As someone who sincerely appreciated Carlson’s speech at the Heritage Foundation (below), and as someone who is grateful to God for Battle For the American Mind, I am very indebted to you.
I’ve never been a successful drummer, but I know that we all need that extreme, personality in every pretentious group. Please have a glass of water handy for the spit-takes that are sure to come in the videos below:
Here’s the ultimate “what’s so great about your fourteen year old?” challenge. As much as I enjoy the following story, the music itself is what slays me. I can’t imagine being prevented from hearing these harmonies! It makes me excited to think of celestial choirs. The below story is taken from here.
“Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is widely considered to be one of the greatest musical geniuses to live. A child prodigy, who was excellent at playing music before even reaching the age of 10, Mozart has many interesting stories surrounding his life. One such story, being perhaps the most fascinating one, is the story of “Miserere Mei, Deus.” This song, translated as “Have Mercy on Me, O God,” was a song composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII in the early 1600s. It was written by a man named Gregorio Allegri, for use exclusively in the Sistine Chapel. It was played as part of the exclusive Triduum services around Easter Time. Thus, no one could reproduce it or play it anywhere else, as only the Sistine Chapel had access to the song.* It was forbidden to transcribe or play the music anywhere else, and doing so would result in excommunication. It remained a secret for nearly 150 years.”
Here’s one of my favorite recordings of the Miserere. Listening will help you appreciate the power of this story, and if you can’t listen to the whole thing, listen to the first 45″ and from 3:10 to 4:10.
“This is the point where 14-year-old Mozart comes in. While visiting Rome, Mozart went to the Sistine Chapel and heard the song. He was enchanted by the beautiful music. Later that day, Mozart went home and, amazingly, wrote down the piece entirely from memory. You may be thinking, what is so impressive about this? However, this shows how much of a true musical genius Mozart was. Transcribing a song is incredibly difficult, especially hearing it only one time. It is very easy to mess up similar sounding notes, and remembering the song from only one listen is also incredibly challenging. However, what I just told you was the difficulty of transcribing a normal song. What Mozart transcribed was Miserere Mei, Deus, a 15 minute long, 9 part choral song. Essentially, Mozart transcribed 9 different lines of melody, playing all at once for 15 minutes straight, from his own memory after hearing the song only once. Not only was he able to transcribe the song, but he also did it nearly perfectly in one try.”
“Mozart would go back a few days later to make corrections to his transcription. Eventually, it was discovered that he had made this piece. However, Mozart was never punished. Instead, the Pope summoned him and commended him for his immense feat of musical genius.”
*I have seen other sources suggested two other copies were allowed outside of the Vatican: for the Holy Roman Emperor, and for the King of Spain. But the main idea stands!
From the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center: On the day Solzhenitsyn was arrested, February, 12, 1974, he released the text of “Live Not by Lies.” The next day, he was exiled to the West, where he received a hero’s welcome. This moment marks the peak of his fame. Solzhenitsyn equates “lies” with ideology, the illusion that human nature and society can be reshaped to predetermined specifications. And his last word before leaving his homeland urges Soviet citizens as individuals to refrain from cooperating with the regime’s lies. Even the most timid can take this least demanding step toward spiritual independence. If many march together on this path of passive resistance, the whole inhuman system will totter and collapse.
There was a time when we dared not rustle a whisper. But now we write and read samizdat and, congregating in the smoking rooms of research institutes, heartily complain to each other of all they are muddling up, of all they are dragging us into! There’s that unnecessary bravado around our ventures into space, against the backdrop of ruin and poverty at home; and the buttressing of distant savage regimes; and the kindling of civil wars; and the ill-thought-out cultivation of Mao Zedong (at our expense to boot)—in the end we’ll be the ones sent out against him, and we’ll have to go, what other option will there be? And they put whomever they want on trial, and brand the healthy as mentally ill—and it is always “they,” while we are—helpless.
We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble:
“But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.”
We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence. We have lost our strength, our pride, our passion. We do not even fear a common nuclear death, do not fear a third world war (perhaps we’ll hide away in some crevice), but fear only to take a civic stance! We hope only not to stray from the herd, not to set out on our own, and risk suddenly having to make do without the white bread, the hot water heater, a Moscow residency permit.
Mike Pence’s presence on the Trump ticket has always been confounding to me. How someone who refers to his own wife as “Mother” can stand by the Stormy-Daniels-hush-money episodes is bewildering to me. How a Manhattan narcissist could select an Indiana governor, beleaguered by passing RFRA legislation, befuddles me.
I was especially thrown for a loop when, impeachment looming, so many conservative (and especially Evangelical) supporters preferred to see Trump come through unscathed in Jan 2020, instead of seeing impeachment as a gift that removed all the troublesome aspects of the Republican ticket (namely, POTUS himself) and put Pence in the Oval Office. This would give you all the conservative policy and judges, without the narcissism and bad tweets. But almost unanimously, the circles I traveled in preferred a dumpster fire to a sputtering candle.
Now that Pence has refused to monkey with the electoral ballots, a portion of Trump’s supporters show their true feelings for the VP.
video of Trump riot chanting “hang Mike Pence” inside the US Capitol
Now a thoughtful critic might say, “If this administration has taught us anything, words are cheap. Don’t take the mindless chanting of the mob as worth very much.” To which, I agree, and yet they brought visuals:
Do I really believe they would have lynched or executed the VP? No, because I doubt their resilience, but not because I believe in their sanity or moral character.
It is clear that on Jan 6th, 2021, VP Pence did the right thing in certifying the electoral ballots and calling for the National Guard. We will undoubtedly learn more good that he has done to be a preserving and sanctifying presence in the White House administration.
But this episode reveals what those who voted for him (admittedly, a perhaps small minority) really thought of him. His presence in this administration will continue to be a closely scrutinized and problematic issue for the movements of conservativism and Evangelicalism for decades to come. As Michael Horton recently wrote in “The Cult of Christian Trumpism,” anyone who fails to “touch not the Lord’s anointed” will fall into the wrath of the cult. Pence’s behavior, and subsequent treatment, might be the most recent proof of this truth.
Over at 9Marks, there is a helpful discussion on whether/if a church could ever civilly disobey the various quarantine/shelter-in-place orders.
There are several helpful insights in the conversation. Jamieson gives a rough ‘n’ ready nugget when he points out that Acts 5:29 (“we must obey God rather than man”) is a helpful prooftext and “warranted when Government commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands.” Listen (even better, subscribe!) to the whole conversation.
The recent tragedy at the Florida high school has once again left Americans in agony to deal with the violence within our culture. Christians are often forced to deal with these headlines in a mix of their faith, the latest claims screaming for their attention on social media, their own cultural biases, and more.
I’ve found the following links helpful for thinking about the recent tragedy.
Washington had finally hit upon a way to win this seemingly unwinnable war – not through military brilliance but by slowly and relentlessly wearing the enemy down. Throughout the month of June, Washington displayed a cool resolve that was in stark contrast to the fiery pugnacity of just a few months before. Not everyone was sure they approved of Washington’s unwillingness to engage the enemy. Some in his own army dismissed what they called Washington’s “Fabian” strategy (in reference to Fabius Maximus, the Roman leader who defeated Hannibal through a war of attrition) as unnecessarily cautious. But Washington remained resolute. “We have some among us, and I dare say generals,” he wrote to Joseph Reed on June 23, “who… think the cause is not to be advanced otherwise than by fighting…But as I have one great end in view, I shall maugre all the strokes of this kind, steadily pursue the means which, in my judgment, leads to the accomplishment of it, not doubting but that the candid part of mankind, if they are convinced of my integrity, will make proper allowances for my inexperience and frailties. Valiant Ambition, p. 104
The recent tragedy at the Florida high school has once again left Americans in agony to deal with the violence within our culture. Christians are often forced to deal with these headlines in a mix of their faith, the latest claims screaming for their attention on social media, their own cultural biases, and more. 
Brian J. Lund 