If Your Religion Teaches the Obvious, Then It's Not Much of a Religion
If your version of Christianity calls us to act only in obvious ways that align with human instincts, then what would be the point of following it?
Latest
What to Expect When You're Expecting Victory
Thoughts on the New Year and Kierkegaard's "The Expectancy of Faith."
How to Have a Real Conversation
It's the connection that matters, not random conversations. Must we turn literally everything into a business model?
How to Keep a Christian Christmas
What Rowan Williams said about keeping a "Christian Christmas" (since the two, in our culture, are usually not related).
Ellul on the Void and the Wasteland
"We can no longer communicate with one another because our neighbors have ceased to be real to us." In 1948!
Ellul on the Death of Contemplation and Intuition
Thinkers in all fields have become constrained by a need to produce practical results, and they do so by using technique -- or is it technique that uses them?
How to Make Things Harder (And Maybe Better)
Ugh, I didn't want to write about the election, but this is sort of about it, except mostly about love and Kierkegaard and choosing to do the impossible.
Judge William's Uncomfortable Truth (or, How to Read Kierkegaard)
Wrestling with the Great Dane.
Ellul on the Suicide of the Mind
Intellectuals either accept the prevailing myths (which they know are false) for the sake of their careers, or else decide: "LOL nothing matters." It's the same thing.
Enchantment As a Framework for Culture War
Re-enchanting the world so they can rule it.
Ellul on the Renewed Mind and the Fog of Facts
After another long break, back to Ellul's Presence: What is a Christian intellectual, and what is his or her function in a world hidden in a fog of unreality?
Frank O'Hara, "Nocturne"
One last poem for poetry month. It's the architect's fault.
poetry
R. S. Thomas, "The Absence"
We seek solace, we get silence.
poetry
William Stafford, "Bess"
I don't remember dog-earing this poem or which emotional reaction caused me to do so.
poetry
Jorge Luis Borges, "Everness"
One thing does not exist: Oblivion.
poetry
Donald Justice, "On the Night of the Departure by Bus"
It's Poetry Month, according to somebody, somewhere.
Jacques Ellul
Ellul on the Unreal Life
Our actual experiences are boring. So we fixate on the thousands of sensational images and interesting "facts" that bombard us each day. Then we create an explanatory myth and live inside a permanent, realistic (but completely unreal) dream. Welcome to Chapter 4, "Communications."
The Bible
What We Encounter When We Encounter the Bible
Jessica Martin compares reading the Bible to a relationship with a spouse. What if it's even more intimate than that?
Jacques Ellul
Ellul on Being Alive
True action is a matter of living, not of doing, and that is the revolutionary attitude Christians should take in the world.
Jacques Ellul
Ellul on the True Value of Means
So what are Christians supposed to do about all these other means? Stop thinking of them as means, for one thing.
Jacques Ellul
Ellul on God's Unified Means and End
Christians, as the presence of the Kingdom in the world, are God's means and end.
2023
That Which We Measure May Be Forgotten
For many unmeasurable reasons, this has been a very good year. Here are some of the things that can be weighed, tracked and listed.
books
Books In and Out of Season
I hated The Magus. I hated it so damn much. And other ramblings about choosing which books to read.
Jacques Ellul
Ellul on the Illusion of Inner Freedom
"Means" destroy everything that might hinder their advance, and little by little extend their dominion over everything, turning humans into objects to be acted upon.