Just re-listened to: Resurrection Letters, Volume II (2008) by Andrew Peterson as part of a slow-motion Peterson marathon meant to confirm or repudiate my September claim that he’s the most skilled evangelical songwriter of the century. This album, unlike the three that come between it and his 2000 debut, is evidence in favor of that claim. Polished folk pop expressing orthodox Christian thoughts. The Mullins mimicking continues, and that’s not a bad thing.
What’s more, this album will forever be linked in my life to one particularly long drive home from Florida back in October 2015. I drove a thousand miles through hot tears of doubt about God’s existence. Along those long highways, I had seven companions consoling and counseling me: over the phone, five good friends and one mom, and over the truck stereo, Peterson, who sang “I believe You are the Christ, the son of the living God” with enough conviction that I eventually joined in.
Scott[handling small bottle near Sully’s backpack]: What’s this? Sully: Oh, that’s my backup soy sauce. It comes in handy more than you think. Scott: I’m kind proud of you, actually.
Screen addiction, which I define much more broadly than the APA might, is harmful for the same reason suicide is harmful (and thus called by many religious people a sin): It removes people, with all the skills, humor, and other virtues they might bring to bear on the world, from the social nexus and destroys human attachments. It is a hermitage.
Just finished reading: “Contemplation as Rebellion: The case for unenchantment” (2025) by Nicholas Carr, whose main ideas are that to patiently, contemplatively attend to things is to engage ourselves and our world in the best way—especially contra a society rife with stimulation and mere perception. And it has nothing to with “enchanting” anything.
Just finished reading: “Beyond Words: On the role of silence in film and faith” (2025) by Arthur Aghajanian, whose main idea is that filmmakers can use and sometimes—but not often enough—do use silence to draw viewers in to spiritual experience.
“Can forgiveness find a footing in broader systemic realities?”
“To encourage [Black people] to see their suffering as righteous obedience to God in Christ is to sanctify a perpetual social death.”
“In a moment of racial distress, forgiveness becomes a reflex response that serves the social maintenance of racial hierarchy.”
Some quick reflections: This is why forgiveness without amends is usually bad.
Potts is right that punishment and recompense will always be incommensurate with the wrongdoing (except for restitution, which can come close). That’s how you can say that forgiveness and justice can and do coexist: Forgiveness doesn’t say nothing is due; forgiveness says that what’s been paid is enough. Nothing more is due.
Just finished reading: “Forgiveness ≠ Reconciliation: Wisdom for Difficult Relationships” (2024) by Yana Jenay Conner, whose main idea is well summarized by the title. This was my favorite article in the Winter 2024 issue of Comment. Conner helped me realize that Matthew 18 contains a righteous unforgiveness: “And if he refuses to listen…let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector" (v. 17). And these two partial quotations struck me as beautiful: “I was a daddy’s girl without a dad…” and “Even if I was interested in adjusting my grip on the cross…”
The man who fell submits that both easy acceptance and permanent excommunication are not good, the former creating dysfunctional communities by ignoring the woulds of the aggrieved, and the latter destroying the sinner. (For my part, I’ll add that the latter also creates dysfunctional communities.) His wife forgave him, doing neither of the above. And by that, he was saved. It even elicited repentance, he says.
The wife who forgave says she forgave he husband, and it has cost her a lot. But it’s the way of Christ, and it, she says, has made her holy.
Just finished reading: ”New Eyes: Forgiveness is not erasing” (2024) by Amy Low, whose main idea is that there is danger that forgiveness will unjustly erase the past. There is also a danger that unforgiveness will spoil potential futures for aggrieved and offender alike. Let us avoid both ditches as we walk the path.
“Go, eat delicacies and drink sweet drinks and send portions to whoever has none prepared, for the day is holy to our master, and do not be sad, for the rejoicing of YHWH is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10, Alters). The enjoinment to enjoyment along with generosity, both in the name of the Lord, warms my soul.
Just finished reading ”Punishment and Retribution: An Attempt to Delimit Their Scope in New Testament Thought” (1965) by C.F.D. Moule, who argues that Retribution as satisfaction of abstract scales of an abstract justice is a sub-Christian and sub-personal idea. Punishment as reformatory, protective, or deterrent is fine. My take: Agreed, although he doesn’t spend enough time or brain reinterpreting the biblical passages that challenge this thesis, nor offering much of a picture of how the punishments mentions in the New Testament do work. In fact, he spends most of the article very weakly dismissing counterevidence.
I finally feel comfortable with my grasp of the relationship between non-retaliation, forgiveness, and reconciliation, together with God’s will regarding all three:
Just finished reading “Die With Me: Jesus, Pickton, and Me” (2006) by Brita Miko, who argues that we need to love and forgive even the worst of sinners if we’re going to follow Jesus. My take: Not if you think forgiveness should be granted without confession and repentance, as it seems Miko does.
