Open Your Eyes Wide: The Generous Vision of Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson. When I Was a Child I Read Books. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012. In Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead, the Reverend John Ames observes that “you never do know the actual nature even of your own experience”—much less that of others.1 In her new essay collection, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Robinson applies the idea with rigor. There... Read More
Bleakness and Richness: Christopher Nolan on Human Nature
Editor’s Note: This essay contains discussion of plot details, including potential spoilers, from several Christopher Nolan films. I remember the frenetic buzzing in my head on the way out of the midnight showing of The Dark Knight. I remember the way the theater seemed to heave after the final frame, all at once ringing with cheers, expletives, arguments, and the laughter... Read More
Call to Revival: A Review of Tim Suttle’s An Evangelical Social Gospel?
Tim Suttle. An Evangelical Social Gospel? Finding God’s Story in the Midst of Extremes. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011. Theological work is like children gathered around a table, playing with blocks—collaboratively erecting certain structures, contemplating them, and then tearing them down to their foundations and starting all over. It is like children working joyfully, modestly,... Read More
Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian – A Review
Bloodlines is a curious book. In it John Piper, a prominent white pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, steps out to speak about the problem of race in the American church. Where many prominent white clergy have remained silent, Piper turns his attention to one of the silent tragedies of American Christianity, the perpetual racial and ethnic division of its... Read More
A Life In The Same Direction: A Review of Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor
Pastoral memoirs are not a genre in great demand. They don’t tend to make it to the New York Times Best Sellers list. After all, the pastoral vocation, some say, has fallen on hard times and Christian pastors writing about spirituality seem to have lost their influence in the marketplace of ideas. But there is an exception: Eugene Peterson, a man who has written successfully from... Read More
Sexuality, Dialogue, and the Church: An Interview with James Alison
James Alison, the Roman Catholic theologian, priest, and author, currently travels the world as an itinerant witness for the reconciliation of faith and sexuality. Indeed, he is most well known for his work fostering dialogue regarding lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer (LGBTQ) issues within the larger church community, as well as his application of René Girard’s anthropological... Read More
Rethinking Visibility: Church, Repentance, and 9/11
On September 11, 2001, I was in an early morning seminary class when an administrative assistant came and told us that the first of the towers had collapsed. The class put down John Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity—after all, nothing seemed reasonable in those hours after we heard the news[1]—and spent the day talking on the phone with loved ones and watching CNN.... Read More
The Comfort Food of Pretzel Logic: Regulating Emotion with Steely Dan
Nothing affects us chemically like being in love—the sensation of floating on air; the hazy, dreamlike reality; the natural high. But just like withdrawal from any other drug, withdrawal from being in love can be hell. I was reminded of this last spring. The sun was out, the trees were in bloom, yet life stood perfectly still. This girl did a number on me. She embodied Bob Dylan’s... Read More
The Rising: Springsteen, 9/11, and the Real Refrains of Patriotism
Editor’s Note: Over the next several weeks, we’ll be publishing a special collection of theological reflections in honor of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I remember joking with a friend, sometime in 2002, that I’d support the Patriot Act if it contained a provision stating that only Bruce Springsteen could write songs about 9/11. It was a comment made in the midst... Read More
The Emperor’s New Clothes: A Review of Defending Constantine
The tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” turns on the question of how to see the emperor: is he clothed in garments befitting someone of his noble station, or is he parading in nothing more than his birthday suit, exposed as vain and conceited? Likewise, Peter Leithart’s Defending Constantine turns on the question of how to see Emperor Constantine: is he the best thing to... Read More
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