Music Meme

The music meme spreads. The meme is a bit different than your typical question-and-answer meme. In this meme, you pick your favorite album for every year in which you have been alive. It’s a creative idea, though terribly frustrating for those who have so many favorite albums! I was tagged by R. O. Flyer, after he was tagged by D. W. Horskoetter. (I was scandalized when Horskoetter said that the 1980s was a terrible decade. How could the decade of, inter alia, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, The Smiths, R.E.M., Paul Simon, Tom Waits, Beastie Boys, and U2 possibly be a terrible decade?!) In any case, here is my contribution. Since I’d rather avoid the trouble of trying to pick specific names of people to tag, if you are reading this and love to talk about music, consider yourself tagged.

1983: U2, War

1984: Echo & the Bunnymen, Ocean Rain

1985: Tom Waits, Rain Dogs

1986: Paul Simon, Graceland

1987: U2, The Joshua Tree

1988: N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton

1989: Pixies, Doolittle

1990: Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet

1991: Nirvana, Nevermind

1992: Pavement, Slanted & Enchanted

1993: Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream

1994: Weezer, Weezer

1995: Radiohead, The Bends

1996: Beck, Odelay

1997: Radiohead, OK Computer

1998: Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

1999: Flaming Lips, The Soft Bulletin

2000: Modest Mouse, Moon and Antarctica

2001: Sigur Rós, Ágætis Byrjun (released in Iceland in 1999, in the UK in 2000)

2002: Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

2003: Sufjan Stevens, Greetings from Michigan

2004: Arcade Fire, Funeral

2005: Sufjan Stevens, Come on! Feel the Illinoise

2006: Girl Talk, Night Ripper

2007: The National, Boxer

2008 (so far): Currently a toss-up between Cut Copy (In Ghost Colours), Spiritualized (Songs in A&E), Girl Talk (Feed the Animals), and Fleet Foxes (Fleet Foxes), in that order.


There were some really close second place finishers, some of which probably deserve to be outright ties:

• R.E.M., Murmur (1983)
• Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation (1987)
  
• Pixies, Surfer Rosa (1988)
• Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville (1993)
  
• Magnolia: Music from the Motion Picture (1999)
• Interpol, Turn On the Bright Lights (2002)
  
• The Postal Service, Give Up (2003)
• Sufjan Stevens, Seven Swans (2004)
• TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain (2006) and Love Is All, Nine Times the Same Song; these albums were #1 and #2 on my original list
  

One Movie Meme

I am finally offering my contribution to the one movie meme that Ben Myers started, which has now spread throughout the blogosphere. But since I am so late to the game, I have decided to extend the meme from 14 to 25 entries! Enjoy!

1. One movie that made you laugh
Office Space

2. One movie that made you cry
Away From Her

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Princess Bride

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Star Wars IV: A New Hope

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
Starship Troopers

6. One movie you hated
Transformers

7. One movie that scared you
The Orphanage

8. One movie that bored you
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams

9. One movie that made you happy
The Lives of Others

10. One movie that made you miserable
Requiem for a Dream

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
Hard Candy

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
“Girl” in Once

13. The last movie you saw
Darfur Now

14. The next movie you hope to see
Wall-E


BONUS MEME EXTENSION:

15. One movie that made you think
Memento

16. One movie that surprised you
The Assassination of Jesse James

17. One movie you went to see with a significant other
Finding Neverland

18. One movie that you saw at least twice in theaters
The Matrix

19. One movie that disappointed you
Short Cuts

20. One movie that confused you
Mulholland Drive

21. One movie that thrilled you
The Bourne Ultimatum

22. One movie that you couldn’t finish in one sitting
Fanny and Alexander (312 minute version)

23. One movie you could watch over and over
Magnolia

24. One movie everyone needs to see
A tie between The Decalogue and Metropolis

25. One movie that President Bush needs to see
No End in Sight

Recommended Reading Meme

I was tagged by Aaron to produce a list of books that I continually find myself recommending to people. They may not all be my favorite books, but they are ones I find helpful in explaining important theological issues and concepts. Or they may just be classic works that people need to read. In any case, here are a few of the theological works to which I keep referring people:

• Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding (2nd ed., 2004). This is the best guide to theology for beginners currently in print (until Ben Myer’s publishes his wonderful series, that is!). I’ve recommended this book countless times.
• Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (ET 1959). An excellent introduction to Barth’s theology as well as an excellent commentary on the Apostles’ Creed.
• William Cavanaugh, Theopolitical Imagination (2003). Cavanaugh’s shortest and simplest work is also, in many ways, his most profound.
• T. F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (New ed., 1992). Torrance’s short work on Christ’s mediation between God and humanity is a work that beautifully captures some of Barth’s best insights and conveys them to English-speaking audiences in unparalleled ways.
• G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908; 2002). This work had a profound influence on me when I first read it, and even though it is not strictly a work of theology, Chesterton’s masterpiece is one of those rare gems that demands to be read.

I now tag Travis, Chris, and Halden with this meme.

Update: For some unknown reason, I left Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison off this list, which is probably the book I recommend most to people. I would probably have to place Bonhoeffer’s letters and papers from the end of his life above these other important works in terms of all around importance for me both personally and intellectually. I recommend it to everyone without exception.

Living Out Scripture Meme

The new “Living Out Scripture Meme”—or simply “Bible verse meme” as Chris Tilling calls it—is spreading. Andy Goodliff got the meme started with a quote from David Ford, but he didn’t offer his own verse. While I have not been tagged (as far as I know), I will break the rules and post my own contribution to the meme anyway. Jason Goroncy and Sean Winters both already picked my favorite passage from Scripture (2 Cor. 5:11-21), so I will pick a different passage instead.

My own choice for this meme will be Rom. 5:1-11. The whole chapter is wonderful, but this section in particular is very important to me. With Eberhard Jüngel, I view the justification of the ungodly as the center of the Christian gospel. Here is the passage:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Out of the Closet: Theological Confession Meme

Taking my cue from Ben Myers, here are my “theological confessions”:

I confess: A majority of the books that I own I have not read.

I confess: I really do think universalism is integral to the gospel. I don’t know if I could believe the Christian faith without it.

I confess: I was first captivated by theology when I read Eberhard Jüngel’s Theological Essays in the fall of 2004.

I confess: I feel more comfortable explaining Barth’s theology than I do explaining the gospel to an unbeliever.

I confess: I often think the best theology can be found in poetry and film.

I confess: I get an inordinate amount of pleasure out of using academic lingo.

I confess: I often lean more in favor of gay marriage and gay ordination than against—always swinging back and forth while never able to take a position.

I confess: I doubt the existence of God on an almost weekly basis, it seems. The prayer of the father in Mark 9 has existential significance for me: “I believe; help my unbelief!”

I confess: When Bruce McCormack came to Wheaton to speak on justification in 2003, I justified skipping one of the lectures by saying to my roommate, “I don’t see the significance of the doctrine of justification.”

I confess: I wrote my very first theological essay in 2001 on the doctrine of the Trinity and perichoresis in response to a lecture by Paul Louis Metzger. I had no idea what I was talking about.

I confess: I often would rather watch movies all day than read theology.

I confess: I think Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, Colin Gunton, and Jürgen Moltmann are the four most overrated theologians of the 20th century.

I confess: I think “postmodernity” is both a complete waste of time and an illusion.

I confess: I often wish I could be Eastern Orthodox, but if I had to pick a denomination today, I would be Anglican.

I confess: I have seriously considered dropping out of grad school and becoming a bartender.

See other memes here, here, here, and here.