Comments on: Ghostly Echoes: A Eulogy

By: Nixon is Lord

Nixon is Lord — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:01:16 +0000

“stripping of the altAr”.

By: Avatar: Reviewing the Reviewers | Front Porch Republic

Avatar: Reviewing the Reviewers | Front Porch Republic — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:06:08 +0000

[...] Membership. The movie showed a moving example of membership and identity in what Voegelin called a [...]

By: packmann57

packmann57 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:08:41 +0000

This is a great essay. As an old English Lit major and recent exclusive psalmist, I never realized the connection to psalmody and the Irving tale. Very well done here.

By: Rob G

Rob G — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:56:02 +0000

Here’s the trailer for ‘Awake My Soul’….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHUfHNEZDPc

By: Rob G

Rob G — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:41:53 +0000

Tangentially related: For a very interesting and inspiring look at one traditional style of acapella singing (the so-called ‘Sacred Harp’) check out the documentary called “Awake My Soul” (originally shown on PBS, now available on DVD). Besides being musically fascinating, the film is a great demonstration, in a sort of microcosmic manner, of how tradition ought to function. There is a marvelous moving scene in which one of the singers sermonizes on those in the tradition who’ve gone on before, and how they’re remembered, and as such aren’t really gone. Although he never uses the term, it’s obvious that what he’s talking about is the communion of saints, namely those saints that were part of this particular musical and religious stream.

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:17:42 +0000

An interesting and sure to be illuminating discussion this: “.communication about essentials”…….However, when everything is “essential”, nothing is, hence the general trend of speaking in circles and waiting for a crisis “not to waste” with our current political system that does not want to be bogged down by such a pesky word as “essential”.

By: brierrabbit3030

brierrabbit3030 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:54:13 +0000

I am a member of the Church of Christ, and fortunately, almost all of them still sing aCapella style. there have been changes, but this style of worship has mostly remained. It’s one of the practices that make us distinct in the protestant world. Interestingly, members of the Church of Christ, often avoid political debates too, for reasons going back to the Civil War, since the congregations were mostly distributed in border states like Kentucky, Missouri, etc. And congregations had members from both sides of the conflict attending in the same churches.I’ve never known them to picket abortion clinics, for instance.
but the same problems that modernity brings, have affected us too. Trying to retain some binding theology in a world of “Lets start over with something new”
mentality every 10 years, is not easy. And we are one of the least changed theologically of denominations.

By: Caleb Stegall

Caleb Stegall — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:11:01 +0000

Ted, I’m with you here. Would love to see the EV essay.

By: Ted V. McAllister

Ted V. McAllister — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:50:52 +0000

Thanks, Caleb, for republishing this essay. I’m not certain, however, where you stand about the means of either creating or sustaining a cosmion. I think that you will assert that politics cannot accomplish this task but that politics depends on the cosmion. But somewhere between fate and simplistic claims to manufacture this sort of spiritual or normative center, there are ways of thinking concretely about our social and political order and the necessary conditions for politics. At present I don’t have access to my files, but there is an unpublished essay by Voegelin (probably since included in one of the thousands of volumes in his collected works) that concerns the necessity of communication about essentials. I believe this was a lecture he gave at a conference, but as I recall it goes very much to the question of the necessary conditions to produce a spiritually ordered society that produces “politics,” complete with the necessary elements of deep understanding, of friendship, and of deliberation about ends and means.

I wonder if politics understood in the terms you’ve outlined is impossible in the United States but quite possible of flourishing at local or even state levels if the task of self-ruling were primarily lodged in these institutions.

By: Adam Koontz

Adam Koontz — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:49:21 +0000

For those who haven’t heard Covenanter psalmody, here is a modern example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZQlmvtZ7E

By: jmgregory

jmgregory — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:47:31 +0000

Fascinating essay! I think you could sketch a very similar story among the Campbellites (specifically the Church of Christ), who sprang up largely from the Presbyterians, and who also sing acapella. Increasingly, as the group moved from agrarian to bourgeois, such “quirks” became out-of-place. Truth and authority have leaked out of our practices, and we are slowly experiencing the inevitable split which you have described.

Unfortunately, there is little place in our theology for tradition or a sense of cohesiveness across generations – in fact, such things are explicitly forbidden. Thus, we are left only with the theological arguments which, while I believe they are correct, nevertheless seem to become less and less compelling with each generation. Unless we can make a place in our ecclesiology for history, I fear we are doomed to drift away on the cultural tide, save a few ghosts who linger on in the deep country, but have lost the ability to influence their world.