Music has unparalleled power to forcefully express the reality of a given condition. One of my favourite Hip hop albums of all time is Wu Tang Clan's "Killa Bees" (1998). It has the above amazing song by Remedy - "Never Again". I believe it to be one of the most powerful hip hop songs ever written! The evil of the holocaust is an enduring reminder that the heart of man is totally depraved. It is remarkable that it was only around 60 years or so ago that so many innocent people perished under Hitler's evil regime. We forget such horrors at our own peril. Songs such as these are vital in ensuring that we are ever conscious of our evil nature. Quietly through them we recognise that the hope for humanity necessarily lies outside ourselves and towards a God who has done all to offer a way of rescue out of our present evil predicament. On our own we are doomed to repeat the mistakes. But with Jesus as the centre we live in hope for a better world to come.
Death may not be an exciting topic but it is certainly an important, if often overlooked subject. Which is why Rob Moll's recent book The Art of Dying is a welcome publication. The book has been written to address the question of the good way to die. Moll believes our culture does not know how to approach death because we have become so removed from experiencing it. This is a problem because we can't live well unless we are intimate with death and know how to die well. The Christian approach, Moll argues, is that death is both evil and mercy wrapped in one. Therefore there are significant benefits from knowing how to die well. At the surface we should all be capable of dying well because people take longer to die than before which should offer plenty of preparation. The reality is exactly the opposite. For many Christians the allure of modern medicine has meant greater focus on self preservation and surviving at all costs than preparing well for death. Dying as a spiri...
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