Where Faith Meets Culture

by Gallagher, Sharon; Alter, Margaret G.; Armstrong, Kurt; Bellah, Robert; Buford, Bob

• ISBN13: 9781608991440
• ISBN10: 160899144X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Cascade Books

Summary

Where Faith Meets Culture is a Radix magazine anthology. What does Radix usually contain? Interviews and features. Reviews of significant books, films, and CDs. Informed opinions in the Last Word. Eye-catching graphics. Mind-stretching prose. Image-rich poetry. Radix assumes that Christians live in the real world and takes lay Christians seriously. As one subscriber wrote: Radix is a more worldly magazine than one would expect from its deep commitment to Christ. Radix monitors the cultural landscape, questions assumptions, and introduces new voices, remaining deeply rooted in Christ. Sociologist Robert Bellah wrote in a Radix article: Though social scientists say a lot about the self, they have nothing to say about the soul and as a result the modern view finds the world intrinsically meaningless. Radix continues to talk about meaning and hope in a culture that has lost its way. The articles in this volume reflect the magazine's wide-ranging interests: literature, art, music, theology, psychology, technology, discipleship, and spiritual formation. They're written by some of the outstanding authors whose work has graced our pages over the years: Peggy Alter, Kurt Armstrong, Robert Bellah, Bob Buford, Krista Faries, David Fetcho, Susan Fetcho, Sharon Gallagher, David W. Gill, Joel B. Green, Os Guinness, Virginia Hearn, Walter Hearn, Donald Heinz, Margaret Horwitz, Mark Labberton, Henri Nouwen, Earl Palmer, Susan Phillips, Dan Ouellette, Steve Scott, and Luci Shaw.

Author Biography

Sharon Gallagher is editor of Radix magazine and Associate Director of New College Berkeley. She is the author of Finding Faith: Life-changing Encounters with Christ.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
The Good Life: Wholeness and Meaning
Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy	p. 3
Because we have a home and belong to the Lord, we can be in the midst of the network of wounds and needs without being pulled apart.
Reflections on a Meaning-Filled Life	p. 16
For me prayer is not separate from daily life. It's a way of being. It's like being with my wife for a weekend at the farm. We're there with one another.
Wounds of Childhood and the Grace of God	p. 26
We seem desperately to believe in a pain-free world wheh life is simple and problems are manageable, but we find ourselves repeatedly called by God into a complex demanding life.
Discipleship: Call and Response
The Constellation of God's Call	p. 35
God's call on our lives enables us to see a constellation where before we had seen only stars.
Knowing Means Doing: A Challenge to Think Christianly	p. 40
What does it mean to be Part of the world's educated elite, and be responsible to the Lord for that knowledge?
The Earth Is the Lord's: Stewardship in an Age of Crisis	p. 48
As a matter of discipleship, Christians should be in the forefront of the environmental movement. Scripture reveals a God who delights in Creation.
Contemporary Challenges
Modern Technology: Servant and Master	p. 57
What has been lost is the value of the inefficient, the non-rational, the aesthetic, the spiritual, the traditional.
Finding Your Way in Science and Faith	p. 68
If science gives us maps, faith gives us a compass. We need both.
Why Love Will Always Be a Poor Investment	p. 82
It is the relationship-as-commodity mentality and not fear of the abuses of traditional marriage that has fostered today's mood of suspicion toward making a lifelong commitment.
The Word Speaks to Life
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: Sitting at the Table with the Prodigal Son	p. 91
How could Jesus turn a question, about whether we will be invited, into an examination of the lists of those whom we invite?
Theological Themes in the Fiction of C. S. Lewis: Good and Evil in the Chronicles of Narnia	p. 102
In Prince Caspian the meeting with Asian takes time. Lewis saw discipleship as a thousand single steps.
Care of Souls in Today's America	p. 114
The faith we proclaim comes alive when it is lived in community, above all when it is lived in worship, in the word and sacrament that heal us, and transform us, and that reaffirm our membership in one body.
Art and Soul
The Need to Pay Attention: Darkness, Light, and the Visionary Eye	p. 127
Missing our cues, we fail to notice the fingerprints of the Creator in the ordinary textures and phenomena of living because we are distracted by daily urgencies.
The Rich Legacy of Christian Music	p. 140
Angels sang Gloria in excelsis over Bethlehem. The New Testament set Christ's birth to music. Christ was music; the early church called him God's song.
The Art of Worship: Breaking Our Tools to Receive God's Gifts	p. 150
What does it take to allow the arts their rightful place at the table of our worship? ... Art depends for its life on discovery and risk, surprise, gift, and grace.
Spiritual Formation
Sabbath Living	p. 159
The Sabbath sanctifies time. So often we think of space as sanctified. We create a temple or church in which to contemplate God. The Sabbath is a "temple in time."
East Meets West: The Distinctives of Christian Meditation	p. 170
A Christian grounding must be the testing area for the truth-claims of any spiritual technique ... Jesus shifts our attention from the void of our own emptiness to the inexhaustible depths of his grace.
Journal-Keeping: The Poor Person's Art	p. 179
A personal journal can be a remarkable aid to spiritual growth. In the Bible, God's people were frequently told to remember what the Lord had done for them.
Media
It's a Wonderful Life: Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Frank Capra's Film	p. 189
"A Christmas Carol" is a story of salvation, and "It's a Wonderful Life" is a story of answered prayer. Both of them demonstrate the consequences of selfish, as opposed to compassionate, behavior in relation to community.
The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan and Mavis Staples	p. 201
Two dynamic albums give witness to the power of Gospel music.
Why Harry Potter Is Not the Chronicles of Narnia	p. 206
There are two things that set the Chronicles of Narnia apart from the Harry Potter books. The first is that the Chronicles of Narnia are transformational. The characters grow and change, and so do we. The second is, in a word, Asian.
List of Contributors	p. 215
Permissions	p. 218
Bibliography	p. 221
Praise for Radix Magazine	p. 227
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