When I first came across Missy Andrews’ recently published memoir My Divine Comedy: A Mother’s Homeschooling Journey, I was a bit skeptical. I was intrigued by what I presumed to be her titular pun on Dante’s Divine Comedy. But what do I have in common with a mother on a homeschooling journey? I’m not a […]
Reconciling Sorrow with Grace in Noname’s ‘Telefone’
When I remember memories don’t last forever When I deny my empty with an open letter Who gon remember me? My satellite, my empathy The wheels be chrome, chrome spiffy, the Lord with me My halo said goodbye and the floor hit me Fill the lining in the pine box, my granny fill the time […]
The Weight of Advent: Speak What You Feel, Not What You Ought to Say
As Black Friday reaches further back in time each year, so as to even colonize the twilight hours of Thanksgiving Day, we in North America are no strangers to the porousness of time. Commercial interests can collapse chronology such that two times can overlap in a way purely linear calendar time can’t countenance; we can […]
Ruh Ro… Fifty Years of Faith in Accidents
What brought you here was your insatiable appetite for a juicy mystery. – Emile Mondavarious Imagine a cool, moonlit night. Skeletal trees line a narrow gravel road, and headlights are glowing in the distance. A vehicle is coming: an old, sputtering pick-up steered by some middle-aged mustachioed man. A groovy, slightly haunting tune plays as, […]
Walker Percy on Distraction and Selfhood ~ Scott Johnson
Nuclear winter, malaise, transcendence, and an amiable dude in khakis — all this and more in the following video! Very pleased to share this talk by Scott Johnson, from our recent conference in Oklahoma City, a revised version of which appeared in the latest Mockingbird magazine, the Faith and Doubt issue.
Failure in the Gospel (Almost) According to Critical Theory
Theologians of the cross emerge from unexpected sources. Which is fitting, since the Gospel is for nobody but those who fall short of expectations (AKA all of us). These purveyors and exemplars of low anthropology are psychologists, athletes, journalists, philosophers, and, beyond their job titles, just average people with their own screw-ups. What is less average […]
Say Something
The world is too much with us; late and soon. We are surrounded by suffering. It will follow us until we leave this earth. There is no cure while we are yet here. Grief is coming. To you. To me. To every single one of us. Over and over again, until the end. (I’m as […]
An Extravagant Inversion of Values
As we’ve highlighted before, Emmanuel Carrère’s new book (novel? memoir? biography?) on St. Paul and the early Christians often reads like a diary fused with historical fiction. Carrère, well-known in France for his unique non-fiction storytelling, believes that the only way he can really communicate a subject is by looking as honestly as possible at […]
#Humbled on the High Horse
For our jail bible study this past week, we decided to do Sunday’s gospel reading, which just so happened to be the Beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12), the litany of blessings that Jesus bestows on the weak, the discouraged, the sad, and the lonely. I thought, in the jail of all places, that people would really be […]
When Your Popularity Arc Takes a “Nosedive”
Last year’s Technology Issue published a list of TV Techno-Fables, the first show on the list being Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker’s exceedingly bleak anthology series, which just released its third season on Netflix this month. In the list we discussed that, despite The Twilight Zone comparison often thrown at Black Mirror, the show “does not […]
Hopelessly Devoted: Mark Chapter Eight Verses Twenty Eight Through Thirty Nine
This morning’s devotion comes to us from Laurel Marr. O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be. O Love That Will Not Let Me Go, George Matheson, 1882 Paul, […]
Dawkins Needs a New Test (or, Telescoping the Theology of the Cross)
More great (and seasonally appropriate) stuff from Sin Boldly!: Justifying Faith for Fragile and Broken Souls by Ted Peters, who we are so excited to have/hear speak at our upcoming NYC conference. This comes from chapter 10, entitled “Faith as Belief” in which Dr. Peters challenges some of the assumptions put forward by the New […]
