Here’s a simple idea: schools would be better if they were more beautiful. What problems would this solve? I do not know, but this much I have experienced: students and teachers seem to enjoy beautiful space. If as most Christian have, we believe that beauty is a objective, a real value in God’s mind, then we must take that idea seriously and the potential impact rejecting beauty would have on students and teachers. Why would we take the jewels of... Read more
We can put a monetary value on anything, but we should not sell everything. Some people note a relative decline in respect for Christianity in America in young adults (though not globally), but they fail to notice a similar growth in skepticism about our legal and educational establishments. This suggest the problem is less Christianity, but more something that American Christianity has done in common with other areas of American culture that used to have widespread trust. Perhaps the deep reason... Read more
Here is a statement from God’s messenger: Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!* If this is God’s word, and all traditional Christians believe it is, then we are left with several truths about God that are beyond dispute. God... Read more
Nobody should have a party at a hanging, even if the hanging is just. We are a religion of justice, but also of pity and mercy. Christians are often not as Christian as we should be. We must fight for justice, but not hate. As a result, we use police power to stop a criminal, but then we look for redemption. This should never be naive and our immediate concern should first be to protect and bring restitution (where we can)... Read more
Read Invisible Man. Not the HG Wells sort-of-good book, but the work of an authentic American genius: Ralph Ellison. The book has the mythic truth of Steinbeck’s East of Eden and humor that makes Twain’s Huck Finn seem childish. This is the great American novel, the only completed novel of a genius. As he became an educator and wrote in different genres, there must have been pressure to produce another novel quickly. As the sad case of Harper Lee demonstrates, we can be... Read more
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a human in possession of a good education must also wish to continue learning. Sadly, like other universally acknowledged truths we wish were true, it isn’t really. Despite the desires of Mrs. Bennet, not all men with a large fortune want a wife and regardless of what we say, many of us do not want to keep learning. I am told that gyms stay in business by selling memberships that people do not... Read more
Game Night is a pleasant date night, if you pay matinee prices and there is the problem. The film is not good enough for paying full ticket prices at night. If you have MoviePass (cut the cord and get it), then this tension is solved: you can go to this meh film at night and not pay much at all. If only this much strategic thought had gone into the plot! There is not much wrong with Game Night, but sadly right... Read more
If you want an American to dislike Plato, then give them Parmenides as the first book they read. The text descibes a particular style of doing philosophy and shows it and shows it and shows it. Most of us think philosophy is a “word salad,” talkative people saying things instead of doing or worse, hiding what is true behind a screen of words. Philosophers are “talky men” and beyond a doubt Parmenides seems like a talky man. He does not just make... Read more
Great books, ones that have inspired all kinds of people over a long period of time, often give a reader a good bit on the first reading, but cannot be exhausted. “Don’t tell me. I read the Bible all the way through and I get it.” The man slammed the door of my Dad’s office and stormed off. Safe to say, he did not get it. Since then that moment has stood as an intellectual warning: if a text has... Read more
The great victory of the Civil Rights movement was not given to the African American community as a gift, but taken and won as a right by the African American community. This month as I read the stories from those who overcame and are still overcoming, I was reminded that those who rose up and did justice are growing older. Now is the time to hear the stories they have to tell as they wish to tell them. This is... Read more
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