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A friend at the Baton Rouge Advocate once remarked on the cognitive dissonance of singing the folkie Communion song “Sons of God,” which uses a chirpy melody for its chorus of “Eat his body, drink his blood / And we’ll sing a song of love: / Allelu, allelu, allelu, alleluia!”
Since the headline and photo give away basic subject, it would be hard to turn this into a “guess who this is” trivia game. So the following quotes are from Bono, the often inspiring and often infuriating (and he would agree with both terms) lead singer of U2.
After being booed during her Saturday night performance and ejected from the Aladdin hotel and casino, Linda Ronstadt is on the fast track to reverential treatment in the entertainment media. Now that she’s been subjected to the cruelties of a Las Vegas crowd — which typically doesn’t travel to the neon oasis to hear odes to filmmaker Michael Moore’s patriotism — it’s best not to predict what Ronstadt will have to say about these lumpen Americans.
Picture this: an altar; an earth-shattering sound system; people of all ages “jamming to the groove”; and an Episcopal bishop rapping and feeling the beat.
Nobody could accuse singer-songwriter Richard Thompson of being a pawn of the religious right. Thompson expressed standard-issue contempt for fundamentalism in an October 2003 interview with writer Greg Kahill of metroactive.com. Discussing Thompson’s album Old Kit Bag, Kahill wrote:
Let me be the first — chicken in cheek — to chide The Arizona Republic for going with an Associated Press report instead of assigning one of its own reporters to cover such a fascinating Godbeat story in its own backyard. I look forward to the photos and coverage of the actual event.
This may seem like a strange thing to do, but I want to encourage readers who are working journalists to do something after they have read Doug’s latest post on music tends in the church. Google the following words and then hang on — “worship wars.”
Writing in the May edition of Touchstone magazine, senior editor S.M. Hutchens sees all sorts of dangers in contemporary church services that emphasize performers and egocentric lyrics. Hutchens begins his essay, “Please Me, O Lord,” by describing what he witnessed during his return to an evangelical congregation:
Susan Hogan/Albach of the Dallas Morning News, who sports one of the most colorful bylines on the Godbeat, has written the lede and quote of the month.
