T-Bone Burnett is the husband of Christian/secular singer Leslie/Sam Phillips. He was the music producer for such films as O Brother Where Art Thou? and a multitude of other critically acclaimed films. He is a friend of Bob Dylan and has toured with him. He is also a Christian, and is one of those rare breed of believer who has the respect of the secular word for his skill.
Burnett has just released a new album called The True False Identity. A new album from Burnett is a big thing - his last was in 1992.
On the album he has a song called "Palestine Texas", which has the following, provocative lyrics:
Presidents come and presidents go
They rise like smoke they fall like snow
Do you believe the things you say
Your lofty thoughts are filled with hay
What is this faith that you profess
That led to this colossal mess
When you awaken from this coma
You'll find you were in Oklahoma
When you crawl out of this self delusion
You're going to need a soul transfusion
This version of the world will not be here long
It is already gone It is already gone
This version of the world will not be here long
It is already gone It is already gone
I guess T-Bone ain't impressed with someone. The "Soul Transfusion" bit is interesting though...
2006-05-18
Pat Robertson...
...engages in some non-scripture equivalent prophecy again, which is okay. He's still going to heaven.
Wikipedia story game
Based (badly) on one of those silly story games like the one going on here. More...
The rules I'm setting up for myself are simple. Go to Wikipedia, hit the random article button, and begin a story based on that article. After 2-3 sentences, hit the random article button again, and continue the story based on what you find in the next random article. The name of the new article does not have to be mentioned, but a link must be provided.
Here goes:
George Douglas Campbell, sat drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea in the drawing room. His servant, Phillip, had retired for the day, complaining of an illness and leaving him to fend for himself. At least it wasn't as bad as that war in Afghanistan he was involved with, he thought ruefully to himself.
Suddenly there was a knock at the front door. For a moment Campbell waited for the expected sounds of Phillip going to the door, but remembered regreatfully that he was ill and unable to help. Putting down his tea, he got up and walked to the door. He opened it, and standing in front of him was a young woman in an attractive dress... but with a disturbing amount of hair visible above his mouth. "Hellooooo" the woman said in a deep booming male voice, "I am John Lind from Sweeeden. May I haf a vroom to sleep in toniyte?"
"Well, I suppose so", Campbell said, disturbed by the presence of this Swedish female impersonator. She walked in but motioned to the door. "Please be to pick up games cartridge?" she asked as she walked into the drawing room.
Campbell stooped over and picked up a small box that fitted into the palm of his hand. The surface was black but the box itself was made of a very light but rigid substance. On the top of the box was some paper, stuck to the box by some glue, with characters that Campbell thought were Japanese.
"Well, Mr, er.., miss Lind" Campbell stammered, "what is this device again?"
Lind had sat down next to the fire and had poured him/herself a cup of tea. "SaGa!" he said "my favourite Nintendo game".
There was another knock at the door. Campbell turned around and saw another man at the door.
"Hiya feller!" The man said, my name's Grant Dexter, I'm here to interview Miss Lind here for her upcoming tour of Canada. Nothing as interesting as her has come out of Sweden since Abba!"
"But.. wait.. please stay where you are" Campbell stammered, wishing that Phillip was there to shoo the intruder off.
"Sorry bud! Miss Lind is waiting" said Dexter, pushing past Campbell and entering the drawing room. "More tea please!" Lind called out in his low voice.
Campbell went into the kitchen and put some fresh water to boil on the stove. He also walked into his study and took out a revolver that he had in the bottom drawer of his bureau - the one that had served him well against the Afghans. Brandishing the weapon loosely, he walked into the drawing room.
Dexter and Lind were deep in conversation, but Lind seemed to be sprouting nonsense. "I went to the jamia where I asked people about the qiyas of their society. Susan the bint of the warraq said that I had committed fasiq against them. So, naturally, I was in trouble."
"It's okay Miss Lind", said Dexter, "I'm not only a record producer, I'm also a majority shareholder in Sears. I'll make sure we can whisk you away to safety from those horrible Afghans. More than that, I can get you some great new women's clothes, and at a bargain price!"
Suddenly another man came through the door. Campbell was dumbfounded.
"Who are all you people?" he cried out "And what are you doing here?"
"I'm George William Taylor" said the man at the door, "and I'm here to find that record company lowlife that didn't publish my spoken word record!"
"No one wants to hear a stupid Canadian politician speak about nothing!" cried Dexter
"You are ashamed of our country's heritage?" asked Taylor.
"No! I am just trying to make a living running a record company. Now if you excuse me I'm interviewing Miss Lind."
"Mr Campbell" cried out Miss/Mr Lind in a disturbingly low voice "Do you have a Nintendo machine? I am desperate to play Saga!"
"I have one Miss Lind" said Dexter. "I'll be back in a second"
"A cup of tea would be nice." said Taylor as he walked in to the drawing room.
Presently, Dexter came back with two strange looking boxes which Dexter explained were a Television and a Nintendo Machine. Since there were no power points in Campbell's house, Dexter and Taylor managed to jury-rig up a car battery to the two items.
The TV turned on.
Suddenly Campbell could hear the beautiful sounds of a violin. On the screen on the television he saw a man playing. Entranced by the man and the sound, he drew closer. Suddenly the screen went blank.
"Okay, Nintendo's plugged in" said Dexter.
As the two played Saga, Campbell stood transfixed, remembering the beautiful violin. Then Saga started, and Dexter and Lind began playing.
"Austrian violinists are wonderful aren't they?" Taylor asked a confused Campbell.
"I suppose so" Campbell stammered.
"I met one once when I was on the board at Capitol Records" he said "lovely chap he was. Dead now I think."
"I see Capitol didn't think much of your spoken word garbage either!" Dexter called out.
"I pronounce a Fasiq upon you!" cried Taylor.
Lind looked up.
"I have ze board of Sears now looking afvter me!" he/she said.
"Well I have an assassin who can pop a cap in your false ass!" said Taylor. He lives in Al Hudud ash Shamaliyah!
------------------
And that's ten - about as much as I can stand. It might end up being a funny thing to do, who knows?
The rules I'm setting up for myself are simple. Go to Wikipedia, hit the random article button, and begin a story based on that article. After 2-3 sentences, hit the random article button again, and continue the story based on what you find in the next random article. The name of the new article does not have to be mentioned, but a link must be provided.
Here goes:
George Douglas Campbell, sat drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea in the drawing room. His servant, Phillip, had retired for the day, complaining of an illness and leaving him to fend for himself. At least it wasn't as bad as that war in Afghanistan he was involved with, he thought ruefully to himself.
Suddenly there was a knock at the front door. For a moment Campbell waited for the expected sounds of Phillip going to the door, but remembered regreatfully that he was ill and unable to help. Putting down his tea, he got up and walked to the door. He opened it, and standing in front of him was a young woman in an attractive dress... but with a disturbing amount of hair visible above his mouth. "Hellooooo" the woman said in a deep booming male voice, "I am John Lind from Sweeeden. May I haf a vroom to sleep in toniyte?"
"Well, I suppose so", Campbell said, disturbed by the presence of this Swedish female impersonator. She walked in but motioned to the door. "Please be to pick up games cartridge?" she asked as she walked into the drawing room.
Campbell stooped over and picked up a small box that fitted into the palm of his hand. The surface was black but the box itself was made of a very light but rigid substance. On the top of the box was some paper, stuck to the box by some glue, with characters that Campbell thought were Japanese.
"Well, Mr, er.., miss Lind" Campbell stammered, "what is this device again?"
Lind had sat down next to the fire and had poured him/herself a cup of tea. "SaGa!" he said "my favourite Nintendo game".
There was another knock at the door. Campbell turned around and saw another man at the door.
"Hiya feller!" The man said, my name's Grant Dexter, I'm here to interview Miss Lind here for her upcoming tour of Canada. Nothing as interesting as her has come out of Sweden since Abba!"
"But.. wait.. please stay where you are" Campbell stammered, wishing that Phillip was there to shoo the intruder off.
"Sorry bud! Miss Lind is waiting" said Dexter, pushing past Campbell and entering the drawing room. "More tea please!" Lind called out in his low voice.
Campbell went into the kitchen and put some fresh water to boil on the stove. He also walked into his study and took out a revolver that he had in the bottom drawer of his bureau - the one that had served him well against the Afghans. Brandishing the weapon loosely, he walked into the drawing room.
Dexter and Lind were deep in conversation, but Lind seemed to be sprouting nonsense. "I went to the jamia where I asked people about the qiyas of their society. Susan the bint of the warraq said that I had committed fasiq against them. So, naturally, I was in trouble."
"It's okay Miss Lind", said Dexter, "I'm not only a record producer, I'm also a majority shareholder in Sears. I'll make sure we can whisk you away to safety from those horrible Afghans. More than that, I can get you some great new women's clothes, and at a bargain price!"
Suddenly another man came through the door. Campbell was dumbfounded.
"Who are all you people?" he cried out "And what are you doing here?"
"I'm George William Taylor" said the man at the door, "and I'm here to find that record company lowlife that didn't publish my spoken word record!"
"No one wants to hear a stupid Canadian politician speak about nothing!" cried Dexter
"You are ashamed of our country's heritage?" asked Taylor.
"No! I am just trying to make a living running a record company. Now if you excuse me I'm interviewing Miss Lind."
"Mr Campbell" cried out Miss/Mr Lind in a disturbingly low voice "Do you have a Nintendo machine? I am desperate to play Saga!"
"I have one Miss Lind" said Dexter. "I'll be back in a second"
"A cup of tea would be nice." said Taylor as he walked in to the drawing room.
Presently, Dexter came back with two strange looking boxes which Dexter explained were a Television and a Nintendo Machine. Since there were no power points in Campbell's house, Dexter and Taylor managed to jury-rig up a car battery to the two items.
The TV turned on.
Suddenly Campbell could hear the beautiful sounds of a violin. On the screen on the television he saw a man playing. Entranced by the man and the sound, he drew closer. Suddenly the screen went blank.
"Okay, Nintendo's plugged in" said Dexter.
As the two played Saga, Campbell stood transfixed, remembering the beautiful violin. Then Saga started, and Dexter and Lind began playing.
"Austrian violinists are wonderful aren't they?" Taylor asked a confused Campbell.
"I suppose so" Campbell stammered.
"I met one once when I was on the board at Capitol Records" he said "lovely chap he was. Dead now I think."
"I see Capitol didn't think much of your spoken word garbage either!" Dexter called out.
"I pronounce a Fasiq upon you!" cried Taylor.
Lind looked up.
"I have ze board of Sears now looking afvter me!" he/she said.
"Well I have an assassin who can pop a cap in your false ass!" said Taylor. He lives in Al Hudud ash Shamaliyah!
------------------
And that's ten - about as much as I can stand. It might end up being a funny thing to do, who knows?
How I became a Christian
I can't believe that I have blogged since July 2005 and have yet to explain how it was that I became a Christian. Forgive me for this please!
I became a Christian on August 28th, 1982 - yes, I am one of those people who has a time and a date. It happened in a bus - I walked on the bus an unbeliever and I walked off saved. But let me fill out the details for you.
I grew up in a household that wasn't really concerned about God. My dad was a Presbyterian and my Mum was an Anglican. I was baptised as a baby in 1969 at St. Alban's Anglican church in Epping (Sydney, Australia).
Mum and Dad didn't go to church much - we were "Christmas and Easter" churchgoers. As a boy, I was sent to Sunday School ("Sunday School" in Australia almost exclusively refers to children being educated about the Christian faith while the main church service was being held). Although I found it okay, my parents would drop me off and then go home - they didn't go to church themselves. Probably as a result of this, I ended up convincing my parents that I didn't need to go any more.
But, when I look back on it, it was too easy to simply blame my parents. The real reason was that God didn't appeal to me. I believed in him, but I didn't want to get to know him. Even as a child, I had decided that God didn't need to be part of my life. And so while my Catholic next door neighbours would faithfully go to mass every sunday morning, Protestant me would be happily playing in the back yard, ignorant of what God wants and happy to reject him.
But God had a grip on me. My mum knew enough about the bible to teach me some basic things like praying and not blaspheming. As I got older, my parents sent me off to week-long camps run by Scripture Union and, later, the Crusader Union. I think they did this to get rid of me during school holidays!
It was at the first camp - Camp Bevington on Lake Munmorah (a Scripture Union camp) - that God began to make himself known to me. It was 1980 and I was between 10-11 years old at the time. Mum had given me some money to buy things like chocolates and whatnot, but the camp had a bookstall and I wondered if I should buy a book.
Of course they gave us bible talks and had us discussing the bible in groups - but I have no memory of these. Obviously this was the first time I had ever heard the bible being taught, and I was exposed to events in the life of Jesus that I was unfamiliar with.
The upshot was that I decided to use the money to buy a paperback Good News Bible. I was fairly literate even then, and, when I came home from camp, I made the decision that I would read it - all of it. So every night before I went to bed I would pull my GNB out and begin reading. Probably because I had been taught that the bible was a series of books and didn't have to be read in order, I started with the book of 1 Samuel. Then, after a few weeks, I decided that I would also have to read the gospels as well, so in addition to plowing my way through Samuel, I started on Matthew. A few weeks later I felt that it was also important for me to start reading from the beginning of the bible, so while I was getting through Samuel and Matthew, I also started on Genesis.
You'd probably not be surprised if I told you that my daily readings fizzled out after a while - but this didn't happen. I kept on reading. Even when I was tired I sped through my bible readings and increased my load - at one point I think I had about 6 or 7 different bookmarks.
It took me about a year - but I did it. I read the entire bible through when I was eleven.
And what did I understand? Not much to tell you the truth. For a while I gave up eating pork and bacon because the bible said that it was wrong. I also remembered the story about some guy getting cut in half and people walking through the corpse... but apart from that, I cannot remember anything that I learnt in that period about God.
In hindsight, I think that one year spent reading the Bible was a wonderful work from God. I had no reason to do it. My parents weren't pressuring me to do it and the Camp leaders didn't force me to do it. And, despite the fact that I can't remember now what I had learnt, there is no doubt that God was working in me through his Spirit-inspired word.
A few camps later and I had just turned 13. I was in year 8 at school and it was the August school holidays (these were the days when NSW public schools had a three-term year). I went to a Crusader Camp in Tumut - I think it was called the "inter-boys activity camp" or something like that. Basically each day went like this - after breakfast, a morning bible talk followed by outdoor games, then lunch, then a "wide game" played in the paddocks around the farm we were staying in, then dinner, then another bible talk, then an indoor game (it was below freezing outside by that point) then bed.
It was so much fun - boys love running around playing games like "Privates and Generals" and "capture the flag". We were dirty, sweaty, bloodied and bruised. We ate huge meals and burnt off the energy as the day progressed.
But it was the bible talks that got me. I only remember one - the most important one, The Bridge to Life.
The camp director got up and had a blackboard (or maybe butcher's paper) where he drew a stick figure standing on the edge of a canyon. That stick figure was us, he explained. On the other side of the canyon was God. In the canyon itself - that which separates us from God - was called "sin". The director told us that it was our sin that was cutting us off from God.
He then said that we all need a bridge in order to cross over to God's side. He then told us that there were many bridges that man builds in order to get there. He then put up these bridges, which were named "going to church", "obeying the law", "being nice to people", and so on. But each of these bridges fell short - nothing we could do could ever reach God.
He then spoke to us about hell - that sin eventually leads to destruction. Without having our sins forgiven - without having the canyon bridged - we would suffer in hell.
Then he placed a cross over the canyon with "Jesus" on it. God, he said, had provided us with the means to get to God and have our sins forgiven. It is through Jesus dying on the cross and taking our sins that we can now walk across the canyon and onto God's side.
All we needed to do, he said, was as easy as "A-B-C". A - Admit your sins to God, that you have led a sinful and rebellious life. B - Believe that Jesus died for our sins so that they may be forgiven. C - Commit your life to serve God forever.
Of course, the Bridge to Life tract (which the director presented with a bit of his own added to it) is quite intellectually complex for a bunch of 13-14 year olds. It required us to use our brains as we strove to understand the symbolism of what he was saying. But it worked. As a result of this presentation, a few kids became Christians.
But not me. I could "feel" some sort of pulling to do it but was unsure of what it was - was it God or was it something inside me? I felt that I needed to resist, just in case it was all manipulation or something... or maybe I just felt that I had some control over things.
On the Bus home, one of the leaders gave me a tract written by John Chapman entitled "How to become a Christian" or something. I read through it and everything gelled. I prayed the prayer at the end. I walked off the bus a Christian.
Of course, I would be lying if I said that becoming a Christian solved all my problems and made me rich and prosperous - it didn't. God did certainly change my life when his Spirit regenerated me on that Bus in 1982.
But being a Christian is hard. The Christian musician Steve Taylor (one of the few Christian musicians I actually respect) wrote a song called "Harder to believe than not to...". It is easy to sin, it is easy to give in to the world, it is harder to live in obedience to God.
Here I sit at my computer, 36 years old, reflecting upon how my life changed when I was 13. I don't read the bible with the same dedication as I used to back then - sometimes weeks go by between those times I consult God's word. Oftentimes I find it difficult to pray. I get angry with the world and am bitter at some of the events of my life that have hurt me. I have children of my own now, and while I sometimes reflect bitterly at how my parents sometimes treated me as a child I also sit there listening to the wails of my son after I have gotten angry with him and realise that, hey, I'm not doing such a great job either. All my teenage life I desired a girlfriend to have for my own, and now am faced with the guilt of ignoring my wife too often.
This is not to say that God hasn't changed me. I'm certain that my life would be a quite immoral and meaningless had the Spirit not regenerated me. While I have a discontent about my present I am contented about my future.
And the reason is simple - I know for sure that I am going to heaven. I know for sure that one day I will face Jesus and he will welcome me into his kingdom. I know that one day this world we live in will be changed and God will bring about a new heaven and a new earth, and that I will inhabit this paradise with all of God's children forever. I know that one day my tears and my anger will be forgotten and I will be joyful always.
And this is not because I am a good boy. It's not because I write provocative blogs or am respected by fellow Christians or have delivered lots of biblical sermons or have told the gospel to others who have subsequently become Christians.
I know that I am going to heaven despite my faults and sins, and apart from the good things that God works in me. For I know that Christ has taken my sins away on the cross and, through his resurrection, brought me to new life. The greatest gift of all has been given to me, a most undeserving sinner - life eternal and friendship with God.
From the Theosalient Department
© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
FAQ about the author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
I became a Christian on August 28th, 1982 - yes, I am one of those people who has a time and a date. It happened in a bus - I walked on the bus an unbeliever and I walked off saved. But let me fill out the details for you.
I grew up in a household that wasn't really concerned about God. My dad was a Presbyterian and my Mum was an Anglican. I was baptised as a baby in 1969 at St. Alban's Anglican church in Epping (Sydney, Australia).
Mum and Dad didn't go to church much - we were "Christmas and Easter" churchgoers. As a boy, I was sent to Sunday School ("Sunday School" in Australia almost exclusively refers to children being educated about the Christian faith while the main church service was being held). Although I found it okay, my parents would drop me off and then go home - they didn't go to church themselves. Probably as a result of this, I ended up convincing my parents that I didn't need to go any more.
But, when I look back on it, it was too easy to simply blame my parents. The real reason was that God didn't appeal to me. I believed in him, but I didn't want to get to know him. Even as a child, I had decided that God didn't need to be part of my life. And so while my Catholic next door neighbours would faithfully go to mass every sunday morning, Protestant me would be happily playing in the back yard, ignorant of what God wants and happy to reject him.
But God had a grip on me. My mum knew enough about the bible to teach me some basic things like praying and not blaspheming. As I got older, my parents sent me off to week-long camps run by Scripture Union and, later, the Crusader Union. I think they did this to get rid of me during school holidays!
It was at the first camp - Camp Bevington on Lake Munmorah (a Scripture Union camp) - that God began to make himself known to me. It was 1980 and I was between 10-11 years old at the time. Mum had given me some money to buy things like chocolates and whatnot, but the camp had a bookstall and I wondered if I should buy a book.
Of course they gave us bible talks and had us discussing the bible in groups - but I have no memory of these. Obviously this was the first time I had ever heard the bible being taught, and I was exposed to events in the life of Jesus that I was unfamiliar with.
The upshot was that I decided to use the money to buy a paperback Good News Bible. I was fairly literate even then, and, when I came home from camp, I made the decision that I would read it - all of it. So every night before I went to bed I would pull my GNB out and begin reading. Probably because I had been taught that the bible was a series of books and didn't have to be read in order, I started with the book of 1 Samuel. Then, after a few weeks, I decided that I would also have to read the gospels as well, so in addition to plowing my way through Samuel, I started on Matthew. A few weeks later I felt that it was also important for me to start reading from the beginning of the bible, so while I was getting through Samuel and Matthew, I also started on Genesis.
You'd probably not be surprised if I told you that my daily readings fizzled out after a while - but this didn't happen. I kept on reading. Even when I was tired I sped through my bible readings and increased my load - at one point I think I had about 6 or 7 different bookmarks.
It took me about a year - but I did it. I read the entire bible through when I was eleven.
And what did I understand? Not much to tell you the truth. For a while I gave up eating pork and bacon because the bible said that it was wrong. I also remembered the story about some guy getting cut in half and people walking through the corpse... but apart from that, I cannot remember anything that I learnt in that period about God.
In hindsight, I think that one year spent reading the Bible was a wonderful work from God. I had no reason to do it. My parents weren't pressuring me to do it and the Camp leaders didn't force me to do it. And, despite the fact that I can't remember now what I had learnt, there is no doubt that God was working in me through his Spirit-inspired word.
A few camps later and I had just turned 13. I was in year 8 at school and it was the August school holidays (these were the days when NSW public schools had a three-term year). I went to a Crusader Camp in Tumut - I think it was called the "inter-boys activity camp" or something like that. Basically each day went like this - after breakfast, a morning bible talk followed by outdoor games, then lunch, then a "wide game" played in the paddocks around the farm we were staying in, then dinner, then another bible talk, then an indoor game (it was below freezing outside by that point) then bed.
It was so much fun - boys love running around playing games like "Privates and Generals" and "capture the flag". We were dirty, sweaty, bloodied and bruised. We ate huge meals and burnt off the energy as the day progressed.
But it was the bible talks that got me. I only remember one - the most important one, The Bridge to Life.
The camp director got up and had a blackboard (or maybe butcher's paper) where he drew a stick figure standing on the edge of a canyon. That stick figure was us, he explained. On the other side of the canyon was God. In the canyon itself - that which separates us from God - was called "sin". The director told us that it was our sin that was cutting us off from God.
He then said that we all need a bridge in order to cross over to God's side. He then told us that there were many bridges that man builds in order to get there. He then put up these bridges, which were named "going to church", "obeying the law", "being nice to people", and so on. But each of these bridges fell short - nothing we could do could ever reach God.
He then spoke to us about hell - that sin eventually leads to destruction. Without having our sins forgiven - without having the canyon bridged - we would suffer in hell.
Then he placed a cross over the canyon with "Jesus" on it. God, he said, had provided us with the means to get to God and have our sins forgiven. It is through Jesus dying on the cross and taking our sins that we can now walk across the canyon and onto God's side.
All we needed to do, he said, was as easy as "A-B-C". A - Admit your sins to God, that you have led a sinful and rebellious life. B - Believe that Jesus died for our sins so that they may be forgiven. C - Commit your life to serve God forever.
Of course, the Bridge to Life tract (which the director presented with a bit of his own added to it) is quite intellectually complex for a bunch of 13-14 year olds. It required us to use our brains as we strove to understand the symbolism of what he was saying. But it worked. As a result of this presentation, a few kids became Christians.
But not me. I could "feel" some sort of pulling to do it but was unsure of what it was - was it God or was it something inside me? I felt that I needed to resist, just in case it was all manipulation or something... or maybe I just felt that I had some control over things.
On the Bus home, one of the leaders gave me a tract written by John Chapman entitled "How to become a Christian" or something. I read through it and everything gelled. I prayed the prayer at the end. I walked off the bus a Christian.
Of course, I would be lying if I said that becoming a Christian solved all my problems and made me rich and prosperous - it didn't. God did certainly change my life when his Spirit regenerated me on that Bus in 1982.
But being a Christian is hard. The Christian musician Steve Taylor (one of the few Christian musicians I actually respect) wrote a song called "Harder to believe than not to...". It is easy to sin, it is easy to give in to the world, it is harder to live in obedience to God.
Here I sit at my computer, 36 years old, reflecting upon how my life changed when I was 13. I don't read the bible with the same dedication as I used to back then - sometimes weeks go by between those times I consult God's word. Oftentimes I find it difficult to pray. I get angry with the world and am bitter at some of the events of my life that have hurt me. I have children of my own now, and while I sometimes reflect bitterly at how my parents sometimes treated me as a child I also sit there listening to the wails of my son after I have gotten angry with him and realise that, hey, I'm not doing such a great job either. All my teenage life I desired a girlfriend to have for my own, and now am faced with the guilt of ignoring my wife too often.
This is not to say that God hasn't changed me. I'm certain that my life would be a quite immoral and meaningless had the Spirit not regenerated me. While I have a discontent about my present I am contented about my future.
And the reason is simple - I know for sure that I am going to heaven. I know for sure that one day I will face Jesus and he will welcome me into his kingdom. I know that one day this world we live in will be changed and God will bring about a new heaven and a new earth, and that I will inhabit this paradise with all of God's children forever. I know that one day my tears and my anger will be forgotten and I will be joyful always.
And this is not because I am a good boy. It's not because I write provocative blogs or am respected by fellow Christians or have delivered lots of biblical sermons or have told the gospel to others who have subsequently become Christians.
I know that I am going to heaven despite my faults and sins, and apart from the good things that God works in me. For I know that Christ has taken my sins away on the cross and, through his resurrection, brought me to new life. The greatest gift of all has been given to me, a most undeserving sinner - life eternal and friendship with God.
From the Theosalient Department
© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
FAQ about the author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
2006-05-17
Lone Star film review (with pictures)
Texas, 1996. Two middle-aged Army sergeants are walking in the desert. While one is enjoying himself by identifying various cacti, the other is prospecting for bullets - the area they are walking in is a former rifle range.
Suddenly Sergeant Mikey, the prospector armed with a metal detector, calls out to his companion. He comes running and they both stand over a human skull, partially uncovered in the Texas earth.
It took me years to realise that Lone Star, the 1996 film by director John Sayles, is actually a western. I suppose I had become so cynical of westerns that I failed to appreciate the more subtle elements of the genre. While I certainly appreciated films like Unforgiven and even the socialist flop Heaven's Gate, I was never able to appreciate anything at or below the level of The Wild Bunch. So while I could certainly appreciate people like John Ford, I could never really handle John Wayne or like characters.
Lone Star is different. While it fits into the sub-genre of "contemporary westerns", it is sufficiently different from the stereotypical western that it can easily appeal to anyone who appreciates a good film. In other words, it is "a western for the rest of us".
The film centres around the work of Rio County sherriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) as he seeks to solve the mystery of the body found by the prospectors. Sam is the son of Buddy Deeds, the former Rio County sherriff and the most beloved historical figure in the town of Frontera. Naturally Sam constantly lives in his deceased father's shadow, and even makes a short speech (see image above) at a ceremony to dedicate the new "Buddy Deeds Courthouse" in Frontera. Despite the respect his father engenders in the townsfolk, his memories of his father are quite bitter, and some in the town believe that Sam just can't cut it in comparison - being "all hat and no cattle".
But while Sam is trying to solve the mystery of the dead body, he also manages to restart his friendship with Pilar Cruz (played by Elizabeth Peña, the voice of "Mirage" in The Incredibles) the girl he fell in love with when he was 15 . Now in their late 30s, they talk again for the first time in over 20 years. Sam's bitter memories of his father stem from the almost violent opposition his father had to his relationship with Pilar when he was a teenager - something Pilar's mother, Mercedes Cruz (Miriam Colon, below), now a powerful local businesswoman in Frontera, also imposed on her daughter.
We find out that Pilar's mother eventually sent her to an all-girl's Catholic high school in order to keep Pilar permanently away from Sam. Both went their separate ways. Sam married and went to live in San Antonio, while Pilar married, had two children and became a teacher.
When the film begins, Sam has gotten divorced and has been elected the Sherriff of Rio County, thus coming back to the town his father worked in. Pilar's husband, Nando, has recently died, leaving her as a widowed mother of two teenagers and working as a history teacher in the local high school. They come into contact when Pilar's son, Amado, is arrested for fitting a stolen CD player in a friend's car.
Naturally Sam and Pilar's friendship "deepens" as the film progresses, but then again, so does the mystery surrounding the dead body discovered by the two prospectors.
As part of the investigative process, Sam interviews people who were in Frontera at the time his father, Buddy (below, played by Matthew McConaughey), was still a deputy. Sam listens to these stories, which are portrayed in the film as flashbacks to 1957.
In those years, the Sherriff of Rio County was the vicious and corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson, below). Wade was as corrupt as a person could get, making sure that he profited from every illegal activity in the county, nor matter how large or small. While he had clout with the Whites, his main targets were the Black and Hispanic communities. Since the fictional Rio County is on the border with Mexico (the Rio Grande runs between the county and Mexico), the county is also often the starting point for illegal immigrants ("wetbacks") to enter the United States. Wade makes sure he also profits from this illegal trafficking.
It's obvious, however, that Charlie Wade is hated by everyone. As the film progresses, we learn fairly early on that, one day, Wade disappears and is never seen again. In his place, a young Buddy Deeds is enthusiastically elected Sherriff.
One of the central characters is the current mayor, Hollis Pogue (Clifton James, below). Pogue is a salty old fella who is obviously well-liked by the populance but also has learned a great deal of political savvy over the years. Now, as he approaches retirement (an election is to be held the next year), he prefers fishing and dining with old friends.
Pogue has been in Rio county for decades. In fact, when Charlie Wade was Sherriff, young Hollis Pogue (Jeff Monahan, below) was one of his two deputies - the other being Buddy Deeds. Hollis continued on his job as deputy under Deeds before involving himself in the county's politics, where he is eventually elected mayor.
Another person of interest is Otis Payne (Ron Canada, below, right), or "Big O" as he is called. Otis runs "Big O's", a bar and restaurant that serves the black community in Rio County. 9 out of every 10 people in the County are Hispanic, and whites outnumber blacks, making his community small. Because of his influence, Otis is known as "the mayor of Darktown", with his bar and the Holiness church being the only places in the county that blacks can come together.
And, of course, young Otis Payne (Gabriel Casseus) was also around at the time when Charlie Wade disappeared, working in the same bar. As the picture below shows, he also had a run-in with Charlie Wade and was nearly killed by him. In the years after Wade's disappearance, he eventually took over the bar and worked closely with Buddy Deeds to ensure that the county's black community came out to vote for him as sherriff every few years.
As you can see from the images, the film interweaves between 1957 and 1996, with the events of the past being important in solving the crime that the prospectors of the present have discovered. At one point the film also goes back to the early 1970s, showing images of a young Sam Deeds (Tay Strathairn, below) and a young Pilar beginning their teenage love, and also suffering at the hands of their respective parents.
Perhaps the most accurate summary of the film's theme would be "What happens when you dig up the past?". Although there is much value in digging up what was buried in order to bring the truth out, oftentimes the truth is something you may not wish to hear. This theme is present in a number of the film's backstories, such as Private Johnson from the local military base (Chandra Wilson, below) having to confront her gang-related background as a teenager while trying to forge a career in the Army in the present - a background that results in another soldier being seriously wounded while off duty at "Big O's".
Of course, by investigating the body (which had been buried since the late 1950s), Sam is investigating the past and, as a result, the actions of his own dead father in the disappearance of Charlie Wade. During the investigation he is clearly warned off by Hollis Pogue, as well as an Indian by the name of Wesley Birdsong (Gordon Tootoosis, below), who tells him the story of a rattlesnake he discovered while investigating an old box - the idea being that opening the box (the past) can be dangerous and unexpected.
The film is notable for the backstories that are present in it. None of the backstories have anything to do with the mystery of solving the body, but serve solely to reinforce the theme of digging up the past. At the very beginning of the film we meet Pilar for the first time in a heated discussion with a group of White and Hispanic parents at her school who are arguing over the history curriculum. The white parents are upset that Pilar and other teachers are teaching about the struggle of Hispanics during 19th century Texas as they battle against racism and white supremacy, while the Hispanic parents are upset with a "White bread" view of history being promulgated which show the Mexicans as the "bad guys".
But perhaps the most enjoyable backstory is that of the arrival of Colonel Delmore Payne (Joe Morton, below) as the commanding officer of Fort Mackenzie, Rio County's military barracks.
Fort Mackenzie is also the place where Private Johnson serves, as well as Sergeants Mikey and Cliff, the two prospectors who discover the dead body. Fort Mackenzie used to, at one time, train infantry for the US Army but stopped doing this in the early 1950s. An old rifle range where recruits were trained remained unused for many decades, and served as the place where Mikey and Cliff hunted for old bullets and shells (which Mikey, played by Stephen J. Lang, turns into sculptures, below).
It was while prospecting in the rifle range that Mikey and Cliff stumble upon the remains that Sam Deeds spends the movie investigating.
But back to Colonel Payne.
Colonel Delmore Payne is the son of "Big O" Otis Payne, but hasn't seen nor spoken to his father since he was 8 years old. Now married and in his 40s, Colonel Delmore Payne has accepted an offer to run Fort Mackenzie despite the fact that it would mean being close to his estranged father. However, an incident involving some of his troops at Big O's forces him to visit the establishment and to confront his father for the first time in decades (below).
Needless to say there is a lot of bitterness that he feels towards Otis, which not only comes out in the way he treats him, but also the way he treats his own son, Chet (Eddie Robinson, below, and also above in the picture of Otis). Chet is averaging a B+ in school (Pilar is his history teacher) but that is not enough to get into West Point, which is where his Father, Colonel Payne, wants him to go. In many ways, Colonel Delmore Payne runs his own family like the military, and it is assumed that he has complete control over his son's future, despite what Chet may wish for. Chet admits to his grandfather, Otis, that his father always said "from the moment you're born, you have to lift yourself up on your own two feet - no breaks". Otis replies that Delmore is living proof of that.
Yet despite the fact that Colonel Delmore Payne is hard enough to "crack nuts with his buttocks" (as Sergeant Mikey states), we do sympathise with his plight of being brought up without a father. Despite his hardness, we do see Delmore struggling to come to terms with the fact that his estranged father is close by. This, in turn, forces him to "dig up" his own past.
I obviously won't give away the ending of this backstory to you, but you need to remember that before he became a Colonel, Delmore Payne was a Major... ie "Major Pain". I think this is a veiled joke on behalf of the director which also gives us a glimpse of what Delmore can now become. Before, Delmore was a "Major Pain", but, since becoming Colonel and returning to Rio county, he is a "Major Pain" no more.
As I have stated, the backstory involving Colonel Payne and his relationship with Otis has absolutely nothing to do with Sam's quest to fully investigate the dead body in the rifle range. In fact, this particular backstory is a complete story in itself, as though the director has created two separate and (relatively) unrelated stories for the one film. Fortunately, the major story (Sam's investigation) co-exists quite happily with the minor story (Colonel Payne's relationship with his father), and both are connected with the main theme of digging up the past.
The film ends with Pilar and Sam sitting on the bonnet of his car (below) in a disused drive-in that the two had once visited when they were teenagers. The scene is picturesque and quite romantic. But...
...it is during this scene that a twist ending occurs. One final piece of "the puzzle" is revealed that confounds the viewer yet, when all the puzzle pieces are examined, is actually quite fitting. The twist helps explain to the viewer the actions and reactions of many characters during the story. The twist is not, however, somehow non-naturalistic or supernatural in nature, but has resulted from digging up the past. In retrospect, the warnings that Sam had received about digging up the past were quite justified.
But I will say this, just in case some of you have watched Star Wars too much: Sam is not Charlie Wade's son!
Overall the film is brilliant. It is slow at times and the complexity of the back stories (many of whom I have not discussed in this review) can often confuse the viewer into wondering how they fit into the plot. If you view it, realising that the backstories are unrelated, then the film becomes simpler to understand and more enjoyable. I cannot image Chris Cooper in any other role - his Sam Deeds is everything the stereotypical southern sherriff is not, introspective, sensitive, calm and quietly driven. Even his southern "twang" is personable. Elizabeth Pena is similarly believable as a widowed hispanic history teacher who is simultaneously unsettled by and attracted to, her first love. Kris Kristofferson is not my favourite actor, but his performance as the ugly and vicious Charlie Wade is probably the best role of his career. Matthew McConaughey as the legendary Buddy Deeds appears only briefly, but has enough drive and bravery to make his role special too. Then there's the actors from the various backstories, all of whom take their roles seriously and flesh out great characters from a plot-driven story.
More Pictures of Lone Star can be found here.
© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
FAQ about the author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Suddenly Sergeant Mikey, the prospector armed with a metal detector, calls out to his companion. He comes running and they both stand over a human skull, partially uncovered in the Texas earth.
It took me years to realise that Lone Star, the 1996 film by director John Sayles, is actually a western. I suppose I had become so cynical of westerns that I failed to appreciate the more subtle elements of the genre. While I certainly appreciated films like Unforgiven and even the socialist flop Heaven's Gate, I was never able to appreciate anything at or below the level of The Wild Bunch. So while I could certainly appreciate people like John Ford, I could never really handle John Wayne or like characters.
Lone Star is different. While it fits into the sub-genre of "contemporary westerns", it is sufficiently different from the stereotypical western that it can easily appeal to anyone who appreciates a good film. In other words, it is "a western for the rest of us".
The film centres around the work of Rio County sherriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) as he seeks to solve the mystery of the body found by the prospectors. Sam is the son of Buddy Deeds, the former Rio County sherriff and the most beloved historical figure in the town of Frontera. Naturally Sam constantly lives in his deceased father's shadow, and even makes a short speech (see image above) at a ceremony to dedicate the new "Buddy Deeds Courthouse" in Frontera. Despite the respect his father engenders in the townsfolk, his memories of his father are quite bitter, and some in the town believe that Sam just can't cut it in comparison - being "all hat and no cattle".
But while Sam is trying to solve the mystery of the dead body, he also manages to restart his friendship with Pilar Cruz (played by Elizabeth Peña, the voice of "Mirage" in The Incredibles) the girl he fell in love with when he was 15 . Now in their late 30s, they talk again for the first time in over 20 years. Sam's bitter memories of his father stem from the almost violent opposition his father had to his relationship with Pilar when he was a teenager - something Pilar's mother, Mercedes Cruz (Miriam Colon, below), now a powerful local businesswoman in Frontera, also imposed on her daughter.
We find out that Pilar's mother eventually sent her to an all-girl's Catholic high school in order to keep Pilar permanently away from Sam. Both went their separate ways. Sam married and went to live in San Antonio, while Pilar married, had two children and became a teacher.
When the film begins, Sam has gotten divorced and has been elected the Sherriff of Rio County, thus coming back to the town his father worked in. Pilar's husband, Nando, has recently died, leaving her as a widowed mother of two teenagers and working as a history teacher in the local high school. They come into contact when Pilar's son, Amado, is arrested for fitting a stolen CD player in a friend's car.
Naturally Sam and Pilar's friendship "deepens" as the film progresses, but then again, so does the mystery surrounding the dead body discovered by the two prospectors.
As part of the investigative process, Sam interviews people who were in Frontera at the time his father, Buddy (below, played by Matthew McConaughey), was still a deputy. Sam listens to these stories, which are portrayed in the film as flashbacks to 1957.
In those years, the Sherriff of Rio County was the vicious and corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson, below). Wade was as corrupt as a person could get, making sure that he profited from every illegal activity in the county, nor matter how large or small. While he had clout with the Whites, his main targets were the Black and Hispanic communities. Since the fictional Rio County is on the border with Mexico (the Rio Grande runs between the county and Mexico), the county is also often the starting point for illegal immigrants ("wetbacks") to enter the United States. Wade makes sure he also profits from this illegal trafficking.
It's obvious, however, that Charlie Wade is hated by everyone. As the film progresses, we learn fairly early on that, one day, Wade disappears and is never seen again. In his place, a young Buddy Deeds is enthusiastically elected Sherriff.
One of the central characters is the current mayor, Hollis Pogue (Clifton James, below). Pogue is a salty old fella who is obviously well-liked by the populance but also has learned a great deal of political savvy over the years. Now, as he approaches retirement (an election is to be held the next year), he prefers fishing and dining with old friends.
Pogue has been in Rio county for decades. In fact, when Charlie Wade was Sherriff, young Hollis Pogue (Jeff Monahan, below) was one of his two deputies - the other being Buddy Deeds. Hollis continued on his job as deputy under Deeds before involving himself in the county's politics, where he is eventually elected mayor.
Another person of interest is Otis Payne (Ron Canada, below, right), or "Big O" as he is called. Otis runs "Big O's", a bar and restaurant that serves the black community in Rio County. 9 out of every 10 people in the County are Hispanic, and whites outnumber blacks, making his community small. Because of his influence, Otis is known as "the mayor of Darktown", with his bar and the Holiness church being the only places in the county that blacks can come together.
And, of course, young Otis Payne (Gabriel Casseus) was also around at the time when Charlie Wade disappeared, working in the same bar. As the picture below shows, he also had a run-in with Charlie Wade and was nearly killed by him. In the years after Wade's disappearance, he eventually took over the bar and worked closely with Buddy Deeds to ensure that the county's black community came out to vote for him as sherriff every few years.
As you can see from the images, the film interweaves between 1957 and 1996, with the events of the past being important in solving the crime that the prospectors of the present have discovered. At one point the film also goes back to the early 1970s, showing images of a young Sam Deeds (Tay Strathairn, below) and a young Pilar beginning their teenage love, and also suffering at the hands of their respective parents.
Perhaps the most accurate summary of the film's theme would be "What happens when you dig up the past?". Although there is much value in digging up what was buried in order to bring the truth out, oftentimes the truth is something you may not wish to hear. This theme is present in a number of the film's backstories, such as Private Johnson from the local military base (Chandra Wilson, below) having to confront her gang-related background as a teenager while trying to forge a career in the Army in the present - a background that results in another soldier being seriously wounded while off duty at "Big O's".
Of course, by investigating the body (which had been buried since the late 1950s), Sam is investigating the past and, as a result, the actions of his own dead father in the disappearance of Charlie Wade. During the investigation he is clearly warned off by Hollis Pogue, as well as an Indian by the name of Wesley Birdsong (Gordon Tootoosis, below), who tells him the story of a rattlesnake he discovered while investigating an old box - the idea being that opening the box (the past) can be dangerous and unexpected.
The film is notable for the backstories that are present in it. None of the backstories have anything to do with the mystery of solving the body, but serve solely to reinforce the theme of digging up the past. At the very beginning of the film we meet Pilar for the first time in a heated discussion with a group of White and Hispanic parents at her school who are arguing over the history curriculum. The white parents are upset that Pilar and other teachers are teaching about the struggle of Hispanics during 19th century Texas as they battle against racism and white supremacy, while the Hispanic parents are upset with a "White bread" view of history being promulgated which show the Mexicans as the "bad guys".
But perhaps the most enjoyable backstory is that of the arrival of Colonel Delmore Payne (Joe Morton, below) as the commanding officer of Fort Mackenzie, Rio County's military barracks.
Fort Mackenzie is also the place where Private Johnson serves, as well as Sergeants Mikey and Cliff, the two prospectors who discover the dead body. Fort Mackenzie used to, at one time, train infantry for the US Army but stopped doing this in the early 1950s. An old rifle range where recruits were trained remained unused for many decades, and served as the place where Mikey and Cliff hunted for old bullets and shells (which Mikey, played by Stephen J. Lang, turns into sculptures, below).
It was while prospecting in the rifle range that Mikey and Cliff stumble upon the remains that Sam Deeds spends the movie investigating.
But back to Colonel Payne.
Colonel Delmore Payne is the son of "Big O" Otis Payne, but hasn't seen nor spoken to his father since he was 8 years old. Now married and in his 40s, Colonel Delmore Payne has accepted an offer to run Fort Mackenzie despite the fact that it would mean being close to his estranged father. However, an incident involving some of his troops at Big O's forces him to visit the establishment and to confront his father for the first time in decades (below).
Needless to say there is a lot of bitterness that he feels towards Otis, which not only comes out in the way he treats him, but also the way he treats his own son, Chet (Eddie Robinson, below, and also above in the picture of Otis). Chet is averaging a B+ in school (Pilar is his history teacher) but that is not enough to get into West Point, which is where his Father, Colonel Payne, wants him to go. In many ways, Colonel Delmore Payne runs his own family like the military, and it is assumed that he has complete control over his son's future, despite what Chet may wish for. Chet admits to his grandfather, Otis, that his father always said "from the moment you're born, you have to lift yourself up on your own two feet - no breaks". Otis replies that Delmore is living proof of that.
Yet despite the fact that Colonel Delmore Payne is hard enough to "crack nuts with his buttocks" (as Sergeant Mikey states), we do sympathise with his plight of being brought up without a father. Despite his hardness, we do see Delmore struggling to come to terms with the fact that his estranged father is close by. This, in turn, forces him to "dig up" his own past.
I obviously won't give away the ending of this backstory to you, but you need to remember that before he became a Colonel, Delmore Payne was a Major... ie "Major Pain". I think this is a veiled joke on behalf of the director which also gives us a glimpse of what Delmore can now become. Before, Delmore was a "Major Pain", but, since becoming Colonel and returning to Rio county, he is a "Major Pain" no more.
As I have stated, the backstory involving Colonel Payne and his relationship with Otis has absolutely nothing to do with Sam's quest to fully investigate the dead body in the rifle range. In fact, this particular backstory is a complete story in itself, as though the director has created two separate and (relatively) unrelated stories for the one film. Fortunately, the major story (Sam's investigation) co-exists quite happily with the minor story (Colonel Payne's relationship with his father), and both are connected with the main theme of digging up the past.
The film ends with Pilar and Sam sitting on the bonnet of his car (below) in a disused drive-in that the two had once visited when they were teenagers. The scene is picturesque and quite romantic. But...
...it is during this scene that a twist ending occurs. One final piece of "the puzzle" is revealed that confounds the viewer yet, when all the puzzle pieces are examined, is actually quite fitting. The twist helps explain to the viewer the actions and reactions of many characters during the story. The twist is not, however, somehow non-naturalistic or supernatural in nature, but has resulted from digging up the past. In retrospect, the warnings that Sam had received about digging up the past were quite justified.
But I will say this, just in case some of you have watched Star Wars too much: Sam is not Charlie Wade's son!
Overall the film is brilliant. It is slow at times and the complexity of the back stories (many of whom I have not discussed in this review) can often confuse the viewer into wondering how they fit into the plot. If you view it, realising that the backstories are unrelated, then the film becomes simpler to understand and more enjoyable. I cannot image Chris Cooper in any other role - his Sam Deeds is everything the stereotypical southern sherriff is not, introspective, sensitive, calm and quietly driven. Even his southern "twang" is personable. Elizabeth Pena is similarly believable as a widowed hispanic history teacher who is simultaneously unsettled by and attracted to, her first love. Kris Kristofferson is not my favourite actor, but his performance as the ugly and vicious Charlie Wade is probably the best role of his career. Matthew McConaughey as the legendary Buddy Deeds appears only briefly, but has enough drive and bravery to make his role special too. Then there's the actors from the various backstories, all of whom take their roles seriously and flesh out great characters from a plot-driven story.
More Pictures of Lone Star can be found here.
© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
FAQ about the author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
2006-05-14
Charles Hodge and his attitude to Slavery
This is a letter I sent to Brian V. Hill (Emeritus Professor of Education, Murdoch University) way back in 2004. I was responding to an article he had written in a publication that was critical of Reformed theologian Charles Hodge, and was part of a debate about Homosexual ministers in the Uniting Church. The pdf file I refer to in the letter can be downloaded here (195.5kb). He subsequently modified the article in response to my letter. (Click on read more)
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Over the years I have often heard the assertion that Charles Hodge, the 19th century Reformed Theologian, supported slavery. A year ago I emailed Kevin Giles about this assertion just to put some facts straight. He didn't reply, but I am hoping that you will take this information on board.
The reason why I am writing is because of your paper “Interpreting the Bible for Today – who's got it right?” which on page 7 of the pdf file states: “...slavery was almost universally treated as part of the created order until the 19th century. Several noted Biblical scholars – including American evangelicals such as Charles Hodge – considered that it had strong Biblical justification.”
Before I move into a defence of Hodge, I would just like to state that I am an Evangelical Presbyterian and that I have followed the Resolution 84 debate. I have occasionally led services at my church and we have often prayed for Evangelicals within the Uniting Church since R84 came out. We even have a retired couple who moved to our church because of their concerns with the direction of the UC. One of our church members has a Father who is a UC minister who is a member of EMU and the RA, and I have spoken to him in the last few weeks about his ministry in the UC (he has visited our church). All that I am trying to say at this point is that I come from the point of view of a friend.
I have often heard the following information about Charles Hodge – some of it from reading Kevin Giles and some of it from others:
1.Hodge was a conservative Calvinist who supported slavery.
2.He supported slavery because he was a Southerner.
3.Princeton was located in the South and was ideal as an intellectual basis to support slavery.
4.Calvinism is a very conservative expression of Christianity, so it follows that conservative theology would be matched by conservative beliefs, especially those that support slavery.
5.Hodge vigourously defended slavery and found support in the Bible.
6.Hodge and others supported slavery because they saw it as part of the divine order of creation.
In the limited amount of research that I have done on Charles Hodge I have found the following information pertinent:
1) Hodge was born in Pennsylvania. This is not a Southern state of the USA.
2) Hodge trained and taught at Princeton Theological Seminary. This is located in New Jersey and is not considered a Southern state.
3) During the Civil war, New Jersey was not on the Confederate side.
4) Hodge was a supporter of slavery in the early 19th century – but he complained that they were often mistreated (He probably did not see or understand the problem back then. Being in the North, he didn't see many slaves or how they were treated). He based this belief upon those various verses from Paul which appeared not to condemn slavery.
5) As Hodge became more powerful and notable in the 1830s and 1840s, he often experienced the slavery debate in his own denomination with great pain. The Presbyterians in the North were opposed to slavery while the Presbyterians in the South supported slavery. Hodge saw the issue was tearing the church apart, and, partly because of his earlier views on slavery, he decided to come out in favour of slavery. He was a Northerner that supported the Southern cause, which was a political move to keep the church unified.
6) By 1846, however, Hodge was convinced that Slavery was morally wrong. In The Princeton Review (April 1846), he states
“Slavery is a heinous crime; it degrades human beings into things; it forbids marriages; it destroys domestic relations; it separates parents and children, husbands and wives; it legalizes what God forbids, and forbids what God enjoins; it keeps its victims in ignorance even of the gospel; it denies labor its wages, subject the persons, the virtue, and the happiness of many to the caprice of one; it involves the violation of all social rights and duties, and therefore is the greatest of social crimes. It is as much as any man's character for sense, honesty or religion is worth, to insist that a distinction must here be made; that we must discriminate between slavery and its separable adjuncts; between the relationship itself and the abuse of it; between the possession of power and the unjust exercise of it. Let any man in some portions of our country, in England, in Scotland, or Ireland, attempt to make such distinctions, and see with what an outburst of indignation he will be overwhelmed. It is just so in the present case.”
7) As a result of this opposition, he lost his Southern support. His attempts at unifying the church led to a watering down of his case. In the end he pleased no one.
8) In 1872, Hodge released his “Systematic Theology”. In Volume 2, page 90-91, Hodge states the following about the human race:
“Whenever we meet a man, no matter of what name or nation, we not only find that he has the same nature with ourselves; that he has the same organs, the same senses, the same instincts, the same feelings, the same faculties, the same understanding, will, and conscience, and the same capacity for religious culture, but that he has the same guilty and polluted nature, and needs the same redemption. Christ died for all men, and we are commanded to preach the gospel to every creature under heaven. Accordingly, nowhere on the face of the earth are men to be found who do not need the gospel or who are not capable of becoming partakers of the blessings which it offers”
During the 19th century there were some erroneous theological works that attempted to justify slavery. Some of the arguments focused upon African slaves as not being human and therefore could not be considered as being made in the image of God. Hodge, as his quote above shows, did not hold this belief.
Conclusion
Charles Hodge erred in both intially supporting slavery and then not opposing it strongly enough as the debate hotted up. From this we can assume that Hodge found the situation difficult because it was not as “clear-cut” to him as it is to us today. He did, however, definitely change his mind, long before civil war broke out in 1861, and opposed slavery as being morally wrong.
We can therefore assume that Hodge was not a strong supporter of slavery. We can also assume that he made some bad mistakes when he did support it, but he was never a strong defender or it, nor was he an apologist for slavery. The facts are, however, that he publically changed his mind and opposed slavery. The fact that he had to subsequently water these down for the sake of denominational unity is not commendable, but it is certainly not damnable.
References:
http://www.hornes.org/theologia/content/charles_hodge/is_the_church_of_rome_a_part_of_the_visible_church.htm
http://www.layman.org/layman/the-layman/2003/no2-april-2003/theology-that-matters-april-03.htm
The Abolition of Slavery, Women's Liberation, Homosexual Rights and Evangelical Hermenutics, Kevin Giles, 1995 (pdf file 35.8kb) - this paper is influential in the view that Hodge was vehemently pro-slavery.
From the Theosalient Department
© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
FAQ about the author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
-----------------
Over the years I have often heard the assertion that Charles Hodge, the 19th century Reformed Theologian, supported slavery. A year ago I emailed Kevin Giles about this assertion just to put some facts straight. He didn't reply, but I am hoping that you will take this information on board.
The reason why I am writing is because of your paper “Interpreting the Bible for Today – who's got it right?” which on page 7 of the pdf file states: “...slavery was almost universally treated as part of the created order until the 19th century. Several noted Biblical scholars – including American evangelicals such as Charles Hodge – considered that it had strong Biblical justification.”
Before I move into a defence of Hodge, I would just like to state that I am an Evangelical Presbyterian and that I have followed the Resolution 84 debate. I have occasionally led services at my church and we have often prayed for Evangelicals within the Uniting Church since R84 came out. We even have a retired couple who moved to our church because of their concerns with the direction of the UC. One of our church members has a Father who is a UC minister who is a member of EMU and the RA, and I have spoken to him in the last few weeks about his ministry in the UC (he has visited our church). All that I am trying to say at this point is that I come from the point of view of a friend.
I have often heard the following information about Charles Hodge – some of it from reading Kevin Giles and some of it from others:
1.Hodge was a conservative Calvinist who supported slavery.
2.He supported slavery because he was a Southerner.
3.Princeton was located in the South and was ideal as an intellectual basis to support slavery.
4.Calvinism is a very conservative expression of Christianity, so it follows that conservative theology would be matched by conservative beliefs, especially those that support slavery.
5.Hodge vigourously defended slavery and found support in the Bible.
6.Hodge and others supported slavery because they saw it as part of the divine order of creation.
In the limited amount of research that I have done on Charles Hodge I have found the following information pertinent:
1) Hodge was born in Pennsylvania. This is not a Southern state of the USA.
2) Hodge trained and taught at Princeton Theological Seminary. This is located in New Jersey and is not considered a Southern state.
3) During the Civil war, New Jersey was not on the Confederate side.
4) Hodge was a supporter of slavery in the early 19th century – but he complained that they were often mistreated (He probably did not see or understand the problem back then. Being in the North, he didn't see many slaves or how they were treated). He based this belief upon those various verses from Paul which appeared not to condemn slavery.
5) As Hodge became more powerful and notable in the 1830s and 1840s, he often experienced the slavery debate in his own denomination with great pain. The Presbyterians in the North were opposed to slavery while the Presbyterians in the South supported slavery. Hodge saw the issue was tearing the church apart, and, partly because of his earlier views on slavery, he decided to come out in favour of slavery. He was a Northerner that supported the Southern cause, which was a political move to keep the church unified.
6) By 1846, however, Hodge was convinced that Slavery was morally wrong. In The Princeton Review (April 1846), he states
“Slavery is a heinous crime; it degrades human beings into things; it forbids marriages; it destroys domestic relations; it separates parents and children, husbands and wives; it legalizes what God forbids, and forbids what God enjoins; it keeps its victims in ignorance even of the gospel; it denies labor its wages, subject the persons, the virtue, and the happiness of many to the caprice of one; it involves the violation of all social rights and duties, and therefore is the greatest of social crimes. It is as much as any man's character for sense, honesty or religion is worth, to insist that a distinction must here be made; that we must discriminate between slavery and its separable adjuncts; between the relationship itself and the abuse of it; between the possession of power and the unjust exercise of it. Let any man in some portions of our country, in England, in Scotland, or Ireland, attempt to make such distinctions, and see with what an outburst of indignation he will be overwhelmed. It is just so in the present case.”
7) As a result of this opposition, he lost his Southern support. His attempts at unifying the church led to a watering down of his case. In the end he pleased no one.
8) In 1872, Hodge released his “Systematic Theology”. In Volume 2, page 90-91, Hodge states the following about the human race:
“Whenever we meet a man, no matter of what name or nation, we not only find that he has the same nature with ourselves; that he has the same organs, the same senses, the same instincts, the same feelings, the same faculties, the same understanding, will, and conscience, and the same capacity for religious culture, but that he has the same guilty and polluted nature, and needs the same redemption. Christ died for all men, and we are commanded to preach the gospel to every creature under heaven. Accordingly, nowhere on the face of the earth are men to be found who do not need the gospel or who are not capable of becoming partakers of the blessings which it offers”
During the 19th century there were some erroneous theological works that attempted to justify slavery. Some of the arguments focused upon African slaves as not being human and therefore could not be considered as being made in the image of God. Hodge, as his quote above shows, did not hold this belief.
Conclusion
Charles Hodge erred in both intially supporting slavery and then not opposing it strongly enough as the debate hotted up. From this we can assume that Hodge found the situation difficult because it was not as “clear-cut” to him as it is to us today. He did, however, definitely change his mind, long before civil war broke out in 1861, and opposed slavery as being morally wrong.
We can therefore assume that Hodge was not a strong supporter of slavery. We can also assume that he made some bad mistakes when he did support it, but he was never a strong defender or it, nor was he an apologist for slavery. The facts are, however, that he publically changed his mind and opposed slavery. The fact that he had to subsequently water these down for the sake of denominational unity is not commendable, but it is certainly not damnable.
References:
http://www.hornes.org/theologia/content/charles_hodge/is_the_church_of_rome_a_part_of_the_visible_church.htm
http://www.layman.org/layman/the-layman/2003/no2-april-2003/theology-that-matters-april-03.htm
The Abolition of Slavery, Women's Liberation, Homosexual Rights and Evangelical Hermenutics, Kevin Giles, 1995 (pdf file 35.8kb) - this paper is influential in the view that Hodge was vehemently pro-slavery.
From the Theosalient Department
© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
2006-05-13
2006-05-12
Bleah!
I needed the shelter of someone's arms, and there you were
I needed someone to understand my ups and downs,
and there you were with sweet love and devotion
Deeply touching my emotion
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
How sweet it is to be loved by you
How sweet it is to be loved by you
I close my eyes at night
Wondering where would i be without you in my life
Everything i did was just a bore
Everywhere i went it seems i'd been there before
But you brighten up for me all of my days
With a love so sweet in so many ways
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
I just want to stop and thank you Jesus
How sweet it is to be loved by you
How sweet it is to be loved by you
You were better to me than i was to myself
For me, there's you and there ain't nobody else
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
I just want to stop and thank you Jesus
How sweet it is to be loved by you
How sweet it is to be loved by you
From Fide-o
I needed someone to understand my ups and downs,
and there you were with sweet love and devotion
Deeply touching my emotion
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
How sweet it is to be loved by you
How sweet it is to be loved by you
I close my eyes at night
Wondering where would i be without you in my life
Everything i did was just a bore
Everywhere i went it seems i'd been there before
But you brighten up for me all of my days
With a love so sweet in so many ways
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
I just want to stop and thank you Jesus
How sweet it is to be loved by you
How sweet it is to be loved by you
You were better to me than i was to myself
For me, there's you and there ain't nobody else
I want to stop and thank you Jesus
I just want to stop and thank you Jesus
How sweet it is to be loved by you
How sweet it is to be loved by you
From Fide-o
What lefties call "Wingnuts"
Check out this right-wing rant. I'm still confused by it. Can someone please explain to me why they are angry?
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