Blog Update: Disruptive Grace & Norman Solomon
1. My friend, Chris, has started a new blog as part of his transition to Princeton Seminary. The blog is Disruptive Grace, to use the title of George Hunsinger's excellent collection of essays on Karl Barth—a title which was itself taken from the writings of Flannery O'Connor, one of the greatest American writers of all time.
Chris is particularly interested in Karl Barth and T. F. Torrance, two of the great theologians in the 20th century—the latter only because of the former—so it makes great sense for him to be studying here at Princeton, where Hunsinger and Bruce McCormack both teach theology from Barth's perspective. Chris and his wife, Anneli, are also attending The Well for church.
Read his introduction, and then see his post on William Cavanaugh's book, Theopolitical Imagination.
2. I have Amazon.com "ads" on my sidebar now, which serve the purpose of showing what I am reading and watching. I will most likely update the film box on a weekly basis. I hope also to have a letter-grade for that film posted directly beneath the ad. If you are interested in having me review the film at greater length, please leave me a comment on the post "Film Reviews & Recommendations," which is also accessible under the "Favorite Blogs" section in the sidebar. In addition, you would prove yourself to be an intelligent, cultured, and good-natured person by buying one of the listed items through this blog.
3. I recently linked to a column by Frank Rich that argued "the era of Americans' fearing fear itself is over." Well, Norman Solomon does not agree. In response to that line by Rich, he writes, "Don't make me laugh to keep from crying." Solomon's argument is well-taken: rather than try to sound important and proclaim what is and what is not "over" (as Bush and his aides have done repeatedly), let's instead do the hard work of analyzing this so-called "war on terror" so that we are not lulled into comfortable, idealized visions of the world. In other words, let's actually think about our country and our policies critically. Near the end of his column, Solomon writes:
Chris is particularly interested in Karl Barth and T. F. Torrance, two of the great theologians in the 20th century—the latter only because of the former—so it makes great sense for him to be studying here at Princeton, where Hunsinger and Bruce McCormack both teach theology from Barth's perspective. Chris and his wife, Anneli, are also attending The Well for church.
Read his introduction, and then see his post on William Cavanaugh's book, Theopolitical Imagination.
2. I have Amazon.com "ads" on my sidebar now, which serve the purpose of showing what I am reading and watching. I will most likely update the film box on a weekly basis. I hope also to have a letter-grade for that film posted directly beneath the ad. If you are interested in having me review the film at greater length, please leave me a comment on the post "Film Reviews & Recommendations," which is also accessible under the "Favorite Blogs" section in the sidebar. In addition, you would prove yourself to be an intelligent, cultured, and good-natured person by buying one of the listed items through this blog.
3. I recently linked to a column by Frank Rich that argued "the era of Americans' fearing fear itself is over." Well, Norman Solomon does not agree. In response to that line by Rich, he writes, "Don't make me laugh to keep from crying." Solomon's argument is well-taken: rather than try to sound important and proclaim what is and what is not "over" (as Bush and his aides have done repeatedly), let's instead do the hard work of analyzing this so-called "war on terror" so that we are not lulled into comfortable, idealized visions of the world. In other words, let's actually think about our country and our policies critically. Near the end of his column, Solomon writes:
The movie "Good Night, and Good Luck" dramatized Edward R. Murrow's decision to (finally) take on Senator Joseph McCarthy's red-baiting tactics. For those who wonder why so many journalists hung back and declined to directly challenge those tactics, which ran roughshod over the American political process for years, we can look around the US news media of 2006 and get a partial answer.Solomon faults the U.S. media across the board, right and left, for failing to do the kind of hard journalism that we need in these times. This criticism is even more necessary in relation to the church, where it is generally assumed that the elected officials are chosen to make decisions so that we don't have to think about them. In this troubled era, such naiveté is entirely unacceptable.
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