'postmodern' songs?

Pete W has lent me 'Colossians Remixed' by Walsh and Keesmaat. intro is about postmodern world view interesting stuff. explains a lot about why people cannot get 'into' following jesus as an 'all-out' 'all-in' way. in this way of thinking everything people tell you you ought to believe is treated with suspicion, and no-one can claim to have found 'the' truth. Everyone might have a but of a truth and you can choose which bits of which truths to believe in.
to illustrate their point about suspicion of all the 'imposed ideologies' of the past they quote form 2 songs, leonard cohen ' the future' and smashing pumpkins ' bullet with butterfly wings. both worth a listen.

cohen links st. paul with 'stalin and the berlin wall' ! later he includes Hiroshima and Christ in the list. For cohen all these things are totally debunked.

the pumpkins ask 'what do I get, for my pain? answer: 'Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game' ie you cant believe in anything- it only leads to pain

interestingly both songs mention jesus - seems he is no more trustworthy than the rest of them!

so what's the implication? a) when we talk to people about the Jesus we believe in, many people will have these thoughts in their head - they are predisposed to disbelieve. b) we probably have a bit of this way of thinking ourselves!
leonard cohen - the future
YouTube - The Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings

lyrics to pumpkins song

lyrics to cohen song

Has Woody Allen been reincarnated?

Reading Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz for the second time (got to the end first time round and decided i just had to go back and highlight all the 'cool' things he says!) he is like a Christian Woody Allen - all angst and introspection - but not just about girls, about most things in life, especially his Christian faith. Some seriously funny bits, so be warned. he is a new breed of Christian writers, like Rob Bell, who are sort of re-defining the Christian Faith for this generation. So much of what they say resonates with me. It is not so much that they deconstruct the previous Christian worldview, which is fairly obvious and easy for anyone, it is that they write from their own experiences and from their own hearts about why that worldview (or perhaps churchview) does not work for them. They then paint a picture of what the way of Jesus looks like to them.

Miller writes from the experiences of his friendships, and disarmingly passes on his friends wisdom, as if he hasn't got his own views. But he has, and they are 'beautiful' as he would say. Oh, and he doesn't want to talk about 'Christianity' anymore 'because what does that mean anyway?' he wants to talk about 'Christian Spirituality' - Whatever term he uses, let him, he does it so charmingly in a way you want to go with him, even if he is a bit 'flaky and all'.