In my mind’s eye, correctly or not, Colson is the Mind and Wallis is the Heart in the argument of a Christian’s moral responsibility in society today. One espouses doctrinal accuracy and the other charitable compassion; one trusts the guiding of the heart and the other the guiding of the intellect. Compassion let’s the heart of God lead the way and intellect looks for safer ground in the immutable Word of God and, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, “and never the twain shall meet�.

It isn’t that Chuck Colson is uncaring or that Jim Wallis is intellectually devoid but I will say that Colson is more of an ideologue while Wallis is more pragmatic… Funny, you would think the opposite would be true.

It is a question of doing good verses being good. Wallis wants to deal with the hurt that is right here, right now and Colson is digging for the spiritual roots of society’s woes and neither may be getting it “right”.

Here’s the latest from the boys:

An open letter to Chuck Colson by Jim Wallis

Moral Equivalency: The Religious Left Gets It Wrong, BreakPoint with Charles Colson

The logical and rational have always battled against the emotional and intuitive; at least that is how it seems to me. It is as if these concepts in human behavior are mutually excusive in some way, demanding a person to choose a side; as if we did not all come with some measure and ability to operate in all these states of being.

Some fear emotionalism is overtaking the Christian church today. The thinking is that we judge the veracity of everything based on how it makes us feel and that for something to be understood it must be first experienced. It is an idea that has an underlying assumption that emotions too easily become Pavlovian responses to any given set of circumstances and should not be trusted or given merit. It is almost a subconscious perception that feelings are weak, yielding and easily manipulated generally for nefarious and selfish purposes.

There are yet others who look at the pervasion of the dogmatic, doctrinal and orthodox in the Christian church as a rigid legalism that is not content unless everything can be defined, explained and condensed. This concept assumes that one of the only reasons someone would be attracted to this kind of religion is because they are emotionally stinted, compensating for a lack of relational skills with logic; an ideology that loves being right and correct over all things.

It is almost like the heart is in conflict with the mind and that love is battling against truth in a cancerous war where the body of Christ is attacking itself.

Perhaps, I should elaborate, but my get up and go just got up and went, so I am going to close this post.

What got me thinking like this?

The Postmodern Crackup by Chuck Colson
An Open Letter to Chuck Colson by Brian McLaren
Chuck Colson’s Personal Response

So my sister Jen sent me this Star-Trib article on the new format of WCAL, the radio station recently purchased by Minnesota Public Radio from St. Olaf College this fall.

The article caught my attention right away with it’s first paragraph:

“Adventurous music lovers whose tastes range from Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” to the current buzz band Arcade Fire will find a commercial-free haven next month on the former classical radio station WCAL.”

Awesome! No really, I am ecstatic about this. The quality and sensibilties of MPR programming married to a music format that I can relate to is something that could get me listening to music on the radio again. No offence intended Radio K.

I immediately began to wonder if there is any room in this format to explore faith-based musical expression, you know, the non-crossover type. So I decided to give the fine staff over at WCAL a shout via a neat little blog they setup for the purpose of sharing ongoing developments and getting future listener feedback.

Here’s what I had to say:
Continue reading “WCAL Alt Rock for the Discerning” →