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FeaturesChrist’s death, God’s wrath: the vital connection
Jul 30, 2009 Are you missing the point of Scripture passages? Jul 21, 2009 Modeling misjudgments: Clothing, contradictions and Miss California May 14, 2009 Exploring The Last Battle’s Emeth element May 11, 2009 MacArthur on sex and the sacredness of the Song Apr 14, 2009 Heaven and Earth, part 1 — Fixing our eyes away from the lies Apr 13, 2009 Fighting on broader battlefields of Biblical spiritual warfare Apr 11, 2009 Keeping the Cross in focus this Good Friday Apr 10, 2009 An open letter to Jennie Chancey from the Devil Mar 12, 2009 Capitalism, socialism and critics’ Rush to judgment Mar 10, 2009 |
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Entropy |
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by
Dr Ransom
at
03:40 PM ET
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Tuesday, Nov 21, 2006
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| Categories: Media: Music, Deep Doctrine Magic: Cross Firings | |||||
No eye had seen, No ear had heard, 'Til hosts on high Proclaimed the birth. And heav'n brough down (Quietly with no one watching) Its only child -- (From the womb of perfect peace) The son of man; (Wellspring of our joy delivered) The world reconciled! (Into earthly destiny) (And song broke forth -- Angelic strain. And none could help But sing the Name!) Kyrie eleison, we sing (Emmanuel) Glory to the newborn King! (Emmanuel) Mortal and immortal voices; (Emmanuel) Endless praises, echoing! (Emmanuel) “Christmas” (1989), Michael W. Smith, track 6: “No Eye Had Seen” (lyrics and lead vocals by Amy Grant) Santa,
We've been so good. We've washed the dishes, And done what we should. Made up the beds, Scrubbed up our toesies; We've used a Kleenex When we've blown our noseies. “Christmas to Remember” (1999), Amy Grant, track 7: “Mister Santa” |
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Contradictory Christian Music |
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by
Dr Ransom
at
08:25 AM ET
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Friday, Jul 07, 2006
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| Categories: Deep Doctrine Magic: Ransom Notes, Subculture Shop, Media: Music | |||
Working part-time at a Christian bookstore continues to yield interesting observations about the Christian subculture of books and movies. Last week, there was the CCM radio station playing in the receiving room, featuring a song with these lyrics (possibly incidentally paraphrased): You make me happy Um — what’s going on? Then there’s the video playing above the Music Section. One employee had gotten so tired of the four-minute advertising loop on there that she finally swapped it for a much-longer promo DVD featuring all manner of music. One older song, sung by someone named “Stacie Orrico,” is called “Don’t Look at Me.” Its title floats by underneath two fading photographs of Stacie Orrico. I suppose, at this point, we’re not supposed to look. By far the most intriguing example is a song by a female someone who is flailing about a parking lot someplace, with squinty-eyed head-shaking Dudes playing drums and such behind her. The young lady, in jeans and a modest t-shirt, is nevertheless throwing herself about on the ground, head-banging her clay-blond hair, yelling intermittently at the camera, jamming on a guitar, gesticulating with her hands as if experiencing road rage, and so on. The song is about not conforming to worldly things. EDIT: Partial, actual lyrics are as follows. It's all around An excellent notion, worth advocating! Yet the music video version's style certain seems to make it an artistic paradox ... |
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Missed it by that much |
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by
Dr Ransom
at
09:00 AM ET
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Wednesday, Jul 05, 2006
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| Categories: Deep Doctrine Magic: Subculture Shop, Media: Music, Local News | |||
Yesterday, as a bookstore clerk, I very nearly un-sold an item, which is frowned upon in most business societies. CUSTOMER (checking out with David Crowder* Band CD): Someone told me this was really good. Fortunately for the store, she wound up purchasing it anyway. Unfortunately for her — he still sounds like a singing sheep. And a former fan I know claims the band's music has turned into “cotton candy” substance anyway.
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'Verisimilitude' |
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by
Dr Ransom
at
06:47 AM ET
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Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006
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| Categories: Media: Music, Film and DVD | |||||
/verrisimillityood/ The term was used multiple times during the filming of Superman: The Movie in the late 70s by director Richard Donner and others — they spoke in the DVD commentaries about seeking to create the most realistic, disbelief-suspending story they could. Along with Superman himself, I believe my disbelief will be soaring off the ground, not only during my soon viewing of Superman Returns, but in listening to the soundtrack. While emulating the classic score by John Williams, its style is still original — fresh, yet somehow familiar. Soundtrack.net has clips, allowing me to know the score's nature in advance. But already, because of hearing the music reprised in the film trailers, I suspected the music would be — super, of course. Release date is today. |
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Concert speeds past God-given creativity |
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by
Dr Ransom
at
10:29 PM ET
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Friday, Jun 16, 2006
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| Categories: Columns, Media: Music, Film and DVD, Deep Doctrine Magic: Subculture Shop | |||
(Originally written for print publication April 20, 2005) “They have taken the bridge and the second hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums — drums in the deep. We cannot get out. … We cannot get out. They are coming.” Ichthus is a Christian rock concert that Asbury College helped start up back in the ‘70s. Its participants come here every spring and set up their huge white tents, just like tree-dwelling bagworms, for a few days of excitement, Christian ministry, celebrity bands, and often bountiful rain and mud and sometimes funnel clouds. Last year I complained about the Ichthusians in print, mostly because of the noise. Also I’m not the Earth’s greatest “Third Day” fan. But whether I like any of the noise or not (hint: not), there it is anyway, sometimes at 10 p.m., thudding through the walls of the house, quite audible even while I have my own music (National Treasure soundtrack) on the CD player with headphones. Then there’s the traffic clogging Harrodsburg Road that forces me to make detours down smaller country lanes, perhaps while passing mailboxes that have been dented in by baseball bats. Yes, I’m quite certain rogue Ichthusians did that one year, because not all of them are Christians. Even the Christians sin sometimes — seems there’s a bumper sticker about that. Also, the police always set up those little mechanical boxes along the main road that monitor your speed and flash it at you; otherwise the boxes do nothing, and I’ve been tempted to speed past one of them just to see if a swarm of tiny mechanical hovercraft cops will fly out of a trap door and give chase. But seriously, this time, I’d like to go a little deeper into this aspect of the Christian subculture — just as last year I suggested Christian music could go deeper into Biblical truths. I get irritated by the Ichthusian style not just because of the noise, but because these talented musicians are very likely selling their true abilities short, in order to pattern off secular musical styles. Unfortunately, if you’ve ever gone into a Christian bookstore or picked up a catalog you’ll see a lot of this problem there, too: books, gifts and t-shirts that simply play off of “secular” trends or products. Some of the catalogs are quite unashamed about it. “For fans of Destiny’s Child,” or some such band, accompanies the description for a new CD. Or, “For fans of John Grisham” and “For fans of Stephen King” on novels — reminiscent of the labels on generic products at Winn-Dixie: “If you like ‘Captain Crunch,’ try me!” Christianity’s favorite quasi-children’s crossover media craze, VeggieTales, has especially fallen into this trap. For years since the 3D-animated Biblical principle-teaching vegetables hit video stands, the guys at the Chicago-based Big Idea Productions seem only to be getting their big ideas from movies, books and TV shows they like. Along with the usual Bible-story-adaptations-with-a-modern-twist approach, they’ve stolen stuff from Gilligan’s Island, Star Trek, Disney, Batman, i>Bonanza, Rocky, Dr. Seuss, The Three Stooges and so on, and their future videos promise more loads of really original fun by stealing stuff from Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings. (Only they call stealing stuff a “tribute.” That’s how you get away with stealing other people’s ideas, in books, movies or cartoons: you call it a “tribute.”) I realize I’m sounding quite elitist. Almost everything in music or media has been partially inspired by something else. It all depends on how much you either hide your creative sources or add original stuff. But the whole Christian rock festival idea, stolen directly from Woodstock, and a whole lot of Christian products and media that just steal from other slogans and shows, only serve to make secular observers sneer. I should know better: the secularists are probably going to sneer no matter what. But while they’re sneering at Christian beliefs, they might as well be buying up Christ-honoring stuff left and right because it’s awesome and original — like works by the very Christian C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien, who defied the popular conventions and realism-based literature of their time by writing something very new: fantasy. The person of faith who believes Christ influences everything in his or her life will naturally want to glorify God fully in every creative expression, be it music, drama, art or writing. Ripping off of others’ work, especially “secular” products, is not only artistic cheating, but it’s selling yourself short — and on a spiritual level, it’s not exactly doing your best work for God, pointing others toward Him and His truths. Ehh … more power to the Ichthusians, though. As I’ve written about before, I in no way expect my own definition of Perfection. Although God often prefers to speak in that “still, small voice,” I know He will sometimes use anything to communicate with people, even horrendous noise expelled through amplifiers the size of small Caribbean resorts. But next week you’ll have to use one of those amplifiers to communicate to me, because I plan on losing my hearing over the weekend. Perhaps that can qualify as an excused absence — these final projects will be the death of me, if the Ichthusians and their cars don’t kill me on their highway first. |
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‘Narnia’ awakens in musical magic |
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by
Dr Ransom
at
10:30 AM ET
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Friday, Jan 13, 2006
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| Categories: Media: "Narnia: AWAKE", Music | |||||
Somewhere out there, in either the unwritten or videotaped annals of behind-the-scenes information-dom, is the anecdote of how Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson sort of initially rejected composer Howard Shore’s original theme for the realm of Rohan. According to Shore — or was it Jackson? — the first version of the theme was good, it just wasn’t “hummable,” Jackson said. Shore went back to the orchestration board and came up with the present theme, which immediately got stuck in Jackson’s head and was thus declared quite “hummable.” The theme for Gondor from the film trilogy is only somewhat less hummable — more catchy of all is the Fellowship theme, which within four years of the Fellowship of the Ring film’s and score’s release has become very popular, with its own renditions on other albums. All that to say, the theme for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek 2), isn’t very hummable. I could barely remember a few notes from it, after seeing the film once and listening to the score. Yet it’s beautiful. It’s melancholy. It’s enchanting and magical and imbued with a sense of wonder. Ergo, it’s much like the film, I’m sure, although it took a second and third listen of the score for its full effect to sink in. Upon retrospective reflection, the score is exactly as I’d hoped: it does not sound like Lord of the Rings or even Shrek 2. Well, maybe a little of each in some places. But Gregson-Williams hasn’t disappointed, and has woven into the score creativity and wonder, themes and schemes all his own. The score follows not a format of themes people, places or occasional abstracts, as does Lord of the Rings. Instead, it is patterned to the story concept itself. And for a less-epic film than LotR, it certainly works. Often while listening, one can certainly imagine the film, or one’s own visualization of the world of Narnia, and the feeling of indoor shoes stepping into that cold, sparkling snow for the first time. |
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‘Narnia’ awakens in musical magic |
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by
Dr Ransom
at
12:32 PM ET
,
Friday, Dec 16, 2005
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Permalink | |||
| Categories: Columns, Media: "Narnia: AWAKE", Music | |||||
Somewhere out there, in either the unwritten or videotaped annals of behind-the-scenes information-dom, is the anecdote of how Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson sort of initially rejected composer Howard Shore’s original theme for the realm of Rohan. According to Shore — or was it Jackson? — the first version of the theme was good, it just wasn’t “hummable,” Jackson said. Shore went back to the orchestration board and came up with the present theme, which immediately got stuck in Jackson’s head and was thus declared quite “hummable.” The theme for Gondor from the film trilogy is only somewhat less hummable — more catchy of all is the Fellowship theme, which within four year’s of the Fellowship of the Ring film’s and score’s release has become very popular, with its own renditions on other albums. All that to say, the theme for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek 2), isn’t very hummable. I can barely remember a few notes from it now, after seeing the film once and listening to the score. Yet it’s beautiful. It’s melancholy. It’s enchanting and imbued with a sense of wonder. Ergo, it’s much like the film, I’m sure, although it took a second listen of the score for its full effect to sink in. Is the same true for the film? is it so dazzling, having arrived with such a large list of abundance expectations from true Lewis loves and Narniacs, that first-time viewers simply “can’t take it in,” as the first of the end-credits songs is titled? I suppose I’ll find out today, Friday, Dec. 16, when I view The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for only the second time. This time, I will be able to pay more attention to the score. It is exactly as I’d hoped: it does not sound like Lord of the Rings or even Shrek 2. Well, maybe a little of each in some places. But Gregson-Williams hasn’t disappointed, and has woven into the score creativity and wonder, themes and schemes all his own. The score follows not a format of themes people, places or occasional abstracts, as does Lord of the Rings. Instead, it is patterned to the story concept itself. And for a less-epic film than LotR, it certainly works. Often while listening, one can certainly imagine the film, or one’s own visualization of the world of Narnia, and the feeling of indoor shoes stepping into that cold, sparkling snow for the first time. |
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