Christmas Vinyl - 11/25/2011

So far this morning:

Chet Atkins (I usually start off my Christmas listening season with this one; it's one of my favorites. It follows the trend of the time for Christmas albums: one side secular, one side sacred.)

Mahalia Jackson (no baloney on this one - it's all Jesus, all the time with Sister Mahalia! Arguably the greatest gospel singer of them all.)

Partridge Family (really not as bad as you might think. It's very much an example of mass-produced TV teen heartthrob pop. The only cut that's kind of hard to listen to is this one: Frosty the Snowman. I indulged my son in one of his favorite activities - turning the turntable speed to 45. It STILL sounded too slow!)

Radical, by David Platt

I just finished reading Radical by David Platt. The subtitle is "Taking back your faith from the American dream.". I'd summarize the book by saying that American Christianity is largely characterized by comfort and materialism rather than going out doing the hard, uncomfortable work of making disciples.

Great book - I plan on getting my own copy.

Assessing Hymns and Praise Songs

My friend Mary sent me a link to an article from pluckedchicken.net . Here's the article:

CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING THE USEFULNESS OF A PRAISE SONG (OR HYMN...)

Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller offers these criteria that sound generally useful in evaluating music that may be used in church services. I just listened to an Issues, Etc. segment from August where they applied these criteria to the three most popular praise songs on the CCLI charts at the time. These were not just Christian pop songs, but songs actually written for and used in church services. This concept is a bit foreign to us, because we use our hymnary for almost all the sung music in church, with the occasional exception of sacred choir music. But I think the criteria Pastor Wolfmueller offers may prove helpful for evaluating the text of any song.
He notes that most of these praise songs used in worship are characteristically not didactic in nature. That is, they don't teach anything. Instead, he calls them mystical in nature, meaning that it's meant to induce an internal (emotive or psychic) experience of the presence of God, rather than about any objective act of God for us. Here are the criteria:

1. Is Jesus mentioned? By name or concept?
2. Is the song clear? Does it use sentences or sentence fragments?
3. Is it objective or subjective? About what God has done or about what is happening inside me?
4. Are law and gospel present and rightly divided?
5. Is there any false teaching? (Or any teaching at all?

So what I need to do next is memorize those questions.  Being able to assess a song as it's being presented during a worship service would be pretty useful, as opposed to waiting until later, when my disorganized mind will have forgotten much of what was in the song.

Universal Objective Justification

Sequence of events in my faith life since last March:

1. Attended a workshop session led by Pastor James Skorzewski (who goes by "Pastor Ski") of The Core (WELS) in Appleton, WI. Attended worship at The Core with my family the following evening. (March 2010)

2. Felt inspired by the experience. Have since been serving at my own congregation, Divine Savior (WELS) in Shawano, WI, with the aim of having it be more like The Core in terms of atmosphere and function. ("Atmosphere" = welcoming to people from outside of the congregation specifically and from outside the Christian faith in general; "function" = trying to make our worship at church and our work in the community more engaging for our members)

3. Discovered the blog Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed, authored by Dr. Gregory Jackson, about a month ago (October 2010). This blog speaks very strongly against certain leaders within the WELS. Among those named specifically are Pastor Ski.

Since then I've been attempting to understand the doctrinal issues that Jackson has with WELS leaders. This has not been easy for me, but I'm trying. Jackson's tone tends to be sarcastic and mocking, and he's attacking a guy whose preaching I really like. However, I'm striving to be impartial about the merits of his points, and not just dismiss him because of his style, and the fact that he's calling one of my favorite preachers a false teacher.

One of the first issues I'm trying to clear up in my own mind is that of universal objective justification (UOJ). Here's how I understand the term: UOJ says that God forgave the world when Jesus died, and that we all are forgiven whether we believe or not. Jackson, by my understanding, is anti-UOJ because it implies that heathens are saved even if they don't believe.

What seems to be called for here is agreement on what exactly is the meaning of several different terms, such as forgiveness, belief, and faith. I'm going to fall back on one of my favorite teaching tools, the analogy, to try to lay this all out in terms that I myself can understand. I realize that analogies are inherently imperfect, because they aren't the actual thing you're talking about, but merely like the thing you're talking about. Nevertheless, I'm going to plow ahead with a lottery ticket analogy. I certainly don't mean to trivialize the gift of salvation by comparing ti to a lottery; I'm merely attempting to put things in terms I'll be able to understand.

So, heaven (being saved, having eternal life with God) would be the lottery prize. Let's say that we can share in the prize if we have a lottery ticket, but it's not like a traditional lottery ticket in that probability enters into it. Let's say it's more like a ticket to a show or concert (now that I think of it, that's a much better analogy!) You don't have to match a random number, you simply have to possess the ticket, and you're in.

Now, you don't have to choose to buy one of these tickets to the show - if you had to choose to buy the ticket, that would mean that our being saved is up to us, and it is not. So to make my analogy better fit what I believe, I'm going to say that everybody gets a ticket. One morning everybody in the world goes to their mailbox, and there they find a ticket to the show. Everybody gets a ticket, whether or not they feel they deserve it, whether or not they believe the show is actually going to happen, they get a ticket.

Is this a valid analogy for universal objective justification (forgiveness of sins)? Justification and forgiveness of sins are the same thing, right?

The next part of the analogy is, what do each of us do with the ticket that we already possess? I can't choose to possess it - I already do possess it! However, I can choose to throw the ticket away. This compares to how we, with our free will, can choose to not believe; we can't choose to receive the ticket, but we can choose to throw it away.

So all are forgiven (have a ticket), but not all are saved (saved = use the ticket).

Here's where it gets tricky for me: are faith and belief the same thing? In my analogy, no one chooses to receive a ticket, but some choose to not use the ticket. If you can choose to not use the ticket, doesn't this imply that it's also possible to choose to use the ticket? Which would imply that we can choose to believe? I think this is really where my analogy breaks down.

So to summarize where I'm at: justification (forgiveness) is given to all, salvation can be forsaken by those who choose to forsake it.

I'm sure this is not the end of the development of my understanding of these issues. I pray that God will help me to understand, and that He will use me to help others to understand.

"Youth groups destroy children's lives."

I found this quote in Hipster Christianity (Baker Books, 2010, by Brett McCracken). The quote is by David Fitch, who is the founding pastor of Life on the Vine Church in Long Grove, Illinois.

I was so jarred by the quote that I thought I should turn it into a blog post, which would hopefully foster some input from my friends who are pastors, youth pastors, staff ministers, youth group leaders, or youth group participants (or survivors?).

I haven't had a chance yet to read up on the church's website or anything else the pastor in question has written. I have no idea what has led him to hold such a seemingly extreme view, but I do hope that I can gain some insight as to why he feels the way he does.

At this point, I can't imagine that I'll ever agree with him, but I would at least like to try to understand where he's coming from.

I listened to 'Classic Rock' yesterday...

"Classic Rock" in quotes not because I think it's classic, but because it's the kind of music that guys who are serious about rock always seem to really go for.

Side 4 of Rush's "Exit...Stage Left"

Who's Next

Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" (in which, by the way, I found remnants of some very old pot. So whoever donated it to Goodwill killed too many brain cells to remember where they left their stash.)

Led Zeppelin (the first)

I like The Who well enough, but I've never really developed a taste for the others. I just want to know what the hardcore fans see in these groups. By that, I mean besides "I like 'em because they're f-ing awesome!" I want to know why you think they're awesome. What is it about the music that you like?

Cool thread on gretschpages.com:

http://gretschpages.com/forum/modern-gretsch-guitars/rockabilly-worship-tunes/31353/page1/

Seems I'm not the only one! I post there as Bear85.