Paying Attention (The Transfiguration of Place, Part V)

The following is Part V of a talk I gave on April 2nd at the St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Conference at the Antiochian Village. The full talk is entitled “The Transfiguration of Place: An Orthodox Christian Vision of Localism.” Read Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV. There are six parts in all. This question therefore brings us to the practical side…

The Locus and Economy of Community (The Transfiguration of Place, Part II)

The following is Part II of a talk I gave on April 2nd at the St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Conference at the Antiochian Village. The full talk is entitled “The Transfiguration of Place: An Orthodox Christian Vision of Localism.” Read Part I. There are six parts in all. Let’s think about this effect for a moment: What if transportation became so expensive that you…

The Politics of Hobbits (The Transfiguration of Place, Part I)

The following is the introductory section of a talk I gave last week at the St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Conference at the Antiochian Village. The full talk is entitled “The Transfiguration of Place: An Orthodox Christian Vision of Localism.” There are six parts in all. There is a mythical place where many of us, including myself, have often fantasized about moving to. In it,…

Priorities and Practicalities

The following is a recycled post from my previous weblog, originally posted in October of 2008. In a conversation I had recently, I was struck by how religious fervor is so often given over to nearly everything but religion. In this particular discussion, my interlocutor was greatly concerned about people who had no health insurance, because of a frequent interaction with such people, some…

A Localist Moment in Emmaus, reprise

I wrote last week regarding the proposed opening of a swingers’ club (to be named “The Vault”) on Main Street in Emmaus, at the very heart of the borough. Last night, to consider the matter, the borough’s zoning hearing board met at the Emmaus Community Park (an aptly named venue for this event), rather than their usual borough hall location. Suffice it to say…

Deepwater Horizon: Why Evangelical theology is helpless in the face of a catastrophic oil spill

Every so often, I think it’s okay to indulge in an inflammatory headline. I recently read the lament “Ecological Catastrophe and the Uneasy Evangelical Conscience” by Russell D. Moore. It seems to have gotten a decent amount of circulation online, if only because it is written by an Evangelical Protestant talking about how ashamed he is that “environmentalism” has been the near exclusive realm…