“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.
“Americans Think Church Should Look Churchy” – Daniel Silliman in Christianity Today: “Outreach-minded evangelicals have often argued that church buildings need to be less ‘churchy’ to draw in would-be seekers. But that might not actually be true, according to recent research from Barna Group and Aspen Group asking a representative sample of 2,000 Americans questions about the architecture of sacred spaces. When Americans close their eyes, they can picture a church. Even if they rarely or never attend one, they have an idea of what a church should look and feel like—and a preference. That preference is quite traditional. Nearly 90 percent of Americans say a church should be ‘easily identifiable,’ and 8 of 10 say they want the building to ‘reflect the beauty of God.’ There are some, to be sure, who prefer that churches feel modern (38%) and trendy (28%), but most Americans want religious spaces that feel more timeless and transcendent.”
“Splendour of Fire, Speed of Lightning: A meander around St Patrick” – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule: “Today is St Patrick’s Day. It’s a national holiday here in Ireland, during which there is a lot of drinking and parading and the wearing of green leprechaun hats. I’m too old for that sort of thing, and the leprechaun hats don’t suit me anyway. Instead, this morning I was in church listening to two Irish friends singing an old hymn about the saint they learned at school, in harmony with a Romanian nun. It’s an experience I recommend. This evening, I’ve been sitting by the fire reading about St Patrick. Now I want to write something impulsive about the saint. I think he has something still to say to us. I’m not Irish, I know: but then, neither was he. In fact, Patrick – Patricius to his friends – was British like me, and like me he grew up in a time of imperial decline, though he had no idea how quickly the empire of which he was a subject would collapse, and all its assumptions drain away. Patricius was a British subject of imperial Rome, born around the year 400 into a middle class family, and trained for comfort and success. All of that went out of the window when, at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish slave traders and sold to a petty king named Miliucc, who sent him out to the hills to work as a lone shepherd. Frightened, lonely and confused, a child in an alien land with no help, family or friends, Patrick did what a lot of people do under similar circumstances: despite being a self-declared atheist, he started praying.”
“The Sum of Our Wisdom: Recovering Calvin’s Truth for a Lonely Age” – Marilynne Robinson in The Hedgehog Review: “The story that German sociologist Max Weber tells in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is that the rise of Homo economicus, that utility-maximizing creature whose sense of the common good has withered, can be traced back to Calvinists deficient in Gemütlichkeit—or, a kind of friendly public-spiritedness. They retained the austerity and urgency of their religion but abandoned its spiritual content and, doing so, helped turn the modern world into an iron cage. Perhaps it does not matter that Weber’s bad little tract, written first as essays in 1904–05, is really indefensible. It has stuck in the brain of American academia as if it were truth itself. The explanation of what has gone wrong is obviously a polemical construct, reflecting, no doubt, that Calvinists were a minority in Germany, many of them of French Huguenot origin dating from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. I understand that Weber’s mother was Calvinist, which might suggest a reason for his eagerness to establish his distance from that side of his heritage. A friend of his, Werner Sombart, wrote a reply, The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911), which demonstrated that Weber’s description of the ‘Protestant’ actually described the Jew. Nothing surprising there. Weber had simply borrowed a stereotype from a slightly different context. He should have recognized that minorities often thrive because they know they have to develop skills.”
“Anora and Andrew Tate: On sinning in the right and left direction” – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies: “Andrew Tate is a former (read: failed) martial arts guy who became rich by running a variety of pornographic enterprises, many of which were staffed (according to Tate) by women he was trafficking. He has since pivoted to social media influencer, which means he makes money by living online, posting pictures and videos that attract teenage simpletons, and offering ‘courses’”’ that promise virility, enlightenment, and success. Jonathon Van Maren has written at length about Tate, and I refer you to JVM’s excellent work if you want to know more. Joel Webbon is a pastor and social media influencer who has built up a platform among so-called Christian nationalist personalities. His brand, Right Response Ministries, is sponsoring a conference this year with guests like Stephen Wolfe (author of The Case for Christian Nationalism, published by Doug Wilson’s press) and Calvin Robinson. In a recent podcast, Webbon made the case that Andrew Tate, while not a good person, was ‘sinning in the right direction.’ By ‘right direction,’ Webbon meant that Tate was behaving in traditionally masculine ways and selling his audience heterosexual smut, rather than the homosexual kind. Tate, according to Webbon, deserves some kind of acknowledgement that he is at least willing to offend feminists and transgender activists. Tate might have the wrong answers, but, for Webbon, he’s asking the right questions. Webbon is not alone.”
“Forget Bonhoeffer. This is the Niemöller Moment” – Diana Butler Bass at The Cottage: “And watching him from afar, he’s reminded this Christian writer why it is important to follow Jesus’ dictum, ‘Love your enemies.’ Lo and behold, one’s ‘enemies’ can turn out to be one’s friends. I’m guessing that Jesus understood this when he preached those words. Secondly, he didn’t need to apologize for appealing to Niemöller — and perhaps he needed to go even more Niemöller. If you need reminding, Martin Niemöller was the German Lutheran pastor who wrote the famous words inscribed on the wall of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
Pastor Niemöller wasn’t just being poetic. That’s his life story. He was a German nationalist who, in the 1920s and early 1930s, supported Hitler and the Nazis. He hated Communism and socialism and workers — he believed that they had betrayed Germany in the aftermath of WWI. He worked against the Weimar Republic, thinking it to be politically weak and corrupt. Indeed, Niemöller voted for the Nazis, even in the 1933 elections which handed Germany over to Hitler.”
“Catholic priest in Gaza reports explosions near parish” – Victoria Cardiel in Catholic News Agency: “Father Gabriel Romanelli, the pastor of Holy Family Parish in Gaza, reported that following the breakdown of the truce between Israel and Hamas, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have launched new attacks very close to his parish. The priest told Vatican News the bombings occurred just 300 or 400 meters (about 985 to 1,300 feet) from the church, awakening the faithful and causing a growing sense of insecurity throughout the community. ‘The bombings woke us up; they were very close. Fortunately, no shrapnel [hit us] and we’re fine, but throughout the Strip there is already talk of more than 350 dead and more than a thousand injured,’ Romanelli said….’We continue to pray to convince everyone that peace is possible, that we must work for peace, for the works of justice, hoping that the Lord will grant this part of the Holy Land a period of peace for everyone, Palestinians and Israelis,’ he concluded.”
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach, “O Sacred Head Sore Wounded,” King’s College Cambridge (2011).
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Matthew Erickson 