Monday, February 26, 2007

overheard

"I would accept schism," Bishop Steven Charleston, president of the Episcopal Divinity School, told The Washington Post. "I would be willing to accept being told I'm not in communion with places like Nigeria if it meant I could continue to be in a position of justice and morality. If the price I pay is that I'm not considered to be part of a flawed communion, then so be it." - as quoted on CT's most recent weblog

maybe i'm deaf or just another son of the south, but when i read this quote i was startled by something that sounds a lot like racism. what do you hear?

on another, entirely different note, this weekend CT posted an insightful article by gary haugen, the founder of the international justice mission, that ponders whether we can honor william wilberforce while ignoring the rampant slavery that continues to scar our societies.

oh, and one more thing, i for one am glad that christian music writers are finally writing HONEST reviews, like andree farias' review
of the gifted: season 1 cd. in the olden days, reading worthless dreck in magazines like 7Ball, CCM and Relevant (if you're into the latter rag do me a favor, read an issue or two of paste magazine and ask yourself why relevant continues to exist) often made me want to punch someone in the face. good criticism begets better art. that's all i have to say about that.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't spent much time reading Relevant's online reveiws, but I'm surprised to hear you lump them in with 7ball and CCM when it comes to cushy reviews. In print form, I have seen more honest, and sometimes caustic, reviews of Christian artists, than in any other rag that would affiliate itself with the church. The same could be said for the many reviews that they publish outside of the CCM realm.

I agree with the first two that you mentioned though. If Mylon Lefevre were to break wind in a microphone, they would spend a full paragraph talking about how full his tone was.

g13 said...

yeah, maybe i was a little too tough on relevant. a year or so ago, they spiked one of our friend’s album reviews because it didn’t cohere with the saccharine sweet cover story they were running on a christian, er i mean christians in a band, band and i haven’t quite forgiven them for that. i just don’t consider cookin’ your book in that way appropriate on any level.

for the record, i do really think that paste is a superior rag and i one day i’ll probably let go of my angst towards relevant.

Godric of Finchale said...

For the record, we at Paste (or at least me, given the dangers of speaking for a large group) admire the folks at Relevant. It's a very well-done product, with a completely different mission than ours. There's room for both.

g13 said...

hey reid, thanks for stopping by.

as per relevant, i suppose i'm just being an asshole. i've always thought that their line of books was a bit sub-par, but didn't harbor any emnity towards the magazine. but when they spiked my friend's review for suspicious reasons, i got a bit pissed at the rag as well.

maybe i should give them another chance. keep up the good work at paste. i love what you guys do.

pax.