Hockey Night in Canada Theme Contest: A Shameless Plug

Canadians know (and thanks to Stephen Colbert, so do many others) that the CBC surrendered its longtime musical theme for its premiere broadcast, “Hockey Night in Canada.” In a brilliant public relations move, it is now holding a national contest to replace that theme.

Our son Joshua is a composer (currently studying at the Conservatory at Wheaton College, Illinois) and has submitted an entry.

It is The Best Entry. You should register, log on, and vote for it. Yes, you should. It is, as I say, The Best Entry.

Strangely, all of the entries I’ve looked at have startlingly low scores–few above “2″ out of “5.” My guess? Composers and their friends are sabotaging rivals. I mean, can they all be that bad?

In fact, the website is poorly designed. Once you have registered, every time you log in, you can listen again, vote again, and have it count again.

So for now, have a listen and vote online for fun—and then in October for real.

You know it’s the right thing to do.

Signed,

Josh’s Dad

P.S. We’re heading out on late summer vacation, so I’ll suspend posting until September. Shalom to you all!

Anglican Dissipation: The Break-Up of the World’s Largest Small Group

In the wake of the decennial Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, the distinguished British magazine  The Economist muses about why the Anglican Communion is in such trouble compared to other churches:

“Most churches are riven by tensions: it is not so long ago that the Roman Catholic Opus Dei glared at liberation theologists, and Moscow’s Orthodox still squabble like mad with Constantinople’s. But Anglicans lack the glue that binds those churches together: the power of the pope to impose discipline on straying Catholics; the body of undisputed theology that unites Orthodox believers even when they quarrel. Anglicanism works through relationships, a sense of belonging to a family with a shared inheritance. That now has waned. Despite the apparent reprieve, this year’s Lambeth conference could well be the last of its kind.”

There’s a lot going on in the Anglican Communion and I don’t pretend to understand it all. But one thought has occurred to me: We’re seeing something at a huge scale that I’ve seen much closer to home.

Underestimating Theological Interest

I’m finishing up a week speaking at Mount Hermon Conference Center, in the hills above Santa Cruz, California. And I’ve been impressed that a family camp such as this would keep asking Ph.D.’s in theological studies such as I to join their roster of more typical speakers: counselors, devotional leaders, preachers, and the like.

I’ve been here before and once again I am delighted to report that many Christians, even on vacation, are eager to hear serious theology and to wrestle with important questions of exegesis, history, philosophy, and doctrine. I’ve spoken on Christology all week, and I have deliberately taken on some thornier questions, such as whether Jesus actually claimed to be divine (answer: yes, but mostly ambiguously, such that no one understood him on this point until after his resurrection); what it means to say Jesus was “tempted as we are”; whether God the Father turned his back on his Son on the cross (answer: no, I don’t think so); and whether Jesus is enjoying a nice rest between his first coming and his second (answer: no, he’s staying pretty busy).

Disappearing (Musical) Languages?

Anthropologists and linguists have been decrying for years the disappearance of spoken languages around the world as globalization proceeds apace. Today, however, I mourn the disappearing of some Christian musical languages.

I’m speaking at Mount Hermon Conference Center this week, in the hills above Santa Cruz, California. Mount Hermon serves a diverse constituency, and one of the ways its diversity is manifest is in its music program.

During the week, most of its music is Christian contemporary rock. I’ve been here a few times before, and I’ve always been impressed by the high quality of the musicians here. The program director I’m working with, Dave Burns, is a particularly talented keyboard player and song leader with whom I have enjoyed jamming a little at previous conferences—which amounted to me borrowing a guitar and playing the six good licks I know before handing it back.

Anyhow, Christian contemporary rock is the main music language of “happening” churches all over North America, Britain, Australia, and beyond. As simplistic as it certainly can be, both lyrically and musically, it has considerable range of expression when used by talented composers, singers, and instrumentalists.

What it can’t do, however, is say everything that needs to be said. I remember enjoying a selection of a Górecki symphony at a colleague’s home and thinking, “There is no rock song in the world that could prompt me to think and feel quite the way this is making me think and feel.”

GrammarCheck: “Only”

As part of our wide-ranging conversation on this blog, let’s discuss the word “only” and the two ways it is typically misused. Won’t that be fun? And edifying? Of course it will.

First Misuse: “Only” as synonym for “few.” This one has been creeping into even respectable writing of late, and it’s just silly. Here’s an example: “Joseph Ratzinger is one of the only people to become pope.” Here’s another: “Vancouver is one of the only places you can find excellent skiing and excellent kayaking.”

What’s the problem? The problem is that “only” means “one-ly,” as in just one. Ratzinger is one of the few people to become pope. He is the only pope at present. Vancouver is one of the few places you can ski and kayak. It is the only place you can do both of those and attend Regent College—as more of you should.

Get it? Good. Pass the word.

Second misuse: “Only” in the wrong place in the sentence. While not strictly incorrect, such misuse is misleading and therefore practically incorrect.