Robin Sloan’s latest newsletter is a delight to read, as always.
Robin Sloan’s latest newsletter is a delight to read, as always.
MZS reviewing the Minecraft movie is why he was put on earth. It almost makes me want to see it!
Since people are writing to celebrate the centenary of The Great Gatsby, I’ll share my favorite essay on the novel: “The Road to West Egg," published in 2000 by Vanity Fair and written by none other than Christopher Hitchens.
Matthew Walther: “Consultants' … so-called expertise always comes to the same thing: lowering costs by depriving the consumer of something hitherto recognized as essential.”
Letters to a Future Saint down to $18, people! Spread the word!
FYI: Letters to a Future Saint marked down to just $20 on Amazon! Buy a copy for yourself, your friend, your student, or your child today!
I’m a sucker for this sort of thing: “The Sky is Brighter Than Astronomers Imagined." Reminds me of Ransom’s first glimpse of the heavens outside his spaceship in the first book of the Space Trilogy…
I’ve been reading Adam Kotsko for a long time. He never fails to surprise, and his new book (perfect title, cover, and subject) does it again. Can’t wait to pick up a copy.
Buddy of mine sent me this clip, which I now see is going (has gone?) viral. As well it should have. It could be an SNL sketch.
This is a beautiful reflection on Passover by Rusty Reno. The final two lines are a punch in the gut.
(Source: x.com/BenGolliv…)
Read Paul Kingsnorth on “the Christian novel." I admit that I, too, have not read a Buechner novel.
Another day without access to email or laptop until late afternoon. Inbox cleared out in less than 45 minutes. Yet had it been available throughout, it would have grabbed at my attention with “urgent but unimportant” tasks every 12 minutes.
This is the way.
Whatever this is, it’s brilliant. Self-recommending, but especially of interest to lovers of Moby-Dick.
Always be reading B. D. McClay on science fiction (and writing, and gender, and history, and…).
Alan Jacobs has two quotes about phones worth reading (and clicking through to the sources).
Spent the whole day in my office at work, reading, laptop at home. Opened it up at 4:00 and the inbox was cleared to zero by 4:30.
More days like this, please.
Becca Rothfeld, in the deadliest of many deadly lines from her latest book review for the Washington Post:
These sentences pant to project erudition but make not a whit of sense.
Spencer A. Klavan, concluding a beautiful little essay in the latest issue of The New Atlantis:
Physics is and will remain an incalculable gift and a source of wondrous knowledge. But it is a gift to humanity, and the wonder we feel is human wonder. The universe is made to contain us.
P.S. Toward the end of my conversation with Patrick on the Truth Over Tribe pod, I mistakenly refer to Augustine’s conversion and baptism in Book IX of the Confessions, but I was thinking instead of Victorinus and Simplicianus in Book VIII, specifically ii.3-5. Here’s the translation from New Advent:
To Simplicianus then I went — the father of Ambrose (at that time a bishop) in receiving Your grace, and whom he truly loved as a father. To him I narrated the windings of my error. But when I mentioned to him that I had read certain books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, sometime Professor of Rhetoric at Rome (who died a Christian, as I had been told), had translated into Latin, he congratulated me that I had not fallen upon the writings of other philosophers, which were full of fallacies and deceit, “after the rudiments of the world,” whereas they, in many ways, led to the belief in God and His word. Then, to exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones, he spoke of Victorinus himself, whom, while he was at Rome, he had known very intimately; and of him he related that about which I will not be silent. For it contains great praise of Your grace, which ought to be confessed unto You, how that most learned old man, highly skilled in all the liberal sciences, who had read, criticised, and explained so many works of the philosophers; the teacher of so many noble senators; who also, as a mark of his excellent discharge of his duties, had (which men of this world esteem a great honour) both merited and obtained a statue in the Roman Forum, he — even to that age a worshipper of idols, and a participator in the sacrilegious rites to which almost all the nobility of Rome were wedded, and had inspired the people with the love of “The dog Anubis, and a medley crew / Of monster gods [who] ‘gainst Neptune stand in arms, / ‘Gainst Venus and Minerva, steel-clad Mars,” whom Rome once conquered, now worshipped, all which old Victorinus had with thundering eloquence defended so many years — he now blushed not to be the child of Your Christ, and an infant at Your fountain, submitting his neck to the yoke of humility, and subduing his forehead to the reproach of the Cross.
O Lord, Lord, who has bowed the heavens and come down, touched the mountains and they did smoke, by what means did You convey Yourself into that bosom? He used to read, as Simplicianus said, the Holy Scripture, most studiously sought after and searched into all the Christian writings, and said to Simplicianus, — not openly, but secretly, and as a friend —“Know that I am a Christian.” To which he replied, “I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among the Christians unless I see you in the Church of Christ.” Whereupon he replied derisively, “Is it then the walls that make Christians?” And this he often said, that he already was a Christian; and Simplicianus making the same answer, the conceit of the “walls” was by the other as often renewed. For he was fearful of offending his friends, proud demon-worshippers, from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from cedars of Lebanon which had not yet been broken by the Lord, he thought a storm of enmity would descend upon him. But after that, from reading and inquiry, he had derived strength, and feared lest he should be denied by Christ before the holy angels if he now was afraid to confess Him before men, and appeared to himself guilty of a great fault in being ashamed of the sacraments of the humility of Your word, and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud demons, whose pride he had imitated and their rites adopted, he became bold-faced against vanity, and shame-faced toward the truth, and suddenly and unexpectedly said to Simplicianus, — as he himself informed me —“Let us go to the church; I wish to be made a Christian.” But he, not containing himself for joy, accompanied him. And having been admitted to the first sacraments of instruction, he not long after gave in his name, that he might be regenerated by baptism — Rome marvelling, and the Church rejoicing. The proud saw, and were enraged; they gnashed with their teeth, and melted away! But the Lord God was the hope of Your servant, and He regarded not vanities and lying madness.
Finally, when the hour arrived for him to make profession of his faith (which at Rome they who are about to approach Your grace are wont to deliver from an elevated place, in view of the faithful people, in a set form of words learned by heart), the presbyters, he said, offered Victorinus to make his profession more privately, as the custom was to do to those who were likely, through bashfulness, to be afraid; but he chose rather to profess his salvation in the presence of the holy assembly. For it was not salvation that he taught in rhetoric, and yet he had publicly professed that. How much less, therefore, ought he, when pronouncing Your word, to dread Your meek flock, who, in the delivery of his own words, had not feared the mad multitudes! So, then, when he ascended to make his profession, all, as they recognised him, whispered his name one to the other, with a voice of congratulation. And who was there among them that did not know him? And there ran a low murmur through the mouths of all the rejoicing multitude, “Victorinus! Victorinus!” Sudden was the burst of exultation at the sight of him; and suddenly were they hushed, that they might hear him. He pronounced the true faith with an excellent boldness, and all desired to take him to their very heart — yea, by their love and joy they took him there; such were the hands with which they took him.
In CT this morning Harold Netland has a piece titled “What Supernatural Experiences Can and Can’t Show." The subhead reads: “They testify to a world beyond our perception. But by themselves, they can’t confirm the central truths of Christianity.”
That’s a fair representation of the article, and Netland’s review of the book in question is patient and fair. But couldn’t certain supernatural experiences confirm the central truths of Christianity? Say, an experience akin to the one Saint Paul had on the road to Damascus? Or when he was taken up to the third heaven? Or Isaiah’s similar vision centuries prior? Or perhaps “showings” like those of Julian of Norwich? Surely, at a minimum, they could confirm Christian truth to the person having the experience, no? And, if the person is a reputable witness, not unwell, lives in accord with the testimony, others would have warrant to believe the visionary report?