The Subject of the Big Jesuit Plot

November 1, 2015 By Justin Tse

I’ve recently begun seeing a Jesuit spiritual director. In light of the big Catholic Twitter blowup between the New York Times‘s token conservative columnist Ross Douthat and the so-called ‘liberal’ Catholic academy (whose only qualifications for liberalism seem to be derived less from their credentials and more from having read Gaudium et spes and liked it), I guess I have an ‘in’ on this ‘big Jesuit plot’ of which Douthat speaks, even though I, like Douthat, do not have a theology degree. To be sure, I’m still... Read more

I Support All the Parties: Trudeaumania, Part 1

October 21, 2015 By Justin Tse

The running gag that I use on social media is that I support all the Canadian political parties. Of course I have political convictions – even Canadian ones – but there’s no way I could survive in my hometown of Richmond, British Columbia without a sense of humor as a Chinese Christian and secular academic at the same time. For that matter, I wouldn’t make it in my other hometown of Fremont, California either, but their election is next year;... Read more

Mahjong in the Puritan State

August 23, 2015 By Justin Tse

I was at a wedding yesterday at St Francis Xavier Parish in Vancouver, BC – which is one of the two Chinese Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese (that is, it’s Latin Rite for Chinese parishioners). The old retired priest, a guy with the illustrious name of Fr Aloysius Lou, gave the homily. He was hilarious. I won’t repeat the homily in full – this is, after all, a secular blog – but he did mention that prior to coming to... Read more

To Josh Duggar, from a secular academic, on staying Christian

August 21, 2015 By Justin Tse

Dear Josh, We do not know each other, but as part of the reading and viewing public, I know a lot more than I care to know about you while you know nothing about me. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a postdoctoral fellow in comparative religion at a public research university, which makes me a secular academic – which is not the same as saying that I don’t have theological convictions. What it means instead is that I... Read more

‘A Specific “Geography” of Faith’

April 15, 2015 By Justin Tse

I’m preparing to go to a few conferences next week. While preparing, I stumbled on a quote from St. John Paul II that surprisingly captures what I do: One could perhaps speak of a specific “geography” of faith and Marian devotion, which includes all these special places of pilgrimage where the People of God seek to meet the Mother of God in order to find, within the radius of the maternal presence of her “who believed,” a strengthening of their... Read more

End the Death Penalty

March 5, 2015 By Justin Tse

Even though I am not Catholic, I am joining with the joint editorials in the Catholic blogosphere to call for the end to the death penalty. I grew up Protestant. We thought the death penalty was great. It was the whole Noah thing – ‘Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind.’ The fact that I can tell you that this is Genesis 9:6... Read more

Vancouver food recommendations for Josh Harris

February 10, 2015 By Justin Tse

I am late. Very late. On the day that Josh Harris announced to Covenant Life Church that he was stepping down on as senior pastor, I tweeted him to welcome him to Vancouver. Welcome @HarrisJosh to @regentcollege. I have no right to do so, of course, except as a regular customer of The Well. — Justin Tse (@religethnicwire) January 27, 2015 He’s coming (or should I say from Seattle, going) to Regent College, an international graduate school of Christian studies... Read more

Nobody expects Reinhold Niebuhr

February 9, 2015 By Justin Tse

It seems that there has been a bit of a Reinhold Niebuhr renaissance. It began – arguably – when David Brooks asked then-Senator Obama if he had read Reinhold Niebuhr. Obama said yes. Brooks asked him what he took away from him. Obama said: I take away…the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that... Read more

I really thought I didn’t do China studies until 2014

December 31, 2014 By Justin Tse

If New Year’s Eve is a time to take stock of what went down in the year before, you could say that I’ve had a lot of thinking to do. I’m in the middle of finishing yet another piece on the Hong Kong protests of 2014, a topic that has occupied much of my thinking since late September and that is making me rethink how I articulate my academic interests. Those who read this blog know that I rotate among... Read more

We’re Awake

November 30, 2014 By Justin Tse

Advent is upon us. In the Gospel text (Mark 13.24-37), Jesus instructs his disciples, ‘Keep awake.’ Keep awake, he says. Pay attention to the signs: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory.’ Though we may not seem like it, we are awake.... Read more