The New Yorker‘s faith in literature has been shaken by the fact that a great reader like President Obama is capable of ordering drone strikes (h/t FF contributor Blake Neff). In an article published on their site yesterday (“A Reader’s War”), Teju Cole gushes about Obama’s literary sophistication: Barack Obama is an elegant and literate man with a cosmopolitan sense of the world. He is widely read in philosophy, literature, and history—as befits a former law professor—and he has... Read more
The reactions to this morning’s announcement that Pope Benedict XVI will be stepping down have been variously funny, insightful, and annoying. Richard Dawkins has one of the best. He tweeted: He needn’t concern himself. As Forbes magazine points out extensive research shows that clergyman is the world’s happiest job. Dawkins would be baffled; he might gain some clarity by reading Servais Pinckaers’ book The Pursuit of Happiness – God’s Way: Living the Beatitudes. For a helpful piece on who’s likely to be the next Pope,... Read more
Before yesterday, I would have thought my chances of encountering a popular rap song that rejects materialism were slim. But as I was working, I turned on my Spotify, went to the top hits playlist, and clicked on the most popular song. It was Thrift Shop feat. Wanz by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. It’s a song that, at least on the surface, celebrates buying clothes from thrift stores and rejecting the American obsession with expensive brands. I’m apparently way behind... Read more
In a recent Grantland piece, Chuck Klosterman wrote about the strange saga of Royce White, a first round NBA draft pick out of Iowa State University. White has been in the news because he has been diagnosed with a mental illness that, amongst other things, causes him extreme anxiety when flying. His illness is one of the many factors feeding into his ongoing contractual dispute with the Houston Rockets; White wants an independent doctor to be assigned to him who... Read more
Who was Richard III? Villain, or slandered victim of his enemies? Recent news that his remains have allegedly been found under a British parking lot raises the question of his character once again. One of the best fictional efforts to unearth the truth is mystery novelist Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. Based on a proverb attributed to Francis Bacon that “truth is the daughter of time, not of authority,” the book follows one of Britain’s best detectives, Alan... Read more
Peter Enns recently voiced a frustration shared by many Christian scholars with the anti-intellectualism that is widespread in the Evangelical movement. His complaint is that Evangelicals reject scholarship that fails to confirm their beliefs and validate their biases. Borrowing an idiom from Mark Noll, Enns writes, “The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that degrees, books, papers, and other marks of prestige are valued—provided you come to predetermined conclusions.” The effect of this scandal is that Christian scholars working... Read more
I was sitting in a Starbucks with a friend, an agnostic, talking about faith and truth and I told him I could recommend some books on Christianity. “What would you like? An apologetics book on rational reasons for Christianity?” “Nah, I’m not so interested in that,” he said. In “worldview-terms,” my friend’s a “postmodernist,” someone who is suspicious of all grand meta-narratives about the world. Even though the two are conceptually distinct, on the popular level, postmodernism can often... Read more
The church may be on the verge of a Renaissance, a movement forward via a movement backwards. This weekend a group of college-aged Christians who work on Christian journals at their respective campuses gathered under the auspices of the Augustine Collective to discuss their publications, fellowship, and learn from Christian scholars who are investing in their movement. Many of the conversations at this gathering focused on what what we called, somewhat misleadingly, “The New Apologetic.” The New Apologetic is the untapped... Read more
Does the Christian church damage women by idolizing virginity? Elizabeth Esther recently started the conversation around this question at her blog with this post: Like other Christians, I talked about the “sacrifice” of abstinence. There were princess-themed books about saving our first kiss. Some of us wore purity rings and made pledges to our Daddies not to have sex until we’re married. Ultimately, we implied that a woman’s inherent worth and dignity could be measured by whether or not a... Read more
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