In my freshman philosophy course, right after we read Augustine’s Confessions, we watch and dissect one of my favorite films of all time: American Beauty. Having read Augustine’s Confessions as a proto-existentialist text (I’ve tried to make this case here [Part I]and here [Part II]), we then read the film as Lester Burnham’s “Confessions” of…
One of our very favourite routines in England was heading out Saturday morning to get “the papers,” and returning to curl up with a coffee and the Books section of the Saturday Guardian. Now back in the States, I’m reduced to reading it online (which is a pretty sorry substitute, but I’ll take what I…
Though signs of its demise have been evident for about a year, I’m sad to say goodbye to one of the better blog experiments I’ve been part of: the Generous Orthodoxy “Think Tank.” Launched by some bright and enterprising graduate students–Steve Bush, Keith Johnson, and Myles Werntz, as I recall–the goal of the blog was…
I’ve been enjoying Coldplay’s latest offering, Viva la Vida or Death and All of his Friends. But the lyrics of “Viva la Vida” have been a thorn in my side, mainly because I just haven’t been able to determine the referent (not that I think there need to be ONE, ULTIMATE referent–indeed, I’m not entirely…
I’m currently finishing a book project in which I briefly discuss the way in which the liturgies of consumerism also feed off the invisible–vast networks of production and distribution which are almost entirely hidden from view, and about which we rarely ask. This brought to mind Orwell’s straight-shooting analysis of Western (especially British) culture’s dependence…
Some folks might be interested in my recent article in Christianity Today, “Teaching a Calvinist to Dance,” which has just been made available online. (I absolute love Polly Becker’s art for the piece, which features a dancing Kuyper!) The gist of this short, non-scholarly little piece is to simply explore how being Reformed and being…