“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. Disclaimer: 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.

“Faith leaders react to mob at Capitol with prayers, calls for end to violence” – Wednesday was one of the most unsettling days in our nation’s life that I can remember since 9/11. The breaching of the Capitol building by armed protestors sent shivers into the national consciousness in an already stressful and divided time. How did faith leaders around the nation respond? Here is a summary compiled by Religion New Service that spans the spectrum of beliefs and perspectives.

“An Unexpected Epiphany” – Ruth Haley Barton is an insightful Christian leader integrating spiritual formation with our leadership. Her book Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership is one of my favorites on spiritual leadership, drawing upon the life of Moses as a guide for us. In a recent post, Ruth brought together some powerful reflections on leadership and the season of Epiphany, something I read only after I had already drawn a similar connection but toward different ends in my post yesterday. She writes: “Leadership matters. Transforming leadership matters. Untransformed leadership is dangerous and destructive in the extreme.” This statement summarizes much of what she is trying to get at, but the entire blog post is worth reading.

“Sowing for Trust” – Here is Anne Snyder writing an editorial at Comment: “We are living through times that often feel like one long commentary on Joni Mitchell’s line ‘you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.’ From quotidian encounters on the street to public sacraments, hospitality in the flesh to basic truth-telling from our leaders, it is not the sophisticated accoutrements of an advanced civilization that have screamed in their absence, but rather the rudimentary things. The things we ordinarily take for granted, the ‘essential’ and the core. As I write in the twilight of this most revealing year, there is one societal staple that is tremoring with a particular foreboding: trust. Trust in other people, trust in institutions, trust in the future, trust in a shared story of hope.”

“Theology of Making” – While working on a book review for Makoto Fujimura’s latest book Art and Faith: A Theology of Making (Yale University Press 2021), I stumbled across this wonderful film series by Windrider Productions that brings to life much of what is on the page in Fujimura’s book. I hope you’ll take a few moments to watch some of the thought-provoking video shorts on this site that reflect on the intersection of biblical theology and aesthetics through the work of Mako Fujimura, as well as other artists and theologians.

“6 Christian Sites Armenia Fears It Has Lost to Azerbaijan” – Christina Maranci offers this beautiful and informative photo essay in Christianity Today related to Christian historic sites in question after the recent conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. “In less than seven weeks of war last fall, fighting over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, known to Armenians as Artsakh, cost thousands of lives and created tens of thousands of refugees. It also left a wealth of Christian monuments in the balance. Below, a photo slideshow of the six sites most at risk as their final status and access is still being negotiated. But first, a summary of why Armenians fear the fate of their heritage.”

“From Tech Critique to Ways of Living” – One of the greatest challenges of our day is how to navigate the ever-increasing influence of technology in our lives. Much of it we are simply not aware of, or have become so quickly accustomed to that we rarely think of what we are sacrificing in order to give space to it. There are many who have raised concerns about technology and its subtle power in our life, urging us to resist or re-approach it in some way; voices like Neil Postman, Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich, Albert Borgmann, and others. In this valuable essay in The New Atlantis, Alan Jacobs summarizes what he describes as “the Standard Critique of Technology” before charting another way that we might critically approach and live with technology based on the work of Yuk Hui and his proposal regarding cosmotechnics.

Music: The Stance Brothers, “Resolution Blue,” from We Jazz Records 7″ Singles Box / Vol. 2