sweasel.com

I love people who reenact the past. I like even better that you can go back to the comforts of the 21st century when you’re done playing.

Ah, but like all good puritan works, it ends with hope: repent and be saved. I’ll take that over “Jesus Is My Boyfriend” or “I Will Praise Some Unnamed Higher Power For No Apparent Reason” songs we get these days.

Madame Stoaty,

I shall see your Brave Sir Robin and raise you a Hymn 258
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04zZJ7Og7wo

The scene takes place in a Britisher shrine where the natives wear costumes and engage in captivating foreplay displays.

Religious songs are great to know and possibly the bestish metronome if you are carrying +80# on your back in remote rural areas for longer than you ordinarily would. *)
Kate Smith’s version is a classic and I will hear no ill spoken of it, but the song truly has gotten new wings after Dan Barker re-wrote the libretto. I only remember one stanza:

God-less America
Land that we love.
Standing by her, we’ll guide her
Living life without help from above
Free from bible superstitions
Free from masters on their throne.
God-less America,
My mind’s my own,
God-less America,
My home sweet home.

* – Horst Wessel Lied works great for those so inclined.

Since this is oldey sheep fancier blogue from Britannic Isles, how about some Germa… I mean English, English Hof-Komponist:

Messiah, an Oratorio (HWV 56)
Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Isaiah 53:6 “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

http://vimeo.com/3253381

Bloody hell. My apologies for ripple posting, here is the proper link for Hymn 258.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUalD41P1jY

Out of the Protestant Reformation, in particular the Anabaptist and Puritan movements that eschew the liturgy and apostolic succession, have arisen splinter groups like Fred Phelps and his extremist, anti-gay groups.

Calvinist doctrine, IMHO, turns its heart and mind away from the Gospel’s proclamation that Christ lived and worked and chose the low life sinners, poor fishermen, prostitutes, tax collectors, rebel heretics of the day…to speak His words of repentance, reconciliation and redemption. AND he did it not by pointing a bony finger of condemnation…but by lovingly calling his lost brothers and sisters to choose to change, choose to seek the Father through His guidance. He called them, just as He calls us, to follow Him, not some sweaty, guilt ridden, bible pounding wingnut….

OK

I’ll push the soapbox back in the corner.

As Sporadic Small Arms Fire shared, perhaps unwittingly from Isaiah 53:6 “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

It ain’t Fred Phelps or some specific ideology or theology that saves us. It is Christ’s sacrifice alone and our individual relationship with that resurrected God-made-man that opens the way to salvation.

We are all junkies and addicts to something.

We are all junkies and addicts to something

YOU’LL GET MY SUGAR WHEN YOU PRY IT OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD CAVITIES!

But seriously, I agree with your general point.

I like the older hymns myself. I find most of the “praise & worship” songs to be quite creepy, especially when people sway back and forth and act like they’re entranced. It reminds me of the Georgie-Porgie scene in Brave New World.

Glad you enjoyed the experience, sweas…it does sound interesting. I’d like to see it myself.

Just like one cannot be sure whether the direct message from god is not actually a slick catchy marketing ploy from Prince of Darkness (who does not even get to write his own book), I would not be so quick to discount Phred Phelps. His invisible boss has, after all, a very well established record of statements, actions and incitements that in today’s polite wussified societies would get you rather unpopular mighty quick.

But back on the topic, I enjoy and am very indebted to selfless reporters like our kindest hostess for the snapshots of archaic ways of our cousins, safely separated from mainland by cold briney deeps and shallow creditworthiness.

Being a Calvinist I should note here that if you think Catholics get a lot of mistaken, misunderstanding bad press and impressions try being a Calvinist some time 🙂

You can hear the tune here:

http://harmoniasacra.org/205.html

as an aside, that hymn is written by John Newton, the same guy who wrote Amazing Grace and who was an ex-slave trader. Its not hard to believe that his own guilt played a part in the extreme language of the hymn, i.e. “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me….”

So Christopher let me ask you, do Calvinists take free will offerings?

Oh….

Interesting thing about the tune (warning voice) its in a meter that’s kind of odd whereas Amazing Grace is in common meter so you can sing it to many tunes (The Gilligan’s Island Theme Song, House of the Rising Sun, even part of the Violent Femmes song Blister in the Sun to name just a few of my favorites).

My guess is that Newton really wanted that song sung to that tune, perhaps he was trying to place the song’s themes in terms of the hope of salvation rather than the assuredness of damnation.

John Wesley (the father of Methodism) believed that one should preach to the unconverted to convict them and to the converted to comfort them. Newton may be preaching to the unconverted with the words and to the converted with the tune. Just a thought, or perhaps too much thought.

Forgive the hollow laugher at being sniped at over credit worthiness by a victim of ol’ jugears and that Bernanke idiot.

As far as cautionary tunes are concerned, I quite like “Hell” by the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Y’know what’s freaky? The artwork on the back of the Jehova’s Witnesses’ “Watchtower” magazine!

The mountains are crumbling, oceans are turning to blood, and there’s this muti-ethnic group of people just smiling away.

On a less religious note:
Texas is going to kill a deathrow inmate tonight. I win the death pool!

They hire some good illustrators on that Watchtower magazine, Bob. Creepy, but talented.

Are you SURE, EZnSF? Mr. Leal is a Preferred Species, so it’s quite possible that AG Holder will have his FBI flunkies take a break from running guns to Mexican and Honduran drug dealers long enough to raid the prison and free the “victims”…

Christopher Taylor wrote:

Being a Calvinist I should note here that if you think Catholics get a lot of mistaken, misunderstanding bad press and impressions try being a Calvinist some time 🙂

———-
Maybe, but since they weren’t predestined to have the bad press Catholics can still complain about it.

@ Mark

I was going to say ‘Mexican’ instead of ‘death-row inmate’, but that’s racist.

Heh. I see that Texas and Governor Perry are NOT politically correct. At least in THIS case…