As I’m working on volume 2 of “Cultural Liturgies,” I am spending a lot of time and energy on considerations of genre and style, particularly given the argument in Desiring the Kingdom: that we are affective, liturgical animals who are moved and shaped more fundamentally by the imagination than the intellect. (Proust’s Contre Saint-Beuve is…
It’s surely not an accident that in the episode entitled, “The Good News,” Anna utters this beautiful announcement to Don Draper: “I know everything about you. And I still love you.” Who among us doesn’t long to hear that from someone? And isn’t that exactly what God whispers, quietly, persistently, in the depths of our…
Over at The Stone, Simon Critchley obliquely argues for the faith of the faithless under the rigors of love. In a rather Derridean fashion, he seems to suggest that somehow “traditional” believers have it easy, and that those who have faith but lack a transcendent object are somehow more faith-full, more radically trusting, because they…
I’ve been horribly delinquent about posting over at “What I’m Reading.” I have a long shelf of books above my desk here that I’ve been meaning to blog about, but just haven’t found the time–probably because I’ve lapsed into thinking each post needs to be a “review” rather than just an off-the-cuff take on what…
While I was working on Desiring the Kingdom, I led our college’s Semester in Britain program, teaching a course entitled “Victorian Britain and Postmodern Culture.” The course included units on Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris, even Oscar Wilde. But the hinge of the course was a unit devoted to the Oxford Movement, with special focus…
Before I became a Christian at 18 years old, my religion had been freestyle BMX. I lived and breathed to ride. (I remember a corny adaptation of a Harley-Davidson ad that I made the caption alongside my senior photo in the high school year book: “Some people ask me why I ride. For those who…