This is a very interesting article. A number of people have talked about adapting technology to create a form of skin input device and here are the first two ideas. Not sure either of them are the killer application yet but they are on the way. Throw away the handset and embed the technology in your own body. Next they'll be talking about contact lenses as screens...oh, they did already? Very interesting given my upcoming paper on Haptic Theology and the conference in Graz...
I've been hearing lots of great things about the RendCollective and so saw that their latest album was available on iTunes and succumbed to the 'buy now' impulse.
Instead I found it was a tad different. Some of the tracks are inspiringly brilliant and I sum up these at the end. Perhaps I am just in that kind of a mood but they tend to be the more contemplative and Celtic songs. There are others which I don't like and that may be that they are just too contemporary. But I like a lot of contemporary music. I even like Glee and can laugh during Eurovision. But I'd have to confess some of these toonz made me think more of Eurovision than of Mumford and Sons. That was a sad surprise. But other people will love the live happening beat.
Thanks for the richness of 'Alabaster' though - truly wonderful. Saved the image and story from Gaganess. (Let the reader understand!)
These are my views - tons of other people are giving it five stars! So read other reviews too!
The album opens with a jaunty number called Praise like fireworks. I have to say this is more Glee than Mumford and Sons with backing vocals and 'yeah' flourishes. It's a foot-tapper. Some strange lyrics ('my concrete heart') and somewhat run of the mill cadences. I felt like a grumpy old git by the end of this - not sure I would want to sing this in Church on Sunday - glib, self-certain, shallow both musically and, I'm afraid, theologically. 3/10
The next song is the RendCollective's version of Be Thou my Vision - using some modern version which doesn't really fit into the rhythm of the song too well in places - listen particularly for "You are my battle---------shield, sword for the fight". More chronic crooning backing vocals. It's a kind of speeded up version of the usual melody, I suppose and is singable but I found it lacked depth and passion for such a historic hymn. 3/10
Then comes the drum machine and 'ohohohohohoh'. There's more feel to this song and I suppose it feels more contemporary than the previous songs on the album. I spent some time exploring what the lyrics were - I think it is 'I've counted up the cost', but I thought for the first few times of listening that it was 'I've conjured up the cost' and wondered whether it was a literary reference to CS Lewis and Old Magic or an attempt to bring in Harry Potter Theology. Sadly not - just my poor hearing skills! But I have to say that the 'ohohohohohoh' thing in the background it sooooooo annoying. Now, the CODA is a different thing altogether - a piece of sublime beauty! Wish the whole song had been delivered in that style. 4/10 (CODA 10/10)
'Second Chance' picks up the quieter strains of The Cost with vocal and guitar. This is the most played song so far. I could listen to this again and again. Anthemic. Excellent build and skillful use of other instruments to build the song. Wonderful. "Oh your cross, it changes everything". "The second chance is heaven's heart" - that's an interesting theological statement but I think that it is pretty straightforward. Even if we mess everything up, God's grace is enough to get us back. Love this song. 10/10
Bizarre opening to 'True Intimacy' - don't listen to it with a headache. This is pure Eurovision. Great words, I think...but too pop for me. Needed some depth in lyrics and music. But I think this song will really appeal to lots of people and I can see it being sung in big festivals - "There's nothing greater than kno---Wing you" could have scanned better... 6/10
'Build your kingdom here' - another jaunty number with some cracking scan issues with the lyrics. This seems to be an issue for them. Often lyrics don't match the scansion of the music and so words tend to be broken over lines or rhythm. This is fine but on every song it tends to suggest a rather broken lyric rather than a folksy playing. This song will be popular - with its call for revival and Celtic humming backing vocal - nice rhythm to it. All it needs is a cheesy key change to be brought in at the right point. 6/10
I love Desert Soul - great sense of mystery to the song and some good lyrics which tend to scan well. "I'm lost without your creative spark in me, I'm dead inside unless your resurrection sings". Like 'Second Chance' - brilliant song well presented and with heart. Like this one a lot - lovely Celtic cadences in the Anthemic build section. 10/10
Oooh folk guitar at the beginning of this one - 'Christ has set me free' - like this on first hearing although... - despite some lyric brokeness - although there is no place here for postmodern angst or PeterRollinesque doubt. Christ has set the bloke free from darkness and cynicism and everything is rosy and wonderful and brilliant. Christ has set us free from negativity and impossibiliteeee. I am not so sure about that kind of glib theology. Is that really what Christ is about. Interesting that Christ stands out here when so many other references have been to Jesus. It's an OK song but trite. 5/10
'Keep me Near' - Celtic through and through - images of God's tide, presence, weakness, focus, grace. Well produced and musically simple but satisfying. 10/10
The album ends with 'Shining Star' and we're back to the land of Eurovision! Presumably its a Christmas anthem. I expect to see it on Glee sometime soon - although again with the lyrical hesitancy which is part and parcel of the album. Punchy, repetitive, pop with trumpets. It will go far. 5/10
So overall not sure what this says. My highlights from the album are:
It's worth the album price for those four songs - especially Alabaster. But I will have to hope the rest grow on me!
Cheers
Pete
http://pmphillips.posterous.com/review-homemade-worship-by-rendcollective-uneSomeone asked me for some information about John's Gospel and the pre-existence of Jesus. I gave them some material and then read an article by Robert Jenson which I had found the other day and wanted to read through in any case about the 'logos asarkos' - I'll explain more in a bit.
But John is much more explicit and begins his Gospel with a prologue in which the Logos ('word' is the most common translation) is with God in the beginning - in other words exists before Jesus - pre-exists Jesus. So some people want to see Logos as Jesus before Jesus. Although since the Logos is not used as a title in this way ever again and it is Jesus who rise from the dead and ascends to the Father, presumably the Logos merges with Jesus somehow? But this is really difficult because how then was the Logos Jesus before Jesus if the Logos is added to Jesus to become Jesus?
But if the Logos isn't Jesus before Jesus - what is 'it'? It is enfleshed ('sarx egeneto' - becomes sarx, ensarkos) in 1:14 as Jesus (1:17) and so could be seen as logos asarkos (logos without sarx) before 1:14? Is it an idea or characteristic which is enfleshed? God's communication which is enfleshed? Wisdom - probably the most likely? and so before Jesus was born there was only a binity - the Father and the Spirit - or the Trinity of Father, Spirit and Wisdom became the Christian Trinity of Father, Spirit and Son? (Argh, heresy!) But what about Jesus telling those people on the Emmaus Road of all the times he is in the Hebrew Bible or of Abraham seeing him (John 8) - before Abraham was I am. Seems pretty clear that the Johannine Jesus believes he was Jesus before Jesus and Gathercole thinks the Synoptic Jesus thought the same (obviously!).
I'd agree with this. My own study of the Prologue argued that there is no such thing as a Logos Christology because the Logos is just a literary device to delay the naming of Jesus. So when John uses the device at the beginning of the Gospel, he simply means Jesus was in the beginning with God. Jimmy Dunn wouldn't agree but you can't have everything. Since Logos never appears again and throughout the Gospel, Jesus makes a strong case for his own eternal existence, then we can be sure that what we have in John is an eternally existent Son Christology not a Logos Christology. I think John assumes that who we know as Jesus was known in Judaism as Wisdom or Shekinah or King of Righteousness (Melchizedek) and that enfleshment made this hypostasis/identity known in a new way and so a new name - Jesus.
But that's very divine and we could easily lose the humanity of Jesus in all of that - as lots of people accuse John of doing. What about the baby - was the baby a member of the Trinity and a full human being? How? How was the baby fully human and fully divine? Where did the fertilised egg come from? Did that give Jesus his humanity - Mary as egg donor to God rather than just as God's test-tube? What does Theotokos (Mary's title as 'god-bearer') mean? Where did the divinity come from? Does God have sperm? (sorry that was crude and probably heretical) But how do we square the circle between Jesus being unique creature, enfleshed (ensarkos) logos, baby in a manger and Jesus being Jesus before Jesus?
Jenson argues that this is just silly. He states three points from his Systematics:
Jenson feels pretty chuffed with this outcome and argues that any further conversation about the existence of the Logos before John 1:14 is just a Vorstellung in futile search of a Begriff. Again more poncy theological jargon (sorry betraying my annoyance - I, of course, never use poncy theologischedummkopfsprache) - means 'an idea in futile search of a term'.
Back to Gathercole for me because I just don't think Jenson has got it right here!
What do you think?
Pete
p.s. I just know someone will say I just need to believe/pray harder/think less and everything will be alright...
http://pmphillips.posterous.com/was-jesus-jesus-before-jesus-theologyheadacheI am taking a brief look at the moment at the Didache. It's a pastoral resource/manual for the early Church probably written toards the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century CE (or AD). It offers some interesting guidance on how to live the Christian life and is subtitled - The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Despite that grand title, it isn't accepted as part of the New Testament but is seen as one of those non-canonical books which we can study as part of our reflection upon the Christian way of life but not actually authorised by the Councils of the Church.
Anyway, today I was reading Didache 5 and it just struck me how much it echoed some of our contemporary issues. Here is the financial crisis, the abortion dilemma, celebrity culture and grasping after excess; here is Etonian arrogance and mob violence; here is mafia and fornication:
5.1 But this how we characterise the way of death: first of all, it is evil and accursed. It is known by acts of murder, adultery, lust, sexual deviation, theft, idolatry, magic, sorcery, robbery, false witness, hypocrisy, duplicity, deceit, arrogance, wickedness, stubbornness, greed, obscene talk, jealousy, arrogance, pride, pretension. 5.2 [The way of death is full of] persecutors of the good; those who hate the truth; who love falsehood; who do not recognise the reward of justice; who do not adhere to good and proper discernment; who are not on the look out for the good but for the wicked; people who live a long way from gentleness and patience; who love vanity and chase its rewards; who show no pity for the poor; who do not press themselves to help the oppressed; who do not recognise the one who made them; murderers of children; destroyers of the image of God; people who turn from the need; who tred on the downtrodden; advocates of the rich; lawless critics of the poor; utterly sinful. Children, may you be delivered from all these things.
Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator.
I remember thinking that Jenson was pretty much on the ball with his argument about the culture of death. Self-destruction is the name of the game and may well be part of society's fascination with vampires and horror and excess. It may lie behind such things as the right for self-determination and assisted suicide. We want to die and God help anyone who gets in our way. We're free to live the life that we want wherever this leads us to - preferably to self-destruction.
Jenson argues that too many of us in the Church have succumbed to this culture:
What ails Christians in this nation and this time, and ails also those who fancy themselves and indeed are called to be leaders of the faithful, is the infiltration of nihilism, the infiltration of that mere nothingness which sin, death, and the devil have in common, and which emerges in its own nonentity in an ex-Christian culture.
Nihilism in one enemy we cannot co-opt. Nothingness is just that, a black hole of being, and like an astronomical black hole sucks in everything that approaches it. Accommodation to the empty thud of late-modern pop music, to the short attention span of th baby boomers, to decadent Americanism's horror of distinctions and decisions, will only further damage the souls of those the church pursues by such accommodation. Pastors and church leaders in our time must be wary indeed, lest we turn out to be nihilism's agents.
(Robert W Jenson, Introduction to Sin, Death and the Devil, pp.5-6)
Needless to say, Jenson and the Didache make it absolutely clear that Christianity stands apart from this Way of/to Death. Both argue for Christianity as a radically life-affirming theology/philosophy/worldview. How do we move our own ways of working and living away from the cultural norms for self-destruction through to a life of renewal, thriving and growth which reflects the Christian Way to Life?
An epiphanic quote to finish:
"In the beginning was the Word...In him was life, and the life was the light of [humanity]. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." What, then, is 'the culture of death'? The culture of death is the darkness. It is the darkness that has not, and will not, overcome the light. That is the Gospel of life, and the Gospel of life is the Gospel. The Gospel of life is the kerygma and didache of the Lord of life. In the words of Evangelium Vitae, "Jesus is the only Gospel: We have nothing further to say not any other witness to bear."
(Richard Neuhaus, 'The Gospel of Life is the Gospel' in Sin, Death and the Devil, p.117)
Amen!
http://pmphillips.posterous.com/the-way-of-death-is-paved-with-didache-epiphaIn 2013, the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels are coming to Durham.
CODEC have been discussing with a number of people the possibility of setting up a Digital Arts project linked to the visit of the Lindisfarne Gospels - although exploring much more about the history and faith of the North East and further afield and the contemporary use of the Bible. We've already spoken to a number of people at Durham University, Durham Cathedral and Durham County Council as well as lots of other groups.
Over the next few weeks/months, Tim will outline the project in more detail and be putting in a whole host of bids to various funding partners. If you're interested in being involved in the project, then send Tim an email. We're especially interested to hear from programmers, digital artists and gamers/coders, who might like to play around with some ideas as we develop the project.
For now...here's the bare project aim and outline in its very preliminary form...
Project Aim:
To communicate key aspects of regional history, identity and faith in the North East through contemporary arts focussing especially on emerging digital media as an analogue of the use of art and technology in the production of Eadfrith’s 7th century Lindisfarne Gospels, which will be housed in Durham in the Summer of 2013.
Project Outline:
The project will use digital arts to explore the interface between regional history, identity and faith; create a portable exhibition about contemporary Christian communication and use of the Bible; curate complementary arts and media exhibitions and experiences – including possible use of key urban locations, public galleries, and 'digital pilgrimage routes’. The project will establish collaborative working arrangements with other universities in the North of England, with academics, schools, churches and community projects in the region to explore contemporary understandings of history, identity and faith.
Over to you, Tim!
Pete
http://pmphillips.posterous.com/codecs-lindisfarne-gospels-digital-arts-projeMethodism has been engaged in a consultation process regarding its training for ministry across the whole denomination. I've been engaged in lots of different conversations over the course of the autumn but decided that I wanted to put together my own response. I have decided to publish that response publically rather than just send it in to an email address and a committee. I wanted my views in the public arena not least because I offer an alternative reading to the Liverpool Minutes, to the Isaiah passage which refers to the fruitful field and also to the concept of the Ministry of the Whole People of God in the World.
For those who don't want to read the whole report, I argue that a better strategy to equip the whole people of God for ministry and mission within contemporary society would be to establish four or five local hubs across Methodism rather than accept the vision of one central hub. These hubs should focus specifically on resourcing the whole of the Methodist Church in the region and do ministerial training as a secondary activity. My argument is that we will only develop the Church as a learning community if we intentionally foster the informal learning structures which are already actively at work within the local church.
My recommendations are:
Here is the full response:
Please remember that it is a personal response and does not relate to my role at WSC or to my role as Faith and Order Secretary of the Methodist Church. I am a Methodist prebyster called to serve the Church and this calling transcends any office or role in which I am currently stationed.
God bless and Merry Christmas.
Pete
http://pmphillips.posterous.com/empowering-grass-roots-methodism-a-response-tJust some fun distraction from your work!
I do worry how expensive most of these items are - do people really buy one another such expensive gifts? Really?? How do they afford it???
I see there is nothing whatsoever about actual Christmas!
Thought this was appropriate for Britain facing Climate Change...
And this retro stand for an iPhone is sumptuous (and not bad price!) - like the App too - anyone know what it is?
Pete
http://pmphillips.posterous.com/mashables-16-gadgets-for-christmas-loving-theI did a talk (available over on http://www.sharingisgood.org.uk) about Augmented Technology in which I referred to contact lenses picking up internet information. Within a year we have a 'proof of concept' demonstration. Wow! The future is here.
So I've just heard that my paper proposal for this conference has been accepted. I am now working out the best way to get to Graz in February - ably assisted by the amazingly talented David Bunce who is currently working away in Vienna. He tells me that travel between the UK and Austria is not so good and actually recommends a quick flight to Bratislava! We'll see...
Here's the conference details...
Here's the abstract for my paper...comments, suggestions, rebuttals welcome!
Christianity Online?: A Haptic Faith on a non-Haptic Web?
Haptic technology relates to touch and is generally used as shorthand for somesthetic feedback mechanisms within a virtual environment. This paper will explore the development of haptic feedback mechanisms within both medicine and arts-based training and compare that to the apparent lack of interest in haptic feedback in the digital world. Indeed, recent developments, such as Microsoft’s Project Natal and in immersive gaming environments move us further away from somesthetic interaction with the virtual world.
Haptics not only provide us with essential feedback to help us use our physical faculties well. There is increasing evidence that the primary somesthetic organ, the skin, also provides a psychological boundary for human identity. Without such a boundary, humanity is less able to cope and more prone to accident, injury and so harm ‐ both physical and psychological. To be human is to be boundaried – or rather somesthetic feedback and being human seem to be correlated.
Having explored several recent films exploring virtual environments, which do incorporate somesthetic feedback, we will then turn to religion. The paper will look at the somesthetic bias within contemporary and historical expressions of the major faiths, especially Christianity, and ask how much the somesthetic bias found there militates against religious expression in a virtual environment. We will query whether this deficiency is temporary due to a lack of technical development, or whether such somesthetic feedback is a dispensable part of the contemporary religious practice. Is it possible or desireable to express contemporary religious experience without somesthetic or haptic feedback.
CODEC had its latest research seminar on Friday 4th November with Lynne Blair, Senior Lecturer in Computing from Lancaster University sharing with us part of her own research in "Values in Social Media". It was a great session with some exploration of the concept of values and also the complications of values and practices. Key to what Lynne was saying was a quote from C.S.Lewis's Abolition of Man: It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. It is in Man's power to treat himself as a mere `natural object' and his own judgements of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. In other words, how aware are we of the subconscious yielding of power to the technological. A lot of this is being discussed at the moment by Heidi Campbell and then also in work Vicky Beeching is writing (forthcoming) and also some exploration which I am doing with Haptic Theology (forthcoming). It's a key issue and not all of us agree - which is a brilliant place to be. Lynne referred to Matrix Unloaded at the end of the seminar and queried whether some of us are so engaged in the machine world that we need prophets to come and remind us of what the issues really are - some of us so enmeshed with technology that we need a-technological prophets to alter us to our own latent cyborgisation. That is a good good good reminder for each of us enmeshed in social media as well as in technological gadgetry. At the end, Lynne proposed three axes/pivot points for values in social media: physicality, integrity and sustainability. Here's the video of the seminar - not brilliant quality but its something and I'm hoping to add the powerpoint anyway... Lynne and I had a great conversation after the seminar and we hope that in 2012-2013 we can run a collaborative research project at St John's in partnership with Lancaster University looking at this area. We hope Lynne will be a Visiting Fellow to St John's and we'll be able to bring in some researchers to look into this area of work. We'll clearly need to bring quite a few people into this conversation...so we'll make it as horizontal, web 2,0 and open as we possibly can! Pete
Well, life is a little busy at the moment and I haven't got round to posting this soon enough. One of the things about my bifocused life (Durham and London) is that I am often travelling on the train up and down the East Coast and I mean to do lots of work on the train but by the end of a long day of meetings, I am usually done for by the journey home. Then the next day rages in with all its demands. Yesterday I decided just to give in to fatigue and, more importantly, to spend some quality time with my family and our friend Richard Hardy from Entheos Trust who was staying over...
But all this means that I missed the opportunity to blog about the amazing Evensong held outside St Paul's last Wednesday evening organised via the twitter account @FlashEvensong.
I had had meetings in Methodist Church House during the day and then met up with Bex Lewis to discuss where we were going with BigBible and bring her up to date with a whole load of things about CODEC - lots happening. Then we travelled across London to St Paul's to take part in the choir at the Evensong.
Here is a boo which we recorded when we arrived...
And some photos...
Not very clear...oops!
In this picture - @artsyhonker (purple coat), @riggwelter, (behind @artsyhonker) and @JohntheLutheran front extreme right (fitting?).
Here's the Telegraph's video of part of the event...
Here's a brief audioboo of the actual evensong with some terrible out of tune singing at the beginning - you have been warned...
The whole thing was organised by @Artsyhonker and you can read her thoughts here - it may even have spawned a new trend for @flashevensong around the land.
Here is a copy of James Ogley (@Riggwelter)'s impromptu sermon.
For me the event was essentially missional - it took worship onto the streets and we had crowds of people both listening in and also taking party - passersby, tourists, protestors. It was a great moment - despite the rather crazy ancient language and the seemingly very 'establishment' prayers praying for the monarchy and bishops and so on. Dave Warnock sent a tweet asking whether we had done some contemporary worship as well. We hadn't and I actually think that a guitar-playing-TimHughes-singing group wouldn't actually have the impact that was necessary at that time and in that place.
Here's an audioboo which I did with Peter Ould (@twurchofengland @peterould) after the service - please pray for Peter who has since had an issue with some cardiac pain...
Many thanks to John Cooper for advertising the event and interviewing @artsyhonker and also for Tim Skellett (@gurdur) for his positive write up over on Heathen-Net - not least on the Methodists!
We'll have to see what goes on now that Giles Fraser has resigned and the Cathedral has re-opened and the City of London is trying to expel the protestors. It's a sad state of affairs all around.
One thing I should do is apologise to #OccupyLSX for calling them an anti-capitalist protest. It is of course much more than that. It's a call for democracy, radical democracy and a call for grassroots engagement. It's a protest against corporatism - against the banks who have taken over government and against those milking society for all its worth. But if you really want to know what the protest is about both here and in other cities, go and ask them - or at least visit their very good site at occupylsx.org
Pete
http://pmphillips.posterous.com/a-late-post-on-st-pauls-flashevensong-occupyl
I had an evening free in London last night and so went down to see the Anti-Capitalism Camp outside St Paul's. It was a moving and enlightening experience. At times it was like Greenbelt, although at others very much more threatening than Greenbelt. It was full of life and vitality, as well as very cold and hard. I sympathise with the passions of the protestors - free market capitalism is disastrous for the poor and the capitalisation of the banks at sovereign expense is simply prolonging the agony.
But I went to see what it was like and do some reporting. So here are a few audioboos, pics and videos with a prayer to close with. I hope that you get some feel for the protest and what it is about. Indeed this reportage might be crucial if, as papers are reporting this evening, St Paul's is now asking them to leave because of the financial implications for their commercial concerns. I do hope these reports are not accurate!
First a pic of the aims...
Then some more pics...
#OccupyLondon from Pete Phillips on Vimeo.
Finally the prayer I said over the site as I prepared to leave...
I wish I was brave enough to have stayed...Jesus would have!
Pete
p.s. On the way back to the hotel, I was horrified to pass the sugary pleasuredome that is M&M World in Leicester Square - is this the epitome of mindless capitalism?
I am speaking tonight in Preston at the inaugural meeting of the Lancashire Theological Society. I'm talking about the 21st Century Bible - exploring Biblefresh themes alongside some historical patterns in biblical literacy and some contemporary uses of the Bible and the Arts.
Here's my opening slide...
I had an evening free in London last night and so went down to see the Anti-Capitalism Camp outside St Paul's. It was a moving and enlightening experience. At times it was like Greenbelt, although at others very much more threatening than Greenbelt. It was full of life and vitality, as well as very cold and hard. I sympathise with the passions of the protestors - free market capitalism is disastrous for the poor and the capitalisation of the banks at sovereign expense is simply prolonging the agony.
But I went to see what it was like and do some reporting. So here are a few audioboos, pics and videos with a prayer to close with. I hope that you get some feel for the protest and what it is about. Indeed this reportage might be crucial if, as papers are reporting this evening, St Paul's is now asking them to leave because of the financial implications for their commercial concerns. I do hope these reports are not accurate!
First a pic of the aims...
Then some more pics...
Oops you'll have to wait until Vimeo Upload works! Which it doesn't on an East Coast train going from Kings Cross to Durham!
Finally the prayer I said over the site as I prepared to leave...
I wish I was brave enough to have stayed...Jesus would have!
Pete
p.s. On the way back to the hotel, I was horrified to pass the sugary pleasuredome that is M&M World in Leicester Square - is this the epitome of mindless capitalism?
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