1. Don’t shoot the piano player but another week, another flurry of #seculosity… This first item comes from Peggy Noonan, who hit the college admissions scandal nail on the head in her “Kids, Don’t Become Success Robots” column in The Wall Street Journal. She writes: In the past decade or so I’ve observed a particular parenting […]
Another Week Ends: Zen Evangelicalism, Rumors of Narnia, Invisible Forces, Digital Eidolons, Liquid Bread, and Deleting Social Media
1. Say you’re jonesing for a stirring interreligious discourse this weekend — have I got the thing for you! In a great piece for the latest First Things, art historian Matthew Milliner discusses the relationship between Eastern religions and evangelical Christianity. “…it is often thought,” he says, “that evangelical Protestants have little to offer interreligious dialogue.” […]
Another Week Ends: Hipster Conformity, Mononucleosis, Greek Basketball Coaching, Curated Imperfection, and The Secular Work Ethic
1. Tis the season for sickness. B.D. McClay over at The Hedgehog Review got mono, and while the short term result was a bout of feverish nightmares, excruciatingly painful swallowing, thundering headaches, and seemingly unending fatigue, the long term result was this marvelous essay: “The Ills That Flesh Is Heir to.” Her essay is a […]
Another Week Ends: The Mass Audience, The Power of Invisibility, College Loan Evangelism, Intuitive Eating, and the Fourth United Church
1. From The Spectator comes “The Quiet Sorrow of the Instagram Blogger.” It tells the true story of one “Influencer,” who really is a caricatured stand-in for everyone these days, named Kelly Larkin, of the “Kelly in the City” brand. Larkin is known (apparently) as an “aspirational but accessible” lifestyle branding influencer. As these cautionary […]
Another Week Ends: Evangelism Aversion, Everywhere Fundies, Jussie's Folly, Daddy Bill, Competitive Depression, and Bollywood Billie
1. The big news lighting up church circles at the moment is the polling numbers on evangelism released by Barna earlier this month. Christianity Today reports: “Nearly half (47%) of practicing Christian millennials—churchgoers who consider religion an important part of their lives—believe that evangelism is wrong. At least, they’re more than twice as likely as […]
Another Week Ends: Bad Romance, Marriage Therapy, Shania Twain, First Date at Denny's, Techno Tyranny, and the Paradox of Control
1. In high school, a friend of mine found a single rose waiting for her on each of her desks for six classes in a row; she was later offered yet another six roses and asked to the prom via guitar-serenade. The routine was sweet but seemed a little familiar, as if from a movie. […]
Another Week Ends: Fake Meat, Away Messages, Ambiguous Grief, Dopey, Lebowitz, Gaffigan, and Generous Pot Roast
1. Meghan O’Gieblyn’s been on our radar of late, and not just because she’s featured so prominently in our new Faith & Doubt Issue. Meghan’s book of essays, Interior States, is phenomenal. American religiosity (and #seculosity) is on full display, and the theme continues in this new monthly series she’s doing at The Paris Review, […]
Another Week Ends: Benedictine Tech Startups, Lusty Boozy Priests, Timehop, Maximal Atonement, and #MbirdTyler19
Too much good news for one week: announcing today that early registration for our annual Mockingbird conference in Tyler, TX is opening Monday! Join us for #MbirdTyler19 as we explore “The Future of Grace”. It’s a totally different Mockingbird experience from any other gathering we host, and we can’t wait to reconnect with all our […]
Another Week Ends: Bad Believers, Fyre Festivals, Glittering Pastors, Self-Esteem Sadness, StartUp Tongue Twisters, Richard Swift, and #NeverTweet
1. The best thing that hit the web this past week, as far as I can tell, came from Harrison Scott Key, whose name you may remember from such publications as the Thurber award-winning memoir The World’s Largest Man or The Humor Issue of The Mockingbird. His recent “Confessions of a Bad Christian” is, well, […]
Another Week Ends: Conan Reborn, Call-Out Culture, Rockstar Sobriety, Sick Notes, Bookstores, Bossy Razors, and the Bad Place
1. This week, let’s start with the afterlife of Conan O’Brien. After a 4-month hiatus, Team Coco revives, now completely made over: shorter episodes, a more informal set-up — also more embracing of the life cycle of late-night. With 25+ years under the belt, Conan talks to The New York Times about his inevitably approaching retirement/career-death. He […]
Another Week Ends: Prison Seminary, Bingo Card Memes, Tidying Up (and Stuffing It Down), Wendell's Port William, and Four Very Specific Oreos
1. First up is this doozie of an interview from Christianity Today, about a woman recently released from a 30-year sentence in a California prison. Linda Barkman was sentenced with second-degree murder in 1979 after her boyfriend murdered her 2-year-old daughter. That devastating outcome, she says, came at the end of a string of abusive […]
Another Year Begins: Quarter Life Crisis, Relentless Parents, Haunted Houses, Merton's Epiphany, Trendy Church Names, and Jubilee Street
Happy January! So glad to be back at the dials to kick off a fresh year of Mocking-activity and deeply grateful to our many supporters who came through, big time, this past month to make that possible. Stay tuned early next week for details about our upcoming NYC Conference (4/25-27), earlybird registration for which expires […]
