Resident Theologian
About the Blog
Carr, Sacasas, and eloquent reality
A long reflection on an essay by Nicholas Carr engaging L. M. Sacasas about enchantment, reality, and contemplation.
Graeber on making the world and Berry on attending to it
Two quotes: one from David Graeber and one from Wendell Berry.
I’m on another podcast!
Link to a podcast on ecology, politics, and despair, building on my essay last year in The Point on Wendell Berry.
Tech for normies
On Monday The New Atlantis published my review essay of Andy Crouch’s new book, The Life We’re Looking For. The next day I wrote up a longish blog post responding to my friend Jeff Bilbro’s comment about the review, which saw a discrepancy between some of the critical questions I closed the essay with and an essay I wrote last year on Wendell Berry. Yesterday I wrote a seemingly unrelated post about the difference between radical churches (urban monastics, intentional communities, house churches, all to varying degrees partaking of the Hauerwasian or Yoderian style of ecclesiology) and what I called “church for normies.”
Tech-wise BenOp
My friend Jeff Bilbro has raised a question about my review essay in The New Atlantis of Andy Crouch’s new book, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World. He sees a real tension between the critical questions I pose for Crouch at the end of the review and my essay last year for The Point, in which I defend Wendell Berry against the charge of quietism or apolitical inaction (lodged, in this case, by critic George Scialabba).
New essay in The Point
This morning I’ve got an essay in The Point, one of my favorite magazines (to which I subscribe, and to which you should also subscribe). The essay is titled “When Losing Is Likely,” and it is a lengthy response to George Scialabba’s review of Wendell Berry’s collected essays last year in The Baffler. Here’s a taste: