Tom Lehrer's "The Elements"

 

Tom Lehrer, the popular and influential song satirist lampooned everything from, politics, nuclear war, and racism and the Cold War, then largely abandoned his music career to return to teaching maths at Harvard and other universities, has died (26/7/25). He was 97.

A Harvard prodigy (he had earned a maths degree from the institution at age 18), Lehrer soon turned his very sharp mind to old traditions and current events. His songs included Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, The Old Dope Peddler (set to a tune reminiscent of The Old Lamplighter), Be Prepared, and The Vatican Rag and many more. (You can find most of them on Youtube).

“Tom Lehrer is the most brilliant song satirist ever recorded,” musicologist Barry  Hansen once said. Hansen co-produced the 2000 boxed set of Lehrer’s songs, The Remains of Tom Lehrer, and had featured Lehrer’s music for decades on his syndicated Dr. Demento radio show.

He also became well known for observing that when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Henry Kissinger in 1973, “political satire became obsolete”.

Do you hear the people sing?

Do you hear the people sing?

Singing a song of angry men?

It is the music of a people

Who will not be slaves again

When the beating of your heart

Echoes the beating of the drums

There is a life about to start

When tomorrow comes

Will you join in our crusade?

Who will be strong and stand with me?

Beyond the barricade

Is there a world you long to see?

Then join in the fight

That will give you the right to be free

Do you hear the people sing?

Singing a song of angry men?

It is the music of a people

Who will not be slaves again

When the beating of your heart

Echoes the beating of the drums

There is a life about to start

When tomorrow comes

Will you give all you can give

So that our banner may advance

Some will fall and some will live

Will you stand up and take your chance?

The blood of the martyrs

Will water the meadows of France

Do you hear the people sing?

Singing a song of angry men?

It is the music of a people

Who will not be slaves again

When the beating of your heart

Echoes the beating of the drums

There is a life about to start

When tomorrow comes

Space: The Final Frontier!

Some time ago, I was visiting a friend near the edge of town in a new suburb that had recently been developed onto what had been rolling farmlands. Somehow I took the wrong turn and found myself driving along streets that were currently being built. It was a surreal experience! Fully paved roads with sidewalk, nature strips, streetlights, signage and drive-way entrances – but with no houses, just wooden pegs and in some cases fences marking out street after street of empty green land. It just went on and on for block after block with no shops or churches or old cottages or workplaces to indicate any pre-existing history or narrative. 

As I got closer to the edge of the estate it changed to row after row of half- completed dwellings. All designed on the same pattern, all pristine and all unoccupied. I felt as if I’d driven onto the set of the Truman Show by accident! 

It was Winston Churchill in 1943 who said: “First we shape our buildings, then they shape us” and Stewart Brand who then in 1994 said: “First we shape our buildings, then they shape us, then we shape them again-ad infinitum”.

There is a fine balance between architecture and community. The buildings we design directly influence the way in which we live our lives, they direct and manipulate the way in which we engage with our social values and spiritual needs, even our appreciation of the arts. 

This means the balance between society and architecture is in a constant state of flux, buildings and people evolve repeatedly, new buildings are built to facilitate our social development but more often than not, it is the existing buildings which are re-shaped, as Stewart Brand’s quote in 1994 is a reinterpretation of Winston Churchill’s quote in 1943 “First we shape our buildings, then they shape us” whilst addressing the nation with regard to the re-building of the ‘Houses of Parliament’ after its destruction during the Second World War. 

There were 51 years between each quote and in that period of time, society was changing rapidly, freedom from world war, politics, technology and science had accelerated development in travel, communication and finance. These changes had altered the way in which society viewed itself. Cultural phrases such as, “the global village” appeared and architecture has changed too. 

As our cities have suburbanised, the idea of the close-knit ‘village’, with the home; the village green; the community marketplace; the commons; and the church as the shared permanent spaces, which support neighbourhood community, has disappeared. The home has become a thoroughly private retreat, fenced off from those next-door (who may not even be known). It gets a makeover regularly to reflect the changing status of the residents. 

The workplace may be many kilometres away and the marketplace is a private space designed lure consumers. In shopping centre design, the Gruen transfer is the moment when a consumer enters a shopping mall and, surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout, loses track of their original intentions in response to "scripted disorientation" cues in the environment. 

Not only that, but the modern suburb is often a product more than a public village with a back-story – a private developer creates an ‘instant’ estate, often complete with faux lake or faux farm-fencing. There are often fewer public spaces and amenities. The new residents are strangers who share no common mythology or history. There are no traditions and memories to long past heroes. The relational and spiritual identity of these faux villages is disembodied and distant, as is the workplace and the place of leisure. The plasma screen, rather than the window screen provides the interface with the world! With the pressures of debt high and the social support low – within a generation, these new and attractive estates can become places of social dysfunction and juvenile discontent - Where do we belong, and why does it even matter? 

American sociologist, Richard Sennett (The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life. New York: W.W. Norton and Company: 1990) argues that western culture suffers from a division between the private and public realms. ‘It is a divide between subjective experience and worldly experience, between self and city.’ This separation, according to Sennett, is based on our unacknowledged fear of self-exposure – interpreted as a threat rather than life-enhancing. Sennett suggests that city design has increasingly concentrated on creating safe divisions between different groups of people. (Consider the gated-communities that physically exclude strangers). Apart from consumer spaces, public space becomes sterile, as the main purpose is to facilitate movement across it rather than encounters within it. According to Sennett, for the city to recover, we need to reaffirm the inherent value of the outer social life. 

In his influential book “The Great Good Place”, Ray Oldenburg (1989, 1991) argues that “third places” are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place. Oldenburg calls one's "first place" the home and those that one lives with. The "second place" is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. "Third places", then, are "anchors" of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. 

All healthy societies already have informal meeting places; what is new in modern times is the intentionality of seeking out distinct places to the home or the market place as vital to current societal needs. Oldenburg suggests the hallmarks of a true "third place" include free or inexpensive; food and drink, highly accessibility, proximate for many (walking distance); involves regulars – those who habitually congregate there; welcoming and comfortable; both new friends and old should be found there. 

“Associational groupings” rather than “geographic proximity” also defines an individual’s ‘tribe’ or neighbourhood. The sporting team; the mates who hang at the pub; the motorcycle club; the Kinder; the craft-group; the surfing group; the golf group; book-club; ethnic club; street gang; music band; work-buddies or even adult education class are the new tribes. An estate of 400 homes and 1600 residents may in fact be a criss-cross of 30-40 associations – none of whose members know each other, though they live next door! 

The spaces they choose to inhabit will be important in defining them (and vice-versa). Territory is important! Why do they meet in that Pub? How come those kids loiter at that mall?

As we take seriously our place as ‘salt in the city,’ so we will need to consider how our public space brings peace to the city we find ourselves in. 

“... And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7 NLT). What does it mean to understand our many ‘tribes’ and their needs? How will we partner with our government instrumentalities and other civic agencies in recovering some of that sense of belonging that gets lost in the sterility of the suburbs?

There is a lot more to understand than this very brief snapshot – but as we as missionaries connect with our ‘tribes’ and understand them, so our buildings will reflect the message of hope we seek to bring. Our spaces and ourselves are gifts to them.

Some questions: 

• I wonder what thought we give to the buildings and spaces we inhabit as congregations and as members of churches? Our theology and our vision should literally shape the bricks and mortar we construct. What does our theology say about buildings and social space? 

• Think about our personal attitude to property: How are we prepared to ‘give’ our homes to God, as spaces of blessing to our vicinity? It takes one family home with an open table and front yard to welcome kids – to kindle a sense of belonging. This practise confronts the assumptions behind our modern world that ‘privatizes’ the home and our belongings. For example, an informal, unofficial playgroup in a home for the parents in neighbourhood has the potential to build bridges in a way that a formal playgroup in a custom built church building may never do – it will also transform the lives of the family who are stewards that home! The street becomes the ‘parish.’ Book-clubs, shared gardening; neighbourhood watch; care of those in difficult times; even an instant youth group can emerge. Imagine the fusion of community development and outreach! 

• It can be good to ask ourselves what we need space for and for how long? Is retaining our own property the best way? Could we inhabit civic space instead, alongside other groups?

• What would it look like to build relationships and alliances with key individuals at the City Council and other community organization such as the local school, the kinder, the footy ground, the youth centre, the new settlers’ club - what are their needs? Is there a point of synergy or overlap? 

• What does it mean to create a sense of shared story and identity in spaces where there is no history or where the story has dis-integrated or is life destroying rather than life giving? How do we bring ‘shalom’ to the city rather than becoming yet another private social silo? 

• What would a community planner (as well as an architect) say about our own space? How can we ensure that our space does not over time exert gravitational pull on our people drawing them back to an older ‘temple’ mindset? To what extent are we devotees attending our sanctuary or fortress rather than missionaries serving from their own homes and from third places – with the church centre as a civic hub, to support rather than replace them?

Walter Brueggemann's 19 Theses

In September 2004, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, who has recently  passed away, sat with a group of church leaders for a theological discussion as a part of the Emergent Theological Conversation series.

He brought with him a working document that he called his “Nineteen Theses,” a series of convictions he had developed over the years that he hoped would seed the discussion times.

Short, succinct, penetrating, these nineteen statements are an interesting and I think, helpful agenda for a life committed to the service of God’s Kingdom.

*** *** ***

1. Everybody lives by a script. The script may be implicit or explicit. It may be recognized or unrecognized, but everybody has a script.
2. We get scripted. All of us get scripted through the process of nurture and formation and socialization, and it happens to us without our knowing it.
3. The dominant scripting in our society is a script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism that socializes us all, liberal and conservative.
4. That script (technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism) enacted through advertising and propaganda and ideology, especially on the liturgies of television, promises to make us safe and to make us happy.
5. That script has failed. That script of military consumerism cannot make us safe and it cannot make us happy. We may be the unhappiest society in the world.
6. Health for our society depends upon disengagement from and relinquishment of that script of military consumerism. This is a disengagement and relinquishment that we mostly resist and about which we are profoundly ambiguous.
7. It is the task of ministry to de-script that script among us. That is, to enable persons to relinquish a world that no longer exists and indeed never did exist.
8.  The task of descripting, relinquishment and disengagement is accomplished by a steady, patient, intentional articulation of an alternative script that we say can make us happy and make us safe.
9. The alternative script is rooted in the Bible and is enacted through the tradition of the Church. It is an offer of a counter-narrative, counter to the script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism.
10. That alternative script has as its most distinctive feature, its key character – the God of the Bible whom we name as Father, Son, and Spirit.
11. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character is illusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness, and, I’m embarrassed to say, in violence – [a] huge problem for us.
12. The ragged, disjunctive, and incoherent quality of the counter-script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless. Because when we do that the script gets flattened and domesticated. The script gets flattened and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism. Whereas the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism is all about certitude, privilege, and entitlement this counter-script is not about certitude, privilege, and entitlement. Thus care must betaken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God’s irascible self.
13. The ragged, disjunctive character of the counter-script to which we testify invites its adherents to quarrel among themselves – liberals and conservatives – in ways that detract from the main claims of the script and so too debilitate the focus of the script.
14. The entry point into the counter-script is baptism. Whereby we say in the old liturgies, “do you renounce the dominant script?”
15. The nurture, formation, and socialization into the counter-script with this illusive, irascible character is the work of ministry. We do that work of nurture, formation, and socialization by the practices of preaching, liturgy, education, social action, spirituality, and neighbouring of all kinds.
16. Most of us are ambiguous about the script; those with whom we minister and I dare say, those of us who minister. Most of us are not at the deepest places wanting to choose between the dominant script and the counter-script. Most of us in the deep places are vacillating and mumbling in ambivalence.
17. This ambivalence between scripts is precisely the primary venue for the Spirit. So that ministry is to name and enhance the ambivalence that liberals and conservatives have in common that puts people in crisis and consequently that invokes resistance and hostility.
18. Ministry is to manage that ambivalence that is crucially present among liberals and conservatives in generative faithful ways in order to permit relinquishment of [the] old script and embrace of the new script.
19. The work of ministry is crucial and pivotal and indispensable in our society precisely because there is no one except the church and the synagogue to name and evoke the ambivalence and too manage a way through it. I think often; I see the mundane day-to-day stuff ministers have to do and I think, what would happen if you talk all the ministers out. The role of ministry then is as urgent as it is wondrous and difficult. 

From 2004 Emergent Theological Conversation with Walter Brueggemann, September 13-15, 2004, All Souls Fellowship, Decatur, GA.

Renewal and Release - Part 1

Many years ago, a small group of believers challenged the reactionary autocracy that the mainline Church had become. The church had imposed a creedal legalism on the people that effectively separated the ordinary man and woman from the simple but life-changing message of New Testament faith in Christ.

This new radical movement wanted to by-pass the religious and clerical constructs of the day and call believers to a simple Spirit-directed, Bible based faith. They studied the Scriptures together; they relished their common unity around the bread and the wine, and they proclaimed Christ - not the rituals and intrigues of established religion. The ‘brothers’, as they were known, coined the old Augustinian phrase: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things love.”

The fearless preaching of their leader disturbed the Church and the religious culture of his day so much that he was put to death by the religious establishment of his day! 

I speak of course, of Jan Hus and the Moravian movement of the 1400s. Though their legacy was to pave the way for the first large-scale protestant mission movement and for the Reformation a century later, the entrenched church culture of the day pushed their little movement to the very margins.

The Scripture story by which we live is about the conflict between two Kingdoms and their respective cultures – The Kingdom of this world with its powers and principalities versus the Kingdom of God, so radically proclaimed by Jesus.

The story of redemption is about personal  ‘culture change’ – it’s being birthed into God’s kingdom, a new heart and a new mind leading to new attitudes and new behaviours. Discipleship is about the lifelong, intentional reflecting on our attitudes and behaviours in the light of God’s calling. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

The people of God are to be this peculiar ‘halfway’ people – journeying from Egypt to the Promised Land with God. Learning to put off the mental bondage of captivity and becoming the free covenant people of God – a Light to the nations!

And yet the Bible is marked by struggle, failure, grace and redemption. The people of God are always struggling to leave behind the gods of Egypt and Canaan. Every Judge and every King of Israel struggles with entrenched culture. Which god are we serving? Which belief system? The tribes and clans of Canaan are married into and slowly their culture becomes endemic and Yahweh is marginalised. All through the stories of the Judges and Kings there is a downward spiral ending in exile to Babylon – and then grace, and God grows a new shoot from the dead stump.

In the New Testament most of the letters are written to deal with cultural issues – almost none of the Pauline epistles are about ‘vision’ or ‘governance’ or ‘programmes’ – it’s all about Jewish Old testament culture or Gentile permissiveness or Gnostic super spirituality or the spirit of Rome – humanity’s greatest attempt at heaven on earth contrasted to the Kingdom of God’s culture - and it’s very painful for Paul and the other leaders! Two steps forward, one step back!

The history of God’s church is the same – The slide into Christendom with Constantine through to the valiant resistance of martyrs like Jan Hus, culminating in Martin Luther’s nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenberg cathedral door and unleashing a chaotic, powerful reaction to the decadent culture of the medieval church.
The evangelical movements or ‘Awakenings’ of the 18^th and 19^th century revolted against the immovably, nationalistic state churches of the era. You see it in the evolution of the various movements such as the Wesleyans, the Salvationists, the various Disciples, Adventists, Brethren, and others. These various ‘waves’ - overseas missions, Pentecostalism, assorted para-church movements, the church growth era, and the emerging church all emerged in response to ossified church culture and each birthed fresh, fluid expressions of faith.

Most new church h movements tumble out of such turbulence. How wonderful that the radical Moravian slogan of four hundred years before should also mark the spirit of new movement too!  “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things love.” The rich chaos of the Spirit of that time spawned many related but divergent movements. Movements always diverge and differentiate into more sharply defined entities. Out of the turbulence of the book of Judges, comes the sombre orderliness of Kings! Movements have always become ministries and then machines and then slowly un-noticed by their now conservative guardians, they freeze into stone monuments. But God in his grace sows seeds into the cracks of the weathering stone and new green shoots emerge.

And now the wheel has turned again and in 2000’s the fresh new movements of 200+ years ago are almost monuments themselves. Movements tend to be chaotic! Their members ‘live a conviction’ rather than ‘go to work’. They are highly relational, green-zone, fluid, self-organising, team focussed. The leaders proclaim the story rather than the policy! They are prophetic! They are imaginative culture-shapers – and their people interpret and build the new forms, experimentally, under-the-surface, in poverty, by faith, with passion. They expect resistance and difficulty, and learn to negotiate the possible. Sometimes they die prematurely. Too often it’s the dominant system and culture and that asphyxiate them! 

We see that our inherited paradigms are failing! Australia is not a Christian nation! Our numbers are declining; churches are aging and for most of the younger people in our society they seem way out of touch! This is no longer about servicing our going concerns but with urgency praying for renewal and creatively going out on a limb. If we fail, so be it!

We don’t want to be like the good proprietors of Cobb and Co anxiously peering out at the noisy T-model Fords puttering along asphalt roads and then turning to design a better horse! Cobb and Co exists no more! In a few years the motorcar will either be in terminal decline or will have re-invented itself for a new age. We pray for a cultural shift. How can we avoid either being immersed in consumer modernity or fortressed off from the world in a 1950s bubble.

What we aspire for our churches is cultural shift: A missionary paradigm; a bible-narrative from which to live; a contextual mission mindset; a centripetal culture, a discipleship culture, an incarnational mindset; an empowering leadership; a ‘sent’ membership and so on. 

This is not about change of programs but change of paradigm.

So – what might we respond? Our methodology will need to be different. Culture is changed in vigorous relationships, in sound pedagogy, in personal spirituality, in self-awareness, in being enabled to become response-able. It means we need to be modelling and delivering the opposite to the command and control corporation.  New movements rarely flourish long in tightly hierarchical organisations. Edgy ideas come from the edges. Can our respectable institutions, really become  dangerous insurgencies?

Click here for Part 2

Renewal and Release - Part 2

(From Part: 1) ... So, what might be the cultural shifts we need to consider if we are to see renewal? Here are some to think about. What would you add? What would you subtract from the list?

Theology rather than Tradition: It is encouraging to note the shift in emphasis from traditions and rituals, to a focus on our beliefs and practices. Grappling with the core elements of the story of the faith seems to be becoming key. This is important because our beliefs and attitudes will shape our actions into the future. Rediscovering and retelling the 'Story' for this age is key to becoming a living movement of the Spirit

Renewal rather than Reminiscing: This emphasis is necessary because it recognises two elements: (1) The Church of the day can never return to the form of the first century church. The New Testament does not function as a template or Church Growth manual to imitate; rather it is a living narrative that inspires.  (2) Our hope is in the reviving power of the living Spirit! Truly churches need to become a renewal movement more than a reminiscing or a resistance movement. Often we talk about going back to the good old days,'but the New Testament story is not a moment of truth frozen in time, but God’s quicksilver shaking the powers of this world!  We are the people of Jesus who are sent proclaiming a radical message that challenges the trends and patterns of the current age! We should be the least conservative of all people.

Interdependence ahead of Independence: At one end of the continuum are independent Christians and congregations with little collaboration and shared ministry. At the other end are ‘dependent’ churches locked into hierarchical systems that can strip the church of its creativity and spontaneity. We need to learn interdependence. Different shapes and emphases collaborating at a growing level of relationship to learn what God is up to. If the idea of 'covenant' expresses this idea of mutuality. There’s something about the messy dialogical, synergy that comes from discovering new ways forward together.

Says Ori Brafman (Spider and the Starfish):  “Cut off a spider’s leg, and you’ll have a seven-legged cripple[sic]. Cut off its head, and you’ll kill the spider. But cut off the starfish’s arm, and not only will it regenerate, but the severed arm will actually grow an entirely new body. Starfish can achieve this remarkable feat because, unlike spiders, they lack central control—their organs are replicated across each arm. Starfish are decentralized. Starfish forces don’t have a leader, clear structure, or defined hierarchy. These seemingly chaotic qualities make Starfish unexpectedly resilient.”

Unity rather than Uniqueness:  I recall sometime ago, hearing a group discussing whether a new attendee to their church shared the “DNA of their tribe.” It got me thinking about both of those words in regards to churches we are familiar with.  What is the non-negotiable DNA? The temptation for any faith movement or Church that has gone through many decades of evolution is to collect heroes, pioneers, traditions and practices that are of themselves admirable – but that append to the core DNA. A group that was once inclusive, bit by bit becomes exclusive, as fewer and fewer outsiders quite share “our DNA.” Subconsciously, as mores and shibboleths increase, the conservation of all this extra DNA brings inertia. 

For followers of Jesus – the DNA is the person and body of Jesus Christ! Time and again the Holy Spirit needs to renew us, and the New Testament needs to align us with what Jesus is doing in such a time us this. We gather humbly around the table in surrender, unity and love with all and any believers and to go out into the whole world extending the compassion and hope of the gospel. 

It means we serve and labour across creedal and cultural boundaries, we celebrate that: “in non-essentials there is liberty”. The aim is not for ‘them’ to become like 'us', but for the DNA of Jesus to bring all the tribes together in: “... complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:23). 

What would it look like to reframe our faith-tribes as an incubators or a mission agencies of this DNA for the whole Church, rather than one tribe amongst the many? Similarly, descriptors like ‘tribe’ may need reconsideration. 

Our language defines us. A ‘tribe’ is at the opposite end of the social continuum to a ‘movement’. Tribes are highly conservative. They live to their tightly defined rights of passage and rituals – they are creedal. Gatekeepers ensure that foreigners to the tribe do not enter and bring their DNA.  How can we ensure that we do not fall into the trap of celebrating our own perceived ‘uniqueness’ rather than the overwhelming imperative to ‘unity’ and renewal in Christ for all God’s people?

Multiplication rather than Management: Church multiplication has been declining. Over the last few decades the emphasis seems to have been more on strengthening existing congregations rather than multiplying new communities. The Australian population is growing. New and creative church initiatives have the added effect of inspiring Christians to be creative; evangelise courageously; and create fresh ways of understanding faith. Denominations have been closing down more churches than they have planted. We need a culture that gives permission to new and diverse mission projects, even if some of them fail.

Formation ahead of Function: Where there is an emphasis on equipping and supporting and releasing people, the ministry take care of itself. As we develop mature Christians and leaders, they will discover for themselves the ways of Christ. Deep discipleship based on solid pedagogy and a living spirituality are vital. We have not done discipleship and leadership formation very well over the last two generations. Our emphasis must be on the culture and attitude-shapers not the behaviour or program-shapers. 

- As a wise old friend of mine used to say: “The role of a leader is not to change people or their behaviours, but to change attitudes. People with changed attitudes will change themselves and their courses of conduct.”

I wonder how the Spirit will do it? I wonder what we will learn?

Trinity Sunday

Sunday (15/6) is Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is the first

Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity. Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

The idea of the Trinity can be a difficult to visualise. I've always enjoyed C.S. Lewis' ability to illustrate abstract ideas in a concrete way. Here's a snippet from Mere Christianity about picturing the Trinity: