Saturday, June 2, 2007

Not necessarily recommended



Nobody loves Derek Webb more than me. I'm a huge fan. But I must say that his latest album has been a bit disappointing for me. I admire him for constantly changing his style and bringing up issues that are not normally talked about in Christian circles. But this last album seems over the top. He switches to more electric guitars and heavier drums, which is a drastic change from his previous albums. He changes from a ballad approach ( on many songs) to a more abstract songwriting approach--a style that can be good but is not necessarily his strength.
There are a couple of redeeming aspects. The songs Savior on Capital Hill and This too shall be made right are interesting and thought provoking. The love songs to his wife, however loving and tender the effort, are mostly boring and unoriginal. I expected more.

Another recent experience of mine was reading Listening To The Beliefs Of Emerging Churches. While this was not necessarily a bad book, it did leave some things to be desired. It is a book that has 5 different emerging church pastors perspectives on theology. Each pastor wrote a chapter and each one wrote a response to everyone else's chapters. It is a good read if you already know a good bit about the pastors being discussed, but I would not recommend this book to someone trying to learn general information about the emerging church. For me, the book raised more questions than it answered.

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