no comment…

 

I don’t know how I came on this video… it must be part of a certain Christian subculture…

yeah she’s cute, and I’d give her a hug if I could…And it makes me less sad than Lady gaga videos…

but for some reason it always reminds me of this:

I still wonder if there are more people for whom ‘true love waits’ is a radiohead song, and not something aboout having no sex….

Bram

Bram Cools – I am the Belgian Christian lo-fi scene!

For those who may be interested: a new compilation (on CD-R) is available with an overview of the music I’ve been making over the years? The CD can be obtained from for me (free gift), and can also be listened to and downloaded at last.fm.

For those not familiar with my music, I’m not gonna describe it in detail, that won’t work and you better just listen if you’re interested. It’s situated somewhere in the direction of indie and lo-fi, with mostly a lot of folk in it, sometimes somewhat psychedelic, or even plainly experimental… Only for the specialists maybe….

As the title may insinuate, the music consists of lo-fi homerecordings, and the influence of my faith on my music cannot be denied. But don’t expect anything like CCM or Christian rock. It isn’t exactly hillsong or stryper…

tracklist

1. Repetitivus primitivus
2. Father I’m tired
3. Qualities
4. [MDinterlude]
5. I’m not flirting
6. unfair competition
7. you (short version)
8. key
9. coca cola
10. cumulonimbus ex machina pt I
11. don’t kiss me
12. feelings say nothing
13. planet
14. doos vol cornflakes
15. Kyrië
16. draackendooder dansch
17. dood aan de graankorrel
18. my old name (original tape mix)
19. cumulonimbus ex machina ptv II
20. agnus dei (industrio)

shalom

Bram

Pastor Scott about the emerging Church

This is interesting. A series of five posts (part 1 - 2 - 3 -  4 – 5) about the emerging Church by a certain Pastor Scott, who happens to be a pastor in the nazarene church. I don’t know much about that church, but they seem to be Wesleyans, which I appreciate, I always liked John Wesley.

After all those reformed and dispensationalist watchbloggers (with whom I have not much in common) who don’t even seem to understand the thing they critique, this is a breath of fresh air! I don’t know if I would call myself ‘emerging church’; I’m still active in Vineyard antwerpen, and I feel kind of post-denominational anyway, part of the Church with capital C. but I think the emerging church as a revival movement is needed in this postmodern world…

shalom

Bram

quotes

So here are a lot of quotes; most of them which I’ve posted though twitter and facebook throughout the last year.

I noticed that Shane Claiborne, C.S. Lewis and Brian McLaren are great contributors to my stock of quotes…

just read one; and think about it… and then another one… and so on

True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom. ‘Love thy neigbor’ is not a piece of advice, it”s a command. and that means that in the global village we’re gonna have to start loving a whole lot more people. – Bono

“Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.” -Henri Nouwen

if you think nuclear disarmament is impossible, South Africa did it in 1991. They saw it as something to leave behind along with apartheid, just as previous generations saw slavery, the inequality of women, and child labor as things to leave behind. (Brian McLaren)

A genuinely new, more perfect and better life comes from within, and not from without, it comes from a spiritual rebirth, and not from a mere change of social conditions, of social means. (Nikolai Beryaev)

“When a man is thirsty, whether he be learned or ignorant, young or old, in order to quench his thirst what he needs is not knowledge, but water. Before he drinks the water he does not need to know that it contains oxygen and hydrogen. If he ref…used to drink it until he could understand what we mean by oxygen and hydrogen he would die of thirst.” Sadhu Sundar Singh

Michael Moore: ” It doesn’t seem you can call yourself a Capitalist and a Christian”

the blood of the dodo still cries, that our so-called civilisation is nothing but a very advanced & sophisticated form of barbarism (Bram cools)

Mutual aid is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle – Peter Kropotkin-

everything we consume, we turn into shit… (McLaren wrote a censored version)

the real christian work ethic is not the so-called protestant work ethic which is embedded in individualism, but it is found in Eph 4:28: If you are a thief, quit stealing. Be honest and work hard, so you will have something to give to people in need.

“Talk about God is not repressed talk about sexuality; talk about sex is, in fact, repressed talk about God.” – sarah coakley

What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? – Thomas a Kempis

Sadhu sundar singh the question who were right, Christian Fundamentalists or Liberals? — Both were wrong.The Fundamentalists were.uncharitable to those who differed from them. That is, they were unchristian. The Liberals sometimes went to the extent ofdenying the divinity of Christ, which they had no business to do.

“The more I get to know Jesus, the more trouble he seems to get me into.” -Shane Claiborne

Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic. – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

These godless Galileans (ie. Christians) feed not only their own poor but ours: our poor lack our care – Roman emperor Julian

the real christian work ethic is not the so-called protestant work ethic, but it is found in Eph 4:28

“Never forget that u are beautiful, just like everyone else. And never forget that u are a fool, just like everyone else.” -Shane Claiborne

everybody knows that the moon is made of cheese – wallace from wallace and gromit

we are not punished for our sins, but by them – Elbert Hubbard

Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught, but a life to be lived.” Søren Kierkegaard

“Change will have to come from outside, from the margins. The desert, not the temple, gave us the prophets.” -Wendell Berry

Jesus light the light we were asleep beside the roadside waitng on rescue this relationshp it isn’t how its really supposed to be -souljunk-

love your enemies, pray for those who persecute your [Jesus of Nazareth]

There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it. [Lord Voldemort]

Our hope today does not lie on Wallstreet our hope doesn’t rest in America our hope does not come from a new caesar or even a new president, our hope today is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood & righteousness on Christ the solid rock we stand all other ground is sinking sand, indeed as we look around all other ground is sinking sand but christ will live forever – shane claiborne

everybody wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes (shane claiborne)

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. — St. Augustine

don’t buy the lie that new is always better: evolution can be both progress and regress, but mostly it consists of both… -abe Claeysson

if you’re looking for the devil, check out the inquisition, not just the witches…

“A private truth for a limited circle of bellivers is no truth at all” – Leslie Newbigin

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. – Mother Theresa

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” -Jesus of Nazareth-

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”- C.S. Lewis

“If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” – C. S. Lewis

Look into the eyes of the ones who are hardest for you to like, and see the One you love. – Shane Claiborne

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle. — Einstein

lust reduces the riches of the deep attractiveness of masculinity & femininity to mere satisfaction of the sexual need of the body pope John Paul II

seek first His Kingdom, and Hid justice, and all the other things will be given you as well… – Jesus from Nasareth, the christ

“God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.” – Shane Claiborne

Every year we waste enough To feed the ones who starve We build our civilization up And we shoot it down with wars – woody guthry

It is more courageous to love our enemies than to kill them – Shane Claiborne

We Haven’t Just been Told, We Have Been Loved – half-handed cloud album title

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Religious debate can be a lot like pornography, drug abuse, and gambling: stupid yet attractive and potentially addictive, and therefore dangerous spiritually. -Brian McLaren-

“I believe people are saved not by objective truth, but by Jesus. Their faith isn’t in their knowledge, but in God.” – Brian McLaren

the third way of Jesus is always asking if there is an imaginative, subversive, brilliant, creative path- Rob Bell

you can be [insert anything here] but without love you ain’t nothing – Larry Norman

“Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived.” – Shane Claiborne

“Some Christians use Jesus as a shortcut to being right. In the process they bypass becoming humble or wise.” Brian McLaren

“The World can’t afford The American Dream” – Shane Claiborne

Each time the people of God becomes effective according to the world´s criteria, this only implies that society has absorbed our action and is using it for its own ends and for its own profit. (jacques ellul)

that’s enough for today…
shalom
Bram

If America was a christian nation…

Then it’s president would act like this.

This is Brian McLaren at his best, proposing things that sound impossible and even stupid to some I guess. It’s so contrary to all we know of world politics. And yet, it’s so deeply rooted in the words of Christ. and it’s not that new, Ghandi, Mandela, ML King, Tutu,… All of these lived out these ‘politics of Jesus’.

Taking the deep christlike peace church inheritance to the white house would be a formidable idea!

This could transform our world.

If only the guy would listen…

let’s pray for that…

shalom

Bram

pro-life

I am a Christian. I try to follow Jesus, and sometimes I feel like a great failure in that. But sometimes I also see things that are called christian that are far far far away from anything I see in the words of Jesus, the bible or the tradition of Christianity. Like the (mainly american) use of the term ‘pro-life’. I am not American, so there is a cultural gap, this I am aware of and I understand.  But if the term ‘pro-life’ means just anti-abortion, and mostly in combination with pro-war, pro death penalty, pro-guns and anti-environment, you loose me. And everything I know about Jesus… Ifail to see what’s so ‘pro-life’ about it then…

Oh yes, I am pro-life, and I want to be more and more pro-life. In a more consequent and holistic manner I guess. Yes unborn people are people too, I believe that unborn children have the right to live. That’s something christians of all denominations and times stood for. The first christian writing we have, the didache’, already writes against it.

But whether it’s the state’s job to make it illegal I don’t even know, and I think if we really would be serious about abortion as christian we’d have communities who were ready to adopt both mothers and children. And we should live out the conviction that every human being is of unmeasurable value. But to just vote for the candidate who is supposed to be against abortion (though none of these ever made abortion illegal or changed much about the situation in america) and to make that the definition of ‘pro-life’ is bad rhetoric as best.

Life doesn’t exactly stop at birth you know. No, au contraire, birth is the beginning of human life as a seperate being. So I’m all for the life of unborn peaple, and of children, adults and elderly people. And I think we as Christians should oppose things that are anti the life of any human being. All life should be protected .

That means we shouldn’t kill people, and we shouldn’t support the killing of people. War is not something that brings much good most of the time. The first Christians were ready to die themselves for their faith (or for their loved ones) but never to kill. We shouldn’t use weapons meant to kill fellow humans. I know the pacifism debate isn’t easy, and that not everybody can accept the position of people like John Howard Yoder who hold to complete pacifism. But every follower of Jesus should accept that violence is alays an evil, even if it’d be the lesser of 2 evils… And that we are called to love our neighbors and enemies. I think that means not killing our fellow humans. (like one of the 10 commandments already commanded…) Same with death penalty. Especially with all those stories of innocents being executed.

A side note: the oppression of women, blacks or native americans (the real americans, whose continent is violently stolen by us white people) is totally against Jesus too, and we should oppose that with everything we are.

And there’s more life on this planet than homo sapiens alone. As a christian who believes in God the Creator of heaven and earth, we should take care of creation. We should not be cruel to animals. We should not destroy ecosystems just to make money.

Wat I just cannot understand is creationistic anti-environmentalism. If you believe that God is creator, then we should take care of creation. Destroying the creation in name of the ammighty dollar is a big middle-finger to the Creator then… Every species we loose is a loss, wheter one believes in special creation or evolutionary creation. It’s bad stewardship. We should care for creation if we take the Creator seriously.

The only purpose of the State that can be justified from a Christian viewpoint is to make it possible for all the people in the country to live as good and peaceful as possibble. There are no acceptable higher goals. The economy should be for the people, and the people should not be consumers to keep the economy machine growing. The lie of the need of growth should be abandoned for the economy of enough. There is no higher goal in power. the goal should be all the people living together in the counrty, even the ones we don’t like. And taking care of the country, the nature and the animals. None of the possible higher goals in politics I can accept as a christian.

shalom

Bram

a tip for heresy hunters: The american conservative religion

Wow

The world is scary these days. For some reason we are bombing the moon (they call it science) and on the same day unexpectedly Obama get the nobel peace price. But that’s not what I mean

Some really freaky things are happening in American ‘christian’ circles. So while all heresy-hunters are for some reason busy looking at the emerging church (because they are so immersed in modernist worldviews that they cannot understand postmodernism) , something realy weird is emerging calling itself conservative christianity. Something that’s weird synchretism at best and pure heretic idolatry at worst.

Take for example this picture, which just scares the hell out of me. But Greg Boyd can explain better than me what is wrong with it. I just wonder where the native americans are, and why everybody is white (including Jesus, whose skin as a middle-eastern guy should have been a lot darker than this all-american pretty guy…) And why claim founding fathers who were all for the separation of state and church, who were deists or non-believers?

And oh, get over your stupid constitution. it’s NOT  inerrant word of God. And America isn’t the center of the world.  The world isn’t even flat, it is round you know…And the US of A isn’t  the most important culmination point in the history of mankind either.

And who can explain me why Obama shouldn’t be taken serious as a president, but when anyone opposed Bush every shouted Romans 13? Can you be consistent please? If Bush was appointed by God and no-one should have criticised him, then please honor Obama all the same.

Oh, and speaking of not just intellectual honesty and dumb amerericacentrism, but even of plain rewriting of the bible: the conservapedia conservative bible project wants to rewrite the bible and rid it of ‘liberal bias’. Liberal being everything they don’t like, including the story of Jesus and the adulteress, and Jesus’ prayer on the cross ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

My advice to all heresy hunters: broaden your scope. In the conservative corner some weird idolatry is emerging that is really worth examiining. They re-write the bible, they ignore history and claim historic figures who would be totally opposed to them, and they make Jesus into a tribal idol of some American godly super-empire.  They ignore the words of Jesus and worship America and capitalism… And it’s an insult to all genuine conservative believers. God have mercy!

Isn’t this troubling?
Isn’t this scary?
Or am I a weird european that is excluded of having common sense since I’m not American and part of your blessed evil empire???

Father forgive them,
for they know not what they do

shalom

Bram

dry inside after being soaked for centuries…

Once when I was in the Himalayas, I was sitting upon the bank of a river. I drew out of the water a beautiful, hard, round stone and smashed it. The inside was quite dry. The stone had been lying a long time in the water, but the water had not penetrated the stone. It is just like that with the “Christian” people of the West. They have for centuries been surrounded by Christianity, entirely steeped in its blessings, but the Master’s truth has not penetrated them. Christianity is not at fault; the reason lies rather in the hardness of their hearts. Materialism and intellectualism have made their hearts hard. So I am not surprised that many people in the West do not understand what Christianity really is.

These words come from Sadhu Sundar Singh, a unique character in the history of Christianity. He lived arounf the year 1900 and was a indian Christian holy man, who possessed nothing but a new testament, and led a rea christlike life. And how true and relevant his word still are if I look to my de-christianised country, or to my own heart and life.

I am not a man of prayer. I don’t follow Jesus, and most of the time I donet even know how I could follow. How can I say that I do love God with all my heart, mind and strength, and my neigbor as myself? Do I even love myself? I can read all the books by the church fathers, the contemporary evangelicals, the emerging  church, the medieval mystics, whatever. It wil not necessarily bring me closer to Jesus.

He is Truth, and Light, and Life. And all those books, even the bible, can be a distraction. The truths of man are incomplete, only very dim we see, an vague is our knowledge… They are a finger pointing to the moon, and I’ll never see the moon if I don’t stop staring at the freaking finger. And I loose my way when staring at all those fingers, and listening to all those people who tell me where the fingers point to.

Oh God open my eyes to see Thee…

More from the Sadhu:

I never advise anyone to consult theologians, because all too often they have completely lost all sense of spiritual reality. They can explain Greek words and all that, but they spend too much time among their books and not enough time with the Master in prayer. … You must stop examining spiritual truths like dry bones! You must break open the bones and take in the life-giving marrow.

Auch!!

Let me see with the eyes of the Spirit, Lord; and open my eyes.

My heart is restless, it needs to find rest in You…

God have mercy upon me, sinner

shalom

Bram

New musical discovery: Brian McLaren

New musical discovery: Brian McLaren

For those who like soft folky singersongwriterstuff with a seventies sound, I’ve found this onscure gem on a site that archives old and rare  christian records: an album called ‘learning to love’ by some guy called Brian McLaren. He seems to have made only one record, back in 1978, filled with christian inpired dreamy acoustic folk & rock.

Brian McLaren - learning to love

So how does it sound? Mostly like soft acoustic mellow folky music of the kind that had a revival some years ago with the ‘quiet is the new loud’ movement, but with Christian insipired lyrics… If we’d do a more ‘classical’ namedropping it would fit somewhere between the acoustic John Michael Talbot, Nick Drake, and sometimes some Larry Norman or Neil Young… I don’t say it’s as good as those names, but there something in the sound that reminds me of them. Brian seems to be a skilled guitarplayer, and the arrangements are quite good. My favorites are the Larry Norman-like ‘publican and pharisee’ and the acoustic talking blues ‘depersonalisation blues’.

It’s a shame that this album was never re-released on Cd, I find it actually quite good for christian music from the seventies(I say that as someone who is very critical of so-called Christian ‘music’…) Anyway I’m very glad that the heavenly grooves have made it available in 320kbps mp3 format. check it out here

such a shame nobody has ever heard of this guy… I wonder what he’d be doing right now. aging and without hair he probably would look like this:

an older guy

Wait, what did you say he was called???

shalom

Bram

a society built on usury

This C.S. Lewis passage and the current economic crisis make me wonder.

There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest: and lending money at interest—what we call investment—is the basis of our whole system. Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong. Some people say that when Moses and Aristotle and the Christians agreed in forbidding interest (or “usury” as they called it), they could not foresee the joint stock company, and were only dunking of the private moneylender, and that, therefore, we need not bother about what they said.

That is a question I cannot decide on. I am not an economist and I simply do not know whether the investment system is responsible for the state we are in or not This is where we want the Christian economist But I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great civilisations had agreed (or so it seems at first sight) in condemning the very thing on which we have based our whole
life. (C.S. Lewis in mere Christianity)

I’ll add some of Rob Bell before stating my case:

l was traveling in Turkey awhile back and kept noticing that a large number of the homes there seemed unfinished. Piles of wood and brick beside the house, half a foundation built,  construction equipment everywhere. It looked like a lot of homes had been started and then the workers went to lunch… for a year. l asked my friend, who has spent a lot of time in Turkey, about it. He said the reason is that the Mustim culture doesn’t allow for financial debt, so people only build with cash. They work for a while, run out of money, save up, keep working, and eventuaüy get the house done, which they own, debt-free. l was struck with how different Western culture would be if we had a similar aversion to debt. How many people do we know who are crippled with financial debt? Having less debt is a better way to live. l affirm this value of the Muslim people of Turkey because it is true, it is good, and it is a better way to live. (Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis)

so maybe our financial crisis is just the logical outcome of our house built on quicksand: a financial system built on usury. Is there any Christian economist who aswered Lewis’ question without taking our western culture for granted?

If this is sin. We may have to repent. How? What can we learn from the jubilee-laws in the torah? How do we have to be ‘not conformed to the world’ in this?

And can we be good news to the people who are the victims of this monster? Maybe if we’d really be as radical as the first christians (or shane Claiborne ) it would really make a difference.

I don’t know. So much questions, no answers,…

anyone??

shalom

Bram