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rum pum pum pum …

December 25, 2007 by David Baer

2007 has been an exhausting, occasionally degrading year.

This Christmas morning, following upon the heels of one of my middle-sized life’s sweetest worship experiences last evening as a guest at Indianapolis’ East 91st Street Christian Church, breathes comfortably in the pleasant bosom of family and God’s tenderness.

But oh, what a year!

From my morning’s easy chair, waiting for Christmas Day’s sun to rise, I cannot bear to think of another target aimed at, let alone hit. I am stripped bare by expectations and the drivenness imposed upon me by my peers and boiling up from within as from a poisoned spring. Continue Reading »

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well placed: Third Day, Offerings II. All I Have to Give

December 24, 2007 by David Baer

I suppose the best evidence of how I view this album would be to confess that I’ve sat here through the morning with tears on my cheeks as I absorb the potency of its tribute, truly a well-rendered offering.

Third Day, a band of gravelly-voiced, southern-fried rockers in alignment with their Maker offer up a slough of worship songs possessed of an edgy sweetness. Continue Reading »

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a South African mine: South African Baptist Journal of Theology

December 24, 2007 by David Baer

South African institutions exert an inordinate influence over the African continent, often for good and occasionally for ill. If this is true in the economic and political arenas, it is doubly the case when one considers Christian theology and the preparation of an emerging generation of African Christian leaders. When it comes to influence, the center of gravity of this enormous continent swings low and slightly to the west. Continue Reading »

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divine perspective nor experience with death required: Mozart, Requiem / McNair, Watkinson, Araiza, Lloyd; Marriner

December 24, 2007 by David Baer

When the Carmelite priest Roland Murphy penned an exquisite commentary on the amorous biblical book called the Song of Songs, it was observed that this might well stand as final evidence that experience is not a prerequisite of true knowledge.

From what this non-professional reviewer has gleaned of Mozart’s life, the colorful composer was unacquainted both with penitence and the spiritual sublimities of which this Requiem sings. Ditto the experience of death, though he (rightly) believed his own was impending. Continue Reading »

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metropolitan pride: Zephaniah 1-2

December 24, 2007 by David Baer

The ire of biblical prophets is not seldom directed at those who are ‘at rest’. What is in play here is not restorative inactivity much less that deep contentment that often passes under the Hebrew descriptor shalom. Continue Reading »

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the militant new song of the shattered: Revelation 14

December 23, 2007 by David Baer

There seems to be an inverse relationship between the repugance we feel over bloody scenes of vindication, on the one hand, and the weight of evil’s crush that we have known or observed from close corners, on the other. It is easy to become too precious about gore when life has not pressed our noses into the human cost of evil unbound. When oppression is just a notion, the blood of vindication running up to the horse’s bridles seems per se a grotesque and unnecessary image. Continue Reading »

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rejoicing too early over the corpses: Revelation 11

December 20, 2007 by David Baer

The funerals of judgmental prophets often attract applause. Their death is good news. Their stillness means we can get back to what we were about. The shadow of doubt regarding their potential credibility is lost in normalcy’s reassuring brightness.

It is this way with prophets. They are mortal. They bother us for a time, then move on. Some become irrelevant, others discredit themselves and their message, still others overreach and become absurd. Some of them we kill. It seems continuity’s only option. Continue Reading »

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the surprise of nations: Micah 4–5

December 20, 2007 by David Baer

What can be expected of small things?

What promise derives from little-ness?

The biblical logic delights in undermining the realistic answers to such questions, forged as they are by the hammer of probability, a tool that knows only how to work its materials with a rhythmic swing that is entirely constrained by extrapolating out into the future what it has known in the past. Probability revels in likelihoods as thought it were quite sophisticated. With supreme self-confidence, it is never surprised. Continue Reading »

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anger, healing, harvest: Hosea 11-14

December 12, 2007 by David Baer

The words bear the weight of scandal:

I will destroy you, O Israel;
who can help you?
Where now is your king, that he may save you?

Where in all your cities are your rulers,
of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and rulers’?
I gave you a king in my anger,
and I took him away in my wrath. Continue Reading »

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prosperity’s idols: Hosea 7–10

December 11, 2007 by David Baer

At the intersection of faith and culture, the greatest miscalculations occur when foolish minds equate prosperity with blessing. Continue Reading »

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