Text Messages

It’s the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and it doesn’t seem right to just say nothing. So consider  this pro-life ad that has been making the rounds:  Of course, we can’t all have mothers like Obama’s. But the video closely expresses the pro-life argument I come back to most often–choosing life creates possibilities–not least because…

I’ve been mulling a long post in defense of doubt. For the last few months, I’ve watched hard questions and varieties of doubt do a great deal of good among some of my Christian friends, and I’ve been reading Luke’s gospel, which invites itself to be read as (among other things) a prescription for doubt.…

Oscar has fickle and pedestrian taste, and the awards are rarely an indication of a movie’s potential shelf life or artistic merit. (See: Crash. Or, if you haven’t, don’t.) I was shocked when Atonement didn’t win last year, because its mixture of melodrama, literary-ness, and something on the order of a truly incredible tracking shot is…

…is a marvel. Amen indeed. 

Given the massive flap over Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to offer the inaugural prayer, there will no doubt be a new flap over Warren’s decision to pray his prayer “in Jesus’ name.” Lots of people on the left were concerned that he would, and on the right were concerned that he wouldn’t. He did,…

“…a man whose father, less than 60 years ago, might not have been served in a local restaurant, now stands before you to take a sacred oath.” Consider that. Today, my 5 year old daughter came home from kindergarten and told us that as they watched the inauguration in the cafeteria, a teacher told them…

I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving yesterday when I heard the news that there were no fatalities or injuries after an airliner crashed into the Hudson River. All good things come from God–so says the Bible, and so says my Mom, who is prone to utter “Thank you, Lawd!” (in her Southern Belle drawl) for…

The famous comic artist has been laboring over a comic retelling of Genesis for ages, and it’s apparently coming in 2009. Everywhere I’ve seen this mentioned on the web, people use the word “literal” to describe it, as in “it’s a literal adaptation!” I have no idea what that could possibly mean in this case,…

Jeff Sharlet, in his review of Peter Trachtenburg’s The Book of Calamities at Search Magazine, coins a phrase–“scripture shock”–to describe reading rattling, blood-curdling Bible passages. Consider Psalm 137 (where the psalmist blesses the one who would bash the heads of Babylonian children), or Exodus 32:27-28 (where the Lord appears to sanction brother-on-brother bloodshed)–passages where violence and destruction are the…

This thing is stunning. It’s the same Bible Abraham Lincoln used in his first inauguration, and the symbolism couldn’t be sweeter. I can’t find a good photo online that isn’t in Flash and can be pasted here, but the best version I’ve seen is at the Wall Street Journal.  That photo is part of a…

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