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Burke
Motherless Brooklyn
I'm an editor, I'm not always this morose, and this blog is completely independent from my day job. Seriously.
Interests: My best friends are ex-evangelicals.
Recent Activity
Theodicy Odyssey
Dude. Major conservative evangelical backlash on Sandy Hook, blaming it on lack of school prayer. The theodical ramifications are substantial: is this God, who enables and endorses the slaughter of children? Heavy duty. It's an old saw often used by evangelicals, but let's use it anyway: what would Jesus do? Continue reading
Posted Dec 17, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Onward.
There has been a groundswell among the American population in reaction to Sandy Hook. Here again, a mentally unstable person had access to considerable, legal firepower. It was George W. Bush who let the Clinton-era Federal Assault Weapon Ban (AWB) expire in September 2004. After eight years, four of them... Continue reading
Posted Dec 16, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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God in the time of Trauma.
The Sandy Hook shootings still haven't really sunk in, nor should they. This is the nature of trauma, this unique kind of wound. If we were to comprehend it, it would make us inhumane, since events like this are something that humans cannot comprehend. We can only stand (or perhaps... Continue reading
Posted Dec 15, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Requiescat in Pacem.
November 11, 1855. Søren Aaybe Kierkegaard is dead. His last words are, "The bomb explodes and the conflagration follows." The fire still rages. It still rages. Continue reading
Posted Nov 11, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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And there was nothing to fear, nothing to doubt.
When I hear Radiohead's Pyramid Song, I am taken back to the brightest day I can remember, that Tuesday morning eleven years ago. The weather in New Haven, CT is perfect, with a slight chill on the hill of Yale Divinity School, where I had just left my homiletics class.... Continue reading
Posted Sep 11, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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It is unsurprising that two of my of my favorite...
It is unsurprising that two of my of my favorite political theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Sophie Scholl, were martyred. My Red Virgin, Simone Weil, in her own idiosyncratic solidarity, drove herself into the ground. Only Dorothy Day saw a long life, yet always on the margins. Obviously, my theological politics... Continue reading
Posted Aug 12, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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The Fear of Evangelicalism
Yesterday, I finished reading Mark Noll's landmark The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, which begins with the indictment, "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." Almost twenty years later, this indictment is, for the most part, still valid. And the evangelical... Continue reading
Posted Aug 4, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Resurrection of the Soldiers
Posted Jul 24, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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On theological illiteracy
As long as I have been interested in theology, I have been frustrated that many people - whether they consider themselves religious or not - have not thought carefully about theology. By that I mean careful, critical thought about the relationships between humanity and divinity. And with that, to think... Continue reading
Posted Jul 22, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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The Gods of the Seventeenth Century
A number of years ago, I started reading Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra and was struck how little I had really thought about virtue and values, major themes under Nietzsche's attack. I then went to Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. It was a monumental work for me... Continue reading
Posted Jul 15, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Decompression
Posted Jul 13, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Kierkegaard Against the Hedge Fund Managers
For the knight [of faith] will then, in the first place, have the strength to concentrate the whole of his life's content and the meaning of reality in a single wish. If a person lacks this concentration, this focus, his soul is disintegrated from the start, and then he will... Continue reading
Posted Jul 11, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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The Weight of the World
Posted Jul 8, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
for rp. Continue reading
Posted Jul 2, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Spend your summer in fear and trembling.
This summer, I will be teaching a short four-week course on how to think theologically and I'll be using Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling as the basic text. Yes, it does seem like a your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter/your-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate sort of debacle, but I believe it will work. I was pleased with the response... Continue reading
Posted Jun 20, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Someone's Got to Help Me Dig
Continue reading
Posted May 7, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Perichoresis
I once fed the Holy Spirit. She was a flock of pigeons pecking by the bench in a Brooklyn park. I threw her bread crumbs, bits of the Body that was given for you. She ate the bread hungrily, a kind of omophagia in action. It was a Trinitarian action,... Continue reading
Posted May 6, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer. April 9, 1945. Tegel Prison, Germany.
Posted Apr 9, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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The Tomb is the Abyss.
It is Easter. If there ever was an apocalyptic day, this is it. (The weather here in Brooklyn is absolutely gorgeous, by the way). Easter is confusing. It is unsettling. And if you dwell on it for long enough, it can reduce you to tears. What does it mean to... Continue reading
Posted Apr 8, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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World Ends.
A big thanks to CHIRP Radio's Scott McKenna for last night's shout out about this blog and my introduction to Anilore. He played this song, as well as Joy Division's Passover for us. Happy Black Saturday, Scott. Thanks for helping make it bleak. Continue reading
Posted Apr 7, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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I do not know that man.
Posted Apr 7, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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I Can't Believe This Has Happened.
Everything is quiet now. There is nothing left to be said. Nothing can be said. Our dust settles upon the ground and the wind of the week has stopped swirling. It is very quiet. We cannot wait. By that, I mean, we ought not to wait. By that I mean,... Continue reading
Posted Apr 7, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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The Day of Ache
The next three days are tough. Here we find the variance of perspectives on who Jesus of Nazareth was and who the Christ is. Some live on today and see a man die in one of the more creatively brutal institutional forms of execution devised by members the human race.... Continue reading
Posted Apr 6, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Whither is God?
From Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science: The madman.—Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just... Continue reading
Posted Apr 6, 2012 at Bleak Theology
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Burke is now following Dominic Mattos
Apr 6, 2012
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