From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V11 #60 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Thursday, May 31 2007 Volume 11 : Number 060 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Yet another article... ["Tracy J. Wells" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 22:25:22 -0500 From: "Tracy J. Wells" Subject: Yet another article... Here's yet another article, from the Boston Herald.... btw, I'm going to both shows at Passim! I'll be in Boston visiting friends and then going to a film festival in NJ this Sat and Sun... I'll be sure to report back in after the shows! :o) By the way, I've been sharing the album with everyone at church, and "probably not" has become a sort of running inside joke between some of us. Yesterday and today I was on a retreat prior to being CONFIRMED as an Episcopalian tonight, and as we were going through the service beforehand and us priest was telling us, "Ok, so when the bishop asks, 'do you renew your commitment to renounce evil?' (or whatever), then you're going to respond....." and I said, "Probably not!" We were joking all afternoon about how that should be our response to all the questions instead of "I do" or "I will, with God's help"... Anyway, so when the bishop got to the church and we were "rehearsing" the service and it got to that part, one of the other confirmands just totally got the giggles and couldn't stop laughing and whispers to me, "PROBABLY NOT!!!" We were about to die laughing. Luckily we all said the "CORRECT" responses in the actual service. Anyway, enjoy the article. Catch you folks on the other side of the Passim shows! :o) Gospel according to Werner: Religious doubt By Daniel Gewertz Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - Updated: 07:10 PM EST Many folk-pop singers have dipped into gospel music. Most of them are seduced by the genres emotional power without experiencing a religious conversion. Midwestern songwriter Susan Werners compelling new album, The Gospel Truth, is a far rarer and more radical experiment. It uses gospel to raise doubts about Christianity. If theres something unique and powerful about this project, its songs such as (Why Is Your) Heaven So Small. It is the music of faith with lyrics of doubt, she said last week from her Chicago home. Youre not going to find a lot of comfort here. These songs raise questions about the church and its teachings, said Werner, who appears at Club Passim on Thursday and Friday, with Trina Hamlin and Colleen Sexton singing backup. A few of Werners lyrics are yearning and idealistic, yet the hard-hitting songs, such as Heaven So Small, dont hide behind polite vagueness: I know youd damn me if you could, but my friend, thats simply not your call/if god is great and god is good, why is your heaven so small? Werners spiritual journey began right after Hurricane Katrina. Driving to a Quaker meetinghouse in Chicago, a construction detour left her stuck in traffic in front of a black church in a poor neighborhood. She decided to go in. When I grew up in Iowa, there were no gospel choirs, Werner said. I was knocked out by the intensity, the very high musical level. It was a whole new language for me to learn, and I immersed myself. Every Sunday, Werner visited different churches, white and black, on the road and at home. Getting up for church for a musician who had a Saturday night gig is asking a lot, she said with a laugh. Werners love of gospel came with the realization that ultimately, the music is intended to convert and proselytize. That tambourine is loaded, she said. But religion is a permanent facet of the American personality. Instead of denigrating it, I tried to find a way to relate to it, and I have to tell you I feel a lot less frightened by Christian America after my church tour. With the unpopularity of the Iraq war, and our new awareness of the ugly excesses of religious fanaticism, Werner says this is a good moment for agnostics. Its also a good moment to sing together in church. Its a great comfort to be united for an hour in song, she said. Susan Werner at Club Passim, Cambridge, Thursday and Friday. 8 p.m. Tickets: $25; 617-492-7679. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V11 #60 ******************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message