I think it’s safe to say that the evangelical community has a somewhat confused relation to pop-culture. On the one hand, organizations like Focus on the Family have long criticized the violence and immorality in main-stream media, promoting an alternative Christian life style filled with alternative Christian entertainment as the only responsible means to raise healthy children. This sort of thinking has led to a whole slew of bad Christian romance novels, poorly painted watercolors, and several decades of radio so “safe” as to be musically worthless. To be fair, it has also led to some solid Christian families, but what it has not lead to, is a helpful metric for understanding and relating to pop culture.
In more recent years, I’ve noticed an increased use of pop-culture touchstones in sermons and small group materials, especially in “seeker-friendly”, “contemporary”, or “relevant” services. I wonder how many youth groups, like the one I attended, have thrilled to a clip of Mel Gibson riding a horse in a kilt and shouting those famous words, “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom?!” Of course the object lesson (seizing the day for Jesus) is only apparent when you recall the entire speech:
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This past Wednesday, the library of Michael Patrick O’Connor was made available to his students (of which I was one) for the taking. O’Connor was the department head and Ordinary Professor of Semitics at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. He died early Saturday June 16, 2007 in Silver Spring, MD from health complications related to liver cancer. He was one of the most significant people in my life. He was more than just my professor and dissertation director; he was my mentor, colleague, and friend. Even more than these things, he was an incredible servant of the church. I record here some of my reflections on his life and work and its significance. Continue Reading »
So President Bush has announced an initiative to “combat” global warming. Conventional wisdom seems to be that the initiative is without teeth, does not go “far enough,” and is largely just an attempt to appear to “do something” about global warming. Count my response as… Ugh.
Despite the repeated proclamations that the “debate” about climate change is over, it strikes me that I have yet to see any serious debate over what to do with the “problem” of global warming. For the purposes of this article, let’s take as true the items upon which Al Gore and his followers rely for their assertion that the “debate” about climate change is “over” - Continue Reading »
I love the economy. Digging into the vast existence of the intricate details that make up our present lives is fascinating. In fact, recently I read the introduction to the much acclaimed book by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics. As most of you know, this introduction holds the controversial thought that legalized abortion is the dominant factor behind the decreasing crime rate. Whether in agreement or opposition of the thought, it must be acknowledged that it is novel and therefore, on some level, amazing. This is a prime example of the sheer enjoyment through intellectual stimulation received from diving in to this ever elusive conglomerate we call the economy.
Although most of the time I spend thinking through or reading about the economy is for personal enjoyment or entertainment, some instances go to a deeper level. The thoughts that are usually at arms distance are suddenly slapping me in the face. This occurred recently as I was getting my first dose of the essayist Wendell Berry. He turned my time set aside for pleasure reading into a time when convicting thoughts shook the very foundation of my existence, my faith. Continue Reading »
Tom Wolfe pointed it out many years ago. Still, it bears repeating: Most of the current writing on art is utterly farcical. Which is a bad thing, because such pseudointellectual pretentiousness allows the philistines among us to marginalize and disregard what ought to be an important part of our shared culture.
[APRIL 24 UPDATE] How did I miss mentioning last week’s blogosphere celebutante, Aliza Shvarts of Yale U., whose senior art project purports to involve multiple intentional impregnations and abortions, filmed and, er, packaged for your critical reflection, “conversation and debate”? To borrow from Philip Rieff, this kind of “art” is not only a “deathwork” against the prevailing culture, but in fact a “deathwork” against itself. Its artistic power lies in its ability to provoke, which is entirely dependent on flagrant transgression of social norms. Yet the more frequently a norm is transgressed, the less it remains a norm; as the actions formerly characterized as transgressive become routine (normative?) they lose their power to provoke.
I recently had a conversation in which my interlocutor asked me why bother reading philosophy given that it doesn’t have any real practical importance. The assumptions of his question reflect French social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville’s 200-year old observation that “in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States.” Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 2, First Book, Chapter 1. Tocqueville recognized that we Americans, as the first truly democratic/egalitarian society in the modern West, were and are men of action, not philosophers: Continue Reading »
I watched the film “No Country for Old Men” last night. It is a tough movie to watch; but if you can stomach the violence, there are a lot of interesting discussions that can come out of it. Since some of you may have seen the movie or have read the book (I have not), you may have more thoughts or insights to add, or you may disagree with my thoughts. And warning, I will spoil things if you have not read the book or seen the movie, so stop now if you don’t want to hear about the story! Continue Reading »
April 15 is a good time to discuss some seemingly fundamental misunderstandings regarding the United States tax system, and to try to explain, tax-wise, what actually happens every April. I would bet that many of you have heard something similar to the following statement this year, or around the time of tax deadlines past.
“My accountant is amazing; I got a huge tax return this year.”
This one simple statement, and others like it, reflects a number of misunderstandings of the way we are taxed and, ultimately, governed.
First, the check you receive from the government is not a “return” but, rather, a “refund” that you are owed because, over the course of the year, you paid more than your actual tax liability for the prior year (which you calculate and submit in your “return”). Continue Reading »
British philosopher Roger Scruton on Western culture:
Dr Picken, through his life and his example, made me realize that scholarship is part of culture, that science too is continuous with it, and that there really is a purpose to education—namely, to be educated. The world of the educated person is different from that of the uneducated. And the presence of educated people among us, even when they hide in cupboards, behind an accumulation of fragile china, learning languages that nobody within earshot can speak, embarking on no adventure more exciting than to open a bottle of the Grands Echézaux 1955, changes the lives of the rest of us. They instil the world with judgement, they separate good from bad, knowledge from ignorance, refinement from vulgarity—in short they are the friends of distinction in all its forms, and the secret enemies of the egalitarian state. No wonder the state has tried to abolish them.
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In teaching Western culture to our students we do indeed teach, as the egalitarians fear, distinction. We teach to discriminate; we teach that not every thought, deed, or person is equally estimable; we teach the grandeur and superiority of a vision that has come to us from our Christian heritage; and we teach that this vision extols the highest to which human beings can aspire, which is sacrifice.
Read the whole essay.