Religion vs. Being a Good Person

In discussions about why a person needs or doesn't need religion, the point is often brought up that, "you don't need religion to be a good person." This is absolutely true.

I don't speak for other faiths, but I was abundantly relieved when I learned the focus of Christianity was not to "become a good person," or even a "better" person. The aim of Christianity is to take dirty rotten sinners like myself and sanctify them in Jesus Christ. Its purpose is not to turn its adherents into Mr. Rogers, or even Mother Teresa. If becoming a nicer person was the goal in receiving Jesus, I would have long ago found a different religion, like Scientology or Republicanism: I know I could never attain such an enlightened state of niceness. It works out tremendously well for me that the only qualification I needed to come to Jesus was to be a broken sinner.

The center of Christianity is the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; to be refined, re-defined, and sanctified by His truth in an unbelieving, fallen world. We are restored to peace with God and a relationship with Him through Jesus' death and resurrection. This is Christianity. Kindness and charity are certainly among His commandments, but they are not simply a means to an end, that end being "becoming a good person." And, even if one abides in Christ's commandments of love, compassion, and selflessness to the utmost devoutness, another of His commands is to spread His Gospel - which requires proclaiming and demonstrating He is the only way, truth, and life, a statement that grates and appalls many others. To many secular mindsets, this is not "being a good person."

Though one can be an atheist and a charitable and loving human being (atheism and kindness are not mutually exclusive, obviously), these ideas and concepts of compassion come only from God, from a Higher Power: we human beings have proved in our existence that we are incapable of any sustained amount of goodness. And, not being so deluded that I could become a good person without tremendous help, I accept that I need the love and strength of the only blameless Man who ever lived if I hope to approach righteousness.

My hat goes off to those who can muster being good, decent, honorable people by their own inherent, genetic powers of goodness, decency, and honor. But I know I'm not that strong or noble; my weakness in those areas is so egregious that I need something as outrageous as the supernatural to be holy. The Christ - the "religion" - I need in order to achieve this says it thusly: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (Luke 5:32).

"Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no one living is righteous." -Psalm 143:2

Album Review: Bob Dylan - "Self Portrait"

Bob Dylan - Self Portrait (1970)

Nothing is sacred.
In 1966, Bob Dylan was a god to a generation. Or, at the very least, a prophet. By 1970 and a cover of “Blue Moon,” those who called him such were ready to stone him to death and tear him to pieces.
Self Portrait is not “lost” or forgotten. Not by any means. In fact it's one of the most infamous records in twentieth century popular music. Its infamy comes from the bombardment of scorn and accusations of betrayal its creator suffered because of the material contained therein. Not to make Bob Dylan sound like a cartoon villain whose plans have gone awry, but...
...maybe that was the plan all along.

It would border on asinine to suggest Dylan concocted Self Portrait to sabotage his entire career. Even as far-out as the man has stretched his image in his career through his various moods and personas – a torchbearer for Woody Guthrie, electric rock and roller, country crooner, wandering face-painted gypsy, Christian preacher, and most recently, torchbearer for Frank Sinatra – the thought that he meant to end his public life with this purposely uncharacteristic album is absurd. Self Portrait was more like, as hokey and cliché as it sounds, a statement. It was an artistic move, and a brave one at that, knowing the backlash he'd receive would make the boos hurled upon him when he “went electric” seem like a playful chiding.

Released as a sprawling, twenty-plus track double album in 1970, Self Portrait was condemned by both reviewers and fans, who were shocked that the spokesman of their generation was crooning harder than he had on Nashville Skyline. But instead of acceptable country music, he was now covering the Everly Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, and a slew of other borrowed material, both obscure and well known, all with a distinctly commercial polish – save for a few raggedly performed live tracks with The Band from the previous year's Isle of Wight concert –  that had the anti-establishment up in arms and pulling out the beads in their hair. The reaction, or fallout, to Self Portrait saw critics claiming Dylan had turned his back on his principles – whatever those were. Congrats to the lucky buggers who had somehow managed to crack Dylan's moral code. They asserted the Bard was indulging in a “commercialization” of his music; critic Ralph Gleason was seething, and even called for a boycott of Dylan's albums.
The heart of the entire matter may lie in Dylan's growing discontent with being hailed as a leader; in a biography by Anthony Scaduto, Dylan was quoted about this experience:

“I wasn't going to fall for that, for being any kind of leader... and because I wanted out, they all started to rap me.” 

And that's what makes this album so perversely enjoyable. Didn't Bob Dylan tell us not to follow leaders in the first place?
Dylan's famous “motorcycle accident” in 1967 has been the subject of debate, not unlike most other facet's of his public and private life. Did it even really happen? Or was it an alibi to allow him to escape to the woods of upstate New York and hide from his followers? Whatever one believes, the subsequent lack of touring was made up for with an incredibly productive and prolific period in a basement in a big pink house in Saugerties with four-fifths of The Band, known as the "Basement Tapes." Even before their double-album release in 1975 (and even that was just scratching the surface of the load of material), the recordings were heavily bootlegged and had reached legendary status, many of the songs having already been covered by some top names. But the songs were not what they had been on Blonde On Blonde or The Times They Are A-Changin'. They were far from social protests; they were backwoods mumbo jumbo, nonsense that somehow made sense. Some had distinct messages – “Tears of Rage,” “Going To Acapulco” – others were head-scratchers that still somehow meant something – “Too Much of Nothing,” “You Ain't Going Nowhere.”
However one interprets those legendary dozens of songs, they were certainly the result of an artist in retreat, reshaping his craft, consciously or otherwise.

Dylan's next official release was John Wesley Harding in 1967, a deep album that left behind much of the electricity he'd been skewered for and out-folked his folkiest songs. On the record, listeners heard Dylan's voice begin to change. The change was subtle, but it was there. By the next year's full-blown country endeavor Nashville Skyline, Dylan's prominent nose was doing the vocal work. The album took the music world by surprise. Rolling Stone, the Village Voice Recorder, and everyone who was still with Dylan after the mysteries of John Wesley Harding collectively reacted, “wh... um... okay, yeah. Cool. Country voice. Johnny Cash. We'll allow it.”
Then, in June 1970, it happened. Like a double-disc Pearl Harbor attack of pedal steel ballads, prominent string sections, and angelic background singers, Self Portrait lives in infamy.

The title suggested the album would resemble some kind of personal diary, but it was anything but. That is, if one expected a portrait resembling the sour-faced Bob Dylan from the cover of The Times They Are-a Changin.' As reflected on the cover of this album, literally painted by the man himself, this Dylan had a face beyond recognition.

  There was a touch of Woody Guthrie or Johnny Cash-like folk in “Little Sadie,” and “Days of '49,” but the absolutely Burt Bacharach-ish “Bell Isle” blew away any chance of redemption to the critics. The two records were filled with infamously dogged but... well, bizarrely enchanting covers of “Early Morning Rain,” “Blue Moon,” “Let it Be Me,” and an exquisite, if eyebrow-raising version of “I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know.” Songs like these, and “Take a Message to Mary,” “Copper Kettle,” and “Take Me As I Am (Or Let Me Go)” (which is easy, but likely erroneous, to interpret as a thinly veiled message to the critics) were absolutely commercial. They were songs that could have been lip-synced on The Ed Sullivan Show by “Sink the Bismarck”/"North To Alaska" singer-songwriter Johnny Horton, had Horton been alive.

The thought made Bob Dylan's self-appointed disciples gag.

Most infamous of the tall stack of covers, the single track on Self Portrait that drew the most guffaws and groans was Dylan's duet with himself on a double-tracked recording of Simon & Garfunkel's “The Boxer,” sung with honky-tonk croon to boot. But Dylan had every right to cover a song by the folk duo in any way he wanted. After all, he invented their job, if only fortuitously – spokespersons of their generation. Critics begged for someone to assure them it was a joke. That this was avant-garde high art they didn't understand. That Dylan had an inoperable brain tumor that affected his judgment. The decision to include the live Isle of Wight tracks was baffling, but perhaps most telling in their poorly recorded and performed state. Perhaps Dylan's most identifiable, iconic song, “Like a Rolling Stone,” presented in such a haggard performance, he and The Band staggering through it, uncharacteristically jumbled, was too out of place not to be a calculated message.

But, statement though the album may have been, it still sounds like the Bard is having fun throughout. As with most Dylan records, a load of outtakes from Self Portrait have been released, and he sounds as carefree and jubilant as someone just happy to be recording an album. If the “back off” statement theory is correct, if this album really was Dylan's message to the masses to denounce or discourage their view of him as their prophet and leader, it sounds like he was having a blast making that message, rather than brooding in self-pity and loathing for the public. Consider it Bob Dylan's own experience of Stage Fright; his former backing group and proteges The Band released the album of that name the same year, their reaction to the dregs of being made public figures. But it only took them two years to reach that disillusion, while Dylan had endured a decade of it. And while The Band's reaction to the rigor of the music business and demands of public perception was to produce a record with a darker energy than their first two albums, their former employer's reaction had been to have a ball while his worshipers writhed in disappointment.

Given the scurrilous attacks the album generated, it's interesting to consider that Self Portrait is not generally regarded as Dylan's worst album; I nominate 1986's Knocked Out Loaded for that dubious honor, while many critics enjoy picking on Down in the Groove. It can only be the mythos surrounding Self Portrait, the legend and notoriety of it all that keep it from being ostracized in hindsight.

All the talk of statements and defiance on Dylan's part may be just romantic wishful thinking. Maybe he'd simply made a gross error in judgment and made a bad album. He would make a few stiffs in his lifetime. But even so, Self Portrait might have been the best thing to happen to Dylan at this point in his career, and maybe even his personal life. If only for the sake of his sanity. The album would leave a permanent footnote to his already puzzling and complex mythology, an exception and a caution to those who had exalted him as an all-knowing seer, holy and blameless in all his ways.
However one interprets the album – mistake or memorial – it has to be said that Self Portrait, with all of the debris left in its nasal, string-caked, mushy wake, is a testament to how quickly a generation's hero can be stabbed in the back. Even if Dylan was the one who handed his generation the knife.
But, it was also a testament to how quickly a hero can be forgiven for his sins, so long as the public is pleased. Dylan's following album, New Morning, saw Rolling Stone declare, “we've got Dylan back again!” The songs were serious, deeper, explorations of the domestic life he'd finally attained with his family, and, they were originals. Even the honky-tonk croon was slowly wearing off. It's just a theory, but maybe Self Portrait had to happen for the fickle critics to get Dylan back again. What could have been the next possible move after the country and borderline novelty of Nashville Skyline? A sudden return to social anthems? It would have been dead on arrival – dueting with Johnny Cash would have cast a pall over a new, scowling song referring to Vietnam or Nixon. And, if Dylan had skipped the spectacle that was Self Portrait and gone straight into the laid back, thoughtful role of "Pa" in New Morning, the public would have been just as confused, asking, “why isn't the prophet prophesying? He's singing about having kids and meeting Elvis. He's sold out!”

Rolling Stone "got Dylan back again" in 1971, but maybe the flogging he received with Self Portrait was a necessary step to Dylan getting Dylan back again.

-from my book Rocktology Exam: Classic Rock's Hidden Gems

Thoughts on War By a Man Rejected By the Navy For His Refusal To Shower Until Tampa Bay Wins Another Super Bowl

If you grew up during the 90s like I did (where mah 33-year-olds at?!), you grew up hearing and seeing "the cowboys and Arabs draw down on each other at noon" in the background noise and visuals on the news. In my experience, there was always a voice, be it on the TV or the living room, declaring that the latest scuffle between the West and the Middle East would lead to World War III. Thus far, it hasn't happened. Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-91 were brief expulsions of Iraq from Kuwait, and when another, far bigger, all-out war began in 2003 with the US invasion of Iraq, it was far from a "world war," as a surprising number of nations refused to join the coalition. Yet, to this day, each US brush with a foreign power leads many to declare a Third World War, or a nuclear holocaust, is imminent, outdoing the bellowing doom and gloom of even the sweatiest of Baptist preachers.

As I write this, the United States and Iran are in a very tense standoff that could easily escalate to an actual war. Last week, US airstrikes in Iraq killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani. Iran has since vowed that its retaliation will involve military force.

Social media being the good and bad that it is, is alight with both fervent support and vehement condemnation of a war with Iran. Long before Facebook and Twitter were tools to vent our ideologies, there have been hawks who believe all war is good and right (especially the ones involving their own countries), and doves who believe all war is evil. I find it very unwise to belong to either side. Though my Christianity is itself a blanket ideology, the Bible warns of knee-jerk reactions as they relate to worldly matters - "He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is shame and folly to him" (Proverbs 18:13). Chris Rock once said as much: "anybody who makes up his mind about an issue before he hears the issue is a fool."

There are many Christians who believe the New Testament teaches outright pacifism and rejection of war. Some even go further and claim this extends to any form of violence, even self-defense. While I've never been able to glean those things from my own study of the New Testament, I do believe that the Bible condemns unjust war, just as it condemns any unjust, immoral thing from those in positions of power.
Having said that, I don't believe all war is good, but I also don't believe all war is evil.

I have a strong belief that those who aren't very knowledgeable in history have no place being politically and socially vocal, especially the more rabid among those voices, whether they be conservative, liberal, moderate, etc. (though they certainly have a right to be so brazen if they choose). I believe that the more vocal one is about their socio-political beliefs, that lustiness should be on par with their historical knowledge. Otherwise, their talking points are merely rehearsed snippets that fit their narrative, while in the context of the history surrounding whatever the issue may be, the talking point may prove completely irrelevant, or even contradict itself.

There are times in history where going to war was the right thing to do - even if the soldiers sent to fight it were sent by rich men safe behind desks in palaces. I believe Britain going to war with Germany over the latter's invasion of Belgium to get to France, violating Belgian neutrality, was the right thing to do. However, I believe Britain's violation of Greece's neutrality later that same war, was the wrong thing to do. I can cite the folly of the "ally system" in hurling Europe into such a senseless chaos. In not relegating myself to anti or pro war dogmas, I can see right and wrong even in single wars as a whole - and can see hidden motives in otherwise "good" motives.
I also recognize times when those men safe in palaces who sent soldiers to fight were in the wrong. I believe it was wrong for Leopoldo Galtieri to dispatch thousands of Argentine conscripts to invade the Falkland Islands, all to take his troubled nation's attention off of his own regime's corruption and incompetence (a time-tested way to win over your nation; just a tip, in case you ever find yourself a president or dictator and your economy is going down the toilet). Therefore, Britain's retaliation, sending its military task force to rid the islands of the Argentine invaders, who were going house to house and holding British citizens at gunpoint, was the right thing to do.
One must always look at each war individually, if you can find and count them all, and look at the reasons, the results, the maneuvers, the leaders, and a slew of other factors before making their judgment. Being all for or all against war limits one's ability to do this, and the ability to be objective. No matter how loud we talk, facts remain facts, even if they don't fit our agendas upon closer inspection.

So, believing one must be historically and contextually knowledgeable about the war one chooses to defend or oppose, and believing war as an institution is neither wholly good nor wholly evil, my position on a possible war between the United States and Iran is:

I don't know what my position is. I haven't yet made up my mind.

Among the reasons is my minimal knowledge of the Iranian influence in Iraq. I know it's been "a thing" for some time now, but I have little information or facts on which to base my opposition or support - unless I choose to base them on the same three-sentence snippets from social media posts. I'm actually ashamed to say that before last week, I had no idea who Qasem Soleimani was. I know, I missed the Qasem Soleimani bandwagon. He was a household name. Posters of his face adorned the walls of every teenage girl in Iran. But alas, I'm ignorant. If I had more knowledge of Soleimani and his history, and of Iran-Iraq affairs beyond 2003, only then could I invoke a pro or anti reaction. But, as it is, I need time to glean more information before I can declare the war - if it comes to that - to be a right or wrong move. And, only as events unfold, events I cannot predict, can I declare certain actions during that war to be good or bad.

As for the idea of "supporting the troops," I find it to be a dangerously nationalistic idea, just as dangerous as supporting all war. If I disagree with the troops' mission, how can I support the soldiers who voluntarily join the military who fights it? Doing such would be akin to opposing nude dancing while declaring that I support the strippers. If I support the war, I support the troops. If I'm against the war, I cannot logically claim I support the troops.

If one rejects the impulsive reactions borne of pro-war or anti-war ideologies, one must accept that they may wrestle with the right or wrong of some wars for years after they're over. For example, the Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade, and I'm still undecided on whether or not I believe going to Iraq was the right thing for the US to do. I also have to admit my bias, in that I have a brother who served two tours there, and several friends who did as well, and I'm afraid any denunciation would be a betrayal to them. The silver lining however is that by rejecting strict ideological blankets, I can see my own bias, and acknowledge how it might affect my judgment, which allows me to keep quiet or disqualify myself from making a judgment or even forming an opinion. (Despite our society being more opinionated than ever, and having the means to compulsively voice our thoughts to thousands at a time, remember this: it's okay not to have an opinion.)

I believe the Vietnam War was utterly pointless. But in saying so, I have the cringing feeling inside that I'm calling the service of those fought the war to be pointless. I don't want such gall as to preach to a veteran, who knows more about life and death than I can fathom, about my self-professed knowledge of history and my precious ideology - even if that veteran agrees with me.
Speaking of the soldiers who do the actual fighting, if I do find myself in support of a certain war, I must have no delusion that those on the fields and in the trenches are singing patriotic songs at night and shouting "For George, Queen and Country!" before an assault. Even if one supports a war effort, one would be foolish to forget that the soldiers who fight it are often scared, miserable, hungry, and wondering just what the war they're fighting is all about. Their opinion on the war, be it pro or con, will always, as my personal rule, outweigh any thoughts of yours or mine. My advice to anyone who does support all war, other than "stop it!," is to keep in mind that the soldiers who are fighting in your place aren't always as gung-ho about the situation as you are. No matter how well-worded our quotes from MSNBC or Fox News may be.

The shortest war story ever written was penned by an anonymous American Civil War veteran. It is only three sentences: "A bunch of us went to Gettysburg. Some of us never came back. If you weren't there, you'll never understand."

PS Go Tampa Bay. There's always next year. #BucsNation

"I was traveling with my family in the Mideast late one night
The hotel hall was quiet, the kids were out like little lights
Then the street was filled with jeeps
There was an explosion to the right
They chanted Death To America!
I was feeling like a fight..."
-Neil Young