http://preferredmode.com/2013/04/20/rachel/ An interesting hypothesis from Tony Woodlief that bad religious art – the sort that cannot stand on its own, but has to have an adjective affixed, like “a Christian novel” – is bad because it is serving a bad (i.e. false) theology. I largely agree with this: religious art used to be better because earlier […]
Category Archives: Religion
Bad Theology, Bad Art.
05-Jun-11She Who Dwelleth in the Gardens.
04-Jun-11buy Gabapentin online without dr approval Reading among the Franciscan writings last night I caught the phrase “she who dwelleth in the gardens,” quae habitat in hortis, and I was curious about the phrase and so poked around the Song of Songs a bit. The Latin Vulgate version is at times obviously mistranslated – there is a passage at the very […]
“Church as Permaculture.”
23-May-11Richard Rohr, a Franciscan true to the name, has been writing recently on “Church as Permaculture”: Mere beliefs do not necessarily change the way we live in this world. What we have been calling “Emerging” Christianity or “Lifestyle Christianity” involves a real movement toward simplicity—at all levels. A return to a simple lifestyle is the […]
Saint Francis, Nature, and Poverty.
23-May-11I have been reading Thomas of Celano’s two lives of Saint Francis, with all the complicated pleasure of advancing age. In 1973 the Franciscan Herald Press put out a lovely edition of the early writings about Francis, Saint Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources, a beautifully executed book, hardbound, with maps of Italy and Assisi, […]
Empiricism and Fundamentalism.
28-Apr-11A must-read piece from Andrew Sullivan on fundamentalism and reason in religion. He does things like re-translate the beginning of John’s Gospel – “In the beginning was reason. And reason was with God. And reason was God.” – which is a completely acceptable translation. The word usually translated “word”, logos, means much more than that and is […]
Of Gods and Men.
01-Apr-11I saw the movie Of Gods and Men two nights ago at the excellent little art-house movie theater in Kew Gardens. The movie was not perfect – poorly paced, occasionally indulgent, not quite as intelligent as it might have been – but it was very good, and it affected me. It depicted the monastic life beautifully […]
Nauvoo and Carthage, Illinois.
30-Mar-11I’ve been fascinated by the Mormons for a fair amount of time, for reasons both personal and temperamental: personal, because of the Mormons I’ve known, and temperamental because of my interest in all God’s supposed communications with men. On my cross-country bike trip in 1999 I biked across the Burnt-Over District of New York, so-called […]
Bibles and Evangelicals.
01-Mar-11I’ve written recently about the need to destroy Biblical literalism; and here is an obituary of one minister who worked on precisely this. The reporting appears to be unaware of the actual issues involved, but Gomes’ words themselves are salutary: “The Bible alone is the most dangerous thing I can think of,” he told The […]
Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion.
20-Feb-11The Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion is not a good book; it is unorganized, gossipy, filled with tangents, of little depth, and boring. Oscar Wilde said there were no moral or immoral books; “books are well written, or badly written, that is all.” The God Delusion is badly written. I could tell I was […]
Good and Evil, terribly deeply interfused.
30-Mar-11A book review which goes out of its way to dish the dirt on Gandhi, of which there is apparently plenty. Orwell apparently didn’t know the half of it. This is no surprise to those who have lived long enough. You can find really truly good people, but probably not if they have great achievements […]