Reviews, Part 7

Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 6 -- Part 8 -- Part 9
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Next on the playlist!

Here are the album reviews I've written since July.  As usual, clicking on the album covers will take you to the band's music where you can listen to and/or download the album in full.  The hyperlinks will take you to my reviews.

In other now-belated news, I have officially joined Jason Spencer as a contributor to his website, The PROG Mind, a site devoted specifically to a more thematic discussion of music (not simply cursory reviews).  I'm excited to devote my attention specifically to progressive rock (which I've always tended to do anyway) and also focus on the deeper nuances of what I'm listening to (which I've, uh, always tended to do anyway).  I'll still be posting to The Phantom Tollbooth, but The PROG Mind will be a better venue for writing about the obscure music I'm passionate about and actually have the content reach other fans.

~*~

Corvus Stone - Unscrewed (Finland)

Unscrewed maintains the quirky, self-aware, musical satire that characterizes the band’s previous material, and is a collection of radically transformed tracks from Corvus Stone I and II.

Maddison's Thread - Maddison's Thread (UK)

Maddison’s Thread is a strong, mature debut: an old soul wrapped in deceptively modern packaging.

Barock Project - Skyline (Italy)

The stellar, 70's-progressive-style fourth album from Barock Project.

Andrew Peterson - The Burning Edge of Dawn (USA)

Andrew Peterson’s 11th studio release is yet another solid record – a lush and reverent celebration of the work that God is still doing.

Feelings and Freedom

I'm 26 today.  There's that.

I guess I'll spend my birthday post this year riffing about freedom.

People misunderstand the premise.  Most folks who talk about personal freedoms and the importance of individuality, tolerance, etc all imply a faulty premise, and that is that freedom is the right to do anything I want.  Disney's OS, "follow your heart," has a lot of resonance with a culture that says life is what you make it and appeals to no higher authority than the self.

Shocker: that line of thinking is fundamentally flawed.

Thankfully, the Word of God sheds illumination to this point.  The Apostle Peter, in his second epistle, records the following concerning false teachers who peddle feelings-based religion:

These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm...  for, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.  They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.  For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. (2 Pet 2.17-19)

The lie that false prophets always push is that their method brings true freedom.  Their cleanse diet, their Hail Mary's, their Kool Aid, their new spin on an old concept.  But the reality is, no matter the gift-wrapped pill they offer, it is still based on self-servitude.  In other words, I do something to make me feel spiritually heightened.  The problem therefore is not with the desire to assuage guilt or baggage, but with the insatiable need to do something to feel something.

That's the freeing nature of the gospel -- not that we no longer have to feel or that we shouldn't want to feel things, but that we no longer have to feel things as a basis for a sense of spiritual wellness.  What overcomes me is no longer my overwhelming desires -- "I must eat," "I must find love" -- but the love, grace, mercy, and motivation of Jesus Christ.

My doing anything is a passionate response to grace, not a desperate quest for it.

Faith in Jesus enables me to be truly free.  While I'm not free in the popular definition (able to do whatever I want with no consequences), I am truly free because I no longer have to do what my heart tells me to.  In other words, I am no loner a slave to corruption, or whatever "overcomes" me.  If I must do what "feels right" and navigate my life by a sensation of "rightness," by following my heart, -- which may or may not but probably will lead me into self-destructive tendencies -- then I'm merely a slave to corruption: my own passions.  I'm a slave to what has overcome me.

Through Christ, that's no longer the case.

Before our Savior plucks us from the path of destruction, we can't help but blindly follow our emotions.  Relationships are about who makes us feel good.  College and career choices are about what feels right and what I want for my life.  Beliefs are about what makes me feel wise and enlightened.

By this mode of operation, we must do to feel.

Freedom through Christ, however, brings stability.  Righteousness through faith in Him doesn't negate my feelings, but it enables me to see through them.  It enables me to navigate by truth and certainty -- as opposed to following a course that shifts on a whim.

True freedom is liberation from sensation.  Not a denial of or an aversion to feelings and emotions (that's just monastic, self-abasing asceticism), but the subjugation of them.  God never said "Don't feel;" He said, "Don't be a slave to feeling."  In other words, as a follower of Christ, I don't have to "feel" something to know it's right.  I don't have to stumble into wanton self-indulgence because I was blindly following the helter-skelter roller-coaster of my desires.  And in the process of subjugating my feelings to the Truth of God's Word, I can begin to realign my sinful heart, bringing my desires and emotions and pleasures into the God-given parameters of holiness.

Those whom the Son frees are free indeed (John 8.36) -- from desire and from sin.  But freedom from these things is also freedom to responsibility.  Let those who call themselves followers of Christ abide in Him in this way.

Nashville Rescue Mission, 2015

This past week, Tara and I had the tremendous opportunity to take a team of eight high school students down to Nashville, Tennessee to work in the city's Rescue Mission, an organization devoted to serving and rescuing the homeless.  There's a lot I could write about in this post -- God's incredible provision, the wonderful team of Christian musicians who housed us for the week, or my infatuation with Spaceteam -- but I want to instead remember the names of five men who touched us.

All smiles and encouragement, Quinton ("Q") was perhaps the brightest point of my week.  A man who loved the Lord, did all that was requested of him without hesitation, and spoke earnestly of God's grace in his life, Quinton was a humble and earnest example of what grace can do in penitent hearts.

A young man who bared his heart to me, Brit is still looking at an uphill climb as he struggles to overcome his addictions.  However, I believe that God is glorified when we choose to struggle against our sin, out of a desire to surrender all for holiness, instead of succumbing to it.  Brit's testimony was a powerful reminder that all sin is a type of addiction, and addiction to self is perhaps the most difficult to overcome.

Bryant, the volunteer services coordinator at the Nashville Rescue Mission, was our guide for the week.  He is a graduate of the Mission's program with a powerful testimony of his own, and is now thoroughly invested in working to assist the homeless and addicts who walk through the doors of the Mission on a daily basis.

Soft-spoken and unassuming, Will is a hard worker who humbly asked us to keep praying for his submission to the Lord's will.  He was a joy to work and converse with.  I'm reminded that he loves his wife and child, both of whom support him in his decision to overcome the addictions in his life.

Of all the men we worked alongside, George weighs perhaps the heaviest on my heart, simply because he has recently re-joined the Mission's program and still seems to have one foot in the world. Quick to admit his mistakes, George was impressed by our group and spoke openly about his weaknesses and failures, but still seems like he needs to take more bold steps of faith in order to overcome them.  I trust that the Spirit will lead him to a deeper understanding of the Truth!

God has been merciful to all these men.  Each was on a path of self-destruction, but our Father snatched each of them back and placed them on a different trajectory.  Their stories are proof of the fact that no sin is too engrained to overcome through Christ's power.

To Him be the glory!