Joe Loconte’s review of JFTW in the Weekly Standard is so generous, I’m almost (almost!) too embarrassed to post it:

Forster stands squarely in a distinguished stream of Christian reformers that includes Erasmus and his “philosophy of Christ,” Luther’s “theology of the cross,” Locke’s “Gospel of peace,” and Wesley’s “recovery of the divine nature.” Each returned to the core message of Jesus, the Word that helped to rescue and renew a society in crisis. “A true Christian lives and labors on earth not for himself but for his neighbor,” wrote Luther. “Therefore the whole spirit of his life impels him to do even that which he needs not do, but which is profitable and necessary for his neighbor.” Forster insists that “the joy of God” not only offers the surest path to a society—and a civilization—where peace and flourishing are everyday realities; it represents the longing of the human heart, the place where the City of Man is finally and permanently transformed into the City of God.

Also noteworthy: Loconte points out that my views challenge the readers of the Standard as much as their opponents. Good for the Standard for letting him say so!

Today, TGC carries my article on how churches can help those who lose their jobs to technological change:

The march of technology is relentless, and it is always both creating and destroying jobs. It brings many blessings—spiritual and material—but also great costs. For example, seven of Fast Company’s “Ten Most Endangered Jobs of 2014” are classic blue-collar jobs—mail carriers, meter readers, drill press operators, and so on. I’m surprised they left out restaurant workers, who will soon be facing widespread replacement by touch-screen ordering and kitchen automation…

Over and over in Scripture, we are admonished to pursue and treasure wisdom. Consider Proverbs, or Job’s discourse on wisdom, or the admonitions to growth and maturity in the epistles. When people come into the pastor’s office after losing their jobs, a few canned bullet points on theology of work are not enough. People want to know: Why is this happening? Is God at work in this mysterious and seemingly chaotic process of technological change? What am I supposed to do?

I offer five ideas about what the church can be for those who lose their jobs, including:

The church can be a place where people find healing. In the modern world, public institutions are becoming more and more specialized. Each organization—business, school, government, and so on—exists only to serve its particular function. If you have a problem that isn’t directly related to their function, they won’t help you. Where can people turn to find a place where the whole human being is cared for? In God’s plan, that’s primarily the home and the church. As public institutions become increasingly specialized, the home and the church will need to step up even more as centers of general caregiving. Since the home is not exactly in great shape right now, that’s all the more need for churches to be places of care and healing for the distressed…

The church can be a place of cultural entrepreneurship. Helping people one at a time is essential, but we can do more. According to Genesis 1 and Revelation 22, human beings are made to be social, cultural creatures. The gospel cannot transform every aspect of our lives if the church doesn’t have something to say, and something to do, in every domain of culture. We shouldn’t march out and try to take control of the levers of worldly power, but we can find opportunities to do things in our own God-given spheres of influence that manifest our faith…

Charlie Hebdo is a disgusting publication. I don’t mean primarily because it uses juvenile sexual crudity to deman people, although that’s pretty bad – don’t type “Charlie Hebdo cover” in Google Images unless you have a strong stomach. What’s primarily disgusting is not the sexual crudity used to demean people, but the fact that the publication seems to exist primarily to demean people.

Now, how do I make it clear that in spite of the fact that Charlie Hebdo is disgusting, I regard the right of Charlie Hebdo to be Charlie Hebdo as worthy of the highest protection? Is it still possible to say that Charlie Hebdo is disgusting but I am prepared to die for its right to be what it is? Or is there now only a choice between sentimental gas that condemns neither Charlie Hebdo nor attacks on free speech, and a sort of free speech idolatry that says we are not defending the right to be Charlie Hebdo if we are not celebrating the content of Charlie Hebdo?

Does “I Am Charlie Hebdo” imply I approve of the content of Charlie Hebdo? I can’t tell. A lot of people seem to think so.

You will have difficulty finding someone who enjoys the writing of Mark Steyn more than myself, but since the massacre, nobody’s stance on free speech seems to be strong enough for him. If you are anything less than celebratory of the content of Charlie Hebdo, or if you focus your response on affirming the power of ideas rather than on the (also important) imperative to hunt these terrorists down and kill them, your affirmations of free speech rights are somehow compromised in his eyes.

I think he’s particularly off base in suggesting that the cover of the new issue somehow reflects a decline in courage on the editors’ part:

When skilled persons who have never shied away from clarity produce a work whose meaning is unclear, then it is reasonable to assume the unclearness is itself the meaning.

No, it is not. The editors may be “skilled,” but think about what must have been involved in putting out a new issue under the conditions that now prevail at Charlie Hebdo. Publishing is a hectic world even when you haven’t just been blown up by a bomb. If the cover was unclear, a rushed production is the obvious culprit.

The editors profess that they intended the meaning of the cover to be clear. Gérard Biard, editor-in-chief, says:

“It is we who forgive, not Muhammad.”

I believe him. If even he has not established that he’s the kind of guy who says what he really thinks, who has?

Steyn is right that there is a temptation to say “I support free speech, but…” and then compromise free speech away. But there is an equal and opposite temptation to think that free speech has not been protected unless the speech itself achieves the highest possible level of unpleasantness, or if we then fail to celebrate its having done so.

Sign me up with Ahmed Aboutaleb, the mayor of Rotterdam. He identifies as Muslim and says to his coreligionists who don’t embrace religious freedom:

It’s incomprehensible that you turn against freedom like that, but if you don’t like this freedom, for heaven’s sake, get your suitcase, and leave. There might be a place where you belong, and be honest with yourself about that. Don’t kill innocent journalists. And if you don’t like it here because you don’t like the humorists who make a little newspaper — if I may dare say so — just f*** off.

I am Ahmed Aboutaleb!

HT readers might be interested in my review of the new Annie movie over on JPGB:

There’s a real artistry to the way this movie does the Annie story without treacle. I think half my enjoyment of the movie was admiring how they pulled this off.

Consider how they handle “Tomorrow.” You can’t have Annie without “Tomorrow.” But audiences in the post-Seinfeld culture are not going to sit still for “Tomorrow.” Not unless you do something that forces them to. How to do it? By putting the song in an unhappy scene. Annie gets a major disappointment – life basically kicks her in the teeth. The sad moment just lingers on screen quietly for a bit. And then Annie half-says, half-sings to herself, quietly, “the sun will come out tomorrow.” And a moment later she’s singing “Tomorrow” and it’s slowly but surely building steam. And you’re rooting for her.

These people actually know how to make a frikkin’ movie. Can you believe it? Where have they been for the last twenty years?

I also contemplate the significance of the movie’s political, economic, racial and ethical views, which I think are deeper than they may appear to be.

The story of Annie has always been America’s ideal of itself at its best. I’m not sure a black Annie isn’t a greater sign of triumph over historic injustice than a black president.

Today, TGC carries my review of Gene Veith and Matthew Ristuccia’s book Imagination Redeemed. I loved the book:

Imagination was given to us so we could love each other. Imagination Redeemed showed me something I had never realized: practically every aspect of neighbor love involves imagination. We cannot do to others what we would have them do to us without first imagining what we would have them do to us. Or if we wish to obey God’s command to respect the “image of God” in all human beings, we must have a well-developed and disciplined power of grasping images. What is that but imagination? Paul commands us to bear one another’s burdens and consider the interests of others; how do we know what others’ burdens and interests are, except by using imagination to place ourselves in their shoes?

I did register one objection:

In several places, they talk as though imagination were not just coordinate with reason and will, but superior to them…If reason is subordinate to imagination rather than coordinate with it, there can be no valid reason to insist it’s right to follow a vision of the true God and wrong to follow a vision of false gods, or none. Veith and Ristuccia back up their claim by pointing out that companies spend millions on advertising that appeals to the imagination, but those same companies also spend millions on lawyers, lobbyists, spokespeople, and others whose job is to appeal to reason. We don’t want to jump out of the frying pan of Cartesian rationalism into the fire of Nietzschean relativism.

But that’s a minor flaw. It’s a wonderful little book. Check it out.