Tyler Huckabee is the managing editor of sojo.net. He is originally from the Great Plains but now lives in Nashville with his wife.
Tyler has come a long way from writing Narnia fanfic in the third grade. Much of his writing has centered on the intersection of faith, justice, and pop culture, which he has written about for the Washington Post, The Week, Religion News Service, and Sojourners. He is also interested in David Lynch, Bruce Springsteen, Lana Del Rey, Kendrick Lamar, Nick Cave, and Marvel Comics, but he mostly writes about those things on his own time.
Tyler lived in Chicago for several years, working in low-income communities with people who taught him where to look for Jesus on earth. Now he uses writing and editing to pass those lessons along.
When he's not writing, he's watching old movies or trying to get his dogs to sit still.
Speaking Topics
- Writing About Pop Culture from a Faith Context
- Deconstruction and What Comes Next
- Moving Beyond Toxic Masculinity
- Writing About Faith and Justice in the Social Media Age
- Discernment in an Age of Misinformation
Speaking Format
- Virtual and in-person
- Writing workshops
Languages
- English
Posts By This Author
'The Chosen' Star Elizabeth Tabish Didn't Want Men to Speak for Her Anymore
Credit: JSquared Photography.
n the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene is the first person to see the risen Jesus. That means, in the brief, beautiful space between meeting the Lord and telling the disciples what she’d seen, Mary Magdalene was the whole entire church, giving rise to her identification as “the apostle to the apostles.”
“What an important and special thing for the first person to witness Jesus resurrected being a woman,” Elizabeth Tabish said. “Being one of his best friends, and for her to not turn away from the crucifixion, not run from it, but to stay there in witness of it. And then this beautiful reward of remaining with him to the point of seeing him resurrected. It’s just beautiful.”
Tabish plays Mary Magdalene in The Chosen, the historical drama series that turned the life of Jesus into prestige TV and against all odds became a commercial and critical smash.
No, Empathy Is Not a Sin
"Make empathy great again" Anti-Trump protest in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: Unsplash/Floris Van Cauwelaert.
“The problem with the meritocracy ... [is that it] leeches all the empathy out of your society.”
The right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson said that back in 2017 and, by my lights, there’s a kernel of truth there. It almost echoes the early 20th-century sociologist Max Weber’s critique of the Protestant work ethic, how Americans are trained to see wealth as a just reward for living a good life and poverty as punishment for living a bad one; an economic spin on Calvinism. Even if you think Carlson is a reactionary grifter (which I do), I think he’s onto something here.
‘Hell Is a World Without You’ Is a Vortex of 2000s Youth Group Emotions
The cover of ‘Hell Is a World Without You.’ Background photo by S. H. Gue va Unsplash. Graphic by Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like Jason Kirk’s Hell Is a World Without You. This book, a bildungsroman about a teen’s evangelical house of cards and the mounting life experiences, new friends, and cold fingers of doubt that threaten to knock it over, is a call coming from firmly inside the house.
Satan Is Scariest When Subtle
From The Devil's Advocate
THE DEVIL IS irresistible horror bait, the central figure in some of the best scary movies ever made. A tour through Satan’s oeuvre finds plenty of examples of an outside force of evil, such as Al Pacino’s diabolical attorney tempting Keanu Reeves in The Devil’s Advocate (1997) or Elizabeth Hurley’s sensual temptress raising hell for Brendan Fraser in Bedazzled (2000). These movies generally have the theological heft of a Carman music video, but occasionally, Hollywood tries an angle on Satan that’s a bit more sophisticated, spooky, and, ultimately, instructive. Take, for instance, John Carpenter’s low-budget 1987 box-office flop Prince of Darkness.
The movie follows professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) and his students as they investigate a mysterious green ooze in a monastery’s basement. The team discovers that the slime is the literal embodiment of Satan, a twisted take on the consecrated host. While we get a brief glimpse of a giant red figure with black fingernails, Prince of Darkness doesn’t focus there. Instead, the danger is far more immediate. Anyone exposed to the slime is possessed by its essence, transformed into a mindless murderer. The true adversary remains in the shadows, sowing mistrust and division. The only thing our heroes can attack is each other.
Can Elon Musk Fit Through the Eye of a Needle?
Elon Musk speaks during a conversation with legendary game designer Todd Howard (not pictured) at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, Calif., June 13, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake
We must reject the idea that wealth has any bearing on a person’s true acumen, potential, or value. This is harder than we might think and takes some deliberate work. Frankly, it might be harder and more important to rethink our ideas around poverty, recognizing that a person’s lack of money doesn’t tell you anything about the value of who they are, what they’re capable of, or what they have to offer the world.