…It occurs to me that it is precisely the fact that we are intent on teaching religion to the young that makes faith such a prime site for rebellion when emerging adults construct their own identities. As a peer reviewer for a publisher, I recently read the manuscript for a book that was an intellectual attack on Christianity. What struck me was that the sources for the skeptical views the author was commending were leading scholars, while the Christian beliefs... Read more
Just got back from the movie version of Bachelorette, which stars Kirsten Dunst. I reviewed the play version here. Some notes follow, but the most important note is: Don’t see this movie. Seriously, just do not. I don’t believe in advice and I rarely give it but in this case I will make an exception. That said, * Lizzy Caplan is really great! She is the only bright spot. * The movie removes one key monologue from the play (the... Read more
It’s genuinely hard to say both “Die to self” and “live in Christ,” to focus equally strongly on crucifixion and resurrection, submission and liberation. I need to do better at being clear about the sacrifices. I think I’m so focused on making queer, chaste Christian life more viable, fruitful, and loving, that I can sound a bit Pollyannaish. The Gospel is not really sunny-side-up, even though it is a love story which ends with lovers reunited. Read more
One of the current liberal projects is the replacement of an old legal and cultural model, in which the paradigmatic public “person” is male, with a new legal and cultural model in which the paradigmatic public person is unisex. Both of these models are damaging because the underlying vision of human nature is false. This is a gnomic utterance, rather than a real post, because I’m unsure what law and culture based on a sexed, sexually-differentiated, public person would look... Read more
Celibacy is surely a strenuous spiritual path, but today the cost of celibacy is unreasonably and unnecessarily high. When it comes to moral teachings about sex outside of marriage, we isolate sexual pleasure from all the other good things that are connected to sexual relationships. People are commanded to abstain from sexual and intimacy, but no one addresses how abstention may also limit the person’s access to family, touch, children, financial stability and so on. It’s hard to be a... Read more
The only answer that corresponds to man’s actual existential situation is hope. The virtue of hope is preeminently the virtue of status viatoris; it is the proper virtue of the ‘not yet.’ In the virtue of hope more than in any other, man understands and affirms that he is a creature, that he has been created by God. —more Read more
You guys already know how I feel about John Cheese’s stuff. Some really powerful things here. It’s Cracked, so the usual warnings for language etc apply. (And more here.) Btw his parents are divorced, but he (or whoever wrote the headline) is using “broken home” here more to mean “dysfunctional” rather than just as a synonym for divorce. Read more
was September 1, like always. Read more
Which is especially sad and creepy when you realize they could just lie about it. That at least would help shift the rhetorical climate! Read more
My favorite paper was Pravda [not the famous one —HR], owned by the seven brothers Sokitch. One brother I never met, as he lived in the country. The other six were all over six feet tall, very broad and most of them well furnished with gold teeth. Each brother was responsible for a section of the newspaper, except for one brother, who sat in the outer office wearing a hat, dressed in a crumpled suit and often unshaven. He was... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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