Jesus was born into a world of violence. A world where demented people kill innocent children. It’s right there in the infancy narrative of the first gospel (in the order in your Bibles). It’s easy to miss, because we don’t often focus on it in our telling of the Christmas story–understandably so. Matthew 2:16-18 tells the story of the “massacre of the innocents.” When Herod learns that a presumed threat to his throne was born in Bethlehem, he orders all... Read more
As the conversation invariably moved over to gun bans and gun control in the horrific wake of last Friday’s massacre, I recalled Jeff Goldberg’s piece in a recent Atlantic. There are 300 million guns already in the hands of Americans. Another 4 million new guns enter the market each year. The dog is off the leash for good. The question remaining is what to do with a whole country that’s locked and loaded. I get that we Americans are enthralled to... Read more
Gustave Courbet, The Source of the Loue, 1864. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The over-heated art market, driven by insecure and short-sighted collectors, who, churning through the season’s aesthetic fashions to use art to leverage their cultural power, have produced an impatient and distracted art world incapable of separating artistic quality from auction house results and dealer price-points. (For more detailed information about this anxiety-ridden world, see my posts, “Damien Hirst is Free” and “The Scream, A Stuffed Shark... Read more
My heart is heavy and my prayers go out to those touched by the horrific events of today. Earlier today, I posted a bibliography of sources related to “perspectives on evil and suffering.” Then I learned about the tragedy in Connecticut. As one headline accurately read, “there are no words.” These are unspeakable things. The horror of horrors. What David Bentley Hart calls the “inexplicable remainder.” While there are, after thousands of years of trying, no ultimately satisfactory, cut and... Read more
This next quarter, I will be teaching one of my favorite courses: Perspectives on Evil and Suffering. Here is a select bibliography that I will be offering to my students. These essays and books do not constitute, necessarily, the best on the topic, but the entire list is meant to provide a range of perspectives on a variety of themes: such as creation and evolution, “natural evil” (natural disasters, disease, etc.), the “problem of Hell,” Old Testament violence, and cultural and political dimensions... Read more
Not too long ago I participated in a Patheos book club discussion of The Holy Nomad, by Matt Litton. In my reflection, I noted that Litton’s book, in which he jolts us to find a little more joy for the journey, reminded me of the quest approach to the Christian faith: To me, that’s a natural (or at least, ideal) way to approach the Christian faith. A Christian is a “Christ-one,” after all–a follower of Jesus. But somehow, over time, it becomes more a cultural identity,... Read more
A local pastor who recently left his church to launch a food market where individuals are invited to sponsor hungry families with money that then enables them to purchase food at a market where the food itself has been donated. Part of the idea is to counter the humility of poverty with a little dignity while at the same time build some sustainability into the market itself so that it doesn’t turn into a typical struggling food pantry. This pastor... Read more
A recent article in Humanities has caused me to give some thought to the audience for a work of art. An abiding criticism of so-called “serious” or “fine” art, like poetry and painting, is its elitism—only a small coterie of followers, most of them professor-types and intellectuals, seem to care. The audience for a painting or a poem is minuscule compared to the audience for a Hollywood movie, Showtime television series, or Youtube viral video. “Elitism” in this context is simply... Read more
What to do with all these worthless Ph.D.’s in the humanities? The Chronicle of Higher Ed relays a speech given by Michael F. Bérubé to the Council of Graduate School, called “The Future of Graduate Education in the Humanities.” He offers up, in the words of the article’s title, a “sobering critique” of the state of the humanities, in terms of financial assistance for graduate school and job prospects. I’ve beaten this drum before, and my students sometimes accuse me of of... Read more
My Facebook feed is a-twitter with exclamations about the recent decision at Tufts University to allow an on-campus Christian group (Tufts Christian Fellowship) to “discriminate,” so to speak, in selecting its leaders. Back in October, Tufts’ Community Union Judiciary had implemented an “all comers” policy, which stated that any university-sponsored campus group could not discriminate, even on the basis of religious belief, in selecting its leaders. This, for obvious reasons, came as troubling news to Christian groups everywhere, for whom... Read more
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