There's Beauty in the Bellow

Excerpts from "Forced Merriment and the True Meaning of Christmas," an essay by Christopher Hitchens printed posthumously in the December 24 edition of the Wall Street Journal . First of all, Mr. Hitchens takes a swipe at the Protestant Church: The original Puritan Protestants regarded Christmas as blasphemous. Yet this is hardly subversive at all. Religious sermons against the "commercialization" of Christmas have also been a staple of the season ever since I can remember. A root-and-branch resistance to the holiday spirit would have to be a lot tougher than that. It's fairly easy to be a charter member of the Tom Lehrer Club, which probably embraces a fair number of the intellectual classes and has sympathizers even in the most surprising families. But the thing about the annual culture war that would probably most surprise those who want to "keep the Christ in Christmas" is this: The original Puritan Protestant...

and no telling the little pieces you'll pick up. The Wall St Journal discusses Vera Wang . . . and we find out that Michelle Obama wore Vera Wang last week. Remember how Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich got in trouble for their spending? "Beyond Bridal: Vera Wang's New Look," Christina Binkley. December 15, 2011, Wall Street Journal. And who are John Huntsman's daughters hanging out with? One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Beijing, and the son of one of China's top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo. Bo Guagua, 23, was expected. He had a dinner appointment with a daughter of the then-ambassador, Jon Huntsman. The car, though, was a surprise. The driver's father, Bo Xilai, was in the midst of a controversial campaign to revive the spirit of Mao Zedong through mass renditions of old revolutionary anthems, known as "red singing." He had ordered students and officials to work stin...

Lewis' quote out of Till We Have Faces has been echoing in my head all morning since learning of the death of Christopher Hitchens. I followed the debates between Doug Wilson and Hitchens, watched "Collision," and was once privileged to hear Peter Hitchens live. Hitchens' last piece for Vanity Fair Read Hitchens' reflections on his cancer--they are harrowing, horrifying and heroic. He was intellectually honest--to the point of self-immolation. Just the headshot of Christopher's chemo-swollen face, bald head, the skin aged 10 years in only one year, makes one grieve for the strong voice in the quickly slackening body. He knew Who he was fighting--the Mighty God, the Judge of all the earth Who does rightly, the Ancient of Days, the I Am, the Creator and Maker and Sustainer. He denied all those titles, but he did not belittle them. Pastor Wilson's obit for Christianity Today "[Hitchens] He was fully aware of the authority an enfant terrib...

H Debussy my nutty cat Is there a simpler recipe for a photo?

Travis Cooper's book Hipster Christianity has a website: http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/index.php . The website also features a free chapter (actually intro & first chapter) in pdf. I appreciated Cooper's handling of the nuances of this relationship between two cultures and loved the questions he raised. I will pursue this book for future reading. Good questions to think about.