Theology/Religion
Culture, Language and the Tower of Babel
Bible / Testimony

Culture, Language and the Tower of Babel

by WB on May 20, 2013 • 2 Comments

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

-Excerpt from Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”

The tower of Babel story is a baffling one. You know the drill – people want to “make a name for themselves” by making a cool building, a celebration of early civilization, and then God decides to topple the house…

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PZ’s Podcast: Girl Can’t Help It and Old Man River
Film / Music / Religion

PZ’s Podcast: Girl Can’t Help It and Old Man River

by Mockingbird on May 20, 2013 • No Comments

Episode 142: Girl Can’t Help It

I’d like this one to be considered avant-garde. Like Journey.

It’s a pastoral meditation on realism and hope, geared a little from Eric Rohmer’s “political” movie of 1993, “The Tree, The Mayor, and The Mediatheque”.

This cast also gives me a chance to introduce ‘George’ to my listeners. He’s been with me since the 2nd of April. I christened him ‘George’ on the basis of a “Way Out” episode from long ago, entitled “Dissolve to Black”. My friend George, however, is nicer than the original ‘George’.

Anyway, I hope you like the music, hope you like the movie,…

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Another Week Ends: Techno-Fasting, Google Glass, Tiger Babies, Missional Burnouts, Serrano’s Backfire, Powell’s Joy, and Family Tree
Art / Children / Humor / Identity / Law / Literature / Relationships / Religion / Sports / Suffering / Technology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Techno-Fasting, Google Glass, Tiger Babies, Missional Burnouts, Serrano’s Backfire, Powell’s Joy, and Family Tree

by David Zahl on May 17, 2013 • 2 Comments

1. First off, a timely rejoinder to our many social-media-is-making-us-lonely posts from Paul Miller on The Verge, entitled “I’m Still Here: Back Online After A Year Without Internet”. As the title suggests, Miller unplugged for a solid year, partly as an assignment to try to discover how technology, and the Internet in particular, had affected him (and us) over time. He reports that while the experience was initially incredibly freeing, he eventually found himself right back where he started, i.e. his new habits became just as constraining as the old ones. In theological terms, you might say that Paul’s story…

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Art / Death / Religion

Death and Life in the Artist’s Studio – Dan Siedell

by Mockingbird on May 17, 2013 • No Comments

Nearing the finish line, we are thrilled to present Dan Siedell’s session from our recent NYC conference, complete with an integrated slideshow. Do yourself a favor:

You may download the audio recording by clicking here. Interested parties should also be sure to check out Dan’s “Who’s Afraid of Modern Art?” lecture.

A New Pentecost, or Maybe Just a Rhetorical Revival, According to Peanuts
Art / Books / Church / Comics / Religion / Theology

A New Pentecost, or Maybe Just a Rhetorical Revival, According to Peanuts

by Matt Schneider on May 17, 2013 • No Comments

We have written several pieces on Charles Schulz’s Peanuts here before, and in particular on Robert L. Short’s prophetic interpretation in his The Gospel According to Peanuts (1965) here, here, and here. Both Peanuts in general and Short’s book in particular have played meaningful roles in my life ever since my conversion to Christian faith. In fact, I recently reread Short’s very important (and Mockingbird-esque) first chapter, “The Church and the Arts.” I found that he gives us—as Thornton Wilder called it—some “new persuasive words  for defaced or degraded ones” about Pentecost and the Holy Spirit’s work in the arts and…

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The Gospel According to The Office
Grace in Practice / Humor / Identity / Law / Relationships / TV

The Gospel According to The Office

by David Zahl on May 16, 2013 • 4 Comments

Many moons ago, Mockingbird put together and distributed a little teaching series called “The Gospel According to The Office.” When we made the transition to the new site a couple of years ago, it somehow fell through the cracks. The show’s finale seemed like as good a time as any to put it back into circulation. Like the show itself, we don’t vouch for how it may have dated–but it sure seemed like a good idea at the time! You can download it by clicking here.

While we’re on the subject of the show, if you’re at all like me and…

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For Those Who Love Poorly: Forgiveness in The Woodsman & Around the Bend
Film / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Relationships / Suffering

For Those Who Love Poorly: Forgiveness in The Woodsman & Around the Bend

by B.I.C on May 16, 2013 • 3 Comments

“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.” –Henri Nouwen

“…God’s grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver…. From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can “just forgive” the perpetrator…. But when you forgive, that…

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Gordon Ramsay Isn’t Jesus, Or, Criticism Is Not on the Menu at Amy’s Baking Company
Celebrity / Food / Theology / TV

Gordon Ramsay Isn’t Jesus, Or, Criticism Is Not on the Menu at Amy’s Baking Company

by Michael Sansbury on May 16, 2013 • 5 Comments

Until yesterday, I had never watched an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, but, according to its website, here’s how it works: Ramsay, a notoriously mean chef, visits struggling restaurants, observes them, and then tells the owners how to fix their restaurants. Knowing how I usually respond to criticism, I cannot see how this premise ever works. Instead, I would imagine every episode ending in denial, retreat, and, ultimately, violence.

In other words, I would imagine that every episode proceeds along the same lines as this episode, which features Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, Arizona:

If you don’t have time to watch…

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Conferences / Identity / Law / TV

Walter White vs Raylan Givens: The Two Hats of American Law

by Mockingbird on May 15, 2013 • 1 Comment

Alright TV fans, the moment of truth (and consequence) has arrived:

You may download the recording of this session by clicking here. Also, by way of update, The Mockingbird Devotional, from which Ethan reads in his session, will be out next week! Watch this space for an announcement.

We All Love Grace…Now Shape Up!
Prayer / Sports / Theology

We All Love Grace…Now Shape Up!

by Nick Lannon on May 15, 2013 • 5 Comments

I’ve written about my travails in community softball before, and here’s another dispatch from the front lines.

This year, I’ve been playing on church-league softball team (not my church…I’m a scab, a ringer, brought in for my ability to ensure that they have enough people to field a team), which is a different experience than the “town” league I played in last year. This league has prayers before and after the games and its players keep our anger and competitiveness jailed beneath our surfaces. So, you know, Christian.

The other day, as we all gathered at home plate…

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The Element In Man For Which Moralism Cannot Account
Law / Literature / Religion

The Element In Man For Which Moralism Cannot Account

by David Zahl on May 14, 2013 • No Comments

Some germane thoughts from the late Jaroslav Pelikan, taken from the “Dostoevsky: The Holy and the Good” chapter of Fools for Christ, ht CB:

Wherever Christianity is viewed as a quiet submission to traditional patterns of conduct and an acceptance of social convention, there will be no appreciation of the atheism of Ivan Karamazov. His atheism begins to mean something when it becomes clear that the Christian gospel is a religious denunciation of religion–religion being understood as man’s attempt to relate himself constructively to the Holy. Traditional moralism and conventional piety have often put the objects of their search alongside God…

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Daddy Momming: (More) Stress Cupcakes and the Extra Kid at Home
America / Children / Everyday / Law / Relationships

Daddy Momming: (More) Stress Cupcakes and the Extra Kid at Home

by Ethan Richardson on May 13, 2013 • 6 Comments

A wheelhouse piece, just in time for Mother’s Day: a litany of confessionals from the mothers of America about their partners-in-crime. It seems–as ever–that Dad could do more around the house, that his “assistance,” if it is there at all, becomes one more thing (or two, or three…) that requires surveillance and handholding and discipline. In other words, for most mothers, the father becomes another child. And for the most part, he is a more difficult child, because of what he should be.

This is not so much a repeat post on the “manchild syndrome” as it is an interesting glimpse…

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Bible / Children / Conferences / Everyday / Grace in Practice / Prayer

Hopelessly Devoted: One Thing Needful, I Can Stay All Night, Baby Beluga, and How I Ended Up At The Bottom Of A Dumpster On Christmas Eve

by Mockingbird on May 13, 2013 • No Comments

The hits just keep on coming! In lieu of our usual bi-weekly Monday devotion, here’s four for the price of one, all of Drew Rollins’ wise, funny, and deeply pastoral words from the NYC Conference in one video. They are far less conference-specific than they may initially appear–each one is about 10 minutes long:

Another Week Ends: Abercrombie’s Hot People, The Neverending “Me Me Me” Era, George Jones’ “Choices,” Katharine Welby, New TV, and New Vampire Weekend
America / Celebrity / Children / Church / Everyday / Film / Identity / Money / Music / Religion / Suffering / TV

Another Week Ends: Abercrombie’s Hot People, The Neverending “Me Me Me” Era, George Jones’ “Choices,” Katharine Welby, New TV, and New Vampire Weekend

by Ethan Richardson on May 10, 2013 • No Comments

1) The Atlantic provided an insightful zinger to the finger-waggers of today’s adultescent. Looking at today’s young people, of whom I am one—blogging away, shoes off—the piece is a response to the recent cover article of Time magazine, “The Me Me Me Generation.” The Time piece is a backhanded spotlight on the millennials, a heat-ray at their unique and insipid self-absorption, their phones, their extended stays at home. Contrary to this, Elspeth Reeve writes that the Me, Me, Me Generation is every generation—that we’ve been locating (and writing about) the narcissism of youth since we’ve written. She then delineates a…

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Beck Brings Paper to Life (and Life to Paper)
Bible / Music / Religion

Beck Brings Paper to Life (and Life to Paper)

by Mockingbird on May 10, 2013 • No Comments

This one comes to us from Win Bassett:

Beck Hansen, better known as “Beck,” will forever be linked to the decade when MTV actually played music videos, kids lived for TGIF programming, and pogs were worth their weight in gold. Who in Generation Y doesn’t count Beck’s “Loser” as one of the first pieces of art to leave a permanent watermark on our young minds? Who isn’t brought back to afternoons of rollerblading and feeding our Tamagotchis every time we hear the low, throaty rumblings of what may have been our first introduction to the Spanish language? (“Soy un perdedor. I’m…

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