One of my favorite Christmas hymns is, “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day.” Based on the poem, “Christmas Bells,” by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the hymn confronts the pains of living in mortality and facing evil directly as well as the means by which we triumph over evil. The story behind the hymn only enhances its message and helps us to understand the powerful of Hope and Faith in our every day lives.
Tag: hymns
Public Education Conditions Us For War
The purpose of education has been warped. Education used to be about more than educating people in the kind of math and technological skills that make them good cogs in the machinery of the State. It used to be about expanding and liberating the minds and spirits of people by exposing them to the greatest thinkers and ideas that human history has to offer so that they learn the ideas that will make them better people, so that they will be better humans. But since the government has assumed control over the education systems in every nation this purpose has been falling ever more steadily by the wayside. Instead, today people are educated and miseducated into the ideologies, moralities, and values that justify the ever-expanding power of the police state and the unceasing waging of wars abroad. As this article argues, this condition is not some perverse accident caused by state mishandling of education. Rather, educating us into the beliefs and ideas that convince us to remain subservient and obedient to the State is the very point of public education, a cause that finds its ultimate expression in war.
Rejoice That God Is With Us Now And Forever
It being Christmas I wanted to share something short but beautiful. My favorite Christmas hymn is Veni, Veni Emmanuel, or in English, O’ Come, O’ Come, Emmanuel. The song is both a prayer that accurately captures the hopes, if not the actual words, of those who looked forward to the Messiah’s first coming and those of us now who anticipate His Second Coming. But it also testifies to us that we need not wait for Christ to come again to experience the power and peace He promises to bring because God is with us even now in Presence, Person, and Spirit. He is our Emmanuel, our ever present God if we but open our eyes, minds, ears, and hearts to Him.
The Best Version of the “Battle Hymn of The Republic”
In many churches in America, you’ll find the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” -a song that glorifies war and nationalism- sung as part of worshipping the Prince of Peace. It is incongruous with the purpose of Christian worship at best and blasphemous at worst. Yet many love it because it is such a stirring and triumphant sounding song. Luckily, there is a better option which both maintains the tune and brings the song’s message more in line with Gospel truths.