If anyone would like a peek into the inanities we have to endure here in West Michigan, just consider a recent guest commentary in the Religion section of our local paper, The Grand Rapids Press. In it the author excoriates the “compulsory income redistribution” that he believes stands in contrast to “true Christian charity.” (As…
As you might gather from the synergy between Fors Clavigera and What I’m Reading, poetry’s been on my mind alot lately. Building on an emerging theme I noted elsewhere, Dana Goodyear’s recent New Yorker piece on sometime “Beat” poet Gary Snyder offers another catalyst for thinking about “poetic” truth, or poetic understanding (see “Zen Master”…
Denis Donoghue’s recent review of Jay Parini’s book, Why Poetry Matters, got me to (analogical) thinking: might the situation of poetry in late modern American culture be akin to the situation of the church? Here’s how this connection got swirling around in my head: As Donoghue opens, If you were to write a book called…
I’m a big fan of Comment magazine, which I regularly press into the hands of students. It’s engaging, accessible, intentionally Christian, deals with things that really matter, and is theoretically rigorous without having to wear its theory on its sleeve–which is just to say that it is thoughtful without being plagued by ‘academese.’ If you…
…and he’s mad as hell. He thought the McCain-Palin camp were in his corner (stacked as it is with crushed Budweiser cans), fighting for him. But it turns out all McCain cares about these days is poor Joe the Plumber–whose raking in over $250,000 a year and is still griping about paying taxes. Average Joe…
I just received my copy of Evangelicals and Empire: Christian Alternatives to the Political Status Quo, edited by Bruce Benson and Peter Heltzel (with a Foreword by Nicholas Wolterstorff and an Afterword by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri). It’s an eclectic, big tent collection, since it includes an essay like Jim Wallis’ “Dangerous Religion: George…