A sidenote: Bishop Obare preached at Shepherd of the City during the time when the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya is entering fellowship with the Missouri Synod. The Prediger picked him up from the Sem where he was staying. From what I heard, we are the first church in Synod to have him preach and administer the Sacrament. He was impressive at the pulpit, and it was an honor to receive the Sacrament from this man. Later that day, I realized that I committed a theological faux pas: his church body has NOT yet entered full altar fellowship! (Facepalms for me.) Yet I realized that I rather be fed by this confessional giant than by the theology of glory jockeys who oversee some of our Synod’s parishes. Sometime later, one of our fieldworkers [Dennis Meeker] was ordained by Obare and now serving with his wife Lorna in Kenya.

Alices Restaurant – Arlo Guthrie

“You aren’t making Christianity any better, you’re just making rock and roll worse!”– Hank Hill

And now, my first experience with CCM, in 1984: Steve Taylor’s Meltdown (at Madame Tussaud’s). Flipping through the UHF channel, past the scrambled SelecTV, past the foreign language channels…it’s TBN, channel 40! It was one of my earliest brushes with Protestantism.

In this track entitled Adventures in Success, Sting played the bass and Goldsmith provided the vocoder’d voice. Carly Simon, Robert Palmer, and Todd Rundgren also contributed to the Will Powers project.

I wonder whether this was produced without irony or snark. It’s a danceable song that’s peppy and positive.