Unemployed Theologian

I don't have a catchy angle for this one, folks. No hook. No pithy observation or witticism to capture your attention. I have only the stomachache that kept me up last night, one prompted by what's going on two-thirds of the way across in the country. In Ferguson, Missouri. Believe me, I'm as surprised as any of you that this whole Ferguson thing is eliciting any thought from me at all. What does it matter to me? For one thing, I live in Oregon. Geographically, Ferguson could not be less on my radar. Additionally, I have had maybe one or two run ins with police in my whole life, none of them significant (traffic ticket, maybe some domestic dispute when I was a kid). Plus, ya know, I've got that whole, white guy thing going. I have a few black friends, but none I've had the opportunity to sit down with and discuss the particulars of this situation. So what's my deal? To be totally honest, on a purely intellectual level I don't actually understand what's ...

Party at Jay Gatsby's A few weeks ago I found these words at the bottom of my ticket to George Fox's spring formal, a dance themed after the novel and fast-approaching film  The Great Gatsby . I would say loosely themed, considering the DJ offered no tunes from the roaring twenties but instead pumped the standard Top-40-techno-dance-hip-hop fusion, but having now seen the movie it was actually pretty on the nose. In any case I initially found it a bit odd that my Christian college would theme its dance around the bacchanals described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's anti-tribute to classic American excess, but I made no large fuss about it and indeed had a splendid time, cutting the rug with a few dear chums whom I will miss very much. It was no party at Jay Gatsby's though. No, it couldn't hold a candle to those raucous scenes depicted in the film, to the hyperreal colors, the impossibly shiny sequins, the manic, untethered energy, and no one in attendance at our dance w...