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Posts from the ‘Guest posts’ Category

Jun 3

[Meghan Florian] Kierkegaard, Malick, and the Soul in Need

We’re delighted to welcome Meghan Florian back to ProfligateGrace.com, this time with a commentary on Terrence Malick’s _To the Wonder_.  Thank you, Meghan, for this wonderful (sic) piece!

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Terrence Malick’s new film, To the Wonder — haunting, beautiful, and at times troubling — was the last film Roger Ebert ever reviewed. In his review, he noted that the film leaves a great deal up to the viewer; motivations are often unclear, and the plot offer no clear pattern. Instead Malick paints a landscape of wide open spaces, shifting light, and endless skies, beneath which dance troubled people, longing for connection, trying to love one another, and failing again and again. Malick gives us none of the Hollywood romance we’re accustomed to. Instead, he depicts the failures of human love, interwoven with the transformation of divine love. The characters Malick creates can, arguably, be most clearly understood in light of a Kierkegaardian love ethic. I like to think of To the Wonder as Works of Love: The Movie. Read more

May 21

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[From our London correspondent] Standing in the Rain for Jesus

The Profligate Grace team is delighted to bring you this report from our London correspondent, Angela, and her friends in the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Christianity Uncut.  Read on for an improbable (but true) account of their act of witness outside the recent Leadership Conference sponsored by a very, very prominent evangelical Anglican parish.

Christian CND first heard that Holy Trinity Brompton Church was hosting the CEO of Serco at their Leadership Conference via Twitter.  Serco is part of a consortium that manage and run the day to day operations of Britain’s nuclear weapons programme.  It was one of three companies to sign a contract with the UK government to run the nuclear project for 25 years from the year 2000.  That Serco have a huge stake in seeing Trident (the UK’s nuclear weapon’s project) renewed is not in doubt.  At first, Christian CND assumed that Holy Trinity Brompton had not realised that Serco managed the UK’s nuclear weapons.  Many people in the UK would more typically associate Serco with immigration removal centres, prisons and prison transport.  However, we were alarmed to discover that the HTB Leadership Conference website stated “[Serco] take care of the nuclear arsenal for Britain”.  Upon realising that the church was in full knowledge of this information about Serco, we watched Chris Hyman’s profile video.During the video, Mr Hyman asserted, “ultimately…the most challenging job we have is giving hope to people and to making sure business is done the right way”.  We failed to understand how nuclear weapons “give hope”.  Indeed, Christian CND were pleased to observe that in 2007 the Church of England passed a resolution at General Synod stating “the proposed upgrading of Trident is contrary to the spirit of the United Kingdom’s obligations in international law and the ethical principles underpinning them.”.  As a company, Serco have previously been found to act in ways that might be described as morally dubious.  (Check out Christmas Island detention Centre for some of their more luxurious accommodation.) Read more

May 14

[Patrick O’Neill] 83-Year Old Nun Found Guilty of Sabotage

We’re proud to host this report by Patrick O’Neill, whose writing appears in the National Catholic Reporter, the Independent Weekly, and the Raleigh News and Observer, among other places.  Patrick and his wife, Mary Rider, are co-founders of Garner’s Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House, an intentional Christian community that provides hospitality for men, women and children in crisis. They have 8 children.

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NOTE — During a Thursday morning hearing to decide if Michael, Greg and Sr. Megan would get released pending their Sept. 23 sentencing, the judge, a George W. Bush appointee to the federal bench, was clearly struggling with his decision because it appeared that he might have “no choice” but to remand them to custody because the U.S. Attorney told him a congressional law might require him to do so because the three were found guilty of sabotage — an “act of violence” against the United States. “It is preposterous that Congress would pass a law that would not distinguish between peace protestors and terrorists,” the judge said — and off to jail they went. Read more

Mar 21

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Bitch?

Emily started this blog, and she gave me permission to tell the story.  She was hustling out the porch door for a sleepover with Samantha, and I caught hold of her backpack to slip in her toothbrush.  “No!  Mom, I will put it in!” she insisted, and while she did, I noticed a copy of Bitch Magazine  in there with her footie pajamas.  She looked at me, worried about my reaction.  (Worried, mostly, that I would tell her she couldn’t take it.)  Hmmmm . . . I asked her to sit down and give me a minute to think.  Inhale.  Exhale.  (There are mommy moments when I use my Lamaze breathing well past the due date.)  I looked over the Smitten Kitten advertisements and decided they were too subtle for her to understand.  (That is a topic for another blog.)  Then, I read quickly again through a few articles, to make sure they were not more explicit than I had remembered.  Then, while staring into space, trying to decide what her friend’s mom would think, my eyes focused on several copies of Vogue that she and Rachel had been cutting up for collaging.  Vogue has anorexic, bored, zombie-looking girl-women, often sprawled on the floor in clothes that are impractical for walking across the room.  (Why do I allow such trash in my house?)  Bitch offers bold, lively essays on ways that we are snipped and clipped in pop-culture.  Maybe Em and Samantha could use a bit of “Bitch”?  I permitted Em her contraband, and texted Samantha’s mom a heads-up. Read more

Jan 10

[Matt Morin] Guns in America: Freedom Ain’t Free

By Matt Morin

Because I am either a charitable hearer of opposing viewpoints, or a glutton for punishment, I try to tune in to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity at least once a week when I am in my car. Rarely do I find myself nodding in agreement—for example, unlike Hannity, I don’t “define peace as the ability to blow your enemies into smithereens”; nor am I persuaded by Limbaugh’s line of reasoning: “How can I be anti-woman? I even judged the Miss America pageant.”

So imagine my surprise last week when, during the topic of gun violence in the United States, one call-in guest reminded his host that “freedom isn’t free.”

YES! Finally, someone who gets it. At last, the anti-gun message is starting to sink in.

Read more

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