The New Testament never—not one time—applies the “Christian” label to a business or even a government. The tag is applied only to individuals. If the Bible is your ultimate guide, the only organization one might rightly term “Christian” is a church.
[gallery] thingsmagazine:
‘Britain’s R 101 airship under construction at the Royal Airship Works, Cardington, c.1928, The National Archives
[gallery] biblipeacay:
*Chemistry of Combustion and Illumination* from ‘Chemical Atlas or The Chemistry of Familiar Objects’ by Edward Livingston Youmans (1855) [source / via]
THE public outcry, Ms. Naumann later told me, was “getting more hostile as the day went on.” It became hard to ignore. At one point that Friday afternoon, she found herself on the phone with a woman who simply couldn’t accept the agency’s refusal to help Snap. “She was crying and crying and could not be consoled,” Ms. Naumann said.Meanwhile, Ms. Naumann was periodically checking in on the eagles, via the EagleCam, and noticed that one of the adult birds had brought a dead female pigeon into the nest to feed its chicks. Ms. Naumann knows the pigeon was female because, once the eagles ripped it open, they discovered an egg inside. And so they ripped the pigeon’s egg open too and ate its contents. It must have made for great television, frankly. And yet, Ms. Naumann told me, none of the people criticizing the government for its willingness to let Snap die seemed to mind watching their birds tear apart a mother pigeon and her unborn chick. “So,” she ventured, “there was something contradictory about that.”
[gallery] David JP Hooker
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heiiATCrwVQ?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=250&h=141] Speaking of Vaughan Williams, I don’t know that he ever composed anything more beautiful than this tiny motet, written for and first sung during the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. “O taste and see how gracious the Lord is”: an ideal text for music to be sung during the reception of the Eucharist.
(I only learned of this motet a few years ago from my friend Grant Pair, who has forgotten more about choral music than I’lll ever know.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PTZG2cHM5g?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=250&h=187]
“Loch Lomond” is a nineteenth-century imitation of Scottish folk-song and therefore about as inauthentic as a pice of music can be, if you care about authenticity, which I most assuredly do not. Yes, it walks right up to the edge of schlock; yes, it has a thousand luridly sentimental associations, even for those of us who aren’t Scots.
It is also one of the loveliest melodies I’ve ever heard, something that Ralph Vaughan Williams discerned when he gave it this magnificent arrangement — indeed, just this one song constitutes a kind of master-class in vocal arrangement, for those who are willing to hear it. Consider the keening of the tenors, the tragic fundament of the basses, the lovely exchange of responsibilities in the last verse as the lead singer gets the chorus.
Call it inauthentic, call it sentimental, whatever. It’s magnificent and you know it.
As Doris and I made our way to the school I couldn’t shake the fear that we were, indeed, tricksters. Well meaning tricksters, but still tricksters. Everywhere in Ghana you see charismatic evangelical churches. A result of obroni, once, long ago, lathering Christianity across the country. Doing so despite the tribes of Ghana having had their own religions, their own spiritual ethos. Yet, those missionaries thought they were saving these folk from themselves, were so sure of their intentions.