Resident Theologian
About the Blog
Subtweets, backshadowing, and Saint Barnabas
A follow-up to the previous post on a style of punditry that denies contingency.
“It was always obvious (or should have been)”
On a certain style of punditry and scholarship.
My latest (four): radicals, connectors, gods, and devils
Links to my four latest reviews and essays.
My latest: a review of American Heretics, in LARB
A link to my review of Jerome Copulsky’s new book.
My latest: why Christians are conspiracy theorists, in CT
A link to my latest column in Christianity Today.
Graeber on making the world and Berry on attending to it
Two quotes: one from David Graeber and one from Wendell Berry.
My latest: how (not) to talk about Christian nationalism, in CT
A link to my latest column in Christianity Today, which argues that we should retire the term “Christian nationalism” for good.
My latest: on Mick Herron’s Slow Horses novels, in Hedgehog Review
Link to and except from my latest essay: a reflection on the politics of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses novels in The Hedgehog Review.
Conversions, Protestantism, and a new mainline
Reflections on the appeal of Catholicism rather than Protestantism to public intellectuals as well as the possibility of a new conservative Protestant mainline in America.
“Name five things they got wrong”
Epistemic systems, master theories, principled fallibilism, and politics.
I’m in Mere O on church and culture
My latest essay, “Once More, Church and Culture,” is in the new issue of Mere Orthodoxy.
Christians and politics
A reflection about Christians’ involvement in democratic politics, prompted by Richard Beck’s series on the subject.
Publication promiscuity
Should writers be selective in where they publish, judging by ideology or other factors? I say no. Publish wherever you like, especially if they pay.
Once more, negative world
A response to Alan Jacobs’ response to my response (and others’) to Aaron Renn’s “Three Worlds” framework.
I’m in LARB on Hauerwas, Barth, and Christendom
This morning Los Angeles Review of Books published an essay review of mine on Stanley Hauerwas’s latest book, which came out earlier this year, titled Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism of Karl Barth.
Prudence policing
There is principle and there is prudence. Principle is what’s right, what you believe to be true and good, no matter what. Prudence is what to say and do about it, when, and how. In online and social commentary, the prudence policing is as ubiquitous as it is nauseating.
I’m in FPR on Christian politics
Happy Fourth! This morning I’m in Front Porch Republic with an essay called “Another Option for Christian Politics.” I’ve been meaning to write up a little piece like this one on St. Ignatius of Antioch for three or four years; I don’t know why it took me so long. The thesis would have had one sort of resonance circa 2018; another circa 2021; another now, in July of 2022. So be it. The thesis is true regardless of time or circumstances.
Algorithm writing
Too often, I read something online and have the unpleasant sensation that the piece in question could have been written by an algorithm. The tell is always the repeated use of a term or phrase or concept so beaten around by our cultural discourse that it’s long past dead; less a corpse than the decaying bones of one. The bones in question usually serve as a signal flare to fellow solders in the culture war: IT’S ME! I’M ONE OF YOU! I’M NOT THEM!