November 4, 2007 by David Baer
Some human endeavors run stubbornly against statistical probability. Fishing, for example, or standing in to the batter’s box. Or training a Labrador puppy.
Reflecting this Autumn morning on the education of the biblical Daniel, I wince more strongly than ever at the short-horizoned pragmatism that pervades our view of preparation for Christian leadership today. A thoughtless consensus seems to make hay with the expense in terms of time and money of preparing such leaders through formal means. We think we ought to be batting about .950—though no one ever says that—and so we grow resentful and dismissive at, say, a solid .310. Continue Reading »
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November 4, 2007 by David Baer
Before the book of Daniel even gets to the Babylonian king’s weird dream and self-destructive behavior with his would-be advisors, a remarkable scenario is unfolded before the reader: the faithful Jew in the court of the foreign king. Continue Reading »
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November 3, 2007 by David Baer
Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
If you had to choose a single voice to represent blue-collar American rock & roll, you might well settle on Bob Seger’s as that iconic sound. Against the Wind could be Exhibit A as you face down the Springsteens and the Pettys and the Mellencamps to make your case. Continue Reading »
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November 3, 2007 by David Baer
Somewhere along the musical pathway that leads up to a splendid, blue-skied Autumn day in America’s midwest, I may have stumbled upon an album that contained more pure joy than Juan Luís Guerra’s Ni es lo mismo ni es igual.
But I can’t for the life of me think what that might have been. Continue Reading »
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November 3, 2007 by David Baer
My friend Tim Laniak, who knows the sound and smell of battle, sends me Messianic music to accompany me in mine. Zipporah Bennett’s Kuma Adonai (‘Arise, O Lord’) helps Hebrew language students at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Charlotte, North Carolina, campus refine their aural comprehension.
Here in Indianapolis, on a clear Autumn day, it opens an angle of sight by which a man can just about glimpse heaven. Continue Reading »
Posted in reseña | Tagged Christian music, music, reseña, worship music, Yad Hashmona Singers, Zipporah Bennett | 16 Comments »
November 2, 2007 by David Baer
When the Bible traffics in unconditional promises and everlasting guarantees, the modern reader easily loses the thread. This is in part because our view of history is less dramatic than that assumed by large portions of the biblical narrative.
We read such promise as verbal guarantee of an uninterrupted status quo. On the contrary, the narrative itself posits a dilemma that YHWH cannot or will not leave unresolved. Its point of reference is not the each-minute-of-all-minutes status of a promise, but rather the final outcome of history or of some large segment of history. YHWH is presumed to rule sovereignly over the story and to promise that a certain outcome will stand. It is understood that interruption and hiatus will from time to time be the experience of the people, a matter that creates both tension and expectation. Continue Reading »
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November 1, 2007 by David Baer
With an unusual dramatic touch, Jeremiah faces off against a YHWH-prophet whose message of good news and spectacular deliverance from the Babylonian besieger must have sounded with a welcome ring in encircled Jerusalem. Hananiah’s symbolic and verbal artistry can be understood in a manner that aligns them with the more lyric moments of the book of Isaiah or even the consoling passages within the book of Jeremiah itself. Continue Reading »
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October 31, 2007 by David Baer
For a man who occasionally becomes quite difficult to comprehend, Paul and his tradition have only the most modest tolerance for people who complicate straight-forward things. Continue Reading »
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October 31, 2007 by David Baer
Jeremiah comes down to us not only as the weeping prophet. He is also a most realistic seer.
The text allows us to intuit the presence of many prophetic good-timers, making their rounds in the streets of besieged Jerusalem and claiming against the evidence of the Babylonian troops just over the wall that YHWH would never allow his prime-time city to be destroyed. They proclaimed an imminent miracle, an inviolable city, and an unconditional divine choice. Continue Reading »
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October 26, 2007 by David Baer
For ears like the one attached to both sides of this writer’s head, ‘sound doctrine’ has an unpleasant ring.
The baggage is heavy. It seems the pious moniker of a narrow orthodoxy’s obsession with reigning in any inquisitive soul who might dare to follow the evidence where it leads. To a biblical scholar it hints at the wished-for sovereignty that is credited to more ‘systematic’ theologians over the messiness of the biblical text and its stubborn resistance to being reduced to, well, ‘doctrine’. Let alone sound doctrine, which suggests an even finer sieve. Continue Reading »
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Canter Bridge 