June came upon us

This week's roundup (two weeks? three? I don't know, I started this collection a week ago) follows a similar pattern to a few posts back. Our political situation is pretty bad. Our President has sub-adolescent levels of self-control (Karni) and a political ideology that cannot ascend past brute vulgarity (Goldberg). The crowing celebrities of the ostensible other side isn't far behind in this race to the bottom (Gilbert). This is the age of charlatans (Ganz):
Annie Karni, Politico, Meet the guys who tape Trump's papers back together
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’
Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, Robert DeNiro’s Toothless Protest
John Ganz, NYT, Why We Are So Vulnerable to Charlatans Like Trump

It isn't just the political situation that's bad. Two celebrity suicides and a chilling new study brought suicide forward in our national conversation (Dvorak). What does this say about the state of our culture (Powers)? And how can we be considerate to people who have lost loved ones while discussing this important issue (Feinberg)?
Petula Dvorak, WaPo, Will we finally end the silence around suicide?
Kirsten Powers, USA Today, Americans are depressed and suicidal because something is wrong with our culture
Ashley Feinberg, Huffington Post, My Suicide Week

Despite the sorrowful occasion, I was glad to be introduced to the life of Tony Bourdain through several loving remembrances, which drew me to start seeking out his own work. As many things I read these past few weeks have reflected, we need to cultivate the courage to encounter differing people and cultures, and to embrace difference with humility; Bourdain seems like a heroic figure in this regard. A terrible loss:
Helen Rosner, New Yorker, Anthony Bourdain and the Power of Telling the Truth
Sarah Condon, Mockingbird, On Anthony Bourdain: We Were Not Made to Be Famous
Kendall Vanderslice, Christ & Pop Culture, Anthony Bourdain Taught Us About Breaking Bread in a Broken World
David Simon, The Audacity of Despair, Tony
Anthony Bourdain, New Yorker, Don't Eat Before Reading This

More coverage of the reckoning facing the American Church w/r/t sex abuse. Harris's piece, in particular, really drills down into how churches find themselves obliviously complicit in abusers' plans and become negligent toward their victims: 

Molly Worthen, NYT, Sex and Gender on the Christian Campus
Michelle Boorstein & Sarah Pulliam Bailey, WaPo, How women led to the dramatic rise and fall of Southern Baptist leader Paige Patterson
Kimberly Harris, CT, Sex Offenders Groom Churches Too

Hermeisha Hopson, CT, Q&A: We Need a Christ-Centered Theology of Trauma

The upcoming Revoice conference has generated a generally depressing controversy about whether celibate gay Christians are adequately abased in their long challenge to find ways to (as Eve puts it) "express and receive love" while adhering to traditional Christian interpretations of sexual ethics. Most of it has failed to rise even to the level of "uncharitable." Wedgeworth, to his credit, probes somewhat deeper than his fellow critics while maintaining a fair-minded tone, but fails to honestly represent his interlocutors, approach issues from an angle seeking better understanding, or present any potential solutions to theological questions he raises. Matthew's short response to him gets at a few of these issues, while Eve's general response to the controversy as a whole (plus an older post on gay identity from 2012) provide a much-needed (and hilarious) counterpoint. There's also a piece from Vice with an outside look on these "Side B" Christians – not a great piece (it has a very "come look at this curiosity!" vibe), but it does at kkleast put their voices in the foreground with minimal commentary:
Steven Wedgeworth, MereO, A Critical Review of Spiritual Friendship
Matthew Loftus, MereO: Doctors Without Boredom, Philia and Eros: Sloppy Wet Kissing Cousins
Eve Tushnet, Blogspot, The Name of the Miracle of the Rose
Eve Tushnet, Patheos, There’s a Place for Us: Revoice and Gay Christian Futures
Eve Tushnet, Patheos, There’s a Place for Us Part II: More on Revoice & Gay Christian Homemaking
Sam Nichols, Vice, The Openly Gay Christians Swearing Off Sex for Jesus

Right now, our government is doing what may be the worst thing they've done in our country in my life (we've done worse elsewhere, and maybe worse here, but I haven't thought of anything I've lived through). The separation of immigrant families is an incredible evil. Robinson is appropriately excoriating towards the religious conservatives failing to call evil what it is. Mayfield targets more specifically, writing an open letter to Focus on the Family, who has yet to respond. (Her Comment piece on suburbia and the way neighborhoods are constructed to enforce isolation is not exactly on the same issue, but it's great). 
Marilynne Robinson, The Guardian, A moral crisis grips the US border. Yet the religious right is shamefully silent
DL Mayfield, NowSheRises, An Open Letter to Focus on the Family/President Jim Daly
DL Mayfield, Comment, The Architecture of Loneliness in Immigrant Communities

More recently, the administration has appealed to Romans 13 to justify their actions in tearing families apart. This is appalling and theologically wrong, as many here have noted:
Alan Jacobs, Snakes and Ladders, The Whole of the Law
Fleming Rutledge, Generous Orthodoxy: Ruminations, Between the Two Thirteens
Matthew Loftus, MereO, Romans 13, Jeff Sessions, and Separating Families at the Border

Christian political priorities are changing, between traditions (Gjelten) and within denominations (Leeman & McKissic). We need a deeper understanding of how the Church should relate to the State (Tran, reviewing Jamie Smith) and the distinctions between them (Meador, responding to Moser): 

Tom Gjelten, NPR, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals Move Farther Apart in Their Political Priorities

Jonathan Leeman, TGC, Truth, Power, and Pence at the SBC

Dwight McKissic, CT, The Case for Electing Beth Moore as President of the Southern Baptist Convention

Jonathan Tran, LARB: Marginalia, Trump and the Specter of Christian Withdrawal

Brett Moser, TGC, The (False) Promise of Small-Town Community
Jake Meador, MereO: Commonplaces, What do we mean by "community"?

America has forgot the virtues of forgiveness and humility (Bruenig), to the extent that even Mr Rogers seems like a radical with his vast reserve of compassion (Wilkinson). We need to recover this sense of humility, as a country (Dark) and as a Church (McCloud). The Church, if it truly longs for renewal, must stop trying to police others so much (Jacobs) and focus more on not being hypocritical itself (Anderson). We do not need to have huge numbers or shiny equipment to be discipled and to be a light in the world (Bird); we might get farther by committing to hospitality to our neighbors (Lundgren). Indeed, it is in loving and welcoming our neighbors that we express our love and welcome for God's presence (Lee):
Elizabeth Bruenig, WaPo, We are no longer capable of forgiving our enemies
Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, The Fred Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor feels radically subversive
David Dark, America, In the age of Trump, can Mr. Rogers help us manage our anger?
Catherine Addington, MereO, Lessons from Valladolid: On Being Decent in an Indecent Age
Ian McCloud, Fathom, A Cure for the Church

Alan Jacobs, Snakes and Ladders, Seeds of Renewal
Matthew Lee Anderson, Medium, What Faithful Presence Demands

Chad Bird, TGC, God Loves Your Messy, Unimpressive Church
Laura Lundgren, Fathom, Cracking the Code on Hospitality

John Lee, CT, Entertaining More Than Angels

Christian thinkers like Andy Crouch have been discussing the need for discipleship to filter down into the culture and workplaces for years (Zylstra); it should go without saying, though, that this should not just be a retreading of inequalities present in the Church, as it has been in places like Silicon Valley (Starke). We also need art that brings us out of our utilitarian workplace mindsets, and orient us to transcendence rather than productivity (Casper). Unfortunately, most mainstream movies marketed to Christians are shallow pandering (Rothkopf):

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, TGC, Andy Crouch and the Culture Makers
Rachael Starke, Fathom, Not good for man to work alone?
Mark Casper, Mockingbird, The Role of Art (Or, the Limitations of Self-Help) in Life and Work

Joanna Rothkopf, Jezebel, A Journey Into the Righteous, Risk-Averse World of Faith-Based Films

And that's why we need movies like Paul Schrader's First Reformed:  AO Scott, NYT, Review: 'First Reformed' Is a Marvel. Ethan Hawke Is, Too.
Ann Hornaday, WaPo, This new movie gets right everything that 'Mother!' got wrong
Kenneth R Morefield, CT, 'First Reformed' Imagines a Stunning Dark Night of the Soul
Brett McCracken, TGC, 'First Reformed': 2018's Most Thought-Provoking Film So Far
Steven D Graydanus, National Catholic Register, SDG Reviews 'First Reformed'
Josh Larsen, Larsen on Film, First Reformed
Kevin Lincoln, First Reformed, Let's Talk About the Ending of 'First Reformed'
John Ehrett, The American Conservative, A Hollywood Movie About Christianity Worth Seeing

Getting back to humility, we need to have the courage and charity to read our political and cultural opponents' foundational material in a way that allows to see whatever worth there may be in it, or at least see why it attracts them (Corbin). Many haven't done this with Jordan Peterson's work (myself perhaps included), preferring instead to present a convenience caricature to fit a preconceived narrative (Yang). Of course, this doesn't preclude reading Peterson (or anyone else) critically, and seeing trends and histories behind their work (Burton). But writing off someone's work because of distasteful fans alienates those fans unnecessarily – not to mention, it makes the fans that don't fit that narrative invisible and renders their perspectives silent (Ritchey). There are many ways we can pursue thinking and reading together, and this is worth being intentional about (McEntyre).

Ian Marcus Corbin, Weekly Standard, Reading Dangerously
Wesley Yang, Tablet, The Shocking Truth About Jordan Peterson
Tara Isabella Burton, Vox, The religious hunger that drives Jordan Peterson's fandom
Jessica Ritchey, Mel Magazine, You’re Doing Women No Favors With Your Mocking ‘Ugh, Only Straight White Men Like This’ Takes
Marilyn McEntyre, Medium, Reading Together

Certainly we should all be reading more Solzhenitsyn:

Jeff Groom, The American Conservative, 40 Years Ago Today: When Solzhenitsyn Schooled Harvard
Robert P George, First Things, Solzhenitsyn's Prophecy

And reading more theology:
Eugene F Rivers III, Plough, Powers and Principalities: King and the Holy Spirit

David Bentley Hart, Church Life Journal, A Prayer for the Poor
Julia Smucker, Church Life Journal, A Prayer for the Rich?
Karen Swallow Prior, CT, Sin Is Like Walking in Front of a Bus
Andrew Wilson, CT, Whatever Happened to Gifts of Language, Prophecy, and Healing?

And reading more deeply in the humanities:
Natalie Elliot, The New Atlantis, Shakespeare's Worlds of Science
Vladislav Davidzon, Tablet, In Memory of Isaiah Berlin
Rebecca McLaughlin, TGC, The Enlightenment Improved the Wold – But Not without Christianity
Jamelle Bouie, Slate, The Enlightenment's Dark Side

Three more pairs of pieces, on smartphones and motherhood and jazz, and a final miscellaneous article on copyediting:
Sarah Puryear, Covenant, Why I Gave Up My Smartphone for Lent – And Took It Back
Kate Shellnutt, CT, Go Tell It on the iPhone
Elizabeth Bruenig, WaPo, To my daughter, who taught me not to worry about time
Courtney Ressig, TGC, When Motherhood Feels Like Death
John Murph, Downbeat, Todd Marcus Merges Jazz and Activism
Giovanni Russonello, NYT, Lost John Coltrane Recording From 1963 Will Be Released at Last
Karen Ostergren, The Atlantic, How to Copyedit The Atlantic