Comment

Revival Among the Techies Many in Silicon Valley are turning to Christianity. Is it just the next spiritual craze, or is genuine revival happening?

“There’s energy here, but is there revival? It depends on what happens once the parking lot empties and the worshippers fly home.”

Kate Lucky on revival in Silicon Valley.

Negotiating the Invisible The Fujimuras review "Kyoto," a play that shows the complexities and complicities of climate policy.

“This is the invitation of holy dissidence: to become stewards, not warriors.”

@iamfujimura.bsky.social and Haejin Shim Fujimura on “Kyoto” and the art of beholding.

Sequences of Sin The depiction of evil in Robert Bresson's film "L'Argent" displays surprising resonance with Gregory of Nyssa's understanding of sin.

“God is deeply involved in creation. He does not simply leave the sequence of evil to progress endlessly, does not let evil “work itself out,” but responds by creating a new sequence, that of salvation.”

All Things Come to Be Through Strife The thought of Czech dissident philosopher Jan Patočka represents a bold way of maintaining openness to the truth, whatever the cost.

“For Patočka, the life in truth is a political life: it is forged in times of uncertainty, when assumptions about the nature of what is and what is possible come undone, so that the question of what we want our lives to be like is raised anew, or perhaps for the first time.”

The Table of Dissent Gregory Thompson explores Christian dissidence in the forms of contemplation, criticism, and conviviality.

“I confess I have wondered whether, despite its restless and self-assured energy, my dissidence might at times be masking a deeper conformity. That I, rather than standing meaningfully apart from our great civilizational bar fight, might actually be simply one more participant in it.”

Humanitarian Health Care Millions of people today face dire medical and mental health challenges. What role should the church play in foreign humanitarian aid to address starvation and deadly illness? In this episode, Eric…

What role should the church play in addressing starvation and deadly illness?

Eric Ha, CEO of Medical Teams International, reflects on the decline of US foreign aid, the limitations of humanitarian response, and the need for churches to reclaim their historic role in caring for the vulnerable.

The Sifted Portraits of steadfast conviction.

Kate Schmidgall shares a photo essay with stories written for the weary—vignettes of holy dissidence in Washington, DC.

Meet Jonathan Tate of Food on the Stove, Steve and Mary Park of Little Lights, and others making shalom visible in their communities.

A Populism of Solidarity Amber Lapp attends the Rural Revival Festival and finds hope for a populism that brings people together rather than dividing them.

“Is there a populism of solidarity? A populism that is not polarizing but pluralistic—that brings people together across divides instead of further dividing?”

Amber Lapp travelled to Spruce Pine, North Carolina, to find out.
comment.org/a-populism-o...

A Virtue Divided Public shame is an unreliable motivator for good, and when we relieve our own collective shame by placing blame rather than sharing it, it creates defiant blowback.

“If we are to learn to speak a common language of virtue once more, we will need to better understand the workings of shame in and through our societies.”

The Search for a Durable Identity What is our true self? Where do we find identity? Kevin Brown argues that what we seek in identity is durability, roots, and obligation.

“Our sense of value is durable when it can be described as only loosely correlated with social approval, achievement, or adulation as well as failure, ridicule, or disappointment.”

Decoy Enlightenment Psychedelics are promoted as a gateway to spiritual experience and enlightenment, but Ashley Lande, a former enthusiast, believes they are a roadblock.

“We don’t control where psychedelics take us because we don’t control the spiritual forces that can and do work through them.”

The Table of Dissent Gregory Thompson explores Christian dissidence in the forms of contemplation, criticism, and conviviality.

“For Capon, however, the world—the gratuitously teeming, verdant, and fructifying world—was neither a resource to be exploited nor a prison to be escaped, but a gift to be received with delight and lifted up with joy.”

Live Not by Lies Even When You’re Winning Christians and social conservatives may worry about groupthink and coercion when the Left is in power. What concerns remain when things change?

“While the virtuous ones may be asked to serve, they must be willing to follow Christ to the cross if needed, to relinquish power rather than injure their integrity.”

Decoy Enlightenment Psychedelics are promoted as a gateway to spiritual experience and enlightenment, but Ashley Lande, a former enthusiast, believes they are a roadblock.

“I hesitate to use the term “psychedelic” in any kind of a positive way, yet I’ve had the thought that birth is psychedelic in a way that the “best” trip can only ever mimic, and very poorly.”

Live Not by Lies Even When You’re Winning Christians and social conservatives may worry about groupthink and coercion when the Left is in power. What concerns remain when things change?

“It’s difficult to be good and be in power, though not impossible. One must be content to “be obscurely good.” If the rest of the world values vice, then the good person must choose not to be their king.”

@hootenwilson.bsky.social on virtue and power.
comment.org/live-not-by-...

The Table of Dissent Greg Thompson explores Christian dissidence in the forms of contemplation, criticism, and conviviality.

“Because Baldwin believed that self-deceit lies at the heart of both personal and civilizational abuses of power, his dissidence took the form of a relentless commitment to telling the truth.”

Gregory Thompson on Christian dissidence in the forms of contemplation, criticism, and conviviality.

A Virtue Divided Public shame is an unreliable motivator for good, and when we relieve our own collective shame by placing blame rather than sharing it, it creates defiant blowback.

“The externalization and weaponization of shame for social transformation is a recipe for social splintering, not solidarity.”

The Search for a Durable Identity What is our true self? Where do we find identity? Kevin Brown argues that what we seek in identity is durability, roots, and obligation.

“Perhaps the desire to liberate the self from situational commitments is not so much emancipatory as it is an act of uprootedness, making us susceptible to isolation and fragility.”

Decoy Enlightenment Psychedelics are promoted as a gateway to spiritual experience and enlightenment, but Ashley Lande, a former enthusiast, believes they are a roadblock.

“Generic platitudes about embracing the dark and the light or claims that “the Universe will give you what you need” reveal their vapidity in the face of actual suffering.”

Just Say No Drugs, demons and the limits of "radical pragmatism," being an introduction to the September Material Mysticism

Intro to this month’s Material Mysticism at @commentmagazine.bsky.social : millinerd.substack.com/p/just-say-no

Decoy Enlightenment Psychedelics are promoted as a gateway to spiritual experience and enlightenment, but Ashley Lande, a former enthusiast, believes they are a roadblock.

“I think people are perhaps slowly realizing that psychedelics simply cannot deliver on the promises their proponents aver, and a gradual disillusionment is taking place.”

@millinerd.bsky.social interviews Ashley Lande on psychedelics and Christianity.

The Search for a Durable Identity What is our true self? Where do we find identity? Kevin Brown argues that what we seek in identity is durability, roots, and obligation.

“Social responsibilities are anathema to modernism’s penchant for an unencumbered self that associates liberty with a lack of restraint and an expansion of choice.”

A Virtue Divided Public shame is an unreliable motivator for good, and when we relieve our own collective shame by placing blame rather than sharing it, it creates defiant blowback.

“Even though we may start by talking about systems and structures that implicate us, we all face many temptations to remove the shame from ourselves by pinpointing instead the transgressions of others, ostensibly using the shame of that transgression to persuade these others to reform.”

The Search for a Durable Identity What is our true self? Where do we find identity? Kevin Brown argues that what we seek in identity is durability, roots, and obligation.

“We are persons over individuals—defined not simply by internal self-understanding but by a bonded web of meaningful associations.”

Kevin Brown, president of Asbury University, on the search for a durable identity.
comment.org/the-search-f...

A Virtue Divided Public shame is an unreliable motivator for good, and when we relieve our own collective shame by placing blame rather than sharing it, it creates defiant blowback.

“If we are to learn to speak a common language of virtue once more, we will need to better understand the workings of shame in and through our societies.”

Christa Ballard Tooley on shame, defiance, and the meaning of courage.

What It Means to Never Forget Twenty-four years after 9/11, survivors of the attack, many of whom are experiencing long-term health struggles, are still fighting for support from the government.

“Remembrance cannot stop at ceremonies, memorials, or flags at half-staff. To “never forget” is also to never forget the human cost that unfolded that day and is still unfolding.”

All Things Come to Be Through Strife The thought of Czech dissident philosopher Jan Patočka represents a bold way of maintaining openness to the truth, whatever the cost.

“Asking questions, refusing to see the point, calmly going about living in ways that are out of step with the times: these activities lay the foundation for a genuine politics that is based on neither low-rent ideology nor cynical pragmatism.”

Quo Vadis? In the swirl of today's conflicting moral urgencies, what does resistance look like?

“To be a Christian dissident was to speak truths that pierced the atmospheric lie, to stand as a still point of eternal reference before a repressive machine intent on remaking the social order on its greedy, paranoid, or utopian terms.”

What It Means to Never Forget Twenty-four years after 9/11, survivors of the attack, many of whom are experiencing long-term health struggles, are still fighting for support from the government.

“Now, on the twenty-fourth anniversary of 9/11, I know I’ll hear many promises that we will “never forget.” For me, that vow has meant sharing my testimony—how my faith was rebuilt in the ashes of that day.”

Christina Ray Stanton on what it means to “never forget.”

The Zones of Our Interest Philosopher Hannah Arendt speaks of a conventional morality that can tolerate much evil in the name of maintaining domestic and even civic stability.

“Christians should not require a polis to orient our responsibility, which knows no limit. All our neighbours and even our enemies are entitled to our love.”

Elizabeth Stice on the failure of conventional morality in the face of radical evil.