A friend shared this image on Facebook: It seems to me that in quite a bit of fiction, dystopian and of other kinds, it is the people that you least expect who rise to the occasion, while those you might expect to be well poised to resist equivocate. It is interesting to note that 1984 has become a bestseller again. I will be teaching it this semester, and I’m persuaded that it isn’t a description of the reality we inhabit now –... Read more
Via Tim Bulkeley Read more
For the first time since I’ve been teaching, I brought a guitar with me to class and sang to/with my students. Teaching a course on the Bible and music does strange things to one’s pedagogy. I decided to record the class, mainly so that I could see what it was like. Not nearly as bad as I feared it might be. I was grateful that a colleague sat in, so that at least someone there knew classic rock songs that... Read more
The only true Christian architecture of the first century was one of living stones and not of brick or mortar. This community-centered ideal accompanied the development of Christianity from its rural Jewish origins into the urban Gentile mission. Edward Foley, Foundations of Christian Music: The Music of Pre-Constantinian Christianity, p.52. Read more
A multi-author effort by some of the 20th century’s great composers: Arnold Schoenberg, Nathaniel Shilkret, Aleksander Tansman, Darius Milhaud, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ernst Toch, and Igor Stravinsky. Read more
IO9 drew attention to the fact that today marks the 40th anniversary of the first airing of the Doctor Who episode “The Face of Evil,” which I blogged about back in 2012. The above quote seems particularly relevant to the present day, when many prefer to seek to alter the facts rather than alter their views to align with the facts. Read more
The Oxyrhynchus Hymn is the oldest piece of Christian music that has accompanying notation. Above is a setting of the words to new music by Johann Kim. Below is an attempt to reconstruct what it might have sounded like in a instrumental rendition on reconstructed ancient instruments. You can find a number of related resources – transcriptions, translations, images of the papyrus, and more – around the web. The Chant Blog has gathered a number of them conveniently in one place. Read more
I was struck to learn the precursors to the famous words that Jedi Master Yoda speaks in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Although I have yet to find the precise original source, the sentiment finds expression in this quote attributed to Ibn Rushd (better known to some as Averroes): Another similar sentiment is expressed more recently by Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. For those who may not know it by heart, here are the words uttered by... Read more
The above YouTube playlist brings together videos of talks and interviews with a number of the contributors to the volume Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion. The book also got a mention in a recent CS Monitor article about Hidden Figures. David Brin mentioned his contribution to the volume in a recent blog post. There is an interview with Paul Levinson in episode 11 of Mars Ascend (also available through iTunes). And Marianne Dyson spoke... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In