Where is My Head?

Summer 2024 I attended a Cheneniah Summer Music Institute. I was interested in learning the Kodaly method of teaching. They hold one in Moscow, ID every year for almost 15 years now. When I got to the school and started meeting some of my peers I felt like I had stepped into a dimension where everyone knew what I was talking about. Music theory?! Standard fair. Theology?! Yes. A vision for worship services that were not smoke and mirrors?! Also check. 

2 weeks of challenge. 2 weeks of growth. 2 weeks of warm, nay, hot, summer weather. 2 weeks of being able to walk to class. What a deal. And people at church sang without the prompting of a song leader saying “I can’t hear you”, or “come on, now”. I thought these guys are pretty great. Can’t wait to get home. 

The host I was staying with jokingly said, when I move here I should consider such and such a place to work, and going to such and such church. And I just thought, never. I will never move here. 

I had plans of moving on to other places, finishing up seminary, and simply continuing the way I was planning to go. Then New St. Andrew’s announced that they were offering a Masters of Divinity program. Interest was peaked. So I applied, and weird enough, though I’m not as floored as I was before, I’m here. But what attracted me? Why these guys?

First, at the time I was directing a Challenge A class with Classical Conversations. I learned more teaching that class than I did at the liberal arts college I went to. Now, it could have just been because I had to teach it that I actually paid attention (likely the case), but also I just don’t remember a time in my life spent trying to define a thing so completely, or how to arrange a paper with specific sections. Sure I learned speech techniques, and public speaking, and arrangement, but this method just filled out. The point of the classical method is to learn how to learn. 

Learn how to learn. 

I knew that if I became associated with New St. Andrew’s what kind of mindset I would encounter. The Master’s program is a bit different, but the professors have the same mind there. There is challenge. But there’s a little more to it. 

Secondly, at this school Christ is the assumed reality. They study several subjects, but all are subject to Christ. All are subject to the scripture. They assume the bible is correct rather than attempt to align or make space for the body of knowledge that exists in the world. Physics? Cool pascal bro, but God created air pressure. Is that a cell?! Awesome, God made cells. Is that a policy you’re trying to enact? What a great policy God said to that in such and such scripture. 

But more often the case, with politics, it is the other way around where the bible disagrees on a fundamental level. That’s the kicker. My attraction isn’t the politics, it’s that the assumed position of the culture here is that Christ is the King over every sphere. And… they’re trying to live like it. 

During covid, cool music guy, Sean Bohnet was arrested while the church was singing psalms out on the streets. It was a holy protest since they were denying the church the command of God for his people to worship Him as a congregation. (There’s an entire story in the bible dedicated to just this scenario. It’s in the book of Exodus – the reason given for the slaves leaving? To go worship…). Christ is to be worshipped and obeyed first beyond even the civil magistrate. Christ is king of that place also – even if the people in those places are currently rejecting Him.

All of this in strong opposition to what I learned in the circles I was in: we can’t tell people what to do. Or, we should be nice, we don’t have to get in fights about religion and state that Christ is the first and only. Or, don’t make those kind of political statements, people will hate you for it. Or, don’t be mean by saying that homosexuality is a sin. (It’s a sin – it’s not mean, it’s a statement of fact in God’s reality). Now if you ask me about treating people with compassion?! All the way, let’s go. Feed, clothe, home, dignity, etc – but all must bow to the way of the Lord or be counted as sinners.

I was taught to take a stance that looked suspiciously like sitting in the back of the room watching my sister get beaten by an abusive perpetrator -instead of- getting up and doing something about it. “It’s okay, we lose down here”. “Yes, Christ rules the world, but we have to let them do their evil, and we shouldn’t tell them anything about it”. 

That, and feminism. Or soft feminism known as complimentarianism. True complimentarianism acknowledges the created order,  thus ends up looking more patriarchal. Soft feminism will only go as far as to say that woman and men are different, concluding that woman should be pastors. Another fight, for another time. 

So how did I end up here, instead of other places? Spine, rising up to the occasion, and worship. Worship is the final piece of the puzzle. Nevermind, it’s the first piece. Should have started there. But that’s another post.