“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like.
“Churches, Coronavirus, and The New York Times” – Earlier this week The New York Times published an article with this title “Churches Were Eager to Reopen. Now They Are a Major Source of Coronavirus Cases.” The lede said, “The virus has infiltrated Sunday services, church meetings and youth camps. More than 650 cases have been linked to reopened religious facilities.” Now, at first blush you may say, “Oh my, how could churches be so foolish!” But then, without diminishing how serious everything is, you may stop and consider 650 cases across 50 states with total cases of more than 65,000 in the nation and say, “What a minute. Do these statistics really support the claim being made?” And then you might read this article by Ed Stetzer, former head of LifeWay Research and Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, and you reassess everything.
“What the Ministerial Exception Will Mean for Religious Employers” – Very significant rulings have come out of the Supreme Court in this past month. Several in the past week and a half have made significant impact in relation to religion in America, and this week brought a decision that put debate around religious liberty squarely at the center. “The Supreme Court defended religious liberty on Wednesday, bolstering and broadening the so-called ‘ministerial exception.’ In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that the Constitution protects the freedom of religious organizations to hire and fire employees who play a vital role in fulfilling their religious mission.”
“A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” – This letter published in Harper’s seemed to cause quite a stir online this past week. While not at first glance related to faith and culture, it actually is about a certain kind of faith and culture. There is a clash of ideologies in our public sphere that is bringing a strange alliance of different groups. Here, artists and intellectuals as varied as Wynton Marsalis, Malcolm Gladwell, J. K. Rowling, and Salman Rushdie came together to sign onto a letter calling for the respect of free speech and the open exchange of information and ideas in a culture that is often aimed at cancelling and public shaming. A friend pointed me to Fredrik deBoer’s assessment of this called “Ending the Charade,” which is brief and will get you thinking. Also, at the Convivial Society, L. M. Sacasas directs our attention to the way that digital media plays into this debate in “The Material Sources of Free Speech Anxieties.”
“Asian American Community Tackles Anti-Blackness In Chicago” – Last week, community members from the Asian American Christian Collaborative (AACC) marched from Chinatown to Bridgeport to fight anti-Blackness. WBEZ in Chicago interviews Ray Chang, the President of the Asian American Christian Collaborative and also the Ministry Associate for Discipleship in the Chaplain’s Office at Wheaton College. You can listen to the thirteen-minute interview at the link above, but also find out more about this even at the website for the AACC here.
“Working Through Traumatic Loss and Grief: Interview with Dr. Mel Lawrenz on his new book, A Chronicle of Grief“ – When I moved to Milwaukee, I served as the college pastor at Elmbrook Church for five years. Mel Lawrenz was the Senior Pastor of Elmbrook at that time, and his daughter, Eva, was part of the college ministry I served. I still remember hearing the shocking news that Eva passed away unexpectedly in 2017 at the age of 30. Mel had written previously about grief and trauma, but when I received a copy of his book, A Chronicle of Grief, I knew it would be more personal and powerful. Here is an interview of Mel by Jamie Aten, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute.
“Evangelical group writes to Trump urging him not to end DACA” – “A group of Evangelical leaders are writing to President Trump this week to urge him to reconsider plans to resubmit a filing to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Seven religious leaders encouraged the president to leave DACA in place until Congress passes legislation that permanently protects Dreamers, the young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children. The Hill reported this week that Trump is expected to refile paperwork this week to end DACA.”
“Rehabilitating the Quadriga” – This may seem a little off the beaten path, but I came across this 2013 article by Peter Leithart on rehabilitating the Quadriga, while writing a book review that I hope will come out this fall. The Quadriga is the fourfold sense of Scriptural interpretation with roots in the early church fathers: literal sense, allegorical/theological sense, tropological/moral sense, and anagogical/eschatological sense. While usually discredited in discussions of modern models of biblical interpretation, there is a movement afoot to recover figural or allegorical reading of Scripture, not in the sense of fanciful readings, but in the sense of regaining the theological meaning inherent within the literal reading of Scripture. Leithart does a good job of summarizing it all.
“Ennio Morricone’s life in pictures” – Okay, we are all over the place today, but if you did not hear that Ennio Morricone passed away, you should stop for a moment and take a look at this quick summary of his life in pictures. Famous for writing the scores for “spaghetti westerns” directed by Sergio Leone, such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars, Morricone continued to work on film scores, including those with more overtly religious themes. He received numerous Oscar nominations for his film scores, including that for The Mission, which was sometimes described as nearly overwhelming the movie in its power.
Music: Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile, “Scarcely Cricket,” from Not Our First Goat Rodeo.
[I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within the articles linked from this page, but I have read them myself in order to make me think more deeply.]
Renovate 