Scott Beauchamp - Böcker

Can beauty save the world?These days criticism of art--whether visual, musical, or literary--is often marked by a suspicion of beauty. What happened to the belief that the creativity of the artist reflects the creativity of the Maker of heaven and earth, and that art can therefore be a channel for divine truth? Anyone who has joined with others to sing Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion or stood before a painting by Raphael or Chagall can attest to this. At such moments, art binds people together. This issue of Plough focuses on art that leads to such community: through theater, painting, music, and the objects and architecture of everyday life. And while art fosters community, building community is itself a work of creativity.Also in this issue: original poetry by Cozine Welch Jr.; reviews of new books by Eliza Griswold, Alissa Quart, Eugene Vodolazkin, and Nathan Englander; and art by Denis Brown, JR, Valérie Jardin, Isaiah King, Isaiah Tanenbaum, George Makary, Oriol Malet, Alex Nwokolo, Ashik and Jenelle Mohan, Raphael, Aaron Douglas, Winslow Homer, Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, and Jason Landsel. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

Your job is not your vocation.Everyone hungers for work that has meaning and purpose. But what gives work meaning? Vocation, or “calling,” is the answer Protestant Christianity offers: each person is called by God to serve the common good in a particular line of work. Your vocation, evidently, might be almost anything: as a nurse, a wilderness guide, a calligrapher, a missionary, an activist, a venture capitalist, a politician, an executioner… Yet, as Will Willimon writes in this issue, the New Testament knows only one form of vocation: discipleship. And discipleship is far more likely to mean leaving father and mother, houses and land, than it is to mean embracing one’s identity as a fisherman or tax collector.This issue of Plough focuses on people who lived their lives with that sense of vocation. Such a life demands self-sacrifice and a willingness to recognize one’s own supposed strengths as weaknesses, as it did for the Canadian philosopher Jean Vanier. It involves a lifelong commitment to a flesh-and-blood church, as Coptic Archbishop Angaelos describes. It may even require a readiness to give up one’s life, as it did for Annalena Tonelli, an Italian humanitarian who pioneered the treatment of tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa. But as these stories also testify, it brings a gladness deeper than any self-chosen path.Also in this issue: - Scott Beauchamp on mercenaries- Nathan Schneider on cryptocurrencies- Stephanie Saldaña on Syrian refugee art- Peter Biles on loneliness at college- Phil Christman on Bible translation- Michael Brendan Dougherty on fatherhood- Insights on vocation from C. S. Lewis, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, Eberhard Arnold, Dorothy Sayers, Jean Vanier, and Gerard Manley Hopkins- poetry by Devon Balwit and Carl Sandburg- reviews of books by Robert Alter, Edwidge Danticat, Matthew D. Hockenos, Amy Waldman, and Jeremy Courtney- art and photography by Pola Rader, Dean Mitchell, Mark Freear, Timothy Jones, Paweł Filipczak, Mary Pal, Harley Manifold, Sami Lalu Jahola, Marc Chagall, and Russell Bain.Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

How did violence become OK? And is there any way back?At some point between George Floyd’s killing on May 25 and the invasion of the US Capitol on January 6, America’s consensus against political violence crumbled. Before 2020, almost everyone agreed that it should be out of bounds. Now, many are ready to justify such violence – at least when it is their side breaking windows or battling police officers. Something significant seems to have slipped. Is there any way back?As Christians, we need to consider what guilt we bear, with the rise of a decidedly unchristian “Christian nationalism” that historically has deep roots in American Christian culture. But shouldn’t we also be asking ourselves what a truly Christian stance might look like, one that reflects Jesus’ blessings on the peacemakers, the merciful, and the meek?Oscar Romero, when accused of preaching revolutionary violence, responded: “We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross.” If we take Jesus’ example and his call to nonviolence at face value, we’re left with all kinds of interesting questions: What about policing? What about the military? What about participating in government? This issue of Plough addresses some of these questions and explores what a life lived according to love rather than violence might look like.In this issue:- Anthony M. Barr revisits James Baldwin’s advice about undoing racism.- Gracy Olmstead describes welcoming the baby she did not expect during a pandemic.- Patrick Tomassi debates nonviolence with Portland’s anarchists and Proud Boys.- Scott Beauchamp advises on what not to ask war veterans.- Rachel Pieh Jones reveals what Muslims have taught her about prayer.- Eberhard Arnold argues that Christian nonviolence is more than pacifism.- Stanley Hauerwas presents a vision of church you’ve never seen in practice.- Andrea Grosso Ciponte graphically portrays the White Rose student resistance to Nazism.- Zito Madu illuminates rap’s role in escaping the violence of poverty.- Springs Toledo recounts his boxing match with an undefeated professional.You’ll also find:- An interview with poet Rhina P. Espaillat- New poems by Catherine Tufariello- Profiles of Anabaptist leader Felix Manz and community founder Lore Weber- Reviews of Marly Youmans’s Charis in the World of Wonders, Judith D. Schwartz’s The Reindeer Chronicles, Chris Lombardi’s I Ain’t Marching Anymore, and Martín Espada’s FloatersPlough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.