“Against Christian Civilization.” Paul Kingsnorth’s Erasmus Lecture is now out in essay form: “I believe there is wisdom to be found for us, in this disintegrating age, not in crusading knights or Christian nationalists, not in emperors or soldiers, but in the mystics, the ascetics, the hermits of the caves, and the wild saints of the forest and the desert. These were the people who built a real Christian culture. So did the simple, everyday lovers of God in the world, who tended to the poor and the sick for no reward. As the gates of Rome were breached by Goths, as Ireland and England were invaded by Vikings, as the Ottomans overcame Constantinople, as the communists dynamited cathedrals and crucified monks, they kept on. They did their work. They did not fight for civilization; they fought for Christ. And they fought not with swords, but with prayer and with active love for their neighbors and enemies. Without that love, the devil wins.”
“Family Matters.” In this beautiful essay, Alan Jacobs reflects on Christopher Lasch, Wendell Berry, Robert Frost, and his own experience in both badly broken and beautifully redemptive homes: “As our socio-economic order has extended itself into what I call metaphysical capitalism, its power to penetrate and demolish all would-be havens has only increased. It strives to render us all homeless, and then to sell us the goods and services that, it is claimed, compensate for any and all losses. And homelessness is a key concept here. The comforts intrinsic to family life are those that arise from what a family at its best does, which is to make a home.”
“The Holy Family and Mine.” Nadya Williams tries to make sense of her estrangement from her parents and how those who experience broken homes and families (which is, after all, all of us in one way or another) experience the redemptive promise of Christmas keenly: “After a decade, my estrangement leaves me numb rather than in full-fledged pain. But as I prepare to celebrate Christmas, it adds another dimension of longing for the promises that Christ’s birth holds out for us all. This is a season in which we speak often of reconciliation and decorate our homes and churches with images of a perfect family—the holy family, with a doting Mary and Joseph leaning over the baby in the manger, as if they don’t have a care in the world.”
“Modernity Makes Us Spiritually Sick: Or Why You Should Read Byung-Chul Han.” Samuel James does an excellent job of distilling Han’s basic arguments: “Han’s work covers a wide ground. But I’d summarize his most essential insights this way: In the modern, post-religious world, there are connected yet distinct “shapers” of selfhood. They have economic, political, religious, and cultural aspects; they exist within the plausibility structures of wealth, capitalism, technology, and belief. What are these shapers of the self? For Han, the three most important may be achievement culture, digitalization, and secularism.”
“To Hell With Good Intentions, Silicon Valley Edition.” L.M. Sacasas draws on Ivan Illich to ask some necessary questions about the “good” that AI boosters promise: “If I were to become the ideal user of the technology you would have me adopt, would I be more fully human as a result? Would my agency and skill be further developed? Would my experience of community and friendship be enriched? Would my capacity to care for others be enhanced? Would my delight in the world be deepened? Would you be inviting me into a way of life that was, well, alive?”
“What if Charity Shouldn’t Be Optimized?” Emma Goldberg questions effective altruism’s mode of quantifying generosity: “There’s nothing wrong with the desire to measure the value of our giving. But there’s also nothing wrong with thinking expansively about that value, or the tools for measuring it. Maybe a neighbor giving to another neighbor is what one fractured street needs. Maybe making someone else’s life magnificent is hard to price.”
“‘The Hornet’s Nest’: How Seven Wealthy Summer Residents Halted Workforce Housing on Mount Desert Island.” Josh Keefe looks at a heated dispute over housing in a small Maine town as a microcosm of the housing debates taking place across the country: “The project proponents say the island desperately needs housing and year-round residents, and the Heel Way subdivision would be an important, if small, step. Many see the lawsuit as an example of a NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) attitude that has limited housing development across the country. Opponents, meanwhile, say they support workforce housing but think the Heel Way project is flawed, with too many units on too small a plot — out of character for the neighborhood.” (Recommended by Dominic Garzonio.)
“The Wood at Midwinter.” Lucy S. R. Austen reviews Susanna Clarke’s new Christmas story: “‘Saints do shocking things,’ Apple the pig tells her friends the dogs. ‘It’s what makes them saints.’ But it’s not the shock value that makes a saint. As both Merowdis and Ysolde discover in the course of the story, saints do shocking things for love. And that changes everything.” Having recently read Clarke’s lovely Piranesi, I’m now hoping to pick up this new book.
“A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life.” David McPherson reviews Zena Hitz’s recent book and ponders what healthy detachment or renunciation of earthly goods might entail. He finds an image of this stance in Dostoevsky’s great novel: “An example of achieving the synthesis through loving attention to the given goods of the world can be found in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which centers on a monastery and the nearby town. We see a problematic worldliness in the sensualism of Dmitri and Fyodor Karamazov, which leads to despair (thesis), and a problematic renunciative position in Ivan Karamazov, who wants to hand back his ‘ticket’ to life in the world, denying its worthwhileness in the face of evil and suffering (antithesis). A different problematic renunciative position is also found in Father Ferapont, who epitomizes an unhealthy, life-denying asceticism. But we are offered a vision of proper renunciation and affirmation of the world in Father Zosima and his novice Alyosha Karamazov (who ends up being commissioned to live something like a monastic life within family life), where through spiritual practices—including prayer, fasting, obedience, and ‘active love’—one comes to a fuller relationship with the world, seeing it as fundamentally good (‘life is paradise’); indeed, through practicing love for created things, Zosima says, we can ‘perceive the divine mystery in things’ and come to an ‘all-embracing love’ (1976, 298).”
“The Practical Wisdom of Eva Brann.” Zena Hitz remembers the life and wisdom of a long-time teacher and administrator at St. John’s College. In explaining what motivated Miss Brann’s additions to the college reading list, Hitz writes, “The motivation for these changes was not a vaguely formulated and legally vetted administrative formula, nor middle-class embarrassment, nor fear of public shaming. Rather it was enthusiasm for these authors and for their books. Is there a better testimony for The Souls of Black Folk than a single conversation lasting half the night? Eva understood in her bones that the mission of an institution is formed and preserved by zeal. Just as we can only serve one master, our hearts permit only one ultimate zeal.”
“‘Dumbed-Down Catholicism Was a Disaster.’” Molly Worthen on Bishop Barron is well-worth reading. She situates his popular ministry within the masculinity malaise and media ecology debates: “The bishop’s ambitions extend far beyond YouTube. He wants to build a real-life network—priests and laity gathering in Word on Fire centers around the country. More than that, he is scouting a future for Christianity: a Church that embraces the internet as an evangelizing tool, refuses to assimilate to mainstream culture, and welcomes the young men who are beginning to outnumber women in the pews. Driving this mission is a simple but risky bet: that many seekers don’t want a faith that is easy and accessible. They want something difficult and strange.”
