1. Every once and a while something comes across your screen that is so beautiful and honest and profound and enlivening that you want to force others to watch it. If commands of this kind worked, that’s what I’d do here. I’m referring to the interview that Bill Moyers conducted with poet (and Poetry Magazine editor) Christian Wiman this past February. Much like the essay of Wiman’s we featured last week, this is gut level stuff; he touches on pretty much everything that’s important. Or I should day, nothing that he touches on isn’t important: love, marriage, cancer, beauty, poetry,…
Film / Grace in Practice / Humor / Music / Poetry / Reformation / Relationships / Religion / Social Science / Suffering / Theology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Wiman’s Abyss, Opinionless Boyfriends, Compassionology, Lehrergate, Antinomianism, Revolution, Taylor Swift, and Wreck-It Ralph
Celebrity / Conferences / Education / Grace in Practice / Identity / Music / Psychology / Religion / Suffering / Theology / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Crimson Despair, Teacher Expectations, MJ’s Bad, Improvement Narratives, Neil Young, Neurospeculation, The Master, and Conf Update
1. An incredibly moving account of “Depression and Despair at Harvard” in response to the suicide of a classmate by Jordan Monge on The Harvard Ichthus. With real vulnerability, Monge touches on the crushing power of expectation, the vicious circle of shame and fear, the grace of defeat, even the toxic and tragic way Christians revert to the Law, post-conversion. It’s a courageous testament to the reality that we are not saved us from pain, but in and through it, ht AZ:
via indexed.com
Admitting my weakness feels like admitting that I am not good enough to bear my own name.…
Art / Celebrity / Children / Film / Forgiveness / Humor / Music / Religion / Sports / Technology / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Scary Nihilists, Repentant Starlets, Priestly Astronauts, Bad Vestments, Passive Aggressive Notes, Recovering Olympicists, Spiritual Conductors, Dylan’s Blood and Rooted
1. The media has been saturated this past week with stories about the Aurora tragedy, and rightfully so. Ross Douthat’s “The Way We Fear Now” was one particulary striking (and slightly scary!) example:
[Holmes'] crime has probably also solidified the Batman movies’ status as a cultural touchstone for our era of anxiety… our contemporary iconography of evil is increasingly dominated by figures who seem to have stepped out of Nolan’s take on the DC Comics universe: world-burners, meticulous madmen, terrorists without a cause.
Older enemies — Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Mao’s China — represented a different form of evil: institutional rather than…
Another Week Ends: Reddit Confessionals, Influencing Nick Cave, Deciphering Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Gospel-Centrism, Reinhold Bieber, White People Problems, Bat-Staches and Haidt on Colbert
1. Last week I mentioned a recent study exploring the physical impact of keeping secrets, and by implication, the biological necessity of confession (to say nothing of absolution). This week, that study has become manifest in an alarming way. A Reddit thread which asked the question, “What Secret Could Ruin Your Life If It Came Out?” has turned into a stomach-churning tour of the darkest recesses of the human heart and experience, with people anonymously confessing to things as innocuous as petty theft and faking an illness (e.g. “I once helped out my a female friend’s family by taking care…
America / Film / Grace in Practice / Humor / Identity / Law / Music / Science / Theology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Louis CK, Sam Spade, Prevailing Grace, Heavy Metal, Axl Rose, Viennese Creativity, Cabin in the Woods, and yes, more Damsels in Distress
1. “The Filthy Moralist: How Louis C.K. Became America’s Unlikely Conscience” in The Atlantic is remarkable, especially in its conclusion. As always when it comes to Louis, there’s a high depravity quotient, so don’t say we didn’t warn you. But also as always when it comes to Louis, the darkness is not neutral or meaningless (or merely shocking). In fact, it might even be worth the discomfort in this case to get to the final couple of paragraphs, which truly capture what Louis is about, whether he wants to be or not. It strikes me as especially pertinent as we…
America / Children / Church / Film / Food / Music / Psychology / Relationships / Religion / Social Science / Technology / TV / Week In Review
Another (Holy) Week Ends: Unachievement, Damsels Reviews, Gastrodad Confessions, Youth Ministry, Music Snobs, Girls and Darth Vader
1. At this point, you’ve likely seen Andrew Sullivan’s Newsweek cover story on the “Crisis in Christianity”. While there’s regrettably little talk of salvation – which I’m not sure is really within the purview of such a piece – and the reference to Jefferson is a bit dubious, the overall diagnosis strikes me as sound. Sullivan’s conclusion is particularly stirring:
The crisis of Christianity is perhaps best captured in the new meaning of the word “secular.” It once meant belief in separating the spheres of faith and politics; it now means, for many, simply atheism. The ability to be faithful in…
Books / Children / Death / Economics / Film / Humor / Law / Literature / Music / Religion / Theology / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Zeitgeistlichkeit, Atheist Religiosity, Freakonomic Fathers, Ralph Erskine, MJ, Devo’s Paradox, Hunger Games, Deep Blue Sea, and Hoarders
1. A pair of terrific book reviews have appeared in The NY Times over the last couple weeks, the first being Generation X author Douglas Coupland‘s inspiring riff on Hari Kunzu’s opus, Gods Without Men, and the exciting new genre it epitomizes (“Translit”). Ironically enough, he makes a number of Twitter-ready observations:
[We are living in a] “state of possibly permanent atemporality given to us courtesy of the Internet. No particular era now dominates. We live in a post-era without forms of its own powerful enough to brand the times. The zeitgest of 2012 is that we have a lot of…
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…
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
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…
Addiction / Books / Humor / Music / Philosophy / Psychology / Reformation / Religion / Sports / TV / Week In Review / Year In Review
Another Year Ends: Xmas Wars, Twitter Blues, Reznor’s Recovery, Hume’s Legacy, Bad Seeds, Scrooge Syndrome, and Mbird Subscriptions
1. You can’t blame Matt Zencey for trying to put the “war on Christmas” in perspective over at The Huffington Post, recalling the 18th century Puritan campaign against the holiday. While contextually more than a little glib – apples and oranges and all that (our cultural conflict has two equally doctrinaire opponents, theirs had one, and arguments could be made for casting the pilgrims as the corollary to either). Still, the historical details are undeniably interesting:
The Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock knew how to wage war on Christmas: They banned it. As historian Stephen Nissenbaum documents in his 1997…
Children / Death / Film / Humor / Identity / Law / Music / Poetry / Religion / Social Science / Sports / Technology / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Hitch, Facebook Blues, Baby Morality, Auden’s Conversion, M:I4, The Replacements, Gorey Animation, and Knowing Yule
1. By now you’ve no doubt heard that legendary journalist/polemicist/personality/Atheist Christopher Hitchens died yesterday. Hitchens was always my favorite of the New Atheists, and not just because he was the funniest. Alone of his colleagues (and I’m sure he hated being lumped in with anyone!), he seemed to object to the Gospel itself, rather than the normal hangups about the Bible or the Church. He found the idea of Grace to be repulsive and morally reprehensible. “Vicarious redemption” is what he called it, insisting that the notion that a person could be forgiven by someone other than the one they…
Books / Children / Death / Film / Music / News / Religion / Technology / Theology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Frictionless Sharing, Death Penalty, Modern Family, Community, Indie Bias, Maurice Sendak, Wilco and Walker Percy
1. A rather frightening article on Slate about Mark Zuckerberg’s proposed “frictionless sharing” entitled, “Not Sharing Is Caring.” As per usual, the vehicle in the world with the most potential for transparency continues to foster its exact opposite. Facebook is just the vehicle, of course, not the cause, but still… to mention escalating narcissism at this point seems almost silly, ht JS:
Sharing, in Zuckerberg’s view, has morphed from an affirmative act—that video was hilarious, I think I’ll Like it!—to something more like an unconscious state of being. I watched that video, and therefore it will be shared. If Facebook’s CEO…
Church / Death / Film / Gender / Grace in Practice / Music / Poetry / Religion / Science / Suffering / Theology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Of Gods and Men, Unitarian Boundaries, pi Haters, Pinksy on Cowper, Jayhawks, Wilco, Morrissey, FNL, Falling Skies and Brad Bird
1. No doubt you’re familiar with the martyrdom of the monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, who were assassinated in 1996 by Jihadists. It is, without question, one of the most inspirational true stories of the past twenty years – regardless of where you’re coming from on the religious spectrum. You may have even heard that the recent film based on the events, Of Gods and Men, was Grand Prix winner at Cannes last year. If that weren’t high enough praise for it shoot to the top of your Netflix queue (when it becomes available on Tuesday 7/5), Andrew Sullivan’s stirring…
What’s So Funny About Nick Lowe? Cruel Kindness, Lying Men and Failed Christians
In 2002, The A/V Club ran a column called “Is There a God?”where they asked a bunch of celebrities, presumably as part of their regular interviews, the God question point blank. While my favorite answer was probably from American Movie guru Mark Borchardt (Q: Is there a God? MB: Why ask me?), my second favorite (tied with Dave Chappelle and Steven Wright) was definitely from New Wave deity Nick Lowe.
The Onion: Is there a God?
Nick Lowe: [Long pause.] Yes.
It’s a wonderful answer, and very much in keeping with modesty that has always been present on his records, and I’m talking…
Todd Brewer: A brilliant, but sad, analysis. The fall of Michael and George Michael...
Tam: oh man, that last paragraph. I really needed that today. Thanks....
Marianne Brian: Loved it. So, so true! I love Ethanisms, as well!...
David Zahl: Wonderful, wonderful piece, E. I'm almost tempted to call it 'charming...
Rebecca W: I saw this column and loved it too. Thanks for highlighting his book s...