Resident Theologian
About the Blog
I’m on the Crackers & Grape Juice podcast
Back in May Jason Micheli was kind enough to have me on the Crackers & Grape Juice podcast to talk about The Church’s Book. I’ve known about the C&GJ pod since they had Robert Jenson on in 2017, only months before he died. Jason believes in avoiding the Q&A format of typical interviews and just having a conversation, and that’s just what we did; it was a blast. I hope y’all enjoy.
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.
Sometimes it’s simple
There is always much hand-wringing in Hollywood and among the writers who cover it when a film that “should have” been a hit is a flop, or at least underperforms. I find this phenomenon baffling. It seems to me that we should only wonder aloud why people didn’t go see a movie if all the following conditions are met…
The bishop of Rome in Alpha Centauri
I finally read Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, a novel with my name written on it if ever there was one. It’s more than six decades old—having been written in the wake of World War II; its origins there, as well as the fate of its author, are shadowed with tragedy—so I’m not worried about spoiling it for you, but be it known that the following quote comes from the final 50 pages of the book.
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!
Beliefs of the post-Christian West
Early on in Mark Sayers’ 2016 book Disappearing Church he outlines, in the form of propositions, the social imaginary or set of presuppositions that suffuse and animate the contemporary post-Christian context in the West.
The take temptation
There is an ongoing series of essays being slowly published in successive issues of The New Atlantis I want to commend to you. They’re by Jon Askonas, a friend who teaches politics at Catholic University of America. The title for the series as a whole is “Reality: A Post-Mortem.” The essays are a bit hard to describe, but they make for essential reading.
Getting at the truth
There is a nasty temptation to which any thinker, writer, scholar, or speaker is vulnerable. It’s something I’ve observed in prominent theologians as they age but also peers who, though on the younger side, have amassed enough of a readership and output that they could plausibly be said to have “a body of work.”
One note on “negative world”
I’ve written twice on the minor internet dust-up over James Wood’s essay last month on the political witness of the church, an essay that contains some modest criticisms of Tim Keller. There Wood uses a framework taken from an essay published last February by Aaron Renn, which was an expanded version of a piece he originally proposed a full five years ago. Many folks have written about Renn’s framework, including (to my mind) most incisively and critically by Jake Meador a few weeks ago.
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.
On pastors embarrassed to say the great word “God”
The temptations of the immanent frame are often greater for pastors than for the people in the pews, writes Andrew Root.
Lifelong ministry
People today are leaving ministry in droves. Churches, likewise, are shockingly under-staffed. As a colleague of mine recently wrote, “ministers are in short supply.” The pandemic is a major factor, but it exacerbated existing trends; it did not create the problem.
Politics cathexis
I’m of two minds about the suggestion that my friend and colleague, Richard Beck, made last week regarding Christians and/in politics. Here’s my reflection repping the other side.
If not inerrancy or tradition … then what?
Earlier this year I wrote a couple of posts about what I call Post-Biblicism Biblicism, or PBB, a phenomenon I’ve observed among professors in theological higher ed. This post extends those reflections, only from the perspective of the pews.
Kim, breaking bad
A comment on Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul and, you know, original sin.
Pseudo-Scorsese
It’s come to my attention that there are discrepancies in the filmography of American director Martin Scorsese. To be precise, certain films attributed to him evidently qualify as pseudirectoria (pseudokinemagraphia? pseudeikonzon?)—that is, instances of unnamed others claiming his name as director of a cinematic artifact, although the evidence suggests otherwise.
Ethics primer
There are two sets of fundamental distinctions in ethics. The first concerns the kind of ethics in view. The second concerns the difference between morality and other terms or concepts we are prone to confuse with morality.
One long thought on Wood v. Keller
It seems to me that there is a single pressing issue raised by James Wood’s essay (and follow-up) on Tim Keller: namely, the social and political fortunes of evangelical churches under social and political conditions that are truly post-Christendom.