Owner: America's Young Theologian - The Life and Theology of Dan Morehead URL:http://americasyoungtheologian.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:59:05 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: America's Young Theologian seeks to bring you, not simply music, poetry and mirth, but theological biography and biographical theology. Site statistics:Click here
misc | On Mascots 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I'm from Illinois, and think it's about time we killed Chief Illiniwek; making native Americans parade around barefoot for our entertainment is not what colonizers do...look to history, death is the answer. No, seriously, I'm glad to see the mascot go. When I attended Wheaton College as an undergraduate, we still had The Crusaders as a mascot. I suggested that we change it to The Muslim Slayers. You wouldn't even have to change the costume! Well, I guess I should say something worthwhile after those sentences. So, from George Lindbeck:Thus for a Christian, "God is Three and One," or "Christ is Lord" are true only as parts of a total pattern of speaking, thinking, feeling, and acting. They are false when their use in any given instance is inconsistent with what the pattern as a whole affirms of God's being and will. The crusader's battle cry "Christus est Dominus," for example, is false when used to authorize cleaving the skull of the infidel (even though the same words in other c
poem | Sickness And Death 2007-03-15 15:05:00 Having just spent a long and tedious two weeks in a hospital bed which gave me plenty of time to think and read back issues of Poetry Magazine, I thought I'd share a poem from Gottfried Benn (1886-1956), widely considered the foremost German poet of literary modernity:RestaurantThe gentleman over there orders another pint,well, that's nice, then I don't need to worryif I have another myself in due course.Trouble is, one straightaway thinks one is addicted,I even read in an American magazinethat every cigarette you smoke takes thirty-six miutes off your life,I don't believe that, presumably it's the chewing gum industrythat's behind that, or Coca-Cola.A normal life and a normal death --I don't know what they're good for. Even a normal lifeends in an unhealthy death. Although deathdoesn't have a lot to do with health and sickness,it merely uses them for its own purposes.Wheat do you mean: death doesn't have a lot to do with sickness?I mean this: a lot of people get sick without Read more:Sickness
travel | Under The Tuscan Sky 2007-03-17 04:25:00 [AYT across the Arno from the Uffizi - Firenze, Italia][The Duomo and Giotto's Campanile - Firenze, Italia][Ponte Vecchio in the Evening - Firenze, Italia]For other pictures of Florence, including my lovely traveling companion and L'Hotel Villa La Vedetta, see my Flickr set.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Travel][Florence]
music | You Are The Bluest Light 2007-03-18 01:37:00 [Bloc Party Concert - Edinburgh Corn Exchange - 20 February 2007]Bloc Party rocked out live. It was clear that the audience was more familiar with the tracks off the first album and the first single off their sophomore release, but the tempo rarely dropped and the crowd was enthusiastic. Energy, sweat, beer. Great show.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Music][Bloc Party]
film | Flags Of Our Fathers 2007-03-18 18:15:00 I went to see a movie and as it turns out, I neither saw the movie I intended to see nor did I see a movie but rather a four minute song stretched over two hours and eleven minutes. Let me explain. First, I intended to see The Queen, a movie that I feel is worth seeing but fails to generate the excitement necessary to do so. So when I arrived at the theater, any quality film being shown at roughly the same time would have been a temptation.As it turns out, it was Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers
that lured me into a seat, popcorn in hand. The film was back in the theater as a companion piece to Letters from Iwo Jima, which finally was being screened in Aberdeen. Flags of Our Fathers is a solid movie, telling the story of the battle of Iwo Jima and the impact of the infamous photograph taken at the top of Mt. Suribachi. The basic message of the movie is that heroes are something that are created to help justify or give hope in the face of the atrocities of war. These myths that ar
film | "It's All Gone Pete Tong" 2006-05-04 20:34:00 I've seen a lot of great films this year. While slowly working through the best of Woody Allen, I've found time for recent films like "Capote" or "Caché" while still working through classics like Bresson's "The Diary of a Country Priest," a movie all seminarians should be required to view, or Antonioni's "The Passenger," which revisited theaters late in 2005 prior to a DVD release.With so many great films, why would I write about a less exceptional film which came out last year and made $120,620 at the U.S. Box Office? For the following reasons: I've been wanting to see the film since coming across a review last spring, I assume you've not seen (or heard of) it, and the movie works.The movie begins with Frankie Wilde sitting atop the throne of the worldwide club scene as a DJ phenom. The title "It's All Gone Pete Tong
" is Cockney rhyming slang for "It's all gone wrong."[The title fits both the plot structure and subject, since Pete Tong is a well-known British DJ. Pete Tong
review | Woody Allen's "Match Point" 2006-01-16 20:02:00 "Match
Point" is WoodyAllen
's best film in years for the following reasons: effective pacing, and unwavering narrative and philosopical clarity without predictability. A full review
is unnecessary, since much has been written about the movie already (see Roger Ebert or the NYTimes). The movie succeeds because it is true to it's premises. First, Allen's latest is true to Allen. It is full-blown nihilism at its narrative best without needing to employ characters and situations too dark for an audience to relate. The characters are not good, but neither do they seem to be beyond those with whom one normally interacts. The central focus of the movie is life’s contingency or how luck determines our lives. With this focus, a predictable outcome would destroy an unpredictable movie. The movie stays true to its premise and the end does not disappoint. The other pitfall it avoids is allowing the winds of fate to blow the plot so randomly that it leaves the audience either lost or Read more:Woody Allen
misc | A Trip Through The Wires 2007-03-21 15:20:00 Apparently a November interview that I taped with Carlos Watson in Princeton about the Democratic front-runners for 2008 recently aired as I got an excited email from one of my favorite people in NC. Among other things I apparently said, "I think America is ready for a female president." Of the DNC front-runners, I think Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most substantive candidate.A humorous line from a NYTimes.com article about Al Gore's return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday reads: "Mr. Gore stood with Leonardo DiCaprio at the Oscars, Queen Latifah at the Grammys and is on a first-name basis with the rapper Ludacris (O.K., so Ludacris only has one name, but still.)"Lastly, a review of Terry Eagleton's The Meaning of Life: "The cosmos may not have been consciously designed and is almost certainly not struggling to say anything, but it is not just chaotic either." On the contrary, "its underlying laws reveal a beauty, a symmetry and economy which are capable of moving scientists to tear Read more:Wires
quote | Patience And Hope 2007-03-25 16:33:00 "Patience does not mean torpor or somnolence or resignation or indifference. Patience in the New Testament sense is perseverance. To persevere is not to give up expecting the Lord, and expecting Him soon. It is to refrain from grumbling and complaining at having continually to expect Him. It is not to wait for someone and something but for Jesus Himself, who yesterday and today does not allow us to wait in poverty and despair, but fills each new portion of time with His fullness, so that there is no worse waste of time than to grumble and complain at His absence instead of continually giving thanks for what He was and rejoicing in what He is. To persevere then, means to continue expecting the Lord and expecting Him soon. It is to live in hope, in glad but patient hope, no less surely than to live in faith and love. For the object of hope is identical with that faith and love. It is the man Jesus, the Lord Himself, who is the Lord of all times, who fulfils all times, and who does not l
life | Weekend Update 2007-03-31 23:13:00 [Warning: Geek Alert]I competed in the UK Student Poker Championship this weekend in St. Andrews. I ended up going out on a 35% play. After being dealt Ac, As, the flop was 9c, 5c, 2c, the big stack bet to put me all in. As I was short stacked and had high pair and high flush draw, the biggest concern was that he had hit a set. Against trips, I was facing 35% odds and would be left really short stacked if I didn't call. End of the story was my opponent had pocket 9's and no ace or club came on the turn or river. So, no AYT won't be showing up at the WSoP. Sad day, but I played well for six hours.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Poker] Read more:Weekend
, Update
podcast | Jeffrey Sachs at UChicago 2007-04-06 19:09:00 Required listening: "Ending Global Poverty," a lecture by JeffreySachs
, Director of the Earth Institute and Professor of Sustainable Development and Health Policy and Management at Columbia University and the author of The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. From the World Beyond the Headlines Series. Cosponsored by the University of Chicago's Human Rights Program, the School of Social Service Administration, Rockefeller Chapel, and Chicago Promise.It's worthwhile to subscribe to the The World Beyond the Headlines podcast, and while you are at it, start listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, a podcast from the The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.If you're interested in some of the simple solutions that Jeffrey Sachs discusses in his lecture, see the Malaria No More website.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics][Jeffrey Sachs][Hope]
life | Everything You Wanted To Know But... 2007-04-09 16:05:00 [Discussed: Fried chocolate, women priests, turning 30,Morocco, babies, new shoes, and more.]If you visit my blog regularly, then you may have noticed my irregularity in posting. After being in the hospital for two weeks at the beginning of March, I've been playing catch up while trying to maintain my normal schedule. One might think it odd, for example, that I didn't post anything on Easter. I suppose I could have directed you to last year's Easter post, or a friend's post that I rather enjoyed, but I was too busy. So, here's an all-in-one, scatter shot, blogging miscellany:I celebrated a wonderful Easter vigil at All Saints Episcopal Church and spent Easter morning at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, both in St. Andrews, Scotland. Both services were lovely, but the latter had the benefit of seeing a friend's child baptized. [I also appreciated that they had a man in a wheelchair process with the cross and sit in the front of the congregation.]With no child's easter basket to Read more:Everything
theology | Meditation on Matthew 5:6 2007-04-11 03:53:00 See also:Meditation
on Matthew
5:4Meditation on Matthew 5:5"How honored are those who hunger and thirst for justice, because they will become full."+ + +The world upside down. To refuse to use force may be one thing, but what is this teaching? What does it mean to be full? A wave of questions as the beatitudes invite us into a world made strange, and call us to imagine things otherwise. Hunger and thirst, or what we might call desire, is for something seen as good but not yet attained. If one possesses what one desires, the desire is satiated. Certainly Chrysostom is right to say that hunger and thirst, typically conceived, can easily slide into avarice, into greed. Conventionally, our honor runs in this direction toward those who have acquired power, status, and achievement (and in late capitalism money is often used to measure). So, we are here shown a world upside down, a world where the honored are those who hunger and thirst for justice, who desire to give each their due. Is this Read more:theology
film | Catch A Fire 2007-04-21 16:50:00 Yesterday, I saw Catch
a Fire, Phillip Noyce's - director of Rabbit-Proof Fence - drama set in Apartheid-era South Africa. It's a good film, perhaps not a great film, but I'd still say it's worth seeing. One lesson taught by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa is what forgiveness entails. Forgiveness is not a decision. Forgiveness takes time, small practices which move one toward reconciliation, and it requires truth if reconciliation is to take place. Sweeping something under the rug, which is to say forgetting, is never a part of forgiveness. The main character of the film narrates his time in prison saying, "After five years, I found out [my wife] had married again; it took another five years to forgive." This is neither to say that time heals automatically; time can also harbor and harden. After seeing the horrors of a man's life torn by the struggle against white South Africa, one understands that forgiveness cannot be a simple choice. Somewhere between th
life | Happy Birthday To Me 2007-04-25 14:59:00 As of the 23rd of April, I'm thirty years old. I don't care much about numbers that to me seem a bit arbitrary, but I figured that if you ever want to convince others to celebrate you in style, then it might help if your age ends in a zero. I flew down to London early on a Friday morning to meet three friends who were flying in from the US (see below).The first order of business was lunch and we decided to get a bottle of wine and some food and have a picnic in Green Park across from Buckingham Palace. The rest of the day we walked and talked our way through the city. Saturday reinforcements arrived from Aberdeen (again, see below).I'll save you from sweaty dance party photos, though I'm sure they'll eventually turn up on my Flickr account.Sunday some had to fly home and the rest of us stopped by the Tate Modern on the last day of Carsten Höller's Test Site exhibit, a installation of metal slides in the cavernous space of the turbine hall. I had seen the exhibit in December Read more:Happy
, Birthday
, Happy Birthday
quote | The Theologian I Don't Want To Be 2007-04-24 17:05:00 "It is among the sorrows of my life, spent in the search for truth, that discussion with theologians always dries up at crucial points; they fall silent, state an incomprehensible proposition, speak of something else, make some categoric statement, engage in amiable talk, without really taking cognizance of what one has said -- and in the last analysis they are not really interested...For on the one hand they are certain of their truth, terrifyingly certain; and on the other hand they do not regard it as worth while to bother about people like us, who strike them as merely stubborn." [1]--Karl Jaspers [1883-1969]=========[1] Karl Jaspers, The Perennial Scope of Philosophy, translated by Ralph Manheim (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950), pp. 77-78.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics][Karl Jaspers]
news | Robert E. Webber Dies At 73 2007-05-03 01:06:00 I was saddened to hear that the William R. and Geraldyne B. Myers professor of ministry, Dr. Robert
E. Webber
, died on Friday, April 27 at age 73 at his home in Sawyer, Michigan, after an eight-month struggle with pancreatic cancer. I was just discussing his work on Adam's blog; He was a professor while I attended Wheaton College.Influential among Evangelicals and author of many books:The Younger Evangelicals (Baker, 2002).Journey to Jesus (Abingdon Press, 2001).Ancient-Future Faith (Baker, 1999).[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Worship][Robert E. Webber]
film | Spider-Man 3, Really? 2007-05-02 07:56:00 If I hear another news story about Spider
-Man swinging into theaters this Friday, I'll probably start crawling up walls. See, now did you see what I did there? Crawling up walls, clever huh? Well, the only thing worse than the banality of press coverage of such a non-event, is that other films will not see the light of day. So, if I lived in the US, I'd be tempted to go to see a film this weekend, and it would likely be Curtis Hanson's new film, Lucky You. Hanson has directed some quality films such as L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, and 8 Mile. What has Sam Raimi done for you recently, well, besides Spider-Man 2? Now, I do believe those who've seen Spider-Man 3 and say it is the best of the three. All I'm saying is that there are options and to me Hanson's film, which looks at the odd world of poker where the skills needed to win are not necessarily the virtues you'd want in a relationship, sounds like a Drew Barrymore film I would enjoy.Hanson is reported as saying:"I
blogging | Roll Call 2007-05-01 15:25:00 It would be interesting if the use of performance enhancing drugs was a issue amongst academics as it is in the sporting world. Coffee, Red Bull, cigarettes have been a big part of my last week as I have a meeting with my adviser, my year end review, and a research presentation in the next week. Accountants have their mid-April crunch; it hits about two weeks later for academics. All the more maddening is that spring bursts through in all her erotic beauty about the same time of year. So while I tickle the keys of my laptop in the hopes that a coherent paper emerges, I thought I'd take this time for a roll call. I'm curious about the people who read this blog. So, four questions:1. Name (first name is adequate) / Location 2. How do you spend the bulk of your time?3. How did you come across this blog?4. How do you get your news (i.e. newspaper, BBC, CNN, websites, periodicals, etc.)?Thanks for stopping by and taking time to comment. Thank you also to those who link here; if you Read more:Roll Call
design | Design For The Other 90% 2007-05-01 14:46:00 If you're in NYC between May 4–September 23, check out Design for the Other 90%, a new exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The exhibition highlights the growing trend among designers to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world's population (90 percent) not traditionally serviced by professional designers.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Design]
quote | On Media and Love 2007-05-05 13:12:00 From Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto:Not that I'm bitter about this. Oh, I concede that I may be taking this particular example somewhat personally -- but I do think it's a perfect illustration of why almost everyone I know is either overtly or covertly unhappy. Coldplay songs deliver an amorphous, irrefutable interpretation of how being in love is supposed to feel, and people find themselves wanting that feeling for real. They want men to adore them like Lloyd Dobler would, and they want women to think like Aimee Mann, and they expect all their argument to sound like Sam Malone and Diane Chambers. They think everything will work out perfectly in the end (just like it did for Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones and Nick Hornby's Rob Fleming), and they don't stop believing, because Journey's Steve Perry insists we should never do that. In the nineteenth century, teenagers merely aspired to have a marriage that would be better than that of t
politics | Things Do Change 2007-05-03 17:18:00 [Cornel West on what it means to be a Leftist.]Before leaving Duke in 2004, I had the opportunity to do a little work with Durham CAN, a local IAF affiliate. Building coalitions and focusing on grassroots organizing, 175 C.A.N. leaders attended a Durham County Commission meeting in the winter of 2004 where finally a Living Wage policy for full-time employees was approved. The Durham County Commission voted to pass a Living Wage policy of $9.74/hour for full-time employees. Not stopping there, attention turned to other areas including Duke University. This last week, Duke University agreed to require contracted food service vendors to offer full-time employees at least $10 per hour and basic health care coverage similar to what Duke offers its own employees, Tallman Trask III, executive vice president, announced Sunday. Kemel Dawkins, Duke’s vice president for campus services, delivered the announcement Sunday afternoon at a meeting of Durham Congregations / Associations / Neighbo Read more:politics
, Change
design | Expanding Table 2007-05-06 18:52:00 I'm still under the gun of deadlines, so in lieu of something more substantive I thought I'd share this. I've never seen a table do this. Enjoy.[America's Young Theologian][Design] Read more:design
, Table
article | Outfit A Kitchen For $200-$300 2007-05-12 14:16:00 To be honest, I'm not sure why I'm posting this. If I used del.icio.us, or some such site, I probably wouldn't. But, a lot of my friends are getting married this summer and they'll register for kitchen items that cost way too much (especially for how much they cook). Mark Bittman wrote an article for NYTimes.com entitled A No-Frills Kitchen
Still Cooks. He writes:In fact, I contend that with a bit of savvy, patience and a willingness to forgo steel-handle knives, copper pots and other extravagant items, $200 can equip a basic kitchen that will be adequate for just about any task, and $300 can equip one quite well.I'll let you read the article if you're interested, but the following list of inessentials was interesting.10 Kitchen Items You Don't NeedBREAD MACHINE You can buy mediocre bread easily enough, or make the real thing without much practice.MICROWAVE If you do a lot of reheating or fast (and damaging) defrosting, you may want one. But essential? No. And think about tha Read more:Outfit
travel | Abbeys And Mosques 2007-05-11 17:44:00 I just got back from two days at Pluscarden Abbey near Elgin (Scotland), where those studying systematic theology at University of Aberdeen gathered to share their research. I'm generally not a big fan of group activities, but the two days were entirely pleasant. The countryside was beautiful, the night's dark profound, and rooms, rather than numbered, were named for saints.I realized that I never said a thing about my post-birthday jaunt to Morocco. It was a short two-day stay in a country which I could easily spend several months. There was one moment when we were walking through streets shared by donkey carts, pedestrians, scooters, cars, a horse drawn caleche, and the occasional tour bus that I realized I had been prepared for this chaos. High school. Being able to find a path through chaos was the every day act of making it to one's next class, a simple realization to be sure but one that made me smile. We enjoyed our stay with two French expatriates at Dar Vedra; their
life | ...And Death 2007-05-17 00:23:00 I hurt for my friend Bob's loss of his father. It has been a hard journey and I know he wished for a little more time.
news | Jerry Falwell Dies At 73 2007-05-15 20:19:00 The Rev. JerryFalwell
, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.While it is not the place of humanity to speculate about God's judgment, I can think of few people who more dramatically and publically hampered the mission of church in the United States than Jerry Falwell
. So, while I would weep with his friends and family for their loss, I also rejoice that he will sin no more.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics][Falwell]
humor | SOMEECARDS.com 2007-05-20 08:36:00 Isn't the whole point of an eCard, email, letter, etc. to actually send it? It's true that www.someecards.com has some hilarious eCards, but while I find them funny to read, I can imagine sending any.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Humor]
quote | MLK On Vietnam 2007-05-26 12:55:00 "I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam
continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."I was listening to a couple of Dr. King's speeches today and was going to post this quote, but realized that Duane Shank had already made my point.Read or download the audio of the speech here.[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics][MLK, Jr.]
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