Resurrected writers: Schaeffer

The dead still speak

An occasional series by Maxwell Ryan

I

t is instructive to realize how theological fashions change over the years. For instance, 25 or 30 years ago one of the most influential evangelical theologians whose name was on everyone’s lips - in North America at least - was Francis A. Schaeffer. Today, few have heard of him and his books often end up in used book sales or gather dust in theological libraries. This is a great pity because during his lifetime (1912 to 1984), and particularly in the decades of the 1950s to 1980s, his was the voice that gave intellectual muscle to evangelicals who were battling with theologically liberal ideas. Schaeffer was the evangelical David fighting against many Goliaths of theological modernism and doing it with great success. He was an American theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor whose reformed theology formed the foundation of his writings.

› Continue reading

Poetry: Taube

Two short poems by Jonathan Taube

Genesis 2:18 and I Found a Picture

of You Wearing a Soccer Uniform

I saw her knit together
Just dust held in your hand
that is blown and carried away on the wind
And only a rib was all it took
A small price to pay to be complete

Fairer days that the ones we’ve known apart—
come to me in my dreams
I see our children’s faces in your baby pictures
And I love them already

And one rib was all it took
A small price to pay to be complete

› Continue reading

In the image of God

Areopagus #18

T

his is a big week for Keri Shay. On Friday the 22-year-old Chicago-based Salvationist graduates from a four-year degree program in photography. Then she plans to work as a freelance photojournalist. As someone steeped in the Army’s predisposition toward the poor, Shay has a calling to use her photographic gifts to celebrate the dignity, the stories and the moments in time of people often forgotten and neglected. She is called to serve… but with her camera.

She also serves the body of Christ as a vocalist for The Singing Company, a contemporary ensemble that tours and performs throughout the US and elsewhere in the world.

In this Areopagus feature we bring you Shay’s photographs, a Singing Company song in which Shay is the soloist and portions of an interview with this young woman who seeks God’s glory in wisps of light. Click on the photo of Shay in India to view the presentation which runs 4:17.

Resurrected writers: Muggeridge

The dead still speak:

An occasional series by Maxwell Ryan

T

he trouble with many contemporary Christians is that they’re so intellectually locked into their time frame. They never seem to have heard of, let alone read, authors who were giants in their time and whose elegant and fiery prose still stirs the imagination, informs the mind and fires passion. For intellectual rigour, for clarity of thought, for a well-turned phrase that says it just right – read the old authors, and some who are not that old.

In this brief essay I have in mind Malcolm Muggeridge, colloquially known as “Saint Mugg” by his admirers, of whom there were, and are, many. He was a British journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier-spy and Christian scholar whose dates are March 24, 1903 – November 14, 1990. Muggeridge was born in Croydon, England, into a highly political middle class home where the faith was socialism. › Continue reading

Areopagus #15: artist profile

Phil Laeger speaks to Bramwell Ryan

H

e’s like a young Billy Joel - a piano man who goes it alone with hard-wrought songs about love, faith, questions and actions. Phil Laeger, 29, is not only studying music in Boston, he’s making it and people throughout The Salvation Army and elsewhere are listening and paying attention. Bramwell Ryan, editor of theRubicon, recently interviewed Laeger about his music for this Areopagus episode. The focus is on three songs that best capture how Laeger is trying to shape the world through his craft. To listen to this mix of music and words, click on the arrow below. Or click here to download this episode from the Areopagus podcast section on iTunes. A pdf with the lyrics of the three profiled songs can be downloaded here. Runs: 12:15

A note about the audio quality - this interview was conducted using VOIP (i.e. over the internet). As is often the case, the technology didn’t work as well as it should and accordingly there is some line noise - sorry.

Album review: A Hundred Highways

Jamie Howison on the man in black

O

nce again, the legendary Johnny Cash is selling records. Some three years after his death, there is a new album in the Rick Rubin-produced “American Recordings” series, and as has been the case with its four predecessors, this one is making serious waves with a generation of listeners many of whose parents weren’t even born when Cash first arrived on the scene way back in the mid-1950’s. Rolling Stone, that iconic magazine of the world of pop culture, gave American V: A Hundred Highways a solid four out of five stars, describing it as “a hard record to bear,” and then adding “but it’s a deep one.” “A deathbed benediction” the reviewer called it, and this is meant to be high praise and a solid recommendation to potential buyers. › Continue reading

They crucified my Lord…

As a disciple, he saw it all - the miracles, the tears, the laughter, the fatigue, the shouts of praise and the screams of condemnation.

But who would have thought it
would come to this?

Matthew’s song… the eyewitness blues

I’m Your on the spot reporter telling the world the news.
I was a tax collector, now I’m happy followin’ You.

I saw You feed the five thousand, handin’ out fish and bread.
You healed the sick and sorry, even saw You raisin’ the dead.

CHORUS:

Cause I was there, and over here and over there, I was an eyewitness.
I was there when they hailed You, there when they nailed You,
I was there.

I saw you walkin’ on the water, across Lake Galilee.
You calmed the waves and weather, most amazin’ thing I’ve seen.
On the Easter Sunday evenin’ I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Death had been defeated, glory, glory what a surprise.

Click on Golgotha to hear the music and see images of Christ.

Music by Mark Radford, a salvo drummer who enjoys fiddling on the keyboard and putting the Christian experience into accessible lyrics and simple music/chords, attends Horsham Corps in Quantong, Victoria, Australia.

Nightmare on Sunday Street

A poem by Geoff Ryan

“A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world – and might even be more difficult to save.”
C.S.Lewis

› Continue reading

Where are God’s Minstrels?

Sergei Zhuravlyov asks why ‘our’ music is always catching-up

G

lory be to God for those people who are able to see the hidden potential in imperfect souls, as the sculptor sees the complete sculptured figure that impacts his imagination while others see only a piece of rock. I thank God for my music teacher, Natalia Semenovna at Novosibirsk College of Music. I remember her almost twenty years later, because she was the one to discover in me the God-given capacity to write musical compositions.

› Continue reading

Poetry reading: The Missionary

Geoff Ryan reads one of his poems

O

God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?”
George Bernard Shaw

“I do not promise you an easy life. You may have to sacrifice all that is dear to you. You are not to come to God merely to be happy or to gain peace, but in order to carry out his will.”
Kate Booth

› Continue reading