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  • Interview with "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love" Peter Scholtes

    This week I’m taking a little different tack by spotlighting an interview with Peter Scholtes, best known as the composer of “They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.”   Conducted by his stepdaughter Jenna, it’s a fascinating trip through his life, career as a priest in the South Side of Chicago, involvement in the civil rights movement, thoughts on Barack Obama (the interview was done before his run for president), and his thoughts on family life and other topics.

    Scholtes lived long enough to see Obama exceed his expectations, as he passed away the year after Obama was elected president.  But he also highlights something that is easily forgotten in the current American climate: that a good deal of the output of the “Jesus Music” era came from what we would call the “religious left”.  The interview also shows Scholtes to be a more humble and self-effacing figure in the 1960’s than many of his contemporaries (and those who came after him on the Chicago scene).  Although he doesn’t discuss this in his interview, Scholtes used his music to inspire people within his congregation to do better things and be better people rather than to simply spend all of their energies forcing others to change.

  • Message from the Town of Palm Beach: No New Taxes

    That’s what they’re telling Palm Beach County:

    Two town officials and a town resident were among the voices urging Palm Beach County Commissioners on Monday to control spending and keep a lid on property taxes.

    Mayor Gail Coniglio encouraged commissioners at a county budget workshop to follow the example set by the town, which she said has protected services to residents while avoiding a tax hike despite plunging property values and revenue.

    “The budget process demands tough decisions on every level,” Coniglio said. “Prudent fiscal practices must begin here. Several years of large tax increases cannot go forward. No new taxes.”

    The example from the top…

    (Town Commissioner) Kleid suggested that commissioners hike user fees and challenge their administrative directors to find savings in their respective departments, as the town has done.

    “You’re allowing the staff to set your priorities,” he told commissioners.

  • Reality on "Shovel Ready" Finally Sinks In For Our President

    It took long enough:

    “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected,” Obama said.

    In both the jobs council meeting and in his speech later to employees at a Durham lighting company, Obama said regulatory change is a major part of his new jobs push.

    “How do we deal with making sure our regulations make sense, so that we start eliminating ones that don’t work, aren’t making consumers better off or aren’t improving our quality of life?” Obama told the employees.

    Those of us who have a little experience in a) the productive sector and b) the transportation industry could have and did try to explain this in the beginning.  The real eye opener in this latest admission concerns regulatory reform.  Anyone who has tried to make a major project a reality knows that our regulatory structure–especially our environmental ones–are designed to thwart the completion of such projects.

    “Designed” is the reality, because the “flower children” and their intellectual heirs–and Obama is certainly one of those–believed that such things were evil for people and the planet.  And they have been remarkably successful in implementing their agenda in American life.  Our present reality of a crumbling infrastructure is in large part a testament to that.

    If Barack Obama really turns things around on this, it would be the political and intellectual volte-face of the century.  But given his antecedents–and more significantly the people in his administration–I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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  • The Sentences for Whitsunday (Pentecost) Evening Prayer

    Two excellent verses of Scripture to crown the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the beginning of the church by:

    “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.” Psalms 46:4, KJV.

    “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Revelation 22:17, KJV.

    From the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

  • Month of Sundays: Principles

    And you know the way to the place where I am going.” “We do not know where you are going, Master,” said Thomas; “so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one ever comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:4-6)

    One of the most important Christian books written between the Apostles and the legalization of Christianity under Constantine was the Egyptian theologian Origen’s On First Principles. The opening line to this is as follows: “All who believe and are assured that grace and truth were obtained through Jesus Christ, and who know Christ to be the truth, agreeably to his own declaration, ‘I am the truth,’ derive the knowledge which incites men to a good and happy life from no other source than from the very words and teaching of Christ.”

    Today we lament the fact that the ignorance of the Bible is more and more widespread in our society. That, unfortunately, includes many who profess and call themselves Christians. Patrick Morley speaks about men who are “cultural Christians.” For them, their faith is no more than a spare tire in the trunk, just in case.

    It’s one thing to say that we are a Christian. It’s quite another to live a life which is built solely on the foundation of Jesus Christ. If we really believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that he is our only way into an eternity with God, then our entire life will be built on the principles that he taught, the life he lived and his presence in us.

    All of this is made complete if we truly become his disciples and follow him on a daily basis. What would Jesus have us do? How can we carry his wishes out? That comes through Biblical discipleship and making what’s said on the outside embedded on the inside.

    At the end of On First Principles, Origen says “For the divine nature knows even those thoughts which we revolve within us in silence.” What’s revolving in your mind? What needs to be?

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  • Word of God Chorus and Orchestra: Praises for the King

    Word of God Chorus and Orchestra: Praises for the King (W/G 8020, 1980)

    Throughout the 1970’s the Word of God, that Catholic Charismatic covenant community par excellence in Ann Arbor, Michigan, had two distinguishing features. The first was its authoritarian headship structure, whose main architects were Steve Clark and Ralph Martin. The second was its flat music style, heavy on chorded acoustical guitar and light on percussion. Both of these were doubtless considered “from the throne room” by the community’s leadership.

    How the first came to a halt is better documented in a place like this. As far as the music was concerned, although there was certainly better quality Catholic music being put out during the era (some of which is on this site,) much of what graced parishes, prayer groups and communities alike was flat and banal. The unimaginative style that the Word of God and other covenant communities employed was no better than some, but no worse than many.

    The limitations of that style were thrust in front of everyone, however, with the release of John Michael Talbot’s The Lord’s Supper in 1979. Produced in neighbouring Indiana, this skilful combination of orchestration, Talbot’s guitar work and the simple choral arrangements changed a great deal of what people thought was possible in Catholic music (and his subsequent albums reinforced that.) This obviously caused coordinator consternation in Ann Arbor. How could a recent convert like Talbot take an uncovenanted group in Indianapolis and outdo us?

    To some extent, Praises for the King can be seen as a response to that groundbreaking effort. To accomplish this Jim Cavnar, music director at Word of God, brought in Cleon “Skip” Chapen to write truly orchestral arrangements for this album. They beefed up both orchestra and chorus from previous efforts, diversifying the instrumental mix and definitely changing the sound if not the song selection.

    So how does it come off? It’s not as creative of an orchestration as one would like (Chapen would have done well to study both Talbot and the mysterious producers of A City Set Upon a Hill Cannot Be Hid) but it is an orchestration, and a serious step up. And, in a change that almost seems contradictory to the format, this album goes back to earlier Word of God efforts like New Life in that it replicates/incorporates the worship of the community, including singing in the Spirit. As Cavnar himself does all but admit, it is one of their more spontaneous and spiritual productions.

    One feature of the album that is in line with earlier production are the acoustics. Word of God albums were generally recorded in reverberant acoustical environments, as was the case with many other Catholic efforts of the time. It’s too bad that an album they sent to London to master ended up being recorded in the basement of a church.

    With all that said, Praises for the King is a creditable production, and in reality the best album the community ever put out.

    The songs:

    1. Hymn of Glory/Psalm 89
    2. Be Exalted, O God/Thou Art Worthy
    3. Proclaim His Marvellous Deeds
    4. Psalm 150
    5. You Are Holy/Holy God We Praise Your Name
    6. One Thing I Ask For
    7. The Song of Moses

    For more music click here

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  • Month of Sundays: Priority

    After dismissing the crowds, he went up the hill by himself to pray; and, when evening fell, he was there alone. The boat was by this time some miles from shore, laboring in the waves, for the wind was against her. Three hours after midnight, however, Jesus came towards the disciples, walking on the water. But, when they saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they exclaimed, and cried out for fear. But Jesus at once spoke to them. “Courage!” he said, “It is I; do not be afraid!” (Matthew 14:23-27)

    Towards the end of his life, Karl Marx told the story of the philosopher who hired a boatman and a boat to take him across the river.

    “Do you know history?” asked the philosopher.

    “No,” replied the boatman.

    “Then you’ve wasted half your life.”

    They went a little further. “Have you studied mathematics?” the philosopher asked.

    “No,” the boatman replied again.

    “Then you’ve wasted more than half your life.”

    A storm came up and the boat capsized, throwing both of them in the water.

    “Can you swim?” asked the boatman.

    “No,” replied the philosopher.

    “Then you have wasted the whole of your life,” the boatman replied.

    There are so many things in life that look very important. To an academic like the philosopher—and an intellectual like Marx—so many people look so ignorant.

    But when the storms of life come up—and especially when the trip across that last river into eternity happens—what’s really important is that you’re traveling with the man who can not only swim, but also walk on the water and pull you out when you can’t!

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  • The Model for Church of God Laity Ministries' Last Sale

    Those of you who attended the 2010 Church of God General Assembly in Orlando remember that it was, for some departments of the church, the last time of existence, as as result of the sweeping reorganisation first promulgated the previous January.  One of those was Laity Ministries, where I was the Ministries Coordinator.

    Our department resourced churches for almost forty years, and had a considerable inventory, a good deal of which we had to dispose of.  But how to do it?  The solution came from an interesting source, the Church Mouse resale shop in Palm Beach.

    My mother helped to start the Church Mouse in 1970 in a process which I describe in A State of Being.  The store has gone on to become something of an institution on the island.  After the end of “the season,” as Palm Beachers say, the Church Mouse closes for the summer, but not before they have a closing sale.  This year that sale is taking place starting tomorrow and is a progressive discount as follows:

    • Monday, Tuesday: 50 percent
    • Wednesday, Thursday: 75 percent
    • Friday, Saturday: 90 percent

    Laity Ministries’ close-out sale followed just about the same pattern.  Needless to say, many Church of God pastors and laity were in shock, but they were blessed by our pricing and we were blessed by not having to take most of what went on this discount back to Cleveland.  And I don’t know of any other department which did it this way.

  • Whether Obama's "European" Orientation is a Slur Depends Upon Your Point of View

    Chris Mathews protesteth too much:

    “This is not a funny thing. There is a weird thing about your political party [Republican]. It’s nativist. It is weird. Obama — you still have a big bloc of Republicans that say he wasn’t born in this country, in Africa or somewhere,” Chris Matthews said on his show.

    Chris Matthews clearly doesn’t understand what people mean when they refer to Obama’s economic policies as “European” or “European-style.” Well, maybe he does understand and everybody else is wrong. Perhaps saying President Obama practices European-style economics is a racial “slur” and an example of “nativism” from his opponents.

    There was a time when, in élite circles, being called “European” or a “Europhile” was a high compliment.  (There was a time when I thought it was a high compliment, but I digress…)  The US was that boorish, provincial country we just happened to be stuck in for various and sundry reasons, but we all knew lux ex orientem.

    Unfortunately, in the game of bluff called American life, we can never say or be what we really think.  Élites may still think that Europe is the ne plus ultra of polity and life, but given that many Americans don’t agree, instead of standing up for what they believe in they hide it and then turn around and accuse others of being weird or fanatics, as Mathews has done.

    It’s dishonest, Chris, and you should admit it.  Unless, of course, you’re one of these people who have figured out that, if we really went to true internationalism, we’d dilute our own power base, and then you should admit that too.

    The problem with imposing a European style social net on the US is that too many people will either cut back on their drive to succeed (and thus reduce the generation of economic activity) or “lay out” altogether.  We’re seeing the beginnings of that in the wake of the current depression and the Obama Administration’s response to same.  Now we have the Acting Solicitor General telling us that we can escape the individual heath care purchase mandate by simply becoming poor enough, which simply encourages us to lay out.  (Funny, I thought about that, too, before he said it.)

    Speaking of bluffing and huffing, I recently linked to my post Half a Million Roubles: Is It Enough? in a Facebook conversation.  One of the respondents went postal on me for pointing out that Mormons believe that they can and should become gods, which is a central idea of theirs (and has been since the King Follett Discourse).  He basically accused me of not knowing what I was talking about; when I challenged him to prove me wrong, he pulled his insults off of Facebook.

  • Fruit of the Spirit: He Loves You and Me

    Fruit of the Spirit
    He Loves You and Me (Holiday 12101, 1976)

    A great deal of the “Jesus Music” of the 1960’s and 1970’s was performed in coffee-houses. An innovative form of ministry, it broke with the “church” tradition (a breaking churches struggle with perpetuating until this day) and placed the gospel in a laid back venue. At the centre of the coffee-house was its band or group, performing evangelistic music (such as this, an actual coffee-house group) and making coming to Christ a much easier road for the portion of the generation that had turned its back on traditional church. The best known group in this genre was The Way, but there were many others.

    But then we had the question: what kind of music? Some coffee-houses gravitated to a more rock style. But this was anathema to others. That was partly an extension of the old “drums in church” argument, but it went beyond that. There was a strong school of thought that the sheer “artlessness” of much of the Jesus Music of the era was in fact spiritual, that venturing into “fancy” instrumentals was worldly. (And these same people went home and put Phil Keaggy’s What a Day on…) Unfortunately this argument also got a good deal of traction in Catholic Charismatic covenant communities, but that’s another post.

    This album, from California, sends all of this kind of argumentation to the bottom. It eschews the percussion all right, but the acoustic guitar work (six and twelve string) is masterful, as is the interplay between the male and female vocals. It adds artistry to the message in a way that makes both very sweet, even when it branches out into country (why did we have to have Maranatha 4)?

    It’s great music to listen to and even better music to get saved by. So what are you waiting for?

    The songs:

    1. Won’t You Hear
    2. He’s Coming with the Angels
    3. The Rising Son
    4. Come to Him
    5. In the Beginning
    6. Tell Me Why
    7. I Cry
    8. Jesus I Love You
    9. Freely Be Yours
    10. As I Look
    11. He Loves You and Me

    For more music, click here

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