Two articles have come across my radar as of late: one from Christianity Today, “Culture Making Amid Cancer: the Choices that Suffering Makes Possible,” and the other through Yahoo News, “AP Napalm Girl Photo from Vietnam War Turns 40”. The two articles cover two vastly different topics: Cancer and the Vietnam War. However, those two vastly different topics have a common thread: suffering and hope in the midst of it. A woman diagnosed with cancer who loses just about everything and a young victim of the Vietnam War desperately trying to escape her past, find hope and even purpose in…
The Future of the Gospel: A Theologian’s Discussion with Michael Horton
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!
Joss Whedon on Genre Filmmaking, Objectification and Sympathy for the Devil
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…
Gardner Taylor: Preaching to the Alienated Ones
When I’m 94, I hope I’m half as wise and cut-to-the-bone honest as the Rev. Dr. Gardner Taylor, known as “the dean of American preaching.” In a 2011 interview on “Preaching When Parched,” Dr. Taylor was asked how one can preach and minister during the “arid” times in life. His answer comes across with the bracing honesty we at Mockingbird try to encourage, the gut-level truth-telling which was a focus of our recent too-hot-to-handle-too-cold-to-hold (Vanilla Ice) NYC conference. (He also echoes some of PZ’s past thoughts on Kerouac and the task of preaching). Listen up, preachers:
Q: How do you preach from aridity without betraying…
Vulgarity Is Blasphemous: Why Whit Stillman Doesn’t Hate Episcopalians
When I heard The NY Times Magazine was about to run a lengthy profile of filmmaker/author/all-around inspiration Whit Stillman, my first thought was, “About time!” Stillman’s return to directing after a 13-year silence, Damsels in Distress (out in NYC and LA on April 6), deserves the widest possible reception. Then I read the thing, which appeared in this past Sunday’s issue, and I’m afraid to report that they missed an opportunity. The author, Chip Brown, spends far too much of the article trying to shunt Whit into an ideological box, and far too little of it discussing the work itself,…
Addiction / Film / Grace in Practice / Humor / Interviews / Literature / Music / Religion / Social Science / Suffering / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: John Carter, Obesity FAILs, Mary Karr on Suffering, Winning!, Friends with Kids, Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball and Community Returns
1. “I am not Jesus, but I have the same initials.” Thus sang Jarvis Cocker on the classic Pulp track “Dishes” (at bottom), and it now looks like he has a new contender to the throne, Tim Riggins himself, Mr. John Carter of Mars. That’s right: Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton’s first live-action feature is out this weekend, and the consensus thus far is that there’s no consensus. Some claim that it’s an overblown mess, others that it’s the sort of exceedingly fun pulp adventure that doesn’t get made anymore. But Stanton is a filmmaker that I trust over any…
Education / Film / Humor / Identity / Interviews / Money / Music / Psychology / Relationships / Religion / Social Science / Sports / Suffering / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Inner Machiavellians, Lutheran Insults, Whisky Priests, Monkees, Mets, Parenthood, Veep, Viola Davis and Frankenweenie
1. I’ll admit it: I’ve been trying to lay off the David Brooks, at least in the Weekend columns. As insightful as he frequently is, there are plenty of fish in the digital sea, are there not? Well, to paraphrase a Pacino, every time I think I’m out, he pulls me back in. That is to say, giving anything top billing other than his NY Times column from yesterday, “The Machiavellian Temptation,” would be dishonest. It’s getting to the point where I suspect we’re being punked a la Candid Camera. Anyway, this time around Herr Brooks is contrasting recent breakthroughs…
Demi Moore’s Deepest Fear
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…
So Nice of Louis C.K. to Think of That (But Never Do It)
“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…
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
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…
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
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…
Bidden or Not Bidden: Mockingbird Interviews Robert Farrar Capon, Pt 2
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.…
The Outrageousness of God’s Indiscriminating Grace: Mockingbird Interviews Robert Farrar Capon
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…
Everything That Is Deep Loves the Mask: Jonathan Franzen in The Paris Review
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…
Behold, The Walk-Off! A Study in Sensitivity and Reactivity
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…
DBab: Ethan...this was great! I will use "holy bananas" the rest of the wee...
Alison: Thank you Ethan. That was encouraging....
Darren Sombke: One of our former students and chapel band members at Rockford Luthera...
michael cooper: Thanks for this fantastic interview...what an honest man. The Heaney p...
Todd Brewer: A brilliant, but sad, analysis. The fall of Michael and George Michael...