Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

This week’s Christian Carnival has been posted at Cadmusings. I have contributed my post Bible: The Porn Star Edition. So head over to Christian Carnival CXVII to read all of this week’s posts from around the Christian blogosphere. You can also check out the Christian Carnival Archive to check out previous posts.

UPDATE: Please see my Lonely Forest page for lots of Lonely Forest pics, music, and video clips!

I promised a review of The Lonely Forest‘s new EP a while back so I suppose I should keep my promises! My sister Erin introduced me to John Van Deusen‘s music a while back and I have been enjoying his talents ever since. After his debut self titled solo album I have been eager to hear more. With some restructuring of a few of his groups, The Lonely Forest was born. The Lonely Forest with John as the primary creative force produced their second EP that bears the name of the new band (This EP is my selection for this year’s Family Book and CD/DVD Exchange). While too short to completely tide me over, I was blown away by the creative sounds and lyrics spewed forth out of the guitar, keys, and vocal chords of this young musician and the rest of his band. John has mentioned working on a (full length) project dealing with the pros and cons for belief in God that I really look forward to (although John’s father, Rusty, sadly informed me that it will still be a while – which is fine, of course, because thier new EP is quite amazing).

John Van Deusen and the Lonely Forest recently won the EMP’s Sound Off! for the reasons (and more) that make this EP as solid as it is. The talent of the band (overall) is very impressive and is up to par with bands that have been around much longer than the Forest. With deep respect to the rest of the band, Deusen’s ability on guitar and (especially) the keys is nearly unmatched. Seeing them live is a great experience. The other thing that separates the Forest from other bands is their creativity. Lyrically they are quite clever and profound while also being able to have fun at times. Stylistically they are able to cover a great amount of ground: ranging from keyboard driven power melodies to pure rock to moving ballads.

With all of that said, you need to hear them for yourself! Some of their music (and images and video clips from some of their shows) can be found here at my blog by doing a search for either John Van Deusen or The Lonely Forest. I also have four songs to share here (and I am not sure of all the legalities of this, so if I need to take them down I will – regardless, buy their stuff!): two off the new EP and two from local radio performances.

The Lonely Forest performed live at KEXP on March 18th. One of the songs was Opium Blues, check it out! (4.92 MB, MP3) They also performed on The End with Tooth for Tooth, check it out too! (5.55 MB, MP3) (You can also stream God is Dead and Tooth for Tooth from the End’s website.)

All six songs on The Lonely Forest’s Cd are well done and worth posting here, but you will just have to check them all out for yourself. Two you can download for your aural pleasure:

Now Onto Other News (6.83 MB, MP3)

Turn the fan to level three, place yourself parallel, cool off and clench your fists. Stare out the fogged up window, it’s rather dark outside, but you can’t see the stars. Oh Last night, a young man took his life, with a gun he bought from a pawn shop. Fell thirty stories, died in mid-flight. Now onto other news – What does it matter to you? It won’t affect you anyways – Now onto other news. His heart accelerates like a rusted gear, every rotation is one step closer pistol in hand. He emerges into crisp cold air right over left up filthy stairs to liberation. Oh Last night, a young man took his life, with a gun he bought from a pawn shop. Fell thirty stories, died in mid-flight. Now onto other news. What does it matter to you? It won’t affect you anyways. Now onto other news. Now go, go about your day, walk it off. Push it in the corner behind routine. Go, go about your day, walk it off.

I Blame Us (6.46 MB, MP3)

My parents lounge in the TV room. Paying excellent attention to This obviously captivating, new hit show On channel five. They burn money like America burns fat. Entertaining families nationwide. My Thursday night is booked. How about yours? I blame us. I blame us for tragedy. I blame us for living selfishly. But this is all we’ve known. Calamity, but why? Maybe they could be constructive. Instead of parading their wealth on screen. The envy in my heart is growing. Not envy for the crown of gold. But lust for the power. In hope that I could somehow, Do something to benefit Benefit a greater good. I blame us. I blame us for tragedy. I blame us for living selfishly But this is all we’ve known. Calamity, but why? Think of all the children without children without children with I blame us. I blame us for tragedy. I blame us for living selfishly. But this is all we’ve known. Calamity, but why?

Checkout their website to buy their stuff and for upcoming CD release shows: The Lonely Forest. You can also check their MySpace page for additional music. I think I am going to try to make it to their CD release show at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle on April 21st (show at 8:00pm, $7): great time to buy their CDs! Again, be sure to check out my other posts on John Van Deusen and the Lonely Forest.

PS: Be on the lookout for Late Tuesday‘s new CD slated to come out in June with an early May presale and for shows to start up again around that time. In the mean time, you can catch Tara Ward in Round 11 at the Freemont Abbey: April 17th, 8:00pm, $3-$10 donation. Be there!

This week Space Saturday brings you Spiral Galaxy M100 in the Virgo Cluster:

Credit: NASA/ESA/HST – Source. Small – Medium – Large

This is M100 a giant spiral galaxy the resides some 60 million light years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. The image at left is the core of the galaxy. M100 is a similar class of galaxies to our own Milky Way. This galaxy contains over 100 billion stars! M100 has been studied quite a bit by Hubble and has helped in determining the age of the universe through discoveries of Cepheid Variables.

Space Saturday Archive

Resources:
Wikipedia: Spiral Galaxy M100
SEDS: Messier Object 100
SEDS: M100 Galactic Nucleus
APOD: M100: A Grand Design
HubbleSite: Galaxy M100

Yesterday a group of Regent folks took a walk down to UBC’s Botanical Gardens (they even have a blog!) as part of the “Living Well” series. The gardens were extremely beautiful and I can only imagine how things will be when everything is in full bloom. The image here is from one of their many Magnolia trees. Please stop by my flickr set: UBC Botanical Garden to see more of the pictures I took. I hope you enjoy!

While browsing this week’s Christian Carnival I came across Imago Dei‘s post Bibles for Porn Stars and it caused me to think. The xxxchurch blog posted Bringing Bibles To The Porn Industry and said this:

We have been doing ministry for several years now and have had a great outreach at the porn shows. On three different occasions, we have given away Bibles for free at porn shows. Much to our surprise, they were well received. … After the last show in Las Vegas, where we gave away 1000 bibles, I looked into getting custom bibles printed that would match the whole look of our booth. We have a 10-foot backdrop, postcards, stickers, and T-shirts that all have “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” design. The new Bible cover art was an attempt to customize that image and message with the powerful word of God. The cooler the cover, the more separated from all the trash someone gets at a porn show, the more likely it gets picked up and read.

I contacted the American Bible Society and had made arrangements months ago to order 10,000 bibles. We have 3 porn shows coming up (Erotica LA, June. Gay Erotica NY, October. AVN Expo Las Vegas, January.) The cost was over $7,000 but in our opinion it was money well spent. They printed the Bibles prior to getting our cover artwork. Two weeks ago, we sent over the cover art and all hell broke loose.

Long story short…they have refunded all of our money and have refused to print the Bibles. They have told us that this goes against everything the Bible stands for and they don’t want anyone to think that Jesus is okay with porn. We think they are wrong. We think this goes with the central message of the gospel and Jesus loves you regardless of your profession.

Maybe I should explain what the xxxchurch is, well as much as I can, I don’t really know too much about it. From what I have heard, and their website has more info, they are a Christian outreach to the porn industry. Obviously there is more to it than that and there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding their ministry. I still haven’t really decided how I feel about it yet: I can see both good and bad things about it.

This development with the American Bible Society also has me questioning a few things. Amanda supports what the xxxchurch is doing and thinks the ABS was in poor form to reject the order of Bibles. Part of me agrees but part of me is still hesitant. Aside from the obvious issues of Christians being at porn shows (and therefore the temptation involved with such exposure), I can recognize that it is a place that needs to be ministered to. Having spent a day with a ministry to a red-ligh district in Antwerp, I am fully aware of the need in the sex industry.

Does that need require a “cool” cover on the Bible? My problem with the Bible (and therefore their booth – although less so with the booth because the booth is not the Word of God) is that the slogan “Jesus loves Porn Stars”, while true, is somewhat ambiguous as to its meaning. I, and most I am sure, understand it to mean that Jesus loves the person, but not the sin. But the slogan, as it is, could be taken to imply acceptance of that line of work. Since the Bible is clear on that issue, I don’t feel it is appropriate for the Word of God to have a statement of ambiguity on its cover. You don’t see “Jesus loves liars” or “Jesus loves murderers” Bible covers, so why is this any different?

Part of my hesitation resides with my frustration with some “seeker senstive” churches in general. It is appropriate to be seeker sensitive, but not at the expense of the Gospel. If I go to a hockey game (as I am an American in Canada), and don’t understand the sport, I don’t expect the announcer or the players to “dumb things down” for me or explain things to me. I would expect that the people I go with or others around me to explain things to me. This is how a seeker sensitive church should function: Preach the Gospel and expect that church members (or people that bring seekers) to be warm and inviting and willing to actually invest in relationship with those who do have questions. This doesn’t fully relate back to the xxxchurch Bible, but it is similar in that we should not change the Bible to fit the culture (in this case the porn industry), even if it is just the cover. If the ministry is doing what it is supposed to and is being effective, the Word should speak for itself without having to dress it up.

It appears that many Christians are on board with the xxxchurch, or am I wrong about that? It seems that I am leaning towards agreeing with the decision of the American Bible Society (although I wouldn’t go quite so far to say it is against everything the Bible stands for), but can also see the xxxchurch’s position as well. Any thoughts out there?

This post has been trackbacked to Pursuing Holiness at her Open Trackback Thursday. Thanks Laura!

This week’s Christian Carnival has been posted over at …in the outer…. I have contributed my post Birth Control is for Wimps? It is my look at a few issues I had with a fundamentalist blog. There is always room for more comments! So to see a wide variety of posts from around the Christian Blogosphere, check out Christian Carnival CXVI. You can also take a look at my Christian Carnival Archive for previous editions. Enjoy!

I forgot to write about this when I finished it so I figured I should get it out there before I forget all together. This is the seventh, and final, post in my series of reflections on C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series: The Last Battle. (See the bottom of this post for links to my blog posts on the other books of the series.)

I won’t comment too much on the capstone of Clive’s masterpiece because I will leave the mystery to you! A false Aslan has infiltrated Narnia and has (with some “coaching”) set to cause problem for the good Narnian creatures. Eustace and Jill return to help the faithful, led by king Tirian and the Unicorn Jewel, restore order to Narnia. Instead of restoring order to the chaos, Aslan returns to bring forth a New Narnia.

As the children enter the New Narnia and are trying to figure out where they are and where to go, a phrase that captures what to do as well as what the Christian life is all about is given: “Further in and higher up!” (“and though they did not understand him, the words somehow set them tingling all over.”) Darrell Johnson used a similar phrase in a sermon on Psalm 95 in class a few weeks ago. This is our call. Grow, mature, delve deeper in to the faith.

The Narnia that the Pevensies (and friends) knew, was not the real Narnia. Lord Digory (aka the Magician that was there at the beginning) explains:

That had a beginning and and end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here… you need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy [as it had been destroyed]. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream.

Good stuff! The old world is not lost but restored to what it is supposed to be.

If you have not read them yet, go read the Chronicles they are quick reads that are very well worth it. And I guess I am somewhat behind, but Andrew Adamson has been given the go-ahead to make Prince Caspian!! How awesome is that? The next installment is slated to come out in 2007. AND The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 2-disc Special Edition is out today! And my birthday just happens to be coming up in May…

…now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

My blog posts on The Chronicles of Narnia series:

No April Fool’s day post for me, just the next installment of Space Saturday! This week I bring you the Cartwheel Galaxy.

Credit: ST Sci, NASA

The Cartwheel Galaxy is the result of two galaxies colliding. This galaxy resides about 500 million light years away in the constellation Sculptor. There is a lot that could be said here, but I will leave it up to you if you want to find out more.

Check out my Space Saturday Archive!

Resources:
Hubblesite.org: The Cartwheel Galaxy: A Starry Ring World Born in a Head-On Collision
APOD: The Cartwheel Galaxy
SEDS: The Cartwheel Galaxy