tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post113985183985289081..comments2023-05-19T01:13:01.860-07:00Comments on Alienated in Church: Plato, Neoplatonism, Music, and the IncarnationMichael Dodarohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140216657739508142006-02-17T14:50:00.000-08:002006-02-17T14:50:00.000-08:00I'd say your boy is going to be susceptible to mus...I'd say your boy is going to be susceptible to musical mythology. I can't remember all the artists now who turned my head; many of them working the same theme. I think Jimmy Rogers sang the song I had in mind. My mother bought the album, and I just overheard it. He sang other songs about faith and family life in the country, but the one I learned to play on the harmonica was that song about working the factories and plowing the fields. "The moonlight is my mother/ The sun is my old man/ My brothers and my sisters are the shifting wispering sand." I was good at a lot of things, but while this myth went round in my head I wasn't going accomplish anything.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140214776436868372006-02-17T14:19:00.000-08:002006-02-17T14:19:00.000-08:00I don't have children, so I'll take your word that...I don't have children, so I'll take your word that parental guidance is feasible. I'm going by my own experience of youthful acculturation in pop music, which turned my head various ways. The sex in rock music was one thing, but what did the most damage was the folksy stuff that made me idolize the winsome rover who worked in the fields and factories only long enough to draw his pay and then move on to the next town. That work ethic, or its absence, probably set me back ten years and is part of the reason I wasn't stable enough soon enough to have my own children.<BR/>When I discovered classical music I had other problems, but, at least, I had something to motivate me.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140212401617540822006-02-17T13:40:00.000-08:002006-02-17T13:40:00.000-08:00I see that I'm probably responsible for this. It i...I see that I'm probably responsible for this. It is Chares, not Charles. Sorry Charley.<BR/><BR/>Dave, I think you're saying that "dissing" a whole genre is probably wrong. It's like Scribe's example of Frank Sinatra's rendition of "My Way" and "My Way" by Sid Viscious.<BR/> <BR/>And, now that you've brought up the effect of pop music on kids, we've got another problem. Parents can't spend a lot of time listening to kid's music while they are earning enough money to pay for their offspring's education. Do they really want to leave acculturation of the youth to the promoters who sell this stuff on the basis of raw appeal?Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140207922896052092006-02-17T12:25:00.000-08:002006-02-17T12:25:00.000-08:00Interesting that contemporary then meant flag-wavi...Interesting that contemporary then meant flag-waving parades and how the parades turned to protest marches under the influence of our contemporary music.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140205752715769732006-02-17T11:49:00.000-08:002006-02-17T11:49:00.000-08:00Is it ok if I like Sousa? I think he's an America...Is it ok if I like Sousa? I think he's an American Verdi.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140203945659039332006-02-17T11:19:00.000-08:002006-02-17T11:19:00.000-08:00Sorry Ray, I hope I didn't overstep, but what you ...Sorry Ray, I hope I didn't overstep, but what you had to say was good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140203595245336442006-02-17T11:13:00.000-08:002006-02-17T11:13:00.000-08:00Let's hear it for John Phillip Sousa! As a trombo...Let's hear it for John Phillip Sousa! As a trombonist you must have an aesthetic of marches, don't you, Ray? I've always loved this stuff.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140202364346751372006-02-17T10:52:00.000-08:002006-02-17T10:52:00.000-08:00Chares--Are you saying that we can, with a theolog...Chares--<BR/><BR/>Are you saying that we can, with a theological sleight of hand defend our tastes in music--even those musical forms that has seduced our passions?<BR/><BR/>Ray and I were emailing each other privately about the morality of music just now--so I will copy here my observation about it to him which adds some proof to what you have said. I have a question for you at the end of this posting:<BR/><BR/>"I do think music, being a dynamic human creation as opposed to an inert physical object, does have an intrinsic moral dimension to it. Anything that has to do with language (including music which forms the background for language, the force with which God created the universe) has a tremendous moral dimension. <BR/> <BR/>"But what kind of moral comes from our music does come down to a matter of choice. For instance, Frank Sinatra's version of "I Did It My Way" sounds mildly melodramatic, but overall very benign, almost boring, in delivery. The words, though, had a rather selfish edge to it, but you couldn't heard its innate selfishness in Sinatra's rendition. However, when Sid Viscious of the Sex Pistols did it, he took "I Did It My Way" to its ultimate narcisstic max and it was the most harrowingly demonic performance I'd ever heard." <BR/><BR/>Ray replied: "The composer is using the elements of music to convey a message. You may be able to throw some obscene words at me in Russian (my mother knew some in German) and they would have no meaning to me since I have no understanding of that language. The 26 letters of our alphabet are amoral, but arrange certain letters into 4 letter combinations and you have very specific meaning that I would understand. The text of "I Did It My Way" has a man-centered egocentric meaning to it. Sinatra's performance version took off the edges and made it acceptable in polite society. You could say, that the tone of his music did not match the tone of the text. Vicious's version was more honest in that the emotional tone of the music supported the text more clearly. With rock music, there's nothing wrong with the melody, harmony or even rhythm for that matter. Rock pieces have been transformed into something that sounds like it came from the pen of Bach, or maybe Mendelssohn. How it is performed or the context is what can make it have a good or evil intent. Your observations that rock has a base appeal is correct, and that is where the morality comes in."<BR/><BR/>Chares--what music do you think does not merely hypnotize our passions, and what kind leads us to perfection?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140197612096343462006-02-17T09:33:00.000-08:002006-02-17T09:33:00.000-08:00I read the lyrics, Dave. Whatever the music sound...I read the lyrics, Dave. Whatever the music sounds like, the impact is the scandal of the Gospel, the Son of God, who is also the son of man, engaging the world in every cultural ghetto, high or low. I think we've come to agree that spirit/body dualism is inadequate. I've posted a quote from an Orthodox theologian to begin a new thread that should keep us busy for quite a while.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140194027456072662006-02-17T08:33:00.000-08:002006-02-17T08:33:00.000-08:00Chares--Please enlarge a bit more on this statemen...Chares--<BR/><BR/>Please enlarge a bit more on this statement you made:<BR/>"<BR/>In 1 Cor 15:44 Paul apparently opposes the physical body and the spiritual body. In fact a better translation of the Greek is “psychical” not physical. We should understand the opposition to be between the corruptible body and the spiritual body. This frees us to understand spirit differently and more in light of Gen 1:2, where the Spirit (big “S”) is in “real” and full contact with the heavens and the earth. Spirit is perfective of the entire man, both body and soul, though I generally think that Christians struggle with the thought that salvation and beatitude must necessarily mean that their bodies are going to be sublimed away. Having said all this, do both of you think this line of thought can be propaedeutic to advancing a non-dualistic anthropology (and aesthetic of music)? "<BR/><BR/>If I read you correctly, you believe that the dualist point of view really doesn't exist in Scripture--that is has been a misinterpretation--and we should get beyond that question and focus on "the Spirit being perfective of the entire man, body and soul". I think most of us here are trying to eschew the dualist teachings we have received and proceed toward this. Towards this end, can you offer a picture of what the aesthetic of "the Spirit being perfective of the entire man" should look like or sound like in our arts?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140188786168738872006-02-17T07:06:00.000-08:002006-02-17T07:06:00.000-08:00Here's a site with plenty of downloads of Orthodox...Here's a site with plenty of downloads of Orthodox liturgical music.<BR/><BR/>http://stjrussianorthodox.com/music.htm<BR/><BR/>A quote regarding the monastic call from St. Gregory the Theologian:<BR/>"Will you prefer action or contemplation? <BR/>Contemplation is the occupation of the perfect, <BR/>Action belongs to the many. <BR/>Both are good and dear; <BR/>Choose the one that befits you." <BR/><BR/>An explanation of the Orthodox monastic ideal by Fr. Georges Florovsky which also discusses the Reformation views:<BR/><BR/>http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/fathers_florovsky_4.htm#_Toc27729593Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140153770325066602006-02-16T21:22:00.000-08:002006-02-16T21:22:00.000-08:00Hey Ray,This is frickin' awesome. It never occurr...Hey Ray,<BR/>This is frickin' awesome. It never occurred to me before to click on your link. I didn't know you had this blog. As soon as I get a chance, I'm going to lose myself in this thing for a while. I'm sorry I haven't before!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140145244524052932006-02-16T19:00:00.000-08:002006-02-16T19:00:00.000-08:00Mike wrote: "I've experienced this in the opera ho...Mike wrote: "I've experienced this in the opera house and in church, in Mozart's music as well as that of a black soprano named Willow Dorsey singing her own rendition of Oh How I Love Jesus. I tell you the truth; she opened heaven for a while when her voice cut my heart like lightning. I shouted like one of the fat women waving their handkerchiefs."<BR/><BR/>I love this description, Mike. I probably wouldn't have ever had the notion to recover an incarnational view of rock had the music of Bill Mallonee and Mark Heard not cut me to the quick. Here was a contradiction that I could not reconcile: that the most despised, profligate form of music in the world convicted me and confronted me with the person of Christ with a force I hadn't known before. "Parting Shot" is as good an example as any. You have to hear it for the full effect but the lyrics stand up pretty well: http://www.parting-shot.com/music.php?rid=98<BR/><BR/>And this by Mark Heard...simply devastating: http://mhlp.rru.com/lonely_road.htmAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140140834601460142006-02-16T17:47:00.000-08:002006-02-16T17:47:00.000-08:00Hello, Charles. Thank you very much for adding yo...Hello, Charles. Thank you very much for adding your thoughts to our conversation. There is so much exciting detail in your post. This sentence alone is stunning to contemplate:<BR/><BR/>"In 1 Cor 15:44 Paul apparently opposes the physical body and the spiritual body. In fact a better translation of the Greek is "psychical" not physical. We should understand the opposition to be between the corruptible body and the spiritual body."<BR/><BR/>I have neglected the Greek I studied in school, but this "psychical not physical" translation corresponds with, and helps to explicate, about forty years experience in the battle to understand Paul along these lines. Eschatology is not for amateurs. Unfortunately, we amateurs live with the consequences of the meager understandings we can bring to bear in our various existential dilemmas.<BR/><BR/>Artists have a most difficult struggle with Paul on exactly this point, just as we have been discussing. The opera <I>Thais</I> and others by Massenet are very eloquent in their rendering of the drama of the mistaken dualism of spirit and sense.<BR/><BR/>Classically trained singers bear torments that might be compared, only partly in jest, to an "intrapersonal disjunction in the resurrected state" as you have so expertly dissected it. Another of Paul's memorable phrases is more correctly applied in this analogy, that of creation groaning while it waits for the consummation, but I couldn't resist your idea. If I can borrow Scribe's metaphor, I would argue that singing the kind of music I sing is a struggle comparable to the life of a spiritual athlete. After some years in the effort, one has a pretty good conception of form as it inheres in the art. You work for the rest of your life trying to attain an existential rendering of it. The limitations of the "flesh" are apparent every day, but it is, indisputably, the flesh that makes singing what it is.<BR/><BR/>A woman with whom I sang for a while many years ago pointed out to me that in the Bible only human beings sing. Look again at the passages you might recall that seem otherwise; I think you'll find that angels come praising God and "saying... ", not singing... . Being told by well-meaning Christians that opera is "of the flesh" is painful and incredible, just as it is painful and repellent to witness the death of Thais and the despair of the man who converts her to an erroneous theology by which he himself is undone. I think this is where Dave and I find common ground. Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, or their latest incarnations, have gotten part of it right in rebelling against the doctrinaire and simplistic theology of the apparent antinomy.<BR/><BR/>But on this matter of noble and inherent form, inseparable from the body as God has created it, classical art has discovered a dimension of reality that needs to be cherished and preserved against the five-minutes-of-fame phenomena who have captivated and corrupted several generations of enthusiasts and who are now ascendant in the Evangelical church. There are black singers whose spirituals and gospel music have, by whatever means, attained the nobility of form inherent in the human body and, inspired by God's grace, they are able to demonstrate it for anyone with ears to hear, but even this music comes out of a tradition that winnows out the chaff over many generations.<BR/><BR/>Yes, the corruptible body and the spiritual body are in conflict. Another perplexing passage actually has the reverse meaning from that which is usually imposed on it. Let a man take care how he builds, for the day will test everything with fire... wood, hay, stubble will be burned, but the more enduring metals and precious stones will survive. That which survives is more durable material than the stuff that burns away, not some disembodied spirit. The metaphor can be construed without too much imagination to mean the enduring form that we can discover and embody in art, especially when it is art that is embodied in our own flesh, will survive. That's why great singing verges on transcendence in the world we know. That's what we mean when we say we are transported by great art. I've experienced this in the opera house and in church, in Mozart's music as well as that of a black soprano named Willow Dorsey singing her own rendition of <I>Oh How I Love Jesus</I>. I tell you the truth; she opened heaven for a while when her voice cut my heart like lightning. I shouted like one of the fat women waving their handkerchiefs.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140131221959292472006-02-16T15:07:00.000-08:002006-02-16T15:07:00.000-08:00Welcome Charles!Thanks for your comment and many t...Welcome Charles!<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your comment and many thanks also to Dave for his good postings. This has been great. <BR/><BR/>I have to sign off for the night, and Mike will join us again as soon as he can. But we'll go at it again tomorrow and address Charles and Dave.<BR/><BR/>Thanks guys--continue to post!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140130924647469312006-02-16T15:02:00.000-08:002006-02-16T15:02:00.000-08:00As a matter of fact, back in my younger years, I l...As a matter of fact, back in my younger years, I liked Walter Hawkins very much and attended a concert featuring him and 100's of other black gospel artists back in 1979. I listened to black gospel stations a great deal during the 1970s when black gospel started to take on rock forms and there was a rush to Christianize current secular tunes. I liked the O'Neill twins, too and the Thundering Clouds of Joy put on a memorable performance when one of the singers lept 10 ten in the air and landed in the audience and began to boogaloo. The audience went wild.<BR/><BR/>I was aware of the cross-over scandals--later on, black rock artists would be interviewed and asked about their church background. "Were you baptist or methodist? I thought I heard the baptist in your music."<BR/><BR/>But black gospel isn't the best form for worship. Perhaps that's where we are having the misunderstanding...if you enjoy listening to the Dixie Hummingbirds or whoever, I see nothing wrong with that. But I regard it as a "tune" not a hymn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140128075694551402006-02-16T14:14:00.000-08:002006-02-16T14:14:00.000-08:00Dave said: "I think it's interesting that the hard...Dave said: "I think it's interesting that the harder one tries to deny the orthodoxy and legitimacy of Black Gospel at its best, the less Hebrew and more Hellenistic one's rationale becomes."<BR/><BR/>What's orthodox about black gospel? According to whom? As for its legitimacy--what makes it legitimate? Wouldn't the question of orthodoxy and legitimacy depend what church party accepts it--it is not legitimate across the board. Would an Ethiopian Church in America accept it? They're black, they're even more African, and they've certainly have had their share of the blues over the centuries.<BR/><BR/>Music's function in a church setting is to provide the dialogue between a congregation and God. In ancient times, chant and hymn singing were the way to do this. Singing is seen by liturgical writers as an alteration of the normal cadence of speech to signify one's entering into another realm, just as when one entered a church from the outside one behaved in a more sacred manner in the sacred space. <BR/><BR/>But singing has come to be used to express our secularity--our sentimentality, romance, depair, bawdiness, hate, martial spirit, sheer fun or sell products etc. Nothing evil about this--and I didn't say that the songs of Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington etc were evil. They are secular in intent, and the tunes and words reflect this worldliness.<BR/><BR/>Since singing can be both sacred and secular, how do we know what kind of spirit is being sung in our churches? Is singing sacred songs to be regarded as a denial of the secular? Or shouldn't our flesh get its affirmation in the sacred as it participates in sacred singing? Or should the spirit be made to affirm the passions of the flesh by singing its tunes in its way, however it feels that day?<BR/><BR/>Tommy Dorsey himself said where he got the tunes--it wasn't the spirituals. He said also who opposed his using these tunes. See the film--"Say Amen, Somebody."<BR/><BR/>Black gospel music is like the rest of the CCM scene--entertainment for Christians, not very condusive for worship. There have been some good songs in it over the years, but overall it is entertainment. <BR/><BR/>Black spirituals are not the same musical form as black gospel. There is something much more pure and simple about them--they contain a genuine feeling of a directed reverence and worship in them. In addition, many of those songs were in the form of a litany--the call and response that's so basic to the dialogue of a liturgy. So when Mahalia Jackson or Marian Anderson sang spirituals--of course, they sounded sublime and beautiful--the sounds of worship, not of entertainment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140125212089698552006-02-16T13:26:00.000-08:002006-02-16T13:26:00.000-08:00MARGARET SMITHA HOLY STRUGGLEThis is the most symp...MARGARET SMITH<BR/><A HREF="http://www.lookingcloser.org/books/books-poetry.htm" REL="nofollow">A HOLY STRUGGLE</A><BR/>This is the most sympathetic piece I've ever written about the monastic life. It's a short review of a book, written in sonnet form, which imagines the struggles of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was also a priest.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140123161213412622006-02-16T12:52:00.000-08:002006-02-16T12:52:00.000-08:00Artistic categories that may help:1. Art is self e...Artistic categories that may help:<BR/>1. Art is self expression: joy, pain, disillusionment, despair, jadedness, or whatever, are expressed in music that communicates these things to the listener. The listener can feel the emotions and may learn from the experiences of the artist.<BR/>2. Art is beautiful for its own sake: form is important and is arguably metaphysical. <BR/>3. Art is didactic: the morality plays from which opera developed were part of the teaching ministries of the church<BR/>4. Art is propaganda: A great deal of serious contemporary art is in this category. John Cage may have been a nice man, but his art is nihilistic propaganda.<BR/>5. Art does not exist: on this view everything is art and nothing is art. Whatever exists is right.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140122923360544002006-02-16T12:48:00.000-08:002006-02-16T12:48:00.000-08:00I've heard a good bit of black gospel, and I would...I've heard a good bit of black gospel, and I wouldn't say that it makes good Christian music. It is extremely indulgent to the emotions, to chaos in worship and to lack of physical control. The black churches today are in poor spiritual condition in part because of black gospel.<BR/><BR/>Black Gospel was borrowed its forms from dance hall and brothel tunes that were "christianized" by Tommy Dorsey verses. At the time it was introduced, many black churches had opposed it because of where the tunes came from. It quickly made inroads in the more free-wheeling pentecostal black churches and later made its way into the main-line denominations of black churches. By the early 70s, black gospel began to use rock n roll forms beginning with Edwin Hawkins--"O Happy Day" in 1970.<BR/><BR/>Some years ago, I visited a black church that was in all respects like many other black churches I visited over the years, except for one thing. During their Sunday School hour, there were several old men who taught various groups gathered in different places in the pews. When Sunday School ended, these old men began singing something very old that sounded almost liturgical--it was so very unlike the style that the choir sang later. What these men sang was soaringly beautiful, expressive and soulful, what the choir sang was full of bombast, noise and silly, indulgent choral arrangements which was not inspiring, liberating or even pleasing to hear.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140122084437518212006-02-16T12:34:00.000-08:002006-02-16T12:34:00.000-08:00Correcting my last statement:It should read--Moder...Correcting my last statement:<BR/><BR/>It should read--Moderation allows a spiritual athlete to guide his bodies along a saner path, but moderation is not the end in itself, but the fullness in God is the goal.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140121977138583092006-02-16T12:32:00.000-08:002006-02-16T12:32:00.000-08:00Dave--You said: "It is sin that diminishes desire...Dave--<BR/><BR/>You said: "It is sin that diminishes desire by diluting it through indulgence, and misdirecting it towards the self rather than its proper object. Moderation is not ultimately supression but indulgence: the connesuer knows when to stop eating because he knows when he is satisfied."<BR/><BR/>And "Song of Solomon gives us a great picture of God's intent for the desires of the body, and it has nothing to do with moderation. It has to do with context and rightly-directed desire." <BR/><BR/><BR/>Yes, this is true, but since we live in this fallen world where the appetites are so often twisted and "the desires are diluted by indulgence", as you say, the full satisfaction, the healthy and full consummation you speak of does not often happen in a sin-enslaved world. <BR/><BR/>The ascetic practice is to detach oneself, wholistically, from the sin from corrupted desire, not from desire itself. The desire is what takes us to God. To re-order one's desires takes discipline, just as an impulsive, poorly behaved child must be disciplined, until such time that one's desires are rightly directly and in the proper context. <BR/><BR/>This discipline does involve "moderation" because, for example, if one doesn't eat, one dies, but if one indulges too much, one dies from obesity. Moderation allows a spiritual athlete to guide his bodies along a saner path, but moderation is not the end in itself, but the fullness in God.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140119279029044552006-02-16T11:47:00.000-08:002006-02-16T11:47:00.000-08:00All well and good, Dave, but where do you find any...All well and good, Dave, but where do you find any of this in "The Rolling Stone" or any other artifact of rock culture? I can point to numerous operatic arias that express these conceptions of life in the body, many of them that are, in fact, prayers. Where is the sublime vision of rightly ordered desire in rock and roll music?Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140118081343154962006-02-16T11:28:00.000-08:002006-02-16T11:28:00.000-08:00I'm not the man to defend rock music, but I will s...I'm not the man to defend rock music, but I will say that the mystics I've read sound a lot like Athanael in the opera <I>Thais</I>. The end of that story is tragic.<BR/>Maybe Dave will come back to deal with the excessive passion and often immoral evocaions of rock music. I'll try to deal with the excessive passion and often immoral evocations of opera and opera singers. But right now I'm going to have to pay attention to business or I may end up living as a hermit in the eastern Washington desert.Michael Dodarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10218455310804805561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11544102.post-1140117366819825882006-02-16T11:16:00.000-08:002006-02-16T11:16:00.000-08:00I think asceticism is vastly misunderstood. There...I think asceticism is vastly misunderstood. There is probably no one more conscious of the body than the ascetic who is trying to bring it under control. For example, just think of all the fasting he must do in the normal course of a liturgical year (in Orthodoxy it's half the year). For Westerners, think of what you give up for Lent, and how much you miss what you've given up. The resulting obsession to what one has fasted shows the ascetic how much power the body can have. It takes training then to overcome the obsession. <BR/><BR/>Mystical Christianity is not trying to deny the body, it is trying to make the spirit regain its proper domination over the body so that the two can worship in harmony together. The body is always to be the Temple where God's spirit dwells, where God incarnates himself. But where the spirit doesn't reign over the body, the body will certainly make sure each and every one of its passions and cravings will be satisfied. In this kind of undisciplined life, where the body's passions rule, the spirit is either atrophied or gone altogether.<BR/><BR/>I do not think the rock music affirms the body. What does it affirm about it? When it excites its passions, does it make it into a temple? Or even maintain its humanity? Or does it drive it into the animal realm, there to mire itself into instinct instead of raising it to reason? <BR/><BR/>The ancient Greeks, Buddhists and Hindus etc treat the body as something to be cast aside--that because the body sins, suffers and dies only the spirit must matter. This is not the true Christian teaching. It is true,though, that Greek pagan philosophy did influence Christian thinkers, especially in the West, and the various Christian heretical sects. But these pagan beliefs should not be ascribe to mystical Christianity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com