Now that I have whetted your appetite by hinting at various applications of the theme of exile, I’d like to take a step back and consider the idea more broadly. What do I mean by exile? As I pointed out in my first post in this series, “exile” is used in the Hebrew scriptures literally […]
WRITING
Gen-XYL: The Rending of the Veil
I’d be willing to wager that most Millennials and Gen-Xers have seen the film Raiders of the Lost Ark (well the guys anyway). Perhaps the most memorable scene in the movie is when the Nazis, who had discovered and taken possession of the Ark of the Covenant, decided to open it. But first, some background…. […]
Gen-XYL: Navigating the Tension
In western culture we have not only grown accustomed to dualisms of various kinds, but we seem to assume they are unavoidable. Whether we’re talking about the sacred and the secular, divinity and humanity, or the natural and the spiritual, we live in a society more characterized by either/ors than by both/ands. A Theology of […]
Gen-XYL: Introduction
Most readers will recognize the name Billy Idol, the ’80s-era singer of such tunes as “Rebel Yell,” “White Wedding,” and “Eyes Without a Face.” But what many don’t remember is that before he was a pop star he was a punker who fronted the band Generation X. Generation X (betcha didn’t know it was also […]
Five Things I Learned in 2020, Part 4: AMERICANS ARE CRUEL
Even for someone like me whose theological background is old school Calvinism, 2020 managed to leave me with a bleaker and more cynical take on human nature than I had going in. And that’s quite a feat. There are no two ways about it, Americans are cruel. Like the rest of the world, we were […]
Five Things I Learned in 2020, Part 3: BLACK MUSIC MATTERS
The most surprising thing I learned in 2020 — by far — has to do with art, and music in particular. Growing up I was mostly surrounded by white people, and I mostly listened to white music (U2, The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs, etc. Basically anything that shows up on Sirius XM’s […]