“Rebellion vs Conformity in ‘We Are the Best!’”: Me at AmSpec
on a terrific new film. And given my readership, I’ll note that Hedwig is one of the most fascinating and nuanced Christian characters I can remember in a recent movie which isn’t centrally concerned...
View ArticleThe Anima Christi: A Deleted Chapter from My Great Big Gay Catholic Book
I had to cut a lot from the book, and this chapter was eccentric and zigzagging enough that it made sense to get rid of it. But I’m glad to share it with you guys now. Some of these thoughts will be...
View ArticleIt’s Called AltFem, Not CtrlFem: An Eccentric Report
Yesterday I went to the launch of AltFem, a new magazine from the people who brought you AltMuslimah and AltCatholicah, which explores the intersection of feminism and what I suppose we must call...
View Article“Why I Want to Live Long and Burden My Children”: Cheryl Magness
writes:Last week The Atlantic published the article “Why I Hope to Die by 75” by Ezekiel Emanuel, a former adviser to President Obama on health care and one of the primary designers of the Affordable...
View Article“Will Work for Meaning”: I review “Two Days, One Night”
at AmCon:The most tense scene I saw in any movie this year was Marion Cotillard leaning against a blank wall gulping from a bottle of water.Cotillard is playing Sandra in “Two Days, One Night,” yet...
View ArticleKathy Shaidle’s Poetry, Old and New
So I took part in this year-end books roundup with AmCon, and once again told everybody to read Kathy Shaidle’s 1998 poetry collection, Lobotomy Magnificat. You can get a longer review from me here but...
View ArticleAcceptance as the Precondition for Change: Motivational Interviewing and...
A second small post in my intermittent series about things people have asked me in interviews about Gay and Catholic.I did a long, fascinating interview, which I hope I’ll be able to share with you all...
View ArticleO Wanderer, Come Home: Notes from the Gay Christian Network Conference
Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a...
View Article“What does it mean to be Catholic?”: Part three of my conversation with...
at Surprising Faith:Alicia: What do you think it means to be Catholic? Your Catholicism seems much more intellectual than mine ever was, and I considered myself a fairly committed Catholic. Does...
View ArticleFrom Sarah Ruhl, “100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write”
There were times when it felt as though my children were annihilating me. Finally I came to the thought, All right, then, annihilate me; that other self was a fiction anyhow. And then I could breathe....
View ArticleWhat We See: Some Thoughts on Julie Rodgers’s Resignation from Wheaton
Earlier this week Julie Rodgers posted a characteristically forthright and gentle explanation of her shift in belief: “Though I’ve been slow to admit it to myself, I’ve quietly supported same-sex...
View ArticleWesley Hill on Unchosen Sacrifice
and being gay and Christian:…Julie and I both know that Christian churches and communities are often toxic places for LGBT people. Drawing only from my own small circle of gay friends, I could share...
View ArticleTake Me to Church–But Not the Ones that Hurt: Starting a Book Project
Hey y’all. This is all in the very, very first stages, but I’m talking with a publisher about the possibility of doing a book of essays by Catholics who were badly mistreated by their churches or by...
View ArticlePrepare for Life in Post-Christian America: Play “After Virtue”–The Game!
or, my review of Winners and Losers:“Winners and Losers,” created by Marcus Youssef and James Long and playing at Washington’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company through November 22, is a tense and springy...
View ArticleBeyond “Die Hard”: Some Christmas Flicks for the Cold and Creepy Child Within
A few years back I started noticing how many bleak, cheerless, or just unexpected films are set during tinsel season. That penitential stretch from just-before-Thanksgiving to just-after-New-Year’s can...
View Article“‘Hamilton’ and the Romance of Government”: My take
for AmCon:I’ve finally heard “Hamilton,” the Broadway hip-hop musical about the first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and I can say: It’s a brilliant, empathetic example of a genre I don’t believe...
View ArticleTom Holland: The Tyrannosaur vs. the Crucified
excellent metaphor and accurate insight at the heart of this piece from a scholar of antiquity: When I was a boy, my upbringing as a Christian was forever being weathered by the gale force of my...
View ArticleBook Announcement: Staying Catholic When You’ve Been Hurt in the Church
Hello all. I’m very happy to announce that an anthology I’m editing, with the working title Staying Catholic When You’ve Been Hurt in the Church, is on its winding way from Wipf & Stock’s Cascade...
View Article“Unexpected Beauty in the Union Station Metro”: Prince of Petworth
posts: Tymara Walker posts on youtube (thanks to all for sending links): “This is the original recording of the woman (well… me ) singing in Union Station in early December. I’m celebrating new life,...
View ArticleHe That Increaseth Sorrow Increaseth Knowledge: Or, Notes on Meritocracy
This is a great piece but I guess the reason the end disappointed me is that it turns out to be a sardonic, passive-aggressive (not that there’s anything wrong with that) reaffirmation of the...
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