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A La Carte (12/30)
- 12/30/09
- 5
Flying High
Christopher Hitchens on the latest terrorist attempt: “It’s getting to the point where the twin news stories more or less write themselves. No sooner is the fanatical and homicidal Muslim arrested than it turns out that he (it won’t be long until it is also she) has been known to the authorities for a long time. But somehow the watch list, the tipoff, the many worried reports from colleagues and relatives, the placing of the name on a “central repository of information” don’t prevent the suspect from boarding a plane, changing planes, or bringing whatever he cares to bring onto a plane.”
Voyage
Christine Dente, formerly of Out of the Grey, has just released a new album that is based on The Valley of Vision. Though it looks intriguing, I haven’t been able to find it at iTunes (it is supposed to show up there in January).
The Joy of the Reformed
Anthony Selvaggio: “I did my own assessment of my Reformed experience and, I must admit, I had to agree that ‘joyful’ was not one of the first adjectives that came to my mind to describe it. Then I began to contemplate why the Reformed church seems to be lacking in the joy department.”
How To Destroy the Book
In this article Cory Doctorow writes about new realities confronting readers as books increasingly become digital. I loved this bit of it: “If you’re making a short film, and you want to illustrate a society that’s falling into tyranny, you can just cut away to a scene of a pile of books burning, and everyone will know exactly what you meant. If you want to indicate that a character in a book is very sympathetic, and you mention how much she loves reading and going to the library, then your readers will immediately show sympathy for her. Books have this penumbra of virtues, they ooze virtue, and it’s long beyond anything rational or reasonable, because all of you who are people of the book know that there are many books that are absolutely unworthy of that virtue, and yet—and yet—when I worked in a bookstore and had to strip paperbacks to send them back, it was painful to tear the covers off of books. I can barely bring myself to recycle the phone book every year.”
Virtually Divorced from Reality
From the Courant: “There are plenty of assaults on marriages these days, but the attack from cyberspace is rapidly widening. And as the prevalence of Internet obsession grows, it is turning up more and more as a factor in divorce cases.”
Deal of the Day: Sproul Commentaries
RHB has R.C. Sproul’s two new commentaries (John and Romans) at 50% off. They aren’t likely to last long at that price…
Christopher Hitchens on the latest terrorist attempt: “It’s getting to the point where the twin news stories more or less write themselves. No sooner is the fanatical and homicidal Muslim arrested than it turns out that he (it won’t be long until it is also she) has been known to the authorities for a long time. But somehow the watch list, the tipoff, the many worried reports from colleagues and relatives, the placing of the name on a “central repository of information” don’t prevent the suspect from boarding a plane, changing planes, or bringing whatever he cares to bring onto a plane.”
Voyage
Christine Dente, formerly of Out of the Grey, has just released a new album that is based on The Valley of Vision. Though it looks intriguing, I haven’t been able to find it at iTunes (it is supposed to show up there in January).
The Joy of the Reformed
Anthony Selvaggio: “I did my own assessment of my Reformed experience and, I must admit, I had to agree that ‘joyful’ was not one of the first adjectives that came to my mind to describe it. Then I began to contemplate why the Reformed church seems to be lacking in the joy department.”
How To Destroy the Book
In this article Cory Doctorow writes about new realities confronting readers as books increasingly become digital. I loved this bit of it: “If you’re making a short film, and you want to illustrate a society that’s falling into tyranny, you can just cut away to a scene of a pile of books burning, and everyone will know exactly what you meant. If you want to indicate that a character in a book is very sympathetic, and you mention how much she loves reading and going to the library, then your readers will immediately show sympathy for her. Books have this penumbra of virtues, they ooze virtue, and it’s long beyond anything rational or reasonable, because all of you who are people of the book know that there are many books that are absolutely unworthy of that virtue, and yet—and yet—when I worked in a bookstore and had to strip paperbacks to send them back, it was painful to tear the covers off of books. I can barely bring myself to recycle the phone book every year.”
Virtually Divorced from Reality
From the Courant: “There are plenty of assaults on marriages these days, but the attack from cyberspace is rapidly widening. And as the prevalence of Internet obsession grows, it is turning up more and more as a factor in divorce cases.”
Deal of the Day: Sproul Commentaries
RHB has R.C. Sproul’s two new commentaries (John and Romans) at 50% off. They aren’t likely to last long at that price…
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Comments (5)
I found Anthony Selvaggio’s comments interesting on several levels. One that was not the point of his article: his distinction between “Evangelicals” and “Reformed.” I think many Evangelicals who are Reformed in their theology (and some perhaps in their church polity) would be quite surprised to learn that Selvaggio assumes you have to be one or the other. What definition is he using of “Evangelical/evangelicalims” that separates it by necessity from “Reformed”?
Wow. That is a deal on the Sproul commentaries. Got my order in before they are gone.
@ Bob - The terms are not mutually exclusive. Evangelical is broader. Reformed entails more theological specifics.
@ Tim (or others) - Selvaggio seems to suggest the Reformed have neglected joy (which is true, in measure). I think an even bigger challenge is that bad experiences with emotionalism in broader Christondom has made many Reformed folks like my friends and I are skeptical at best (cynical at worst) about joy. Granted, joy is much bigger than expression, enthusiasm, and emotion, but they are one central outlet of joy. If we stifle such expression, we will have bonsai’d joy. As Piper has noted, the expression is part of the reality of joy.
Loved Out of the Grey! The new project sounds very promising. Thanks for the link.
On bibliophilia:
Years ago I was perusing the book section in one of my favorite thrift shops in Chicago, and I noticed a man taking quite a few books off the shelves and placing them in boxes, which he then carried to the cashier’s stand. I was several people behind him in line. As I was paying for my purchases, I casually asked the cashier if she knew why this man had bought so many books. She told me that he worked for a film production company, and that he frequently came to that store to buy large quantities of old hardback books —- because someone discovered that such books make good explosion scenes. I was horrified.