THERE WAS A MOMENT IN TIME when Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” was fresh and new. Then came the remixes on the radio and the remakes on YouTube. I even posted one here a few weeks ago, “The Star Wars That I Used to Know.” Now Gotye has gotten into the remake business. . . this time using a variety of clips from YouTube. An impressive feat of taking interpretations of your own work and making something out of it. He calls it “Somebodies.”
‘STORY’ HAS BEEN A HOT TOPIC lately. Has been for some time, honestly. It’s also been a big topic for the folks over at Christianity Today, as well. The concept, so true to human experience and history, has made its presence known in many venues: you see it in the Olympics, you hear it from the pulpit and on the radio, you get it in television, it’s even made its way into the language of corporate and educational culture.
Which makes Leslie Leyland Fields’ “The Gospel is More than a Story: Rethinking Narrative and Testimony” an important read. In the article, Fields deals with the call for a more narrative theology that has struck like lightning these last five years. Her fear, is that narrative has become a way of short-changing the full breadth of the Bible. And it’s a fear well-noted. A the same time, Fields applauds the rise in narrative (Fields is from a literary background).
Fields outlines the argument well. First is a concern with “who will narrate the world.” Every culture is made of multiple stories, and it is easy to lose the ones that are vital in the mix. Second is the concern for the many genres of literature found within the Bible itself. What happens to lament and parables and word choice in a world of the over-arching narrative? Third is a concern that Christian leaders might tweak the narrative to fit their own style and theologies (the examples here are Rob Bell and Brian McLaren). What happens if you remove strong notions of wrath and judgment? Final is the concern over the rise of personal stories that preempt and overwrite basic biblical theology. What do we do with the stories found in books like The Shack and Heaven is For Real, stories that are more rooted in the minds of many Christians more than any real biblical theology?
Two names were absent from the article that have most articulated the importance of story for me: Donald Miller and N. T. Wright. Miller, of course, would probably fall under concern numbers three or four. Wright, I think, would fall under number three. I’d like to think that both of them have healthy, biblical foundation for their views.
One of the things that I have done in my classes over these last two years is emphasize the importance of the biblical story. And when I have had opportunity to preach I have tried to emphasize whatever text I have been tasked with using in light of the rest of the biblical story. I think it’s vital because many Christians have no real working understanding of the story.
If you’ve got some time, check out the rest of Fields’ article here.
You can read a great introductory write-up of N. T. Wright’s view on the authority of Scripture and story here.
You can read a couple of Donald Miller’s more thought-provoking articles on reading the Bible here and here.
Feel free to leave some comments below.
MUMFORD & SONS HAS A NEW ALBUM dropping next month. They released the first song (“I Will Wait”) from the album (Babel) this past week. They’ve been playing the song for a while now. Here’s the song from a concert from early August in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More has been one of the most replayed albums on my list this last year or so, which means I have great hopes for the new album and its September 25 drop.
SOME OF MY FRIENDS ARE SURPRISED to find out that I enjoy watching the Olympics. I suppose you could draw a couple of conclusions from that. But I’ve been a fan of the Olympics since at least 1984.
I was recently talking to a friend a few years older than me about watching Mary Lou Retton spot that “perfect ten” back in ’84. He was surprised that I would remember such a thing. But I do. So I laughed a little when Grantland posted the video and a “play-by-play” of Retton’s great moment on their site. You can relieve the whole thing here.
But there’s this strange dissonance that the Summer Olympics brings that I haven’t heard acknowledged much. It’s about the two big favorites of the Games: gymnastics and swimming. More than any other events, those are the two that I find the most fascinating. And according to Grantland’s head-honcho, Bill Simmons, the same is true for lots of Americans. The athletes of these two areas are the ones that get the glory, the screen time, the endorsements. It took us a couple of years to get over Michael Phelps’ 2008 successes. The same for Kerri Strug and her seminal vault. So if you’ve got a minute, check out Simmons’ “play by play” of what makes this strange rivalry such a close call. You can read it, footnotes and all, here. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get back to watching the Games.
(image courtesy of yahoo sports)
EVERY SPRING SEMESTER I spend time asking seniors open-ended questions. One question that I always look forward to involves the senior going back in time and getting to say one thing to their first-day-of-freshman-year self. In almost every class there is at least one student who would go back and tell their earlier-life self to take his freshman year more seriously. Those comments became a big reason that I started working with our school’s freshman advisory program in 2010. I can’t wait to show the following video to this year’s freshmen in a few days as they start their high school journeys. It’s not just about finishing well. It’s about starting well, too.
I really love watching the Olympics. Kellogg’s? Haven’t eaten much from them in a while. But I like their video.
JASON GRAY has had some good musical moments over these last few years. His 2010 album brought us “I Am New” as well as my personal favorite, “Holding the Key.” Last year’s A Way to See in the Dark gave us “Remind Me Who I Am” plus a number of other thoughtful tracks. Now it looks like he’s putting the finishing touches on a forthcoming Christmas album. The mark of a great holiday album, of course, is if it somehow transcends the calendar moment.
The kind folks at The Rabbit Room have posted a track from Gray’s upcoming album. The song, “Easier,” looks at things from the perspective of the Wise Men. And, honestly, I think it has a strong chance of transcending that calendar moment.
Take a few minutes and check out “Easier” here. Once you hit The Rabbit Room, scroll down and click the ‘play’ button. You’ll be glad you did.
ANY CONVERSATION ABOUT THE KILLERS is a good conversation, I think. I linked to the band’s newest song (“Runaways”) a few days ago. Turns out that Grantland’s Andy Greenwald caught the band at Webster Hall in the gear-up for the release of their new album.
I especially like the last paragraph of the article, where Greenwald references one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite songs from Day and Age. “You’ve gotta be stronger than the stories,” Flowers sings from “This is Your Life.” That’s true of all of us, even rock bands who write and play in a place bigger than most of us can imagine but closer to our collective imaginations than we might care to admit.
You can check out the quality article here.
I UNOFFICIALLY STARTED my tenth year teaching yesterday. We have about a week of prep time built into the schedule. So it was a little funnier when I came across a Buzzfeed post of “23 Insightful Journal Entries from Elementary School Kids.” And while I do not teach elementary kids, I cannot help but laugh. Here are my two favorite.
Makes you really wish that a Jedi Council really existed. And then there’s this one:
The site had it titled “Zombie.” That might be true, but I’d like to think there’s something a little deeper going on their than simple reanimation and brain-appetite.
You can see the rest of them (be warned, kids can say really inappropriate things) here.
YEARS AGO I READ AN ARTICLE about movies that hate their audiences. It was around the year 2000, and there had been a string of quality, thoughtful movies: The Matrix, Fight Club, Memento, and especially The Six Sense. All of them pushed the envelope in storytelling and the use of “big reveals” to make sense of their stories. The local movie critic would have none of it: those kinds of movies, which often turned into completely different stories before the credits rolled, showed a real contempt for their viewers by changing the game so late.
That’s how I felt with the ending of The Life of Pi novel. I won’t give that ending away. Many see it as a work of genius. As a literary critic I can appreciate it as a storytelling device, but as a reader, I found myself angry and frustrated at a book that I really really wanted to like.
I’ll be curious to see what Ang Lee does with that ending in his movie adaptation of the novel. They just released the first trailer for the story, which will float our way this holiday season. Visually stunning. Could be good.
(original link to the movie via aintitcool.com)
CAN’T BELIEVE THAT I MISSED THIS, a video of a new song from Andrew Peterson. Like me, you may be eagerly awaiting his newest album, Light for the Lost Boy. Until then, here’s a song recorded a few months ago and posted at The Rabbit Room called “Carry the Fire.” It’s a great reminder of the kind of music a quality musician can produce.
Space Enough, and Time 