essays

[National Review Online, January 27, 2006]

The best line in "Nanny McPhee" is not actually spoken; it's merely exhaled through Emma Thompson's prodigious nose, a quietly observant "Hmmm."

You may not remember Thompson's nose being particularly notable in such arched-pinky movies as "Howard's End," "The Remains of the Day," and various Shakespeare and Jane Austen productions. But here it is bulbous and red,

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[Review of Faith & International Affairs, Winter 2005-2006]

In "Paradise Now," a new movie from director Hany Abu-Assad, there's a moment when the character Khaled (Ali Suliman) does a good imitation of a Wild West gunslinger. He faces a corner and then spins back out on one foot, turning toward his pals with a "quick draw" gesture and a grin.

The joke is that he has just had a set of explosives strapped to his chest.

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[Atonement Anthology, 2006]

Jesus is standing on the broken doors of hell. The massive portals lie crossed under his feet, a reminder of the Cross that won this triumph. He stands braced and striding, like a superhero, using his mighty outstretched arms to lift a great weight. That weight is Adam and Eve themselves, our father and mother in the fallen flesh. Jesus grasps Adam's wrist with his right hand and Eve's with his left, as he pulls them forcibly up, out of the carved marble boxes that are their graves. Eve is shocked and appears almost to recoil in shame, long gray hair streaming. Adam gazes at Christ with a look of stunned awe, face lined with weary age, his long tangled beard awry. Their limp hands lie in Jesus' powerful grip as he hauls them up into the light.

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[Beliefnet, January 10, 2005]

An excerpt from "First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew"

Every day, Christians pray "deliver us from evil," not knowing that the Greek original reads "the evil," that is, "the evil one." The New Testament Scriptures are full of references to the malice of the devil, but we generally overlook them. I think this is because our idea of salvation is that Christ died on the cross to pay His Father the debt for our sins. The whole drama takes place between Him and the Father, and there's no role for the evil one.

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[Unpublished; email to a friend, January 7, 2006]

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[Beliefnet.com, January 4, 2006]

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12), and as I write I hear the angry voices drifting in from the television in the next room. There are sick hearts tonight in Upshur County, West Virginia. When miners were trapped a few days ago, initial hope of a rescue gradually waned. Then last night, unbelievable news arrived of a miracle, that 12 of 13 were still alive, was shortly followed by the shattering revelation that the toll was in fact the reverse, and only one had survived. And so what might have been a time simply of grief has gone rocketing from exultant confidence in miracle to resentment and rage.

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