The Weekend Wanderer: 11 May 2024

“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 these articles but have found them thought-provoking.

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“Unique Byzantine Psalm inscription in New Testament Greek discovered in Judean Desert” – Gavriel Fiske in The Hebrew Times: “A rare inscription paraphrasing part of Psalm 86 in the Greek used in the New Testament has been unearthed by a team of Hebrew University archaeologists working at the Hyrcania Fortress, a Second Temple-era structure situated atop a forbidding hilltop in the Judean Desert, about 17 kilometers southeast of Jerusalem. Found painted in red, under a cross, on the side of a large building stone, the Koine Greek inscription reads: ‘Jesus Christ, guard me, for I am poor and needy. Guard my life, for I am faithful to you.’ In the original Hebrew psalm, known as ‘A Prayer of David,’ the first section reads, ‘Hear me, Lord, and answer me.’ A community of Byzantine Christian monks founded in the 5th century CE is likely responsible for the adapted Psalm 86 inscription. Dr. Avner Ecker of Bar-Ilan University, who helped decipher the inscription, noted that the writing contains small grammatical errors, indicating that ‘the priest was not a native Greek speaker, but likely someone from the region who was raised speaking a Semitic language.”

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“The Healing Power of Church Architecture: Why we need holy spaces more than ever” – Jason Ferris in Comment: “As a young man living in New York, I often visited the city’s great churches and cathedrals. Most bear the name of a saint—St. Patrick, St. Thomas, St. John the Divine. I was not religious then, but I was drawn to these magical spaces and the peace I found inside them. It’s somewhat odd that these buildings still exist in the Manhattan landscape. The lots on which they sit are among the most valuable on earth, and New York has grown increasingly secular. When these churches were built, they were dramatic and imposing. Now they are dwarfed by modern high-rises that leave them in near-permanent shadow. Getting to these cathedrals can be stressful, because New York is stressful. You descend and ascend from crowded train stations. The noises of the street assault you. But upon entering a cathedral’s narthex, all of this slips away. The sounds of hydraulic brakes and car horns fade into silence as the massive doors close behind you. Your eyes adjust to the darkness, and shapes come into focus—statues in distant alcoves, lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Entering the nave, you hear your footsteps on the stone tiles below and a moment later hear them again as they echo against the vaulted ceilings high above you. There is a sensual feeling of spaciousness, quiet, and wonder.”

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“A Levitating Jesus?: The Meaning of the Ascension” – Jason Micheli at Mockingbird: “Perhaps no other event on the liturgical calendar challenges what we know of the world more so than Ascension. How are we to speak intelligibly of such an event, knowing, as we do, that heaven is not ‘up there?’ I know not how Jesus departed, but I do know that he did not go up, up, up, and away. In some ways, Christ’s ascension is an item of dogma on the slimmest of basis. Only Luke mentions it and he does so twice. Read in isolation, Luke’s account of the ascension could create the impression that Jesus has spent the last forty days since his resurrection on terra firma but this is straightforwardly not the case. Luke tells us that on the third day after his crucifixion, the Risen Jesus encountered two disciples who were on their way home in Emmaus. Strangely, Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple do not recognize their traveling companion until ‘he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…’ Coincident with the instant of their recognition, Luke reports, the Risen Christ ‘vanished from their sight.'”

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“Long-Term Influence in One Square Mile: A Redemptive Quest case study with Mike Bontrager” – In The Praxis Journal: “There’s a small town about an hour outside Philadelphia called Kennett Square. Tucked in Chester County, a rural area with equestrian heritage, this square mile is home to 7,000 residents, with tree-lined streets and brick architecture that make a picturesque backdrop for community life. Kennett Square is the unlikely setting for a redemptive quest that has spanned more than three decades, as Mike Bontrager has created lasting influence in business, community, and family. Through a series of moves that might have seemed foolish at worst and counterintuitive at best, he has activated teams toward an audacious vision that’s still in the making…..Mike came to learn that God’s unmerited love unlocks a transformation that goes beyond being a “good person” and opens the door to realize a vision of restoration that God has for the world. He began to ask what that meant for this young company he was growing. ‘I didn’t want us to be just a kinder, gentler version of Wall Street,’ he says. ‘I wanted us to think totally differently than Wall Street.'”

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“Taylor Swift’s ‘TTPD’: Religious imagery for a spiritually syncretic era” – Kathryn Post and Madeline Macrae at Religion News Service: “When pop icon Taylor Swift disclosed her religion in the 2020 Netflix documentary ‘Miss Americana,’ she was unambiguous. ‘I live in Tennessee. I’m a Christian. That’s not what we stand for,’ she said in 2018 in response to Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn’s opposition to the Violence Against Women Act and LGBTQ rights. But these days, Swift’s faith appears more fluid. Her religious references are as eclectic as a Brooklyn thrift shop — well-worn Christian metaphors sit alongside a more bohemian mishmash of witchcraft, divination and paganism. Her newest release, ‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ is a patchwork of religious allusions, from good Samaritans and Jehovah’s Witnesses to altar sacrifices and prophecies. Whatever her personal beliefs, the syncretism displayed in the sprawling 31-song double album — which racked up 300 million listens in 24 hours, making it Spotify’s most streamed album in one day — is emblematic of the religious mishmash of millennial and Generation Z religion writ large.”

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“Preserving the Wilderness Idea: What we talk about when we talk about wilderness” – Brian Treanor in The Hedgehog Review: “In 2018, Kristine McDivitt-Tompkins—an American expatriate living in Chile and the former CEO of high-end outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia—donated to the Chilean government one million acres of land held by Tompkins Conservation. Combined with nine million acres of existing federal land, the bequest led to the creation of five new national parks and the expansion of three others. Among the latter was the Pumalín Douglas Tompkins Park, named after McDivitt-Tompkins’s late husband. Doug Tompkins died in a 2015 kayaking accident after spending much of the previous two decades working to preserve wild Patagonian landscapes and ecosystems. The Tompkins Conservation bequest is the largest private offering of land ever made to a national government. Doug Tompkins had made his fortune as cofounder of both The North Face and the discount clothing brand Esprit before purchasing some forty thousand acres of land and embarking on semiretirement in Reñihué, Chile. This was not simply the story of another affluent American leveraging wealth to retire overseas. He had moved to Chile partly because of how decisively Patagonia had shaped him as a young man, when he and climbing gear entrepreneur Yvon Chouinard drove from California to southern Chile to make the third ascent of Fitz Roy, a 11,171-foot peak on the Chile-Argentina border. But Tompkins also returned because he had a vision: to protect and even add to the wildness of this pristine land.”

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Music: David Baloche, “Lead Me to the Rock,” from Labyrinth