Michael Linton

Which Messiah ? It’s not a theological question; it’s a question about what to listen to when hanging the tinsel. No piece of music is so linked with Christmas as Handel’s great oratorio, and there are lots of choices (I stopped counting the Amazon list at one hundred). There are . . . . Continue Reading »

The Episcopal cathedral in Chicago is hosting a display of the " Keiskamma Altarpiece ." Made by artists in Hamburg, South Africa, the altarpiece is a monumental needlework, combining fabric, beads, wire work and photographs, and reproduces the form and dimensions of Matthias . . . . Continue Reading »

Wasn’t it Tip O’Neal who said that all politics are local? Well, we recently had our elections here in Rutherford County , and it’s humbling and sad all at the same time¯humbling to see the number of folks who give themselves selfishly to causes they believe in, humbling to . . . . Continue Reading »

R.R. Reno recently wrote here (I tried to come up with another "r" word instead of an "h" but got stumped) about Andres Serrano’s famous photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. The photograph has a name, but it’s rather impious, and Puritan that I am I . . . . Continue Reading »

The Wall Street Journal to the rescue! Several readers have written me about my comments on Serrano’s photograph, so it was with some comfort that I read Christopher Levenick’s review of Philip Jenkins’ The New Faces of Christianity in yesterday’s Journal . "The Bible . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m a stringer for one of those “major American newspapers”—it’s fun to see your byline as long as you remember it’s lining a bird cage tomorrow—and as part of an assignment last week I interviewed a pretty successful gospel/country/pop singer, “pretty . . . . Continue Reading »

In one form or another, the headlines all read, "Pope Forbids Guitars" (although my favorite variation appeared in the Irish News : "Pope’s Rock Rap Hits Just the Right Chord"). But Benedict XVI didn’t really ban guitars, or any other instrument. He just urged that . . . . Continue Reading »

The Commander enters the living room carrying a big black Bible. He reads Genesis 30:1-3 to his middle-aged wife and to Offred, her handmaid. The scripture finished, the wife and handmaid get on the floor, Offred sliding between the wife’s spread legs. The handmaid hikes up her skirt and leans . . . . Continue Reading »

Several times during the San Francisco Opera’s (SFO) remarkable production of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking (which I discussed in Part I of this essay last month ), Sister Helen is asked if she is afraid. With striking similarity, “ J’ai peur sur la route !” (I am afraid . . . . Continue Reading »

We do not customarily look to opera for moral edification. Examples abound: twins, separated at birth, reunite and conceive a superman child before one is killed by his father (Wagner’s Die Walküre ); a polygamous American seduces and later abandons an Asian girl and their child . . . . Continue Reading »