Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry, published by The Poetry Foundation, was recently interviewed by Books & Culture. In the interview, he said: “…I believe very strongly that poetry exists for the sake of life in general, exists to help people, all people willing to work at it, live their lives.”

Interviewer Aaron Rench asked about Wiman’s book Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet: “In the chapter on poetry and religion you start off by saying, ‘Art is like Christianity in this way: at its greatest, it can give you access to the deepest suffering you imagine.’ Would you say this is why art resists sentimentalism?”

Wiman replied in part, “Well, the adjective is important there: greatest. I was trying to point out how the highest moments of art can at once enact our deepest sufferings and provide a peace that is equal to them, and how this is similar to (though lesser than) what I understand to be the deepest truth in Christianity. The peace does not eliminate the sorrow or the tragedy: great art acknowledges intractable human suffering, and Christianity’s promise of the resurrection is empty without a clear, cold sense of the cross.”

I took my daughters, ages 8, 6, and almost 3, to see Disney’s WALL-E at the first show today here in Myrtle Beach.

QUICK SHOT: See it. The animation is incredible, the story is strong, and the humor has broad appeal. My only concern was related to the two-year-old — the nice sound system at our Cinemark theater made for some very loud moments for very little ears.

SYNOPSIS (no spoilers): WALL-E is a robot that cleans up an extremely littered, and abandoned, Earth; he falls in love with a probe robot that arrives one day with a mission to find… something. Any further and I’m afraid I’ll spoil a surprise.

MESSAGES: Within a good story, and without being preachy, WALL-E addresses three issues: (1) Human irresponsibility with natural resources, and (2) our tendency these days to be stuck in front of computer screens instead of real things, which leads to (3) our national trend toward obesity. I should probably add to that a (4), which would be, a basic hope that we can do better with our natural resources.

NONSENSE: Robots don’t have emotions. At least not yet.

Seen it? What are your thoughts? Comment on this post.

-Colin Foote Burch, member, Society of Professional Journalists; affiliate member, Religion Newswriters Association

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I spent Monday morning at the tiny All Saints Episcopal Church in Avenue, Maryland. I was there for the funeral of my grandfather, Col. Colin F. Burch, Jr., a flight instructor in WWII and an early engineering hand in the space program and Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. Many of my ancestors are buried in the churchyard. Today, I was thinking about tombstones as crossroads between our lived experiences and our memories, between the seen and the unseen. Tactile memorials usher into our minds incorporeal images of the past. In the process of remembering, we reclaim and reevaluate and reinterpret the past, and perhaps, create new, meaningful works for today.

-Colin Foote Burch

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David Manes over at PoliticalCartel.com makes some interesting points about the Bible in this post. Manes’ comments fit with some things I’ve been thinking through about systematizing ideas versus living in the “negative capability” of John Keats (read Keats’ full letter here). A good book that could take this discussion further is The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian & the Risk of Commitment by Daniel Taylor.
Please comment!

Seen June 23, 2008, at a Roanoke Rapids, N.C., exit off Interstate 95.

Gives a whole new meaning to “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”?
Dirty Henry?

That Little Something: Poems, the new collection by Pulitzer-winner Charles Simic, carries numerous religious images and references.

Even Cotton Mather makes an appearance.

Simic returns to the word eternity several times in the first three parts of the book; then Part Four is devoted to several short pieces under the title “Eternities;” plus the concluding “Eternity’s Orphans.”

In Part Three, the poem “Metaphysics Anonymous” begins:

A storefront mission in a slum
Where we come together at night
To confess our lifelong addiction
To truth beyond appearances,
Of which there are clues everywhere,
Or so we tell ourselves.

Must see!
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=174352
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Before you answer, check out this video clip, and then click the comment button below, and start making your list.

How many items on your list of concerns?

Mark I. Pinsky, author and religion writer for The Orlando Sentinel, writing in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin:

“Faith and forbearance can sometimes be insurmountable barriers for religion journalists. When it comes to some true believers, I have learned, nothing you write that questions their idols seems to make any difference.

“I have been covering Trinity Broadcasting Network and its flamboyant founders, Paul and Jan Crouch, for nearly two decades. During that time, I have chronicled and investigated the inexorable rise of the world’s largest Christian media empire for newspapers on both coasts, in The Los Angeles Times and The Orlando Sentinel, as well as in chapters in several books.

“My detailed exposés in the Times have included the Crouches’ heavy-handed, corner-cutting, and even cutthroat dealings with fellow Christians, as well as disputes between Trinity and the Federal Communications Commission and evangelical trade groups like the National Religious Broadcasters. In part because of my reporting, Trinity withdrew from the NRB, and was stripped of its Miami television affiliate because of what the FCC charged was misrepresentation of minority ownership.

“I revealed dubious Trinity practices, like ordaining affiliate station managers (often Crouch relatives) in order for them to qualify for parsonage allowance tax breaks. Also, Paul Crouch’s practice of cozying up to third world military dictators like Guatemala’s Efraim Rios Montt, and puppets of the apartheid-era South African government, like General Bantu Holomisa of Transkei, in order to build television stations there.”

Pinsky got an interesting quote from Quentin Schultze, an author and faculty member at Calvin College. “Within conservative media ministries, criticism from outsiders often is seen as a badge of honor that validates a ministry’s righteousness,” Schultze said.

Excellent point, and I think that “criticism from outsiders” is seen as a badge of honor among numerous groups, whether their main thrust be religious, ideological, or political.

But Pinsky has much more to say about TBN and the Crouches than what I’ve shared above.

Read the full text of Pinsky’s outstanding article here.

Charles C. Twombly, a Wesleyan college professor and author of the most popular article at LiturgicalCredo.com, has contributed yet another provocative look at iconography and images of God in the context of Western monotheism generally and Christian theology specifically.

Read “To See or Not to See: God’s Body in the Byzantine Picture Controversy.” It includes a link to his previous, highly popular article.