Forgive me, father, for I have punned.
Jared Wilson is a pastor-author who is focused on the gospel in ways the church may neglect. “You find a church’s idols by changing things,” he says in the interview below.
http://thomrainer.com/2016/10/pastors-writing-jared-c-wilson-rainer-leadership-269/
Nicholas Lezard recommends the ghost stories of EF Benson (1867-1940).
When I reread “Caterpillars”, for the first time in four decades, I very quickly regretted that I had chosen to do so at night. Gatiss, in his introduction, says that it is “perhaps a ghost story like no other”, and he’s not wrong: it’s the kind of story that leaves one feeling almost unclean, checking clothes and body for vermin.
(via Prufrock News)
In 1995, Terry Teachout wrote the first article for jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall for a national publication. He talks about it and shares his thoughts in a post today.
Twenty years after we met, Diana sent me an e-mail thanking me for writing about her in the Journal. “Of all the many pieces I’ve written through the years, I think I might just be proudest of that one,” I replied. “It means the world to me to know that I was able to help when it mattered.”
From that piece, Teachout offers a reason for calling Krall “well-listened and well-read.”
Like so many younger musicians, Ms. Krall is intensely aware of jazz’s rich tradition, and knowledgeable about it. “My idea of a fun evening,” she says, “is to just sit around with my records and put on one after another: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, Miles Davis—anything I can get my hands on, really.”
“The genius of African American preaching, I have learned, can transform not only individual believers but our entire country.”
I’m sure Frank Thomas could makes many good points on how “African American preaching, in all of its beauty, depth and history, can once again change the perspective of this nation,” but I fear we may have fundamental disagreements–particularly how it isn’t the style but the Word of God itself that transforms. Still, I don’t doubt that if the Lord would lift up many Black pastors to proclaim the gospel to our nation, we would be renewed.
Perhaps, this message from Pastor H.B. Charles Jr. would be a good example of the style Thomas is talking about.
Gyles Brandreth wrote about his friendship with Christopher Robin a few decades ago. He says it was boarding school bullying that put Robin off of his childhood fame, at least at the start, but many years later, he made peace with it.
“Of course we must talk about Pooh.” He had a mischievous twinkle. “It’s been something of a love-hate relationship down the years, but it’s all right now.”
“Now we are sixty,” I said.
He laughed. “Yes, believe it or not, I can look at those four books without flinching. I’m quite fond of them really.”
It’s Winnie-the-Pooh’s 90th anniversary today, and for the occasion, four new stories have been written and new illustrations drawn, some of which include a new character in the Hundred Acre Wood. (via Prufrock News)
Hold the wall! Here’s a compilation video from many fights by the Skjaldborg group in 2007.
Justin Taylor explores many details in the true story behind the new movie The Birth of a Nation, which one history professor called “a deeply flawed, historically inaccurate movie that exploits and distorts Nat Turner’s story and the history of slavery in America.”
According to his own testimony, Nat Turner appears to have been a strong, intelligent man who could not be subdued by a slave economy. He was gifted and believed he was called by God to lead a righteous war against slave owners. Reading his spiritual account, you could say he was powerfully deceived, but you might also say a brilliant and spiritually sensitive man can be twisted and perverted when shackled by oppression. Not that any motive or character study would justify the murder he and his allies committed, but the slavery in which they lived cannot be justified either. Four times as many slaves were murdered in retribution to Nat Turner’s revolt as whites were murdered by the revolt, which speaks to the war-like nature of the whole affair. This wasn’t a just war nor was it followed by a just condemnation.
Recommended reading ends the post.
History professor Vanessa M. Holden, in the past linked from Taylor’s, says, “Parker’s movie is important. Its independent roots and blockbuster distribution deal are significant in an industry that still grapples with racism. It also draws the public’s attention to a history that has no white saviors or triumphant endings. The character Turner is not long suffering; he springs into violent action as soon as he becomes aware of slavery’s brutality and validates his claim to humanity and freedom, just as the historical Turner did, through a radicalized Christianity. But the license that Parker took in an effort to craft his heroic version of Turner ultimately strips away too much valuable context.”
http://www.bibledesignblog.com/2016/10/readers-bibles-might-finally-stay.html
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
The strong Christian review magazine Books & Culture has announced it will close the bar and usher everyone out the door over the coming months. The next issue will be the final printed issue, and they will continue to publish online for 2017.
Alan Jacobs shares his thoughts, saying many people esteemed B&C.
“Alex Star, a former editor of the New York Times Magazine and now an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, once told me that he read every issue in full. Cullen Murphy, former editor of the Atlantic, told me that John Wilson is the best editor in the business.”
Many years ago, B&C editor John Wilson wrote for the NY Times about evangelicals as they are depicted in literature. “Charmless, ignorant, homophobic and either brazenly hypocritical or obnoxiously sincere, they quote Scripture unctuously and have bad sex.” (Get an excerpt through the link above or read the whole essay here.)
But B&C is closing, and I ask myself what shall I do now? What shall I do? I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so.
What shall we do to-morrow?