Issue 18: Celebrity

Dystopian novels—stories of the future going badly wrong—have apparently now surpassed the vampire and fantasy genres in the young adult fiction market. The books, and the phenomenon of their popularity, have provoked numerous discussions online, in schools, and in the sort of serious, adult magazines that teenagers don’t read. (We know this, of course, only […]

Read part one of our interview, plus two more of John Leax’s poems (and audio) here. An elder statesman in art and faith circles, John Leax (Jack to friends) is a poet and essayist of hard-earned, humble wisdom, and as such, he avoids the spotlight. The author of books like Country Labors: Poems for All […]

An elder statesman in art and faith circles, John Leax (Jack to friends) is a poet and essayist of hard-earned, humble wisdom, and as such, he avoids the spotlight. The author of books like Country Labors: Poems for All Seasons and Out Walking: Reflections on our Place in the Natural World, he would rather be […]

I remember the first time I saw Lady Gaga perform on TV. She was seated at a very large and very pink piano brimming with plastic bubbles. She had barely tickled the flamingo ivory before strutting center stage to engage in a most bizarre choreography. At the time, Lady Gaga was still becoming the icon […]

I have one goal as an artist: not to sit on my ass. For me, art is action in all of its variety of forms. Performance artists, then, should be pushing the boundaries of action, daring to engage with the environment, culture, and most importantly, other people as intensely as possible. I want to do the […]

That contemporary America is captivated by the phenomenon of celebrity is hardly a contestable observation. Even those of us who try to limit the impact of celebrity on our life find that its tenacity is hard to overcome. Some try to overcome the impact of celebrity by willing its insignificance. But that some energy is […]

Mary Van Denend reflects on Simone Weil’s “Waiting for God,” a seminal piece on Weil’s understandings of grace, affliction, and our “sacred longing” for God.

One interpretation has collapsed; but because it was considered the interpretation it now seems as if there were no meaning at all in existence, as if everything were in vain. – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power[i] I grew up in a family obsessed—blessedly so, I believe—with what we might call the “biblical specifics.” Baptized […]

In his latest book, “The End of Evangelicalism?”, pastor and professor David E. Fitch explores the possibility of evangelicalism surviving, in some form, throughout the 21st century.  Fitch utilizes the philosophy of Slavoj Žižek to deconstruct what many evangelicals hold most dear–inerrancy of Scripture, the decision for Christ, and belief that the U.S. is a […]

Doug Frank. A Gentler God: Breaking Free of the Almighty in the Company of the Human Jesus. Eugene, OR. Wipf & Stock, 2010. $22.40.     I must confess, at the outset, that I know Dr. Doug Frank. I was a student in the Oregon Extension program he cofounded in southern Oregon and I have […]

In his recently published Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get it Wrong, Conor Cunningham, the Co-Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, surveys the vast expanse of evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, philosophy of mind, naturalism, and intelligent design and skillfully argues against the reductive logics […]

John Piper didn’t waste any time. Six days after the devastating earthquake in Japan, he published a post on his Desiring God blog entitled “Japan: After Empathy and Aid, People Want Answers.”  Here the revered Reformed Baptist theologian and pastor plunges (as he has done on many occasions before) boldly into the field of theodicy. […]

In his recently published Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get it Wrong, Conor Cunningham, the Co-Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, surveys the vast expanse of evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, philosophy of mind, naturalism, and intelligent design and skillfully argues against the reductive logics […]

Miroslav Volf, the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School, is a world-renown theologian who combines impeccable scholarship with a deep passion for the church.  Shaped by his experience of growing up in a Christian community in communist Yugoslavia, Volf has provided an important, distinct theological voice to many of the […]

If there’s no feast for this appetite No reason in nursery rhymes Why can’t I shake this great and glorious lie? And if there’s no dawn beyond this dark No secret stair to climb Where did I learn the song that shakes the sky? —Partayn’s Song, The Ale Boy’s Feast   I can’t shake the […]

David Gushee has spent more than twenty years as a writer, professor, and activist in the evangelical community. Often a minority voice—both within that world and in the broader Christian conversation—he advances a wide-ranging moral vision that insists on God’s care for society’s most vulnerable elements. His advocacy on behalf of the environment, the unborn, […]

When strangers at a party or on an airplane find out you’re in divinity school, they’ll want to tell you everything they think about God. You’re supposed to listen and nod profoundly, and you’d better not correct anything they say. You’ve signed up to be a pastoral counselor, whether you meant to or not. Perhaps […]

In this interview, Gary Dorrien discusses the contemporary economic crisis, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s economic perspective, and constructive theological responses to empire, including the implementation of his own theories of economic democracy.

William T. Cavanaugh effectively challenges contemporary treatments of religion and its culpability in violence, but his study raises other questions about what occurs theologically behind the church’s disordered politics.

There are plenty of reasons why it’s a bad idea to write a book about ascending spiritual heights. The first is because that book has been written—by Plato (Symposium), Plotinus (Enneads), Pseudo-Dionysius (Mystical Theology), Dante (Divine Comedy), Bonaventure (The Mind’s Journey into God), Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae). There are many more, and they are weirder.

An interview between TOJ Editor-in-Chief Chris Keller and the author of GENERATION EX-CHRISTIAN, Drew Dyck.

In this interview, Carl Raschke discusses our need to create celebrities, the fantasies they fulfill, and what we can learn from our obsessions with them.

It is a rare and special treat to find a band that makes music, especially music that one might classify as religious music, which is wholly devoted to the pursuit of beauty. The Opiate Mass, a Seattle-based collaboration of musicians, songwriters, visual artists, audio engineers, and authors, provides just such a treat. In this interview, […]

Joel Osteen has every reason to smile. The man known as the “smiling preacher” earns top billing as the leader of Lakewood Church, the nation’s largest church and 43,500 members strong. His books debut as New York Times bestsellers. He looks at home seated across from Larry King, Barbara Walters, and the feisty cast of The View. […]

This essay is neither for nor against Glenn Beck. The philosopher Michel Foucault warns us to be suspicious of proper names because they tempt us to ascribe agency to the person instead of to the overall flow of discourse, knowledge, and power out of which the person emerges as an agent. I seek to provide […]

The value of football is found not in fame and fortune, but rather in the potential it provides for cultivating moral and athletic excellence.

When Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz was at the apex of its initial popularity, I was starting as an undergrad in Oregon at Multnomah Bible College (now Multnomah University).1 Miller’s book swelled like music on our campus and others like ours. Many of us carried a secret fear that the joke all Bible and Seminary students […]

See Part I of this essay series, in which Swanson begins her analysis of evanglical responses to the Twilight series by examining Twilight’s false message of abstinence, and Part II, in which she critiques New Moon’s portrayal of men as “protectors” and women as “perpetual, self-sacrificing victims.” Here in Part III, Swanson examines the dangerous sexual dynamic between Edward […]

That field behind the barn across the road, how it once perfected your desires in summer sun . . . To sit in that grass right now, would you offer up a poem? Let the eyes of orioles fund you— let the wind publish you on leaves? All right, draw one more sip of your […]

I A dilapidated yellow ice cream truck parked outside the fenced microwave tower, about a mile outside the tiny township of Cisco, Illinois. Aside from the few silver grain silos and the blinking elevator at the Co-op in town, the buzzing tower was the only vertical sign of human progress in the expanse of corn, […]

In 1980 the young artist Jeff Koons presented his first major solo exhibition, a window installation at New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art, titled, appropriately, The New. Alongside hermetically sealed vitrines showcasing “ready-made”1 household appliances like a New Hoover Deluxe Rug Shampooer and a New Shelton Wet/Dry 10 Gallon, there were images: meticulously reproduced […]

Today, as I write this, the world is learning about the death of Ronnie James Dio, who succumbed to stomach cancer at the age of sixty-seven. The heavy-metal singer replaced Ozzy Osbourne in the late ’70s as the front man for Black Sabbath. After several years and records, Dio went on to front Ritchie Blackmore’s […]

In this interview, Nathan R. Kerr reflects on some of the conversations that have emerged in the last two years since the release of his book Christ, History, and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission. In particular, he explores the connections between Christology, the nature and task of theology, and the mission of the church in […]

I’m your biggest fan, I’ll follow you until you love me Papa, paparazzi —Lyrics from “Paparazzi” as performed by Lady Gaga The Greatest Day in New England History The streets of Boston course with life as a crowd greater than the city’s total population joins in celebration. Commerce grinds to a standstill. Women faint. Grown men weep. […]

In an adapted excerpt from his upcoming new book, Pete Ward discusses how celebrity culture is a “kind of” religion which carries theological ideas as part of popular communication.

John D. Caputo and Linda Martín Alcoff. St. Paul Among the Philosophers. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009. 208 pages. $17.90 paperback. St. Paul Among the Philosophers is a landmark of the resurgence of interest in Saint Paul within contemporary continental philosophy. In keeping with the theme of this issue of The Other Journal, the […]

Banksy, Exit Through the Gift Shop. Revolver Entertainment, 2010. Visit here to view a list of screenings in the United States. I was the first person in the history of my high school to fail the AP Art exam. The class, which at the time was somewhat exclusive, consisted of about six students every year. […]

See Part I of this essay series, in which Swanson begins her analysis of evanglical responses to the Twilightseries by examining Twilight‘s false message of abstinence. Here in Part II, Swanson critiques New Moon’s portrayal of men as “protectors” and women as “perpetual, self-sacrificing victims.” Twilight has become the synecdochic term for Stephenie Meyer’s book, film, and pop […]

Brett McCracken. Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2010. 255 pages. $10.87 paperback (Amazon). Click here or on the image below to purchase Hipster Christianity from Amazon.com and help support The Other Journal. When I was a teenager, I was religiously devoted to freestyle BMX: flatland, street, vert, all of it. It […]

A reflection on the life of Alex Chilton, one of the most influential and yet unknown legends of rock music.

A review that finds joy in the creative crises and experimentation of the ALL DELIGHTED PEOPLE EP, the recent EP from Sufjan Stevens.

In this conversation, distinguished professors James K. A. Smith and James Davison Hunter discuss Hunter’s newest book, TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

An essay that uses two recent Seattle Art Museum exhibits to compare Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, and Kurt Cobain and to reflect on the nature of celebrity.

Brian McLaren has been asking important questions about Christian practice for decades, stirring needed debate within the world of evangelicalism and beyond. His newest book, A New Kind of Christianity, continues McLaren’s project of assessing and reassessing our assumptions concerning the foundations of modern Christian practice by asking ten important questions about the pillars of the Christian faith: narrative, […]

Ron Hansen’s fiction is tight and rich. Each of Hansen’s writings carries a certain arc: the plains of the American West, the sanctuary of a hushed convent, and the frenzied deck of theDeutschland are both terse and beautiful, places where redemption is particularly fitted to each character’s peculiar, compelling humanity. In this interview, Hansen talks […]

After resurrection, Jesus acted strange, materializing through solid wood, even though he didn’t look that different. The gashes seeped still, varnishing the tentative hand, the fingers that needed to know him new. Let me say how strange I feel, trusting this to be true—that a body can be both mortally wounded and whole enough to […]

James Davison Hunter. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010. 368 pages. $20.12 hardcover (Amazon). It’s hard to resist the spectacle of the Wachowski brothers’ film Speed Racer. Their visual evocation of a kind of live-action anime hovers and […]

Two short films cast a long shadow over the history of cinema. The first is the famous 1895 Lumière Brothers’ “L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat,” a mere fifty seconds of documentary footage. Through a static, single shot, we watch a train approaching from a distance, chugging from the center-right of the frame […]

Real love happens between two people of value, not between a girl who thinks she is nothing and the boy is everything. —Beth Felker Jones, Touched by a Vampire   Since the publication of Twilight in 2005, Stephenie Meyer’s teen vampire romance saga has rapidly gained ground as a pop culture phenomenon to rival that of Harry Potter. […]

Jeffrey F. Keuss. Freedom of the Self: Kenosis, Cultural Identity, and Mission at the Crossroads. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publishers, 2010. 182 pages. $21.00 paperback (Amazon). Click here or on the image to purchase Freedom of the Self from Amazon.com and help support The Other Journal. Motto: “Please step forward to the rear!” This is an approximate translation of a request […]