Let's Get Naked! // Jon Watts' "Clothe Yourself in Righteousness"

During the last week of September, these odd fliers peppered the walls of Duke Divinity School. By the end of the week, people were talking about naked Quakers and asking if there would be streaking. As the event coordinator, I made no promises.

We welcomed musician Jon Watts to campus with a call he makes in one of his own songs: "Let's Get Naked!" But this wasn't just for shock value. Jon's latest musical release, Clothe Yourself in Righteousness, is a unique project that was born out of a collaboration with Maggie Harrison. Maggie had written an academic paper on the 17th-century Quaker practice of going naked as a sign.

For the September 30 performance, co-sponsored by New Creation Arts Group and the Duke Divinity Women's Center, we were excited to have Maggie with us in addition to Jon. Maggie shared the highlights of her paper with us, hitting on the several layers of significance of going naked: recalling that Adam and Eve were created good—and naked—only putting on clothes after the fall; pointing out that Isaiah preached naked in Isaiah 20; and insisting that the call to put on the new self, to put on Christ, to clothe yourself in righteousness, requires that we first take off the false clothing we have put on to hide our shame and our vulnerability. At the end of the concert, the group had a discussion with Jon and Maggie around all this and more, rounding out the event as unique not only in content but in the way it encouraged conversation and vulnerability among those present.

I haven't even mentioned Jon's music yet. As a spoken word artist (performing here with a guitar and violin), the sound is an experience all its own. Jon is a gifted songwriter, his lyrics simple but profound at the same time, unafraid of hard truths while still inviting the listener into his questions and challenges. Lyrical gems include, "Forgiveness is the difference between heaven and hell. That's not some afterlife shit; I'm talking now"; and this one that resonated with many of us present: "You don't need a degree from seminary to know God loves you." Jon's music encourages the listeners to be honest with themselves and with each other, even in their brokenness. That vulnerability is what getting naked is all about for Jon.

Pick up Jon's album, but prepared to be surprised and challenged by it. The ideas that Jon and Maggie are pushing have the potential to call the church (and not just Quakers!) back to its identity as a loving, genuine, transformative community that can effect real change in relationships and in the world.

-- Sarah

Liturgy, Formation, Mission and Art // A Conference in Durham

On November 8-10, 2011, Duke Divinity Th.D. student and arts pastor David Taylor will host a conference on liturgy, formation, mission and art. While the focus will be on Anglican and Episcopalian traditions, it's for anyone with an appreciation for liturgy. Plenary speakers will include Sam Wells, Mark Galli, Lester Ruth and David Taylor. Click here for more information.

Artful Is God // A Hymn by Richard Hall

Artful is God, creation is his canvas
on which he paints his cosmic masterpiece:
brushstrokes both broad and delicate in detail,
colours and shapes composed in perfect peace.

Read the full hymn here.

Music from The Gathering Church // Hymns Record Kickstarter Campaign

It's been a while since this blog has been updated, but this seems to be an appropriate topic for a return to posting. The Gathering Church of Durham is drawing on its congregation's phenomenal talent pool to produce an album of hymn arrangements, and they are raising money through Kickstarter to fund the project. Check out their video below, support their efforts, and look forward to some great folk-style sacred music coming soon out of the local community.



The Gathering Church is recording a new album of traditional hymns arranged in a different way with plenty of guests. It is a followup to 2010's Christmas Nights EP, a successful start to the recording vision of Chapel Hill's Gathering Church.

This project is larger in scale and needs your support. As it is a full length with guest vocalists, we need a larger recording budget and honorariums for the guests that appear on the record. Your money will go towards this and other expenses involved in manufacturing CDs and artwork along the way.

Proceeds from the recording after expenses will be split evenly between the production team and fundraising for the music ministry of the Gathering Church. Donations are to the church - a 501c3 non-profit - allowing them to be written off on your taxes.

Why the Church Needs Art // David LaMotte

Full article here // Excerpt below

By David LaMotte

To many people, art is superfluous or even distracting from what is truly important. It holds entertainment value, keeping people engaged, or perhaps pleasantly distracted, but is not substantive, and is certainly not integral. To others, it is fundamental; it is a door through which they enter into divine relationship. My heart breaks for the former category. I mourn that they do not get to feel what I feel when I am transported by a powerful piece of music (or dance or painting or sculpture or photography, etc., for that matter, though I primarily write of music here, which is my own primary artistic expression). Art is a way to worship and to be in relationship with God that cannot be replicated by other methods. It is an essential way to connect to God, and should not be discounted or minimized. There are several reasons for people of faith to take it seriously.

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TONIGHT AND TOMORROW in Durham // Duke Divinity School Broadway Revue

Come enjoy your favorite Broadway Tunes!
Admission is FREE!
Tickets are available at Duke Divinity School or by email request. [linnyb12@gmail.com]

Friday, April 15 and Saturday, April 16
Doors open at 6:30, show begins at 7:00
Hayti Heritage Center

804 Old Fayetteville Street

Durham, NC

Wild Goose Festival // An Arts, Music, Justice and Spirituality Festival in Pittsboro

Wild Goose Festival - June 23 - 26, 2011 Shakori Hills Farm, NC from Wild Goose on Vimeo.

The Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. We are followers of Jesus creating a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts. The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation. June 23-26, 2011.

Worship in Black and White // From Christianity Today

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Reynolds Chapman

Learning the history of the black church has also taught me how to prepare and lead worship. The black church in America was formed, in part, because white churches (as majority cultures are wont to do) assumed that blacks should assimilate into white, Western culture. Thus some African instruments, such as the talking drum, were banned because they were thought to be demonic. This led me to ask, In what ways are my assumptions and impulses in preparing worship music guided by white cultural bias? The cross-cultural tensions between black and white churches are, to be sure, complex, but this historical example helped me realize that I could not simply add a few black gospel songs to the worship set, but needed to think about ways to fully integrate black and white cultures into worship.

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The Hymns That Keep on Going // From Christianity Today

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Robert T. Coote

There are many ways to identify the most lasting or best loved hymns among American Protestants. But what would we find by looking at all 28 hymnals published by mainline Protestant denominations from the late 1800s to the present? Out of almost 5,000 hymns, how many would appear in all 28 hymnals?

Why limit this analysis to mainline Protestant denominations? For one thing, a comparable series of hymnals from evangelical denominations from the late 1800s does not exist. And the hymnals most widely used by evangelical denominations in the past 40 years have been produced by independent publishers and therefore lack clear precedents.

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One on One: Girl Talk, Computer Musician // An Interview with Greg Gillis

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Nick Bilton

Gregg Gillis, a musician who performs under the name Girl Talk, creates a unique style of music using a laptop computer to chop up and reuse mainstream pop songs. His work, which is heavily influenced by mathematics, manages to pair divergent genres of music, mixing Madonna and Black Sabbath. His work has also questioned copyright law and fair use with respect to digital music. The following is an edited version of an interview with Mr. Gillis.

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Hip-Hop Mosaic // From Faith & Leadership

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Jeff Strickler

To say that the Rev. Efrem Smith thinks outside the box isn’t entirely accurate. He doesn’t recognize the box in the first place. Not that others haven’t pointed it out to him, or even tried to put him in one from time to time. But he isn’t having any part of it.

It was an outlook he got early in life. Growing up in an integrated neighborhood in Minneapolis in the 1970s, he questioned why people gathered in segregated worship services on Sunday mornings.

Keep reading...

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Efrem Smith and Curtiss DeYoung will be teaching at the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconcilation's 2011 Summer Institute.

‘Kind of Blue’: Senior Debuts Jazz-Inspired Play About Male Identity // UNC Student Kuamel Stewart

Full article here // Excerpt below

Senior communication studies major Kuamel Stewart is passionate about jazz music and playwriting. He combines those two loves into one with the Feb. 23 debut of “Kind of Blue,” a play he wrote that explores male identity. The title of the play comes from the 1959 Miles Davis’ modal jazz album, “Kind of Blue.”

[...]

Preview night is 6 p.m. Feb. 23. The play will be performed Feb. 24-28 at 7 p.m. and Feb. 26-27 at 2 p.m in Playmakers Theatre, 202 E. Cameron Ave. After the Feb. 24 show, theater-goers can enjoy a free live performance of Miles Davis’ iconic album at 10 p.m. in Room 1201 of the Kenan Music Building as part of the Carolina Jazz Festival. Free tickets to the play are available at the Memorial Hall Box Office in person, by calling (919) 843-3333 or online at http://memorialhall.unc.edu. On March 1, the cast and crew will hold a “talk back” session to further explore the themes of masculinity at 7 p.m. in the Carmichael Dormitory ballroom.

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What is the Future of Traditional Church Music? // From the Daily Episcopalian

Full article here // Excerpt below

By George Clifford

Recently, I’ve participated in, or overheard, several conversations about church music. A well-known, respected authority on Episcopal liturgy openly declined to attend Morning Prayer at a conference we both attended because the service included Taizé music. These experiences evoked memories of conversations in my former parish between parishioners who wanted a variety of contemporary music (Taizé, jazz, guitars, praise choruses, etc.) and those who wanted only traditional music (i.e., classical, chant, or from the 1982 Hymnal).

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Singing Hallelujah with Fear in Your Heart // Arcade Fire and the Suburban Soul

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Paul Harvey

Has there been a major pop group more concerned with exploring personal anxieties, aspirations, and narratives through music defined so fundamentally by religious themes? The turmoil and paranoia of the last decade—wars, attacks, economic crashes, myriad color-coded fears—run through Arcade Fire’s three full-length records: Funeral, Neon Bible, and The Suburbs. The newest effort induces a tour of previous decades, when suburbia seemed (but only seemed) to offer placidity and refuge from the wilderness downtown.

[...]

From their debut, Funeral, and then most obviously and grandiosely in their last production, Neon Bible, religious desire, frustration, and anger define the lyrics. For some of the band’s critics, the group lays it on a bit thick. On Neon Bible, a crashing church organ accompanies a song about crippling inhibition and self-consciousness:

My body is a cage
that keeps me from dancing with the one I love
but my mind holds the key

set my body free, set my spirit free...

And a symphonic explosion of sound highlights the climax to “Intervention”:

Been working for the church while your life falls apart
been singing hallelujah with the fear in your heart

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North Africa's Hip Hop Protest Music // On the Media

Full story here



In the midst of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the protests elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East, a group of Libyan exiles who run a website called Khalas noticed one surprising common thread in the voicing of discontent … rap music. Across the region rap artists were providing the soundtrack to protests in the streets. So Khalas decided to contribute by releasing a mixtape of their own. Khalas co-founder Abdulla Darrat talks about the influence of hip hop in this latest round of protests.

Playing for Change // Songs Around The World

You've probably seen at least one of the videos from this album (like the one below), but be sure to check out the entire project from Playing for Change.

Sing Praises to God // Charles Pettee & FolkPsalm on Faith & Leadership

Full article here // Excerpt below

Musician Charles Pettee was reading a psalm one day when it occurred to him: This is a song! He began writing music based on Scripture and founded FolkPsalm, a band with a changing set of members ranging from Pettee performing solo to a full seven-piece band. Pettee hopes to make the ancient texts -- and their expression of God’s grace -- more accessible to audiences.

Keep reading...

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For those of you who were present when Charles and the group led worship in Goodson Chapel on January 19--or if you have seen or heard of FolkPsalm in other settings--what do you think of this project? Did you know that Charles often works with Duke Divinity professor Ellen Davis on texts for his songwriting? -- Sarah

Does One Need Sight to Grasp the World? // Brian Friel's 'Molly Sweeney' at Irish Rep (and Ken Medema)

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Ken Jaworowski

It takes two hours to watch “Molly Sweeney” at the Irish Repertory Theater. But you’ll spend much more time thinking about it afterward. A deeply moving meditation on hope, change and despair, it’s a compelling piece of theater, one in which the ending applause is only the beginning of the play’s effects.

Molly, who has been blind almost since birth, starts off by recounting her life, one blessed with friends and a recent marriage. Her ever-enthusiastic husband, Frank, embarks on a plan to restore her sight and seeks out Mr. Rice, a once-promising eye surgeon who has gone into near-seclusion. “What has she to lose?” Mr. Rice asks as he agrees to operate on her. That question will haunt them all.

Keep reading...

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Sidebar: This past weekend at the Calvin Symposium on Worship, I was blessed to be in a worship service and a songwriting workshop led by Ken Medema. Though blind from birth, Ken is one of the most effective songwriters and worship leaders I have come across. I encourage you to check out his work, and to consider this question: how do you think the lack of one of the five senses might hinder--or enhance--one's appreciation and/or creation of art and beauty?
-- Sarah

15th-Cent. English Composer vs. Kinetic Typography // New York Polyphony's Rendition of Beata Progenies - Video + Free Download

Full article here // Excerpt below

It’s safe to say that Lionel Power (d. 1445) could never have imagined the digital world we live in. I doubt he even dreamed that his music (handwritten in a few books) would survive beyond his death much less be sung by a group of guys living in city 3,000 miles away more than 500 years in the future.

[See video below. Sidebar: This song will be part of (and actually the theme of) the Duke Chapel Vespers Ensemble's spring concert in April. Stay tuned.]

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Move On Up // Angélique Kidjo’s Songs that Inspire the Struggle

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Nancy Rosenbaum

In our interview yesterday morning, Vincent Harding spoke about the galvanizing power of song during the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s. He also lamented that today’s “hip-hop young people” have not produced a soundtrack for their generation that can express the “great need and desire for a better world.”

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