Pelican Show-3/26/09

Smoke, beer, and dudes with hair longer than their girlfriends. What does it add up to? The swirling synthetic synopsis of a metal show with the headliner Pelican, ending the chaos like triumphant Norse raiders pillaging their conquered stage. Residual effects would be the show, primary causes would be their new album. But in this case the residual effects mesmerize the crowd with droning chants of distorted splendor. And then…

Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder, the bass player only says, ‘Check’. Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder, sound waves slice your shins. Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder the pace resurrects, again. Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder, double bass detonates like cannons from a warship. Just when you thought it could not get louder, the guitar player switches the overdrive on, Just when you thought it couldn’t get louder your ears feel like their bleeding…hearts alive, ears dying, hearts alive, music still going.

These four men were as samurai gods of metal music, blasting through beats with shinobi like precision. Lighting from the gods in heaven cracks the pavement of the crowd with melodies deeply intoxicating. Never have I seen a guitar player so rhythmically meticulous. Drummer so subtly supportive. If Pelican was an ancient Greek temple the drums would be the mighty pillars holding up the outside, strong, sure, confident. The guitar players were as mirrored echoes of the sacrifice resounding in the halls of the temple. A mirror because they play with an afflicted precision. Echoes because they continually faded in and out of the glory of the solo. Both catalytically combining to combust the sweeping fury of raw glory prophesied before the origins of the mammoth to abolish silence and arrest all consciousness. Inauguration complete, Pelican has taken the stage.

More from Machen on Culture

Here a hope for the church found only in the miraculous power of God to raise her from the dead, just like he did His faithful Son,

"The great current of modern culture will sooner or later engulf her puny eddy. God will save her somehow--out of the depths. But the labour of centuries will have been swept away. God grant that the Church may not resign herself to that. God grant she may face her problem squarely and bravely. That problem is not easy. It involves the very basis of her faith. Christianity is the proclamation of an historical fact--that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Modern thought has no place for that proclamation. It prevents men even from listening to the message. Yet the culture of today cannot simply be rejected as a whole. It is not like the pagan culture of the first century. It is not wholly non-Christian. Much of it has been derived directly from the Bible. There are significant movements in it, going to waste, which might well be used for the defence of the gospel. The situation is complex. Easy wholesale measures are not in place. Discrimination, investigation is necessary. Some of modern thought must be refuted. The rest must be made subservient. But nothing in it can be ignored. He that is not with us is against us. Modern culture is a mighty force. It is either subservient to the gospel or else it is the deadliest enemy of the gospel. For making it subservient, religious emotion is not enough, intellectual labour is also necessary. And that labour is being neglected. The Church has turned to easier tasks. And now she is reaping the fruits of her indolence. Now she must battle for her life."

Rise up church and fight, for your redemption draws near.

Taken from Christianity and Culture

Culture vs Christianity

A few quotes from J. Gresham Machen on Culture and Christianity. My only question is if a Presbyterian wrote this, and if its really about subverting and using the diversity of culture to the glory of God, why then do they all look the same? Oh well, its all grace, even them. Otherwise grace would not be grace.

"There are no labour-saving devices in evangelism. It is all hand-work."

This is why people complain about it, and say its hard, or make stupid excuses not to go out and talk to people. If you dont, it just means your weak. Deal with it people. Do hard work. Its called being a Christian. Like Dr. Clark says, "Plan for disaster, be a Calvinist."

"False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervour of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion"

Here is why the modern world rejects Christianity,

"On the contrary, rejection of Christianity is due in the vast majority of cases simply to indifference. Only a few men have given the subject real attention. The vast majority of those who reject the gospel do so simply because they know nothing about it. But whence comes this indifference? It is due to the intellectual atmosphere in which men are living. The modern world is dominated by ideas which ignore the gospel. Modern culture is not altogether opposed to the gospel. But it is out of all connection with it. It not only prevents the acceptance of Christianity. It prevents Christianity even from getting a hearing"

Speak church, fight, stand, or die.