John Waller is Billboard's top Christian recording artist to watch for 2007 . . .

(Does Billboard do the same for Jainists? Wiccans? I was about to add Scientologists, but I figure that's probably represented by half the mainstream artists.)

. . . and in this interview he describes how his church has invested in his missionary venture:

SouthLink isn't a large church, so how did it come to raise $50,000 to help you record your independent project?

Waller: For the first year-and-a-half, I had a lot of According to John CDs. One of them was an album that never got released. When we moved to Colorado, we had all these CDs on hand, so we decided that every family that came to the church would get one, allowing the music to minister to them and hoping they would pass that on to someone else to draw them to the church. After about a year-and-a-half, I began writing songs just for the people at SouthLink, inspired by them and what God was doing in the church. Each week I'd teach my worship team a new song, and after a while the people began asking, "When are we going to get this music?"

We cast a vision to raise money for this project and raised a little over $50,000 in four weeks. I also cast the vision to some of my friends back in Georgia. Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-Fil-A, is a friend of mine that I've known for a long time—his dad (and company founder) Truett Cathy was my Sunday school teacher—so he contributed a lot to the project. The church owns 75 percent of the recording, so there is a business advantage for SouthLink, too. Beach Street ended up purchasing a lot of those master recordings from the church. About four or five of the songs carried over from the indie project [to The Blessing], and I've also signed for a large portion of my royalties to go back to SouthLink.

Posted by jat at 04:36 PM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 12:10 AM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 12:17 AM | Permalink

Slate's Blogging the Bible covers Proverbs today, and the article sports a wonderful interfaith pun:

(This is less a proverb than a Zen koan. Or perhaps, since this is the Hebrew Bible we are talking about, a Zen Cohen.)

Also worth a look:  The hostile New Age takeover of Yoga.

Posted by jat at 08:39 PM | Permalink

The New Testament uses running a race as a metaphor for the Christian life. In Utah, though, a teen runner had her first-place-finish stripped from her because she chose to wear a symbol of her faith in a race. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

After finishing first in the 100 meters in the Region 3 championship meet last May, Jazmine Wittman appeared to have all the momentum she needed headed into the state meet, at the same distance.
    But a small piece of jewelry robbed Wittman of her momentum, and her region title.
    The Hunter sprinter was disqualified after it was discovered she was wearing a leather necklace during the race. Wittman thought nothing of it.
    She wore the necklace bearing a religious symbol - a fish - often.
    Wittman never suspected the piece would cause her any trouble.
    "I thought you could wear a religious necklace," Wittman said. "It wasn't even hanging. It was tight, too. I guess they saw it and disqualified me."
    The Utah High School Activities Association Rule 4-3-3, 9-6-7 states "contestants shall not wear jewelry with the exception of religious or medical medals . . ."
    Wittman may have protested the ruling, though her necklace was not a "medal," it was religious in nature. She did not, however. . . .
    These days, Wittman is more cautious. All of her jewelry stays at home when she heads for the track.
    "I don't even wear earrings anymore because I don't want to take them out," Wittman said

Posted by jat at 01:23 AM | Permalink

The Doctor is described at one point as a "lonely god". He has something close to the perspective of a god: he can munch, if he so chooses, his breakfast bagel shortly after the Big Bang and have supper the same day in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. But he does not have the power of a god: he can't go back and change the course of events. So everybody he cares about or ever will care about is always already dead; every companion he picks up will, sooner or later, be gone. I've mentioned before, in connection with this, T S Eliot's notion that if "all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable". Eliot was interested (inter alia) in the theology of this; Russell T Davies in the psychology.

Posted by jat at 08:59 PM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 09:13 PM | Permalink

jesus jewelry, originally uploaded by LAL 'MURDERDEAFKILL' SANDOZ.

From the original post: "After his death, Jesus went into the jewelry trade under a cunning alias."

Posted by jat at 02:29 AM | Permalink

DSC_5816, originally uploaded by dogseat.

. . . according to this article from the Houston Chronicle.

The news story is excellent, offering a concise history & giving good quote on the significance of jewelry for personal meaning. As for the rosary pictured here--well, it kind of has a bit of Life on Mars vibe to it, and we like Life on Mars.

HT (the article, not the pic): Jennifer Emick.

Posted by jat at 09:23 AM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 09:39 PM | Permalink

This morning my eyes pretty much popped out of my head when I saw the following headline:  "Promising virginity to dad."  Was this a modern variant on the fate of Jepthah's daughter? 

Things got curiouser & curiouser when I clicked through to the actual op-ed, which described the history of "Purity Balls."  Besides providing yet another example of the importance of being sensitive to double entendres, Purity Balls are dances in which daughters pledge to their fathers that they will remain virgins until they are married.  The father is the girl's date and dancing partner; the mother is to look on approvingly from the sidelines. 

For a more critical perspective on the gender relations implicit in the dance, check out the op-ed.

Posted by jat at 02:14 PM | Permalink

Hear a different voice, originally uploaded by trexfiles23.

At one point, a woman wearing a fashionable mini dress was an image of personal freedom. This ad for International Public Radio portrays it as an image of black-and-white conformity . . . in contrast to the colorable difference of Islamic women's headwear.

Posted by jat at 12:56 PM | Permalink

Looks like it's not just my sleepy evening students who think I'm an opiate of the people.

Posted by jat at 07:11 PM | Permalink

For St. Patrick's Day, here's a helpful guide to the symbolic significance of Irish jewelry, courtesy of your #1 guide to holidays & world faith, which is also well worth visiting today for the link to a sharp takedown of The Secret.

Posted by jat at 04:09 PM | Permalink

Readers familiar with Genesis 25-7 will no doubt recall the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob had smooth skin; Esau looked like he was covered in red fur. Their mom favored Jacob, and the rest is history.

Why do I mention this? Today, Andrew Sullivan links to a report on a new scientific article that offers a new scientific explanation of why humans are not furry like other mammals. The family drama sounds all too familiar:

Harris' theory is that this kind of parental selection may have been an important force in evolution. If Stone Age people believed that hairless babies were more attractive than hairy ones, this could explain why humans are the only apes lacking a coat of fur. Harris suggests that Neanderthals must have been furry in order to survive the Ice Age. Our species would have seen them as "animals" and potential prey. Harris’ hypothesis continues that Neanderthals went extinct because human ancestors ate them.

Ouch.

Posted by jat at 01:54 PM | Permalink

Conflict diamonds have long been in the news, but what about the ethics of gold?  A writer from New Scientist's Environment Blog went to Africa to see exactly what it took to make his gold wedding band:

it takes two tonnes of rock, blasted from the face, then hauled to the surface, ground up and treated with cyanide, to provide enough for my 10-gram ring. That’s one hell of a footprint for one ring.

 

And on top of that, making my ring required 5 tonnes of water, 30 tonnes of air pumped underground to keep the mine cool, enough electricity to run a large house for several days – and about 10 man-hours of labour. Now, as then, most underground workers are shipped in from villages in Mozambique and Lesotho and Kwazulu-Natal. And, even in the post-apartheid era, they are paid less than $10 a day.

 

 

Madness? You might think so. But in the biggest gold reserve on Earth, hundreds of thousands of miners and their families depend on the money that you and I pay out for our gold jewellery.

It's an old ethical dilemma.  The miners are arguably mistreated, yet if we boycott their product for gold marketed as more ethical or environmentally friendly, they stand to lose their livelihoods.  

Still, one has to wonder whether it is consistent to lay such a great burden on poor miners in order to proclaim that one's own burden is light?  

Posted by jat at 12:07 AM | Permalink

I thought that baiting men because they wear jewelry was long past.  Guess I was wrong.  From the New York Times, of all things:

Devon Turnbull, a young designer who is part of a Manhattan fashion collective called Nom de Guerre, is not what you’d call a mama’s boy — but he does like wearing her pearls. A few years ago, when she gave them to him, he had all 109 restrung onto a gold-link chain that hangs below his waist, like something between a prayer shawl and an overextended rosary. He took up pearl wearing for complex spiritual reasons having to do with Transcendental Meditation and a system of Vedic astrology called Jyotish. “But I also just always liked pearls,” Turnbull says.

 

At first his friends told him: “Oh, come on, you’re a straight guy. You can’t go out wearing pearls like that.” His simple response, “Why not?”

 

Posted by jat at 04:10 PM | Permalink

New Scientist this week has a stellar (literally) cover article this week on the controversy over whether the universe is fractal:

Cosmology is founded on the assumption that when you look at the universe at the vastest scales, matter is spread more or less evenly throughout space. Cosmologists call this a "smooth" structure. But a small band of researchers, led by statistical physicist Luciano Pietronero of the University of Rome and the Institute of Complex Systems, Italy, argues that this assumption is at odds with what we can see. Instead they claim that the galaxies form a structure that isn't smooth at all: some parts of it have lots of matter, others don't, but the matter always falls into the same patterns, in large and small versions, at whatever scale you look. In other words, the universe is fractal.

Click the link above for more.   And if this theory's true, there's no better way to be in harmony with the cosmic sphere than by wearing fractal jewelry, such as this belt buckle by Allegria Designs.

Posted by jat at 12:55 AM | Permalink

Well, not mine, but Nelly Reifler's. Ms. Reifler writes "A Searcher in the City, an insightful column on the search for meaning, for Nextbook: A Gateway to Jewish Literature, Culture & Ideas. This month the subject is her SO, who happens to be from a Christadelphian family. In the course of explaining his familial faith, he explains that the Christadelphians don't wear the same jewelry as other Christians.

One of the things you commonly see among Christian believers is they wear crosses. Christadelphians don't. Instead, those who wear jewelry, usually the young people, wear Stars of David.

Posted by jat at 11:11 PM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 09:02 PM | Permalink

In St. Louis, Missouri, a nondenominational Christian couple decides they need something more.  They convert to Russian Orthodoxy and open an Orthodox store.

Believe it or not, the store is now almost eight years old.  How can it survive in Midwestern (and Catholic) St. Louis?  Besides the usual Orthodox stuff, lifestyle products are a key part of the inventory.  Here's what the owners have to say about the unusual mix:

"The shop also carries pottery from Russell Pottery, glasswork from Clarksville Glassworks and a line of natural skin creams and lip balms, all from Clarksville. And it features jewelry by Pam MacDonald of Maplewood.

To the Millses, the combination of religious books and icons with beautiful art is not unusual.

"In our faith, we believe beautiful things help draw the soul toward God, so we're always looking for something that's beautiful and preferably made by an individual," Stephen Mills said.

"(Russian author Fyodor) Dostoevsky said beauty will save the soul, so we look for beautiful things," Stephen Mills said. "There's nothing more beautiful than Jesus Christ, but we look for these beautiful things that people have made out of love and try to have them in our store.""
 

Posted by jat at 11:53 PM | Permalink

The chart pictured above may represent one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 21st (or even the 20th) century:  the first solid evidence of the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle "thought to give everything in the universe its mass."

As this article in the New Scientist relates, the possibility that we may have proof of the existence of the Higgs boson has the science world buzzing.  The story unfolded last January, after John Conway presented his discovery on a physics blog and an Italian scientist blogged about data that also seemed to point toward the Higgs boson.  At present the statistical analysis doesn't allow formally classifying it as the God particle--there is at a present a 1 in 50 chance that the data reflects a random fluctuation, whereas a particle is typically recognized only when there's a 1 in 10 million chance.  Still,

"It's like the first few pages of a thriller," says (Oxford's John) March-Russell. "You get the first little hint that something strange is happening and that things are not quite what they seem. Then the evidence accumulates. We are turning the first few pages of this very interesting story."

Which got me thinking.  Nowhere in the New Scientist story do you see scientists hammering John Conway or the rest of the Fermilab/CERN teams for blogging about their discovery, for not waiting for peer review or for presenting a hypothesis based on what they admit is, if it stops here, a statistically insignificant deviation from the norm.  Everyone involved, even the skeptics, sees the observed data as something that merits further inquiry, and so the discussion proceeds.   

There's a lesson here for efforts to dismiss the latest inquiries into the Talpiot tomb as per se unscholarly or statistically irrelevant.  Whatever the ultimate determination, calling attention to a suggestive pattern & putting the data out for the world to examine is not inherently irresponsible.  It's what advancing knowledge is all about, especially in a field of study where some say a certain phenomenon is impossible. 

The supersymmetric Higgs, the ivory billed woodpecker, Jesus bones or life on Mars--"as with many groundbreaking discoveries, the initial evidence raises more questions than it answers."  But we'll never have the answers if we beat down those who dare to ask.

Posted by jat at 10:49 PM | Permalink

Fashionista links to an informative AP article on Models for Christ, the Christian ministry for the fashion world. Here's an excerpt on the group's origin and approach:

"There's a lot of pressure to do the alcohol ad or get in your underwear or do whatever publication you don't want to do. But we don't need to bow down in order to be blessed in what we do," said Roman Watson, a 29-year-old model who has done work for Ralph Lauren, Nike and Macy's. "I want to encourage everyone to be a Christian first and a model second."

Watson said models are often afraid to reveal their moral boundaries on shoots, for fear that it could end their careers. But he urged those gathered at Models for Christ to follow their hearts and they would ultimately be rewarded with work.

"We can be fearful of a client ... but we should be fearful of the King of Kings," he said. "God is able to bless you. He's got more connections than the entire world."

Jeff and Laura Calenberg were both models when they founded Models for Christ with a small group of participants. Jeff Calenberg said he wanted to not only provide a place for Christians in the industry to gather, but also provide an example for those not living a necessarily spiritual life.

Posted by jat at 12:05 PM | Permalink

Today's Wall St. Journal has a wonderful feature article on the latest Japenese trends.  Among them:  Christon Cafe, a chain of church theme restaurants.  Here's more about Christon and a patron's sense of style:

 

Signing on to one trend or another, meanwhile, lets people express individuality while feeling part of something larger -- an important consideration in a society where the order provided by families and corporations has been gradually breaking down.

 

Dining With Crucifixes

The Christon Café in Tokyo's bustling Shibuya district is reached by a dungeon-like brick stairwell, lit by dripping red candles, which leads to a dining area decorated with giant crucifixes, gargoyles and images of a bloodied Christ weeping on the cross. The menu includes such fare as the "Small Devil" cocktail flavored with strawberry cream and cassis, and "God-made Hamburger" (meatballs with cheese and rice, $6.50).

Yukako Ishii is a regular. On weekends, the 27-year-old artist pulls on a pair of black stockings, a ruffled black baby-doll dress with a black petticoat and a frilly black velvet jacket. The look, called "Goth-Loli" -- Goth meets Lolita -- updates Japan's popular baby-doll look with black Victorian-style clothes and dark eye makeup. Ms. Ishii meets her Goth-Loli friends at Christon, which they liken to a European cathedral. "Once I go inside, I forget everything outside," she says. (The company that operates Christon says it has no plans to take the concept overseas.)

Posted by jat at 11:12 AM | Permalink

The Bead Cage is an Ohio store that markets its jewelry & design classes by highlighting their spiritual effects.  Here's the impression it made on one reporter:

As I focus my attention on a handful of pretty beads, the outer world fades away. Time slows down and my mind becomes quiet. Working out a new jewelry design won't solve the day's problems, but will at least improve my attitude toward them.

And my experience isn't unique. "You can work through your troubles with beads," Julie Walker says.

The owner of The Bead Cage says people from all walks of life come to her store, take jewelry classes, heal and grow. "You can see the physical/spiritual transformation," she says.

The process of beading can indeed comfort the soul, and the results can be stunning.

Posted by jat at 10:13 PM | Permalink

Voodoo/Witchcraft/Weirdo Kilt Pin, originally uploaded by Tracy Goh.

Posted by jat at 10:57 AM | Permalink

You might call it "Rocking the Cradle of Christianity"--to the left is the now infamous "Judah son of Jesus" ossuary, which just happens to be on display at the Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  The news story linked above has a marvelous example of a museum director who doesn't want to offend his most likely customers, but at the same time wants to leverage the publicity to draw people in.  Compare the following two quotes:

"Jesus was a very popular name. Let's not jump to conclusions," said Irvin Lippman of the Museum of Art. . . . .

"The exhibition is very important because it goes to the roots of Christianity, and I would think it's made even more important, thanks to James Cameron," Lippman said.  

How did I know that the ossuary was in Florida?  By reading James Tabor's consistently measured and informative Jesus Dynasty Blog, which has been an invaluable source of hard data on the Talpiot tomb.  Critics who have rejected his work as archeoporn miss a crucial point about the nature of good scholarship, which is to gather evidence, propose a hypothesis and and lay it all out for the world to test--perhaps even to come up with a better explanation. 

And speaking of scholarship, perhaps the worst in my mind was the failure of the original tomb excavators not to photograph the remains.  We keep hearing that the name Yeshua was popular--and it was--but given the signifance of a man named Yeshua, son of a man named Joseph, we owe it to history to inquire as to whether the remains of a 1st century Yeshua bore any signs of crucifixion. 

Posted by jat at 06:53 PM | Permalink

Every time I here that such-and-such American invented social enterprise a few years, I hurl laugh.  People have been creating innovative businesses for a higher purpose for centuries; without them, we wouldn't even have such nifty devices as the number zero or double-entry bookkeeping. 

As a nod to this rich history, today I want to highlight Dolls of India, a site that sells Hindu figures and jewelry.  It also has informative histories describing the items they sell.  To the left:  Lord Shiva with Goddess Parvati.

And in completely unrelated news, while prepping for a meeting (and writing this post) I've been listening to the recent Fresh Air interview with Dan Gilgoff, who has a new book called The Jesus Machine chronicling the rise of James Dobson.  Click here for the interview and scroll over to minute 26 for a description of how Hillary Clinton started wearing a crucifix in the last election to win support from Christian voters.

Posted by jat at 03:59 PM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 11:09 AM | Permalink

Canadian teen Asmahan Mansour "was ejected from an indoor soccer tournament last weekend in Quebec because she refused to remove her religious head scarf, known as a hijab.

The referee ruled her hijab a safety concern and the issue went all the way to the world's soccer regulator, FIFA. Officials decided Saturday to maintain Law 4 which states players 'must not use equipment or wear anything that is dangerous to himself or another player (including any kind of jewelry).'"

Posted by jat at 07:52 AM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 11:18 AM | Permalink

A couple days ago I featured Evolving God, an engaging new book on the origins of religious sensibility.  Here's an interesting Chicago Sun Times interview with the book's author, Barbara J. King:

From what deep emotional well does the human impulse for religion spring?

Anthropologist Barbara J. King, author of the new book Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion, argues that religion is rooted in our social and emotional connections with each other -- connections that existed even in our ancient ancestors millions of years ago.

Today, she says, we can see and study these "foundations of religious behavior" -- qualities such as empathy and imagination -- in chimpanzees and gorillas. These distant cousins, she says, are "pretty good stand-ins" for our early human ancestors."

In a conversation with Salon writer Steve Paulson, King singled out a remarkable moment at Brookfield Zoo on Aug. 16, 1996, as evidence for her theory. Here's the exchange:

Q. Are chimpanzees and gorillas empathic creatures?

A. Yes, they are. Many people may remember an incident that happened 10 years ago at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. A female called Binti Jua was sitting with her gorilla family when a toddler tumbled into that enclosure, to the real horror of onlookers. Here's this little kid lying on the pavement with these large gorillas. Binti Jua had an infant on her body. She walked over, picked up this human boy, carried him to the zoo staff and got him to safety. This has been interpreted by primatologists as empathy. She's a mother who had youngsters; she saw that there was a hurt child and lots of very upset adults; and she solved the problem. There are also lots of examples in wild chimpanzees

Q. Tell me about one of those stories from Africa.

A. A chimpanzee female named Tina was killed by a bite to the neck by a leopard. She had been living in a community of chimpanzees for quite a long time. The group didn't just pull at her body or tug at it or ignore it. Rather, the dominant male of the group sat with her body for five hours. He kept away all the other infants and protected the body from any harm. With one exception. He let through the younger brother of Tina, a 5-year-old called Tarzan. That's the only youngster who was allowed to come forward. And the youngster sat at his sister's side and pulled on her hand and touched her body. I think this is not just a random occurrence. The dominant male was able to recognize the close emotional bond between Tina and Tarzan, and he acted empathically.

When I first read about that story, I was amazed. So I began to talk to people in the zoo world. And there has been a very interesting transformation lately in how deaths in great ape families are managed. When an ape dies, it's becoming a regular practice to allow the family to approach the body and say goodbye. If the ape simply disappears, it's much harder for them to cope.

Posted by jat at 03:58 PM | Permalink

Popsugar recently posted an update on the latest religious stylings of Britney Spears.  What is the significance of her new Star of David necklace?  Has she gone back to the Kabbalah?  Have the approaching terrible twos led her to apostasize from her belief that "my baby is my religion"?  Click here for pictures and more speculation.

Posted by jat at 10:06 AM | Permalink

I was going to call attention to the inconsistency of using a diamond cross to "display your faith," but then I noticed that the price is only twenty dollars. It's a mustard-seed diamond, so I guess that's OK.

Posted by jat at 12:46 AM | Permalink

This is the Makapansgat Cobble, the oldest known iconographic object in the world.  Around three million years ago, an early hominid carried this stone around presumably because of the stone appeared to bear the image of a face.   "This, in a nutshell, is how what we call ‘art’ began. "

And it may also be how faith began.  William & Mary anthropologist Barbara King's engaging new book, Evolving God, examines how early art and social structures reflect the emergence of religious sensibility.  

Read it now, and when your friends tell you about next Sunday's New York Times Magazine feature on the evolution of religion you can act bored and tell them you knew all that before it was popular.

Posted by jat at 09:16 AM | Permalink