Christopher Benson

Why do people fail to acknowledge the reality of evil? My progressive friends––a list which is getting shorter and shorter––were baffled by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. They lacked a vocabulary and worldview to describe what happened. If British literary . . . . Continue Reading »

If you are skeptical about postmodern thought, I encourage you to check out “The Church and Postmodern Series” by Baker Academic, which “features high-profile theorists in continental philosophy and contemporary theology writing for a broad, nonspecialist audience interested in the . . . . Continue Reading »

Maya Angelou says he “thinks like a sage, acts like a warrior and writes like a poetical prophet.” Henry Louis Gates, Jr. says he is “the pre-eminent African-American intellectual of our generation.” And Marian Wright Edelman says he is “one of the most authentic, . . . . Continue Reading »

We have seen it before and we will see it again: the culture wars are being played out in the American cinema house, this time covering the topics of same-sex marriage, Darwinism, and Evangelical scandal. Check out the trailers for these recent films.The Kids Are All Right (2010) 8: The Mormon . . . . Continue Reading »

Music has undergone serious theological neglect according to Jeremy Begbie, a professionally trained musician and theologian at Duke Divinity School. In his introduction to Theology, Music and Time, he writes:In the twentieth century, the corridors of theology were not generally alive with the sound . . . . Continue Reading »

Jesus taught that “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19). As an anthropological and ethical statement, this is unequivocally true. But do we need physical darkness?In a National Geographic article entitled “Our Vanishing . . . . Continue Reading »

We all struggle with rest.The paradox of modernity, according to theologian Colin Gunton, is that “a world dedicated to the pursuit of leisure and of machines that save labour is chiefly marked by its levels of rush, frenetic busyness and stress.” Liberals and conservatives, secularists . . . . Continue Reading »

A Meditation on Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!Shortly after the death of Nebraska pioneer John Bergson, his children––Alexandra, Lou, Oscar, and Emil––go on a “pleasure excursion” to buy a hammock from Crazy Ivar, who obtained the name from his hermetic lifestyle, . . . . Continue Reading »

Here I am again at the writer’s desk with a tall glass of lemonade, ready to analyze two passages that invoke “the Genius” of the land in Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers! In the first passage, we witness the retrospective despair of John Bergson, a first generation pioneer in . . . . Continue Reading »

Preston Jones has written a perceptive review of Christopher Hitchens’ memoir, Hitch-22, for Books & Culture. What interested me was Jones’ reflection on the craft, character, and consequences of writing:Words have consequences. Hitchens fleetingly acknowledges that his decades of . . . . Continue Reading »