The guilty one is the one who sins. Assuming darkness is an actual problem, if one purposely created the darkness, that counts as one sin specific to the one who created the darkness. No one who is left in the darkness is required, obliged or forced to sin. Those sins are on the sinner alone, not the one who created the darkness. While the quote suggests he who caused the darkness makes it difficult for others to live righteously, that's pretty much life in a nutshell, isn't it? We live in a fallen world, subject to many pressures and temptations to do wrong. We're still to do right and we can't be deflecting our personal responsibility in sinning.
Say there's a bad man out there, running around and shooting his gun and causing harm. Police chase him and shoot back and, in the process, they kill innocent bystanders.
Who is ultimately responsible for those innocent bystanders' deaths?
Slavetraders are enslaving people and one of their slaves determines to break free and, in the process, kills their enslaver. WHO is responsible for that slaver's death?
A woman has been abused by her husband and basically kidnapped and kept at her home for years. She determines to get herself free and her husband tries to stop her with a knife. In the process, he gets stabbed and dies. WHO is responsible for his death?
Say it again: The guilty one is the one who caused the darkness.
Marshal... " No one who is left in the darkness is required, obliged or forced to sin."
Marshal, you should know that this is the privileged response of emotionally fragile supporters of oppression.
This is the response of the slavers and slavery defenders in the past, when riots broke out against slavery. "Damn slaves are the ones responsible... they didn't have to get all violent and riot!"
That kind of response comes from a place of blind privilege - a privilege that such people willing allow to blind them to the extent and conditions of the oppressed.
Say it again: The guilty one is the one who caused the darkness.
Understand it. Let go of your privilege and understand it.
"He called a little child and had him stand among them.
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!"
I think your parents, Marshal, are in the bad place. And so are you.
"Who is ultimately responsible for those innocent bystanders' deaths?"
Collateral damage does not denote sinful behavior.
"Slavetraders are enslaving people and one of their slaves determines to break free and, in the process, kills their enslaver. WHO is responsible for that slaver's death?"
The slave. But that doesn't indicate sinful behavior on the part of the slave, unless the slave sought to kill the slaver, in which case it clearly would be.
"A woman has been abused by her husband and basically kidnapped and kept at her home for years. She determines to get herself free and her husband tries to stop her with a knife. In the process, he gets stabbed and dies. WHO is responsible for his death?"
Self-defense isn't a sin.
Say it again: "I, Dan Trabue, am a hopeless moron." Now according to your logic, that's the fault of your teachers, parents or whatever darkness in which you were raised.
"Marshal, you should know that this is the privileged response of emotionally fragile supporters of oppression."
Ah...nice attempt to play the race card. It's the response of someone who sees what sounds like a profound statement and quickly sees the logical flaws in it. Your response to it is the response of someone once again schooled.
"This is the response of the slavers and slavery defenders in the past,"
I'm neither, so it's an incredibly stupid and desperate thing to say to defend your lame attempt at being profound.
Say it again: "I, Dan Trabue, am a hopeless moron." Or at least defend your position without the grace-embracing hatred.
Again, rather than acknowledge you've again been schooled, you resort to unsupportable accusations of racism on my part. In other words, you've lied once again. In this behavior, if in none other, you're remarkably consistent.
I didn't say you were racist. I said you support policies and approaches that the slavers would have supported.
I'm not saying you're racist (you may well be, but I'm not saying it - I will say for sure that you're sexist as hell), but I'm noting that you are an ally to racists with the attitudes and positions you promote.
And, as Feodor notes, you'd probably object to Jesus in his day, as well.
"Now Jesus, if one of those little ones sins, it's ON THEM. THEY DID the sin, they should be punished for it. You're just wrong, Jesus, to put it that way..."
"I didn't say you were racist. I said you support policies and approaches that the slavers would have supported...I'm noting that you are an ally to racists with the attitudes and positions you promote."
Oh, yeah. That's much better. A difference without a distinction. You're not only calling me a racist, you're accusing me of supporting racist policies, which is a level of absurdity unique to you and your boy.
And speaking of "uniquely absurd", pretending Jesus's words in any way mirrors the words of Hugo's character. Jesus is referring to those like you two, who by your defense of homosexual behavior as morally acceptable lead children to believe their sinful urges and attractions are OK to indulge. Jesus wasn't in any way a "society's to blame" kinda guy, which Hugo's quote affirms.
Thanks, troll. Your Matt 18:7 quote backs me up nicely. The first sentence speaks to us a warning of things which lead one to sin. The second speaks to those like you, who by your perversion of God's Word result in people sinning. In any case, Christ isn't pretending society is an excuse, which is what you're doing by defending the Hugo quote.
Now, unlike Trump, Biden is causing hundreds of thousands of people to sin by telling them they won't be punished for breaking our immigration laws. That's but one more example of how you lefties lead others to and in sin.
Marshal, I don't know how you can justify saying that Jesus' story and Hugo's story are not getting to pretty much EXACTLY the same point.
Here's the whole story (coming in the context of Jesus' ministry which spoke predominantly, far and away of TWO themes - interconnected themes, I'd say: The Kingdom of God and Good News for the poor and marginalized)...
At that time the followers came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
[The point being that even though Jesus is alluding to children, he's speaking of the lowly and vulnerable - the very poor and marginalized Jesus spoke of throughout his ministry - Dan]
Jesus called a little child to him and stood the child before his followers. Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you must change and become like little children. Otherwise, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[Echoing Jesus' teaching that the it is nearly impossible for the wealthy go enter the Kingdom of Heaven - wealth and power are great barriers to heaven/God's Realm -DAN]
"The greatest person in the kingdom of heaven is the one who makes himself humble like this child."
“Whoever accepts a child in my name accepts me.
[And again, clearly not speaking literally of children, but the vulnerable and marginalized -DAN]
"If one of these little children believes in me, and someone causes that child to sin, it would be better for that person to have a large stone tied around the neck and be drowned in the sea. How terrible for the people of the world because of the things that cause them to sin. Such things will happen, but how terrible for the one who causes them to happen!..."
[Jesus here emphasizes and then RE-emphasizes that the ULTIMATE blame in the case of one causing a vulnerable one to sin IS THE ONE who caused/led to/promoted the vulnerable one to sin. THAT IS the point of the text, taking this figurative story to it's literal point. Do you not agree? -DAN]
“Be careful. Don’t think these little children are worth nothing. I tell you that they have angels in heaven who are always with my Father in heaven."
HOW is that different than Hugo's brief summation of all that...
"The guilty one is the one who causes the darkness."?
It's almost exactly literally what Jesus taught.
And NO, Jesus is not pretending "society is an excuse," but we haven't said that.
We've noted, as Jesus notes throughout his ministry and his followers repeated after him and Mary repeated before him that THOSE who oppress and cause darkness that may lead to sin of a vulnerable one, that it is THE OPPRESSOR/Darkness-causer who holds the ultimate blame.
Open your eyes.
"Is it not the rich who are oppressing you?" "Thank you Lord, for you have brought down the powerful and lifted up the lowly" "It is almost impossible for a wealthy man to enter the realm of God. I TELL YOU AGAIN, it is easier for a CAMEL (!) to go through the EYE OF A NEEDLE (!!!) than a wealthy man to enter heaven." "Woe to the one who leads this child to sin..."
Marshal (how stupid a Christian is he?): “ Biden is causing hundreds of thousands of people to sin by telling them they won't be punished for breaking our immigration laws. That's but one more example of how you lefties lead others to and in sin.”
Scripture:
“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
“The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.”
“For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.”
“You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.“
yeah, I was wondering what Bible Marshal was looking to by making the suggestion that breaking a non-biblical and anti-Christian law was somehow "sin..."?
Marshal (really, really stupid): “The first sentence speaks to us a warning of things which lead one to sin.”
Jesus, declaring that those who *cause people to sin are in jeopardy, not those who sinned - no “woe” for the sinner - just for the dark heart of haters like Marshal:
“Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! … woe to the man through whom they come!"
Same as Victor Hugo: “The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”
There's so much in the conservative white Christian tradition from which folks like Marshal and myself spring that is based very much upon tradition moreso than the Bible. It's why eventually, when these great conservatives who raised me kept insisting that I take Jesus' words literally and seriously that I had to part ways with modern conservatism.
The tradition of radical agrarian protestantism - basic American religious culture - served white power interests in repressing its societal brutality of genocide, slavery, misogyny, and broad bigotry.
I grew up in the southern Churches of Christ - a denomination so sectarian they cannot call themselves the Church of Christ.
"But perhaps the best explanation for the hysteria [toward Critical Race Theory] is in a journal entry written on April 7, 1829, by a schoolteacher named Susan Nye Hutchison, who lived in Augusta, Georgia, and whose diaries illuminate a quarter century of life before the Civil War. “Great fear begins to be prevalent that the negroes are about to rise,” Hutchison wrote.
Georgians had experienced a spate of fires, as rumors of insurrection made the citizens of Augusta both negro- and pyro-phobic. Four days before Hutchison’s entry, another “terrible fire” burned about a third of the city, according to a contemporary news article. Estimated damages totaled half a million dollars, with nearly 350 homes destroyed. Hysteria ensued, and enslaved Black people were blamed, rounded up, and tried without evidence.
Months later, a pamphlet named the Appeal, David Walker’s polemic against slavery, emerged in the South. “My object is, if possible,” Walker, a free Black man, wrote, “to awaken in the breasts of my afflicted, degraded and slumbering brethren, a spirit of inquiry and investigation respecting our miseries and wretchedness.”
Southern politicians viewed Walker’s Appeal and its repudiation of their values as “incendiary,” a pyrotechnic of another kind. When Walker’s treatise reached his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, magistrate James McKee issued a warning to Gov. John Owen:
'The dissemination of Walker’s pamphlet…[proves] beyond a doubt that a systematic attempt is making by some reckless persons at the North to sow sedition among the slaves [of] the South, and that this pamphlet is intended and well calculated to prepare the minds of the slave population for any measure, however desperate, that they may propose for accomplishing their emancipation…unless some measures are taken to counteract this design in time, I fear the consequences may be serious to the extreme."
North Carolina quickly passed two laws aimed at stemming slave rebellions by repressing the spread of abolitionist literature. An Act to Prevent the Circulation of Seditious Publications made it a felony to import and distribute “any written or printed pamphlet or paper…the evident tendency whereof would be to excite insurrection, conspiracy or resistance.” A second law banned “the teaching of slaves to read and write,” saying it “has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion to the manifest injury of the citizens of this State.”
Walker’s Appeal also led to Georgia’s December 1829 anti-literacy law, which made circulating insurrectionary texts punishable by death. Virginia, Missouri, and others followed. As a Missouri state archive website puts it, the bans were deemed necessary because “an uneducated black population made white citizens feel more secure against both abolitionists and slave uprisings.”
A lot to unpack here, but it begins with the false claim you like to pretend it a factual representation of Christ's mission. You seem to pick and choose when to take His words literally, as you eventually go on to say He wasn't speaking of little children. I'll respond first to your parenthetical comments.
"[The point being that even though Jesus is alluding to children, he's speaking of the lowly and vulnerable - the very poor and marginalized Jesus spoke of throughout his ministry - Dan]"
First of all, my reference to children was simply to render an example of how you guys are creating the darkness in which many children have gotten and will get lost. If I led you to believe I didn't agree Christ was using the child in an analogous way, as an illustration of His point, I'll accept the blame for that. I should know I must be more than commonly careful about how I explain my positions.
Secondly, there's no "very poor and marginalized" considered in this teaching. But you can't help yourself pushing that nonsense because of your socialism.
Thirdly, we might be on the same page with regard to "lowly and vulnerable" if by that you mean one must become like small children as regards their full dependence on others (their parents, guardians or other adults) for their care. Indeed, that's who "the poor" of whom Jesus spoke are! The poor in spirit are like small children in this very way. They understand they need God.
"[Echoing Jesus' teaching that the it is nearly impossible for the wealthy go enter the Kingdom of Heaven - wealth and power are great barriers to heaven/God's Realm -DAN]"
...which means they are NOT "the poor in spirit" who were of such great concern to Jesus. The poor in spirit come in all economic classes. Still do, in fact. So also do those who are not.
"[And again, clearly not speaking literally of children, but the vulnerable and marginalized -DAN]"
Not so. They're "the poor in spirit".
"[Jesus here emphasizes and then RE-emphasizes that the ULTIMATE blame in the case of one causing a vulnerable one to sin IS THE ONE who caused/led to/promoted the vulnerable one to sin. THAT IS the point of the text, taking this figurative story to it's literal point. Do you not agree? -DAN]"
Only to a certain extent. It depends on what you want to insist is "causing that child to sin"...in what way someone causes another to sin. For example, if I had to layoff people because my Democratic governor dared proclaim my type of business is "non-essential", and a laid off employee steals to support his family, are you saying I'm more guilty than the employee? Is even the moronic Dem governor more guilty? I was certainly forced to lay off the employee as I could not support him with wages. The moronic Dem governor thought his proclamation was necessary (one reason he's a moron). Both the governor and I acted in a manner which resulted in the employee choosing to steal. How do you resolve this?
But my previous example, of a person struggling with immoral and disordered desires he knows offends God being persuaded to believe acquiescing to and indulging those desires has been directly complicit in that person's sin. The one who persuaded him by creating the darkness which promotes and enables those who give it made it easier for that person to stray from God's will.
Yet, that formerly struggling person is not innocent of great sin, despite those who enabled his sin being guilty of a far greater sin. The struggling person is not given a pass because some activist or enabler corrupted his thinking. Hugo's quote distinctly denotes he does.
"It's almost exactly literally what Jesus taught."
Aside from the oxymoronic aspect of this statement, it's literally NOT what Jesus taught.
"And NO, Jesus is not pretending "society is an excuse," but we haven't said that."
Well actually, you almost exactly literally did, when you say what Hugo said is "almost exactly literally what Jesus taught." It's certainly what Hugo said. The only way your assertion works to to cut off the end of Hugo's passage. THEN you can try to make it equate to Christ's teaching.
"as Jesus notes throughout his ministry and his followers repeated after him and Mary repeated before him that THOSE who oppress and cause darkness that may lead to sin of a vulnerable one, that it is THE OPPRESSOR/Darkness-causer who holds the ultimate blame."
Neither Jesus nor Mary ever said anything like this. We see that Christ didn't say it in Matt 18 despite how badly you might want Him to have done so. And none of your final quotes from this comment are examples of it...despite how badly you might want them to be.
"yeah, I was wondering what Bible Marshal was looking to by making the suggestion that breaking a non-biblical and anti-Christian law was somehow "sin..."?"
I really have no idea what this is supposed to mean. I've done nothing at all like this. Please clarify.
RE: Your comment from August 6, 2021 at 12:51 PM
"There's so much in the conservative white Christian tradition from which folks like Marshal and myself spring that is based very much upon tradition moreso than the Bible. It's why eventually, when these great conservatives who raised me kept insisting that I take Jesus' words literally and seriously that I had to part ways with modern conservatism."
Well, you were never a conservative anyway, so it wasn't a tough transition. I guess you can perpetuate this false autobiography here at your own blog if you think any conservative (or even any honest lefty, if there are any) will buy it. One thing is certain...you didn't spring from anywhere I originated, and that's for damned sure. Nothing I believe is based on tradition. I left the Roman Catholic church partially because it puts their traditions almost on par with Scripture.
I'm loathe to indict your parents and childhood pastors, but it seems they were unable to find a way to make you understand what taking Jesus' words literally and seriously actually means. You still don't know, though you do pick and choose when to do so as it's convenient for you.
And...you racist...there's definitely no such thing as "white conservatism" or "white Christianity" and thus definitely no such thing as a "conservative white Christian". It's amazing to me how you two are so fixated on race while referring to others as "racist".
There are zero people of color on Craig's list of "Christian musicians who managed to change the landscape of Christian music in recent history. (since the 60's)"
Jesus Christ. Black people LIVE on music in church. Black artists who sing gospel and soul are INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED.
Aretha Franklin for Christ's sake.
But Craig can't stand his own racist blindness. He has to erase Aretha.
In his defense, it sounds like he's limiting it to music that is specifically in the CCM genre, songs which would show up on CCM radio stations... and for better or worse, Aretha doesn't show up there. CCM is mostly a white crowd.
Actually you were the one who assumed he was talking about CCM. He did not use the phrase until after you did. His post does not stipulate.
White people - even you and me - do not initially see a diversity of people when we spontaneously think a great, immense number of things. We just think of white people.
Craig does not see black people when he imagines Christians.
The very reason that he had to erase my suggestion of Aretha after he had - inadvertently, apparently - posted it.
I think clearly he was speaking of CCM, given his list.
As to "White people... do not initially see a diversity of people..." you will note that I led with all white CCM singers and didn't throw black CCM singers in until a later post, so you appear to be quite correct.
Here's my last comment on Craig's post... it gets to the problem I have (one problem) with CCM...
Craig... "When I listen to Cooke or Franklin's catalog (with some exceptions), I don't hear much explicitly Christian lyrical/topical content."
This is where I parted ways with CCM as a genre, I think.
When the Grand Funk Railroad sang "Some Kind of Wonderful," they were, to me, singing an explicitly Christian song, as love between lovers is explicitly Christian.
When Aretha Franklin sang, "RESPECT," she was singing a very explicitly Christian song, because women deserve respect, and this is especially notable in cultures where women have been oppressed, as was true in Jesus' day and was true when Ms Franklin sang that song first and is still true, albeit to a lesser degree.
When Tracy Chapman sings, "Talking 'bout a Revolution," she is singing explicitly Christian song. Heck, she's singing nothing less than a modern day version of Mary's Magnificat! Which itself was explicitly Christian.
U2 singing "Still Haven't Found..." Marley singing "Redemption Song" or "One Love..." Avett Brothers singing "Ain't No Man..." ...and on I can go.
And when Sam Cooke sang, "Change Gonna Come," he was singing an explicitly Christian song and one that was amongst the best ever, in the opinion of many including myself. And far better/more "Christian" than the entirety of the Gaither catalog.
All of that to say, I no longer feel the need or think it wise to categorize music as secular or sacred, depending on the intent of the author or singers. Either a song and its message are advocating Christian ideals or not. And if it is, then it is a Christian song. "Secular" or not.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me, but on this point, maybe Marshal does. Maybe not, maybe I'm misreading him. I just no longer need a third verse that says, "and then Jesus comes to take us away, Hallelujah, Christ is Risen!..." to consider something Christian.
“Craig... "When I listen to Cooke or Franklin's catalog (with some exceptions), I don't hear much explicitly Christian lyrical/topical content”
“In January 1972, [Aretha] returned to Gospel music in a two-night, live-church recording, with the album Amazing Grace, in which she reinterpreted standards such as Mahalia Jackson's "How I Got Over". Originally released in June 1972, Amazing Grace sold more than two million copies, and is one of best-selling gospel albums of all time.”
"Either a song and its message are advocating Christian ideals or not. And if it is, then it is a Christian song."
We were having such a fine conversation about music and then you have to go and say something so completely stupid as the above. A song about love between two lovers isn't "Christian" unless it's a man or woman speaking of his wife or her of her husband...and really within the notion of marriage as a metaphor for Christ and His church. Otherwise, at best, "Some Kind of Wonderful" is about two fornicators with the hots for each other.
There's no mystery about what is meant by the category "Contemporary Christian Music" and it is crystal clear even if a given song is one of those which is hard to classify...a so-called "crossover" song. Your attempt to sound as if you're Christian simply gives license to anyone to regard the vilest song as Christian via the same ambiguous premise you use to regard the songs you've mentioned care as much Christian songs as any with an unmistakable Christian theme.
I suppose you're free to say such nonsense and then believe it as well. It seems extremely pretentious and less than sincere to me.
Marshal... "Your attempt to sound as if you're Christian simply gives license to anyone to regard the vilest song as Christian..."
I never said every song is Christian. Just ones that promote Christian ideals. Like loving your spouse, working for Justice, loving humanity or creation, etc.
"Either a song and its message are advocating Christian ideals or not. And if it is, then it is a Christian song."
...are you actually disagreeing with it? Are you saying that a song about working for Justice, for instance, is somehow NOT Christian?
We Shall Overcome We Shall Overcome We Shall Overcome some day Deep in my heart I do believe We Shall Overcome some day...
Has no mention of God, Jesus or the Bible or not even of spirituality. Are you saying that this song - one of the greatest Christian anthems for justice in the last 100 years! - is not Christian enough to count as Christian to you?
"No mention of God, Jesus or the Bible or not even of spirituality"? Uhhh..... Dan?
We are not alone, we are not alone We are not alone today Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We are not alone today.
The truth will make us free, the truth will make us free, The truth will make us free someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.
We’ll walk hand in hand, we’ll walk hand in hand, We’ll walk hand in hand someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,We shall overcome someday.
The Lord will see us through, the Lord will see us through, The Lord will see us through someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.
Black and white together, Black and white together, Black and white together someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.
I know that many different verses are used in We Shall Overcome. "The Lord Will See Us Through" is not one that I'm familiar with or at least that I've heard sung regularly at the various protests and church services I've been part of.
I don't and never said I knew it meant anything specific aside from what the words themselves say. (I've never heard the song writer speak of what was intended.) But it is you who projecting when the words themselves make no specific message. Thus, at best, "Some Kind of Wonderful" is about two fornicators with the hots for each other. There's nothing which indicates anything more, so it is you projecting.
Even by your own words there's ambiguity...to say nothing of no expressed intention to restrict such lyrical expressions as a Christian should.
"I never said every song is Christian. Just ones that promote Christian ideals."
Even sinners love those who love them. There are many things Christians do that non-believers do, and that doesn't make them Christians or necessarily blessed.
"...are you actually disagreeing with it? Are you saying that a song about working for Justice, for instance, is somehow NOT Christian? "
Yes and it depends. That is, I wouldn't say it's Christian simply because it has some similarity to Christianity. That would be absurd and quite disrespectful of Christianity. It's one thing to say, "that almost sounds Christian" but quite another to say it actually is.
"Has no mention of God, Jesus or the Bible or not even of spirituality. Are you saying that this song - one of the greatest Christian anthems for justice in the last 100 years! - is not Christian enough to count as Christian to you?"
Not based on the few lyrics you've presented, no. "Overcome" what, precisely? How about a bunch of gay people singing against Christians wishing to overturn the unconstitutional ruling of the Obergefell case? How about abortion proponents singing against Christians seeking to overturn the murderous Roe v Wage decision? Two cases of Christians standing for God's will versus the immoral defending that which isn't.
I simply don't get this desire you have to pretend anything YOU regard as "nice" equates with Christian.
Marshal... " Thus, at best, "Some Kind of Wonderful" is about two fornicators with the hots for each other. There's nothing which indicates anything more, so it is you projecting. "
??? SAYS WHO? I listen to it as a lovely love song of the sort that married folks might sing to each other in a healthy marriage. YOU are the one finding hidden "dirty" messages that literally aren't there.
As to the rest of your comments, Good God have mercy.
Marshal... "Even sinners love those who love them. There are many things Christians do that non-believers do, and that doesn't make them Christians or necessarily blessed."
Love is of God. Period. Justice is of God. Period.
Is there someone who is loving or working for Justice? They are doing God's work... IF you believe and affirm that God IS love and God IS Justice.
The fact that the phrase, Contemporary Christian Music cannot stand diversity is just an artifact of its racist construction. Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace is contemporary Christian Music. And, now, so is Kanye West.
"By all conventional measures, Kanye West’s Jesus Is King is a success. The rapper’s latest album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 264,000 equivalent album units, of which 109,000 were traditional album sales, Billboard reports. West ties Eminem for the most consecutive No. 1 debuts (nine) and earns his biggest streaming week ever, racking up 196.9 million streams. Jesus Is King also outsold West’s last solo album, Ye, which debuted with 208,000 equivalent album units."
Here is Kanye's lyrics for Closed on Sunday - which if Marshal and Craig cannot celebrate, then by CCM all they really intend to see in Contemporary Christian Music is white people:
Closed on Sunday, you're my Chick-fil-A Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A Hold the selfies, put the 'Gram away Get your family, y'all hold hands and pray When you got daughters, always keep 'em safe Watch out for vipers, don't let them indoctrinate Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A You're my number one, with the lemonade Raise our sons, train them in the faith Through temptations, make sure they're wide awake Follow Jesus, listen and obey No more livin' for the culture, we nobody's slave Stand up for my home Even if I take this walk alone I bow down to the King upon the throne My life is His, I'm no longer my own I pray to God that He'll strengthen my hand They will think twice steppin' onto my land I draw the line, it's written in the sand Try me and you will see that I ain't playin' Now, back up off my family, move your hands I got my weapons in the spirit's land I, Jezebel don't even stand a chance Jezebel don't even stand a chance Chick-fil-A
And here is Kanye quoting scripture in Selah: Contemporary Christian Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CNPg2IQoC0
God is King, we the soldiers Ultra beam out the solar When I get to Heaven's gates I ain't gotta peak over Keepin' perfect composure When I scream at the chauffeur I ain't mean, I'm just focused I ain't mean, I'm just focused Pour the lean out slower Got us clean out of soda Before the flood, people judge They did the same thing to Noah Everybody wanted Yandhi Then Jesus Christ did the laundry They say the week start on Monday But the strong start on Sunday Won't be in bondage to any man John 8:33, we the descendants of Abraham Ye should be made free, John 8:36 To whom the Son set free is free indeed He saved a wretch like me Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah He is wonderful If you woke then wake up With Judas kiss and make up Even with the bitter cup Forgave my brothers and drank up Did everything but gave up Stab my back, I can't front Still we win, we prayed up Even when we die, we raise up Ain't no wantin', no, we need it The powers that be done been greedy We need ours by this evening No white flag or no treaty We got the product, we got the tools We got the minds, we got the youth We goin' wild, we on the loose People is lying, we are the truth Everything old shall now become new The leaves will be green, bearing the fruit Love God and our neighbor as written in Luke The army of God and we are the truth Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
"I listen to it as a lovely love song of the sort that married folks might sing to each other in a healthy marriage."
And thus, contrary to what you said I was doing, it is you who is projecting onto the song meaning the words themselves do not convey. I don't necessarily have a problem with that. Most songwriters seem to leave the listener the liberty to do that. But to regard it as a Christian song as a result is still goofy. When my band was doing that song, I certainly had my wife in mind when I sang it. It still doesn't make it a "Christian" song.
"How could it be otherwise?"
By not doing any of those things for His Glory. Throwing those words around doesn't indicate Godly work.
All of a sudden, Craig's Jesus picks and chooses scripture. Song of Solomon is apparently now out. The tortured mechanizations of the conservative mind.
Craig: “ Do you really think that the Black Panther types were thinking that this vague undefined "change" wasn't really a violent revolution?”
Black Panther’s formal name: Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.
The Black Panther Party's core practice was its open carry armed citizens' patrols ("copwatching") to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city. It was the police who brought the violence.
From 1969 onwards, a variety of community social programs became a core activity. The Party instituted the Free Breakfast for Children Programs to address food injustice, and community health clinics for education and treatment of diseases including sickle cell anemia, tuberculosis, and later HIV/AIDS.
54 comments:
The guilty one is the one who sins. Assuming darkness is an actual problem, if one purposely created the darkness, that counts as one sin specific to the one who created the darkness. No one who is left in the darkness is required, obliged or forced to sin. Those sins are on the sinner alone, not the one who created the darkness. While the quote suggests he who caused the darkness makes it difficult for others to live righteously, that's pretty much life in a nutshell, isn't it? We live in a fallen world, subject to many pressures and temptations to do wrong. We're still to do right and we can't be deflecting our personal responsibility in sinning.
Say there's a bad man out there, running around and shooting his gun and causing harm. Police chase him and shoot back and, in the process, they kill innocent bystanders.
Who is ultimately responsible for those innocent bystanders' deaths?
Slavetraders are enslaving people and one of their slaves determines to break free and, in the process, kills their enslaver. WHO is responsible for that slaver's death?
A woman has been abused by her husband and basically kidnapped and kept at her home for years. She determines to get herself free and her husband tries to stop her with a knife. In the process, he gets stabbed and dies. WHO is responsible for his death?
Say it again: The guilty one
is the one who caused the darkness.
Marshal... " No one who is left in the darkness is required, obliged or forced to sin."
Marshal, you should know that this is the privileged response of emotionally fragile supporters of oppression.
This is the response of the slavers and slavery defenders in the past, when riots broke out against slavery. "Damn slaves are the ones responsible... they didn't have to get all violent and riot!"
That kind of response comes from a place of blind privilege - a privilege that such people willing allow to blind them to the extent and conditions of the oppressed.
Say it again: The guilty one
is the one who caused the darkness.
Understand it. Let go of your privilege and understand it.
"He called a little child and had him stand among them.
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!"
I think your parents, Marshal, are in the bad place. And so are you.
"Who is ultimately responsible for those innocent bystanders' deaths?"
Collateral damage does not denote sinful behavior.
"Slavetraders are enslaving people and one of their slaves determines to break free and, in the process, kills their enslaver. WHO is responsible for that slaver's death?"
The slave. But that doesn't indicate sinful behavior on the part of the slave, unless the slave sought to kill the slaver, in which case it clearly would be.
"A woman has been abused by her husband and basically kidnapped and kept at her home for years. She determines to get herself free and her husband tries to stop her with a knife. In the process, he gets stabbed and dies. WHO is responsible for his death?"
Self-defense isn't a sin.
Say it again: "I, Dan Trabue, am a hopeless moron." Now according to your logic, that's the fault of your teachers, parents or whatever darkness in which you were raised.
"Marshal, you should know that this is the privileged response of emotionally fragile supporters of oppression."
Ah...nice attempt to play the race card. It's the response of someone who sees what sounds like a profound statement and quickly sees the logical flaws in it. Your response to it is the response of someone once again schooled.
"This is the response of the slavers and slavery defenders in the past,"
I'm neither, so it's an incredibly stupid and desperate thing to say to defend your lame attempt at being profound.
Say it again: "I, Dan Trabue, am a hopeless moron." Or at least defend your position without the grace-embracing hatred.
Again, you and the slavers would get along famously. They'd like to blame the slaves as well for any violent pushback, just as you do.
Again, rather than acknowledge you've again been schooled, you resort to unsupportable accusations of racism on my part. In other words, you've lied once again. In this behavior, if in none other, you're remarkably consistent.
I didn't say you were racist. I said you support policies and approaches that the slavers would have supported.
I'm not saying you're racist (you may well be, but I'm not saying it - I will say for sure that you're sexist as hell), but I'm noting that you are an ally to racists with the attitudes and positions you promote.
And, as Feodor notes, you'd probably object to Jesus in his day, as well.
"Now Jesus, if one of those little ones sins, it's ON THEM. THEY DID the sin, they should be punished for it. You're just wrong, Jesus, to put it that way..."
"I didn't say you were racist. I said you support policies and approaches that the slavers would have supported...I'm noting that you are an ally to racists with the attitudes and positions you promote."
Oh, yeah. That's much better. A difference without a distinction. You're not only calling me a racist, you're accusing me of supporting racist policies, which is a level of absurdity unique to you and your boy.
And speaking of "uniquely absurd", pretending Jesus's words in any way mirrors the words of Hugo's character. Jesus is referring to those like you two, who by your defense of homosexual behavior as morally acceptable lead children to believe their sinful urges and attractions are OK to indulge. Jesus wasn't in any way a "society's to blame" kinda guy, which Hugo's quote affirms.
Marshal: "Jesus wasn't in any way a "society's to blame" kinda guy"
Jesus: "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!"
Trump was nothing but the performance of a brutalizing-the-spirit world: where Marshal lives.
Thanks, troll. Your Matt 18:7 quote backs me up nicely. The first sentence speaks to us a warning of things which lead one to sin. The second speaks to those like you, who by your perversion of God's Word result in people sinning. In any case, Christ isn't pretending society is an excuse, which is what you're doing by defending the Hugo quote.
Now, unlike Trump, Biden is causing hundreds of thousands of people to sin by telling them they won't be punished for breaking our immigration laws. That's but one more example of how you lefties lead others to and in sin.
Marshal, I don't know how you can justify saying that Jesus' story and Hugo's story are not getting to pretty much EXACTLY the same point.
Here's the whole story (coming in the context of Jesus' ministry which spoke predominantly, far and away of TWO themes - interconnected themes, I'd say: The Kingdom of God and Good News for the poor and marginalized)...
At that time the followers came to Jesus and asked,
“Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
[The point being that even though Jesus is alluding to children, he's speaking of the lowly and vulnerable - the very poor and marginalized Jesus spoke of throughout his ministry - Dan]
Jesus called a little child to him and stood the child before his followers.
Then he said,
“I tell you the truth, you must change and become like little children.
Otherwise, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[Echoing Jesus' teaching that the it is nearly impossible for the wealthy go enter the Kingdom of Heaven - wealth and power are great barriers to heaven/God's Realm -DAN]
"The greatest person in the kingdom of heaven is
the one who makes himself humble like this child."
“Whoever accepts a child in my name accepts me.
[And again, clearly not speaking literally of children, but the vulnerable and marginalized -DAN]
"If one of these little children believes in me,
and someone causes that child to sin,
it would be better for that person to have a large stone tied around the neck
and be drowned in the sea.
How terrible for the people of the world because of the things that cause them to sin.
Such things will happen, but how terrible for the one who causes them to happen!..."
[Jesus here emphasizes and then RE-emphasizes that the ULTIMATE blame in the case of one causing a vulnerable one to sin IS THE ONE who caused/led to/promoted the vulnerable one to sin. THAT IS the point of the text, taking this figurative story to it's literal point. Do you not agree? -DAN]
“Be careful. Don’t think these little children are worth nothing.
I tell you that they have angels in heaven who are always with my Father in heaven."
HOW is that different than Hugo's brief summation of all that...
"The guilty one is
the one who causes the darkness."?
It's almost exactly literally what Jesus taught.
And NO, Jesus is not pretending "society is an excuse," but we haven't said that.
We've noted, as Jesus notes throughout his ministry and his followers repeated after him and Mary repeated before him that THOSE who oppress and cause darkness that may lead to sin of a vulnerable one, that it is THE OPPRESSOR/Darkness-causer who holds the ultimate blame.
Open your eyes.
"Is it not the rich who are oppressing you?"
"Thank you Lord, for you have brought down the powerful and lifted up the lowly"
"It is almost impossible for a wealthy man to enter the realm of God. I TELL YOU AGAIN, it is easier for a CAMEL (!) to go through the EYE OF A NEEDLE (!!!) than a wealthy man to enter heaven."
"Woe to the one who leads this child to sin..."
Open your eyes.
Marshal (how stupid a Christian is he?): “ Biden is causing hundreds of thousands of people to sin by telling them they won't be punished for breaking our immigration laws. That's but one more example of how you lefties lead others to and in sin.”
Scripture:
“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
“The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.”
“For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.”
“You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.“
yeah, I was wondering what Bible Marshal was looking to by making the suggestion that breaking a non-biblical and anti-Christian law was somehow "sin..."?
Marshal (really, really stupid): “The first sentence speaks to us a warning of things which lead one to sin.”
Jesus, declaring that those who *cause people to sin are in jeopardy, not those who sinned - no “woe” for the sinner - just for the dark heart of haters like Marshal:
“Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! … woe to the man through whom they come!"
Same as Victor Hugo: “The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”
Marshal reads his Bible with white supremacist lenses loaned from Beelzebub. He twists it all up.
There's so much in the conservative white Christian tradition from which folks like Marshal and myself spring that is based very much upon tradition moreso than the Bible. It's why eventually, when these great conservatives who raised me kept insisting that I take Jesus' words literally and seriously that I had to part ways with modern conservatism.
The tradition of radical agrarian protestantism - basic American religious culture - served white power interests in repressing its societal brutality of genocide, slavery, misogyny, and broad bigotry.
I grew up in the southern Churches of Christ - a denomination so sectarian they cannot call themselves the Church of Christ.
"But perhaps the best explanation for the hysteria [toward Critical Race Theory] is in a journal entry written on April 7, 1829, by a schoolteacher named Susan Nye Hutchison, who lived in Augusta, Georgia, and whose diaries illuminate a quarter century of life before the Civil War. “Great fear begins to be prevalent that the negroes are about to rise,” Hutchison wrote.
Georgians had experienced a spate of fires, as rumors of insurrection made the citizens of Augusta both negro- and pyro-phobic. Four days before Hutchison’s entry, another “terrible fire” burned about a third of the city, according to a contemporary news article. Estimated damages totaled half a million dollars, with nearly 350 homes destroyed. Hysteria ensued, and enslaved Black people were blamed, rounded up, and tried without evidence.
Months later, a pamphlet named the Appeal, David Walker’s polemic against slavery, emerged in the South. “My object is, if possible,” Walker, a free Black man, wrote, “to awaken in the breasts of my afflicted, degraded and slumbering brethren, a spirit of inquiry and investigation respecting our miseries and wretchedness.”
Southern politicians viewed Walker’s Appeal and its repudiation of their values as “incendiary,” a pyrotechnic of another kind. When Walker’s treatise reached his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, magistrate James McKee issued a warning to Gov. John Owen:
'The dissemination of Walker’s pamphlet…[proves] beyond a doubt that a systematic attempt is making by some reckless persons at the North to sow sedition among the slaves [of] the South, and that this pamphlet is intended and well calculated to prepare the minds of the slave population for any measure, however desperate, that they may propose for accomplishing their emancipation…unless some measures are taken to counteract this design in time, I fear the consequences may be serious to the extreme."
North Carolina quickly passed two laws aimed at stemming slave rebellions by repressing the spread of abolitionist literature. An Act to Prevent the Circulation of Seditious Publications made it a felony to import and distribute “any written or printed pamphlet or paper…the evident tendency whereof would be to excite insurrection, conspiracy or resistance.” A second law banned “the teaching of slaves to read and write,” saying it “has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion to the manifest injury of the citizens of this State.”
Walker’s Appeal also led to Georgia’s December 1829 anti-literacy law, which made circulating insurrectionary texts punishable by death. Virginia, Missouri, and others followed. As a Missouri state archive website puts it, the bans were deemed necessary because “an uneducated black population made white citizens feel more secure against both abolitionists and slave uprisings.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/07/critical-race-theory-slave-abolition-school-literature/?fbclid=IwAR3IvGlejG-J0PyKTQ9eX_2qHq7Y7NePb1ANc6YrkVL0LK1ra76aJKtnh50
RE: Your comment of August 6, 2021 at 11:28 AM
A lot to unpack here, but it begins with the false claim you like to pretend it a factual representation of Christ's mission. You seem to pick and choose when to take His words literally, as you eventually go on to say He wasn't speaking of little children. I'll respond first to your parenthetical comments.
"[The point being that even though Jesus is alluding to children, he's speaking of the lowly and vulnerable - the very poor and marginalized Jesus spoke of throughout his ministry - Dan]"
First of all, my reference to children was simply to render an example of how you guys are creating the darkness in which many children have gotten and will get lost. If I led you to believe I didn't agree Christ was using the child in an analogous way, as an illustration of His point, I'll accept the blame for that. I should know I must be more than commonly careful about how I explain my positions.
Secondly, there's no "very poor and marginalized" considered in this teaching. But you can't help yourself pushing that nonsense because of your socialism.
Thirdly, we might be on the same page with regard to "lowly and vulnerable" if by that you mean one must become like small children as regards their full dependence on others (their parents, guardians or other adults) for their care. Indeed, that's who "the poor" of whom Jesus spoke are! The poor in spirit are like small children in this very way. They understand they need God.
"[Echoing Jesus' teaching that the it is nearly impossible for the wealthy go enter the Kingdom of Heaven - wealth and power are great barriers to heaven/God's Realm -DAN]"
...which means they are NOT "the poor in spirit" who were of such great concern to Jesus. The poor in spirit come in all economic classes. Still do, in fact. So also do those who are not.
"[And again, clearly not speaking literally of children, but the vulnerable and marginalized -DAN]"
Not so. They're "the poor in spirit".
"[Jesus here emphasizes and then RE-emphasizes that the ULTIMATE blame in the case of one causing a vulnerable one to sin IS THE ONE who caused/led to/promoted the vulnerable one to sin. THAT IS the point of the text, taking this figurative story to it's literal point. Do you not agree? -DAN]"
Only to a certain extent. It depends on what you want to insist is "causing that child to sin"...in what way someone causes another to sin. For example, if I had to layoff people because my Democratic governor dared proclaim my type of business is "non-essential", and a laid off employee steals to support his family, are you saying I'm more guilty than the employee? Is even the moronic Dem governor more guilty? I was certainly forced to lay off the employee as I could not support him with wages. The moronic Dem governor thought his proclamation was necessary (one reason he's a moron). Both the governor and I acted in a manner which resulted in the employee choosing to steal. How do you resolve this?
But my previous example, of a person struggling with immoral and disordered desires he knows offends God being persuaded to believe acquiescing to and indulging those desires has been directly complicit in that person's sin. The one who persuaded him by creating the darkness which promotes and enables those who give it made it easier for that person to stray from God's will.
Yet, that formerly struggling person is not innocent of great sin, despite those who enabled his sin being guilty of a far greater sin. The struggling person is not given a pass because some activist or enabler corrupted his thinking. Hugo's quote distinctly denotes he does.
"It's almost exactly literally what Jesus taught."
Aside from the oxymoronic aspect of this statement, it's literally NOT what Jesus taught.
"And NO, Jesus is not pretending "society is an excuse," but we haven't said that."
Well actually, you almost exactly literally did, when you say what Hugo said is "almost exactly literally what Jesus taught." It's certainly what Hugo said. The only way your assertion works to to cut off the end of Hugo's passage. THEN you can try to make it equate to Christ's teaching.
"as Jesus notes throughout his ministry and his followers repeated after him and Mary repeated before him that THOSE who oppress and cause darkness that may lead to sin of a vulnerable one, that it is THE OPPRESSOR/Darkness-causer who holds the ultimate blame."
Neither Jesus nor Mary ever said anything like this. We see that Christ didn't say it in Matt 18 despite how badly you might want Him to have done so. And none of your final quotes from this comment are examples of it...despite how badly you might want them to be.
RE: Your comment from August 6, 2021 at 11:49 AM
"yeah, I was wondering what Bible Marshal was looking to by making the suggestion that breaking a non-biblical and anti-Christian law was somehow "sin..."?"
I really have no idea what this is supposed to mean. I've done nothing at all like this. Please clarify.
RE: Your comment from August 6, 2021 at 12:51 PM
"There's so much in the conservative white Christian tradition from which folks like Marshal and myself spring that is based very much upon tradition moreso than the Bible. It's why eventually, when these great conservatives who raised me kept insisting that I take Jesus' words literally and seriously that I had to part ways with modern conservatism."
Well, you were never a conservative anyway, so it wasn't a tough transition. I guess you can perpetuate this false autobiography here at your own blog if you think any conservative (or even any honest lefty, if there are any) will buy it. One thing is certain...you didn't spring from anywhere I originated, and that's for damned sure. Nothing I believe is based on tradition. I left the Roman Catholic church partially because it puts their traditions almost on par with Scripture.
I'm loathe to indict your parents and childhood pastors, but it seems they were unable to find a way to make you understand what taking Jesus' words literally and seriously actually means. You still don't know, though you do pick and choose when to do so as it's convenient for you.
And...you racist...there's definitely no such thing as "white conservatism" or "white Christianity" and thus definitely no such thing as a "conservative white Christian". It's amazing to me how you two are so fixated on race while referring to others as "racist".
“It's amazing to me how you two are so fixated on race while referring to others as "racist".”
Uhhh… because it’s the racist who perpetuates racism.
Just like it is the unvaccinated who are perpetuating COVID.
It’s the baseball player who plays baseball. Talking about a baseball player isn’t playing baseball.
If you can’t get simple logic then you’re white identity is perpetuating the twisted deceiving machinery of whiteness.
Some years ago, Republicans went looking for death panels. Turns out, they are it.
https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-threatens-withhold-paychecks-school-board-defy-his-mask-ban-2021-8
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/567024-sc-gov-mcmaster-doubles-down-on-no-school-mask-mandates-urges
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1026207485
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/us/texas-mask-mandate-abbott.html
There are zero people of color on Craig's list of "Christian musicians who managed to change the landscape of Christian music in recent history. (since the 60's)"
Jesus Christ. Black people LIVE on music in church. Black artists who sing gospel and soul are INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED.
Aretha Franklin for Christ's sake.
But Craig can't stand his own racist blindness. He has to erase Aretha.
In his defense, it sounds like he's limiting it to music that is specifically in the CCM genre, songs which would show up on CCM radio stations... and for better or worse, Aretha doesn't show up there. CCM is mostly a white crowd.
Actually you were the one who assumed he was talking about CCM. He did not use the phrase until after you did. His post does not stipulate.
White people - even you and me - do not initially see a diversity of people when we spontaneously think a great, immense number of things. We just think of white people.
Craig does not see black people when he imagines Christians.
The very reason that he had to erase my suggestion of Aretha after he had - inadvertently, apparently - posted it.
I think clearly he was speaking of CCM, given his list.
As to "White people... do not initially see a diversity of people..." you will note that I led with all white CCM singers and didn't throw black CCM singers in until a later post, so you appear to be quite correct.
Here's my last comment on Craig's post... it gets to the problem I have (one problem) with CCM...
Craig... "When I listen to Cooke or Franklin's catalog (with some exceptions), I don't hear much explicitly Christian lyrical/topical content."
This is where I parted ways with CCM as a genre, I think.
When the Grand Funk Railroad sang "Some Kind of Wonderful," they were, to me, singing an explicitly Christian song, as love between lovers is explicitly Christian.
When Aretha Franklin sang, "RESPECT," she was singing a very explicitly Christian song, because women deserve respect, and this is especially notable in cultures where women have been oppressed, as was true in Jesus' day and was true when Ms Franklin sang that song first and is still true, albeit to a lesser degree.
When Tracy Chapman sings, "Talking 'bout a Revolution," she is singing explicitly Christian song. Heck, she's singing nothing less than a modern day version of Mary's Magnificat! Which itself was explicitly Christian.
U2 singing "Still Haven't Found..."
Marley singing "Redemption Song" or "One Love..."
Avett Brothers singing "Ain't No Man..."
...and on I can go.
And when Sam Cooke sang, "Change Gonna Come," he was singing an explicitly Christian song and one that was amongst the best ever, in the opinion of many including myself. And far better/more "Christian" than the entirety of the Gaither catalog.
All of that to say, I no longer feel the need or think it wise to categorize music as secular or sacred, depending on the intent of the author or singers. Either a song and its message are advocating Christian ideals or not. And if it is, then it is a Christian song. "Secular" or not.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me, but on this point, maybe Marshal does. Maybe not, maybe I'm misreading him. I just no longer need a third verse that says, "and then Jesus comes to take us away, Hallelujah, Christ is Risen!..." to consider something Christian.
“Craig... "When I listen to Cooke or Franklin's catalog (with some exceptions), I don't hear much explicitly Christian lyrical/topical content”
“In January 1972, [Aretha] returned to Gospel music in a two-night, live-church recording, with the album Amazing Grace, in which she reinterpreted standards such as Mahalia Jackson's "How I Got Over". Originally released in June 1972, Amazing Grace sold more than two million copies, and is one of best-selling gospel albums of all time.”
And now, of course, Kanye’s Jesus is King is one of the biggest selling church music albums of all time. How are we to think of this?
And he is gathering an immensely large congregation following in just a few years.
"Either a song and its message are advocating Christian ideals or not. And if it is, then it is a Christian song."
We were having such a fine conversation about music and then you have to go and say something so completely stupid as the above. A song about love between two lovers isn't "Christian" unless it's a man or woman speaking of his wife or her of her husband...and really within the notion of marriage as a metaphor for Christ and His church. Otherwise, at best, "Some Kind of Wonderful" is about two fornicators with the hots for each other.
There's no mystery about what is meant by the category "Contemporary Christian Music" and it is crystal clear even if a given song is one of those which is hard to classify...a so-called "crossover" song. Your attempt to sound as if you're Christian simply gives license to anyone to regard the vilest song as Christian via the same ambiguous premise you use to regard the songs you've mentioned care as much Christian songs as any with an unmistakable Christian theme.
I suppose you're free to say such nonsense and then believe it as well. It seems extremely pretentious and less than sincere to me.
Marshal... "about two fornicators with the hots for each other."
And you know this... how??
Why couldn't his wonderful lover be his wife/significant other?
Sounds like you're projecting.
I know my baby's some kind of wonderful.
Can I get a witness?
Marshal... "Your attempt to sound as if you're Christian simply gives license to anyone to regard the vilest song as Christian..."
I never said every song is Christian. Just ones that promote Christian ideals. Like loving your spouse, working for Justice, loving humanity or creation, etc.
So, what I said...
"Either a song and its message are advocating Christian ideals or not. And if it is, then it is a Christian song."
...are you actually disagreeing with it? Are you saying that a song about working for Justice, for instance, is somehow NOT Christian?
We Shall Overcome
We Shall Overcome
We Shall Overcome some day
Deep in my heart I do believe
We Shall Overcome some day...
Has no mention of God, Jesus or the Bible or not even of spirituality. Are you saying that this song - one of the greatest Christian anthems for justice in the last 100 years! - is not Christian enough to count as Christian to you?
"No mention of God, Jesus or the Bible or not even of spirituality"? Uhhh..... Dan?
We are not alone, we are not alone We are not alone today
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We are not alone today.
The truth will make us free, the truth will make us free, The truth will make us free someday.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.
We’ll walk hand in hand, we’ll walk hand in hand, We’ll walk hand in hand someday.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,We shall overcome someday.
The Lord will see us through, the Lord will see us through, The Lord will see us through someday.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.
Black and white together, Black and white together, Black and white together someday.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.
Marshal's marriage must be a desert.
I know that many different verses are used in We Shall Overcome. "The Lord Will See Us Through" is not one that I'm familiar with or at least that I've heard sung regularly at the various protests and church services I've been part of.
"And you know this... how??"
I don't and never said I knew it meant anything specific aside from what the words themselves say. (I've never heard the song writer speak of what was intended.) But it is you who projecting when the words themselves make no specific message. Thus, at best, "Some Kind of Wonderful" is about two fornicators with the hots for each other. There's nothing which indicates anything more, so it is you projecting.
Even by your own words there's ambiguity...to say nothing of no expressed intention to restrict such lyrical expressions as a Christian should.
"I never said every song is Christian. Just ones that promote Christian ideals."
Even sinners love those who love them. There are many things Christians do that non-believers do, and that doesn't make them Christians or necessarily blessed.
"...are you actually disagreeing with it? Are you saying that a song about working for Justice, for instance, is somehow NOT Christian? "
Yes and it depends. That is, I wouldn't say it's Christian simply because it has some similarity to Christianity. That would be absurd and quite disrespectful of Christianity. It's one thing to say, "that almost sounds Christian" but quite another to say it actually is.
"Has no mention of God, Jesus or the Bible or not even of spirituality. Are you saying that this song - one of the greatest Christian anthems for justice in the last 100 years! - is not Christian enough to count as Christian to you?"
Not based on the few lyrics you've presented, no. "Overcome" what, precisely? How about a bunch of gay people singing against Christians wishing to overturn the unconstitutional ruling of the Obergefell case? How about abortion proponents singing against Christians seeking to overturn the murderous Roe v Wage decision? Two cases of Christians standing for God's will versus the immoral defending that which isn't.
I simply don't get this desire you have to pretend anything YOU regard as "nice" equates with Christian.
As oppposed to Marshal who regards anything brutal equates with Christian.
Marshal... " Thus, at best, "Some Kind of Wonderful" is about two fornicators with the hots for each other. There's nothing which indicates anything more, so it is you projecting. "
??? SAYS WHO? I listen to it as a lovely love song of the sort that married folks might sing to each other in a healthy marriage. YOU are the one finding hidden "dirty" messages that literally aren't there.
As to the rest of your comments, Good God have mercy.
Marshal... "Even sinners love those who love them. There are many things Christians do that non-believers do, and that doesn't make them Christians or necessarily blessed."
Love is of God. Period. Justice is of God. Period.
Is there someone who is loving or working for Justice? They are doing God's work... IF you believe and affirm that God IS love and God IS Justice.
How could it be otherwise?
“Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine…”
The extent to which Marshal imagines god is an image a tireless hamster on an eternal hamster wheel.
The fact that the phrase, Contemporary Christian Music cannot stand diversity is just an artifact of its racist construction. Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace is contemporary Christian Music. And, now, so is Kanye West.
"By all conventional measures, Kanye West’s Jesus Is King is a success. The rapper’s latest album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 264,000 equivalent album units, of which 109,000 were traditional album sales, Billboard reports. West ties Eminem for the most consecutive No. 1 debuts (nine) and earns his biggest streaming week ever, racking up 196.9 million streams. Jesus Is King also outsold West’s last solo album, Ye, which debuted with 208,000 equivalent album units."
Here is Kanye's lyrics for Closed on Sunday - which if Marshal and Craig cannot celebrate, then by CCM all they really intend to see in Contemporary Christian Music is white people:
Closed on Sunday, you're my Chick-fil-A
Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A
Hold the selfies, put the 'Gram away
Get your family, y'all hold hands and pray
When you got daughters, always keep 'em safe
Watch out for vipers, don't let them indoctrinate
Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A
You're my number one, with the lemonade
Raise our sons, train them in the faith
Through temptations, make sure they're wide awake
Follow Jesus, listen and obey
No more livin' for the culture, we nobody's slave
Stand up for my home
Even if I take this walk alone
I bow down to the King upon the throne
My life is His, I'm no longer my own
I pray to God that He'll strengthen my hand
They will think twice steppin' onto my land
I draw the line, it's written in the sand
Try me and you will see that I ain't playin'
Now, back up off my family, move your hands
I got my weapons in the spirit's land
I, Jezebel don't even stand a chance
Jezebel don't even stand a chance
Chick-fil-A
Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKM90u7pf3U
And here is Kanye quoting scripture in Selah: Contemporary Christian Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CNPg2IQoC0
God is King, we the soldiers
Ultra beam out the solar
When I get to Heaven's gates
I ain't gotta peak over
Keepin' perfect composure
When I scream at the chauffeur
I ain't mean, I'm just focused
I ain't mean, I'm just focused
Pour the lean out slower
Got us clean out of soda
Before the flood, people judge
They did the same thing to Noah
Everybody wanted Yandhi
Then Jesus Christ did the laundry
They say the week start on Monday
But the strong start on Sunday
Won't be in bondage to any man
John 8:33, we the descendants of Abraham
Ye should be made free, John 8:36
To whom the Son set free is free indeed
He saved a wretch like me
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah
He is wonderful
If you woke then wake up
With Judas kiss and make up
Even with the bitter cup
Forgave my brothers and drank up
Did everything but gave up
Stab my back, I can't front
Still we win, we prayed up
Even when we die, we raise up
Ain't no wantin', no, we need it
The powers that be done been greedy
We need ours by this evening
No white flag or no treaty
We got the product, we got the tools
We got the minds, we got the youth
We goin' wild, we on the loose
People is lying, we are the truth
Everything old shall now become new
The leaves will be green, bearing the fruit
Love God and our neighbor as written in Luke
The army of God and we are the truth
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo
"I listen to it as a lovely love song of the sort that married folks might sing to each other in a healthy marriage."
And thus, contrary to what you said I was doing, it is you who is projecting onto the song meaning the words themselves do not convey. I don't necessarily have a problem with that. Most songwriters seem to leave the listener the liberty to do that. But to regard it as a Christian song as a result is still goofy. When my band was doing that song, I certainly had my wife in mind when I sang it. It still doesn't make it a "Christian" song.
"How could it be otherwise?"
By not doing any of those things for His Glory. Throwing those words around doesn't indicate Godly work.
I don’t think Craig has read the Song of Solomon.
... Or the prophets or the words of Jesus.
All of a sudden, Craig's Jesus picks and chooses scripture. Song of Solomon is apparently now out. The tortured mechanizations of the conservative mind.
I noticed that (the picking and choosing).
Craig: “ Do you really think that the Black Panther types were thinking that this vague undefined "change" wasn't really a violent revolution?”
Black Panther’s formal name: Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.
The Black Panther Party's core practice was its open carry armed citizens' patrols ("copwatching") to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city. It was the police who brought the violence.
From 1969 onwards, a variety of community social programs became a core activity. The Party instituted the Free Breakfast for Children Programs to address food injustice, and community health clinics for education and treatment of diseases including sickle cell anemia, tuberculosis, and later HIV/AIDS.
Yup. Noticed that, too.
Post a Comment