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As long as we can avoid loving our earthly temples too much, I hope the writing of Kilde, Westfall, Stroik, and Alison Lurie—whose two-part essay in the New York Review of Books on Kilde's and four related new books is a useful companion to Westfall's essay—call us to take a renewed interest in how our physical places of worship shape what happens inside them. To that end, I'd like to propose a moratorium on churches lending their facilities to romantic comedies with Hollywood superstars.
Linked above:
- William Westfall's essay in B&C
- First part of Alison Lurie's essay in the New York Review of Books
- Duncan Stroik's essay in First Things
- My Chicago scrapbook
- Previous Resonance: Responses to Douglas Groothuis on Jesus and philosopher
From the New York Times :
MACHANGPING, China — The trip from [the] village of Xiapu to the town here takes an hour, though the distance is only three miles, the asphalt is perfectly smooth and traffic jams are unheard of. But such is life when a new road is used by local residents mainly for walking, not driving. … What the official New China News Agency calls a "nationwide fever of highway construction" has created a network of highways that totaled 875,000 miles two years ago and is projected to reach 1.06 million miles in 2010. In congested cities like Beijing and Shanghai, the number of personal vehicles has soared. … But the Guixin Highway, which opened a couple of years ago, illustrates how national ambitions do not always translate into local realities. … In the villages few people can afford cars. Farmers and workers walk along the clean asphalt shoulder of the four-lane highway. They carry scythes and straw baskets, fruits and vegetables on wooden shoulder poles. They haul heavy equipment, overnight bags, infants. There are occasional trucks or tour buses. Summary*
DENVER — For decades tourists have been coming to the Mile High City and posing for pictures at precisely 5,283.03 feet above sea level. Perhaps now they would like to come back and get a shot at 5,280 feet, exactly one mile high. It seems there was some confusion over the years as to exactly where the celebrated spot falls on the Capitol's steps. In 1909, officials tried to keep a marker on the 15th step, but in 1947 etched in the words "One Mile Above Sea Level" after the plaque was repeatedly stolen. Engineers in 1969 determined that a new marker should be placed on the 18th step. But this week Gov. Bill Owens heeded land surveyors and moved the point to the 13th step—3.03 feet down—and installed a third marker. The governor joked that someone should have carved the word "about" before the inscription on the 15th step. Nothing has caused the city to rise appreciably or the steps to sink, but … new technology has changed the way measurements are taken. Summary*
CITY SCENE: ST. PAULThis week, another friend and fellow Michiganian, Phil Christman, writes of his first impressions of his new surroundings in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Mark Twain, in a suspiciously buddy-buddy moment, wrote of "wonderful" St. Paul, a city "put together in solid blocks of honest brick and stone … [which] has the air of intending to stay." More prosaically, the guidebook I consulted before moving here six months ago told me to expect a city with the lovely inefficiency of a European capital, and that's what I've found. The abbreviated downtown area is all high-rise office buildings and apartment complexes—ancient warehouses converted to artists' studio space—all visible in one glance from the top of Cathedral Hill. To the west are streets like Summit, Selby and Grand with their dignified, crafted opulence, some of it surprisingly affordable—many beautiful '20s houses have been apportioned into apartment spaces, thus enabling friends of mine to live in the building where a young F. Scott Fitzgerald took dancing lessons. To the east is blight, with some bright spots (Mounds Park on the waning, cool end of a summer day can't be beat). The downtown coffee shops close earlier than those I left in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for pity's sake, but the art scene is vital. Many local artists throw open their studios during the twice-yearly Art Crawl (like a pub crawl, but with art); all kinds of bookstores and music stores pop up as you move West toward Minneapolis; and in the middle of downtown stands majestic First Baptist, where a satellite congregation called House of Mercy operates its own art gallery as well as Sunday-night services where Johnny Cash is sung. St. Paul doesn't need to be Minneapolis; behind all the "honest brick" is quirk enough for anybody.
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