Culture and Context

Viewpoints and commentary on our contemporary culture

Columnist Kae Evensen

Eat the Watermelon and Spit Out the Seeds

by Kae Evensen

I was thinking a lot about my friend Angie Shannon this week.

She is a Lutheran pastor somewhere in Ohio. She is wise and funny and smart, and a smart aleck. One day, I asked her how she survives in this weird place called the church where things don't seem very Jesus-ey, no matter what your ideas about Jesus are.

 

Charting the Culture

A review: Up in the Air

by Eric Barreto

Is it possible in a world where hundreds of jets soar over the oceans that we can feel isolated?

To feel alone when the whole world lies at our fingertips on the internet? To feel estranged when a Skype chat can bear not only a friend's voice but their image instantaneously to one's notebook computer? To feel the sting of betrayal when loyalty is one's primary locus?

 

Our Take

Earthquakes, God, and Living with Mystery

by Matt Skinner

I appreciate the literary critic James Wood's recent op-ed piece (The New York Times, 24 January 2010), in which he reflects on the theological claims Christians offer to make sense of natural disasters.

The article directs our attention to the problematic nature of these claims, rehearsing arguments that Wood has made in more detail (and more strenuously) in other settings, though it stops short of giving real consideration to alternative theological positions that Christians might adopt.

 

Dear Working Preacher

Preaching after Natural Disaster

by David Lose

Dear Working Preacher,

No doubt you've been overwhelmed by the news and images of the disaster in Haiti, as I have.

The earthquake is being called the worst natural disaster there in two centuries. Thousands are dead, thousands more trapped, and still thousands more in desperate need of clean water and medical attention. No one yet knows the death toll, but some estimate it could top 100,000 persons. And all of this in a country that has had so much more than its share of poverty, pain, and tragedy.