Leah Libresco's Blog, page 15

Why I’m a Statistician and Why I’m a Catholic

I got to do interviews with two great radio programs in the last few weeks. First up, I spoke to Matt King of Say That (past of his work for Mission: USA, an inner city mission in Chicago). We spoke about my coverage of sappy Christian hymns and how and why I work as a [Read More...]

Aunt Alberta And Being Right (but the boring way)

I’ve been rereading the Narnia series (in publication order) with a group of friends, and when we read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last week, I was struck by how the transformation of the boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb (who almost deserved it!) is summarized in the final words of the book. Back in our own [Read More...]

The Tony-Winning Guide To Temptation And Grace

Last Sunday, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton won 11 well-deserved Tony Awards, and, last week, I wrote an appreciation of the show for Aleteia. In keeping with Miranda’s style, it’s a mashup: the grace-filled story of Hamilton’s adultery and the way he is forgiven paired with St. Therese of Liseux’s advice for withstanding temptation. The choice he refused to [Read More...]

The Virtues of Sad Songs (a piece for three voices)

After I covered the empty sweetness of some contemporary Christian music, I got a mix of excellent responses, from specific song recommendations to response essays. Here are three I particularly enjoyed:   Richard Beck (Experimental Theology) “Growing Up Shape Note” In short, all the major hymnbooks of the Churches of Christ tradition have used shape-notes. [Read More...]

The (Extra) Mercy of My Conversion

Kristine Franklin invited me on to her radio show, Mercy Unwrapped, a few weeks ago to talk about my conversion and the way I’ve learned to pray. The audio is up now: Mercy Unwrapped Ep 24 – Leah Libresco: A Fervent Atheist and the Mercy of God. One of the things we wind up talking about [Read More...]

7QT: Fake Bears, Faker Weapons, and Austen

— 1 — I was pleased to get to interview Richard Beck for my article on unremittingly cheerful Christian pop music. I’ve always enjoyed his writing (and I have his latest book, Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the Disenchanted, on my shelf to read). One recent post of his I particularly [Read More...]

Christian Pop Is Oh So Peppy

Over at my day job, I’ve done an analysis of contemporary Christian music and traditional shape-note hymns. I took a look at the last five years of Billboard’s year-end top 50 Christian songs1 to see whether Christian pop is unrelentingly cheerful. I looked at pairs of concepts across the entire collection of lyrics2 (life and [Read More...]

Christian Ethics: If you understand, I’m explaining wrong…

I’ve gone on from borrowing books from my fiancé to borrowing books from my fiancé’s family, and I’ve just finished reading Stanley Hauerwas’s Resident Aliens: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know that Something is Wrong.  One of the passages I found most striking is Hauerwas’s argument below that Christian ethics should be [Read More...]

7QT: Moms, Pacifist Pilots, and other superheroes

— 1 — I’m very blessed to have a friend who joined the Dominican Sisters at Hawthorne, and she reminded me to let you all know that they have some retreats coming up!  It’s the kind of thing that is definitely worth looking at, even if you don’t long to be a nun. I’m very [Read More...]

Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” And The Fertility Of Forgiveness

I’m at First Things, reviewing Beyoncé’s visual album “Lemonade,” which does a remarkable job telling a story about a marriage that is wounded, but not unmade, by betrayal. “Hold Up” is still dreamlike, more of an imagined, idealized anger than actual rage. Beyoncé doesn’t take second swings at her targets, she seems to have no particular [Read More...]