Oct 16

Christianity’s Dangerous Idea

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Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, by Alister McGrath ?????

I had varied throughout the reading of the book, at rating the book between 3-5. I finally settled on a 5 in spite of a few serious misgivings. Alister McGrath is known as a conservative Protestant scholar working out of Oxford. McGrath takes a fairly event stance in spite of his supposed academic and conservative stance. Sometimes, he goes a little too far in trying to be moderate, such as when he seems to side with Fosdick in the Fosdick/Machen controversy, Machen accusing liberal Christianity of having abandoned Christian roots and thus not being Christian at all. I think Machen was correct. Yet, McGrath also is very even keeled in his presentation of Pentecostalism as being the dominant force now driving the massive spread of Protestantism throughout much of the rest of the world, including South America, Africa, Asia and Korea, as well as possibly the Philippines. Thematically, McGrath holds tight to his thesis of displaying how the Christian “dangerous” idea that put the Bible into the hands of the layman, allowing them to read and interpret scripture outside of the forced interpretation of the church, has allowed the Protestant movement to adapt to other cultures and societies well beyond the expectations of the west. The book is divided into three parts, the first being a standard historical outline from Luther and Zwingli and Calvin to the present day. It is a focused history, examining the fundamental thesis of what happens when you put the Bible into the hands of a layman. True, you get diversity, heresy, secularization, etc., but you also get adaptability to various cultures. The second part outlined Protestant influence on Western culture, including music, art, science, etc. I’m not sure all of his analyses were entirely accurate, especially with issues of evolution and science, but again, McGrath is possibly attempting to not takes sides in the issue. He still leans toward the evolutionists, sadly. The third part speaks of the rapid growth of Christianity through the rest of the world, and his hypothesis as to why that is happening, which is, as mentioned above, Pentecostalism and other forms of spirituality that are more directed to the culture, thinking  of the lifestyle of people outside of the Western world and adapting Christianity to those cultures, rather than forcing a pure Western cultural interpretation on Christianity. Missing in the book is discussions as to how a large part of Christianity has trashed the Scripture. This is especially true of liberal Christianity. Since the basic thesis of this book is the freedom to interpret Scripture, when you deconstruct Scripture rather than interpret it, does that produce a Christian? I don’t think so. Also not included is the concept of the “heretic”. Essentially, Islam, as well as Jehovah’s Witness and Mormonism are heresies, that I would fail to define as essentially Christian, yet he doesn’t address this issue of deviants of interpretation and belief that delegitimize being a Christian. This is a book worth reading, though a bit dense and sometimes controversial, it reads easily and is very thought provoking.

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Oct 07

The Rest is Noise

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The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross  ?????

This book was a joy to read, in that I have a great enjoyment of classical music. Ross provides a deep insight into what has happened to modern classical music, by providing a historical commentary on the twentieth century development of classical music. The story starts with the struggles between the differing styles of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. He then delves into the effects of the New Viennese school (Schoenberg, etc.), the development of Stravinsky and a counter to atonality, early modern American music, such as Ives, etc., Sibelius, and the post-WWI German scene. A second part delves into music in the Soviet Union 1933-1945, American music, including Copland, and music at the end of Hitler’s Germany. The third part, from 1945 to 1999, discusses the development of the Avant-Garde and a rebellion against all tonality, indeed, all formality in music, including the very beat and structure of music from the time of the middle ages. Various movements, including that of Benjamin Britten, Messiaen, Ligeti, and others continuing to rebel against the rebellers, were described. Finally, the minimalists and final composers of the end of the twentieth century are noted. What I appreciated about Ross was his ability to go beyond the discussion of the method of music, in order to discuss the media and message of music. He freely admits that the music scene changed in part because composers no longer had a message, no longer had anything to say, and no longer saw a point to music. Leading among these was the heavy influence of John Cage in the post-WWII years. Thus, it is surprising that all forms of art, including painting, sculpture, literature, as well as music have followed similar routes in deconstruction with loss of any legitimate message to convey. So, we are left in a perplexing situation, where music is sometimes sold as the sounds of somebody hacking a table apart with an axe, or a locomotive rolling down the tracks, or sounds of nature, or the audience shuffling their chairs, or human voices degraded by electronic means to the point of no longer perceiving the word or even the recognition of humanness. In deed, in the despair, and destruction of music from its highest form as found in JS Bach and others.  This does not mean that all twentieth century music is bad, and I have an appreciation for some of the music that has been written in the last 75-100 years. Yet, the awareness of the underlying philosophy, and personal character of the composers, was more informative as the loss of moral, spiritual, ethical, or personal value of both the composer and their music, is noted. This leads to a discussion of the title of this book, which is itself ambiguous. A “rest” in music is a pause where no sound is made. To the modern composer, a rest may actually be noise. Ross never defines noise, but sometimes suggests that some of modern music may be noise. So, just has time has weeded away the dross of most classical composers, time may again weed away much of the dross of our current noise composers.

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Sep 28

The Little Prince

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The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ???

This is a fairly short book that I read in flight to Cameroon. It was written by a French pilot, who was once grounded while flying over the Sahara Desert in the 1930’s. He eventually died in WWII. The book has achieved a near cult status, in part owing to many implications which could be drawn from the story. I’m not sure if the author was hinting at deep profoundness when he wrote the book, though his suggestion that it’s a story mostly for adults tends to hint at that. The story is of a pilot who crashes in the desert, meets a little man (prince) who asks him lots of questions. The little prince then goes into detail describing his own planet, and various other planets that he has visiting in the universe before falling to earth. In then follows the little Princes’ impression of earth.

This book was an interesting read, encouraging a focus on appreciating the little things, like a rose. Is was not so good of book at inspiring an ideology. For example, the little prince was responsible for keeping his plant in good order and for preventing the overgrowth of baobabs, by uprooting them early, and if not uprooted, they will overgrow the planet. Yet, the baobabs are simply trees. Does he mean that we offer preference for one plant over another on our earth. He disdains planets that have egotistical kings and greedy businesspeople, but is he suggesting a generality? I hope not. Always mentioned was his preoccupation for getting back to his small world to tend for a single flower, which was supposed to be the only one in the universe, except that there was an abundance of them on earth. So, what is he implying? Environmental implications? Societal implications? Economic, capitalistic implications? I suppose that a person who most loves this story would imply that I simply do not understand. Yet, that in itself is a form of wanton arrogance, as perhaps I understand all too well what the author’s intentions were. The back cover suggests that I am supposed to learn what is really important in life through this little story. But, it hasn’t happened. Perhaps my greatest dismay is that relations with others is important, yet the little prince seemed to control the entire exchange between the pilot and himself. Even the little prince could not tell what was most important in life. Was it his flower, or was it the sheep he desired on his planet, though it might eat his flower? In fact, the little prince seems to imply that he himself was most important. So, we’ll let the little prince return to his own planet, and spend our time on earth using other means as to what is best in life. Just ask Conan the Barbarian!

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