“Born This Way” (The Album) by Lady Gaga

When Lady Gaga’s most recent album, Born This Way, was released at the end of may, it sold 215,000 copies in Britain, more than the rest of the top 10 combined.  In the US, it sold 1.11million.  It was a huge album – in sales, but also in some of the publicity it received.  Church leaders were queuing up to condemn the video for Judas before it had even been released.  But the album has clearly struck a chord with a lot of people.  So here, at long last, are some of my responses – as a fan, and as a Christian.

The Weight of Glory

At New Word Alive last week, we were thinking about faith and how our future hope helps us to keep going as Christians in the present.  As I talked it over each day with a bunch of lads, we started thinking about how this actually works.  How does our hope for the future help us in suffering and in the struggle against sin.

This passage from “The Weight of Glory” by CS Lewis kept coming to mind:

if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

I’ve wanted to represent this idea in a painting for a while, but thinking about this last week has finally spurred me on to actually do it.  Look out for “Mudpie Sandcastles” – I’ll post a photo up here when it’s finished.  But for now, read the quote from Lewis again.  Are you half-hearted?  Are your too strong or too weak?

The whole of the essay is worth a read:  The Weight of Glory (pdf)

Jesus and Damien Hirst: Laughing at Life and Death?

This week it’s been my pleasure to work with Roehampton University Christian Union.  I’ve been speaking each lunchtime, considering the identity and claims of Jesus from the point of view of different celebrities.  Today I spoke on Jesus and Damien Hirst: Laughing at life and death?