“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.
“A Theologian’s Battle with Blindness” – John Swinton in Christianity Today: “n his deeply personal memoir The Blurred Cross: A Writer’s Difficult Journey with God, biblical scholar, theologian, and poet Richard Bauckham invites readers on a profound journey of faith, doubt, and resilience in the face of adversity. The book blends autobiography, theological reflection, and poetry to present a raw and honest account of Bauckham’s struggle with deteriorating eyesight and the spiritual challenges that accompanied it. Part of what sets The Blurred Cross apart is its unconventional structure. Bauckham’s story unfolds across 15 short chapters, each offering a distinct perspective on his journey. The book opens with “A Memory of Tobit,” a chapter that invokes an ancient book—recognized by some Christian traditions, though not Protestants, as part of the Bible’s canon—whose main character loses his sight. Bauckham draws parallels between his experience and that of Tobit, setting the stage for a narrative that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant. In the chapters titled ‘Always Reading’ and ‘Writer and Scholar,’ Bauckham lays down the foundational problem underlying the book: When reading is fundamental to your identity, what does it mean to be threatened with losing this ability? These chapters give readers a vivid impression of the centrality of reading to Bauckham’s sense of who he is in the world and before God. As an academic, he has had a lifelong passion for deep research and careful writing, and the prospect of laying aside this work on account of failing eyesight strikes at the core of the person he assumes himself to be. Bauckham’s understanding of this identity as a reader, both personally and theologically, sets the foundation for everything else to come.”
“Rwanda shuts 4,000 churches in safety crackdown” – Wycliffe Muia at BBC News: “More than 4,000 churches have been closed down over the last month in Rwanda for failing to comply with health and safety regulations, including not being properly soundproofed. It has affected mostly small Pentecostal churches and a few mosques – some of them operating out of caves or on the banks of rivers. ‘This is not being done to prevent people from praying but to ensure the safety and tranquillity of worshipers,’ Minister of Local Government Jean Claude Musabyimana told state media. It is the first major crackdown since a law came in five years ago to regulate the proliferation of places of worship. It requires them to operate in an organised way and in safe environment as well as outlawing their use of loud public address systems. The legislation also compels all preachers to have theological training before opening a church. When the law was adopted in 2018 about 700 churches were initially closed. At the time, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said the country did not need many houses of worship, maintaining that such a high number was only fit for more developed economies with the means to sustain them.”
“‘Your Friend, Wendell’: A 90th Birthday Tribute to Wendell Berry” – At The Library of America: “Across genre, whether in novels depicting the sweep of history in small-town Kentucky or nonfiction perorating on behalf of a renewed human relationship with the earth, Wendell Berry remains one of America’s most profound interpreters of place and people. A farmer-writer of uncommon moral clarity, he mixes a contrarian independence of mind with a rare capability to perceive the innumerable ties—environmental, familial, philosophical—that bind us to one another and to the planet. The author of more than fifty books, he is the namesake of the nonprofit Berry Center in New Castle, KY, and, in 2010, was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. To mark his ninetieth birthday this week, we reached out to a handful of his friends, fans, and collaborators—a mini-Membership of those touched by Berry’s wisdom and influence. The response was overwhelming: an outpouring of tributes and toasts testifying to his brilliance, heart, and artistry. Read on for comments from star chefs, musicians, fellow authors, and others enriched by the legacy of this self-proclaimed Mad Farmer who, for more than half a century, has done so much to bring the American landscape—in all its dimensions—into focus. Click the links below to jump to a specific contributor. A reflection from LOA associate editor Stefanie Peters on her work with Berry can be found on the Rabbit Room website.”
“Bethlehem Moravian church settlement in Pennsylvania named World Heritage Site” – Kathryn Post in Religion News Service: “Known for its original Moravian architecture and annual Christmas festivities, the Historic Moravian Bethlehem District in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is now the 26th U.S. site to be included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, joining the Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon National Park and the San Antonio Missions, among others. The designation, announced Friday (July 26), was over two decades in the making and is expected to significantly boost tourism to the city, located roughly 90 miles from New York City in eastern Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Moravian church settlements in Germany, Northern Ireland and Denmark are also included in the World Heritage listing, which is the first transnational listing put forth by the U.S. ‘It comes down to the outstanding universal value of this site, and the preservation effort to protect and preserve the structures and story,’ said Craig Larimer, a spokesperson for Moravian University in Bethlehem. ‘But it’s really about the Moravians. You can’t tell one part of the story without the other. Without the Moravians and their ingenuity, industry and sense of community, this wouldn’t be a thing at all. There wouldn’t be a Bethlehem.'”
“Do Protestants Believe in Present-Day Miracles?” – John Wilson in First Things: “Recently Christianity Today published a substantial review of Carlos Eire’s fascinating book They Flew: A History of the Impossible. Eire’s book examines seemingly “impossible” accounts of miraculous events—levitation, witchcraft, etc.—in an early modern period of growing atheism and scientific skepticism. As an evangelical Protestant who is Catholic-friendly and a great admirer of Eire, I was puzzled by the title of the review: ‘Catholic Miracle Stories Should Take Us Outside Our Protestant Comfort Zones.’ The review itself deepened my puzzlement. ‘The persistence of miracles within Catholicism,”’ writes reviewer Garrett Brown, ‘distinguishes it from other Christian traditions. Belief in miracles represents not simply a concession to popular piety but a fundamentally different teaching about the work of the Holy Spirit and the response of the church.’ By the time I finished the review, my head was spinning and I was fuming a bit. I am accustomed to inaccurate accounts of evangelicalism, loaded with indefensible generalizations that don’t gain in plausibility no matter how many times they are repeated. But this contrast between Catholicism and an imaginary Protestantism struck me as unhinged. The subject of the historical enmity between Catholics and Protestants is a vast one, and I am not at all attempting to take that up here. While it still persists, it is much less potent than it was: Praise God for that. But I do want to address this false idea that Protestants don’t believe in present-day miracles.”
“After a slew of controversies, the SBC turns to a low-key leader to keep things cool” – in Religion News Service: “As he stepped up into the old-fashioned wooden pulpit on a recent Sunday, Pastor Clint Pressley wasted no time. After quickly thanking the student discipleship minister who had brought many of the church’s Camp Paradise teens to the 11 a.m. service at his church, Hickory Grove Baptist, Pressley turned to the task at hand. ‘Mark chapter 14,’ he intoned in his Southern drawl. ‘If you’re a guest with us, we read the Bible and then we just talk about the Bible. You’re gonna find it feels a lot like a Bible study. Mark 14 starting in verse one …’ After relating the first 10 verses that tell the story of the woman who anoints Jesus with a bottle of expensive perfume, he drives home the passage’s lesson with a series of questions: “You have one life to live,” he said. “Pour it out. Have you done what you could? What’s holding you back? I want your life to be all-out devotion to God.” This was Pressley’s third sermon of the day. He preached the 8 a.m. service, drove 13 miles to the church’s second campus to preach the 10 a.m. service, and then drove back to the main campus for the 11 a.m. service. When he concluded, 40 minutes later, he shed his jacket and stood outside the doors the of cavernous chocolate-brick sanctuary, greeting worshippers on their way out, among them, his parents. Pressley, 55, the newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is a hard-working pastor of North Carolina’s fifth-largest Baptist church, whose main campus lies on a busy commercial corner of a modest suburban neighborhood of 1950s ranch homes. A K-12 private Christian school is part of the main 56-acre campus.”
Music: The Porter’s Gate, “The Lord Will Have His Way” (feat. Dee Wilson and Emoni Wilkins)
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Matthew Erickson 