AZspot

"Whether we’re talking about Jerry Falwell chauvinism or Marx-inflected Latin American Catholicism,..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 10:18:39 +0100

“Whether we’re talking about Jerry Falwell chauvinism or Marx-inflected Latin American Catholicism, all churches have been pulled into the political orbit by the steady bureaucratization and “professional” mediation of modern life. There are precious few remaining communal mediators or support structures, apart from the vestigial nuclear family, between the person and the state, apart from what’s called civil society—which is the embodiment (if I may be permitted a pun) of precisely what Illich described as depersonalizing and disembodying institutions, run by the state’s retainer class.”

- Stan Goff

"The transition to socialism cannot be effected without an inversion of our present institutions and..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:44:25 +0100

“The transition to socialism cannot be effected without an inversion of our present institutions and the substitution of convivial for industrial tools. At the same time, the retooling of society will remain a pious dream unless the ideals of socialist justice prevail. I believe that the present crisis of our major institutions ought to be welcomed as a crisis of revolutionary liberation because our present institutions abridge basic human freedom for the sake of providing people with more institutional outputs. This world-wide crisis of world-wide institutions can lead to a new consciousness about the nature of tools and to majority action for their control. If tools are not controlled politically, they will be managed in a belated technocratic response to disaster. Freedom and dignity will continue to dissolve into an unprecedented enslavement of man to his tools.”

- Ivan Illich

'Where, Exactly, This Is All Heading'

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:11:21 +0100

'Where, Exactly, This Is All Heading':

The high-profile interviews mentioned here tell us “where this is heading” — toward some cross between Tucker Carlson and Kenneth Copeland. Picture Nick Fuentes with a fleet of Jesus jets. That ain’t “revival.” That is not compatible with any credible meaning of “revival.”

I mean, like, the Second Klan was a nominally Christian organization that swelled to some 5 million members in the 1920s (back when the total population of the country was only about 120 million or so). That was “viral” and it had the sign of the cross, but I wouldn’t describe it as “revival.”

And also too, I realize that I am about to turn 58 and I am therefore irremediably out-of-touch with Kids These Days, but are Tucker Carlson (57) and Kenneth Copeland (89) really Gen-Z icons?

And isn’t the whole confrontational man-on-the-street shove-a-mic-in-a-stranger’s-face style of “street preaching” a little past it’s sell-by date at this point? If this kid is trying to bring that 2010s shtick back into vogue, I suppose that’d be a “revival,” but in a different sense of the word.

"Moreover, in The Reinvention of Work, Matthew dwells on the notion of ritual as remembrance, so well..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:34:56 +0100

“Moreover, in The Reinvention of Work, Matthew dwells on the notion of ritual as remembrance, so well expressed by Abraham Heschel. Much of what the Bible demands — writes Heschel — can be can be comprised in one word: Remember. But what does this mean? Heschel explains: It is a recollection of how we have once been blessed by the manifestation of the divine presence in our lives.”

- Making Rituals for Our Troubled Days

Wondermark

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:53 +0100

Wondermark

"Indeed, I would submit that any program for the Great Books in 2026 should include a wide range of..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 07:26:31 +0100

“Indeed, I would submit that any program for the Great Books in 2026 should include a wide range of authors from different places, times, and demographics. My own list of those works would likely span from Baldwin’s Another Country, Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved through W.E. Sebald’s Austerlitz, Robert Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, Marilyn Robinson’s Gilead, and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”

- Immersive Versus Close Reading

"Well, first, I’ve got to start with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because when I was in high..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 06:51:32 +0100

“Well, first, I’ve got to start with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because when I was in high school and college, there were basically three kinds of kids: There were the J.R.R. Tolkien kids that were way too dorky. Then there were the Ayn Rand kids, who you don’t trust to run anything. And then there were the Douglas Adams kids, and those were kind people. They were curious, they were interested, and that was a universe that really appealed to me.”

- Ian Bremmer

I am in need of help.

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 06:18:30 +0100

I am in need of help.:

A few months ago I was in a conversation with two other Christian writers, when one of them put her mug of coffee down and said, Can I ask you guys something - Why are we all still church people? I was taken aback but it’s not a bad question given the high crimes and misdemeanors of the church. Not to mention the rise of white Christian nationalism – all those churches out there filled with people being fed spoonsful of xenophobia and told it is Jesus. Given all of it, she asked why in the world we would still be showing up for, of all things, church??

In the past I would have offered a theological argument or a suitable defense of the institution.

But this time, I barely had time to think before my answer came out and it surprised me, Because I have spent most of my life trying to be as strong and self-sufficient as I possibly can. But when asked recently why am I still a church person - I quietly answered, Because I am in need of help. Perhaps now more than ever. I need help to pray, help to forgive (mostly myself and also others), help to remember that there is a bigger, truer story than the one I am being sold every day of my life on the internet.

I am, as the gospel song goes-standing in the need of prayer. And I assume I am not alone in that.

Photo

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:43:39 +0100

"The reality was that the whole purpose of NATO was to defend Europe from the Warsaw Pact. When the..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:10:54 +0100

“The reality was that the whole purpose of NATO was to defend Europe from the Warsaw Pact. When the Soviet Union dissolved, there was no longer a Warsaw Pact. There was no purpose for NATO to continue. And as a matter of fact, there were talks about ending NATO. What ended up happening was that a bunch of weapons manufacturers got together and formed the committee to expand NATO and showered Congress with lobbying, campaign contributions, the whole works, and then the discussion was, okay, let’s expand NATO.”

- Ben Cohen

"More Americans know their Zodiac sign than know their blood type and, like most millennial women, I..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:34:38 +0100

“More Americans know their Zodiac sign than know their blood type and, like most millennial women, I spent my first few decades living and dying by this sword.”

- Astrology Isn’t Just Untrue, It’s Unjust

James Cone & the Invention of Black Liberation Theology

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:00:29 +0100

James Cone & the Invention of Black Liberation Theology:

But the line that organizes his whole life is the one he repeated to anyone who would listen: Martin taught him how to be a Christian, and Malcolm taught him how to be Black. He spent ten years — the most gratifying research of his career, he called it — setting the two men side by side in Martin and Malcolm in America. And his argument was never that you choose. It was that you cannot have either one without the other.

Malcolm keeps Martin from being turned into a harmless American hero. Martin keeps Malcolm from being an ostracized Black one. We need both of them, Cone said, and we need them together. Both were cut down by the very people they were trying to free — Malcolm by Black men he loved while trying to liberate them from self-hatred, Martin by white men he loved while trying to free them from racism. Cone refused to let either death get tidied into a lesson.

Paul Duginski

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 03:26:29 +0100

Paul Duginski

"The words ‘many are called, but few are chosen’ are singularly appropriate here, for the development..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 02:52:37 +0100

“The words ‘many are called, but few are chosen’ are singularly appropriate here, for the development of personality from the germ-state to full consciousness is at once a charisma and a curse, because its first fruit is the conscious and unavoidable segregation of the single individual from the undifferentiated and unconscious herd. This means isolation, and there is no more comforting word for it. Neither family nor society nor position can save him from this fate, nor yet the most successful adaptation to his environment, however smoothly he fits in. The development of personality is a favour that must be paid for dearly.”

- Carl Jung

"Establishment is a prison for the established religion just as much as it is for all of the other..."

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 02:18:38 +0100

“Establishment is a prison for the established religion just as much as it is for all of the other sects and slight-variations of that religion that establishment would officially forbid or disfavor. It puts the government in charge as the arbiter of true religion and true orthodoxy, inviting and empowering that government to determine the difference, and to enforce that determination with the sword.”

- Fred Clark

Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, For Pete Hegseth Tells Me So

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:44:45 +0100

Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, For Pete Hegseth Tells Me So:

Lee — a far-right, ultra-MAGA senator — then wound up spending much of his weekend on Twitter, replying to white evangelicals and fundamentalists condemning his faith as heresy and apostasy and a lie from the pits of Hell. That’s not a new thing, mind you — evangelicals and Latter-day Saints have long regarded one another as false or mistaken religions and each has long considered the other to be a legitimate target for proselytizing, as people who need to convert and get saved lest they suffer eternal peril. But most of these Twitter Christians were not trying to evangelize. They were, instead, celebrating the exclusion of LDS believers as a victory for the hegemony of their forms of Christianity and of religion.

Photo

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 01:10:28 +0100

Are Mormons Christian? A Series Of Unhelpful Questions

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:34:29 +0100

Are Mormons Christian? A Series Of Unhelpful Questions

Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:26:30 +0100

Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse:

Tate presided over an online network called the War Room, in which, for a fee of about eight thousand dollars a year, he promised to “free the modern man from socially induced incarceration.” Members learned how to recruit women into “sexual slavery” in a series of tutorials that Tate called his Ph.D., or “Pimping Hoes Degree.” He had used Pencov as a teaching case, reporting on her subjugation over the secure messaging app Telegram. “I’ve done this with over 100 girls,” he told members. “I almost sound evil. But I’m not. I’m a shepard. Leading the sheep.”

"First as a Russian émigré in Western Europe writing in his native tongue and then as an American..."

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 22:18:32 +0100

“First as a Russian émigré in Western Europe writing in his native tongue and then as an American writing in English, Nabokov produced a number of books that, simply as feats of narrative enchantment, came perilously close to perfection. His greatest works—a category that unquestionably comprises The Defense (1930), The Gift (1938), Lolita (1955), Pale Fire (1962), and Speak, Memory (1967), and that arguably also includes Despair (1934), Invitation to a Beheading (1936), The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941), and Pnin (1957)—bear witness to their author’s almost uncanny ability to make his own delight in the act of creation immediately felt by his reader.”

- Nabokov’s Supernatural Secret