Stand With Conviction! (you know?)

I love this!

U.S. Homeland as a Battleground? Goodbye Civil Rights…

Shocking that this comes from Fox Business News, but it’s incredibly important to be aware of how our Civil Rights are being infringed on…

And Keith Olbermann weighs in…

Video: Rick Perry’s War On LGBTQ (in case you missed it)

Awesome follow up from Jesus Christ:

Video: The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger

What does this video have to do with ANYTHING? Absolutely nothing. But you will LOVE this. Or you should…

Sexuality and Religion: Weblog w/Julie Jeske

My friend Julie Jeske specializes in sex therapy in the Portland area.  She and her husband (Chris, one of my closest friends) are spending the month in Paris and Julie is doing a weblog series on sexuality while she works on a manuscript.  A few of her posts have been on spirituality and sexuality, and I thought I’d share.  When they return, Julie and I are considering doing a collaborative series on sexuality, spirituality and (yes) shame.  I’m looking forward to it…

Talking Babies: Tell Us Your Secrets!

This is just lovely…

Although sometimes I think our religious speak probably sounds much like this (but, perhaps, less delightful) to our bewildered neighbors who don’t speak our language.

xtranormal: “WordPress is WAY cooler”

Facebook Fun(damentalism) – Xtranormal Fuzzy Animal Synopsis

Okay, here it is: my creative interpretation of — or perhaps — my “homage” to the FACEBOOK FUN(damentalism) of the last week.

My friend Adele was just telling me she can’t handle reading this stuff — it’s too frustrating.  I totally hear you Adele!  Like I said, my stomach was unsettled over the confrontation all week long.  Watching the fuzzy Xtranormal animals provide synopsis should be a little easier to swallow…

Fundie News Flash: Christians Don’t Sin! (So You Should Convert!)

Over the next couple of days I’ll recount all the joy, drama, ridiculousness (perhaps on my part as well?) and childlike fun of mature religious debate (did I just type that?) as enabled by the wonders of the FACEBOOK WALL!

…
or perhaps…

Review Wrap Up: On Rap (and art, and judging it, and…)

I've decided not to complete an entire review of every song on Kanye West's new album. First, I've already set up a bad precedent. There are other albums I care more about, that I think demonstrate more artistic talent, or have more lasting appeal. The Fugees The Score is one of those albums.  So are I Say, I Say, I Say by Erasure, Release the Stars from Rufus Wainwright, Depeche Mode's Exciter, and 2Pac Shakur's All Eyez On Me (all of these come from the last two decades, demonstrating my own limitations in taste and perspective).

When people ask me about hip hop, they usually want to know, "What's it about? What's the rapper saying? What do the words mean?" And I can often point to some meaningful lines here and there.  For example...

I don't care what your musical taste is.  You will appreciate this:

Yo, there's a war in the mind, over territory


For the dominion


Who would dominate the opinion


Skisms and isms, keepin' us in forms of religion


Conformin' our vision


To the world church's decision


Trapped in a section


Submitted to committee election


Moral infection


Epedemic lies and deception


Insurrection


Of the highest possible order


Destortin' our tape recorders


From hearin' like underwater


Beyond the borders


Fond of sin and disorder


Bound by the strategy


Of systematic depravity


Heavy as gravity


Head first in the cavity


Without a bottom


A fate worse than Sodom


What's got him drunk off the spirits?


Truth comes, we can't hear it


When you've been, programmed to fear it


I had a vision


I was fallin' in indescision


Apallin', callin' religion


Some program on television


How can dominant wisdom


Be recognizing the system


Of Anti-Christs, the majority rules,


Intelligent fools


PhD's in illusion


Masters of mass confusion


Bachelors in past illusion


Now who you choosin'?


The head or the tail?


The bloodshed of the male?


More confidence in the tale?


Conferences in Yale


Discussin' documents of Baal





Causin' people to fail


Keepin' a third in jail


His word is nailed


Everything to the tree


Severing all of me from all that I used to be.

But it is rare for rap lyrics to remain so consistently poignant and targeted. Even Lauryn Hill herself admits in another song, "so I add a motherfucker so you ignorant n*ggas hear me!"

So-called "socially conscious" rappers like Nas, Common and Talib Kweli decry social injustice, misogyny and abuse of women, violence, and materialism in one verse, but are prone to turn around in even the same track and commit identical sins. No rapper is more guilty of this than Kanye West in "Diamonds of Sierra Leone." He was widely lauded several years ago for bringing worldwide attention to the blood diamond trade, in the first verse of the song: "I thought my Jesus-piece was so harmless, till I seen a picture of a shorty armless, and here's the conflict..." But the second verse undermines any positive affect: 
People askin'me is I'ma give my chain back?


That'll be the same day I give the game back.

Translation: "I'm keeping my Jesus-piece, armless children or not."  Nice, Kanye.  

 But my argument, cruel, heartless and insensitive as it may sound, is not that these questions are unimportant, but that they are not central to what hip hop is musically -- genetically. What's often misunderstood in the craft of rap, as much as in the enjoyment of rap, is that the words themselves function as lyrical instruments. Rappers use rhyme, alliteration, dissonance, repetition and tempo to build sounds, not just to tell stories. Too often, listeners try to find meaning in the words, and miss the music ("forest for the trees..."). It's like trying to identify the color palette in a painting without noticing the actual painting. 

 The other consistent feature of rap music, from its beginning, is its own self-celebration: rappers celebrate rap. They celebrate their own craft and artistry. They point to the thing they are doing. They differentiate themselves from others. They self-aggrandize, posture, and brag... but "celebration" is the most generous way of describing it. It's an aggressive medium, to be sure sure, but it's one that demands to be noticed. It has a cultural chip on its shoulder - expression of the oppressed. 

When art conveys something offensive, I think we should be brave enough and honest enough to name that and speak up. But it's important to recognize what is actually being said:

When Kanye West raps about his sexual exploits with easy women, we need to be specific about what needs critique. He would be wrong to use his power, fame and platform to manipulate and exploit his female fans. He is certainly wrong for speaking about them so disrespectfully. He is also wrong for allowing his celebrity-based sexual experiences to impact his respect for, and treatment of women in general. Is he a bad person for sleeping with lots of fans?  As a Christian I say he's practicing destructive, unhealthy behavior, but that's not behavior I find worth decrying an artist for.  Should we protest him rapping about the fact that he has lots of sex? Not necessarily. While it's not classy, I'm not sure that's inherently oppressive.

We need to be clear about what we're protesting. 

 When Andres Serrano took a photo of a crucifix in a jar of his urine ("Piss Christ") he obviously stirred the pot and earned all sorts of international Christian hatred. But what exactly was he doing? Serrano himself was coy about his intentions, but a nun came forward in the midst of the controversy in the 1990s to argue that it was not blasphemy, but a poignant commentary on what we (contemporary society and religion) have done to Christ.  So what's left to protest there, unless one thinks society has been respectful and pious toward the image and character of Christ?

I'm not naive, but I believe that art tells us something.  Sometimes it tells us a specific story.  Sometimes it is very intangible -- more a story about us, and our own responses than about the piece itself (plenty of artists will tell you that their art "isn't about anything" and that's legitimate, but impact is unavoidable).  It's probably not healthy to dwell on negative, caustic, hostile expressions of art.  I don't spend as much time listening to the angry music I once listened to, but it still plays an important role in shaping my worldview.  As disappointing as Kanye West's misogyny is, he provides a great reminder -- cautionary for us all -- of how far we have to go before we live in an equalized society.

2Pac Shakur once said, "They didn’t even want to stop the Vietnam War until people saw the pictures of how horrible it really was. So I said to myself, that’s what I’m gonna do with my lyrics: I’m going to paint a picture of the horrible aspects of life, and maybe then they will try to stop it."

Pop art today is showing us a lot of reality that needs to be stopped.  Somehow, in a beautiful, dark, twisted, ironic way, the most powerful art is telling us those hard stories in ways that are perversely beautiful and disturbingly compelling.