When I was a child,” Marilynne Robinson began an early essay, “I read books.” Lila Ames, the eponymous protagonist of Robinson’s most recent novel, did not. If not for a single year of schooling, she might have never learned to read at all. When she wanders, at age thirty, into Gilead, she is ashamed of the clumsy childishness of her own penmanship. Continue Reading »
Marilynne Robinson repeats the conclusion that Jesus had nothing to say about homosexuality. But that conclusion severs the connection between Jesus and his specially commissioned apostolic witnesses. Continue Reading »
Marilynne Robinson is not Rock, and this is not a song. Rather, it is simply a three-word sentence dropped by the acclaimed novelist last fall, when I heard her speak at Skidmore College. But the following was initially provoked by another writer, Bill Kaufmann. Kaufmann is a hard one to . . . . Continue Reading »