Interviews
Demi Moore’s Deepest Fear
Celebrity / Gender / Identity / Interviews

Demi Moore’s Deepest Fear

by Aaron M. G. Zimmerman on Jan 26, 2012 • 2 Comments

Are you insecure? Hate your body? Fear the sheer unknown-ness of your future? Lay awake wondering if you’ll end up alone?

Would it help if your father was a famous race-car driver? And if you’d been married to the bassist for one of the biggest bands of the 1980s and were now married to the guitarist for a big indie rock band? What if you turned a career as an actor into a career as a sought-after photographer? And you had three attractive kids. And you were rich and beautiful?

Not enough? Let’s try another route. What if you were not only…

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So Nice of Louis C.K. to Think of That (But Never Do It)
Humor / Identity / Interviews / Religion / TV

So Nice of Louis C.K. to Think of That (But Never Do It)

by David Zahl on Dec 14, 2011 • 3 Comments

“I have a lot of beliefs… And I live by none of them. That’s just the way I am. They’re just my beliefs. I just like believing them – I like that part. They’re my little believies. They make me feel good about who I am. But if they get in the way of a thing I want, I [sure as heckfire] do that.”

This is just one of many priceless lines in Louis C.K.’s new comedy special, At the Beacon Theater. I can personally think of no one in pop-culture right now championing such a realistic, and, yes, New Testament…

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Another Week Ends: King of Human Error, Open-Ended AA, Hollywood Junkies, Trollhunter, Craig Finn, Community and Muppets
Addiction / Film / Grace in Practice / Interviews / Music / Religion / Social Science / Theology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: King of Human Error, Open-Ended AA, Hollywood Junkies, Trollhunter, Craig Finn, Community and Muppets

by David Zahl on Nov 18, 2011 • 1 Comment

1. Irrepressible Moneyball author Michael Lewis profiled new Mbird fave Daniel Kahneman for Vanity Fair in his recent piece, “The King of Human Error,” providing perhaps the clearest and best overview of the great social psychologist’s research yet. The anchoring effect makes for a particularly terrific addition to our ongoing catalog of human fallibility. But it’s the humility of the man himself which makes the deepest impression:

[Kahenman and his partner Amos Tversky] had a rule of thumb, [Kahneman] explains: they would study no specific example of human idiocy or irrationality unless they first detected it in themselves. “People thought we…

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Another Week Ends: Anti-Tebowmania, Hipster Mormonism, Sixty-Six Books, Coldplay, Hypocrisy, and Tullian Tchividjian’s Story of Redemption
Bible / Grace in Practice / Interviews / News / Psychology / Social Science / Sports / Suffering / Theology/Religion / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Anti-Tebowmania, Hipster Mormonism, Sixty-Six Books, Coldplay, Hypocrisy, and Tullian Tchividjian’s Story of Redemption

by Todd Brewer on Oct 28, 2011 • No Comments

Filling in for DZ this week as the Birmingham Conference kicks off…

1. Can you be a hipster and Mormon at the same time? An interesting NY Times article appearing on Wednesday outlined a Mormon’s guide to looking cool without totally losing your faith (a.k.a “How to be like Brandon Flowers”). It’s a classic case study in the casuistry that arises when navigating between conflicting judgments – slightly appeasing one demand without violating the other, or transgressing just enough but not too much. As Mormonism seeks more and more acceptance from mainstream America, I suspect this will be just one of…

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Bidden or Not Bidden: Mockingbird Interviews Robert Farrar Capon, Pt 2
Grace in Practice / Interviews / Theology

Bidden or Not Bidden: Mockingbird Interviews Robert Farrar Capon, Pt 2

by Mockingbird on Sep 8, 2011 • 5 Comments

We’ve gotten such a great response from our interview with Mockinghero Robert Farrar Capon last week that we had to go back to the well to ask one more question, which Dr. Capon was gracious enough to answer. We are confident that you’ll be as grateful as we are that he did. Here goes:

Some of us have been accused of “turning grace into a (new) law.” When we hear the exciting message of God’s one-way love, of freedom and death, it provokes a reaction against other more moralistic forms of Christianity – we become Pharisaical about Pharisees in other words.…

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The Outrageousness of God’s Indiscriminating Grace: Mockingbird Interviews Robert Farrar Capon
Books / Church / Grace in Practice / Interviews / Religion / Theology

The Outrageousness of God’s Indiscriminating Grace: Mockingbird Interviews Robert Farrar Capon

by Mockingbird on Sep 2, 2011 • 3 Comments

It is not often that one gets to interview one’s heroes. The theologian, writer and Episcopal clergyman Robert Farrar Capon has been retired for over ten years at this point, during which time he has become an influential figure for many of us.

Anyone who has read Capon’s books knows that the man possesses a rare gift for expressing the radicality of God’s grace for “freedom-dreading” men and women in ways that are accessible, pastoral, humorous, provocative (in the best possible sense) and truly gracious. In other words, he is a model for much of what we would like Mockingbird to…

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Everything That Is Deep Loves the Mask: Jonathan Franzen in The Paris Review
Books / Identity / Interviews / Literature

Everything That Is Deep Loves the Mask: Jonathan Franzen in The Paris Review

by David Zahl on Aug 29, 2011 • No Comments

I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of author Jonathan Franzen’s recent interviews. He not only advocates consistently and compassionately for a “somewhat more tragic view” of human nature, he puts the toxicity of the American growth imperative into words. So how I missed his lengthy discussion with The Paris Review following the release of Freedom last year beats me. Franzen speaks at length about his process and evolution, about the task of the novelist, about growing up, and most significantly, about the “maskless self.”

People tend to criticize Franzen for what they perceive as his self-involvement and/or superiority, claiming that…

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Behold, The Walk-Off! A Study in Sensitivity and Reactivity
America / Celebrity / Interviews / Law / Politics / TV

Behold, The Walk-Off! A Study in Sensitivity and Reactivity

by Ethan on Aug 19, 2011 • No Comments

Two nights ago on Piers Morgan’s show on CNN, Delaware Senatorial candidate and Tea Party darling Christine O’Donnell did something that has a long lineage in news broadcasting: she walked off an interview. Like the Bee Gees, the Bachelorette, Tommy Davis and Paris Hilton before her, O’Donnell bailed on the interview when it veered into controversial territory (her stance on same-sex marriage). Booked on the show to promote her new book, she remarked that Morgan’s prodding was infringing upon the office of interviewer, probing into an area of discussion not agreed upon, not warranted, and–apparently–offensive.

I’m less interested in O’Donnell and…

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Confession, Compartmentalization and Ponzi Schemes
Interviews / Money / Music / News / Psychology

Confession, Compartmentalization and Ponzi Schemes

by David Zahl on Apr 18, 2011 • 1 Comment

A stunning interview earlier this month in The Financial Times with Bernie Madoff, in which the infamous conman speaks frankly about the mental mechanics of his crimes. How much of it is the honest truth is a separate issue (as is whether or not that even matters: as we all know, retribution can be a powerful narcotic, esp when it’s helping us circumvent our individual or collective complicity/depravity). But there’s something undeniably beautiful about confession, whenever it occurs. The powerlessness is something to behold – Romans 7 etc – as is the admission that the real enslavement here is to…

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Celebrity / Film / Humor / Interviews / Religion

Russell Brand on Fame, Idolatry, and God

by David Zahl on Oct 14, 2010 • 4 Comments

Say what you will about Brand (I happen to love him), but this interview is undeniably riveting, overflowing with terrific and sometimes absurd soundbites about the modern religion of celebrity, the universality of the Law (secular and sacred!), moral questions of motivation and spontaneity, the problem of control when it comes to things like legacy and the media, and the human need for God, not to mention some characteristically inspired nonsense. Perhaps a little coked-out, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, out of the sheer entertainment value if nothing else (ht CE & JM):

Martin Sheen talks about God
Celebrity / Film / Interviews / Religion / Theology

Martin Sheen talks about God

by JDK on Sep 20, 2010 • 2 Comments

I ran across this interview with Martin Sheen and Emilio Esteves about their new movie called The Way, about the famous 500 mile Jacob’s Way pilgrimage from from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela, which had some wonderful bits about religion and spirituality and the intersection of the two. Here is the final section:

I really appreciate that you’re trying to deal with religion and spirituality in this movie in an open-minded, non-cynical fashion, without totally embracing it or totally rejecting it. That’s a difficult thing to do. Our country is so messed up around religion. …

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Woody Allen on Faith, Media and Happiness
Film / Interviews / News / Psychology / Religion

Woody Allen on Faith, Media and Happiness

by David Zahl on Sep 15, 2010 • 2 Comments

The NY Times interviewed Woody Allen about his new film You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, and he had some characteristically thought-provoking (and gloomy) things to say. Nothing we haven’t heard from him before, but nonetheless notable:

Q. The ideas of psychic powers and past lives, or at least people who believe in them, are central to your latest film. What got you interested in writing about them?

A. I was interested in the concept of faith in something. This sounds so bleak when I say it, but we need some delusions to keep us going. And the people who successfully…

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