Networking is not reserved to the the internet. If there is one lesson to take away from the world’s most cited academic book, Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern, it’s that the world if full of strange connections. You’re never far away from either the greatest glories and the worst sins of your neighbors, and vice-versa. I recently ran across a paper that argues, but only on the margins, as if it were ashamed of the discovery, that classical conservatism... Read more
If developing a challenging reading regiment is part of your Lent practice, then you are in line with hundreds of years of Christian practice, especially among monastics (See especially: Leclerq’s The Love of Learning and the Desire for God). And so you might grab for your St. Bernard, Theologia Deutsch, Abandonment to Divine Providence, or Mysterium Paschale (my habitual Lent favorite). But why would you read these when there are more recent books to ascetically replenish your brain? This new and noteworthy reading... Read more
I was elected the education director of the University of Washington Newman Center in the early or mid aughts. This took place not long after I reverted to Catholicism thanks to the European history, comparative religion, and art history classes I took at a secular state university. The Birkenstocked priest in charge of Newman had never formally introduced himself to me until that point. After my appointment was officially announced at a meeting of some sort he finally came up to... Read more
I’ve been catching up on reading of late. It’s part of my effort to deepen my understanding of what a Catholic imagination means in comparison with a Protestant imagination as they attempt to image God, cosmos, and woman in their distinct, but complimentary ways. Before I get to the juicy stuff I’d like to sing the praises of William Dyrness’s Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards. His analysis overlaps with the analyses of Andrew Greeley and... Read more
On this Valentine’s Day I’d like to remind you that Catholicism is creepy. Yesterday afternoon I administered a midterm on ancient philosophy as a substitute to a class of about thirty college students. Everything seemed to go fine for the first five minutes. Suddenly a guy walks in with a bleeding finger and says, “My bandage fell off,” and flashes me a finger slashed straight down the middle, bleeding. Calmly, knowing this is clearly some dirty undergraduate trick I said, “That’s... Read more
Obama seems to finally have reached that most amusing point in a two-term presidency: The point where he can’t be bothered. Exhibit #1 is his Vox interview to come across as a Niebuhrian realist, a total gradualist badass, rather than the figurehead cum glorified pencil-pusher any president is: The goal of any good foreign policy is having a vision and aspirations and ideals, but also recognizing the world as it is, where it is, and figuring out how do you... Read more
One of my favorite pieces of spiritual advice comes from Herbert McCabe’s God, Christ, and Us: People often complain of “distractions” during prayer. Their mind goes wandering off on to other things. This is nearly always due to praying for something you do not really much want; you just think it would be proper and respectable and “religious” to want it. So you pray high-mindedly for big but distant things like peace in Northern Ireland or you pray that your... Read more
That’s one heck of a question, isn’t it? The BBC documentary at the bottom of this post answers in the affirmative. The video succinctly summarizes Conor Cunningham’s Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong, which is one of my TOP10 Books of the Last 10 Years. Before you go to the video read the following excerpt from an interview with Cunningham, because it gives you a sense why the two groups in the title are both wrong: ... Read more
The everyday ramifications of reading are a constant preoccupation of mine. I like to believe that the books I read change me for the better. Granted, given the starting point, improvement shouldn’t be much to write home about. Even so, I put my faith in philosophy as a way of life. If philosophy is to be a way of life, then it has to live up to its name. The name, as you’ve no doubt heard countless times, philosophy means... Read more
The season of Lent is almost upon us. We are traditionally invited to practice ascesis. That is to say, we are exhorted to gives up habits that hold us back from full human flourishing. When seen within this perspective, giving up candy, chocolate, or Catholicism, are stupid unless you mean to build up a firm habit that will last you a lifetime–like the pastor who gave up his Adventism and became atheist. In other words, the season is all about taking... Read more
Cosmos The In Lost
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