On “Courage” in the (Christian) Academy

[a few thoughts composed on my iPhone on the shore of Little Platte Lake] Someone has said that academic squabbles are so nasty only because they are so unimportant. Nonetheless, many academics like to see themselves as “courageous”–exhibiting intellectual heroism, taking stands that are unpopular, leading to some kind of “martyrdom.”  This is the kind…

Reframing the Imagination: On Wes Anderson’s Formalism

[As we are patiently waiting for Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel to wend its way to the flyover states, I thought I might share a snippet from a presentation I made last year under the auspices of the Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (thanks to the hospitality of the inestimable Jeremy Begbie).  Reading A.O….

Book Giveaway: WHO’S AFRAID OF RELATIVISM?

In just about a month, Baker Academic will publish my new book, Who’s Afraid of Relativism? Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood, the latest offering in the Church and Postmodern Culture series. In some ways, this is kind of the “Anglo-American” sequel to the “Continental” conversation in Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to…

Faithful Compromise

The spring 2014 issue is devoted to a timely, but also counter-intuitive theme: Faithful Compromise.  In my editorial, I tease out this paradoxical notion.  Here’s a snippet: It’s a dangerous thing to acquire a theology of cultural transformation but lose an eschatology. Too many Christians who are newly convinced about the implications of the Gospel…