“It’s ironic how some of those [lefty] elders, after years of hating heavy metal, learn to love it the moment a metal group becomes ‘intelligent,’ meaning politically correct. Among hardcore bands, the same advance in ‘intelligence’ is achieved whenever a group switches from just plain screaming to screaming about current events” (Martha Bayles, Hole in …
Street Crud is not the Same as Street Cred
“It’s worth noting that, for all their reputation as street rebels, the Sex Pistols rarely ventured beyond the ‘playpens’ of the art colleges” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 309).
Apostolic Authority Is Not Part of an Electrical Circuit
“Ordination is an act of government; it is not a charm, or a means by which power or some special apostolic authority is passed on to the recipient” (Mother Kirk, p. 173).
Rock Journalism
“Much of [Zappa’s] satire was well aimed, as when he famously defined rock journalism as ‘people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read’” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 292).
A Well-Trained Border Collie
“In this sense, an individual elder called as the minister may be considered the pastor, or shepherd, of a church. But if he remembers the pastoral authority of Christ and the pastoral responsibilities of the whole session of elders, he will not understand himself to be the sole shepherd of the flock. His role should …
Art in a Can
“The high point came in 1961, when an Italian artist name Piero Manzoni sold ninety cans of his own feces (each weighing thirty grams and marked ‘Made in Italy’) to art patrons willing to pay the same rate as the current price of gold” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 288).
But What a Choice
Marvin “Gaye is a special case, of course. But the same forces that propelled this troubled artist into the ooze made ‘love men’ out of many other talented musicians . . . The assumption was that any woman in her right mind would prefer the love man’s smooth-talking, satin-sheets-on-the-waterbed approach to the ear-blistering screeching of …
Pseudo-Satanism in the Hedge Row
“In their ongoing effort to be naughtier than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones began making satanic allusions in 1967 . . . Jimmy Page, the lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin, was a Crowley fan even before he accepted the Lucifer Rising job . . . By this route Satanism became heavy metal’s semiofficial religion, observed …
In Other Words, Not Breaking On Through to the Other Side
“Morrison never made the sustained effort needed to write even passable free verse, and his emotional range—from petulant narcissism to dead-serious angst—is far narrower than that of the least of his poetic idols . . . booze became the formaldehyde in which his adolescent hangs-ups were preserved” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 238).
Bureaucratic Bishopric
“This is the besetting sin of American presbyterianism. When an association of independent churches, or the representatives of presbyterian churches, makes the mistake of establishing a permanent headquarters somewhere (minium requirements: one desk, one phone, on file cabinet), a certain type of bureaucratic mind is immediately attracted to the important task of getting the papers …