Record Label Takes Stand Against RIAA

From Ars Technica,

In a twist on the old tale of the RIAA suing teenagers for downloading music, Nettwerk Records (Canada) has offered to pay the legal bills of one family who has vowed to challenge the RIAA in court. The Gruebels, a US family, are accused by the RIAA of downloading a whole host of songs, including works by various Nettwerk artists. The label has offered to foot the bill for Chicago lawyer Charles Mudd Jr., who will defend the family in court and has already argued several cases on this issue. Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk, explained in a statement that he does not see how lawsuits help the industry, the artist, or the consumer.

In addition, the label has stated that they will even pay the fee the RIAA is demanding if the family loses the case.

This is very cool. If would be even better if more labels saw things this way, and could start to rack up some pressure against the Big Five and the RIAA. Of course, there's always the hope that what we're seeing is the death throes of the RIAA, and either they will learn to adapt to the new economy or eventually die out.

Dearth of Posts

Yes, I'm still alive. I've been rather busy lately, so I've not really had time to read, or to really think about what I've read. I'm thinking I probably need to set aside maybe an hour or more whenever I can spare it as a quiet time, where I seperate myself from distractions, and just sit down with some books or articles and a journal. Then I can simply read, think, and write down what I think. Not only will I have more to write about, it will help me improve and grow myself.

So, basically, this is an "I'm still alive" post. That's all I have right now.

Busy Christmas

Well, December has been a busy month, with all the running around, visiting relatives, flying down to Florida for the company Christmas party, and trying to figure out what to buy for who. Fortunately, at work, we've been at the end of a project, so I've had some time to sit back and work a bit on some side projects.

The week before Christmas was the worst. Kristen and I flew down to Florida the Saturday before Christmas for a company party, flew back Sunday morning, and then drove up to a cabin my family rented in the mountains Sunday afternoon. The problem with all that was that I was sick. I started really feeling bad on Saturday, so I ended up spending most of the time in the cabin sleeping. I ended up going to the doctor on Tuesday when we got back and got some antibiotics, which really started to kick in around Friday, so I was, at least, feeling better for Christmas. Kristen's birthday was on Thursday, and then Friday, my family went to visit relatives, coming back on Saturday night. Then, I ran home, wrapped all my presents, got some clothes to wear to church on Sunday, and went back to my parents' house to sleep. Sunday, of course, was Christmas. I finally got some free, personal time on Sunday night, and ended up staying up too late.

Now things are finally winding down, so I should have some time to enjoy my Christmas presents, and get the other stuff done that I need to do (get my own cell phone plan, look at buying a new computer, camera, and PocketPC, clean up around the house, etc.). Things at work are starting to pick up again, too, so we're, hopefully, getting back to normal. Maybe I'll have more time to come up with some original stuff to blog.

All that said, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Also, have a safe and happy New Year!

Explaining My Previous Post on Christmas

It has come to my attention that my previous entry wasn't terribly well explained, and, perhaps, a bit extreme. My point, regarding some people/groups not wanting to acknowledge that the holiday they are celebrating is Christmas, is that, in my opinion, it's not as big a deal as I've been hearing people make it, and I'm getting kind of tired of, as Dr. Mohler called it, the "exceedingly thin skin" some Christians have developed. Again, to quote Dr. Mohler, "...it used to be that Christians were very concerned that Christmas was getting too commercial; now, there's some who think that maybe it's not commercial enough," and "if we as Christians are known mainly for complaining about "Happy Holidays" at the store, of all things, or out in the public square, then we're probably missing something."

I mentioned that I think it may be a good thing that the secular celebrations are becoming seperated from the sacred, and that the holiday non-Christians are celebrating isn't Christmas. I stand by that, but it does require some clarification:

1) "Christmas" is derived from the words "Christ's Mass". It is a holy day of obligation for traditional Christians (one of the two holiest days on the Christian calendar), a date which the Church long ago set aside to celebrate the birth of Christ*. As I explained in my previous post, Advent is the month leading up to Christmas in which the faithful prepare for the birth of Christ. The holiday is founded upon, and centers around, the central truth of Christianity: the Incartation, that mystery by which a holy God took upon Himself the flesh of men.

Many customs have grown up around Advent and Christmas, some as Christianized versions of pagan celebrations that occured in December, others as simply local traditions that spread to other cultures. Different cultures celebrate Christmas in different ways, but among the variations the point of it all is Christ. Without Christ, the celebration is no longer Christian, and it is no longer Christmas. Many good deeds may be done as part of the celebration, and good sentiments may reign over the hearts of every man, woman, and child, but if Christ is absent, it is not Christian.

Perhaps it is a little much to say that Christ is totally absent from our culture's celebrations of Christmas, although it has become harder to find Him (see, for instance, the television specials that proclaim that the meaning of the season is family/friends/loved ones). Certainly, many of the shoppers buying gifts at the stores and malls are doing so as a part of their celebration of Christmas, but many are doing so as a celebration of a cultural holiday which, as far as they are concerned, has nothing to do with Christ (or perhaps Jews celebrating Hanukkah).

Here's what I'm saying: if people don't want to celebrate Christmas, why not stop insisting that they still call it "Christmas"? Let them celebrate Festivus, or Generic-Nonoffensive-Holiday, and we will happily continue celebrating Christmas. This brings me to my next point.

2) I am not suggesting that Christians simply throw in the towel, pick up their toys, and go home. I am not suggesting that we simply say to the world, "Do whatever you want, we don't care." I am definately not suggesting that we, in any way, hide Christ from the world. Christ is the center of all that we do as Christians—He is what makes anything Christian. Rather, I am suggesting something similar to what Dr. Mohler said to his church: "Look, this is the deal: make sure that your Christmas cards have a Christmas message; make sure that your Christmas conversation is about Christ; make sure that you are focused on this. Use it as an opportunity for winsome witness, but I don't think it's really effective to say we're going to boycott a company because it has 'Happy Holidays' out front rather than 'Merry Christmas.'"

Christians should continue to engage non-Christians with the story of the Gospel, and Christmas is certainly a great time for that. However, I don't think that the way to go about it is to insist that non-Christians act like Christians and celebrate a Christian holiday that has no meaning to them. I also don't think that we should go around condemning those Christians who are trying to be sensitive to the fact that other people may not want to celebrate Christmas. Rather, I think that we need to take a step back and realize that we may have gotten things mixed up. To hear many "thin-skinned" Christians talk about it , it sounds like they believe that the way to change people's hearts is to change the culture (or to preserve the culture that is not a reality anymore). This, to me, seems akin to wanting a Porsche, and so taking your Geo Metro, modifying the body to look like a Porsche, and calling it a Porsche. It's not a Porsche, however well you may get it to look like one, because, under the exterior, it is still a Geo Metro. Rather, the way to change the culture is to change the hearts of the people.

So, in the end, let those who want to celebrate something other than Christmas celebrate it. Let us, as the Church, remember what we celebrate as we celebrate Christmas, and be always inviting those who will to join us in the celebration.

And a request for comments: does anyone agree, or am I just out of my mind? I know of a few people that read this—or, at least, have a subscription to it. Surely some of you have some thoughts, and maybe even better ideas on how to approach this subject. That's one reason why I post here; to subject my thoughts to the critique of anyone who may read them.



*I will note that not all Christians celebrate Christmas. The Puritans held to a form of worship that said that all worship must be explicitly from Scripture. As such, if I remember correctly, they did not sing hymns, but stuck only to the Psalms. They generally rejected the idea of "holy days," and, so, did not celebrate Christmas (however, they did, I believe, consider Sunday the Christian Sabbath, and, therefore, was set aside as a day of worship). In fact, when the Puritans came into power in England for a while, they outlawed Christmas.

Albert Mohler on the Secularization of Christmas

For those who don't know, Dr. R. Albert Mohler is the current President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition to this, he has a radio show, which is also published as a podcast, to which I am currently subscribed. On yesterday's show (the podcast comes out a day late), he gave a short blurb on the issue of Christmas and the secularization of our culture that I found to be rather refreshing. I couldn't find a transcription of the show, so I went ahead and transcribed the section of interest (you can listen to the show here):

Let me ask you a question: honestly, is Christmas getting too commercialized, or is it not commercialized enough? You know, when you listen to some of the debates out there these days, it's hard to know which side some people are on.

Last year, we did a "Scrooge Alert"; we were watching very closely what was happening when, for instance, parades were changed from Christmas parades to holiday parades, or when people said "Look, you can't have a Christmas tree in a courthouse, because that's an establishment of religion," or when companies said to employees, "You can't say 'Merry Christmas.'" Well, folks, I'm all over that; that's ridiculous. That is a denial of religious liberty. It is a denial of the obvious. After all, when the federal government has a legal holiday on December 25, is it supposed to be because they just chose the 25th of December for no reason in particular?

But, I have to tell you, I think some Christians are developing an exceedingly thin skin. And, I'm listening to many Christians say, "Well, you know, we just need to get these stores, and malls, and all the rest to make it all about Christmas." Well, lets just remember what these stores are trying to do. They are trying to make a profit. They are trying to sell a product. They are trying to entice you in, in order that you will buy things that you will give during the Christmas season. And, you know, it used to be that Christians were very concerned that Christmas was getting too commercial; now, there's some who think that maybe it's not commercial enough.

I don't know that there's any, just, clear and absolutely irrefutable principle that we should put into place here, but I would suggest that we ought to make sure that we are celebrating a Christian Christmas before we start going after all those who may be confused about the holiday season, or whatever it is they call it. Yesterday, when I was preaching at my church, I said, "Look, this is the deal: make sure that your Christmas cards have a Christmas message; make sure that your Christmas conversation is about Christ; make sure that you are focused on this. Use it as an opportunity for winsome witness, but I don't think it's really effective to say we're going to boycott a company because it has 'Happy Holidays' out front rather than 'Merry Christmas.'"

Yes, I'm very disappointed at the secularization of the culture; we talk about that a lot. Yes, I'm very, very concerned about the regime of political correctness and how it is constricting Christian liberty. But, I have to say, if we as Christians are known mainly for complaining about "Happy Holidays" at the store, of all things, or out in the public square, then we're probably missing something.

I know that, at my church, I've heard a lot of the talk he's speaking of here. I've even been told that there is a list of stores being circulated that we ought to be boycotting because they don't say "Merry Christmas".

I was pleased to know that this is not an attitude that is universal among conservative evangelicals, and I agree with most of what Dr. Mohler says here. I do think that the whole "Happy Holidays" thing is really about as silly as using "C.E." (Common Era) and "B.C.E." (Before Common Era) instead of "BC" (Before Christ) and "AD" (Anno Domini—"year of Our Lord"). As Mohler says, "when the federal government has a legal holiday on December 25, is it supposed to be because they just chose the 25th of December for no reason in particular?"

However, perhaps this increasing disconnect between the secular and sacred celebrations of December 25 is a good thing. Maybe this is the answer to Christians' wailing over the lost meaning of Christmas: let the world continue its pagan celebrations of the gods of Bacchus and Mammon, and we Christians will seperate ourselves from that and worship Jesus, our God and King. Consider this description of secular vs. sacred Christmas celebrations attributed to C.S. Lewis (I don't know what book it is supposed to be from, nor whether it really was written by Lewis, but it is very insightful). The non-Christian world is not celebrating Christmas, and I will be more than happy if they will stop calling it that. Call it Exmas* or Festivus, for all I care, but if it has nothing to do with Christ, don't call it Christmas.

Besides, it is difficult to deny that the Amercian churches' celebrations of Christmas has been tainted by the culture when some churches are even deciding not to meet for public worship on Christmas, which this year falls on a Sunday (so not only are they not worshipping on Christmas, which is understandable, but they are not worshipping on the Lord's Day because it happens to be Christmas). Michael Spencer has some good comments on that story over at his blog, The Internet Monk.

I'm not suggesting that we simply hide Christ during Christmas. Rather, maybe we should recover the idea of Advent. Advent, in the Christian calendar, is a holy season of the four weeks or so before Christmas where Christians enter into the Gospel story at the time just before the birth of Christ (the Christian calendar then takes Christians through the Gospel story through Good Friday and Easter and to Pentecost). Advent is a time when we join in the anticipation of the birth of the Messiah. That's right, Advent is not the "Christmas season". Christmas has not yet occured; we are waiting for it, and, in the meantime, we are to be preparing the way, preparing ourselves for the celebration of the birth of Christ.

Even if we cannot totally abandon Exmas right now—or ever—, perhaps we can begin moving toward Advent in our own lives. Take extra time for prayer this season, and seek harder after Christ. Let your focus be turned anew to Him. On Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day, be sure to celebrate Christ. My family has, since I was little, had a tradition of baking a "happy birthday, Jesus" cake, reading the Christmas story (no, not the "You'll shoot your eye out" one, the one with the baby, and the shepherds, and the angels), and singing happy birthday to Jesus before going to bed on Christmas Eve. Yes, it seems a little silly, but it has reminded us, as we anticipated the gifts we'd receive the next morning, of the Gift that was given to the world: Emmanuel, Christ our King.

*On second thought, leave "X-mas" to us, as well. "X" is an abbreviation for "Christ" (Greek: Χριστός); the "X" is used as it resembles the Greek letter chi (Χ), and, contrary to popular belief, is not a denial of Christ. The abbreviation has been in use for quite some time in Christian writings where, for sake of space, "xian" has been used instead of "Christian", "xmas" instead of "Christmas", etc. It is not some nefarious scheme conjured up by "the Liberals", or athiests, or what have you, in order to obscure Christ.

Five Questions Non-Muslims Would Like Answered

This interested me mostly due to the idea that some people have that "The [Liberal] Media" is simply anti-Christian, etc. Here is an article from the L.A. Times that somewhat takes the Muslim community to task for their silence regarding the violence and atrocities perpretrated in the name of Islam. One question I hadn't thought of before was:

(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?

If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.

I'm sure Christian Palestinians are none too happy about being occupied and all, but I have never heard of them practicing terrorism. Another good point from the article:

Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.

In addition, Timothy McVeigh is one man. Eric Rudolph is one man. There have been a few nutters in recent days who have committed terrorism in the name of Christ, but there is nothing today comparable to the Muslim systematic terrorism.

This reminds me of a sad video I saw the other day of Palestinian children talking about wanting to be martyrs and killing Jews. A part of me hopes that is a sick joke and the subtitles are not actually what the kids are saying, but, chances are, the subtitles are accurate. As the auther of the page with that video so wisely says, "If this is the next generation over there the Palestinians and Israelis are going to have a pretty hard time living together for the foreseeable future."

There is one beef I have with the article: one cannot forget that, in the past, atrocities have, indeed, been systemized in Christianity. The Crusades were a low point in Western Ecclesiastical history, and an error that Christians today recognize as wrong. In that instance, Muslims and Jews weren't the only ones that suffered; the Western Christians also sacked the Christian city of Constantinople, and were quite indiscriminate in who they killed. The Inquisition was another low point, again inflicted by the Church on Muslims, Jews, and "dissident" Christians alike. I think that any discussion of the topic of systematic terrorism must honestly own up to the good and bad of both sides, and all issues should, as much as is possible, be understood in the light of society at the time. Regarding these issues, however, I think it is somewhat telling that Christianity as a whole has come far enough to recognize these things as wrong.

Ultimately, I think the main thrust of the article is this: it doesn't matter whether Islam is really an inherently oppressive, violent religion; the way things are right now certainly gives Westerners a legitimate impression that it is. Say whatever you want, it's what you do that matters.

Advent

I really should pay more attention. I just found out that yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent. For those that don't know, Advent is the four weeks leading up to Christmas. From what I have read, traditionally, this is supposed to be a time of preparation and of waiting for Christmas. The idea is that we enter into the Gospel story, in some way.

Of course, in our society, Advent has been eclipsed by the phenomenon known as the "Christmas season". Rather than being a holy season where we are especially focused on Christ and His Coming, it is a season of sales, shopping, and stress. The preparation of the soul to celebrate the birth of her Savior has been replaced with the preparation of the gift pile. Instead of a time of quiet devotion, or of recollection, it is a time of busyness. It is rather sad that the season of Christ's birth has become the greatest annual show of consumerism.

I'll buy gifts, certainly, but I will try to do so not out of a sense of obligation, but willingly. I'll probably listen to some Christmas music, but I'm going to try to listen to more songs like "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" than "White Christmas". I'll enjoy the Christmas season, partly because some of it is enjoyable, but also partly because I have no other choice. However, I want to try this year not to forget, as the cliché goes, "the reason for the season."

In addition, this seems like an appropriate time to try again at reading On the Incarnation by Athanasius. For some reason, I have repeatedly begun, but never finished, reading that book. This year, that will be my goal.

Also, if anyone can suggest some good (preferably free) resources to better understand the Christian calendar and the signifigance of the different days/seasons, please do. I'd love to read more about this stuff.