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Religion

The Law and Gospel (of Lent) according to Chocolat

by Matt Schneider on Feb 22, 2012 • 1 Comment

Much like the nation of Greece, the season of Lent is characterized by “austerity measures.” And while such devotion can be beautiful, Lenten observance can also border on piety for piety’s sake, or what we might call works righteousness. Please do not misunderstand me: I enjoy and value the season. Who of us wouldn’t benefit from setting aside time to reflect on the grace and mercy of God (and our need to repent)?

The tension between the need for mercy that defines Lent (in theory) and the works righteousness with which it has all too often become synonymous is the theme…

Film / Grace in Practice / Humor / Literature / Music / Religion / Sports / Technology / Theology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: More Linsanity, IMonk Grace, TechnoSabbaths, Defending Nic Cage, DFW on Corrosive Illusions, Cougarton Abbey and GNR Rumors

by David Zahl on Feb 17, 2012 • No Comments

1. Just in case you haven’t overdosed on Linsanity yet, David Brooks offers a sympathetic big-picture perspective in his column in The NY Times, highlighting how the culture of achievement and glory in professional sports conflicts with ethical framework espoused by most of the major religious traditions. Some will certainly say that Brooks going overboard, but I’m not so sure. Of course, there are plenty of valid, non-religious ways to rationalize competition, but attempts to do so on the basis of Christianity have always struck this blogger as particularly unconvincing, ht TB:

The moral ethos of sport is in tension with…

Addiction / America / Art / Bible / Books / Education / Film / Humor / Music / Psychology / Religion / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Joseph Mills, Commitment Devices, Anxiety Rights, Bible Rescue, Imposter Syndrome, Hitch on Chesterton, Elmer Bernstein and Liz Lemon

by David Zahl on Feb 10, 2012 • 6 Comments

1. One of the many things to adore about David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is the cover (of the US edition). The collage manages to capture the torrential intellect at the heart of that wonderful collection without losing the humor. But it wasn’t until this past week that I knew anything about its designer, photographer/artist/pumpkin farmer Joseph Mills. The Washington City Paper did a feature on him back in 2003 in conjunction with an exhibit at the Corcoran, and Joseph’s words–and personal history with psychosis and depression–pack quite a punch, ht SJ:

When asked about…

Death / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Law / Relationships / Religion / Theology

Humility Is Endless: A Few Choice Cuts From The Merciful Impasse

by Mockingbird on Feb 10, 2012 • 3 Comments

If you’re one of the few who has been holding out on Paul Zahl’s The Merciful Impasse: The Sermon on the Mount for People Who’ve Crashed (and Burned), the audio collection that Mockingbird released this past Fall, hold out no longer! Here are a few soundbites to whet your appetite. The only aspect of the set they don’t capture is the truly laugh-out-loud humor:

What I’m really talking about is the roots of the problem of being human. Why are we the way we are? What causes us to be intractably defensive, and resistant, and feeling terribly vulnerable to people’s judgments…

Books / Business / Children / Film / Humor / Music / Religion / Science / Social Science / Technology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Immortal Smartphones, Jefferson Bethke, Adolescent Rewards, Profound Comedy, Therapeutic Irony, more George Lucas, Pixar and Hunger Games

by David Zahl on Feb 3, 2012 • 2 Comments

1. In last weekend’s NY Times Magazine, Carina Chocano explained “The Dilemma of Being a Cyborg” – AKA what our current obsession with “data” has to say about our humanity – dropping her usual allotment of insight bombs along the way. Not only does she point out the increasingly prevailing illusion that if something wasn’t ‘documented’ it didn’t happen, she gets at the real crux of our smartphoned existence: the false promise of immortality. In other words, a familiar serpent has found its way into the, um, Apple Store:

This is the dilemma of being a cyborg: It’s not just that…

Music / Religion

The Only Excellence-Proofed Musical Genre (You Guessed It)

by David Zahl on Feb 1, 2012 • 2 Comments

Another brilliant passage from John Jeremiah Sullivan’s essay about his experience at the Creation (Christian Rock) festival, “Upon This Rock,” which can be found in his highly recommended recent collection Pulphead. Don’t think I’ve ever heard the CCM conundrum expressed so precisely or matter of factly, i.e. most such takedowns tend to be gleeful exercises in reaction that fail to understand the fundamental premises at work:

The fact that I didn’t think I heard a single interesting bar of music from the forty or so acts I caught or overheard at Creation shouldn’t be read as a knock on the acts…

America / Film / Grace in Practice / Law / Music / Psychology / Relationships / Religion / Social Science / Theology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Indie Law, The New Marriage Killer, Futurizing Fear, Apatheism, Damsels in Distress, George Lucas and Downton Abbey

by David Zahl on Jan 27, 2012 • 3 Comments

1. In his short article “The Pitfalls of Indie Fame” on Grantland, Chuck Klosterman captures something we have been trying to say on here forever. Don’t be put off by all the music jargon; he is using the critical success of the tUnE-yArDs debut record as an opportunity to reflect on the cruelty of the Law. Which may be particularly pronounced in the indie world (or any rarified/snobby setting for that matter), but the phenomenon is universal. The human relationship to righteousness is a troubled one, love/hate at best, and it finds expression in every possible arena. And while non-religious…

Celebrity / Death / Identity / Music / Religion

All The Young Dudes Carry The News: The Confessions of Mott the Hoople

by David Zahl on Jan 26, 2012 • 4 Comments

“All The Young Dudes” is both much more and much less than the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the beautiful rock monster known as Mott the Hoople. More than the tip because their career hinged on it. The single not only revived their sagging spirits (and commercial prospects) at a crucial juncture, but set them on a new course. Pre-Dudes Mott and post-Dudes Mott are not the same beast. And the song has stuck around. They had a number of other considerable hits, but “Dudes” is the only Mott recording that’s remained in the popular consciousness, rarely…

Church / Film / Humor / Religion / Theology

Buddy Christ and the Catholicism WOW Campaign; or, Cross vs. Glory in Dogma

by Matt Schneider on Jan 24, 2012 • No Comments

This is a bit of a throwback given that Kevin Smith’s film Dogma is about 12 years old. But I recently let my daughter begin playing with my Buddy Christ statuette since she had been pointing to it on a bookshelf and making quizzical utterances (“hunh?”)—yes, I have a Buddy Christ toy. In any event, I thought the toy would be a convenient way to begin teaching her about Jesus. One day I asked if she could kiss Buddy Christ and tell him “thank you” (for salvation, etc.). Since then she has carried Buddy Christ around saying “tank tu” and…

Church / Fashion / Film / Humor / Politics / Religion / Suffering

PZ’s Podcast, 84-89: Yvette Vickers, Protestant Episcopal SuperMarionation I&II, Bette Davis Eyes, Tana and Tahrir, and Pacific Overtures

by Mockingbird on Jan 23, 2012 • No Comments

Thanks again for your patience with us this past week. As you’ll see, while the site slept, some of us were busy!

Episode 84: Yvette Vickers (f. 4.27.11)

Newspapers and blogs seem to settle for the categorical in reporting such events as the discovery, on April 27, 2011, of the body of Yvette Vickers in her house in Benedict Canyon.

Yvette Vickers’s death becomes a “bizarre” event, and gets linked to the Gothic, even, as it applies to the kinds of movies in which she appeared. (She gave knockout performances, by the way, in her two “legacy” films: Attack of the 50…

Comics / Law / Religion / Suffering / Testimony / Theology

You’re a Hopeless Case, Charlie Brown: Law and Gospel According to Peanuts

by Matt Schneider on Jan 18, 2012 • 4 Comments

This is the first in what I hope to be a series on Charles Schultz’s legendary comic strip (and TV specials), Peanuts. In part, my contribution picks up from DZ’s recent review of Robert Short’s popular work of apologetics, The Gospel According to Peanuts (1965). In many ways, I owe my conversion to Schultz, Short, and Snoopy; in fact, seven years of exploration culminated when I read Short’s book. Some might have thought it ridiculous for him to compare Snoopy to the “Hound of Heaven”—the one who humbles the exalted yet exalts the humiliated–but at least for me, it wasn’t…

Literature / Religion

Doubts About One’s Doubts: John Jeremiah Sullivan on Jesus Phases and the Aestheticization of Weakness

by David Zahl on Jan 17, 2012 • 3 Comments

How to create a Pavlovian response in yours truly: 1. Produce extended, compassionate essays on Michael Jackson and Axl Rose. 2. Let it slip that you were raised Episcopalian. 3. Prompt a number of your colleagues to compare you with David Foster Wallace, going so far as to proclaim you his literary heir. 4. Write an extremely funny and not entirely unsympathetic article about a Christian Rock festival. This is what John Jeremiah Sullivan has done in the past few years.

I remember reading his piece on the initial GNR comeback shows in 2006 and thinking it was the best writing…