Read Justin Smith-Ruiu’s long essay for Liberties about analytic philosophers and World War II.
On today’s episode of Mere Fidelity, Derek, Alastair, and I discuss varieties of exegesis—i.e., what are the boundaries or brakes or bumper lanes for faithful interpretation of Scripture? Just how weird can you get?
As you might expect, I defend the maximalist position: Believe, and read as you please.
In an NPR/RNS article, Deena Prichep asks, “Are AI sermons ethical? Clergy consider where to draw the line." She interviewed a bunch of folks, including me. Turns out I’m the “Nein!” guy for all these stories.
I missed it when it was published, but last fall Kendall Vanderslice published a reported piece for Common Good called “The Church of the Chronically Online. She interviewed me and Daniel Hill, among others; I enjoyed talking to her about young Bible Belt evangelicals' views about church.
Grace Snell has a new piece in WORLD Magazine called “ChatGPA," reporting on how teachers and professors are handling AI; I’m one of them, and she did a good job representing my thoughts.
On the latest episode of Mere Fidelity Derek, Alastair, and I discuss AI, the infinite workday, and the calling of pastors.
We’ve reached a new low in the AI conversation. Tyler Cowen suggests simultaneously that we are gods making AI in our own image, that in a sense they are our children, that we owe them a decent education, that their education is nothing but what we say and write (privately and publicly), that (it follows) doomers are doing both AI and the future a profound disservice by voicing doubts and criticisms of AI, and that (finally) we should so speak and write that the listening AIs will benefit—that is, we ought to be ever mindful of their digital eyes and ears “taking in” who we are and what we believe, since that and nothing else is their pedagogy. And given their inevitability, we want their eventual maturity to be a good and proper one, not one that could lead us to destruction.
What fresh hell is this?
In Commonweal, Paul Griffiths has a characteristically incisive review of Mark Lilla’s new book on ignorance.
In the latest issue of The Lamp, which just went online today, I have a review of Ryan P. Burge’s new book The American Religious Landscape: Facts, Trends, and the Future. The review is called “The Stickiness of Religion."
When I wrote the piece I had no idea it would be in the issue commemorating the passing of Pope Francis—nor that I would be just one review separated from Christopher Caldwell. I’m grateful to be included.
Somehow I’d forgotten that this occurred just under twelve months before Lewis passed. Did Kingsley tell Martin all about it?
I’ve lost the ability to go truly gaga for a new superhero film, but Superman was a pleasure in the way James Gunn’s films always are: witty, well-paced, endearing, clever, never boring, visually interesting, and thematically coherent from start to finish. He made all the right decisions about avoiding a retread and successfully infused a tired icon with a beating heart. My (early) audience loved it, as did my sixth grade son.
The line, which comes about midway through the movie, about what counts as “the real punk rock” is pure uncut Gunn: on a knife’s edge between parody and sincerity, tipping just back over into earnestness only after viewers—like the characters on screen—hold back an eyeroll and find themselves giving in, despite their own best efforts, to his heartfelt, unapologetic cringe.
Followed by much punching.
I love the little rant that opens Phil’s newsletter from two days ago, but this closing paragraph had me cocking my head:
Smartphones are so ubiquitous that even to hate on them, I now have to pick one up, open Notion, hit the little microphone icon, dictate a note with a particularly clever malediction upon them, and post that note later on here or on Bluesky or into the pages of a book manuscript. I mean I don’t “have” to, but the effort involved in doing it another way would feel like teaching myself to use only water that I draw from a well daily using wood buckets.
I don’t know, man. I don’t know what Notion is, I don’t use dictation, I don’t write online using a smartphone, I don’t have a Substack, and I’m not on Bluesky or Twitter or Instagram. I am on micro.blog—I’m writing on it now, on a laptop!—but I don’t have to be, I don’t just not “have” to be. It’s a decision, which is to say, contingent and uncoerced.
Let’s say a word well is a journal and a word bucket is a pen. I use one every day, as I assume Phil does. We both write online, and no writer can avoid the internet, but I think there’s more agency involved and less resignation necessary than he suggests here. And I’m the alarmist Luddite!
On one hand: Gareth Edwards remains one of the best directors alive at pacing, staging, and choreographing big action set-pieces. His eye is as good as ever, and I hope his next film is based on a great script.
On the other hand: Jurassic World Rebirth stars four very charismatic actors—Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali, and Rupert Friend—who have not a lick of chemistry with one another on screen. Whether the fault is the script’s, the director’s, or their own, every scene featuring a conversation is dead on arrival.
As Sonny Bunch put it, “from awe to boredom."
Driving through Louisiana, I found another alternative spelling for the Name.
Hadn’t heard this was coming down the pike. Looking forward to checking it out.
On the blog I wrote briefly about the “evangelical gentrification” of churches of Christ.
Really good deflationary take by Alastair Roberts on “covenant” as a master theological-scriptural concept in Reformed thought.
Matthew Lee Anderson dissents from my case about nonpronunciation of the Name; he doesn’t persuade me, but this is a very strong paragraph on the question:
The OT is replete with prayers that the Name of the Lord would be glorified, but this is not simply a matter of praise and renown but an expression of the desire that God would make His glory immanent among His people, that He would be with Israel by dwelling again in the Temple. The time between the prophets is the most pronounced period of withdrawal of the immediate disclosure of divine glory in Israel’s history (as I think even Catholics who affirm the inspiration of the Apocryphal literature produced then can affirm). In that light, the reverence for the Name that develops might be construed as a kind of expression of piety for the return of that glory: as the Lord goes silent, the Name becomes more weighty.
Paywalled for now, but in the new issue of The Hedgehog Review, I have an essay on aliens called “Lexicon of the Phenomenon." Subscribe and read today, or better yet, read it in the print edition!
This morning I’m in CT with an argument that Christians should not pronounce aloud the Name of God.
I did not care for this take on Orwell. It’s right on particular points but wrong, or rather wrong-headed, on the whole. Dinging useful and illuminating writers for not being geniuses or “Great” is a poor use of time.