Books by Dale Harris

Books by Dale Harris
A Feast of Epiphanies

Though I Walk, A Novel

Daytime Moons and Other Celestial Anomalies, a book of poems

Second Wind

Second Wind
An album of songs both old and new. Recorded in 2021, a year of major transition for me, these songs explore the many vicissitudes of the spiritual life,. It's about the mountaintop moments and the Holy Saturday sunrises, the doors He opens that no one can close, and those doors He's closed that will never open again. You can click the image above to give it a listen.

The Song Became a Child

The Song Became a Child
A collection of Christmas songs I wrote and recorded during the early days of the pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020. Click the image to listen.

There's a Trick of the Light I'm Learning to Do

This is a collection of songs I wrote and recorded in January - March, 2020 while on sabbatical from ministry. They each deal with a different aspect or expression of the Gospel. Click on the image above to listen.

Three Hands Clapping

This is my latest recording project (released May 27, 2019). It is a double album of 22 songs, which very roughly track the story of my life... a sort of musical autobiography, so to speak. Click the album image to listen.

Ghost Notes

Ghost Notes
A collections of original songs I wrote in 2015, and recorded with the FreeWay Musical Collective. Click the album image to listen.

inversions

Recorded in 2014, these songs are sort of a chronicle of my journey through a pastoral burn-out last winter. They deal with themes of mental-health, spiritual burn-out and depression, but also with the inexorable presence of God in the midst of darkness. Click the album art to download.

soundings

soundings
click image to download
"soundings" is a collection of songs I recorded in September/October of 2013. Dealing with themes of hope, ache, trust and spiritual loss, the songs on this album express various facets of my journey with God.

bridges

bridges
Click to download.
"Bridges" is a collection of original songs I wrote in the summer of 2011, during a soul-searching trip I took out to Alberta; a sort of long twilight in the dark night of the soul. I share it here in hopes these musical reflections on my own spiritual journey might be an encouragement to others: the sun does rise, blood-red but beautiful.

echoes

echoes
Prayers, poems and songs (2005-2009). Click to download
"echoes" is a collection of songs I wrote during my time studying at Briercrest Seminary (2004-2009). It's called "echoes" partly because these songs are "echoes" of times spent with God from my songwriting past, but also because there are musical "echoes" of hymns, songs or poems sprinkled throughout the album. Listen closely and you'll hear them.

Accidentals

This collection of mostly blues/rock/folk inspired songs was recorded in the spring and summer of 2015. I call it "accidentals" because all of the songs on this project were tunes I have had kicking around in my notebooks for many years but had never found a "home" for on previous albums. You can click the image to download the whole album.

random reads

Thinking Theology and Technology

One of the projects I'm working on for the FMCiC's Study Commission on Doctrine is a "theology of technology," which would lay out a theological framework for thinking about technology as a Christian.   As I mentioned earlier, I hope to use this blog as a place to "think out loud" as I work through this project, and to that end, I'm posting here the first section of draft one. I welcome feedback.

One of the challenges we encounter when we try to think theologically about issues related to modern technology is the question of categories. On the one hand, the modern use of that word “technology” is so broad in scope that it is hard to know what exactly we mean by it; on the other hand, most of the things we do mean when we refer to technology—computer science, communication technologies, social media and so on—simply did not exist in the world of the Bible and find neither reference nor parallel in Scripture. If we wish to approach them theologically, then, we must first ask: In which theological category do they belong?

The first and perhaps closest reference we have in Scripture to something that today we would call “technology” is the account of Tubal-Cain in Genesis 4:22. Tubal-Cain, we’re told, was the original “forger of all implements of bronze and iron”; and while a bronze axe-head is admittedly a far cry from an ipod, there is still something instructive for us in this ancient account of the “origins of metalsmithing.” It can’t be accidental that Tubal-Cain, the father of “all” metalurigcal technologies, is also the last son of Lamech, the notoriously vengeful descendant of Cain who will bring the whole of that failed line to its ignoble end. After Lamech boasts of avenging himself seventy-seven times on his enemies (4:23-24), the genealogical record abandons Cain altogether and switches to the birth of Seth (4:26), a brand-new branch on Adam’s family tree, whose line will include Noah, and Abraham, and ultimately Christ. If Tubal-Cain is indeed the father of “technology” (or at least a father of certain kinds of technology), it must be noted that he is also the last of Cain’s fallen descendants. Whatever else we will say about the Bible’s perspective on “technology”, the fact that it first appears as fruit on Cain’s family tree assures us that for all its usefulness, it is still a fallen force in the world.

Biblically, then, technology is useful but fallen. And when we look for a theological category that allows us to talk about it both in terms of its usefulness to human life and its spiritual fallenness, the category that best holds these two aspects together is the biblical concept of “the powers.” Picking up on the many references to “the powers and principalities” in Paul’s writings (see, for instance, 1 Cor 2:8; Eph 1:20, Col 2:15), a number of theologians have suggested that when the Bible refers to “the powers” like this, it is describing the “invisible structures” or “inner reality” of human society (see, for instance, Hendrik Berkhof, Christ and the Powers; Walter Wink, Naming the Powers). As a theological category, “the powers” refer to the spiritual dimension that is inherent to any human effort to order its life together, from political and economic institutions, to cultural, religious or technological ones. All such “organizations” of human society are, of course, useful and necessary; but they are also inevitably “spiritual,” and, owing to the fallenness of human nature itself, inevitably fallen. In their fallenness, “the powers” exert unintended, often unrecognized spiritual influence over us, behaving, in Berkhof’s words, “as though they were the ultimate ground of being and demanding from [people] an appropriate worship” (Berkhof, 30).

We might point to the cult of Roman Emperor worship for an ancient example of “the Powers,” or to the inexorable “givenness” of the global economy for a contemporary one. We might point to the psychological impact of advertising media for a cultural example; and we might point to the way the internet has begun to shape and redefine our social interactions for a technological one. Because, though it is unlikely in the extreme that Paul had the iphone 5 specifically in mind when he said it, technology can and should be listed under that broad category of human institutions he has in mind when he talks about “the Powers.”

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