I didn’t mention the death of art and theater critic Terry Teachout on January 13, because I didn’t feel I had anything to add. I interacted with him as a minor player in the early blogosphere, and I enjoyed seeing his enthusiasm over his one-man play, Satchmo at the Waldorf. Richard Brookhiser summarizes him in National Review this way:

He specialized in omniscience. There was a bit of boy-from-Sikeston-keeping-up-with-the-city-slickers in that. But the main source of his appetite to taste, learn, and enjoy was his love of all the arts, and of the wonderful sparks cast off by human minds generally.

(via Prufrock)

Ted Gioia tells a heart-warming story of being a recipient of Teachout’s “generous spirit.” “The last time I saw him was in Santa Fe, where the opera he wrote with composer Paul Moravec made its debut. His career seemed to know no limits—which was fitting, because that was true of Terry himself.”

Let me share a few other things with you. Let me know if you’ve heard these before.

America: Chinese-born Aaron Tao writes of American greatness and his appreciation for his parents immigrating to Ohio. “As I grew up, my parents gradually revealed more details of their former destitute life in Maoist China, which made me grateful that I never had any experience remotely comparable here in the United States.”

In New York, an immigrant from Hong Kong is now rallying people against Democratic policies. “The atmosphere at schools here is more and more like China’s cultural revolution that encourages students to cancel teachers and parents, all in the name of equality,” he said. This is only one example of Asian Americans vocally supporting better communities.

Strangers: The world is ever changing. J.A. Medders, recently the author of Humble Calvinism, shares this about his first book.

Here's an anecdote for how much our slice of evangelicalism has changed:

My first book, Gospel Formed, was endorsed by:

– Doug Wilson
– Owen Strachan
– Russell Moore
– Jared C. Wilson (wrote the foreword)

Published in 2014.

— J.A. Medders (@mrmedders) January 28, 2022

In the replies to this tweet, people mention Dangerous Calling by Paul David Tripp, whose endorsements are far more troubling. But faith is a living habit, not a single accomplishment, and some will enter heaven with clothing caked with the mud of the world.

Identity: Gina Dalfonzo talked to Alan Noble about his new book, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World.

Dalfonzo: I’ve seen some vigorous pushback against your book’s title on social media, much of it from Christians—even though it’s taken from a Bible verse (which, as you note, was later incorporated into the Heidelberg Catechism). Where do you think some of these visceral reactions are coming from? Why have so many Christians bought into the idea that we actually are our own?

Noble: Some pushback to the idea of belonging to God comes out of a deep belief in self-ownership and self-sufficiency. But my impression is that most Christians who struggle with this concept have experienced abuse. Sometimes abusive people and institutions have used the idea of belonging to God to control and harm people.

Soft Porn: Francine River’s early book Redeeming Love has been made into a movie. People I know have praised it. My wife is not one of them, and because of her comments, I’ve thought about reviewing it here, expecting to rip it apart. But this book is not burdened with a lack of reviews, and do I really want to put myself through it when I’m not doing all kinds of useful things. World reviews the movie, saying fans of the book will probably enjoy it, but there’s a lot of vice, pushing the limit of its PG-13 rating.

Photo by Chris Bair on Unsplash