Unemployed Theologian

There are a thousand different ways to hear God speak. So overflowing with His common grace is the created world that you really must close your eyes and ears tight to totally prevent intrusion of the Divine Beauty. And if you're not careful, even then you might actually hear God whispering to you. Still Small Voice and all that. Sometimes hearing God is as easy as flipping on the car radio to that "secular" pop station. Here in Eugene it's called KDUK (get it?), and from time to time when I'm too rushed or lazy to attach my phone or iPod to the stereo I settle for a little Top 40. Mostly it's bubblegum, dancey, wubwuby fluff, but occasionally I'm caught off guard by a legitimately moving melody, or a haunting bit of poetry. Sometimes I even hear a little Truth slip out between the hooks and drops, and I remember that a good pop song can say more about what it means to be human than a hundred sermons. Enter "Beneath Your Beautiful" by Labrint...

This week several  "news" report s  have informed me that Katy Perry's new single " Roar " is for some reason up against Lady Gaga's " Applause " in the court of public opinion. God forbid both songs exist simultaneously in the same world without colliding into each other. We need the competition to keep things spicy, so PICK! PICK NOW! WHICH ONE? Just kidding, I don't care. I mean, the songs themselves are fine-to-good. Perry's is catchy, Gaga's a bit closer to "art," but really the only grounds for comparison is they are both performed by women. And keeping women pitted against each other is a time-honored way to keep them subjugated. It's interesting, the last time I even thought to compare the two artists was when I wrote  a blog post  about the Christian imagery in " Judas " by Gaga and " Who Am I Living For? " by Perry. I lauded both women for their presentations of honest, Christian struggles...

Let's play a word association game. I say Katy Perry, you say... Awful? Inspiring? Putrescent? God's gift to the preteen fangirl? Emotions run high when we talk about musical taste. In our culture, if you don't agree with me and my tastes, you must be either an elitist hipster who only likes music that has yet to be written, or else a mob-following lemming who doesn't deserve to keep their own ears. Tempers flare all the more blisteringly when pop radio is introduced into the conversation. Take, for example, Ms. Perry, (nearly) as controversial a figure as I can think of as far as this discussion goes. On the one hand, many adore her, even to bizarre and probably unhealthy degrees. One only need watch her concert film/documentary Part of Me  to see her fans all but anoint her as the Second Coming. While these disciplets look up to her as a goddess, though, many in the larger Christian community condemn the young woman and her music for its occasionally tawdry the...