The longer I’m a Christian, the more I become convicted at just how lightly I take the issue of sin. I find myself treating sin as though it were just a minor inconvenience, just a case of the sniffles rather than a cancer. This conviction came once again the other day as I was reading 1 Peter. In Chapter 2, Peter develops an argument about the glories of election, that God would call a people unto Himself, making them a “spiritual house” built on the cornerstone of Christ. God, in His grace and mercy and for His glory, has called those “who were not a people” to be His people.”

But these things are far from dusty intellectual pursuits for Peter. These are the truths about salvation and they are not just for the head but for the whole life. Truth about God should always affect His people and move us to action. Peter admonishes:

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation (1 Peter 2:10-11).

Peter commands us to “abstain from the passions of the flesh.” Most Believers would agree, we should stay away from sin, we should try to avoid it and we should try to do it less. But that’s the extent of it for most people. John Owen’s idea of “mortifying” or killing our sin seems foreign to many of us because we don’t believe that sin is really all that serious. But notice, Peter furthers his admonition and tells us why we are to “abstain from the passions of the flesh,” it is because these very passions, these sins “wage war against your soul.”

Sin is not just a case of the common cold. We cannot take a few Bible verses like an antibiotic and be on our way. Sin is a cancer that embeds itself into our very beings, it is not neutral, it is trying to destroy us. Peter says that the “passions of the flesh” are “waging war” on our souls. I know that I rarely take sin that seriously, particularly when I give in to temptation. I find myself saying that it’s not so bad and that as long as I dont’ do whatever it was again very soon, everything will be fine.

Scripture, and God take sin seriously. When we minimize the seriousness of sin, we are also minimizing the holiness of God. What makes sin so serious is not just that it’s waging war against us, it is a direct affront to the holiness of God. God’s holiness is what determines the seriousness of sin. Sin is punishable by death (Romans 6:23) and Jesus takes sin so seriously that He commands that we take drastic measures against it:

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell (Mark 9:43-47).

This is thinking that takes sin seriously and that understands that we are at war and yet this is thinking that so few of us share. We must be willing to flee from sin (1 Corinthians 6:18, 1 Corinthians 10:14, 1 Timothy 6:10-12, 2 Timothy 2:22, etc.). We must “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12), knowing that this is a fight to the death and that if we do not kill sin, it certainly desires to kill us.

Fridays are special days. I love poetry, I love music and I have a blog where I can highlight both of them. So I do. Each Friday I usually highlight a poet, including at least one poem. I also highlight a musical artist who makes at least one track available for free download. I also link to other people who are encouraging artistic thinking/living, whether it be the photography of Joe Kennedy, Alex Forrest, Timmy Brisster, Joe Thorn, Steve McCoy, or the history musings of Will Turner (not quite as artistic, but valuable nonetheless!). This week however, we’ll only feature music. My love for poetry has not waned, but my time for the blog this week has. VBS and planning for this year’s Fellowship of Reformed Churches conference took priority, so it’s just music today. But it’s very good music!

Today’s musical offering comes Austin, TX band Explosions in the Sky. An instrumental band often associated with the post-rock genre, Explosions in the Sky plays extended, moody, often explosive pieces specializing in the “building tension” formula.

In October of 2005, the band released a limited-edition 8-song offering as part of the Temporary Residence “Travels in Constants” series, which was a series of subscription only EP’s by bands associated with the label. They were run in limited quantites once only. For their offering, Explosions in the Sky recorded eight songs in eight days and called it “The Rescue.” For a band that says it takes months to write a single song, this was quite a task! Since the album is out of print and unavailable, the band has been so kind as to make it available for download to those unable to obtain an original copy. Enjoy:

• Download “Day One”
• Download “Day Two”
• Download “Day Three”
• Download “Day Four”
• Download “Day Five”
• Download “Day Six”
• Download “Day Seven”
• Download “Day Eight”
• Download the album cover
• Visit the band’s official website
• Buy Explosions in the Sky recordings
• Download the band from eMusic

Here we are, once again at the tail-end of a bygone week, a bygone era. Watching hour hopes, our dreams slip slowly away and all we’re able to say is “pipedreams, Dad, pipedreams.” OK, maybe not, but here’s some of the things that caught my eye on the web this week:

Read this story about Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and his ties to Jack Abramoff costing him an election.

Browse as Tortoise slowly announces some U.S. tour dates.

Read Justin Taylor’s piece highlighting Reformation Trust Publishing, a new venture of Ligonier Ministries.

Also from JT, read an introduction and find a link to Kim Riddlebarger’s “Primer on Amillennialism.”

Read an essay from goodhodgkins asking many questions about music/mp3 blogs.

Read the L.A. Daily News‘ interview with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips (ht: lhb).

Read the announcement that the “God Blog” conference has been postponed until the Fall.

Read “Relevant” magazine’s review of Sufjan Stevens’ outtakes project The Avalanche.

Read this article about the rise of the pagan religion Asatru, a “a polytheistic, pre-Christian faith native to Scandinavia whose adherents worship gods including Thor and Odin.”

Read an interview with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth about family, the Gilmore Girls and touring Australia.

Read UGO’s list of the “50 Best Albums of Our Time,” which they preface by saying: “We’re tired of “Best Ever” album lists that ignore everything we’ve ever heard in favor of some obscure record from a neo-jazz futurist who played the zither back in the ’60s. Hey, here’s a news flash: There actually WAS good music recorded after 1990.”

Read about one man’s experience with the RIAA (these are never positive stories).

Read the American Spectator’s piece questioning the continued validity of the Dixie Chicks (if they ever had any to begin with).

Read Newcitychicago’s piece profiling every band playing the Warped Tour, Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival. Regarding Anathallo, they say: “This music happens when Sufjan Stevens’ van stops hurtling across the America’s open countryside and crosses the border into Animal Collective’s hedonistic enchanted forest of noise.”

Read this article discussing Apple’s DRM technology.

Become a drug dealer and help distribute AIDS medicines to Africa.

Look into my ears and see what I’ve been listening to at the Last.fm site which uses a plugin called “Audio Scrobbler” to track the music you listen to and then make recommendations on your established listening patterns.

Send a Bible to China through VoM’s “Bibles Unbound” program.

Sign up for eMusic, expose yourself to a world of new music and help me get free downloads in the process!

Read Justin Taylor’s post noting the passing of NT scholar Leon Morris.

Read James White’s post about an upcoming book by a woman who claims to be a direct descendant of the union between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Read the Chicago Sun-Times‘ profile of the Pitchfork music festival.

I’ll admit it, I was a punk rock kid. I listened to “Flogging A Dead Horse” quite a few times. But that has nothing to do with life now or this post. Instead, it has to do with the fact that I sometimes feel that flogging/beating/kicking (whichever violent descriptor fits your preference) a dead horse is exactly what I do here when I write about “Christian” music. But the truth is, I love Christ and I love music, so the two play a large role in my life, and thus, also in my thought life.

I have been reading Terry Mattingly’s Pop Goes Religion and the first chapter deals with the question, “what is Christian music?” Mattingly tells of an experience he had while teaching at an unnamed Christian school. He had a mix CD of U2 songs that he would play while he worked out in the school’s gym. He was told that the CD was unacceptable because “U2 isn’t a Christian band.” While Mattingly tried to counter that three-quarters of the band’s members openly claimed to be Christian and all of the songs on the mix in question contained substantially biblical lyrics, it was to no avail. Yet the next day, he came into the gym only to hear the song “Bullet the Blue Sky” from the Joshua Tree album. The words were were the same, the music was the same, only this time it was by P.O.D., who happened to be sold in “Christian” stores.

This of course begs the question “What is Christian music?” The Gospel Music Association says that it is:

“music in any style whose lyric is substantially based on historically orthodox Christian truth contained in or derived from the Holy Bible; and/or an expression of worship of God or praise for his works; and/or testimony of relationship with God through Christ; and/or obviously prompted and informed by a Christian world view.”

The problem is that this is untrue. Why can I hear someone cover a U2 song on “Christian” radio while being unable to hear U2 play the same song? Because it’s a marketing question, not a content question. If content were the only question, why wasn’t U2 nominated for a Dove award for the song “Yahweh” or the album on which it appears?

Mattingly provides one more example that the criteria stated is not the criteria applied. He says: “There was even a time when the rock band Van Halen had a born-again singer named Gary Cherone belting out lyrics rooted in the third chapter of the Epistle of James.” Mattingly goes on to tell of a discussion with Cherone who says: “I knew exactly what the words meant and where they were coming from. Cherone then recites some of the lyrics (compare with James 3):

“Rudder of ship, which sets the course.
Does not the bit, bridle the horse?
Great is the forest, set by a small flame.
Like a tongue on fire, no one can tame.”

Mattingly notes that “The album liner notes even included a nod to super-Calvinist theologian R.C. Sproul” and wonders aloud, “It would seem that an obvious Bible quote such as this would fit within the GMA definition of “gospel” music.” So why didn’t Van Halen get a Dove?” Though Mattingly’s question is somewhat sarcastic, it hits right at some of the underlying issues. It’s difficult to believe that content is the issue when Phillips, Craig and Dean deny the “orthodox Christian truth” (a prerequisite for the GMA, right?) of the Trinity (here and here) and yet they’re available in just about any “Christian” bookstore while acts who opt for other marketing avenues are shunned.

Christians have allowed marketing to define a genre, the only musical genre defined by lyrical content rather than musical style. The bottom line is that it’s a business decision rather than a theological decision. U2, Sufjan Stevens, Bob Dylan are all “informed by a Christian world view” and write songs “based on historically orthodox Christian truth contained in or derived from the Holy Bible…” In fact, you’ll often find more Scripture in a Bob Dylan song than most of what passes as “CCM.”

Until we encourage our artists and our listeners to think deeply about these subjects, we will continue to be at the mercy of marketing companies as the gate-keepers of what is or isn’t “Christian” rather than actually looking at the content. While they’re making A LOT of money now, self-proclaiming Christians cannot ignore theology for long without suffering severe consequences.

• Read Pop Goes Religion by Terry Mattingly
• Read a post from when the horse was still alive.

We are very pleased to announce this year’s Fellowship of Reformed Churches conference. Our theme this year is “Humble Orthodoxy: Speaking the Truth in Love.” This year’s theme is “Humble Orthodoxy: Speaking the Truth in Love.” Drawing from and building on the recent New Attitude conference of the same theme (with their permission), we hope to encourage Reformed believers to grasp the importance of both right doctrine and humble lives.

We will meet Saturday, October 14, 2006 from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. at the Leadership Development Center on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The conference is free of charge.

• Learn more about this year’s conference.
• View the conference schedule.
• Meet this year’s preachers.
• Register for the conference.

It’s interesting how effective a different perspective can be. The carnival fun-house thrives on the idea of a skewed perspective, false mirrors, smoke and mazes. Once we’re given the chance to see things from a different angle, we find different details, different nuances; things we’d missed before. This is also one of the interesting things about the Christian life.

Much of our growth is actually the process of having our perspective changed. We must learn to think more like Christ and less like a fallen man (or woman if you are one). Scripture repeatedly develops this contrast. It’s one thing to acknowledge it when things are going well. Yet it’s entirely a different thing when we’re in the midst of suffering.

Suffering heightens and accenuates many of our weaknesses. If we are prone to look to other people rather than God when things are well, how much moreso in the midst of suffering. If we are prone to self-pity (which is actually a manifestation of pride), how much moreso in as difficulties pool around our feet. It is often in the midst of suffering when we find it most difficult to fully trust God. Yet God has designed suffering, as the refiner’s fire, to remove the dross of sin from us that we might emerge more fully reflecting His precious image.

Many struggle with this idea that God somehow ordains the suffering of His people. While I understand the hesitancy, Scripture tells us to rejoice when we encounter suffering. James tells his readers to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2) How foreign are these words to ears raised on the notion that “bad things don’t happen to good people.” As James continues, he explains that trials produce a testing of our faith and that “the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:3-4). To these same people, James does not tell them that when they encounter trials, to pray that God would remove the trial, he does not tell them to pray even that God would swiftly deliver them through it, he tells them to pray for wisdom (James 1:5).

Peter says something strikingly similar. Recognizing that his readers are in the midst of severe trial, he nonetheless instructs them to rejoice at God’s sovereign grace that has elected them unto salvation and upholds them even in the midst of their suffering (1 Peter 1:1-6): “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Peter 1:6). Just as James said that the testing of faith served a greater purpose, Peter continues, arguing that “the tested genuineness of your faith–more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).

Both Peter and James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit connect an attitude of rejoicing to the suffering of believers. They can do this because they have a different perspective. They “eyes of their hearts” have been enlightened (Ephesians 1:18) so that they (and Lord willing, us along with them) may say with Paul: “we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). Paul then says something revealing the true extent of how God’s perspective is different than ours: “this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Paul, of all people, from our perspective, had a right to complain, after all, he was able to say “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers” (2 Corinthians 11:24-26). All this while American Christians have little more to fear than ridicule.

How many of us, in the dark night of despair can say that we realize it is but a “slight momentary affliction” because we view it in light of the “eternal weight of glory” that awaits us? I know that far too often, this certainly does not describe me. We must immerse ourselves in the Word, we must internalize it. We must pray, and pray, and pray that God would grant us His perspective, that we would see with His eyes and walk in His strength after all, it’s perfected in our weakness, right? (2 Corinthians 12:9). It’s all a matter of perspective.

I don’t know how it happens, but sometimes life gets in the way of blogs! Imagine that. No post today (other than saying there would be no post today). Tonight we begin our Vacation Bible School at Grace, so we’re gearing up for that. I’m also preparing a website for the upcoming Fellowship of Reformed Churches conference. In the meantime, read about last year’s conference.