A Little More from the Teapot

Dr. Peter Leithart has just been awarded an Association of Reformed Institutions of Higher Education (ARIHE) Lectureship for 2010-2012 (Member institutions include Calvin, Covenant, Dordt, and Geneva colleges, among others). You can read about it at New Saint Andrew’s website (take particular note of the topics for his upcoming lectures). Congratulations, Dr. Leithart.

The timing couldn’t be better.

A Brief Excursus into the Teapot

For those of you who are following the sad degeneration of the PCA into a chest-thumping, savorless impotency, I thought I’d share this little bit about baptism from Robert Rayburn regarding the SJC’s incompetent attempt to railroad Dr. Peter Leithart:

At the beginning of Presbytery’s thirty minutes before the panel Presbytery’s respondent was told in quite a peremptory way to read Romans 6:1-7. “That is not about baptism,” he was told. I assume they meant that it was not about water baptism, the rite of baptism. This is the view now represented in the panel’s reasoning [C v]. Gentlemen, do you really want to go on record saying that the PCA does not believe that Romans 6 is about water baptism? That is a conclusion you will find in no reputable commentary on Romans: from Hodge to Murray, from Bruce to Cranfield, from Ridderbos to Moo. Let’s not make ourselves a laughingstock. Is PCA baptism really so light, so weightless, so invisible that it cannot be found even where it is the explicit subject of a text of Holy Scripture? However else one may account for the reality of baptized unbelief, Romans 6 is most assuredly about water baptism and it is an offense to the entire tradition of Christian biblical study to deny this!

You may read the whole thing here, if you so desire. Me, I’m going to go make a tasty beverage out of the water boiling on my stove. There’s a metaphor to be had there, no doubt.

Hat Tip: Credenda/Agenda

Our Aeneid: Twilight as Sexual Mysticism

You have said that the series is a “Mormon woman’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.” How so?

I mean that very literally because its inspiration came in the form of a dream that Stephenie Meyer, a cradle Latter Day Saint and BYU graduate, had on June 2, 2003. That dream—comprised of Edward and Bella’s time in a sunlit mountain meadow, which eventually became chapter 13 of the first book—is a snapshot of the allegorical meaning of the series: a Harlequin version of Mormon ideas about God and man. Harold Bloom of Yale University once wrote that Joseph Smith, Jr., the LDS prophet and author of The Book of Mormon, is America’s only religious genius. I agree.

Malcolm Muggeridge said that sex or eroticism is “the mysticism of the materialist,” and Mormonism is the spirituality of our times in this regard. It is no accident that Meyer wrote a book suffused with religious content within the romance genre (meaning a love story in this context) that includes a heroine’s apotheosis after marrying the image of Joseph Smith, Jr., and being transformed by childbirth into a super-powered near-immortal. Bella’s story is actually a mythic version of Mormon soteriology.

It is likewise no accident that Americans resonate with this message. Sex, after all, is by and large our religious faith and sole extra-personal experience—after reading and moviegoing, of course! In several ways, Mormonism, though a 19th-century anachronism, is America’s de facto religion in that it’s preoccupied with proper sexual relations. In this sense, Meyer has written the Aeneid for our naturalist, desire-driven culture.

- John Granger in an interview with Salvo. Read the entire interview here.

Also, Doug Wilson is in the process of reading through the first novel of the Twilight series: You may read his amusing and insightful take on the book at Credenda.org.

The Danks

Really enjoying music by The Danks, streaming for your listening pleasure by the good people at Killbeatmusic.com.


Samples EP

Who’s Afraid of the Danks? LP

Does the Lord Regret?

In 1 Samuel 15, as the eponymous prophet is apprising king Saul of the Lord’s rejection of his house, Samuel says the following in response to Saul’s pleas: “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret (1 Samuel 15:28-29 ESV).”

After Samuel “hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord” and separated from Saul, we are told that he “grieved over Saul”, which is to be expected. However, we are also told something unexpected: “And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel (1 Samuel 15:35 ESV).”

“More Like Not Running Away”

More Like Not Running Away: A Novel by Paul Shepherd

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The initial impression was that this would be a long version of Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”, but after the first 30 pages, Shepherd seemed to find his own stride and the narrator Levi begins to develop into a real character. Mr. Shepherd’s phrasing is taught and somewhat stylized without ever feeling hurried or put-on, leaving a quasi-biblical aftertaste, like a McCarthy-infused aperitif.
Despite a few incongruities of characterization here and there, my only real complaint with this otherwise excellent story is the ending: I suppose it could be defended as realistic, but having successfully made me care about the narrator’s father Everest, the complete lack of redemption (and the seeming implication that this isn’t that big a deal) was frustrating to me: I felt a little put on. I thought I had a heavy-weight novel on my hands, only to have the last few punches thrown by a bantam-weight from Connecticut. Nevertheless, an enjoyable and beautifully written debut novel, and a few afternoons well-spent.

View all my reviews >>

Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom

Tom Waits is releasing a live set of performances culled from his Glitter and Doom Tour. You can pre-order the album on CD or vinyl LP, or get one of the pre-order packages that include, among other things, one of Waits’ “stain” T-shirts.




NPR is streaming one of the shows from this tour here, if you want a preview.

Hat Tip: Remy

‘Imaginitive’, Aye

Not much to be said that hasn’t been already on President Obama’s Nobel award, but in case you missed it, I thought I would share Desmond Tutu’s official response, a brilliantly diplomatic version of the “Huh?” reaction of so many of us (one can only hope that the irony was intentional):

[A] surprising but imaginative choice.

Hat Tip: Times UK

Sinai

Photographs of Chaiten volcano in Chile. In the middle of the night toxic ash and dust from the eruption ionized the air, generating an explosive electrical storm around the plume.

Jonah has Pity on the Gourd

Jacob Steinhardt

Barter

This Guy Named Mark from Sweden carves these groovy pipe tampers, and he’d love to trade you something for them.

Hat Tip: Joffre

The Deep Dark Woods

Now that fall is closing in on us, you should listen to The Deep Dark Woods’ latest “Winter Hours”, which can be streamed at killbeatmusic here.

Hat Tip: Larson Hicks

After Their Own Kind

Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence. . . . Oddly, their only response to several samples of human music was a calming response to the heavy-metal band Metallica.

from “Monkeys get a groove on, but only to monkey music”, PhysOrg.com
Hat Tip: First Thoughts