-
Godsend and Our Capacity for God
“I lack the spiritual gene,” the New York Times’ Dwight Garner says in reviewing John Wray’s new book, Godsend: A Novel. “I can grow resentful of novels that lead me into a cave of superstition and wished ignorance and then seal the entrance.” Not that he didn’t like the novel. Garner, (perhaps the leading book… →
-
Silence, Poetry & the Salvation of Seamus Heaney
A Review of Christian Wiman’s He Held Radical Light The poet Seamus Heaney paused in the middle of dinner and leaned over to make a confession to Christian Wiman, who was, at the time, the editor of Poetry magazine. Knowing Wiman to be a Christian not only in name, Heaney admitted that he “felt caught between… →
-
One Last Crossing with Cormac McCarthy: A Review of Cities of the Plain
We got John Grady and Billy Parham back for the last crossing. John Grady was the romantically-inclined teenaged horse whisperer from All the Pretty Horses. Billy Parham was the beleaguered teenaged ranch hand who seems always to be helping people get home—a wolf and his dead brother, Boyd, in The Crossing. Cormac McCarthy brings the… →
-
Georgia on his Mind: George Whitefield and the Margins of Empire [from Englewood Review]
This review originally appeared on the Englewood Review of Books. Experiments flourish on the margins. It’s why visionaries and mavericks gather in places far from the watchful eye of social convention and official control. Think Donald Judd making his art and his mark in Marfa in ultra-West Texas. Think Brigham Young and the Mormons building… →
-
God is in the Crowd (& Goliath is in the Wings): A Review of Tal Keinan’s New Book
When you go to the Holy Land and discuss the current realities of Israelis and Palestinians, you’ll often hear about two biblical characters—David and Goliath. Palestinians will point out how they have been consigned to two small patches of their former homeland—Gaza and the West Bank, how Israeli settlements and security encroach on these, and… →
-
How to Get Over the Election – 2018 Edition
We went to the polls. We voted for change or not. We resisted or didn’t. And in the end, we remain divided. One pundit I heard this morning said that the most profound and confounding divide in America is the rural-urban/suburban split. As a site begun after the 2016 elections and devoted to understanding the… →
-
The Shame of Rural America: The Heartlands Interview with Robert Wuthnow Concludes, 3 of 3
In the last part of my interview with Princeton sociologist, Robert Wuthnow, we talked about rural churches. In this segment we pull back the lens and look at shame, among other things… You say in the book, The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America, that part of your effort is to explain to other… →
-
What About the Methodists?: Robert Wuthnow talks churches, 2 of 3
In the first part of my interview with Princeton’s Robert Wuthnow, one of America’s premier sociologists, we talked about the current face of the Heartland. Wuthnow’s book, The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America, talks about the changing dynamics of many rural institutions, including churches. I enlisted him to help me think about churches… →
-
Still Kinda In Kansas: Talking Politics with Robert Wuthnow, Part 1 of 3
Robert Wuthnow is that rare academic who still keeps a foot in the heartlands. Wuthnow is a respected Professor of Social Sciences at Princeton University but he’s as apt to talk to you about his native Kansas as he is the cultural capitals of DC and New York. I caught up with Wuthnow a few… →
-
Why You Need to Know What’s Happening on God’s Island
Earl Swift spent the better part of a year on Tangier Island and grew to love the people and the culture of the place. But when he wrote about the experience for his new book, his takeaway was not subtle. It’s there in the title. He believes the island is not long for this world.… →
/
Tumblr
/
Heartlands 