This post isn’t about what you think it might be … The other day my husband shared with me the following excerpt from a post from a blog we like to read, “Free-Range Kids” authored by Lenore Skenazy,
Dear Free-Range Kids: My kids have a children’s bible...
It’s spring now, and the lines are gathering at Lowe’s for the outdoor projects–the hammers, the nails, the pavers and edgers, the crabgrass preventer, the mulch. And lately if there’s anything this means, it’s that community gardens by the hundreds will be poking up like new year’s resolutions around your...
I’ve finally gotten around to Steve Brown’s Three Free Sins: God’s Not Mad at You, a book that has been recommended by so many people at this point, that to leave it on the shelf would be tantamount to disrespect. Let’s just say it didn’t take many pages to figure...
It was like a switch was thrown. I was at an open gym, shooting baskets with a bunch of guys, talking about the news of the day: the apparent suicide of former NFL great and presumptive Hall of Famer Junior Seau. Many of the guys couldn’t believe that a man...
A handful of particularly memorable soundbites from Dr. Percy’s essay collection Signposts in a Strange Land:
“When it is asked just so, straight out, just so: ‘Why are you a Catholic?’ I usually reply, ‘What else is there?’ I justify this smart-mouthed answer when I sense that the question is, as...
We are very proud to announce the release of a new resource! Our first ever DVD:
“The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem — new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones.”
The great American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder made this incisive observation in the midst of the Great...
Where do the 1970s New York punk scene and liturgical nattering converge? Why, in the person of Patti Smith, of course. She is the most recognizable female punk rocker of the era and this is disputed by very few people. The only one who comes close is Bromley Contingent matriarch...
A major thank you to everyone who helped put on this past weekend’s conference in New York! We could not be happier or more grateful for how it all went. We are offering the recordings free of charge again this year; we only ask that those who were not able...
A terrifically astute article by Stephanie Rosenbloom appeared in this past weekend’s NY Times on the subject of Authenticity. Specifically, how “authentic” has become the buzz word de jour in US politics and newsmedia, and how its meaning has changed as a result.
Who doesn’t want to be thought of as...
From Paul Johnson’s amusing and enlightening book Intellectuals, a lengthy summation of the tragic façade that was the life of Ernest Hemingway:
“Why did Hemingway long for death? It is by no means unusual among writers. His contemporary Evelyn Waugh, a writer in English of comparable stature during this period, likewise...
Another quotation taken from the chapter “The Apostle Paul and the Impotence of the Will” in the second volume of her The Life of the Mind, pgs 66-68:
Paul was certainly aware of the radical turn the old demand to fulfill the law had taken in the teaching of Jesus of...
The wait is over! Ethan Richardson’s This American Gospel: Public Radio Parables and the Grace of God, Mockingbird’s newest book on the market, is available online here. For those lovers of all things public radio, all things Ira Glass, those in love with a good story–all of the above, none...
A fixture on the Mockingbird Reading List is Beyond Deserving: Children, Parents, and Responsibility Revisited by Dorothy Martyn. Dr. Martyn is a child psychologist, a committed Freudian, and yes, a Christian of the most grace-centered kind. Don’t be put off by the slightly academic cover and title–the real thrust of...
Have you heard the new one about Richard Dawkins?! Gawker reported recently on a fascinating controversy going on within the “skeptical community.” The gist is this: a renowned feminist blogger named Rebecca Watson was propositioned/asked out by a male admirer in a hotel elevator, following her presentation at a “Skepticon”...
IX. Of Original or Birth-sin.
Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit…
see also:
The moment you’ve been waiting for! We are proud to present the final recording from our recent conference in New York City — and the first of what we hope to be many official conference videos — our very own Jady Koch (JDK) speaking with Dr. Michael Horton:
Many, many thanks to Mark Babikow for capturing it on film and putting everything together so beautifully!
If you haven’t read Jennifer Kahn’s lengthy piece about child psychopathy in this past weekend’s NY Times Magazine, “Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?,” it’s eye-opening to say the least. Perhaps not recommended for parents of small children… Ms. Kahn profiles a few of what are officially classified as the “Callous Unemotional” or “C.U.’s”, children whose anti-social behavior includes both an inability to feel empathy and acute rage of the most calculated kind (which distinguishes them from other volatile children, who are more impulsive). It’s pretty chilling. But as gruesomely fascinating as the details are, more relevant to us…
As you may (or may not) have noticed, we have a few car nuts ’round these parts. Witness here, here and here. Ok, ok, so I wrote all of those posts, but that’s beside the point. Mockingbird has always held, as one of the corollaries to its obsession with the Gospel, that the imputed righteousness of Christ sets us free to love what we actually love, rather than what we ought to love. Hence the occasionally “random” nature of the blog. Dave encourages each of us to write not only on theology, but also to throw in a periodic nod…
Another gem from the Johnny Cash Files:
So when this Day was ended / I was still not satisfied
For I knew ev’rything I touched / Would wither and would die
And Love is all that will remain / And grow from all these Seed;
Mother Nature’s quite a Lady / But you’re the one I need
Flesh And Blood need Flesh And Blood / And you’re the one I need.
Gordon’s MacDonald’s thoughts on “Vigorous Repentance”:
I once thought that repentance simply meant that when you do something bad, you mention it, say that you’re sorry, and move on. But a revisiting of the Bible on this subject has moved me to understand that repentance is, first and foremost, an acknowledgement of that deeper pool of evil that lies resident in every one of us and which is ready to explode at any moment.
If you know anything about MacDonald, you know that he knows about glory, failure, and grace. I’m thankful for men and women like him who recognize with clear…
A few more excerpts from Mary Karr’s wondrously wise Lit: A Memoir, ht JZ:
“If you live in the dark a long time and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling. There’s an initial uprush of relief at first, then — for me, anyway — a profound dislocation. My old assumptions about how the world works are buried, yet my new ones aren’t yet operational. There been a death of sorts, but without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible. You don’t have to be Christian for the metaphor to make sense, psychologically speaking… Crazy.…
Joss “Mr. Avengers” Whedon was interviewed in Wired last week, and as you might expect, made some thought-provoking observations on ‘genre’ filmmaking, the creative process and self-justification as it relates to drama:
Whedon: For me, I love genre because you can talk about things more intimately and specifically than you can in a family drama or a cop show without being didactic. You can absolutely get to the heart of something very weird and very personal because you have that remove…
I guess the thing that I want to say about fandom is that it’s the closest thing…
The wait is over! Ethan Richardson’s This American Gospel: Public Radio Parables and the Grace of God, Mockingbird’s newest book on the market, is available online here. For those lovers of all things public radio, all things Ira Glass, those in love with a good story–all of the above, none of the above–looking for a resource for church, or just looking for a summer read, This American Gospel is an indelibly refreshing look into the Gospel on the ins and outs of human experience.
Looking to the endless riches of that groundbreaking and world-famed radio luminary This American Life, Richardson examines…
1. Why Is This Attractive Woman Breast-Feeding This Giant Child? asks Hannah Rosin over at Slate, in response to Time’s, um, eye-catching cover this past week. You know the one I’m talking about – at least you do if you’ve seen it (below). The story within, bearing the not-so-subtle title of “Are You Mom Enough?”, profiles the controversial world of radical attachment parenting and the man behind it, Dr. Bill Sears. Now I’m as big a proponent of breastfeeding as the next guy (…), so the reason I include the article here has nothing to do with developmental health or…
The Freakonomics crew put out a new podcast on selling souls this week, and boy was it a doozie. They featured a Christian from Oklahoma who boldly offered any atheist/skeptic/taker $50 for ownership of his soul. Sure enough, through the comments board on the Freakonomics webpage, he found a skeptic seller, and the two exchanged the money for an official contract of soul ownership. This set off a half-hour discussion around the following questions: can somebody sell their soul? Is it ethical? Is $50 a good bargain for a soul? What’s the market value for such a thing, and what does…
A piece by Charles Wheelan that appeared in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago has been the go-to status update for the collective Class of 2012, many of who find themselves lamenting their impending commencement exercises. With unemployment still above 8 percent and college graduates leaving their alma maters with an average of $25,000 of loans, it seems as though any commencement address has an uphill battle ahead of it. Normally, these 30-minute monologues remind graduates of their duty to make “the world a better place,” or more shamelessly, to remember to give back to the annual…
In keeping with the excellent article by Tullian Tchividjian over on the Gospel Coalition site about being self-righteous toward the self-righteous; a song by singer/songwriter Chris Knight came to mind. The title of this post was chosen in order to bring to mind the parallels between sympathy toward “elder brother”-types and sympathy for a more insidious character.
Sometimes we tend to believe the elder brother and “that more insidious character” are one in the same but they are not. Elder brother religion is simply a different manifestation of the same sin nature that produces profound prodigal waywardness. From a standpoint of…
In line with the boomers-stickers speech from Wendell Berry, Christian Smith’s Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood is a sociological look into the hyper-relativist boom-ist mentality of today’s 18-23 year old. His book identifies five of the premier values of emerging adults today (consumption, sexual relativism, binge drinking, political apathy, etc.), all of which point to an infantilized adulthood, an adulthood priding itself on mobile acceptance, a conception of freedom which paradoxically kills it. Smith is a bit heavy on the criticism, to the point that his understanding misses empathy, as well as too much of the…
Leah D.: So glad you posted your conference lecture here!Six years ago, I h...
Ethan: Ira and company take the Psychopath Test this week on TAL: http://www....
R-J Heijmen: Thanks Jon! What's your unjustifiable passion?...
Jon W: I love it! Keep them coming, RJ....
frankie suzzana workman: i loved it.thamks for all the great years you brought us pleasure and ...