Music, Conversion and God
Here’s an article about eight musicians who left their career to work/live/sing for God, and then later came back to music. Go on, guess who they are before you look…
5 Responses to “Music, Conversion and God”
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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Andrew Brown in the Guardian is spot on, I think. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/oct/20/religion-catholicism This development is great for the Roman church; it diminishes the Anglican; it shows that the Archbishop of Canterbury is extremely charitable and well-meaning but when it comes to preserving his Church’s unity often does exactly the wrong thing.
Nice to know that it’s only the liberals who are splitting the church and not the conservative evangelicals! This attitude by Reform is remarkable as it clearly ignores the two enormous wedges being driven into the anglican communion by GAFCON and Forward in Faith. Oh, wait, they aren’t wedges designed to divide the anglican communion but to *save* it. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
My other thought concerns the Vatican’s comment here: “More recently, some segments of the Anglican Communion have departed from the common biblical teaching on human sexuality–already clearly stated in the ARCIC document ‘Life in Christ’ – by the ordination of openly homosexual clergy” Surely the only difference between the anglican and RC positions is the word *openly*. Does not celibacy hide a multitude of (what some people consider to be) sins?
The situation within the RC Church, with the ongoing child abuse issues, demonstrates that there is no validity in being celibate for RC Priest, who please themselves in following lust, at the expense of children.
For those Anglicans, who wish to join Rome, well, good bye and good luck. We will pray that you are able to live with your decision.
For those of us who will remain, perhaps some of the distractions around will go with them. And the Church of God can get on with God’s business of mission and love, spelled out for us. Which includes bringing Women Bishop’s into being, sooner rather than later.
One practical question – who gets the church buildings? Is this an opportunity for the Anglican church to get rid of the building it can’t afford to maintain?
Some of us never separate the sacred and secular… ever…!