Jesus Camp
Jesus Camp
A Film by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing
Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2006
Review by Carl McColman
Vladimir Lenin said, “Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.” Yes, it’s a scary thought – and that primal intuitive sense that it’s wrong to brainwash or indoctrinate children lies at the bottom of the emotional power driving this non-fiction reality film about children who attend a charismatic/fundamentalist Christian summer camp deep in America’s heartland. When I saw the trailer for this film, I had the same kind of visceral reaction to it that I have to Lenin’s bold declaration. As someone who learned way too much about manipulative religiosity during my own teen-aged tangle with the charismatic renewal, I was primed to view this film with nail-spitting righteous anger directed at the horrible fundamentalists who are warping an entire generation of vulnerable children into right-wing extremists. At times, my experience watching it flirted on the edge of such an emotional maelström. But I never fully dove into the whirlpool. And I think this speaks as much as anything about how surprisingly balanced this film is, even as it fearlessly takes on an explosive and polarizing constellation of topics. (more…)
Martha Ainsworth’s Contemplative Webpage
It’s a little out of date, not having been updated since 2002, so a number of the links on it are broken. But it’s a very pretty site, and a nice clean introduction to the contemplative world: Contemplative Spirituality: a Guide.
Letter for Mike
My friend Margarita, who is a conservative Christian, has a friend of hers named Mike who is interested in Celtic culture and so she decided to give him a copy of 366 Celt. But, since the book has such a strong Pagan focus and she herself is hardly a Pagan, she wanted to give him a sense of the book’s back story. So she asked me to write a letter to the young man, situating the book both in my own spiritual journey and in my ongoing efforts to balance my devotion to Christ and Catholicism with my radical openness to the grace that flows through all wisdom traditions. Having written the letter, I thought it might be of interest to others, so here it is.
Scary Sexist Homophobic Christian Preacher of the Day
From the blog of Peter Rollins I learned about this horrorshow video on church planting and the discipleship of men, featuring a west-coast pastor named Mark Driscoll:
Okay, am I missing something here? I can agree with Driscoll’s idea that young men need Christ’s message more than any other segment of society. But his is a pandering and gynophobic strategy to evangelize the guys. By implicitly endorsing many of our culture’s homophobic and patriarchal assumptions of what it means to be “a man” seems to me at the very least to be a travesty of the Gospel, if not evidence of how the church’s worst enemies are found within. Driscoll seems to be advocating a cheap repentance where all that is required of a man is an acquiescence to purity-holiness in terms of sexual behavior, followed by giving up the computer games and potato chips and then getting a real job — and getting married and having lots of kids, of course. Rather than acknowledge that the Gospel invites us to the amazingly exciting and challenging task of thoroughly reinventing what it means to be a man (or a woman) in the light of grace, Driscoll settles for taking cheap shots at the herbal tea and aromatherapy crowd. If this is what it means to be a Christian, no wonder church attendance is declining. As Meister Eckhart said, “Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.” In other words, if I have to choose between truth and the crap that Driscoll is mongering in the name of Christ, it’ll be the easiest decision of my day.
Why the Christian Right is Wrong
Why the Christian Right is Wrong: A Minister’s Manifesto for Taking Back Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future
By Robin Meyers
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006
Review by Carl McColman
This is one of those books where the titles says it all. Based on a speech that UCC minister Robin Meyers gave at a college rally that took on a life of its own thanks to the Internet, Why the Christian Right is Wrong throws down the gauntlet for anyone who is tired of the way that bad right-wing politics hides behind Christianity, thereby poisoning both politics and faith simultaneously. It’s interesting how the author has chosen to make this book extremely topical — to a great extent, it’s a screed against the many failings of our current president and his fundamentalist cronies both inside and outside the D.C. beltway — which gives it an urgency and a certain “current events” punch, even at the risk of it becoming very quickly dated and irrelevant. But hey, this is the blog generation: why would anyone want to read a book more than three years old anyway? With that little bit of irony in mind, Meyers’ book-length meditation on the evils of the 43rd president and his administration reads like an extended blog entry, filled with rather more passion than analysis (although this is certainly more than just a pugilistic rant). (more…)
That Catholic Show
Some friends of mine have created a video podcast called That Catholic Show. Five episodes so far, each providing a lighthearted look at one aspect or another of the Catholic faith. The most recent episode is a little fuzzy on its history (the script writers seem to have the Middle Ages and the Renaissance confused), but theologically it’s spot on — and it includes footage shot at my place of employment, the Abbey Store.
Chapels in the Shrine
Here are photos of my two favorite chapels at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception: the Crypt Church and the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.
Trip Links
Fran and Rhiannon and I are on the road. The trip began with a drive up from Atlanta to Hampton, Virginia where we spent his birthday and father’s day with my dad (attending Saturday evening mass at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church in nearby Tabb and going with my dad to Gloria Dei Lutheran Church on Sunday), and taking him out for a father’s day seafood dinner to the legendary Harpoon Larry’s Restaurant (the website is for the “main” Harpoon Larry’s in Virginia Beach, but we ate at their Hampton location). Of course, being the vegan in the bunch, I only ate a veggie sub, but everyone else enjoyed chowing down on the freshly caught and cooked fish.
We left Hampton on Monday and now we’re in the suburban wilds outside of Richmond with our friends Margarita and Michael Noyes. Michael participates in a centering prayer group at Richmond Hill, “an ecumenical Christian fellowship and residential community who serve as stewards of an urban retreat center within the setting of a historic monastery.” It seemed to be a wonderful community; I was there for a simple evening prayer service and community dinner prior to the centering prayer meeting, and had a lovely time.
Today we’re day-tripping up to Washington where we’re going to visit the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and go shopping at one of the most wonderful stores in the world: the Newman Bookstore which is the most amazing Catholic bookstore I’ve ever seen (for example, they’ve got about 100 feet of self space devoted just to medieval theology).
Then tomorrow we depart for North Carolina. After lunch in Raleigh with Jasmine and Mike Morrell (of Sites Unseen), we’re heading for Asheville. There we’ll stay with our friends Cindy and Karen, and do some more shopping at places like The Captain’s Bookshelf (which is as good a place to buy used books as the Newman Bookstore is for new titles) and, of course, the legendary Malaprop’s Bookstore and Café. While in Asheville we will likely eat at wonderful places like the Laughing Seed Café or Mamacita’s Mexican Grill, and might even make it to mass at St Joan of Arc Catholic Church (which has a beautiful new church just two miles from Cindy’s and Karen’s) before returning home Saturday evening.
Quote for the Day
Silence does not exist in our lives merely for its own sake. It is ordered to something else. Silence is the mother of speech. A lifetime of silence is ordered to an ultimate declaration, which can be put into words, a declaration of all we have lived for.
Life and death, words and silence, are given us because of Christ. In Christ we die to the flesh and live to the spirit. In Him we die to illusion and live to truth. We speak to confess Him, and we are silent in order to meditate on Him and enter deeper into His silence, which is at once the silence of death and of eternal life — the silence of Good Friday night and the peace of Easter morning.
— Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, as quoted in Echoing Silence:
Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing
Anglican Eucharistic Theology
Yet another web page where I could all too easily get very, very lost…
Is a Library Thing related to a Vision Thing?
Oh no — I’ve discovered another way to sink untold amount of time into the internet: LibraryThing, a website for cataloging your personal library online and then networking with others whose geekiness mirrors your own.
For those of you who are interested, here is my (as of this writing still very much under construction) personal library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/anamchara
Is a Library Thing related to a Vision Thing?
Oh no — I’ve discovered another way to sink untold amount of time into the internet: LibraryThing, a website for cataloging your personal library online and then networking with others whose geekiness mirrors your own.
For those of you who are interested, here is my (as of yet still very much under construction) library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/anamchara
Partakers of Divine Nature
Partakers of Divine Nature: An Inspiring Presentation of Man’s Purpose in Life According to Orthodox Theology
By Archimandrite Christoforos Stavropoulos
Translated by the Rev. Dr. Stanley Harakas
Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing Company, 1976
Review by Carl McColman
A slender little book less than a hundred pages long, Partakers of Divine Nature is a handy introduction to the theology of theosis or deification, a keystone of Eastern Orthodox spirituality which has been all but forgotten in the west. Several English-language books on theosis are currently in print, but most are academic tomes aimed at the scholar rather than the ordinary practicing Christian. This book is the happy exception; geared toward the average person of faith, it’s accessible, understandable, and short enough to be digested in a single sitting — although I would recommend taking your time with this book, for even though it is written for the non-specialist, it’s subject matter is sufficiently rich in the language of theology as to make it a book better suited for lectio divina (meditative reading) than for a quick, just-the-facts read-through. (more…)
The Book of My Life
The Book of My Life
By Teresa of Àvila
Translated by Mirabai Starr
Boston: New Seeds, 2007
Review by Carl McColman
One of the challenges of being a reviewer is learning the discipline of maintaining an open mind. When reading a book with the intention of writing about it, I cannot help but forming opinions as the reading experience progresses. But just as one cannot judge a book by its proverbial cover, so it is also dangerous to allow early assessments of a book’s worth to color the overall reading experience. Maybe it made sense for Jimmy Carter to concede the 1980 presidential election even before the polls on the west coast closed (after all, his opponent was from California), but for a critical reading of a book to have any hope of fairness, the reviewer needs to suspend final judgment until the last page has been read.
My point in leading this review off with a philosophical digression is that The Book of My Life is one such book in which I struggled to keep my prejudice at bay. In reviewing this title, I am not commenting so much on the writing of Teresa of Àvila as on the translation of Mirabai Starr. And it was Starr’s candor in her introductory “Note on the Translation” that I struggled for the length of the book to accept without judgement. (more…)
Quote for the Day
Through the Holy Eucharist, we are made divine, we become gods. This is how it happens. The human nature of our Lord, through its hypostatic, real, natural and essential union with divine nature, became in truth and in fact ‘life-giving’. In the Holy Eucharist, the very Holy and life-giving Body of our Lord, which remains forever indivisibly united with the Divine Logos, grants true life to those who commune, and brings them into contact with the life of God. The faithful who commune the Body and Blood of Christ, through that very Body and Blood also consume God the Logos. They thus become both Christ-bearers and God-bearers. In the Mystery of the Eucharist, human beings are interpenetrated by the Divine, just as a rod of iron, thrust into a searing flame soon becomes itself a fire engulfed in flame. Thus the human is made divine, without of course giving up its natural qualities. There is a certain sort of analogy between the fact of the true union of the two natures in Christ’s person, and the unity of God and human beings in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, however, even though the union is real, it does not cease to be on the level of the relative, of a union by grace.
— Archimandrite Christoforos Stavropoulos, Partakers of Divine Nature
More fun on the Web
A friend of mine just sent me this link: The #1 Song on this Date in History
From this page you can look up what the Billboard Charts document as the number one hit single on the day you were born. Actually, there’s one page for each date, listing the hit songs on that date over the years (going back to the 1890s). So you get a pop culture snapshot of the music that was hot on your special day over the years. Warning: everyone knows that pop culture has no standards. In other words, be prepared to wince at some of the truly awful songs that were popular on your birthday. But you’ll also see some really cool songs, too.
The number one hit song on the day I was born — December 6, 1960 — was (drumroll, please)… “Are You Lonesone Tonight?” by Elvis Presley. If I had been born a year earlier, I could claim Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” as my birthday hit song. Some other number ones on 12/6 over the years: “Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Glenn Miller (1941), “You Send Me” by Sam Cooke (1957), “Dominique” by the Singing Nun, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by the Byrds (1965), “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys (1966) and even “Mickey” by Toni Basil (1982). So what are you waiting for? Click on the link and have fun already!
More fun on the Web
A friend of mine just sent me this link: The #1 Song on this Date in History
From this page you can look up what the Billboard Charts document as the number one hit single on the day you were born. Actually, there’s one page for each date, listing the hit songs on that date over the years (going back to the 1890s). So you get a pop culture snapshot of the music that was hot on your special day over the years. Warning: everyone knows that pop culture has no standards. In other words, be prepared to wince at some of the truly awful songs that were popular on your birthday. But you’ll also see some really cool songs, too.
The number one hit song on the day I was born — December 6, 1960 — was (drumroll, please)… “Are You Lonesone Tonight?” by Elvis Presley. If I had been born a year earlier, I could claim Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” as my birthday hit song. Some other number ones on 12/6 over the years: “Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Glenn Miller (1941), “You Send Me” by Sam Cooke (1957), “Dominique” by the Singing Nun (1963), “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by the Byrds (1965), “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys (1966) and even “Mickey” by Toni Basil (1982). So what are you waiting for? Click on the link and have fun already!
Fun on the Web
Just found an interesting site: thecloudofunknowing.com
Appears to be Atlanta-based, lots of information on it about Contemplative Outreach Atlanta. Also seems to have a few cobwebs in the corner: looks a bit under-utilized, lots of stale information. I guess all the registered users are too busy praying to post to the website. Still, might be fun to get some new blood in there and shake things up a bit.
Rhiannon’s Waivers
Here is the text of an email my wife sent out to her family and friends this morning, celebrating the good news that our daughter, Rhiannon, has just received funding from the state of Georgia that will enable her to participate in a day-support program starting in July. Not only will this enable Fran and me to keep working, but it also saves Rhiannon from the fate that would befall her if she had to stay at home (either with one of us or with an in-home caregiver), where her lack of skills would pretty much condemn her to a life of watching TV or playing elementary-school-level computer games. The funding was never a slam dunk: about three times the number of Georgia citizens need this kind of support than there is available funds. What’s particularly miraculous is that the word on the street is that funding generally goes to those who are most aggressive in advocating for it. Aside from just a couple of phone calls and emails and attending one rally in February (where the above photo was taken), our primary form of advocacy has been prayer. Clearly, that kind of advocacy works wonders of its own.
Here’s Fran’s message: (more…)
Flannery O’Connor and Betty Hester
Here’s a little teaser article about the recently-released O’Connor-Hester letters.
How (Not) to Speak of God
How (Not) to Speak of God
By Peter Rollins
Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006
Review by Carl McColman
Peter Rollins is a postmodern theorist and the founder and facilitator of Norther Ireland’s Ikon, a gathering of people who are re-visioning Christian community and worship within a postmodern/emerging church framework. How (Not) to Speak of God is a short book in which he sketches out a contemporary apophatic theological vision and then situates it in a practical sense by recounting ten of Ikon’s services, which come across like liturgical performance art happenings. It’s a short book, perhaps too short, with a mere 80 pages for the outlining of Rollins’ theology and another 60 pages devoted to describing the services. It left this reader hungry for more, which I suppose in itself is a good thing. (more…)
