two embarrassing book purchases that help my quixotic quest for reduction of seduction and the strangulation of triangulation..and keep from building a stage and props

I pray some and try hard not to be an idiot..
..or the seducer  (see this, this and this) that the pastor/teacher role and expectation  can inevitable invoke/evoke.

So once again I found myself buying a book at the thrift store (the price is right, and it's a place where O have learned big lessons about how and how not to pastor..that sordid story here), buying a book I wouldn't buy at full price; one with  a title or cover I'm a bit embarrassed by..

This time it was  "The Art of Seduction"...which I bought to help me in my reduction of seduction.
Very Screwtape-ian..and MacPhisto-esque of me, eh?

(There are no pictures in the book, and it is SFW..unless you are a pastor!)


Oh, one of the  others in the stack I was concerned the clerk might misundertand also.





It was  "No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton,"
making the case for Clinton's impeachment.
What I didn't want the clerk to think it that I was some  conservative who automatically hates liberals.  What I love about the book it makes an articulate and compelling case; argues not so much from sex but violence (violence to cover up sex)..and it is written by a liberal (Oh, there's  one more good book on Clinton by a liberal..a Jew who had voted for him, but wouldn't again).





The author makes the case that Clinton was a master at "staging" things  (p. 101); even using his daughter as a "prop" (78)...and these were seductions  and "detractions" of the public to cover up his private seductions.

I try to be so careful and prayerful that I don't stage things, or use things/people as props.  But that's what we pastors do by default (Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain..)

See these links on "stage":

• "It takes more than a stage to create a community:The Problem with Pastors as Rock Stars-

• as the EBay Atheist wondered, what's a stage doing in a church, anyway?

• "a hall with a stage and a place where I could sit and be lectured on the subject."

And on "props," Vincent J., Vera has already said it...sung it (embedded below).I don't know if VV ever saw the double meaning of "taking the props" home, but if you think of "props" in the vernacular sense of "Kudos"  "appreciation" and "proper respect"  those too are items that pastors take home at their own risk...

..and self-seduction.

"Meeting God in the Sound: The Seductive Dimension of U2’s Future Hymns"

Beth  tips  us off to what sounds like a great chapter by Deane Galbaraith in the new book,
The Counter-Narratives of Radical Theology and Popular Music: Songs of Fear and Trembling.  
How can you go wrong with a chapter called Meeting God in the Sound: The Seductive Dimension of U2’s Future Hymns?: 

Beth notes that Galbraith "employs Jean Baudrillard's distinction between the production of meaning and the seductive capacity of text' and uses such as a grid for the U2 discussion.

Preview:

Meeting God in the Sound: The Seductive Dimension of U2’s Future Hymns

How have U2 achieved popular and economic success in a music industry which, on the face of it, is not terribly receptive towards pop-stars who like to write hymns and - as on their U2 360 tour - build cathedrals? This paper examines the role played by U2’s emphasis on the formal, mystical, and experiential aspects of their music, and how that emphasis coincides with a religious trend which since at least the 1960s can be located throughout the arts, popular music, and—in a perhaps surprising association—charismatic and evangelical Christianity. To do so, the paper concentrates on the manner in which the sonic fabric of U2's 2009 album No Line On The Horizon is subtly interwoven with Christian hymns, in ways that are suggestive, evocative, and usually highly ambiguous. When—as often in U2 songs—the song’s seductive form takes priority over the production of content, and evocation takes precedence over precise meaning, U2 manage to open up a space for what, to many listeners affected by a prevalent neo-Romanticism, will count as a spiritual experience.

More Info: in The Counter-Narratives of Radical Theology and Rock’n’Roll: Songs of Fear and Trembling. Ed. Mike Grimshaw. Radical Theologies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.  link

the church as "holy seductress" with beautiful "robust laughter"

Douglas Jones:


The Church is called to be a holy seductress. We tend to get tripped up in the negative connotations of seduction and leave the notion to the nasty side. But God Himself is the premier seducer: “Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing the goodness of teh Lord lkeads to repenrance" (Rom 2:4) When drawing Israel to Himself He gave her embroidered cloth, sandals, fine linen, silk bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and a beautiful crown, and her “fame went out among the nations" because of her beauty, "for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowerd on her  (Ezek  16:10ff)

In our latent Gnosticism, we tend to despise teh centrality of beauty  and goodness in our countercultural battles. We're so busy boycotting or teaching against pagan worldviews that we have little time actually to create anything ourselves “always learning and never able to... the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 3:7)—always teaching, never actually living.

..Different parts of the body, creating different things, some swinging at the idols, more showing hospitality, creativity and robust laughter.  Then as The Black Prince of Modernity continues to lash out in all his unimaginative pettiness, we're there fighting nobly, seducing beautifully.  And he will marvel at Christ's church in all her splendor..

from "Seductive Respect," the appendix to Douglas Wilson's "A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking."  pp 120-121

..and some He named "travelling salesmen" (on their mother's side)

All Christian leaders must flirt with the reality they are
part seducer,
part deceiver
part liar,
occasionally "about as deep as a wet spot on the pavement,"
and (today's topic) kind of a
travelling salesperson..

As is often the case, "secular sources" can come up with the most intriguing insights re: church questions. Take Mental Floss Magazine (emphasis mine):

Q:Disciples vs. Apostles: What's the Difference?
The Dilemma: You’re vaguely worried about a pop quiz at the Pearly Gates.
People You Can Impress: well, Jesus, obviously
The Quick Trick: Unless Jesus Christ himself has named you an apostle, discipleship is really the best you can hope for.
The Explanation:
The words are often used interchangeably, but they don’t quite share a meaning. All Christians are (or at least ought to be) disciples of Christ, because they follow his teachings. (Disciple comes from the Latin discipulus, which means “pupil.”) But very, very few Christians have ever been full-on apostles, because “apostle” is a title that only Jesus himself could give someone. If a disciple is a pupil, then an apostle is something of a traveling salesman (its Greek

root word technically means “delegate,” but “traveling salesman” is funnier). The 12 disciples officially became Jesus’ delegates when he personally sent them out into the world to preach and heal.
Over the years, many people have claimed that Jesus named them apostles (see, for instance, David Koresh), and many evangelicalChristian groups believe that all their members are apostles who’ve been dispatched by Jesus—which is why they often show up on your doorstep..

-Mental Floss, link

On the travelling salesmen image, couldn't but help connect to the U2 song "Breathe,"
one interpretation of involving Jesus ringing the narrator's doorbell (Rev. 3:20 style), but the narrator has this concern:

16th of June, 9:05, door bell rings
Man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer
There's a few things I need you to know
Three
Coming from a long line of
Traveling salespeople on my mother's side
I wouldn't buy just anyone's cockatoo
So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home
Would you?..

By the end of the song, or by 9:09, he's convinced/converted:

9:09, St. John Divine, on the line, my pulse is fine..
The Roar that lies on the

other side of silence
The forest fire that is fear so deny it..
I've found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it's all that I found
So I can breathe..

Spirit, breathe..

Hope I don't come off like a cockatoo salesman, even if I am.

Oh, Geddy Lee asked it first, in a song which mentions not only the sounds of (on the other side of?) silence, but also "saaaaaaaaalesman"

As they often do (2112, "The Spirit of Radio"), the band RUSH cautions against the commercialization/communization of the music (read:church) system, especially as images dominate and mammon motivates. On a CD tellingly titled "Moving Pictures," they upgrade (in 1980) the Simon/Garfunkel lyric: "The words of the prophets are written on the studio walls..and echo with the sound of.. (the sarcastic punchline)...salesmen!"

Yeah..We need more more salesmen in the Body; especially those hawking images, ecclesiapornography, and an imagined Jesus.
link