Evangelical Culture Gets Parenting Wrong
Linked article: “Keeping the Faith” by Christian Smith, on how faith is transmited to children
Critical Theory as Method, Metanarrative, and Mood
This is a phenomenal summary and response to the evangelical debate about CRT. However, one question does come to mind in reading it: At what point does “CRT as mood” become a “trump card” closing debate and inquiry?
A recent example that comes to mind is the Ma’Khiah Bryant incident recently, where the police shot and killed a 16 year old black girl who was attacking another girl with a knife. The initial cries of “racism! police brutality! white supremacy!” deserved to be interrogated, and seemed to many to have been neutralized to the video that showed a very strong justification for the police to take deadly action to protect the girl being assaulted. But to some commentators, even with the video that demonstrates justification for the shooting there’s a claim of grievance. At some point, someone who tells you he is bleeding, but on whom you cannot detect blood, has to be called out for attention seeking or delusional behavior.
A friend of mine gave me a different example a few years ago that has always stuck with me. You’re with a black friend at a bar, and she goes to get a drink. It takes her a little while and she comes back upset because she had to wait so long. “It’s because I’m black,” she observes. “Goddamn white supremacy.” “How do you know?” you ask, looking over at the bar. The bartender seems really busy – there seems to be a backlog of patrons waiting for drinks. “Did he say anything?” “I just know, alright?” your friend replies. Do you:
A) Share your observation that the bartender just seems to be backed up and might even be kind short or abrupt because he’s overwhelmed at the moment, and that race might easily have had nothing to do with this.
or
B) Affirm and empathize with the feeling that your friend’s skin color may have led somebody to treat her unfavorably.
For the record, my friend who posed this question gave me “B” as the “correct” answer. This has never sat well with me, because I know from my own experiences that my “mood” is not always in alignment with reality, I think that it’s to my benefit (and to anyone’s benefit) that alignment is as near as possible. Indeed, it seems somewhat patronizing to just “affirm and empathize” when the evidence to my eyes would say that this response isn’t merited by the facts of the situation.
So, to what degree does CRT as “mood” close off discussion or debate? Certainly, all “moods” cannot be equally merited? But to try to argue somebody out of a mood runs the risk of being accused of “gaslighting”. And maybe it’s not the end of the world to just allow somebody to sit with the mood and try to be compassionate toward them, but when their “mood” demands actions in response, how do you thread the needle of justice and empathy? What if your friend at the bar demands you not tip this bartender? What if she asks for your keys so she can scratch his car?
CRT as mood is very helpful to understand what’s going on, but I would love to see more about how it can be productively engaged.
A review considering how ethnography influences the New Right political coalition.
The Splintering of the Evangelical Soul
Three interlocking challenges identified to the evangelical movement:
a splintering and polarization of media simultaneous with a dramatic increase in the pervasiveness and influence of media
crisis of leadership as scandals and failures sap institutional credibility, and celebrity and self-promotion dominates leadership bandwidth
“Pressures, temptations, and glowing distractions of contemporary life have strained the ties that bind us, replacing the warmth and depth of incarnate community with a cold digital imitation. … Further, the hyper-politicization of the American evangelical movement has led to a political sorting. … Congregations comprised of individuals whose informational worlds are nearly identical will tend toward rigidity and increasing radicalism—what Cass Sunstein calls the Law of Group Polarization.”
“As man he was baptized, but he absolved sins as God; he needed no purifying rites himself–his purpose was to hallow water.
As man he was put to the test, but as God he came through victorious–yes, bids us be of good cheer, because he has conquered the world.
He hungered–yet he fed thousands. He is indeed ‘living, heavenly bread.’ He thirsted–yet he exclaimed: ‘Whosoever thirsts, let him come to me and drink.’ Indeed he promised that believers would become fountains.
He was tired–yet he is the ‘rest’ of the weary and the burdened. He was overcome by heavy sleep–yet he goes lightly over the sea, rebukes winds, and relieves the drowning Peter.
He pays tax–yet uses a fish to do it; indeed he is emperor over those who demand the tax.
He is called a ‘Samaritan, demonically possessed’–but he rescues the man who came down from Jerusalem and fell among thieves. Yes, he is recognized by demons, drives out demons, drowns deep a legion of spirits, and sees the prince of demons falling like lightning.
He is stoned, yet not hit; he prays, yet he hears prayer.
He weeps, yet he puts an end to weeping.
He asks where Lazarus is laid–he was man; yet he raises Lazarus–he was God.
He is sold, and cheap was the price–thirty pieces of silver; yet he buys back the world at the mighty cost of his own blood.
A sheep, he is led to the slaughter–yet he shepherds Israel and now the whole world as well. A lamb, he is dumb–yet he is ‘Word,’ proclaimed by ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness.’
He is weakened, wounded–yet he cures every disease and every weakness.
He is brought up to the tree and nailed to it–yet by the tree of life he restores us. Yes, he saves even a thief crucified with him; he wraps all the visible world in darkness.
He is given vinegar to drink, gall to eat–and who is he? Why, one who turned water into wine, who took away the taste of bitterness, who is all sweetness and desire.
He surrenders his life, yet he has power to take it again.
Yes, the veil is rent, for things of heaven are being revealed, rocks split, and dead men have an earlier awakening. He dies, but he vivifies and by death destroys death. He is buried, yet he rises again. He goes down to Hades, yet he leads souls up, ascends to heaven, and will come to judge quick and dead, and to probe discussions like these. If the first set of expressions starts you going astray, the second set takes your error away.”
– St. Gregory of Nazianzus, On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius, The Third Theological Oration (Oration 29)
How Black Lives Matter protests may affect police violence and murders - Vox
The Profound Eldritch Horror Of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” - Boing Boing
Movies to watch during the high school years (some are more apporpriate for freshman/sophomores, some less appropriate)
- Miller’s Crossing
- Raising Arizona
- No Country for Old Men
- The Road
- Mad Max 2,3, and Road Furty
- 12 Monkeys
- Brazil
- Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
- Goodfellas
- The Godfather I and II
- Grizzly Man
- The Matrix
- The Animatrix
- The Birds
- Psycho
- AI
- Romeo+Juliet
- Annie Hall
- The Shining
- Baby Driver
- 28 Days Later
- Resevior Dogs
- Inglorious Basterds
- Scott Pilgrim Vs the World
- Three Kings
- Silver Linings Playbook
- The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- City of Lost Children
- Groundhog Day
- Lost in Translation
- Hotel Rwanda
- Akira
- The Terminator
- 13 Conversations about One Thing
- Margin Call
- The Big Short
- The Big Sleep
- Blade Runner
- Blade Runner 2040
- Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
- Heathers
- Batman Begins Trilogy
- Memento
- Pan’s Labrynth
- Safe (1995)
- The New World
- Raisen in the Sun
- Michael Clayton
- Good Night and Good Luck
- The Right Stuff
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Gentle Cinema, a list of films by Doug Dillaman • Letterboxd
Curtis calls his most recent 6-part series “an emotional history of what went on inside the heads of all kinds of people.” The films are a modern history of the United Kingdom, United States, China, and Russia told through the inner lives of important and sometimes overlooked figures who found themselves at the crux of modernity’s development.
The creative decision to utilize internal thoughts conveys the series’ central thesis: the dominant theme of modern history is the rise of the individual and a new focus on the feelings, dreams, hopes, and uncertainties inside people. Curtis tells stories about what happens when those internal forces meet old power structures struggling to maintain their authority.
The Cohabitation Dilemma Comes for America’s Pastors - Christianity Today
Christianity and Culture in an Age of Crisis - Mere Orthodoxy - Christianity, Politics, and Culture
Man, lots of people are mad about Substack….