FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE

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The Grateful Dead was an American rockband formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California.^[1][2] Ranging from quintet to septet, the band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, bluegrass, blues, gospel, modal jazz, reggae, experimental music, psychedelia, and space rock,^[3][4] for live performances of lengthy instrumental jams,^[5][6] and for their devoted fan base, known as “Deadheads“. “Their music”, writes Lenny Kaye, “touches on ground that most other groups don’t even know exists”.^[7] These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead “the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world”.^[8] The band was ranked 57th by Rolling Stone magazine in its The Greatest Artists of All Time issue.^[9] The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994^[10] and a recording of their May 8, 1977, performance at Cornell University‘s Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012.^[11] The Grateful Dead have sold more than 35 million albums worldwide.

Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead in 1970, from a promotional photo shoot. Left to right: Bill Kreutzmann, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh.
Background information
Origin	Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Genres	Rock
Years active	1965–1995
Labels	Warner Bros. Grateful Dead Arista Rhino Sunflower United Artists
Associated acts	The Other Ones The Dead Furthur Dead & Company New Riders of the Purple Sage The Tubes Ned Lagin Kingfish Old & In the Way Legion of Mary Jerry Garcia Band Reconstruction Bobby and the Midnites Heart of Gold Band Go Ahead Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band RatDog Missing Man Formation Phil Lesh and Friends Rhythm Devils Donna Jean Godchaux Band BK3 Backbone 7 Walkers Billy & the Kids Bob Dylan Bruce Hornsby
Website	dead.net
Past members	Jerry Garcia Bob Weir Phil Lesh Bill Kreutzmann Mickey Hart Ron “Pigpen” McKernan Robert Hunter John Perry Barlow Tom Constanten Keith Godchaux Donna Jean Godchaux Brent Mydland Vince Welnick

The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s.^[12][13][14] The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums).^[15] Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunterjoined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history.^[16] The other official members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 1968–1970), John Perry Barlow (nonperforming lyricist; 1971–1995)^[17], Keith Godchaux(keyboards; 1971–1979), Donna Godchaux(vocals; 1972–1979), Brent Mydland(keyboards, vocals; 1979–1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 1990–1995).^[18]Bruce Hornsby (accordion, piano, vocals) was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.

After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as the Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and the Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band’s 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together.^[19] There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.

Formation (1965–1966)

i read the autobiography of Phil Leah and the autobiography of Bill Kreutzmann, two of the members of The Grateful Dead, and I highly recommend both of those books. Below are two letters that I wrote to both gentleman:

October 29, 2016

Phil Lesh c/o Cygnus Productions LLC,

Dear Phil,

The record business is a lot different today than it was in the 1960’s when you got started. My wife came to me about about 15 years ago and told me that our friends had a son involved in a struggling rock band in Little Rock and Jill wanted to know if we could give him a TV that we had put in our garage. We gave it to him and then just a few weeks later she told me the whole band was moving to Los Angeles and they had hit it big with a record contract. I had my doubts but several months later we saw the movie DAREDEVIL came out featuring two of the songs by our friend and his group Evanescence. The rest is history and they sold over 18 million records and our David Hodges went on to write for many of the top performers in the record business!!!

Here is an article from http://www.bmi.com about David:

David Hodges (@hodgesmusic) is a multiplatinum songwriter-producer, multi-instrumentalist, BMI award recipient, GRAMMY winner and Golden Globe nominee. Hodges cut his teeth as one of the founding members of 18 million-selling Little Rock, Ark.-based legendary rock act, Evanescence. At the height of the band’s success, he left for Los Angeles to focus on songwriting and production. In the past decade, Hodges has worked with some of the biggest artists in the world — from writing their hits to creating successful end titles for film. From the haunting piano melodies of Evanescence’s “My Immortal” to the 7 million-selling cinematic Twilight end title, Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years,” Hodges’ signature sound starts on the piano and resonates in every song he’s written. Hodges also co-wrote several #1 smash singles: Kelly Clarkson’s “Because of You,” Daughtry’s “What About Now,” Carrie Underwood’s “See You Again” and many others. Hodges has sold more than 65 million records to date. He is currently working with Carrie Underwood, Christina Aguilera, Josh Groban, Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, Christina Perri, Tim McGraw, Lady Antebellum, Hunter Hayes and others. Learn more about Hodges and his history as a musical scribe at this year’s “How I Wrote That Song” panel and join the conversation on Twitter with #BMIHIWTS.

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Last night I got to visit with David and his family at small gathering to recognize David at a Baptist Prep fundraiser. My grandchildren go to Baptist Prep now and David graduated from Baptist Prep in 1997. During the program that night David spoke and he also played some songs for us that he had written. He said the 15 years he lived in Los Angeles had taught him a lot of lessons and the most important is the lesson from the BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES that true joy and happiness does not come from money and possessions.

The last time I wrote you I mentioned the Book of Ecclesiastes and today I wanted to talk about that again. In the last years of his life King Solomon took time to look back and then he wrote the BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. Solomon did believe in God but in this book he  took a look at life “under the sun.” Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.”

Francis Schaeffer comments on the Book of Ecclesiastes:

The universal man, Solomon, beyond our intelligence with an empire at his disposal with the opportunity of observation so he could recite these words here in Ecclesiastes 6:12, “For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?”

In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.” Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing. THERE IS NO FINAL SATISFACTION. This is related to Leonardo da Vinci’s similar search for universals and then meaning in life. 

In Ecclesiastes 5:11 Solomon again pursues this theme, “When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on?”  Doesn’t that sound modern? It is as modern as this evening. Solomon here is stating the fact there is no reaching completion in anything and this is the reason there is no final satisfaction. There is simply no place to stop. It is impossible when laying up wealth for oneself when to stop. It is impossible to have the satisfaction of completion. 

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As you know Solomon was searching for  for meaning in life in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).

Here are Solomon’s own words from Ecclesiastes 2:1-11:

 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you withpleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.^{[i] 2} I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” ³ I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. ⁴ I made great works. I built housesand planted vineyards for myself. ⁵ I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶ I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. ⁷ I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. ⁸ I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

⁹ So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. ¹⁰ And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.¹¹ Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, ALL WAS VANITY AND A STRIVING AFTER WIND, and there was nothing to be gained UNDER THE SUN.

Then in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes Solomon returns to looking above the sun and he says that obeying the Lord is proper way to live your life. In the New Testament we learned  that the messiah the Old Testament prophesied in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 was Christ and the  answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

Emailed on 2-10-16

To Bill Kreutzmann from Everette Hatcher, Fan of your music

I remember like yesterday when Ron “Pigpen” McKernandied and unfortunately Amy Winehouse was one of the latest member of the 27 CLUB. The issue of death has surrounded many rock and rollers and it is the name of your group.

Back in 1980 I read a book  that mentions your band THE GRATEFUL DEAD. In his book HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? Francis Schaeffer noted:

This emphasis on hallucinogenic drugs brought with it many rock groups–for example, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix. Most of their work was from 1965-1958. The Beatles’Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) also fits here. This disc is a total unity, not just an isolated series of individual songs, and for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. As a whole, this music was the vehicle to carry the drug culture and the mentality which went with it across frontiers which were almost impassible by other means of communication.

Since then I have become a fan of your music but I wanted to write you today about the name of your band THE GRATEFUL DEAD and the greatest book written about the subject of death and that is the BOOK OF ECCLIASTES!!!

Ecclesiastes 7:2 “Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies–so the living should take this to heart.”

In the last years of his life King Solomon took time to look back and then he wrote the BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. Solomon did believe in God but in this book he  took a look at life “under the sun.” Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.”

Francis Schaeffer comments on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of death:

Ecclesiastes 9:11

¹¹ Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.

Chance rules. If a man starts out only from himself and works outward it must eventually if he is consistent seem so that only chance rules and naturally in such a setting you can not expect him to have anything else but finally a hate of life.

Ecclesiastes 2:17-18a

¹⁷ So I hated life, because what is done under the sunwas grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. ¹⁸ I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun…

That first great cry “So I hated life.” Naturally if you hate life you long for death and you find him saying this in Ecclesiastes 4:2-3:

² And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. ³ But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

He lays down an order. It is best never have to been. It is better to be dead, and worse to be alive. But like all men and one could think of the face of Vincent Van Goghin his final paintings as he came to hate life and you watch something die in his self portraits, the dilemma is double because as one is consistent and one sees life as a game of chance, one must come in a way to hate life. Yet at the same time men never get beyond the fear to die. Solomon didn’t either. So you find him in saying this.

Ecclesiastes 2:14-15

¹⁴ The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. ¹⁵ Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

The Hebrew is stronger than this and it says “it happens EVEN TO ME,” Solomon on the throne, Solomon the universal man. EVEN TO ME, even to Solomon.

Ecclesiastes 9:12

¹² For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.

Death can come at anytime. Death seen merely by the eye of man between birth and death and UNDER THE SUN. Death too is a thing of chance. Albert Camus speeding in a car with a pretty girl at his side and then Camus dead. Lawrence of Arabia coming up over a crest of a hill 100 miles per hour on his motorcycle and some boys are standing in the road and Lawrence turns aside and dies.

 Surely between birth and death these things are chance. Modern man adds something on top of this and that is the understanding that as the individual man will dies by chance so one day the human race will die by chance!!! It is the death of the human race that lands in the hand of chance and that is why men grew sad when they readNevil Shute’s book ON THE BEACH. 

By the way, the final chapter of Ecclesiastes finishes with Solomon emphasizing that serving God is the only proper response of man. Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture.  Here is his final conclusion concerning the meaning of life and man’s proper place in the universe in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14:
13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.

14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

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In his book HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? Francis Schaeffer noted:

The man who followed on from that point was English–Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). He proposed drugs as a solution. We should, he said, give healthy people drugs and they can then find truth inside their own heads. All that was left for Aldous Huxley and those who followed him was truth inside a person’s own head. With Huxley’s idea, what began with the existential philosophers – man’s individual subjectivity attempting to give order as well as meaning, in contrast to order being shaped by what is objective or external to oneself – came to its logical conclusion. Truth is in one’s own head. The ideal of objective truth was gone.

This emphasis on hallucinogenic drugs brought with it many rock groups–for example, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix. Most of their work was from 1965-1958. The Beatles’Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) also fits here. This disc is a total unity, not just an isolated series of individual songs, and for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. As a whole, this music was the vehicle to carry the drug culture and the mentality which went with it across frontiers which were almost impassible by other means of communication.

Here is a good review of the episode 016 HSWTL The Age of Non-Reason of HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE?, December 23, 2007:

Together with the advent of the “drug Age” was the increased interest in the West in  the religious experience of Hinduism and Buddhism. Schaeffer tells us that: “This grasping for a nonrational meaning to life and values is the central reason that these Eastern religions are so popular in the West today.”  Drugs and Eastern religions came like a flood into the Western world.  They became the way that people chose to find meaning and values in life.  By themselves or together, drugs and Eastern religion became the way that people searched inside themselves for ultimate truth.

Along with drugs and Eastern religions there has been a remarkable increase “of the occult appearing as an upper-story hope.”  As modern man searches for answers it “many moderns would rather have demons than be left with the idea that everything in the universe is only one big machine.”  For many people having the “occult in the upper story of nonreason in the hope of having meaning” is better than leaving the upper story of nonreason empty. For them horror or the macabre are more acceptable than the idea that they are just a machine.

Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:

The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there. 

Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.

TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?,

We now take a jump back in time to the middle of the ninth century before Christ, that is, about 850 B.C. Most people have heard of Jezebel. She was the wife of Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Her wickedness has become so proverbial that we talk about someone as a “Jezebel.” She urged her husband to have Naboth killed, simply because Ahab had expressed his liking for a piece of land owned by Naboth, who would not sell it. The Bible tells us also that she introduced into Israel the worship of her homeland, the Baal worship of Tyre. This led to the opposition of Elijah the Prophet and to the famous conflict on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the priests of Baal.

Here again one finds archaeological confirmations of what the Bible says. Take for example: “As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?” (I Kings 22:39).

This is a very brief reference in the Bible to events which must have taken a long time: building projects which probably spanned decades. Archaeological excavations at the site of Samaria, the capital, reveal something of the former splendor of the royal citadel. Remnants of the “ivory house” were found and attracted special attention (Palestinian Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem). This appears to have been a treasure pavilion in which the walls and furnishings had been adorned with colored ivory work set with inlays giving a brilliant too, with the denunciations revealed by the prophet Amos:

“I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord. (Amos 3:15)

Other archaeological confirmation exists for the time of Ahab. Excavations at Hazor and Megiddo have given evidence of the the extent of fortifications carried out by Ahab. At Megiddo, in particular, Ahab’s works were very extensive including a large series of stables formerly assigned to Solomon’s time.

On the political front, Ahab had to contend with danger from the Aramacaus king of Syria who besieged Samaria, Ahab’s capital. Ben-hadad’s existence is attested by a stela (a column with writing on it) which has been discovered with his name written on it (Melquart Stela, Aleppo Museum, Syria). Again, a detail of history given in the Bible is shown to be correct.

(Melquart Stela below)

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