrics. In it, Thomas sings:

Every war-torn state, every child born with AIDS
Every broke-down mixed-up place is being fixed by you
Every political view
Every Christian, Muslim, Jew
Is being recreated new and fixed by Jesus

Finally, in the chorus, we hear that this redemption “blankets every fear we know” and, most importantly, “carries everybody home.”

The homiletic nature of these lyrics is hard to miss. Thomas & co. are preaching a sermon in song, and this can be both enriching and off-putting, much like Webb. In fact, the only difference between songs like “Redemption” and some of the old CCM tracks is the message being preached. Where a Steven Curtis Chapman or a Twila Paris would sing about the return of Jesus and the need to repent, here we have a song about Christ’s redemption bringing everybody home to be with God. Formally, the didacticism remains, but materially the message is quite different. That’s no small change, of course, and as a Christian theologian, I am quite happy to say a clear “Yes” and “Amen” to the sermon that So Elated is preaching. But I do wonder sometimes whether a little more Bazan and a little less Webb might do So Elated some good.

One other critique is worth mentioning. Songs like “Redemption” have their place, and I certainly want to encourage the theological content. But at the same time I am concerned about the all-too-easy treatment of death and brokenness in songs (and stories and films) of this nature. In this song, for example, war and AIDS are treated in a single line, with the conclusion that these are being “fixed by Jesus.” Yes, I agree—but this feels too flippant, too comfortable. I am reminded of a recent article in Atlantic Monthly about Flannery O’Connor. The author summarizes the key to O’Connor’s works in the following way: “(1) from the Christian viewpoint, the modern human condition is filled with a peculiar horror; (2) therefore, to fictionally depict humans in their peculiarly horrifying aspect is necessary in order to explore the mysteries of redemption and grace.” Redemption and grace are essential elements of human existence, but we have to pass through the way of the cross. While this is partly a criticism of So Elated, it is more of a suggestion that, in the future, they might want to explore the darker, more horrifying aspects of human life, without rushing towards the end of the story. Let the horror sit with us as listeners. And simply pointing out the many horrors of hypocritical American Christians is not sufficient (see below). We need to grapple with the human condition more broadly.

The other song most obviously influenced by Webb is “Open My Heart With Knives.” Here the artistic paradigm is the disenchanted post-evangelicalism prominent in a number of Webb’s more critical songs. Again, So Elated improve upon the model, while also showing off their ability to match penetrating lyrics with catchy melodies. “Open My Heart” is a reductio ad absurdum in the form of prayers to God. Like any good rhetorician, the song begins with an innocuous and quite common prayer: “God of truth open my eyes.” This could be the start of some typical, cliché worship song. But already by the end of the first verse, we hear a moment of honesty: “Open my heart with knives / But please don’t make it hurt.”

Those of us who grew up in the church know exactly what is being addressed here—viz. the hyper-piety of the typical American evangelical who prays for God to do some drastic act which will make us truly love and follow God. And so we hear prayers for God to “humble me” and “break my pride” and “destroy my false desires,” etc. The prayer is always for some extreme divine intervention into our religious complacency that will finally—once and for all—make us into the ideal Christians. “Open my heart with knives” captures this tendency toward pious exaggeration perfectly. The final line, “But please don’t make it hurt,” indicates that all is not right with this picture. Our hyper-piety is a mask hiding our secret desire for everything to remain exactly the way it is. We want others to see our love for God without the inconvenience of actually having this love ourselves. In short, the opening verse exposes us as hypocrites. We are Pharisees.

But that is only the beginning of this reductio ad absurdum. The next verse starts off with: “God of good give me some love.” The prayer goes on to ask God for “green grass upon my lawn” and no rain during the baseball game. The attack has gone beyond moral hypocrisy and now extends to the use of prayer as magic for selfish gain. All too often, prayer becomes a kind of divine manipulation, in which God is supposed to act like a cosmic genie who grants our personal wishes. Then comes the third verse:

God of business pedigrees
Take my hands and make them free
But make sure they both get paid
Two or three times above the working wage

No one’s laughing anymore. The joke’s over, and now it’s just painful—painfully true. And if this weren’t enough, the climax of the song’s argument—and the turn of the knife in the backs of religious people everywhere—comes in verses five and six:

God of love give me some peace
Please destroy my enemies
Help the rest of the world to learn to live like me
And tear down the temples that worship differently

Hold my hand and make me yours
Grant me sex, power, money, and a brand new car
I know I shouldn’t worship all my stuff
So I ask that you please do it in the name of love

With this song, “Open My Heart With Knives,” So Elated officially assume the mantle of Bazan and Webb at their self-critical, post-evangelical, anti-religious best. The same spirit heard in the Bazan who famously sings, “You were too busy steering the conversation toward the Lord to hear the voice of the Spirit, begging you to shut the fuck up”—and in the Webb who sings sarcastically, “Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class Republican, and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him”—is heard again, alive and well, here in So Elated. For that, we have much for which to be grateful.

On the whole, however, the album is a mixed-bag. There are a number of very strong tracks, including “Why I Need You,” “Open My Heart With Knives,” “Strangers,” and “Lucky Ones.” These are hopefully a promising sign of what is still yet to come. However, the influence of Bazan and (most of all) Webb is often so strong that we fail at times to get a sense of what makes So Elated original and fresh. We don’t always get a coherent and compelling impression of So Elated as musical artists.

Most disappointing of all, the album turns the clocks of so-called “Christian music” backwards by ending with “Exit Door,” a song about “going home” to be with Jesus in heaven. The song is full of the typical CCM clichés. In the chorus, Ben sings:

You’re my reason, my completion,
You’re my exit door, you’re my ticket home
You’re my family and my mystery
You’re my walking dead and my desire to be
And I’m ready for you to take me home

In the press release, the song is described as a “classic apocalyptic, death-ward gazing, tombstone printable epilogue.” Having sung about the redemption of all things, I would have expected So Elated to be more “life-ward gazing.” A theology of redemption should lead us back into the world, not away from it. On this point, we always need the reminder of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “The difference between the Christian hope of resurrection and the mythological hope is that the former sends a man back to his life on earth in a wholly new way.” Christianity is a “this-worldly” faith, not an “other-worldly” religion. So while for the most part, the album is on par with or better than your average Derek Webb release, this final song reverts back to the type of theology that Webb and Bazan, among others, have sought to counteract. Ending an album with this kind of song feels very paint-by-number. It reverts back to a formula that most Christian artists have left behind (no pun intended).

These criticisms notwithstanding, So Elated are still a very young band with a lot of room for growth. Their debut already shows a great amount of musical and lyrical, including theological, maturity. This is one group to keep your eyes on in the coming years.

[My sincere thanks to So Elated for the review copy of the album. You can purchase So Elated here. Click here for the So Elated online store, which includes the previous albums by Ben Thomas. You can follow So Elated on Twitter @soelated.]

Ten Theses on Prayer

1. Prayer is an act of faithful obedience to God. We pray as part of our discipleship to Jesus Christ. We are not compelled to pray; there is no law that demands prayer. Instead, prayer is an act of love which follows from our acknowledgment of the fact that God first loved us.

2. Prayer must conform to the two primary models of prayer in the New Testament: the Lord’s Prayer and Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. The so-called “Lord’s Prayer” (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) is a template for all prayer in that it encapsulates the basic elements of prayer: the glorification of God’s name, the submission of our lives to God’s Kingdom, the humble request for our basic provisions, the penitential asking of forgiveness, and the petition for protection and deliverance from sin. The prayer in Gethsemane provides an even more fundamental picture of prayer in the total submission of our wills to the will of God. Seen from this perspective, prayer is not “getting something from God,” but an acknowledgment that God alone can act on our behalf. Prayer is an act of faithful submission to the sovereignty of God’s love. We must interpret all other passages about prayer in Scripture in the light of these two paradigmatic prayers.

3. Prayer is not magic. We do not pray because we think our words compel God to act differently. Prayer is not divine manipulation. The strict opposition to witchcraft and sorcery in Judaism and Christianity should extend to include those forms of prayer in which we expect our words to control or influence God to perform miracles.

4. The efficacy or worth of prayer is not dependent upon the result of a prayer. A prayer is not efficacious because it achieved some empirical “result”—a quantifiable answer. For example, the prayer for the health of a sick person is not worthwhile only because that person became well again, nor should it be deemed worthless because the person did not become well. We must expunge all notions of “success” from our concept of prayer. Prayer does not conform to our modern capitalistic ideas of what is successful; rather, the faith out of which prayer flows defines what is truly successful.

5. Prayer is a primarily an act of listening to God, rather than speaking to God. While prayer takes the form of speaking to God, it is properly a mode of receptivity toward God. Of course, we must take not the idea of “listening” literally. Prayer is not a form of information-gathering. Instead, prayer is a form of listening in that we attend to the Word of God as proclaimed in Scripture and preaching.

6. Prayer is a political act in that prayer acknowledges a Lord who stands over against Caesar. Prayer challenges all earthly claims to lordship—whether social, economic, political, or religious. In prayer we seek the face of the triune God and submit to this Lord alone. Prayer is implicitly the denial of lordship to any creature. Positively, prayer acknowledges the sole lordship of the triune YHWH—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

7. Prayer is the proper mode of all Christian worship. Prayer is definitive for what counts as true worship, since in prayer we are concerned with a concrete relationship between an I and a Thou, between the worshipping community and the worshipped God. Worship should not be about God. Instead, worship is a living relationship in which we commune with God. Prayer is therefore the concrete form that all worship should take.

8. Prayer is the living bond between the covenantal community and the God of the covenant. Prayer is not primarily an individual act, but rather a communal act between the people and God. The God who brings the covenantal community into being through the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ calls forth our faithful, loving response as a community through prayer and supplication.

9. Prayer is a groaning in the Spirit with all creation. According to Romans 8:18-27, all creation “waits with eager longing” for God’s apocalyptic in-breaking, which will free the creation from its bondage. Creation groans as in labor for the coming of God. As part of this creation, we “groan inwardly” in the power of the Spirit, “for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

10. Prayer is the cry of faith, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit of Jesus Christ bears witness that we are indeed children of God by bringing forth the primal cry of faith: “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6-7). All true prayer begins and ends with this cry. It is the mark of our identity as God’s covenantal people. It is the cry that defines us as God’s children, “and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17).

I’m on Twitter!

After avoiding it for a long time, I’ve finally joined Twitter, the insanely popular micro-blogging site. You can follow my “tweets” at dwcongdon.

Observations on working at a major book retailer

Some of you know that I work part-time as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble. I enjoy bookstores. I like to browse the shelves, see what’s new, smell the freshly printed pages, feel the different kinds of paper. Working at the store helps me maintain contact with the world of fiction, which I have missed ever since leaving behind my English major as an undergraduate to pursue graduate studies in theology.

And the discount doesn’t hurt, either.

As part of my job as the opening bookseller on Saturday mornings, I have to scan the new fiction and romance titles into the computer. I use this fancy laser device that reads the barcodes and creates lists which are then accessible to booksellers throughout the week, so that they know what titles are on the "new fiction" and "new romance" shelves.

Suffice it to say, I come across some hilarious titles. Primarily in the romance section, of course. Back during the Christmas shopping season, I took a couple minutes out of my day to record the best titles currently on display. (I could put together a whole new list for the titles up now, but this will do nicely.)

• The Mane Attraction
• A Knight Well Spent
• Tall, Dark, and Texan
• Lord of the Forest
• Single White Vampire
• All I Want For Christmas Is a Vampire
• Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa

It’s hard to maintain your composure when handling books with titles like this.

Despite the amount of junk published every week, in an age of iPhones and Kindles, I am glad to be in a place where tangible books are made available for people to peruse and purchase. As much as I love technology, nothing beats the feel and smell of a new book (whether actually new or a used book newly acquired).

Perhaps at a future date I will post some thoughts about the moral-ethical side of working at a bookstore. I don’t mean the whole capitalist-industrial complex bit. Rather, I mean the things you learn as a worker having to handle customers who are often difficult and abrasive. It can be a real lesson in patience. But that’s for another day.

Pietism Conference at Bethel University

Currently, Bethel University is hosting a conference on pietism with the theme: “The Pietist Impulse in Christianity.” The conference began yesterday and ends tomorrow. The plenary lectures are:

Donald Dayton
“Why Study Pietism?: The Significance of the Pietist Impulse in Christianity”

Emilie Griffin
"We of the Broken Body: Toward a Piety of Hope and Reconciliation”

Shirley Mullen
“The ‘Strangely Warmed’ Mind: John Wesley, Piety, and Higher Education”

Roger Olson
“Pietism: Myths and Realities”

Jonathan Strom
“The Challenge of Pietism for the Ministry and the Laity”

Tonight at 7:30, Roger Olson will give his plenary lecture. For the full schedule of events, click here.

... and all the people rejoiced!

From an email sent out today:

“The Board of Trustees of Wheaton College has announced that President Duane Litfin will retire from his position in mid-2010. As Wheaton's seventh president since its founding in 1860, Dr. Litfin has served the College for almost 17 years. ...

The Board of Trustees has appointed a Presidential Selection Committee to conduct the search and selection process for Wheaton's eighth president. They invite nominations, expressions of interest, and applications for the position of President.

Please visit www.wheaton.edu/presidentialselection for more information including selection procedure, presidential profile, committee members, prayer guide, and frequently asked questions.”

In all fairness to Pres. Litfin, he did a half-way decent job. He is certainly a brilliant fundraiser. It’s just too bad that his fundamentalist and dispensational theological views led to some really poor decision-making on his part and a culture at Wheaton that was largely inhospitable to progressive political and theological work. Let’s pray that the trustees can find a suitable replacement that will bring Wheaton College back into the vanguard of evangelical scholarship.

Evolution and Original Sin

Evolution and Original Sin

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Essays Academic Work Theology Evolution

Interview with Alex Rivera, director of Sleep Dealer

Welcome home, Aidyn Eliot!

My wife gave birth to our first child, Aidyn Eliot Congdon, on February 2, 2009, at 2:31 am EST. He weighed 5 lbs. 15 oz. He came out with eyes wide open and a head full of dark hair. A beautiful, glorious day! (And Groundhog Day, too, though hopefully that doesn’t mean she has to repeat the labor over and over again!)