• Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — Emphasis on the dark and twisted, but also stunningly beautiful, full stop. After 2007′s Graduation, then his auto-tune phase, then Taylor Swift, what would Kanye do next? Shunning some of his earlier hip-hop stylings, this is a straight rap album and it shows us an artist who is eminently self-aware, something most people wouldn’t have believed.
• Vampire Weekend – Contra – I don’t know how these guys do it, but they combine prep-rock, a pinch world music percussion, throw in some samples (including MIA), a little auto-tune, a dash of rice milk, an awesome music video and create one of the most pleasing albums of the year. (footnote: frontman Ezra Koenig once interned for this next band)
• The Walkmen – Lisbon – The Walkmen are the masters of moody guitar music, but this time they thrown in a little surf influence. Perfect music for a rainy day, which has been almost every day in December here in L.A.
• Arcade Fire – The Suburbs – In my estimation, no other band packs so much theology and disaffection with the way things are (through lyrics but mostly instrumentation) into such a great package. Win Butler has a message, but he never makes it feel heavy-handed. Those two sentences make this album sound terrible, but trust me, just give it a listen.
• Beach House – Teen Dream – The layers of sound in this album simply take over and transport you to a new place. I don’t recommend popping this CD into your car stereo, make the space and this album will impress you.
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat the Devil’s Tattoo – Still one of my favorite bands, BRMC produced one of their best albums yet. The thinking persons garage rock, with a lot of blues influence, and folk style storytelling. They’re not for everyone, but good stuff.
• The Roots – How I Got Over – I don’t know how they have time for everything they do, but a new album by The Roots is always a delight. Lot’s of guest appearances, and even more questions about God.
• LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening – You’ll dance, you’ll cry, you’ll skip a song or two, but this is Electro-Rock at its finest.
• Gorillaz – Plastic Beach – Most people have an opinion on Gorillaz. This album will reinforce whatever you already think. I love them.
• Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer – Is ‘F*** You’ the best song of the year? I’m going to say yes. But don’t just run to iTunes and buy the one track, there’s other great stuff here too (including a Band of Horses cover!).
• Other albums I should mention but don’t feel like writing about: Spoon – Transference, The National – High Violet, Broken Bells, The Black Keys – Brothers

Well, that’s it for this year. Please dear reader(s), let me know what you think. What did I miss? Who should be taken off this list? Have I gone too mainstream? Am I too obscure? Both?

Where to start? In On Religion, John Caputo emphasizes a few questions that he draws from Augustine. The primary question being some iteration of “what do I love when I love my God?” It’s a fascinating question and one that I hope some of my colleagues will take up in their posts. This is not my focus, but in short, religion is about love. Everyone loves, thus everyone is religious. What is the object of love? As he says, “Religion may be found with or without religion” (3). The scriptures are full of riffs on love and Caputo re-reads passages like 1 John 4:7-8 in a way that makes you wonder if John (the first century one) was actually the first postmodernist.

My attention is drawn to another question that he draws from the venerable saint (all emphasis original):

“My modest contribution to that ageless restlessness of the human heart, the one small thing I hope to add to the philosphia perennis, is this: We do not know who we are – that is who we are. “Quaestio mihi factus sum” (it sounds better in Latin) is the way Augustine put it: “I have been made a question unto myself,” echoing St. Paul (Rom. 7:15). Who am I? I am one who finds his life a question, whose life is always being put in question, which is what gives life its salt. We seek but do not find, not quite, not if we are honest, which does not discourage the religious heart but drives it on and heightens the passion, for this is one more encounter with the impossible. We may and we must have our opinions on the subject; we must finally reach a judgment and take a stand about life, but my advice is to attach a coefficient of uncertainty to what we say, for even after we have taken a stand, we still do not know who we are. We do not Know The Secret (notice the caps!)” (18-19).

My interest lies in putting myself to the question, destroying assumptions based on nothing more than reference to authority, recognizing the impossibility of objectivity. What does it mean to start from the individual? So much of theology and philosophy attempts to start from the universal. Systematic theology starts with either universal revelation or a universal god. The flow is from the universal to the particular. What does this universal god tell us about individuals? It is always assumed that the theologian has some access to the universal in order to make these grand claims. Through some twist of (non)logic these systems of thought are claimed to be more valid because of their incoherence: “God’s ways are higher than our ways;” the theological equivalent of the playground derision: “my dad could beat up your dad!” What would it look like to step outside this framework?

Further, I’m not just interested in a simple reverse of the flow. It seems naïve to assume that starting from the individual and moving to the universal is going to fix anything. I’m not sure where this leaves me, but that is why I see this as a journey. What are some starting points?

I still think that theology is an helpful lens through which to frame discussion. As part of a directed study I have been doing some readings in a few different theological arenas: Feminist, Body, Liberation, Queer, Process, and Money theologies. As I said, I don’t merely want to develop a new set of universal principles, but to learn how to navigate different contexts, essentially, ethics. For me (and I stole this line from somewhere), theology is not about the metaphysics of some transcendent god, but about the ontology of the individual. If ‘not knowing who I am’ is what I am, what am I to do/love?