1. Maybe it’s because it’s so nice out, or maybe it’s because we completely forgot to mention his fantastic Conference talk in our recent newsletter, or maybe it’s because his Good Friday and Easter sermons were so inspired, but we urge you to check out the following write-up over mardecortesbaja.com.
1a. Supplied by above preacher, here’s an another priceless quote from Thornton Wilder. From his one-act play “Pullman Car Hiawatha”, the following comes out of the mouth of (the character of) Robert Louis Stevenson:
2. The Onion reports this week, “God Makes Surprise Visit To Local Church” and asks, rather brilliantly, “Should We Be Doing More To Reduce the Graphic Violence In Our Dreams?” [Warning: it gets a bit bloody, in a surreal way.]
3. Some exciting self-promotion: Jacob Smith’s post about A Theology OF The Cross Vs. A Theology ABOUT The Cross has legs – it was chosen as last week’s blog-post of the week by the highly respected theology radio show Issues Etc! At about 3 minutes in host Todd Wilken gives the plug. Congrats again, Jake!
4. In other radio-related news, courtesy of Andrea Zimmerman, be sure not to miss last week’s episode of This American Life entitled, “This I Used To Believe”. Andrea sums it up perfectly:
“Act two of this piece is a perfect example of Christian apologetics backfiring. The girl in the piece [whose good friend had just tragically died of cancer] gets such an earful from the [Christian] football coach – including being told that her logic is the same as Hitler’s! – that she tells Ira Glass that he is more loving to her than the coach who was trying to convert her. This girl wants to believe in God and she really tries to hear what the coach is telling her… I can’t believe she stuck around so long. I wonder what would happen in situations like this if Christians just listened instead of spitting out jargon and judgment.”
4a. Mitchell Hurwitz’s animated follow-up to Arrested Development, Sit Down Shut Up, debuted this week. Initial reviews have been mixed to negative, which I sadly have to agree with. Let’s hope this one’s a “grower”! Fortunately the same cannot be said for Parks And Recreation, which so far has been way outshining it’s older sibling, The Office. And HBO’s Grey Gardens was almost as charming as the documentary itself (Drew Barrymore – who knew?!). Finally, I haven’t heard much about the Caprica dvd yet – has anyone seen it?
COMMENTS
12 responses to “Another Week Ends: Thornton Wilder, Issues Etc, Bad Coach, Parks and Rec”
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Andrea, my heart died a little bit when I listened to that same interview this week…I was so upset with that coach (after the surprising twist in what originally sounded like a nice story). Devastating…absolutely devastating.
So glad the quote from “Pullman Car Hiawatha” was included.
It is from Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (which is the book Jack Kerouac was reading when he had his discomfiting experiences narrated in “Big Sur”). The quote from RLS seems superb.
Oh, and here’s another quote, this time directly from Wilder in relation to his Depression-era novel “Heaven’s My Destination”:
“The fundamentalist tradition in American protestantism has made into fixed hard laws the substance of the Gospel. All that is censorious… and joyless in the Calvinistic-Methodist-Baptist tradition is based upon a misreading of the New Testament and a failure to see that most of the tone in the Old Testament is expressly superceded in the New”.
Well done Jacobus!! Thrilled for this news 🙂
I love the quote from Pullman Car Hiawatha, I always am glad to hear that someone else feels like they are a total mixed bag of good and evil.
Loved the post
Keith Pozzuto
PZ, that Wilder quote is breathtaking in its accurate diagnosis of American Christianity–and in its sadly ongoing relevance.
Dave,
Regarding Parks and Recreation, I’ve been really enjoying the way that the pilot set Mark up to be the reliable guy who fixes things, and then in the next two episodes he’s actually not a very responsible guy at all…
-wrb
I’m with Andrea-I was really saddened by that interview with the coach-both in how he was so deaf to what she really needed to hear and also yet again the only view the “mainstream secular public” was getting of a Christian was of such the stereotypical “close minded and jargon spouting” type. (I have a feeling the coach’s words were specifically edited to make thinks very black and white)
On a positive note-YAY Jake!
Dear Lord, Thank you that I have rejected that joyless fundamentalist-Calvinist-Methodist-Baptist tradition of my fellow so-called Christians. Thank you that I am not the cause, as they are, of so many sincere Americans rejecting the gospel. Thank you good Lord that you have shown me the way of grace. And, most of all, thank you that I am so smart.
Amen.
William-
I agree with you about the Mark character for sure (and i just love to see Paul Schneider in anything – have you seen The Assassination of Jesse James yet?). i’m also anticipating the Aziz and Boss characters eclipsing the Amy Poehler one pretty quickly. lots of potential,
DZ
Michael,
I thought you were as wounded and desparately in search of a kindly spoken,authentic word of mercy as the rest of us.
Since the word from the cross is rejected by the voices of the world, it behooves us to search for it and share it when we find it. I am grateful for help, on my own being all too inclined to fall for the voices of rah rah rhetoric.
Robin
Robin, I guess as a crusty old Calvinist, I am just not that interested in whether I am wounded or not. I am sure that I have inflicted as many wounds as I have received, and then some. It just gives me a little heartburn when “grace” folks seem not to hesitate to accuse fellow Christians of pushing “the law” as an answer and blame them for all of their and American Christianity’s problems. Is this really what the grace of God is about? Does this really help people who desperately want to be better, but who mistakenly think some version of the law can get them there, to get out from under that burden?
Robin, that is so well said. It speaks straight to me.
I, too, have become acutely aware that I can find no comfort, no grace anywhere except at the base of the cross. I can’t belong to the Law, because the Law is not a person. I belong to Christ. The problem is that I lose sight of that fact more often than I care to remember, and I have to be constantly reminded of who I am, whose I am, and where I belong.
That’s why Mockingbird is such a blessing for me. This blog is the only place to which I can turn on a DAILY basis and hear that “kindly spoken, authentic word of mercy” as you so eloquently put it.