Interview: Adrian Wooldridge

Adrian Wooldridge, Management Editor of The Economist and author of God is Back, discusses the global resurgence of evangelical religion. Original post at The Lumière Reader.

Former Evangelical Christians are usually difficult to spot. Many of us have had years to adjust since we put our days of Christian rock and Bible study groups behind us, and aside from a few telltale signs like a weird over-enthusiasm for the Theory of Evolution, we manage to blend in with the secular world pretty well.

But every so often something puts Evangelicals in the headlines – a movie like Jesus Camp comes out, or Sarah Palin starts talking about, well, anything really – and suddenly there we are plain as day, wincing in recognition, smiling tightly at the inevitable jokes. As much as we try to ignore it, this part of our culture isn’t going anywhere; and lately it’s been demanding more and more of our attention.

As someone who recently joined the ranks of “spiritual-not-religious” critics of the church, I found God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World to be an eye-opening but uncomfortable read. Co-authors Adrian Wooldridge and John Micklethwait, writers for The Economist, make the case that instead of fading out in the face of modernity, religion – the American Evangelical brand in particular – is flourishing.

Spring

And, incidentally, my 30th birthday.

What Good are the Arts?

Original post at The Lumiere Reader.

Anyone who’s had an argument about art knows that it can be as bad as politics or religion for getting our egos riled up. I myself have experienced something close to homicidal rage when a relative of mine declared his love of classical music to be wiser, more sophisticated and closer to God than my love of literature.

So when I attended What Good are the Arts?, a highlight of this year’s Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, I confess that I was gleefully hoping for a fight. The topic was a book of the same name by John Carey, Emeritus Merton Professor of English at Oxford and book critic for the London Sunday Times, who argues that not only is it foolish to say that music is inherently more valuable than literature, but it’s impossible to prove that art benefits society or makes us better people. He was joined by Denis Dutton, a philosopher at the University of Canterbury, and Sarah Thornton, chief writer on contemporary art for The Economist.

Interview: Bryan Bruce

Investigator Bryan Bruce’s new book re-opens the 2000-year-old case file on Jesus of Nazareth’s death. Original post at The Lumiere Reader.

It’s an image that sticks with you. Bryan Bruce, New Zealand documentary filmmaker, is in Israel with his camera crew, on his way to the River Jordan to film a scene at the spot where Jesus of Nazareth was baptised by John.

“I have to be taken under armed escort by the Israeli army,” he tells me over the phone, “with a tank behind me and an armoured personnel carrier in front of me, through a minefield, to get to the River Jordan. I get to the river on this spot, and on the other side are Jordanian tanks and armoured personnel carriers. And the Israelis shout across to the Jordanians, ‘If you don’t want to have your tanks filmed, you might want to move them slightly to the left.’”

This jarring contrast between Biblical mythology and political reality is the challenge of Jesus: The Cold Case, Bruce’s third book and its accompanying documentary. Drawing on his experience as a true crime investigator, Bruce takes on the New Testament narrative of Jesus’ death and comes to a grim conclusion about the role it has played in the religious and ethnic conflicts of the last 2,000 years.

What Not To Do at a Q&A Session

Last month I attended the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, and one of the sessions I went to featured Adrian Wooldridge from The Economist (who I interviewed later that day, but that's for a different post). After Mr. Wooldridge finished his talk about American exceptionalism and evangelical religion and the current state of the Republican Party, the moderator opened it up to the audience for questions.

And you know that one guy (or girl, but it's usually a guy) who always seems to get his hands on the microphone at these things, the one who doesn't really want to ask a question as much as he wants to impress everybody with his super awesome rambly argument for five minutes? That Guy?

Yeah, so this time That Guy was an American (go team!) and he stood up and announced to the auditorium, "Well, of course, as you know, we are finally beginning to realise that despite all his soaring rhetoric Obama is just as bad as Bush. With his continuation of the imperialist war in Afghanistan and his use of secret CIA prisons, it's clear that the military-industrial complex has..."

And it was just about here that a perfectly sweet-looking older lady at the back of the room rolled her eyes and yelled, "This isn't a question!" To which half the audience muttered, "Seriously!"

For a moment he stood there chuckling and trying to pull his dignity together, and then, bless his heart, he actually tried to pick up where he left off and ramble on some more. This time everyone slumped in their chairs and groaned out loud, and Mr. Wooldridge started laughing and waving his hands, and the moderator asked if the gentleman could please get to the point already, until That Guy mumbled "So, uh, had you considered that?" and sat back down.

And that is why I love New Zealanders.

Life is Long

"I would caution against believing the 'life is short' advice that you should live every day as if it is your last - as if you're only ever going to be roughly the age you are now.... Hopefully, life is long. Do stuff you will enjoy thinking about and telling stories about for many years to come.

"The best way to guess what is going to work out in the future, to figure out what you will be glad to have played a role in, is to get smart and get smart fast. To take the opportunities that you've got very seriously. To continue your education ... in a lifelong way. Be intellectually and morally rigorous in your own decision making and expect that the important people in your life do the same, if they want to stay important to you.

"Gunning not just for personal triumph for yourself but durable achievement you will be proud of for life is the difference between winning things and leadership.... When given the choice between fame and glory, take glory. Glory has a way of sneaking up on fame and stealing its lunch money anyway."

-- Rachel Maddow, Smith College Commencement Address, 16 May 2010

Graffiti

We have a lot of taggers in Wellington. Generally they annoy me, but sometimes they take me by surprise, like this one at an Island Bay bus stop. It was painted over by the end of the week.