In Good Game, one of the things Shirl Hoffman emphasizes about “good” sport is that play is “autotelic”: that is, it is its own reward, its own end. The joy is in the playing. But this is also one of the features that has been most distorted and forgotten in the athletic-entertainment complex which has…
I’ve been seriously considering reworking my intro to philosophy course around the theme of freedom. News that David Foster Wallace’s undergraduate thesis is going to be published might be just enough to push me to actually execute this idea. Appearing as Fate, Time and Language: David Foster Wallace’s Essay on Free Will from Columbia University…
Over the past decade there have been articulate critiques of the extent of American Christianity’s assimilation to various aspects of American civil religion, particularly with respect to politics, militarism, consumerism, and celebrity. But surprisingly, one of our most ubiquitous cultural phenomena has been largely untouched: the realm of sport. Indeed, the case could be made…
Last week our oldest son graduated from high school–one of the few remaining ritualized rites-of-passage in American culture. I have no profound insights to share, but the occasion has had me thinking about two things: First, all the clichés are true: “They grow up so fast.” “It seems like only yesterday that you were getting…
Anyone who has spent just a bit of time around the Reformed tradition will have encountered the encapsulation of a Reformed “worldview” in the conceptual triptych Creation-Fall-Redemption. This is meant to articulate a holistic understanding of salvation, rooted in an affirmative theology of creation and culture, coupled with a systemic understanding of sin and its…
Way back in 2007 I noted my discovery of Charles Wright, which has blossomed into a hungry devotion. So it was a treat to read David Skeel’s recent interview with Wright in Books & Culture. I particularly enjoyed the snippet where they discuss Wright’s one-time colleague at UVa, Richard Rorty. (I’ve read Wright’s poem “Reading…