Tag: cancel culture

The Weekend Wanderer: 14 January 2023

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, 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.

08warren-newsletter-image-superJumbo“This Year, Try Organizing Your Life Like a Monk” – Tish Harrison Warren in The New York Times: “Last week, when we looked at suggested resolutions from thinkers and writers, I mentioned that I often feel ambivalent about the beginning-of-the-year thrust toward disciplines, goals and habits. I tend more toward variety and chaos rather than order and routine. But over the last decade, I’ve found a strange source of inspiration. The lives of monks and nuns have taught me, a non-Catholic mother who sleeps late whenever possible and binges Netflix, how to better live. Because of their example, I’ve adopted a rule of life. A rule of life is an overarching plan governing your daily practices, habits and routines. It is not a resolution, but rather a comprehensive way to take stock of how you spend your time so that you can be the person you want to be. The most famous rule of life is the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the sixth century, which organizes the life of Benedictine monks, specifying everything from what they should wear to when they should pray. My copy of the Rule of St. Benedict clocks in at just under 100 pages. My personal rule of life, by contrast, is three pages long (and ever evolving). While Benedict sets out eight times of daily prayer, my rule of life dictates far fewer. Benedict encourages ‘stability’ by requiring monks to stay with the same community and not relocate at will. I seek to impose stability through my rule by limiting travel for work to no more than four times a year. He lays out long hours of daily silence. I have three lovely but loud kids, so I include comparatively shorter times of silence in my rule. His rule prohibits monks from having private ownership and wealth. Mine lays out goals for giving, generosity and budgeting. His rule recommends times of fasting. My rule dictates when I will put away devices and limits my screen time. John Mark Comer is the founding pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Ore. He now runs a nonprofit and hosts the ‘Rule of Life Podcast.’ As many people think about their goals for the year ahead, I asked John Mark if he’d speak with me about the concept of a rule of life.”

132727“5 Theology Books from the Global Church” – Geethanjali Tupps in Christianity Today: “Reading the Gospel of John through Palestinian Eyes by Yohanna Katanacho: Palestinian theologian Yohanna Katanacho describes Jesus as “shaped by first-century Judaism” but also as one who “redefined” much of what it meant to be Jewish. Katanacho’s commentary on John unpacks the implications of Jesus inhabiting this identity when it comes to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and the salvation of the world.

African Hermeneutics by Elizabeth Mburu:Kenyan New Testament scholar Elizabeth Mburu encourages African Christians and those ministering in an African context to explore Hebrew poetic parallelism and Paul’s letters through symbols rooted in her culture. She imagines four legs of a stool as the foundations for biblical interpretation: a text’s parallels to the African context, its theological context, its literary context, and its historical and cultural context.”

9780374607401“The great and strange John Donne” – Jill Peláez Baumgaertner in The Christian Century: “Finally a biography of John Donne that captures his eccentricities, his contradictions, his fabulous twists and turns, his trickiness, and—as one critic has put it—his thinking ‘awry and squint.’ Oxford fellow Katherine Rundell does all of this with an engaging spirit not often seen in academic books. Some fine biographies of Donne exist, one of which—John Carey’s John Donne: Life, Mind and Art—awakened Rundell as a teen to the possibilities that literary criticism could be ‘electric.’ But Rundell does something brand-new, matching Donne’s energy with her own. Rundell calls this book, which recently won the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, ‘both a biography of Donne and an act of evangelism.’ It offers a deeply sensitive and clear-eyed reading of Donne’s work and life. But it is also a piece of poetry that reveals the complexities of his thought, his impulsiveness, his ‘flair’ which Rundell calls ‘its own kind of truth: if you want to make your point, make it so vivid and strange that it cuts straight through your interlocutor’s complacent inattention.’ She refers to ‘quicksilver Donne,’ to his ‘magpie mind, obsessed with gathering.’ She calls him out, labeling him ‘both celebrant and assassin, ever shifting between the two.’ Super-Infinite is a biography that presents in linear fashion the events of a man’s life, but it is also an expressionistic portrait of a singular individual.”

Beloved Community“Philadelphia Activist Shane Claiborne to be honored at The King Center’s 2023 Beloved Community Awards” – Red Letter Christians: “Shane Claiborne, Co-Director of Red Letter Christians, will be recognized by The King Center at their annual Beloved Community Award Ceremony on January 14, 2023 at 7:30pm ET in Atlanta, Georgia. The awards recognize individuals that exemplify excellence in leadership, pursuit of social justice, and commitment to creating the Beloved Community in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, and have made notable strides toward improving the quality of life for all. Claiborne will be honored with the Beloved Community Social Justice Award, which recognizes those who have demonstrated a commitment to utilizing influence and power with love to transform unjust systems. Dr. Bernice A. King, CEO, The King Center, said of Claiborne, ‘From your work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, your advocacy for the homeless, to your courageous fight to eradicate militarism through the power of love, your life’s work depicts the very essence of this award.  We believe you, Shane Claiborne, represent the courageous, willing, and committed leadership our founder, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, spoke of when she said, the Beloved Community is a “goal that can be accomplished through courage and determination and through education and training if enough people are willing to make the necessary commitment.”‘”

d171f91c-2263-4b3e-98a6-a06b2d91de67_2000x2500“Thoughts on ‘Cancel Culture'” – Scot McKnight in his newsletter: “Recently a friend sent me an article by a first amendment lawyer on cancel culture. The article is by Ken White, and he opens with this on his Substack.

Last March I wrote a self-indulgently long post airing my grievances about the term “cancel culture” and how it’s used in an unprincipled, unproductive way that discourages good discussions rather than encouraging them.

My thesis was this: (1) any productive discussion of cancel culture needs a workable definition of it, (2) any principled discussion of cancel culture must consider the free speech interests of everyone involved, not just the “first speaker,” and (3) any useful discussion of cancel culture needs specific action items — articulable things to do or not to do in order to advance “free speech culture.”

Most of us would agree with each of the three elements of his socially-responsible thesis. He chose to examine the details of a teacher at a liberal arts university who got “cancelled” in what White contends was a clear case of cancel culture at many levels. His article provides many insights.

In this case White said the case was not about first amendment but what he calls a “Free Speech Culture.” Here are again his words:

It’s a Free Speech Culture issue — an issue about how society ought to respond to speech when we disapprove of it — and a Speech Decency issue — an issue about what speech is kind, decent, and moral.

This is where I find his take on the issue helpful:

Here’s how I’ve defined “cancel culture” — it’s “when speech is met with a response that, in my opinion, is very disproportionate.”

That’s what concerns many of us: when the punishment, judgment, decision, or verdict is disproportionate, then we begin to smell something wrong for humans in a society of toleration and respect. Disproportionality.”

Jack Hayford“Died: Jack Hayford, Pentecostal Pastor Who Wrote ‘Majesty'” – Daniel Silliman in Christianity Today: “Jack Hayford, the Foursquare Church leader who taught evangelicals that God is enthroned in the praises of his people, died on Sunday at the age of 88. Hayford was the longtime pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California; the author of ‘Majesty‘ and more than 500 other praise and worship songs; and the fourth president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. He regularly led weeklong seminars for pastors that expanded and shaped evangelicals’ view of worship. He convinced a wide range of people not only to occasionally raise their hands while praying and accept glossolalia as a special prayer language but also, more importantly, to see worship as central to the work of the church. ‘Worship has often been misunderstood as the musical prelude,’ Hayford wrote, ‘rather than the means by which we, as the people of God, invite the dominion of his kingdom to be established on earth. Psalm 22:3 says that the king of kings is literally ‘enthroned’ in our praises. Wherever God’s people come together to worship, we become a habitation for his presence.’ Hayford was a Pentecostal bridge-builder and a pastor to pastors who did much to promote charismatic renewal practices. Even people who had historically been skeptical of Pentecostalism were drawn to Hayford.”

Music: Josh Garrels, “White Owl,” from Love and War and the Sea In Between

The Weekend Wanderer: 19 November 2022

Matt Erickson1 Comment

“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, 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.

Landscape“The Roof Always Caves In: Why there is nothing wrong with being doomed.” – Kate Bowler in Comment: “It was in the cowboy days of subprime mortgage lending and a bank was dumb enough to give me money to purchase a bungalow in Durham, North Carolina. I was a twenty-five-year-old graduate student in religion, and my husband and I had recently moved from Canada, where our credit scores were purely hypothetical and the meagre stipend that I received for teaching, researching, and correctly pronouncing Kierkegaard’s name to my classmates (no, look, it’s more like Kierkegore) had really only furnished us with friend-making stories about the time we got vitamin deficiencies and all the skin on my husband’s hands inexplicably peeled off. But we had a house we couldn’t afford, which was still a treat, and the previous owner had left not only a bright green mini-golf carpet in the living room but an entire Elvis Presley tribute in what later would become our guest room. There was a shed in the backyard with all kinds of promise—a simple peaked structure that was two floors high and lined with thick white oak. It had been a carpenter’s workshop for the owner who had built the main house and even bothered to line the edges of the property with elegant masonry quarried from the same blueish gray stone that makes Duke University look like Duke University. But the problem with the shed was the crater, where the roof had sunk so low that termites and wet wood were threatening to pull the whole thing down. We tried to prop it up as best we could—beams here, brackets there—but the only real solution would be a religious one.”

Makoto Fujimura“Makoto Fujimura Awarded Kuyper Prize” – Emily Belz at Christianity Today: “Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary named artist Makoto Fujimuraas its 2023 Kuyper Prize winner, which is named for Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper, who argued that art was vital to renewing God’s world. Fujimura is the first visual artist to receive the prize, which Calvin has given out annually since 1998. On Tuesday when Calvin announced the prize, Fujimura was in the middle of a private meeting with Pope Francis. A Japanese American and Christian, Fujimura has always related Reformed theology about renewal to his work. He practices kintsugi, taking broken pottery and restoring it with precious metals. He also practices the Japanese technique of nihonga, painting with pulverized minerals that in his work symbolize brokenness and renewal. He has long talked about a framework of ‘culture care’ as opposed to ‘culture wars.’ ‘As Christ followers, we are called to the work of renewal,’ said Jul Medenblik, president of Calvin Theological Seminary in a statement about the prize. ‘What Fujimura is doing through his work is reminding us of the Kuyperian perspective that “The final outcome of the future … is not the merely spiritual existence of saved souls, but the restoration of the entire cosmos, when God will be all in all in the renewed heaven on the renewed earth.”‘”

ddaba2f3-3fb6-4b58-a5c7-c533973e7d2e-AP_Immigration_Border_Crossings“Evangelical voters want the broken immigration system fixed. Will GOP leaders listen?” – Daniel Darling in USA Today: “A record number of migrants – border agents recorded 2.4 million encounters – crossed the U.S.-Mexican border illegally in fiscal year 2022, which ended Sept. 30. Americans are increasingly frustrated with the Biden administration’s hapless border policy. It’s a top issue as voters go to the polls Tuesday in the midterm elections. Evangelicals are among the most influential of those voters and, in new data from Lifeway Research, they told pollsters that they’d like the nation’s leaders to stop posturing and start acting to fix a clearly broken system. Among the evangelicals polled, 71% said it is imperative for Congress to pass immigration reform. What do evangelicals want in a reform package?

►92% demand legislation that supports the rule of law.

►90% say policy should ensure secure national borders.

►94% say it should be fair to taxpayers.

►78% would support legislation that would both increase border security and establish a rigorous process to earn legal status and apply for citizenship.”

wendellberrysocial2“Media-Friendly Sins of Other People” – Jeffrey Bilbro in Plough: “Wendell Berry’s new book The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice covers many topics: family history, the Civil War, racism, the nature of good work. But, odd though it may seem, at its heart is an entire chapter about sin. Berry suggests that beneath all the political vitriol and public condemnation of people who don’t share our views lies a distorted understanding of sin. He offers an older, broader conception of sin that might enable us to debate contentious public questions honestly while still loving those with whom we strenuously disagree. The public certainly retains a keen sense that some actions and attitudes are wrong, and public figures often condemn particular offenses with totalizing ferocity. As Berry notes, the ‘old opposition to sin’ remains, but he worries we have narrowed the acts that count as sin. He warns that ‘nothing more reveals our incompleteness and brokenness as a public people than our self-comforting small selection of public sins.’ There are a few egregious ‘media-friendly sins’ that provoke ‘vehement public antipathy,’ but as long as we manage to refrain from committing one of those, we can feel pretty good about ourselves. Different political or cultural groups might have different lists of unforgivable sins, but the narrowness of the list – and the resulting self-congratulatory feeling most of us maintain – is widespread. Sure, we may be guilty of run-of-the-mill venial sins that everyone slips into, but we’ve avoided thosemortal sins: we haven’t said the n-word or applied blackface or had an abortion or sexually harassed someone.”

Cancel Luther Calvin“Should We Cancel Luther and Calvin?” – N. T. Wright in Christianity Today: “Cancel culture knows no bounds, even historical ones. Based on some un-Christlike writings by Protestant reformers John Calvin and Martin Luther—along the lines of burning heretics—there have been some recent discussions about “canceling” these paragons of church history. The debates sound similar to conversations we’ve had about secular historical figures being canceled for owning slaves, for example. Unfortunately, it seems every generation of Christian leaders and teachers has had its own problems and blind spots. We should seize these opportunities for self-reflection, to determine if we ourselves might have similar weaknesses. In 200 or 300 years (if there are still 200 or 300 years of history left ahead of us!), what are we going to look back on as seriously problematic? It’s only recently that most Christians I know have given up smoking, for instance. There have been great social changes since the 16th century, a time when most Christian leaders considered burning heretics an acceptable practice. In their view, heresy on key issues of the faith was such a serious problem that genuine apostates could not be allowed to live and had to be put to death as a lesson to others. I live in the middle of Oxford, a few hundred yards down the street from the Memorial to the Martyrs Ridley and Latimer, who were burned at the stake in the 1550s. Those were terrible times. We look back and say, ‘How could they possibly have done that out of misplaced zeal and loyalty to God and the gospel? What was that about?'”

TASS_20426370“How Russia’s War in Ukraine Has Impacted its Christian Image” – Ryan Bauer in The Moscow Times: “Over the past decade, the Russian government has taken pains to present itself as a bastion of Christianity and traditional values. The Kremlin has used this image of religiosity and its close relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church as a mechanism to promote its interests domestically, as well as cultivate ties with similarly fundamentalist-minded supporters abroad. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, however, there have been noticeable cracks in the receptivity of this messaging strategy. Traditional religious allies of Russia in the West have begun speaking out against the war and, in particular, the Russian Orthodox Church’s support of it. This recent trend of criticism, and declining global support for both Moscow and the Church, presents a significant and under-appreciated challenge for Russia’s ability to promote its interests and influence. In the U.S., Russia has long garnered support from various groups and figures in America’s conservative Christian communities. In these communities, Putin and the Church have successfully cast themselves as champions of Christian values, willing to do battle with what many parishioners perceive as a moral decay in the West. Russian propaganda has bolstered this perception, as well as the supposed danger of liberalism pushed by Western governments, which Russia portrays as a threat to conservative ideals.”

Music: U2, “Grace,” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind

The Weekend Wanderer: 3 July 2021

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“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.

“Millions skipped church during pandemic. Will they return?” – David Sharp in APNews: “With millions of people having stayed home from places of worship during the coronavirus pandemic, struggling congregations have one key question: How many of them will return? As the pandemic recedes in the United States and in-person services resume, worries of a deepening slide in attendance are universal. Some houses of worship won’t make it. Smaller organizations with older congregations that struggled to adapt during the pandemic are in the greatest danger of a downward spiral from which they can’t recover, said the Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School and co-pastor of a church in Boston. On the Maine coast, the pandemic proved to be the last straw for the 164-year-old Waldoboro United Methodist Church. Even before COVID-19 swept the world, weekly attendance had dipped to 25 or 30 at the white-clapboard New England church that could hold several hundred worshippers. The number further dwindled to five or six before the final service was held Sunday, said the Rev. Gregory Foster. The remaining congregants realized they couldn’t continue to maintain the structure, and decided to fold the tent, Foster said.”

Discipleship in the Age of Conspiracy Theories“Discipleship in the Age of Conspiracy Theories: How Church Leaders Can Nurture the Evangelical Mind”
 – Ed Stetzer and Andrew MacDonald in the NAE’s Evangelicals: “In the quarter-century since Mark Noll famously pointed out that the scandal of the evangelical mind was that there was not much of an evangelical mind, many church leaders have dedicated considerable time and effort to addressing the problem. The results of this effort have been mixed at best. As Noll acknowledged recently, he was ‘more optimistic, though not overwhelmingly so.’ Despite the quality work done in evangelical seminaries and universities as well as significant published work by evangelical thinkers across disciplines, recent events suggest that the evangelical mind in its totality seems be continuing its decline. The past few years have been a painful reminder of the consequences of this decline as we’ve witnessed the growing popularity of conspiracy theories in our churches. While we have taught our people to serve, evangelize, worship and lead, too frequently our pragmatism limits our commitment to discipling our people to think well (Romans 12:2). The result is that a disturbing number of our people — and more than a few pastors — have been ensnared by conspiratorial leaders.”

“Nepal Churches Struggle to Serve as COVID-19 Kills 100+ Pastors” – Surinder Kaur in Christianity Today: “Congregations in Nepal are reeling after a deadly surge in COVID-19 cases this spring threw the Himalayan nation into chaos, overflowing hospitals and crematoriums and leaving the national army to deal with 100 bodies a day in the Kathmandu Valley alone. The Nepali church has lost more than 130 pastors during a second wave of the pandemic that has pushed reported cases past 635,000 and confirmed deaths past 9,000. Half of those cases and two-thirds of those deaths have been tallied since April. ‘In the month of May, pastors were dying almost every day,’ said B. P. Khanal, a pastor, theologian, and leader of the Janajagaran Party Nepal. ‘I have never seen something like that.'”

“The Books Are Already Burning” – Abigail Shrier in Bari Weiss’ Common Sense newsletter: “One hundred and forty-six people in Halifax, Nova Scotia wait on a list to borrow a library book. A question hangs over them: Will activists let them read it? The book is mine — Irreversible Damage — and it is an investigation of a medical mystery: Why is the number of teenage girls requesting (and obtaining) gender reassignment skyrocketing in the United States, Canada, Scandinavia and Europe? In Great Britain, it’s up 4,400% over the last decade.  Though it shouldn’t be, this has become a highly controversial area of inquiry. The book is an exploration of why so many girls would, in such a short timeframe, decide they are transgender. And it raises questions about whether they’re getting appropriate medical treatment. The book is not about whether trans people exist. They do. And it is not about adults who elect to medically transition genders. As I have stated endlessly in public interviews and in Senate testimony, I fully support medical transition for mature adults and believe that transgender individuals should live openly without fear or stigma. Yet since publication, I have faced fierce opposition — not just to the ideas presented, challenged, or explored — but to the publication of the book itself. A top lawyer for the ACLU called for it to be banned. Powerful organizations like GLAAD have lobbied against it and pressured corporations — Target and Amazon among others — to remove Irreversible Damage from their virtual shelves.”

waider-3-640x960@2x“Sweltering Photos Capture the Charred and Molten Rock Rippling Down from an Icelandic Volcano” – This feature on Jan Erik Waider’s photography from volcanic activity in Iceland is well worth a look, as is his other work at Northland Landscapes. “Whether shooting in the harsh snowy regions of Greenland or on the basalt-lined waters of Iceland’s Stuðlagil canyon, Jan Erik Waider highlights the textures and fleeting shapes of the earth’s landscapes. His photographs often isolate monumental subject matter like glaciers and deep, rocky canyons in a way that makes the abstracted forms appear like mysterious, otherworldly environments, an approach he continues in his recent LAVA series.”

Multiethnic Church“Five Types of Multicultural Churches: A New Paradigm Evaluated and Differentiated” – Bob Whitesel in The Journal for the Academy of Intercultural Church Research: “This article puts forth a comprehensive and reconciliation-based paradigm through which to view multicultural congregations as one of five models or types. It updates the historical categories of Sanchez, adds contemporary models and then evaluates each through a 10-point grid of: nomenclature, mode of growth, relationships, pluses, minuses, degree of difficulty, creator complex, redistribution, relocation and reconciliation. The five models are: 1) the asset sharing Multicultural Alliance, 2) the collaborative Multicultural Partnership, 3) the asymmetrical Mother-Daughter model, 4) the popular Blended approach and 5) the Cultural Assimilation model. The result is a comprehensive five-model paradigm that includes an assessment of each model’s potential for spiritual and intercultural reconciliation.”

Music: Sting, “Fragile,” from …Nothing Like the Sun

The Weekend Wanderer: 6 February 2021

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“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.

Modernist Churches in Chicago“The Bold Architecture of Chicago’s Black Churches” – Daniel Hautzinger at WTTW: “Most people probably imagine a particular archetype when they think of a church: an imposing stone edifice or white clapboard building, a towering steeple, stained glass. But what about an old hat factory with glass block windows? That’s First Church of Deliverance in Bronzeville. Converted into a church in 1939 by Walter Thomas Bailey, Illinois’s first licensed African American architect, and the Black structural engineer Charles Sumner Duke, the building is clad in cream-colored terra cotta with horizontal red and green accents. Bailey and Duke doubled the width of the factory and added a second floor while remaking the interior into a stylish sanctuary, with a cross on the ceiling illuminated by colored lights and Art Deco touches. Two Art Moderne towers that flank the entrance were added in 1946 by the firm Kocher Buss & DeKlerk. Not for nothing does Open House Chicago call it ‘undoubtedly one of the most unique [churches] in Chicago.'”

Hymns-in-a-Womans-Life-1-270x250“Hymns in a Woman’s Life” – Drew Bratcher reflects on his grandmother’s life and the hymns she loved: “Among the first songs I remember hearing are the hymns my great-grandmother sang: ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ ‘Do Lord,’ ‘I Am Bound for the Promised Land.’ Doubtless I had heard other hymns before these, and still others with greater frequency, but to this day when I think of hymns, it is my great-grandmother who comes to mind. Her name was Elmay (pronounced ‘Elmy’). She lived in a holler in West Virginia, on land owned by the company for which my great-grandfather dug coal. We would see them twice, maybe three times, a year, once at their house on Thanksgiving, and at least once at my grandparents’ place in Nashville, where they visited for a couple of weeks each summer.”

Church of the Immaculate Conception“For Iraqi priest, pope’s visit raises hope of restored trust between Christians and Muslims” – From Claire Giangravé at  Religion News Service: “In Iraq, the birthplace of Abraham, the patriarch of three major faiths, religion has rarely so divided the country, and Christians, descendants of one of their faith’s oldest communities, feel more threatened than they have in living memory. The Rev. Karam Qasha, a parish priest of the Chaldean Catholic Church of St. George in Telskuf, in northern Iraq, is among those hoping Pope Francis can mend the “broken trust” between the country’s Christians and Muslims and give courage to frightened Christians. Francis will visit Iraq March 5-8, making good on St. John Paul II’s attempt to travel to Iraq in 2000 when failed negotiations with the government of Saddam Hussein prevented John Paul from visiting.”

COVID-19 and faith“Pew: How COVID-19 Changed Faith in 14 Countries” – FromJeremy Weber at Christianity Today: “Today, the Pew Research Center released a study on how COVID-19 affected levels of religious faith this past summer in 14 countries with advanced economies: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. ‘In 11 of 14 countries surveyed, the share who say their religious faith has strengthened is higher than the share who say it has weakened,’ noted Pew researchers. ‘But generally, people in developed countries don’t see much change in their own religious faith as a result of the pandemic.'”

alan jacobs“Katharsis Culture” – Here’s Alan Jacobs with a helpful reframing of the many discussions of cancel culture: “A great many people have criticized the use of the term ‘cancel culture,’ but have done so for different reasons. One group of people simply wants to deny that cancellation is a widespread phenomenon; others are aware that something is going on but don’t think that ‘cancellation’ is the right way to describe it. I myself don’t have a problem with the use of the phrase, but I think there are more accurate ways of describing the very real phenomenon to which that phrase points. I think the two key concepts for understanding what is happening are katharsis and broken-windows policing.”

Music: Aklesso, “Wilderness,” from My Life is a Beautiful Mess

The Weekend Wanderer: 16 January 2021

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“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.

patient endurance“Word for the year: patient-endurance” – Ian Paul at Psephizo: “Last week, in our mid-week church group, we were reflecting on what God has been teaching us during 2020. Various people shared experiences, and particular biblical passages or verses—but one person shared a word, not from Scripture, but from reflection on the year and a sense of what God was forming in this person, and the word was ‘resilience’….We don’t find the term ‘resilience’ in the New Testament, but we do find an important term that carries many of the same ideas, and which has a particular importance in the context of Christian discipleship. The term is ὑπομονή (hypomone)….It thus combines ideas of endurance, patience, and courage, and is translated in various way in ETs, including ‘endurance’, ‘steadfastness’, and (my favourite) ‘patient endurance’.”

Members of the audience react as U.S. President Trump delivers remarks at an Evangelicals for Trump Coalition Launch at the King Jesus International Ministry in Miami

“‘How Did We Get Here?’ A Call For An Evangelical Reckoning On Trump” – A friend shared with me this interview with Ed Stetzer of Wheaton College by NPR. “As fallout continues from the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol, Ed Stetzer, head of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois, has a message for his fellow evangelicals: It’s time for a reckoning. Evangelicals, he says, should look at how their own behaviors and actions may have helped fuel the insurrection. White evangelicals overwhelmingly supported President Trump in the 2020 election.”

World Watch List 2021“Open Doors’ 2021 watch list highlights impact of COVID-19 on religious persecution worldwide” – “The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a number of existing problems: political divides, inequities, conspiracy theories. It also has exposed religious persecution in a number of countries, according to Open Doors. In India, the Christian watchdog organization said 80% of Christians who received pandemic aid from its partner organizations reported they’d been turned away from other food distribution points because of their faith. Others reported they’d been passed over for employment. Some had walked miles and hidden their religious affiliation in order just to get food, it said.”

ERLC abortion pill“Explainer: The Supreme Court reinstates abortion pill restriction“ – Here’s an explainer from the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission on an abortion debate issue addressed by the Supreme Court this past week. “The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) granted the application for stay presented by the Trump Administration and reinstated requirements for women seeking medical abortion pills to first visit a doctor’s office or clinic. The decision was split 6-3, with the liberal justices in the dissent.”

A bas-relief depicting the sack of Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, constructed in 82 CE

“What Happened at Masada?” – James Romm reviews two new books on Masada at The New York Review of Books: “The historian Steve Mason has called The Jewish War by Flavius Josephus ‘perhaps the most influential non-biblical text of Western history.’ This may seem a surprising choice. Written in Greek around 75 AD, the war it describes—the Judaean revolt against Roman rule that began in 66 and largely ended in 70 after huge losses, including the destruction of much of Jerusalem and the tearing down of its Temple—hardly seems today to be ‘the greatest not only of wars of our own times, but of all those we have ever heard of,’ as Josephus claims in his opening words. Yet the work continues to fascinate, especially now that thorny questions have emerged concerning its account of the war’s coda in the year 74: the mass murder-suicide of nearly a thousand Jews who resided on the fortified hill of Masada, just before it was captured by the Romans.”

Loretta Ross“What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?” – I am convinced that we no longer know how to talk to one another. A friend shared this article with me and I found it thought-provoking within the current retributive cycle of our culture of vengeance and public shaming. “‘I am challenging the call-out culture,’ Professor Ross said from her home in Atlanta…’I think you can understand how calling out is toxic. It really does alienate people, and makes them fearful of speaking up.’ That perspective has made Professor Ross, 67, an unlikely figure in the culture wars. A radical Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for four decades, she was one of the signatories of a widely denounced letter in Harper’s Magazine, for which she herself was called out.”

Music: Max Richter, “On the Nature of Daylight,” from The Blue Notebooks.