• Nancy LeTourneau: “When we quit believing in the possibility, we quit trying and what was once horrific becomes ordinary. That is what happens when we let hope die.”
The theological/historical discussion of the interplay between politics and eschatology is all very abstract-seeming. But this is the core of it: What do we believe is possible? What do we accept as ordinary, expected, or inevitable?
• Saul Cornell, “The Lessons of a School Shooting — in 1853”:
Although advocates for the modern gun rights movement claim to be champions of the Founders’ vision of the Constitution, they have actually taken their cues from this later, libertarian vision of gun rights — one that was developed by slave-owning judges in antebellum America. In fact, the majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller — the 2008 case that struck down the District of Columbia’s gun-control law and established an individual right to bear arms unconnected to the militia for the first time under federal law — approvingly cited these Southern precedents as the foundation for his reading of the Second Amendment.
Then, as now, gun violence in schools sparked national concern because gun violence in that setting seems more egregious and we’re less inured to it than the more routine gun violence in the street. But then, as now, the issue is not “school safety.” The issue is gun violence. The “school safety” framing is a sleazy attempt to distract from that by changing the subject.
• I had never heard of NXIVM before reading this appalling, utterly bonkers story: “NXIVM leader Keith Raniere charged with sex trafficking.” I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch Smallville again in quite the same way.
• Here’s the dirty little secret behind why Barack Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009: It was because the award cannot be given posthumously. The Nobel committee was making a very, very grim assessment based on America’s past and America’s present, based on what happened to the only previous African-American honoree. This was something we knew, but could not say out loud, in 2009.
• Shannon Selin reprints an 1825 screed against fake news: “A good flim-flam is not the thing to which I object, but what I abominate are the little sneaking fetid nothingnesses that are copied from paper to paper.”
I share the London Magazine and Review writer’s aesthetic frustration there. If you must give us flim-flammery, put some craft into it, people. At least try to remember that “con-artist” includes the word artist.
• This story takes place at Taylor University, a pretty good “Christian” (i.e., white evangelical) college in Indiana. “Taylor University Still Shaken by Unsanctioned Conservative Newspaper.” The school, Christen Gall reports:
… is still buzzing about an underground publication, Excalibur, which claimed the evangelical college was becoming more liberal on sex, immigration, and race.
… Excalibur promoted the conservative and orthodox Christian values its writers believed were being replaced by more politically and theologically liberal views among Taylor’s student body, campus speakers, and faculty publications.
The anonymous articles decried “permissive views of human sexuality, hostility toward creationist perspectives, rejection of the rule of law (especially on the immigration issue) and uncritical endorsement of liberal-progressive ideas.”
Excalibur advocated for a “conservative-libertarian approach to race relations” over “incessant calls for social justice, diversity, and equality,” likening the push for social justice to the false prophets warned about in Scripture.
“Conservative” here is an inadequate euphemism for what this anonymous newsletter was peddling. It was, to use another popular and overly polite euphemism, “racially charged.”
The good news is that it didn’t go over well with the Taylor community, where it was met with a general cry of the Ned Flanders version of “WTF?” Administrators and students speculated about who the disgruntled freshman might be churning out this thing, because the ideology and quality of it didn’t quite rise to the level of sophomoric. The folks behind “Excalibur” didn’t seem to anyone to be the sharpest swords in the lake.
That’s when Taylor was shaken by another unpleasant surprise — the edgelord newsletter depressingly turned out to be the handiwork of three professors and a soccer coach. The professors’ awkward “apology” statement includes phrases like, “While we included no racist content in the newsletter …” — so you can see how that’s going.
And the profs are still digging. Hard. Asked what on earth they could possibly have been thinking, one explained that they were motivated by concern about “liberalism,” meaning:
“We have noticed a subtle but distinct lurch to the left over the last few years when it comes to campus programs and invited speakers,” [philosophy and religion Prof. Jim] Spiegel said, citing Willie Jennings, author and Yale Divinity School professor, as one example.
That would be Dr. Willie James Jennings, associate professor of Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School, and author most recently of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Jennings was the first example Spiegel could think of.
• I’m a sucker for melodies. “It Ain’t Me,” by Selena Gomez and Kygo features one so simple and striking that it seems like it must come from something else, although I can’t figure out what that might be. It’s the kind of melody that seems both surprising and inevitable, as satisfying as a line of poetry. The original hit doles out that melody in small doses, then deconstructs it into rhythms and vowels, which is kind of a neat form/content thing given the song’s subject. But it’s also frustrating if you just want to listen to that melody because “Ooh, pretty.” So enjoy this lovely version by Megan Lee and Daniel Jang:
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In