[... continued from part one]

And that is my back door into discussing the recent exploits of Rene Marie, an artist based in Denver, Colorado. (I wanted you to understand my presuppositions and how I define my terms.) Rene Marie was invited by the mayor's office in Denver to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the mayor's State of the City address in June. Her artistic offering turned out to be the words of "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" to the melody of "Star-Spangled Banner" (how's that for a good gut check). Her arrangement is the third movement of a broader, evocative, and elaborate "love song to America." She had debuted the arrangement a month prior, in Denver no less, at the statewide Colorado Prayer Luncheon (for which the mayor was an honorary host), with many of Colorado's political elite in attendance. This second time, however, her contribution was met, days later, with venom and vitriol -- including death threats. Denver's mayor is up in arms and many are seeking to characterize the performance as a cheap publicity stunt. Rene has offered this statement and one interview in response.

Rene Marie was invited to sing precisely because she is a talented artist, and I would wager a guess that no one went out of her/his way to specify that only a specific arrangement be sung. Those who requested her participation just got more than they bargained for. Many have recited the words of the anthem as a poem without music -- and called it the "Star-Spangled Banner." At the Olympics, the music of the anthem is played without words -- and we call it the "Star-Spangled Banner." Marvin Gaye crooned the words of the anthem to an R&B groove at a NBA All-Star game (others from different musical genres have done variations of the same) -- and folks applauded it as the "Star-Spangled Banner." Finally someone has dared to complete the artistic set.

Though some may argue that Rene Marie breached her contract or at the very least showed poor manners, I would suggest that this was, even in the way it was structured by the Denver mayor's office, a "contribution" on Rene's part, not a transaction -- and thus should be understood differently. Rene Marie was solicited to offer her talents as a -- albeit public -- gift. No fee for service exchanged hands. There are no acceptable grounds for consternation concerning gifts given in love. This is the home-training we received every time a birthday rolled around (isn't it?). When we are given a gift, the appropriate response my parents taught me is always, "Thank you." Even if we spent time beforehand coming to terms about what the gift was to be and how it was to be presented (like in our Christmas lists), if we got on a stage and I made a monetary contribution to you, a politician, or charitable organization, it would be considered bad form for you to belittle it afterward on the grounds that it was somehow different than you expected. Why is Rene Marie's contribution any different?

One of the challenges of living in a society that is so fiercely market-driven is that we begin to think of every interaction as a "transaction." And we begin to believe that the appropriate response to interactions that fall short of our expectations is to appeal to the legal reasoning we've set in place to protect our transactions. That is one way of going about it, sure. But I don't see society so much the better for having reduced social interactions (i.e., with spouses, friends, teachers, colleagues -- and yes, even with our political representatives) to economic/legal transactions. Divorce is higher than ever, students certainly aren't learning more just because we now consider school a business, and here we have a mayor acting like a spoiled ingrate, and we don't have the collective good sense to chasten him.

Whatever one may think about what she did, Rene Marie did it in honor of America, not in desecration of her. Intent matters. We can't champion freedom of speech as a national virtue, and then crucify someone for exercising it in honor of our nation -- even if her specific expression of honor may not have been our own. In doing so, we miss the opportunity to see our world in new and living ways and to help shape our world into that beauty.

Those are my thoughts, but I'm open to other respectful points of view. What do you think?

Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, purveyor of sustainability, and believer in possibilities.  This post is one of a series of essays titled Home-Training.

Low is a band that defies easy characterization. Over their 15 years as lauded pioneers of the minimalist brand of indie rock they're so closely identified with (they're not crazy about the oft-applied term "slow-core"), the husband-and-wife team of guitarist Alan Sparhawk and drummer Mimi Parker -- plus a revolving roster of bassists -- has seemed to thrive on juxtaposition. At once reflective of their faith and steeped in the violence of the human condition, Low's music is anchored by the couple's haunting vocal harmonies.

Dutch filmmaker David Kleijwegt's fascinating new documentary about the band, You May Need a Murderer, chronicles their life at home in Duluth, Minnesota, as well as on the road, touring for Low's latest record, Drums and Guns (Sub Pop, 2007). The film opens with Sparhawk dressed for church, reading the words, "Repent, for the great day of the Lord has come." He says to the camera, "The coldness of man to one another is such that, even in modernized, enlightened times, we still find justifications for going to war and killing each other." In the same breath, he says, "No matter what terrible things we do to each other as brothers and sisters, I think we still have a loving God, a parent giving us every opportunity to resolve that."

Drums and Guns covers decidedly darker terrain than most of Low's previous work, concentrating mostly on various types of warfare. Alternately preachy ("Our bodies break/ And the blood just spills and spills/ But here we sit, debating math," Parker and Sparhawk plead on "Breaker") and contemplative ("Where would you go/ If the gun fell in your hands?" asks "Sandinista"), Drums continues to move away from the group's quiet beginnings, enhancing the harsher sonic edge they began experimenting with on Things We Lost in the Fire (Kranky, 2001) and built on with The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop, 2005).

Murderer makes clear that Sparhawk, particularly, has wrestled with identity. "Where's the place of music, in its godly nature, when the lights are flashing and people are drunk and screaming?" he asks of playing in bars and clubs. "I don't know. Jesus went to the temple, but he also spent a lot of time on the edge of town." Its narrative, though, is rooted in the remarkable balancing act he and Parker, who both grew up in the same rural county -- "the poorest in Minnesota," Sparhawk points out -- are able to navigate raising two children and taking a rock band across the world. (One scene depicts the family in their living room, improvising the song "Sharp-Tooth Dinosaur.")

Parker tells a story about members of their church approaching the two after a Low show, asking them about the meaning of their titular song, "You May Need a Murderer," with its lyrics, "One more thing I'll ask you, Lord/ You may need a murderer/ Someone to do your dirty work." Sparhawk clarified, "It's about a moment when a person comes before God, asking to be a tool of God's hand, but as that tool, to be vengeful." Emphasizing the song's theme of extremism, Sparhawk says, "Nobody's listening to God anymore. And the people who say they are are liars."

Whether that answer, or the couple's vocational choice for that matter, satisfied their fellow congregants doesn't seem to concern Sparhawk too greatly. "I don't think the point of church is to gather all the good people, or the perfect people," he says in Murderer. "It's to gather those that are struggling and have the same hope."

John Potter, a former Sojourners intern, is on staff at Bread for the World. He writes about music and movies at On Tape.

In the days of my childhood, summer was the season of the big-tent revivals. More than any other of the myriad things that summer could be and was, it was the revivals that were for me the major descriptor of what a complete and proper summer was. This rather peculiar fixation was, no doubt, due in large measure to the fact that I was forbidden to even get near the things. For my Ph.D., Presbyterian father, everything that happened under those tents was suspect, and most of it was downright dangerous.

In those pre-air-conditioning days, we would often get in the car after supper and go for a drive simply to cool off enough to go to sleep. Windows down and breeze blowing, we would drive up and down the wider streets and most of the back roads surrounding the university town where we lived. And we would pass them. We would pass those great, gray-brown interruptions staked out like monoliths on empty city lots and in unmown fields. Always the naked lightbulbs swung by the dozens from strings of overhead wiring. Always the sawdust ... oh, I loved the sawdust and ached to be barefoot in it. Always the metal folding chairs in "discobbobalated" (my mother's word for them) rows, like snaggled teeth in the mouth of a 6-year-old. But more than that, more tantalizing and more forbidden ... always there was the music that passed through the windows of our passing car.

I don't like music particularly, at least not in the popular sense of having an iPod or a fine collection of CDs or even a favorite radio station. Music gets in my head, if I let it get near me, and then it takes over. I can't hear the words of my profession for all the nonverbal conversation of the music. But when I was a child, I didn't know that. I just knew that that music, that 1930's revival music, was my soul fulfilled and still feasting. This reaction was, of course, no doubt the precise reason why my father forbade our going to the things in the first place. The only time I can ever remember his breaking his rule, in fact, was one summer night in my seventh or eighth year when I was weepy with longing. To pacify my mother who, undoubtedly, was desperate to pacify me, he stopped the car, took me by the hand, and let me stand just inside the ring of sawdust and listen for perhaps five minutes. It was heaven, or as near as I had, at that stage of life, ever thought to be.

But World War II brought a lot of changes with it, as well as a lot of misery and a lot of goodness. No war is ever without a mixed bag of consequences. One of the war's consequences was increased urbanization and much better technology. Both of them forever changed the tent revival, or if not the revival per se, then certainly its music. The men and women who belted out or wept out or crooned out the glories of my childhood had not grown up on electricity, much less on electrified instruments. No, not at all. So they had played instead the acoustic instruments of their own childhoods -- the guitars, fiddles, mandolins, harmonicas, and guitars of their own past. And it was this sound, I later realized, that I so loved.

After the war, when music began to electrify and musicians began to entertain, instead of speak for, their audiences, there were apparently more folk than I who yearned to go home to the sound of the old ways. Bluegrass was born. Wonderful, fulsome, acoustic, down-home bluegrass. Lord, how I loved it. In fact, my great claim to fame (if you will forgive my bragging a bit here) is that once I was on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry as a guest of a friend and was standing just back of the wash of the stage lights and adjacent to the corner of the band's dais. Bill Monroe had just finished a set when, in turning from the front of the stage toward its back, he somehow caught his foot on the corner of the dais and fell straight into my arms, mandolin and all. It is not an immodest exaggeration to say that once upon a summer night, I saved Bill Monroe from some kind of nasty discomfort and his mandolin from certain destruction.

All that digression aside, however, the truth still is that bluegrass was and is just the revival glory of the '30s come into the 21st century. Blessedly, it still wrings out its sweetness with acoustical instruments and alternates its leads and riffs with egalitarian elegance. If it doesn't include so many hymns now, it still sings the certainty of goodness that those hymns were about. And it is that certainty, I now understand, that drew me as a child and still draws me now. I realized this -- in the sense of at last perceiving it at a level I can articulate -- last Saturday.

That day, Sam and I left Lucy, Tennessee, where we live, and drove about 60 miles southeast to Williston, Tennessee. Neither of those places is what anybody would call a major geographic site or a strong economic center. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that the Harrison Crawford Bluegrass Festival is held every June on the old Crawford farm just south of Williston. There's no tent, of course, but there is a huge metal-roofed, open-sided shed that Mr. Crawford built for the festival long before he died. And there is a stage of sorts -- adequate certainly for bluegrass needs. And all the straggly rows of mismatched chairs. And the concessionaires and the porta-potties and the campers and the two-acre parking lot and the music ... Oh, Lord, there it is, rolling over dozens of acres and who even knows how many people as set after set is played, and people clap and sway and clog and, then, transport to that place they all came hoping to go to in the first place. That place where goodness dwells so fully that nothing other than goodness could ever be there.

Ah, the goodness. And I left that afternoon of bluegrass and of swaying, clogging, clapping people knowing, yet once again, that my father was right about two things: The music is untamed, and the music can seduce you. He was wrong -- my beloved father -- only in that he himself was, by time and circumstance, forbidden to see or say that the Lord of the Dance calls by many tunes and many means. It is a good and joyful thing for me this summer Sunday to be able to know and understand that.

Blessed be the name of the Lord of the Dance.

Phyllis Tickle (www.phyllistickle.com) is the founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly and author of The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord and the forthcoming fall release, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why.

Sometimes it's hard to hear justice at first ...Yet we are asked to diligently seek it ...

When you take your big prize home, be sure to tell me
You won it with your bag of tricks, flicks, and candy

And I'll be sure to tell you, you've done a good job
For making yourself feel good from the people you rob

 

Daniel Ra is a singer-songwriter and a member of theGuild, along with Melvin Bray (language artist), Lisa Samson (novelist), Yaisha Harding (writer), Ercell Watson (comedian), Eugene Russell (singer-songwriter-rapper-actor), Russell Rathbun (storyteller), Daley Hake (photographer), Ed Sohn (multimedia artist), Prisca Kim (writer), and Claudia Burney (novelist). Learn more on theGuild's Facebook page.

I don’t want to assume that readers automatically know who Steven Curtis Chapman is, but if you’ve been surfing the Web recently, it’s very likely you may have seen the name. Chapman is one of the most visible and influential figures of the Christian music genre. As of 2007, he has sold more than 10 million albums, has nine gold and platinum albums, and won five Grammy awards.

Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, have six children – three biological and three adopted young girls from China. On Wednesday, May 21, the Chapman family received the worst of news.  In what was meant to be a celebratory week for the Chapman family, their youngest daughter – 5-year-old Maria Sue Chapman – was killed in a tragic car accident. 

“Just hours before, this close-knit family was celebrating the engagement of the oldest daughter, Emily Chapman, and [was] just hours away from a graduation party marking Caleb Chapman’s completion of high school. Now, they are preparing to bury a child who blew out five candles on a birthday cake less than 10 days ago ..." said Jim Houser, Chapman's manager.

As a parent of three myself, my heart absolutely aches and mourns for Steven and Mary Beth and their entire family.  What makes this story more gut-wrenching was that their daughter was accidentally struck and killed in their driveway by an SUV driven by their younger teenage son. Tragic.

I’ve been surprised at how Maria Sue’s death has impacted so many. I figured a handful of Christian news sources would cover the story, but it’s been very widespread and still remains one of the top items on search engines. The last time I checked, 18,301 well wishes, blessings, condolences, and prayers were left on a tribute blog titled, “In Memory of Maria.”  Perhaps it speaks to the many ways Chapman has ministered to so many people through his music.  Or perhaps it speaks to how Steven and Mary Beth have demonstrated the beauty of the gospel through their lives – not just through his music but their advocacy for adoption through Shaohannah's Hope, “a charity organization which offers grants to qualifying families to help defray the cost of adopting, at home and abroad,” along with numerous other expressions of justice and compassion.

No parent ever wants to be in the news because of a tragedy, but nevertheless, it is good that so many have been drawn to the Chapman family story and the loss of their child.  While we lift them in prayer and celebrate Maria’s life and the hope that is found in the gospel of Christ, let’s not stop there. 

Be mindful of the millions -- especially children -- whose lives are as precious in the eyes of God.  As a result of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and an idiotic military junta government, at least 80,000 have perished with about 56,000 still missing.  About 2 to 3 million people are homeless.  Relief groups estimate that at least one-third of the perished are children.  Do not forget them.

Be mindful of millions impacted by the earthquake in Sichuan, China, where, as of this morning, these were the “statistics:" 67,183 confirmed dead, 361,722 injured, 20,790 missing, and approximately 5 million people homeless.  About 5,000 children have been orphaned. Do not forget them.

According to UNICEF, 27,000 to 30,000 children die each day due to the complexities of global poverty.  It is true that last year UNICEF reported worldwide child deaths at a record low: 9.7 million per year.  For the first time in modern history, the number of children dying before age 5 fell below 10 million per year.  But that’s still 9.7 million children. 

Let that sink in … deep.  And do not forget them.

I grieve, mourn, and hope with the Chapman family. I’ve found myself randomly crying for their family -- even while I am convicted of the great hope of the gospel of Christ.  But it’s also my hope that the outpouring of care and compassion for the loss of their child also compels each of us to be more HUMAN.  By this, I am simply suggesting that we live as God intended -- to care not only for ourselves [our kind, our nations, our families, and our children] but for the many -- locally and globally -- that need the compassion and kindness of fellow humans.

Let’s not just be in love with the idea of compassion and justice.  Let’s do our part to change the world.

Eugene Cho, a second generation Korean-American, is the founder and lead pastor of Quest Church in Seattle, Washington, and the executive director of Q Cafe, an innovative nonprofit neighborhood café in the city with only a handful of cafés. You can stalk him at his blog at: eugenecho.wordpress.com.

My fingers have been tapping out of control for more than a month and a half now. Don't worry, though -- I am not falling to the symptoms of my own PTSD just yet. At the completion of the Winter Soldier event, all Iraq Veterans Against the War members in attendance received a copy of the movie soundtrack compiled by Body of War subject Tomas Young, a partially paralyzed veteran of the Iraq war. It is a two-disc eclectic ensemble of major artists such as Talib Kweli, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Franti, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Serj Tankian, and Tom Morello.

I nearly threw it away but instead hesitantly shoved the CD into my computer on the plane home. To my surprise, many of the lyrics are still stuck in my head, from Brendan James' therapeutic "Hero's Song" ("in the water, in the sand ... is the blood of an ancient people in whose holy war I stand") to System of a Down's fast-paced "B.Y.O.B." ("why don't princes fight the war, why do they always send the poor?").

If you are able to handle the recurrent explicit language, other notable tracks -- especially for evangelicals -- include Immortal Technique's scathing rebuke of religious bigotry in "The 4th Branch" ("The voice of racism preaching the gospel is devilish"), and Bright Eyes' inquisitive "When the President Talks to God" ("I wonder which one plays the better cop"). However, each of the 30 tracks has proven prophetic in its own right.

The deal was made even better when we were told that proceeds from sales do not line the pockets of music industry execs, but that 100% goes straight back to Iraq Veterans Against the War. Eddie Vedder worked directly with Tomas to secure artists' contributions for this inspiring soundtrack, and he convinced Sire Records to distribute it at-cost. He also provided his own forceful track, "No More," with Ben Harper (though Harper includes his own track, "Black Rain," about the lack of resources for New Orleans), and Pearl Jam contributed their live track "Masters of War."

Body of War is playing now in theaters throughout the country. The film follows Tomas from his enlistment in the Army through his deployment and subsequent activism to end the war through Iraq Veterans Against the War. Eddie Vedder teamed up with Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue, whose show on MSNBC was cancelled due to his outspoken opposition to the Bush administration's decision to unilaterally initiate a war of aggression (as defined by Article 5.1, Rome Statute, of the International Criminal Court), to produce the hard-hitting documentary of one veteran's struggle post-Iraq.

Visit the Body of War Web site to find a screening near you and get your copy of the soundtrack. You can find Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq Veteran on iTunes or maybe in the CD or MP3 player of a local veteran or service member.

Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and has co-founded a faith-based veterans assistance initiative called Centurion's Purse, which seeks to provide financial and spiritual relief to fellow service members in need. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.

If you thought socially conscious music in the mainstream was a thing of the past, turn your ears to what Australia is listening to. A song about justice and reconciliation in Australia was the highest new entry in the charts two weeks ago - starting out at #2 on the Australian charts and #2 after Madonna on the digital track charts - and remains in the top 50. As The New York Times reported:

A song about racial reconciliation with the Aboriginal minority has become the fourth-biggest-selling recording in Australia, even though it is available only as a download from the Web.

The song "From Little Things Big Things Grow," written more than 20 years ago by Australian artists Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly, tells the story of Australian nonviolence hero Vincent Lingiari. Under the name "GetUp Mob," they have collaborated with other Australian musicians, such as Missy Higgins and John Butler, to sing of this historic moment in Australian history. And (to my knowledge) they have launched the musical career of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by sampling his historic apology speech:

As prime minister, I am sorry. On behalf of the government, I am sorry.

Both Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly's music is richly submerged in themes of justice and in biblical poetry, from Paul Kelly's song "The Lion and the Lamb," to Kev Carmody's "Comrade Jesus Christ." In "From Little Things Big Things Grow," you can hear the mustard seed of racial reconciliation and dignity spreading. As Ambrose, one of the kids in my neighbourhood, said about the song, "It's boss!"

It seems along with little Ambrose, Australian listeners are agreeing.

Watch the music video.

Jarrod McKenna is seeking to live God's love. He's a co-founder of the Peace Tree Community, serving with the marginalised in one of the poorest areas in his city, and is the founder and creative director of Empowering Peacemakers (EPYC), for which he has received an Australian peace award in his work for peace and (eco)justice.

In my ongoing quest for music that can enact positive social change, I came across the Black Gospel Restoration Project, a project spearheaded by Robert Darden, associate professor of journalism at Baylor University. Following is a short interview with Darden that elaborates on this dynamic preservation project.

How do you define gospel music?

"Gospel music" has traditionally come to mean all popular religious music. My particular passion is called black gospel music. There is also Southern gospel, which is primarily white quartet singing and has much more to do with barbershop music and country-and-western music.

How did gospel music become such an inspirational part of your life?

I grew up with it. I was an Air Force brat and the Air Force was integrated long before the country at large. One of the first LPs I can remember my parents buying was a Mahalia Jackson Christmas album. Eventually, it led me to become gospel music editor for Billboard magazine.

What was the genesis for the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project?

I wrote a book a couple of years ago titled People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music. While I was writing, I became increasingly frustrated trying to find the music I was writing about. After the book was released, I wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times on black gospel's fast-vanishing musical legacy. After talking to some experts, I became convinced that 75 percent of all black gospel vinyl was simply unavailable. A gentleman named Charles Royce in New York read the column and offered to fund any effort to identify, digitize, and catalogue that music. And that's what we've done at Baylor University.

How does this project operate?

So far, we've been able to get the word out primarily through the media. We've been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, The Texas Observer, The Dallas Morning News (whose story was picked up by the Associated Press), and many other outlets. Whenever this happens, people who have gospel music from 1945-1985 contact me through Baylor. We pay for all shipping and handling both ways. And whether they're giving us the vinyl or loaning it to us, we'll make them a digital copy of their music.

Why is this project necessary?

As I mentioned, two-thirds of this precious resource -- the music that ALL American music comes from -- is currently unavailable for love or money. These are the songs that black churches sing and have sung for generations. Some of the best responses we've received are from African-American churches who realize the value of having the original disks and have encouraged their members to search their attics for old 78s, 45s, and LPs. Every day, irreplaceable 78s get thrown away or destroyed. We may have lost a significant portion of this music forever.

Elaborate on some of the gems you've recovered.

I'm pretty close to an expert on this topic and nearly every day a box arrives with a song I've never heard of. About once a week or so, a disk arrives with an artist I've never heard. And periodically a disk will arrive with a label I've never heard of! I'm particularly pleased with the "custom" disks we've been receiving ... where unknown artists go into a local studio, pay a few bucks to record a 45, and buy 100 copies to distribute to friends. We've found one by The Mighty Wonders of Acquasco, Maryland, titled "Old Ship of Zion" that is simply stunning. It makes people cry it's so beautiful.

How can people contribute to this project?

If you've got black gospel vinyl, you can contact me at Robert_Darden@baylor.edu and I'll send you the instructions on how to send it to us, including our FedEx account. Or you can call 254-710-7414. Or you can write me at One Bear Place #97353, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, 76798-7353. We'll also happily accept donations and 100 percent of the money will go to the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. It's a tax-deductible donation, by the way.

What do you see as this project's future?

I pray that it'll be going long after I'm gone. We don't know how much music is out there. We may never know. Each new article brings new treasures. I'd love to have agreements with other major library systems so that people in other cities can enjoy this extraordinary music. Some day I'd like to get an 18-wheeler, build a miniature museum and listening booth AND portable recording studio, and take this show on the road to the "mother" neighborhoods of black gospel music -- the south side of Chicago, Paradise Valley in Detroit, Harlem -- and set up in the parking lots of old churches and let people hear the music, see the artists ... and if they've got any old black gospel vinyl lying around, let us digitize it for them.

Publishers Weekly cited Becky Garrison as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views" alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and Ron Sider.

On Jan. 22, 2008, I headed down to Joe's Pub in New York City to celebrate the launch of Quaker singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer's CD The Geography of Light. Newcomer's lyrics, grounded in her faith formed by a Midwestern sensibility, reminded me of The Power of Song, a documentary that I saw at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. When I reflected on that film on the God's Politics blog, I asked if, in today's cynical world, we could enact positive social change through artistic self-expression - or if this notion is simply a relic of a bygone era.

While Newcomer's lyrics echo songs penned by folk legends such as Seeger, she explores the themes of justice, forgiveness, and redemption from a 21^st century lens. Instead of hitting one over the head with a social justice jackhammer, Newcomer gently carries the listener on a hopeful journey where the spiritual can often be found unexpectedly in the seemingly mundane.

For example, in "Geodes," Newcomer uses these mysterious brown Indiana rock formations to remind us how: "All these things that we call familiar are just miracles clothed in the commonplace. You'll see it if you try in the next stranger's eyes. God walks around in muddy boots, sometimes rags and that's the truth, you can't always tell, but sometimes you just know."

Newcomer's songs reminds me of the Lenten offerings I downloaded from Proost, a UK-based collective of diverse artists, as well as some music I've been listening to from Potter Street Records. All these musicians seem to be tapping into this global change I've noted in other blog postings.

Speaking of globalization, in one of her more whimsical numbers, "Don't Push Send," Newcomer jokes about living in an 24/7 wireless world: "A dangerous form of information and the perils of instant gratification, How many times did I hit my Mac, want to crawl inside and take the whole thing back." Earlier this week, when I attended the Museum of Modern Art's press preview for "Design and the Elastic Mind," I was reminded once again how technology can enable us to be in touch instantaneously without having to actually touch the other.

During her set, Newcomer posed several questions to the audience that resonated with my own questions about what it means to be a church community in the 21^st century. In today's transient and wireless society, where does the spirit of community move through the world? Rather than turn to an institution or an individual as the change makers, she aptly notes, "we are the people we've been waiting for," adding that "some things happen in community, some things happens individually."Along those lines, when I was interviewed by Simple Way co-founder Jamie Moffett for the upcoming documentary The Ordinary Radicals, I replied that if you want to see change, look in the mirror and around your community.

So perhaps like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we've been searching for change when it's been right in our backyards all along.

Becky Garrison's books include The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail, Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church, and Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church: Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes, and Worshipping the Almighty Dollar.

Recently, I had the opportunity to interview John Sayles about his movie Honeydripper, a multilayered and complex account of the birth of rock and roll in the Deep South. Following is an excerpt from our conversation. (The full interview with John Sayles will be published in a forthcoming issue of The Wittenburg Door.)

How would you describe the politics of your films?

My films are politically conscious as opposed to being politically unconscious. Part of who we are is what we live, what we see, and how we define ourselves. And politics is how we define ourselves. As a screenwriter of hire, very often my job is to get rid of all that stuff and just concentrate on the genre because it's thought to be distracting. But when I make a movie and want to talk a bit more honestly about people, you can't leave it out. For example, you can't really talk about the U.S. in the Deep South in 1951 without talking about segregation.

What was the significance of having a revival going on the same night that rock and roll was debuting at the Honeydripper Lounge?

That was a dichotomy that was very common in those little towns, both with white and black people, which was that you had to make a choice between being a sinner and being saved. It was often presented by the preachers as a very black and white choice, whereas there were a lot of people who somehow managed to do a little bit of both. For example, Sam Cooke started as a gospel singer and he caught a lot of flack when he started singing secular music.

What outreach, if any, are you doing to the black historical churches?

We're doing quite a bit actually. I know in Atlanta we're doing a lot with Hands on Atlanta around the Martin Luther King Jr. ceremonies. Danny Glover has a cousin who is the minister of a big church in Atlanta and he's going to work with them to do something. One of the things that we're doing with Honeydripper is we're trying to make its opening in each city an event.

How can the medium of film be a vehicle for social change?

Take race relations for instance. If you look at the history of American film, movies were probably part of the problem for the first 55 years of their existence. Even the comedies had hardly any African Americans in them. Then maybe in the late '50s, there started to be a few movies where African Americans seemed a bit more human. So, I think gradually television and movies are a little bit more part of the solution than part of the problem. It's all a conversation and there are a lot of voices in the conversation. Maybe one movie will be helpful or useful to people knowing a little bit more about each other.

Any suggestions for aspiring filmmakers, who want to make a social change but the dynamics of making movies has changed so much since you got started?

Documentaries are great. You don't need a theatrical release now. Just do your stuff and can get it out on the web.

(Author's note: A book I found that really captured the ethos of the South pre-1964 was Gurdon Brewster's No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King, an account of his experiences as an intern with Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1961 where he lived with Daddy King. Also, in his book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, Tom Brokaw offers some intriguing reflections about his encounters with civil rights leaders, including Representatives John Lewis and Julian Bond, Reverend Andrew Young, Tom Turnipseed, and Reverend Thomas Gilmore.)

Becky Garrison's books include The New Atheist Crusaders and their Unholy Grail: Their Misguided Quest to Destroy Your Faith, and Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church.

Jim wrote a piece a few weeks back about the new Bonhoeffer-quoting Aussie PM Kevin Rudd. Well, another fun fact is that he has appointed Peter Garrett, rock star turned environmental activist turned Member of Parliament, his new Minister for Environment. That's the Aussie version of putting Bono in charge of the foreign aid budget. Sort of.

If any of our non-Aussie readers know Garrett, it's likely as the singer for Midnight Oil, whose best known album was Diesel and Dust, with the hit single "Beds Are Burning" in 1988. They made many great albums since then, finally breaking up in 2002 when Garret chose to focus on politics. Knowing his music work much better than his political career—having seen the Oils live numerous times over the years—I'm curious if any readers from Down Under have comments on how his political role has changed his activism.

Either way, I'll continue to remember him as the lanky, frenzied, six-foot-six screaming skeleton whose music helped to inspire my own activism. Also, he's a church-going Christian, which doesn't necessarily make him a better politician, though I do think it made him a better rock star, as his faith-infused lyrics—which railed against environmental degradation, militarism, and consumerism—were an early and unlikely witness to my budding integration of faith and politics.

Though I discovered them while a freshman in high school in the early 90s, the first Midnight Oil album I bought was their 1985 release, Red Sails in the Sunset, which I found in the used rack at my local music store. This snippet from "Who Can Stand in the Way" is a great one for the Christmas season:

Now choppers strafe the supermaket sky and people wonder why
chopping down tons of trees got seas of print not a soul can read say
Why do I drown you build brick boxes one by one now they block my sun
But it's metal on metal it's the dance of T.V.
If Christ were here he'd camera check he'd cry so loud the planes would stop
He'd cry so loud the earth would shake and men would fall in tinsel town
There's just one thing, yes there's just one thing
Who can stand in they way when there's a dollar to be made

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web editor for Sojourners.

Poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, rock-and-roll martyr, born-again Christian … all of these words have been used to describe Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan. I've lost track of all the "unauthorized" books profiling this mysterious man that have crossed my desk over the years. So I was intrigued to learn that Todd Haynes had obtained the music and life rights to Bob Dylan's work from his longtime manager Jeff Rosen.

I saw Haynes' feature film I'm Not There last month at The New York Film Festival (NYFF). Suffice to say, he redefines the well-worn term "biopic." Using six actors to portray seven personifications of this larger-than-life star, Haynes weaves through the different periods of Dylan's life, beginning with a preteen African-American runaway who goes by the name Woody Guthrie, and ending with Richard Gere, aka Billy the Kid, living in self-imposed exile.

Much of the film's media buzz circulates around Cate Blanchett's transformation as Jude, the self-destructive rock star who proclaims, "I kind of like getting busted out of my skin." From the moment Jude explodes on the screen - literally - at the Newport Folk Festival to the shot of him crumbled beside his mangled motorcycle, Jude takes the audience on one helluva Felliniesque ride.

Hayes turned to another '60s cinema legend, Jean-Luc Godard, to illustrate how hot Hollywood actor Robbie (Heath Ledger) romanticized and yet condemned women. As his fame skyrockets, his marriage to his idealist sweetheart unravels against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.

Haynes touches on Dylan's conversion to Christianity through the character of Jack Rollins (Christian Bale). This breakthrough singer-songwriter of early '60s protest music has now become a Pentecostal preacher. Apparently, the church seen in the film closely resembles the actual church that Dylan joined in the late '70s. However, there's no mention of Dylan's infamous trip to the wailing wall or other outward displays of the Jewish faith. Hence, his Jewishness remains a very well-kept secret.

Dylan purists will find plenty to nitpick about. For example, I can't find any credible evidence that Pete Seeger actually tried to take an axe to the electrical cords during Dylan's Newport '65 set. And I am not sure if Dylan ever danced with a drunken Allen Ginsburg (David Cross) in front of a crucifix of Jesus as Dylan slurred, "I preferred your earlier stuff."

But those who quibble over factual inconsistencies will end up missing the meaning behind the message. Clearly, some of the Dylan personas featured in I'm Not There correspond to a recognizable period and look in Dylan's life, whereas others are more metaphorical - blending influences, passions, and imagery. I left the film knowing nothing more about Dylan the man, but somehow through these characters I was able experience the ethos of the era, when "Like a Rolling Stone" replaced "Blowing in the Wind" as the song that defined my parents' generation. This film opens Nov. 21 in New York and Los Angeles, with a wider release to follow.

As I was in diapers when Dylan became heralded as a folk legend, I am grateful to the NYFF for showing Murray Lerner's musical documentary The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965. Through vintage footage sans narration, Lerner allows the viewer to experience Dylan's transformation from youthful troubadour to rebel rocker. While this film is still seeking distribution, the DVD will be released Oct. 30.

Sometimes I'm moving so fast that I find it helpful to stop and reflect on the past. I still shake my head when I hear some kid singing a Dylan song without any clue of the history that shaped this message. Thankfully, these movies afford many of us the opportunity to reflect on a world that we were too young to experience firsthand.

Becky Garrison's books include Red and Blue God: Black and Blue Church (Jossey-Bass, 2006), Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church (Seabury Books, October 2007), and The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail: Their Misguided Quest to Destroy Your Faith (Thomas Nelson, January 2008).

Ray LaMontagne’s recent album "Till the Sun Turns Black" ends with one of the most beautiful songs about peacemaking I’ve ever heard—in which he simply repeats the refrain "War is not the answer, the answer is within you" over the most delicately lilting instrumentation. It’s the kind of sentiment that could be accused of being too vague to have any practical meaning, but warm and positive enough to be popular. But there’s something about it that feels deeper than that.

It comes to mind as I sit in a cramped and crowded airport in Missouri, between cities on a trip that will take me from the Deep South to the Pacific Northwest, meeting and talking with people seeking to explore faith at the margins of institutional Christianity. I’ll be part of a conference the week after next on the topic "Dangerous Living"(www.solitonnetwork.org)—a title ambiguous enough to invite further interrogation. The organizers aim to build a temporary community of fellow travelers asking questions and sharing experiences of what it means to follow the radical Jesus in a culture that often seems to privilege consumerism above all else and seeks to avoid anything resembling physical work at all costs. We’ll talk about faith and social justice—just what does it mean in our day to hear Jesus tell the rich young ruler how hard it is to get into the kingdom of heaven? We’ll investigate faith and authority: What kind of leadership is required when so many of our public role models leave so much to be desired? We’ll immerse ourselves in faith and creativity, hoping to become more attentive to the voice of God in art, film, music, and nature. Most of all, we will wonder together what it means to be stewards of the Christian tradition that we inherit without falling into the trap of religious imperialism. In other words, how can we take responsibility for sharing our faith without imposing it on others in a way that prevents anyone taking us seriously?

These questions were not far from my thoughts this afternoon, as we sat down for a meal at one of the in-house airport restaurants. Just after my Diet Coke arrived, the gentleman next to our table took a phone call, the first few lines of which went as follows:

‘Hi there—didn’t realize you were on that side of the pond. You looking for more bombers, or just drinking Irish car bombs?’

I froze in my seat, absorbing the impact of his comedic spin on the horrific conflict around which I grew up. I thought of the people I know back home in Belfast who have lost relatives or friends to bombs, sometimes hidden under their cars, and became so incensed that my body began to shake. It turns out that "Irish car bomb" is a name for a drink mixed from Bailey’s Irish Cream, whiskey, and Guinness. As the guy kept talking, I had to seriously consider whether or not to speak to him when the call was over. Wouldn’t it be a betrayal of all the Northern Ireland troubles’ dead if I remained silent? I freely admit that in the grand scheme of things, whether or not a burger-eating business-class traveler understands the pain he may cause by invoking the name of an insensitively-christened cocktail should not be the greatest of our concerns. But at the same time, I have come to believe that it is the small moments of dehumanization that allow the larger context of destruction on our planet to occur. What the late cultural critic Benjamin DeMott in the August issue of Harpers magazine calls the obsession with "impact"—the catharsis that is present when human beings watch images of other human beings violently killed—has become one of the driving forces of our society. Jokes about Irish car bombs not only reveal the ignorance of the speaker, but reinforce the often brutal way in which we are teaching ourselves to relate to each other.

In the end, I didn’t speak to our table neighbor; I felt that it would be unfair to make him carry the responsibility for all the angst I feel about the decades of death from which my home society is emerging. But when we have lost touch with our humanity—and the humanity of others—to the extent that we are willing to sacrifice the dignity of those who have died in war for the sake of the name of a drink, then perhaps our desire for "impact" is stronger than our hopes for peace. When Ray LaMontagne sings that the answer is "within you," might he just be suggesting that we already know that the path we’re on is the way of destruction? That, for a start, we could at least commit ourselves to being careful with the words we use for fear they may re-victimize people who have already suffered far too much?

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

Sinead O’Connor’s not angry anymore; or at least not angry in the same way. Her tearing up of a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live 15 years ago, combined with what we think we know about her ordination into an unofficial offshoot of the Catholic church, give a convenient excuse for people to ignore her. This is a pity, because it makes us forget that she produced one of the only memorable and honest songs about love in the 1990s, her cover version of Prince’s "Nothing Compares 2 U," and one of the most beautiful hymns of spiritual comfort (1997’s "This is to Mother You" on her Gospel Oak EP).

She has made her spirituality more explicit than ever on Theology, her new double album, and the anger of early Sinead has given way to songs of hope, confidence, and worship. In 23 tracks she sings of God being present in the earthiness of a life lived between the search for truth and the struggle to get by—when she relates how God met "my need on a chronic Christmas Eve" it is easy to imagine the pain that many people feel at the times when the culture is forcing them to pretend to be happy.

In an album infused by the Hebrew Bible ("They dress the wounds of my poor people as though they’re nothing; saying peace when there’s no peace"), she expresses her desire to "make something beautiful" for God. O’Connor, who grew up in the 1970s and '80s in an often culturally bleak Ireland, is speaking out of a context that is trying to shake off its sometimes theocratic past. So it’s a risk to make music that quotes the Bible favorably. But she gets away with it—even bringing new moods to "I Don’t Know How to Love Him" from "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "By the Rivers of Babylon" —because she’s not afraid to show that she is indeed sometimes afraid.

Frederick Buechner famously wrote that, in the search for God, "without room for doubt, there would be no room for me" —I for one am grateful that Sinead O’Connor has not allowed dogma to suppress her personality and questions about what authentic spirituality is. Indeed, to sing "I Don’t Know How to Love Him" is a pretty good summation of much contemporary religion, which often seems so unsure what to do with itself.

Her spirituality doesn’t fit easily within ecclesial borders—there’s more than enough Rastafarianism, Buddhism, and generic "God as energy" ideas to go 'round here; not a bad marketing hook or a bad idea since O’Connor has said that the album is partly a response to the global insecurity that affects all faiths and none since Sept. 11. But as the Celtic writer John O’Donohue says, the best response to evil is to make something beautiful. You get the sense that when Sinead O’Connor says that railing against injustice is an act of love, that she also believes it’s better to light a candle than to curse the fact that it’s dark out there. No one can know the depths of the soul-search that goes in inside the heart of Sinead O’Connor—her music over the past 20 years has revealed someone never less than honest—sometimes painfully so. If she can stand in place for seekers like me—who sometimes yearn for the certainties of youthful faith, but know that mature spirituality has to transcend fundamentalism—then I’m grateful. Here’s to the next 20 years.

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

During the Tribeca Film Festival, I happened to catch the world premiere of the documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. I have vague recollections of attending the