Love me a good patriotism quote. The Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, suggested, "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." The Spanish cellist, Pablo Casals, asked, "The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?" The French Renaissance man, Blaise Pascal, … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Decries the Love + Violence That Is Patriotism
Virtue
Beatnik Christianity Resists the Temptation Toward Ideological Purity
Ideology is one of those expansive words like "culture" that encompasses a lot. Merriam-Webster defines ideology as "a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture; the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program; a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture." Ideological … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Resists the Temptation Toward Ideological Purity
Beatnik Christianity Treasures the Life of the Mind As a Sacred Means of Worship
Faced with the impossible choice between being intellectually honest or following Jesus, I chose intellectual honesty and became an agnostic. That was until a professor recommended Mark Noll’s book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. It saved and transformed my faith. In it Noll notes four key historical movements that were responsible for evangelicalism’s anti-intellectual … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Treasures the Life of the Mind As a Sacred Means of Worship
Beatnik Christianity Affirms A Robustly Nondualistic Perspective
Feeling scorned by my lapsed allegiance to conservative evangelicalism and the Republican Party, a family member dismissively impugned, "If you're not a conservative and you're not a liberal, then what are you? You're trying to carve out a middle-ground that doesn't exist!" Though clearly intended as a rhetorical question, I decided to answer. "The English language has a word … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Affirms A Robustly Nondualistic Perspective
Beatnik Christianity Habitually Questions the Unquestionable
Living in Christian culture is like walking through an unmarked minefield. You might blissfully stroll through just fine, but if you do encounter a problem you'll never know about it until after the explosion. You see, Christians are supposed to anticipate the idiosyncratic and tribalist expectations of what's off-limits, especially regarding what questions are and aren't … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Habitually Questions the Unquestionable
