Leah Libresco's Blog, page 15

Dissecting the Catholic Vote for FiveThirtyEight

Over at FiveThirtyEight, I’m taking a close look at a recent Pew survey of religious voters. More mass-going Catholics are planning to vote for Clinton than planned to support Obama four years ago, but it’s not because Clinton won them over: Catholics who attend Mass weekly have increased their support for the Democratic nominee by [Read More...]

My Good Catch Catches Them All

I’ve gone to Poland to speak at World Youth Day, so, in the meantime, I’ve got a few good posts from my fiancé to recommend. He’s been alternately playing Pokemon Go and writing about the way its reenchanting the city for players. Even though I’m not playing, I’m still enjoying all the people I run [Read More...]

Starving Laypeople of Devotion in Church

I just wrapped up (and really enjoyed) Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580. One of the themes that jumped out at me were the ways laypeople were pushed aside during the English Reformation. Although Protestant reformers were ostensibly giving power to the ordinary people of the parish (though translations of [Read More...]

Rational Faith: More working hypothesis than logical proof

This month, Patheos asked bloggers to contribute to a Public Square symposium on the question “Is Faith Rational, Irrational, or Arational?” Since I used to work teaching Bayesian statistics for the Center for Applied Rationality and I’m now a statistician for FiveThirtyEight, I’m coming down firmly on the “Rational” side of this trilemma. But “rational” [Read More...]

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...]