A student followed me out of class the other day; he couldn’t believe that I, a Christian, could find Nietzsche edifying, let alone that I kept a painting of him catty-corner from my icons. Around the same time, a Twitter friend asked me much the same question: why look to Nietzsche for faith? My answer is necessarily a personal one—that’s all it can be. What has Friedrich Nietzsche to do with Jesus Christ? The pairing seems impossible, and yet, for… Read more
February 7, 2020
Abusing Religious Liberty
February 7, 2020 By Chase Padusniak
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America Magazine is reporting a victory for religious liberty. In essence, an appeals court ruled that religious universities must be left alone; coercion by the state is not allowed, since schools do not receive various federal grants. This is supposed to be a “live and let live” situation, giving religious colleges an opportunity to govern themselves in ways consistent with their traditions: The corollary to this arrangement (no public support) is that the government will leave private institutions alone in… Read more
February 3, 2020
Living Saints: Leszek
February 3, 2020 By Chase Padusniak
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This is the second post in a series I am writing called “Living Saints.” It explores the lives of currently living people whose examples inspire us, those who keep faith alive by demonstrating that the true Christian life can, in fact, be lived. You can find the first post here. “But it is necessary to stress with sufficient insistence that faith is inseparably connected with conversion. It is a break with out life of sin, with the idols and all… Read more
January 23, 2020
Thanks Be to God—Another Winter
January 23, 2020 By Chase Padusniak
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It’s winter again and I should have far more of my dissertation submitted than I do; it’s almost time to start teaching, almost time to spend five minutes twirling a cigarette, wondering why, once again, I thought this would be a good idea. Depression reigns now, people say. Our anxieties burn up inside frigid bodies afraid to move. So, we invest in mood lamps; we drink hot chocolate. But not even. Hot chocolate has a Yuletide charm, but that season… Read more
January 22, 2020
Progressive in the Sheets, Centrist in the Streets
January 22, 2020 By Chase Padusniak
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Many are self-professedly “progressive,” but default to moderate policies because, as they say, the world is complicated. Sometimes you have to take half-a-loaf of bread; negotiation requires compromise after all. They say they wish they could support policies further to the Left—single payer healthcare, giving away housing to the homeless, huge cuts to military spending—but those won’t go anywhere. And so, we make do. This is no clearer than when speaking about Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Many good liberals… Read more
January 21, 2020
The Medieval and the Fascist
January 21, 2020 By Chase Padusniak
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It is, at this point, a truism that the Middle Ages fascinate the American Alt-Right. “Deus Vult” has become their slogan, so much so that the popular video game franchise Crusader Kings has dropped this tagline from its third installment. It is also, at this point, a truism that those so invested in an eleventh-century crusader battle cry get the medieval period wrong. I am not interested in re-adjudicating this conflict; it seems clear that any popular movement, steeped in nostalgia… Read more
December 10, 2019
Living Saints: Frances
December 10, 2019 By Chase Padusniak
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Life is hard. Everyday we wake up and do it again, coffee in hand moments after dusting ourselves off from a half-sleepless night. We work; we try to pray. But, in the end, each day is often hard. The abstractions of faith dominate most discussions of the religion that’s supposed to keep us grounded. Politics, in many cases, is much the same. Who can retain faith and hope under such circumstances? Who can face down a corrupt, fallen world and… Read more
December 5, 2019
Confessions of an Ironic Structuralist
December 5, 2019 By Chase Padusniak
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Poetry began my love affair with literature. Discovering Donne, seeing the ways in which language could be shaped, torn, and exploded, these propelled me from a kid who didn’t read to a doctoral student in an English department. My family did not (and does not) care that much for books; I was no different. I wanted to be a child psychiatrist; I wanted to help people, to get inside their heads and figure out what made them tick. That was… Read more
December 4, 2019
Technocracy and Apocalypse
December 4, 2019 By Chase Padusniak
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It’s weird to be a young man in times deemed “frightening” or “aberrant.” Does the child growing up in a warzone think war is anything but normal? Can a young adult think Trump is “strange” when the dynamics behind his presidency—and the opposition to it—seem to have been in play since at least 2008, if not 2004? Still, if I abstract from my fairly limited experience, I can see that these are odd times—odd times that can teach us lessons… Read more
November 14, 2019
Evangelical Christianity: The American Imperial Church?
November 14, 2019 By Chase Padusniak
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If Catholicism came to Latin America with conquistadors, evangelicalism has found its way southward through men in suits hawking some combination of Pentecostalism and the prosperity gospel. The relationship between elites, highly Americanized pastors, and the contemporary rise of right-leaning politics in the Global South is no accident. It has definite historical origins that have affected both the rise of Jair Bolsonaro and the recent regime change in Bolivia. Whatever one’s opinion on Evo Morales, it behooves us as people… Read more
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