Forensics, Fractures, and Fritters
During Rhetoric class on Wednesday afternoon, we learned the structure of formal debates, and divided into teams for planning meetings. I am on the "Pro" side of "Extra-Biblical texts should be allowed in Sunday morning worship music."
The Regulative Principle is officially balderdash, until the end of next week. X_X
First off, let me say for the record: The arguments for my side are extremely tenuous, at best. And it's quite annoying to live in the same house as one who gets to be on the right side of the debate. Quite.
That said, I'll be better prepared than EVER before to defend Psalmody against even the smartest postmodern opposition.
Did you know that Isaac Watts wrote a metered version of the Book of Psalms? We looked at it last night, Papa and I. It still contains the imprecatory passages and everything. It takes more poetic liberties than I'm comfortable with (that is, it does liberties), as well as some theological liberties (of course--if you take any liberty at all with Scripture, it will be theological). But it was REMARKABLY close! And as Anna told me tonight, Watts never intended to displace Psalms with his hymns. So. I don't despise him quite so much as I once did. Compared to Fanny Crosby (X_X) he should be but mildly chastised.
I had a lively hour or so conferencing with a classmate on this topic, making up strategies and tactics and arguments and so forth. We'll definitely do ok. Too bad no one has written a treatise that actually defends hymnody against Psalmody. We've been hard-pressed to find anything at all beyond "Scripture is silent on this point, ergo..." which of course holds no water at all! I have a feeling any extensive treatise would be rather round-the-bush and unsupported by Scripture, anyways, so perhaps it's just as well. (It was mentioned that less than 2% of the Christian church holds to Psalmody, so why should it be an issue, anyway? to which I would answer that less than 1% of the world's population is even Christian, and yet we still bother with it. . .)
Enough.
In other news. Pervinca cracked something in her foot at step-dance today. BADLY. It hasn't swollen up *too* tremendously, but SOMETHING is out of joint in there!
The dance teacher prescribed six weeks of rest. !!!
Why am I the bearer of bad tidings? We must think of something more positive to say, mustn't we?
Oh, yes. Last night I made this recipe with dinner:
(I only have photographic memory for things I actually did, and I made a huge batch, so downsize this one before you use it):
1.5 cups flour
3 cups cornmeal
5 cups mashed banana
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
4 tsp. cinnamon
4 eggs
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp. salt
6 T milk.
Preheat oven to 400 F, heat skillet to medium-high with two tablespoons of canola oil. Or whatever.
Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls, then stir together. Do not mix too well. Spoon batter on skillet 1 T at a time. Fry until golden-brown on both sides. Transfer cakes to greased cookie sheet, bake for 8-10 minutes.
Voila! Banana-corn fritters!
They make a delicious addition to a good pot of bean soup.
Well, I've exhausted the bounds of my title, so away I go!
Vale!
~Annie
The Regulative Principle is officially balderdash, until the end of next week. X_X
First off, let me say for the record: The arguments for my side are extremely tenuous, at best. And it's quite annoying to live in the same house as one who gets to be on the right side of the debate. Quite.
That said, I'll be better prepared than EVER before to defend Psalmody against even the smartest postmodern opposition.
Did you know that Isaac Watts wrote a metered version of the Book of Psalms? We looked at it last night, Papa and I. It still contains the imprecatory passages and everything. It takes more poetic liberties than I'm comfortable with (that is, it does liberties), as well as some theological liberties (of course--if you take any liberty at all with Scripture, it will be theological). But it was REMARKABLY close! And as Anna told me tonight, Watts never intended to displace Psalms with his hymns. So. I don't despise him quite so much as I once did. Compared to Fanny Crosby (X_X) he should be but mildly chastised.
I had a lively hour or so conferencing with a classmate on this topic, making up strategies and tactics and arguments and so forth. We'll definitely do ok. Too bad no one has written a treatise that actually defends hymnody against Psalmody. We've been hard-pressed to find anything at all beyond "Scripture is silent on this point, ergo..." which of course holds no water at all! I have a feeling any extensive treatise would be rather round-the-bush and unsupported by Scripture, anyways, so perhaps it's just as well. (It was mentioned that less than 2% of the Christian church holds to Psalmody, so why should it be an issue, anyway? to which I would answer that less than 1% of the world's population is even Christian, and yet we still bother with it. . .)
Enough.
In other news. Pervinca cracked something in her foot at step-dance today. BADLY. It hasn't swollen up *too* tremendously, but SOMETHING is out of joint in there!
The dance teacher prescribed six weeks of rest. !!!
Why am I the bearer of bad tidings? We must think of something more positive to say, mustn't we?
Oh, yes. Last night I made this recipe with dinner:
(I only have photographic memory for things I actually did, and I made a huge batch, so downsize this one before you use it):
1.5 cups flour
3 cups cornmeal
5 cups mashed banana
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
4 tsp. cinnamon
4 eggs
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp. salt
6 T milk.
Preheat oven to 400 F, heat skillet to medium-high with two tablespoons of canola oil. Or whatever.
Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls, then stir together. Do not mix too well. Spoon batter on skillet 1 T at a time. Fry until golden-brown on both sides. Transfer cakes to greased cookie sheet, bake for 8-10 minutes.
Voila! Banana-corn fritters!
They make a delicious addition to a good pot of bean soup.
Well, I've exhausted the bounds of my title, so away I go!
Vale!
~Annie
posted by Unknown at 11:43 AM
9 Comments:
:-)
Not, about Pervinca...:-(
Sorry to hear about Vinca's foot. Now we'll get to see her learn to use crutches, perhaps. :)
It's true that learning to argue from the point of view that you *don't* agree with can strengthen you when you argue *for* your point of view. That was one of the consolations in the Pocahontas class last semester--by learning how feminism works from the inside, I can know better how to refute it.
Ahhh . . . but in this debate are you supposed to demonstrate the ability to articulate "your" position, or the ability to persuade the audience?
Clear articulation is not necessarily the same thing as persuasion, so if the only requirement is to be persuasive this could be fun.
Remember, demonize the opposition!
Okay, seriously . . . there are a lot of ways one could argue this. A start might be:
Ephesians 5:19 "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord"
Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."
1 Corinthians 14:26 "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."
There are lots of different argument formations one could use . . .
--Hymns are a cornerstone of the Christian life: Acts 16:25, Romans 15:9.
or
--Hymns are for strengthing the Church 1 Corinthians 14:26
Or . . . just attack the opposition!
"Do not go beyond what is written" 1 Corinthians 4:6, and those Pharisees over there are going beyond what is written because no where are Hymns excluded! (etc, etc, ad nausem) I won't dig up all the Scripture one might use to blast your opposition tonight. (And there are plenty of more sophisticated ways of undermining the opposition then what I just gave.)
Mari: Anna's face is actually still :) right now. She may come to church wearing one shoe off and one shoe on, but she's still smiling!
Frodo: I'm just beginning to understand this.
Rundy: Thanks so much for the input! Unfortunately, coming from the other side, I know that 90% of those are quite easily refuted and cannot possibly be used with any success. Even so, the evidence has mounted sufficiently for the case...
Previously, you said, "Too bad no one has written a treatise that actually defends hymnody against Psalmody."
In that case, you might be interested in reading this:
http://www.the-highway.com/psalmody_Irons.html
You may find the peice of particular interest because Mr. Irons does not say that the Regulative Principle is balderdash. Instead, he puts forward an argument that hymnody (properly understood) is in compliance with the Regulative Principle.
As you already previously stated, you don't truly agree with Mr. Irons, but it might make for a more interesting debate if you formed your "hypothetical" position around the idea that the Regulative Principle is true and argue that Hymns within worship are in compliance.
Perhaps something like: As preaching is to scripture, so hymns are to psalms. (If you haven't read Mr. Irons paper, you probably won't get what I'm saying.) With an argument like this one could make an argument for hymnody based on the same framework as preaching and teaching.
Anyhow, I think that would make a more interesting debate . . . .
You put cayenne pepper in pancakes?
That debate sounds interesting @_@ We haven't done anything like that in my Rhetoric class yet though....
And I hope Pervinca gets better soon! ^^
Yet again, the culinary experimentalist takes me aback with ingenuity. I've never heard of such cakes, and I'm tempted to try my hand at them.
As for debate tips, I fear I'd be no help. Unfortunately, like many students of more typical educational environments, I received only minimal training on the structure of formal debates, and I've not educated myself on the matter since. (Of course, planning to classically educate our children at home does make it a matter of importance. Sigh. In good time...)
abigail: as you say, all in good time. My mother at some point decided to get outside help with our highschool education, and we've used The Potter's School with great success. If Millie was ten years older, I'd advise you to look into it. It's still a long way off though...
I found the recipe for those fritters in my newspaper. It was an adventure--the only real experiment involved, however, was setting aside some dry batter to make for my dairy-intolerant sister... (in the end hers turned out better than ours--who would've thought?)
Elai: In Rhetoric 2 we go more into style, speech, debate. Mrs. Howat also walked us through a monster thesis paper--I love doing papers for English teachers! She breaks it down into so much research due every week, an outline, etc. until you've written an amazing paper without any extra effort whatsoever. Mrs. Howat is a very encouraging and thoughtful teacher, and the classes are small. (You might ask your parents about that one...)
And yes, those things were strange. But we liked them for some reason...
rundy: Thanks for the tip! I ran it by our team captain, and he vetoed it ("too dangerous" or something), but it prompted me to research a bit, and I found an article by John Frame on Wikipedia (of all places) that WILL be extremely useful to us. Thanks for the ideas!
Post a Comment
<< Home