News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
Thanks to all who joined us in Madison last weekend. We had a really wonderful gathering. You don't have to take my word for it: Dixie Dillon Lane thought so too. Since I missed sending out a newsletter due to the conference last week, I'm including all the pieces we've published on the website in the past two weeks.
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In this week's Water Dipper, I recommend essays about decentralism, Byung-Chul Han, and cemeteries.
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Christian McNamara reviews Seth D. Kaplan's Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time, which he argues provides "an essential corrective to the lessons imparted by our culture, lessons that to date are largely reinforced by our institutions of higher education: That success requires constant mobility and rootlessness. That working hard means giving your life over to your work. That the only things that matter happen on the national and international stage. That money can insulate you from the problems of the community around you. Unlearning these lessons will not be easy. But as Kaplan makes clear, the fate of the nation may well depend upon it."
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Nadya Williams describes the cultural and political value of shared stories: "Before we totally condemn the Athenians as selfish, entertainment-addicted bad citizens—which, to be fair, they sometimes (or often?) were, just like us—it is worth considering what such shared democratic spaces of entertainment facilitated. And a related question to consider: What might we, as a democracy, gain if we had something similar?"
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Stephen Adubato praises close-knit ethnic neighborhoods in Newark and worries about the loss of local businesses that occurs when indifferent chains descend: "As much as middle management feels bad for the workers, there is little within their power to alleviate the situation, as most of the power is in the hands of distant (and indifferent) bureaucrats."
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Phil Davignon warns that the professionalization of church curriculum tempts local congregations to outsource the work of discernment and discipleship: "Criticizing the ministry-industrial complex does not mean professional resources have no place in ministry. It is not so much their use as their guiding role in congregational life that prevents churches from prioritizing deeper formation."
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George Elder writes from rural Kansas about the anxiety that he sees swirling among his neighbors and what we might do to channel that toward the work that needs doing: "We need to love smaller, more energy-efficient houses and cars in order to love people more. We need to give up much of our casual oil consumption for leisure."
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Michial Farmer crafts a characteristically lovely essay that meditates on the wisdom of Owl at Home: "Lobel’s genius is in choosing for his subject tragedies that are too small to really qualify as tragedies, and thus by the paradoxes of the spiritual world become the deepest and most incandescent tragedies of all."
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T. David Gordon reminds us that Tocqueville's characterization of America as "exceptional" wasn't exactly a commendation: "Whether America ever was or is exceptional is a matter for further discussion; but Tocqueville’s own estimate of America in the early nineteenth century was mixed at best and negative at worst."
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Joseph Orso urges us to not define our neighbors in the terms provided by the culture wars: "Seeking to heal from the culture war, I want to uncover the bodies of my neighbors, which industrial stories kick in the face, deform, and then at election time bury beneath the red-blue map. Aligned with my neighbors, I want to stand in a place off that map, outside those stories."
Earlier this year I had the chance to read an advance copy of Hope for God's Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility by Andrew J. Spencer. It's a great book and has now been published. Here's the blurb I wrote commending it:
Andrew Spencer’s wise book lays out a rich and orthodox theology of creation and of God’s glory. Spencer does not engage in vampire theology, a theology that takes some culturally popular position and finds theological warrants to rationalize it. Rather, he begins with orthodox readings of the Bible and shows how our doctrinal confessions should lead us to love and care for God’s good creation. Spencer’s posture toward complex questions about theology and science and policy is exemplary: he is never fearful or reactionary, he is faithful to theological convictions, and he is eager to learn from and build bridges to those who may disagree. There is no fear-mongering or doom in this book. Instead, Spencer offers a Christ-rooted hope for all of creation and the practical wisdom that helps us imagine how to practice this hope today.
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro