Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Many more May reads

Starting with the most recent news, here's some great reporting on an awful story from Sarah Pulliam Bailey, with some commentary pre-removal from Dreher. The rot in the American Church is being exposed:
Sarah Pulliam Bailey, WaPo, Southern Baptist leader encouraged a woman not to report alleged rape to police and told her to forgive assailant, she says
Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, Paige Patterson's Feast
Sarah Pulliam Bailey, WaPo, Prominent Southern Baptist leader removed as seminary president following controversial remarks about abused women

 Touching on the same rot, here's a profile of Robert Jeffress, and a sadly accurate-seeming assessment from Jake that scorns the tribalism on both political sides of the American Church:
Ruth Graham, Slate, The Pundit Pastor
Jake Meador, MereO, Can There Be Mercy in Trump's America?

Two reviews of books examining who uses the term "Christian" and how flexible Christian orthodoxy really is. The latter makes the case that people leaving the Church due to a perceived rigidity should learn more about their options for staying in the faith:
Micah Watson, CT, You Keep Using That Word, 'Christian'
Gracy Olmstead, The American Conservative, Where Should Christianity Draw a Line in the Sand?

 Indeed, with the SBC and Jeffress stories in mind, this is a good time to remember that many need to see a vision of Christianity that isn't associated with typical white Evangelicalism. First, Alissa reviews the new Wim Wenders film on Pope Francis, which views him far more sympathetically than Ross Douthat and company (although their concerns are certainly more than valid). Then, a bunch of positive reactions to the homily at the royal wedding this week – Wes Hill's is characteristically the best, but seeing other, more liberal outlets react with surprising approval is encouraging (what was the last Slate piece that ended with an appeal to go to church?!)
Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, The new Pope Francis documentary is a lucid portrait of a quiet radical
Tara Isabella Burton, Vox, Bishop Michael Curry just stole the show with his sermon at the Royal Wedding
Randall Balmer, WaPo, ‘Love is the only way’: How a black preacher’s royal wedding address showed the power of a good sermon
Wesley Hill, First Things, A Homily to Remember

 Here's some more theology: a piece each for Ascension Day and Pentecost; a 5-year old op-ed on the theology of embodiment and the LGBTQ movement; a pro-life (!) piece in Vox expressing both Catholic and humanist views against euthanasia; a fantastic DB Hart piece on Christianity's radical creation of inherent dignity, as well as a new review of his New Testament translation:
Wendy Alsup, CT, Carrying On After Jesus Is 'Gone'
Scot McKnight, CT, How the Holy Spirit Sets Us Up for Holiness
Andy Crouch, CT, Sex Without Bodies
Tara Isabella Burton, Vox, What we lose when we gain the right to die
David Bentley Hart, Church Life Journal, Human Dignity Was a Rarity Before Christianity
Lucas Kwong, Public Books, The Polyphonic Gospel

And some Church history, specifically looking at the women of the early Church and women mentioned in the New Testament:
Catherine Kroeger, Christian History Institute, The Neglected History of Women in the Early Church
Michael Peppard, Commonweal, Household Names

 One way to begin dealing with the failings in the American Church is to look for ways to support the vulnerable people it has recently neglected, such as women involved in ministry or single people: 

Several significant pieces on the intersections of family and society: a great Atlantic cover story on the way aristocracy has masqueraded as meritocracy; Helen Andrews on the original rise of meritocracy and the arguments against it; a look at how family structure impacts racial inequality (that insufficiently ties its arguments together); the challenges of motherhood in the workplace; the demographic decline of mothers as a share of the American population; a good review of numerous recent books examining the choice to become a mother.
Matthew Stewart, The Atlantic, The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy
Helen Andrews, The Hedgehog Review, The New Ruling Class
Glenn C Loury, Institute for Family Studies, Race, Inequality, and Family Structure
Katherine Goldstein, NYT, The Hidden Reality of Anti-Mom Bias at Work
Lyman Stone, The Atlantic, The Decline of American Motherhood
Megan Marz, The Point, To Be or Not to Be

Jordan Peterson is unfortunately somewhat important to a large-ish number of people; I am content to read profiles and reviews like these in lieu of actually devoting serious time to his work:
Nellie Bowles, NYT Mag, Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy
Christine Emba, WaPo, The profound sadness of the Jordan Peterson phenomenon
Thomas Brewer, TableTalk Magazine, Book Review: 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson

Also on the review side of things: another take on Dreher, Deneen, and a new book on Aristotle, America, and how the middle class and virtue ethics do (and don't) intersect. With the latter, I was left with the question of whether there is an ultimate limit to the appropriate scale of wealth; in other words, while someone might be "middle class" relative to America as a whole, is it possible that this is itself too rich to live a virtuous life?:
Christine Emba, WaPo, A survival guide for our 'post-Christian' nation
Peter Blair, The American Interest, The One Theory to Rule Them All
Harvey Mansfield, Weekly Standard, Stuck in the Middle with Virtue

 Our President: a review of the numerous facets of the Mueller investigation, and a reminder of the underlying reality of the multifarious "scandals" raised by this administration:
Natasha Bertrand, The Atlantic, The Lingering Mysteries of a Trump-Russia Conspiracy
Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, There Is Only One Trump Scandal

 Coverage of the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem, and a well-nuanced piece examining the various angles of the current Palestinian protests in Gaza:
Emma Green, The Atlantic, Celebration in Jerusalem, Bloodshed in Gaza
Yair Rosenberg, Tablet, 13 Inconvenient Truths About What Has Been Happening in Gaza

 Some more philosophical work: how secularization has compartmentalized and diminished our understanding of "health"; Joseph Pieper and how our work should grow us in the virtue needed to keep leisure from becoming mere consumerism; on our eternal longings and search to reënchant the world; how young people, some religious and some not, seek out new ways of gathering; Facebook's erosion of community (hey, no dedicated tech section this week!); the New Atheist lie that we can fully transcend cultural biases and attain a truly neutral viewpoint.
Daniel Hindman, MereO, Health and the Power of the State
Gracy Olmstead, Intercollegiate Review, Redefining Leisure
LM Sacasas, The Frailest Thing, Are We Really Disenchanted?
Stephanie Paulsell, Christian Century, How Millennials Gather
Antonio García Martínez, Wired, How Facebook Binds – and Shatters – Communities

 White guys writing about older white guy writers (each of these pieces is really good, though, says this white guy writing about white guy writing):
Brian A Smith, Law and Liberty, Soulcraft, Indirectly: Reading Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos
Ralph C Wood, The American Conservative, Walker Percy's Funny and Frightening Prophecy
Matt Stewart, Front Porch Republic, Stop Talking about Wendell Berry on Twitter
Frank Brownlow, Chronicles, Thank You, Auden!
Philip Bunn, Intercollegiate Review, Kurt Vonnegut and the Terrible Disease of Loneliness

 Three CxPC pieces on food:
Kendall Vanderslice, Christ & Pop Culture, Dining Our Way to Neighborly Love
CJ Quartlbaum, Christ & Pop Culture, Grieving the Gentrification of Food
Sophie DeMuth, Christ & Pop Culture, Whole30 and the Counter-Cultural Nature of Self-Discipline

A conservative piece and a lefty piece on the academic humanities; neither one makes me want to enter the academy as a profession, nope, no thanks:
Neema Parvini, Quillette, The Stifling Uniformity of Literary Theory
Melissa Dinsman, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Digital in the Humanities: An Interview with Marisa Parham

 Some TV and film stuff (even though BKLN99 is no longer canceled). Ethan Hawke seems like the exact actor-equivalent of a Linklater film, which is not a bad thing:
Alyssa Rosenberg, WaPo, Goodbye, 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine.' And thank you.
Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, Why Christopher Nolan "unrestored" 2001: A Space Odyssey
Lara Zarum, Village Voice, Ethan Hawke Goes to Church

Miscellaneous: hurricane season is bad; Johann Hari is bad; Creation is good; beautiful religious art is good; art that makes us encounter the bad things of the Fall is also good.

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