For those who can’t view the video, this is “We Take Care of Our Own,” the new single from Bruce Springsteen from what will be his 17th album, Wrecking Ball, which comes out March 6. Blues on the verses, Gospel on the chorus. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Elsewhere on the New Music From Old People front: NPR is streaming Leonard Cohen’s Old Ideas in its entirety. Read more
William D. Lindsey, who blogs at Bilgrimage, shares some sneak previews of his current project, a book collecting the diary, essays and letters of Wilson Bachelor. Who? Wilson Bachelor (1827-1903) was a pioneer doctor and Arkansas Republican leader. Bachelor wouldn’t be allowed to speak at Republican events today. As a proud member of the party of Lincoln, his views on race, science, church and state, women, workers’ rights, the death penalty and many other subjects would make him anathema to... Read more
Mark Kleiman offers an optimistic angle on the recent South Carolina Republican primary: In a Southern Republican primary, adultery turned out to be less of a burden for a candidate than Cayman Islands bank accounts. That reflects a clearer moral sense than I would have credited Southern Republicans with. You may recall that Newt Gingrich drew criticism for saying this: If the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks,... Read more
Left Behind II: Tribulation Force, Part 4 Rayford Steele delivers his speech and Chris Smith delivers the gun. Let’s set aside the content of Rayford’s speech — more or less, “magnets, how do they work? Therefore, God” — and just consider the fact of it and the result of it. This is a major difference between the movies and the books. In the books, Smith, Rayford’s co-pilot, kills himself. Book-Rayford barely notices, and then never gives his long-time colleague another... Read more
The Finance Guy asks a simple, but important, question: “Is Being an Ideologue a Contributor to Stupidity?” The simple, but important, answer is Yes. Being an ideologue is a contributor to stupidity — not to innate stupidity, but to chosen, voluntary, assumed stupidity. The good news: Because it is not innate, this assumed stupidity can be shed, relatively easily. It is caused by a single choice and can be removed and corrected by a reversal of that same single choice.... Read more
1 Thessalonians 5:15-22 See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. Read more
I’ve just begun reading Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell — the first book purchased for the Kindle I got for Christmas. The Kindle tells me I’m just 7 percent along, but so far it’s delightful and engrossing. The opening chapters introduce us to the Learned Society of York Magicians. I’m not sure Clarke intended a specific target for the affectionate satire of this section, but I can’t help reading this as an elliptical description of the church: Some... Read more
“Ken Ham is slowly killing the American church,” writes Joel Watch at Unsettled Christianity. Kurt Willems agrees, posting a video at his Pangea blog in which he says “Preaching Against Evolution in Evangelical Churches Creates Atheists.” I’d qualify Willems’ statement a bit. Preaching against evolution in evangelical churches doesn’t create atheists — it creates not-evangelicals. They were told that if evolution were true, then their faith would be a lie. And then they learned that evolution is true. Some of... Read more
Alan Bean of Friends of Justice has a fine rant on Manhattan Declaration co-author Timothy George’s recent attempt to pretend to himself and others that he’s in the vanguard of some courageous and righteous movement. Bean asks: “Does it take courage to be pro-life and anti-gay in Baptist Alabama?” Timothy George stirred a bit of excitement in 2009, when, in collaboration with luminaries like Charles Colson, he published a Manhattan Declaration, subtitled as “a call of Christian conscience.” With a... Read more
John C. Holbert writes of “A Prophet Gone Bad” and offers a fine summary of one of my favorite books of the Bible. And now we can see just who Jonah is: he is that sanctimonious, Bible-spouting mountebank who hates anyone who is not just like him. I fear that he too often is us — those of us who just know we have all the right answers, while “they” (fill in the blank of your particular “they”) just as... Read more
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