It’s George Washington’s birthday, and the problem a lot of us have is that he comes across too stiffly for us to really appreciate. What we need are the best books and, essays, as well as the best film depictions and art-works, that bring the actually quite passionate man to life. Here . . . . Continue Reading »
“Being an Orthodox Christian in the Public Square,” “St. Francis of Assisi and the Western Tradition,” and other upcoming lectures of interest. Continue Reading »
At the risk of sounding cantankerous, I will take the occasion to point out that a twenty-three-year-old is an adult. Continue Reading »
Icons, bank heists, and marketing philosophy. Continue Reading »
Ang Lee’s 2009 film Taking Woodstock records an important milestone in the culture revolution of the 1960s, the rock festival and “Aquarian Exposition” held in August of 1969. It does so from an angle that downplays the concert proper—to our surprise the camera never . . . . Continue Reading »
Before embarking on his missionary journey to India, William Carey famously told Andrew Fuller, “I will go down into the pit, if you will hold the ropes.” Most people remember Carey as one of the fathers of the modern missionary movement. But fewer remember Fuller as the man who . . . . Continue Reading »
A recent meeting of ministers associated with the prosperity-preaching Word of Faith branch of charismatic Christianity received a surprise announcement: Pope Francis had sent a message to the conference. It was something of a historic moment. Beginning around the thirty-minute mark of the above . . . . Continue Reading »
In the opening of True Detective’s fifth episode, a man named Dewall gets a read on Rust: “I can see your soul in the edges of your eyes. It’s corrosive, like acid. . . . And I don’t like your face. . . . There’s a shadow on you, son.” Dewall is strangely attuned to the terms and images that have characterized Det. Rustin Cohle, in all his nihilism and shadiness—extending even to a punning gloss on that nickname, a nickname that Dewall cannot know. Dewall is the “cook partner” of meth chef and murder suspect Reginald Ledoux, and Rust is undercover. The cover is blown here, in a sense; Rust is found out, albeit not as a detective. He looks unsettled, and his unsettling sets the agenda for the episode, in which characters seek to get a read on others and not be read themselves. Continue Reading »
Living in your nineties, dying in Belgium. Continue Reading »
If the Bible has a vantage point, it is not simply that of the oppressed, as if this were a readily identifiable class of persons. Continue Reading »
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