The Sinfulness of Abundance

Here is a fascinating passage from Eugene McCarraher’s recent review in Books and Culture, “Break on Through to the Other Side.”

The Confession of Sin makes no sense unless the world is a place of abundance. A world of scarcity—the ontological template of capitalist economics—mandates a “balancing” of virtues, a mealy allocation of limited resources in [...]

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Getting to the Bottom

I want to offer a quotation sandwich. When I read these quotes Barak Obama came to mind as he appears to be running on the Jim Wallis “Religious Values Matter” campaign (check out Obama’s speech “Call to Renewal”). I have to be honest, I am very intrigued by Obama, but for all his [...]

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Beyond the Narrative? Part 1: The Problem of Joining Hands

When I was in seminary I began a thesis that I never finished. It was going to be on the nature of the socio-linguistic boundary(ies) between the Church and the World specifically within the theology of Stanley Hauerwas. The central question of the thesis was how it was that we communicate the gospel with [...]

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In Defense of Young Boys

A rather cheeky post has recently appeared on Danny Jenkins’ “Musing on the Theo-Political,” entitled “What Stanley Hauerwas Does to Young Boys.” The post consisted entirely of a quote from Halden’s post about why he isn’t going to vote, wherein he argues that voting is merely a choice between two terrible options that have [...]

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Religious, Not Spiritual

“I think of myself as religious but not spiritual. Partial to the sensuous, communal, and cerebral forms of ritual and text, I’ve always considered ‘spirituality’ too ethereal and invertebrate a way of being.”

Lately I’ve been reading as many articles and book reviews by Eugene McCarraher as possible. I find his work to offer [...]

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