Category Archives: Church

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Great Art: The Sojourn Split-EP

TWO-FACE-Jamie_Barnes_theMercySeat_700x700

I started to call this a review.  This isn’t really much of a review, though… it’s a commendation.  I’m not even going to pretend to be unbiased on this one.  For the past three and a half years now, I have been part of a church, Sojourn, that is engaging the arts in groundbreaking ways.  Our congregation  just happens to have been blessed to have dozens of talented writers, photographers, painters, singers, songwriters, and musicians, and God has used the outpouring of creativity to touch hearts in Louisville and across the world.

The latest offering from Sojourn is a split-EP of ten songs by two of our most gifted singer-songwriters.  Jamie Barnes, our East Campus worship director, begins the collection with his EP The Mercy Seat.  Our Midtown Campus worship director Brooks Ritter then takes his five on a spin, called The War.  Each set, though diverse, seemingly runs loosely along themes, Jamie stating in the promotional video that his songs on the album veer toward the sense of desperation and longing that we feel for God, while Brooks’ songs veer toward the spiritual battle that we are in.  Each side is a great mixture of complete originals and the artists’ well-crafted adaptations of age-old hymns from the likes of Isaac Watts and John Newton.  So lyrical and yet theologically deep are the words by Jamie and Brooks that their songs and lyric adaptations stand seamlessly alongside the hymn verses of old.  This is certainly odd in this day and time, but Sojourn, along with such artist collectives like Indelible Grace and Bifrost Arts, have begun to turn the tide on the typical theological and artistic drought in “Christian” music.

Jamie’s set runs the gamut in arrangement from the haunting piano and acoustic guitar-driven title track to the New Orleans-style funeral band backing of Watts adaptation “Absent from Flesh,” and even wrapping up with an uncharacteristic smooth jazz piece to finish off his side.  Brooks begins his set with one of the heaviest numbers I have heard on a Sojourn album, “The War” and rightly so in a song dealing with the struggle against evil and its overcoming in the work of Christ.  From there, he journeys through elements of rock, gospel, and newly arranged hymnody.  Both these artists, with producer Neil Robins (of Dirt Poor Robins) have crafted EPs that would stand alone as great works (and you can buy them that way on iTunes if you so desire), but as a complete album they stand as a masterpiece that may be Sojourn’s best contribution to music world so far and an important milestone in the theological and artistic reclamation of church music.

Get “The Mercy Seat / The War” on BandCamp.

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Explore the Vatican

Perhaps there is no place that is more of a treasure-trove of Western Christian art than the Vatican City.  The works of great Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo adorn the chapels and haunt the recesses of the Vatican so that the entirety of the Roman Catholic compound is a work to behold.  Now, thanks to the Vatican Museum, you can tour virtual renderings of several areas of the Vatican online, such as the Sistine Chapel and Pauline Chapel, allowing you to see the extent of their extensive frescos and sculptures.  Amidst all this, you are accompanied by some beautiful music to set the mood.

(There is also a very impressive guided tour of the Vatican Necropolis, the very bowels of St. Peter’s Basilica, featuring the original tomb of St. Peter.)

HT: BLP, AP

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Beautiful Clarity

“For a Christian rhetoric, perspicuity is the foundation of all the canons of style. Clarity of thought must always be the preacher’s aim. Clarity is the basic beauty of eloquent oratory and the driving power that persuades one’s listeners. The beauty of teaching is making clear the truth, for it is in the truth itself, rather than in the words about truth, in which beauty is found. The truth itself, Augustine tells us, when presented in simplicity, gives pleasure because it is the truth. This is one of Augustine’s best insights. Here, a thousand years before the Protestant Reformation, one easily detects the guiding principle of Protestant plain style. Here is the foundation of the Protestant understanding of beauty.”
– Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Volume 2

HT: Douglas Wilson

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The Child in Shit and Straw

“The idea that God, if there is a force of Logic and Love in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty, in shit and straw . . . a child . . . I just thought: “Wow!” Just the poetry . . . Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was. I was sitting there, and it’s not that it hadn’t struck me before, but tears came streaming down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this.”

- Bono, from Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

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Sentimental Carols

In answer to the question “Should we ban bad theology carols?”
“Only with great care. For thousands, carols will be their only link with a church. At the same time, sentimentality is perhaps the single most dangerous feature of our Church and culture—and the sentimental air is never thicker than at Christmas. The Incarnation is messy, dirty, and resonates with the crucifixion. We need a new wave of carol writing that can gradually swill out the nonsense and catch the piercing, joy-through-pain refrains of the New Testament.”
– Jeremy Begbie

HT: Jesus Creed

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Resurrecting Corporate Singing

Here is a wonderful video from Isaac Wardell of Bifrost Arts, a collective of artists “bringing back” the hymn sing, speaking on collective singing/making music as a form of worship and how this has been neglected in the church over the last few years.  This is a really well-done piece.  In the background is “Joy, Joy” from their Advent album, Salvation Is Created: A Christmas Record From Bifrost Arts (get this!).

Bifrost Arts from josh franer on Vimeo.

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Ridiculing the Enemy

“What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan’s great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan in a ridiculous red suit with horns and a tail. Nobody thinks the devil really looks like this; the Bible teaches that he is the fallen Arch-Cherub. Rather, the idea is to ridicule him because he has lost the battle with Jesus and he no longer has power over us…
The gargoyles that were placed on the churches of old had the same meaning. They symbolized the Church ridiculing the enemy. They stick out their tongues and make faces at those who would assault the Church. Gargoyles are not demonic; they are believers ridiculing the defeated demonic army.”
– James B. Jordan, “Concerning Halloween”

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Quote of the Week

“Halloween masks and carved pumpkin faces are remnants of measures that were designed to protect people from the power of evil. I’m not arguing that we should revive their original uses. But Halloween is one important occasion for reminding ourselves that the power of the Evil One is still with us. Scary faces will not keep him at bay. But they can be a reminder of the need to be on guard against his wiles. With all of our advanced technologies, we still have not found automatic ways to resist him. The struggle is a spiritual one, but sometimes spiritual battles can be assisted by visible reminders of the Enemy’s presence. After all, Luther threw inkbottles at the Devil, even though he did not really think he could hit him! With that in mind, we should feel free to carve some scary faces on some pumpkins this time of year. And, given the way things are going in the Christian world, it might even be a workable idea to put a few gargoyles on the roofs of our churches!”

– Richard Mouw (President of Fuller Theological Seminary), “Halloween: Gargoyles and Pumpkins”

(Illustration: Wikimedia)

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Developing Writing Style

“The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that.  The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him.  I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it.”
– C.S. Lewis

HT: JT