Arts & Culture

We are currently in the midst of what the American Library Association condemned in November as “a dramatic uptick” in efforts to challenge or remove certain books from libraries and schools. Many of these censorship efforts have been led by conservative Christians and conservative politicians who are concerned these books will dissuade their kids from embracing what they call “Judeo-Christian values.” But as Ryan Duncan explained, Christians are deluding themselves if they believe banning stories about gender, race, or sex will halt their kids’ curiosity. Ban ’em or burn ’em, these books will not disappear and kids will continue to seek out resources on these topics — to some parents’ chagrin.

Lincoln’s Dilemma, released this month on Apple TV+, presents a complicated version of the 16th president. The four-part series portrays Lincoln as a man of his time and place, wrestling with the culture war of his day: slavery.

If we analyze our current conditions, avoid circular debates, stop waiting for heroes to save us, speak honestly about our past and present, and try to change today, we might just save tomorrow.

One of the defining features of cosmopolitan Protestantism is the sweet little promise — whispered even — that Christianity is not going to ruin your life. You can still love salty language (and I do) and feel justified by holding prevailing opinions (which I do) and have many mild to moderate faults that are not polite for me to mention. Its wonderful accommodation to modernity has liberated the church from a great many sins (Phariseeism, disembodied love, political acquiescence, etc.), but I’m afraid it has laid itself quite open to the glories of idolatry. And let me be clear, idolatry — which is to say, comforting false images of a true God — is the most fun in town.

Danny McBride’s HBO show The Righteous Gemstones is a dark comedy about corrupt, hyper-wealthy Christian pastors. The Gemstone family runs a famously successful megachurch in South Carolina, but behind the scenes, they evade taxes, snort cocaine, pull knives on their friends, bicker like filthy-mouthed children, and say things like, “You are forgiven for my suspicions of you.” And though they all live in mansions on the same compound, patriarch Eli Gemstone and his three adult children — Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin — generally only come together in spirit when they need to ward off blackmailers, snoops, and evil grifters from their past: anyone who might reveal their secrets or jeopardize the family’s wealth-hoarding.

the vast

              and all its definitions had dumbfounded. I bit the hand
that fed imagination, took

for pestilence, the flies. For end-of-world, the gully washers.
I shook in handfuls
petals fetched from

                                                     doubt

THE SCENE APPEARS idyllic: “Golden sand, a vast red horizon, and shards of light scattered across the water.” But on this beach in Gaza, in Palestine, the mood is desperate. One man there describes Palestinian Christians as living artifacts of the 2,000-year-old Christian community in the Holy Land.

With grace and deep reporting, Janine di Giovanni, an acclaimed author and war correspondent, has captured the often overlooked plight of the dwindling Christian communities of the Middle East—specifically in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine. The Vanishing is a tender if deeply disturbing travelogue, filled with stories told by Christians about the ferocious politics and desperate economics that shattered their communities. She writes in an elegiac tone while marveling at the resiliency of the few who remain.

Di Giovanni describes the trajectory of collapse, carefully providing the markedly different history of each country that nonetheless has led to similarly tragic outcomes.

THE LATEST FAD among some conservative pundits and propagandists is to bash corporate executives who use their positions to promote “politically correct” causes. They call it “corporate wokeness,” and they see it everywhere. However, this is not a new phenomenon.

In 1971, in the backwash of the 1960s, America was very much a country in crisis. Large swaths of our inner cities still bore scars left by the uprisings that followed the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. A president elected on a promise to end the Vietnam War was widening it instead. Coca-Cola had the answer to all that trouble and strife. That year, the soda company assembled 500 young people of varied races and nationalities on a hilltop and filmed them singing, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.” So “corporate wokeness” was born.

Twenty-nine years later, Coca-Cola paid millions of dollars to settle a federal court case accusing it of a historical pattern of systematically underpaying and otherwise discriminating against its Black employees.

In spring 2020, just a few days after a police officer murdered George Floyd, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Brian Lamb, the company’s global head of diversity and inclusion, issued a statement that “we are watching, listening and want every single one of you to know we are committed to fighting against racism and discrimination wherever and however it exists.” A week later, Dimon was photographed, with some bank employees, down on one knee in the Colin Kaepernick pose, presumably in an attempted display of solidarity.

A MYKAL KILGORE performance isn’t just a show or concert; it’s an experience. Kilgore’s mind-blowing vocals and presence captivate, yes, but there’s more to it than that. In creating an atmosphere abundant in inclusion, empowerment, freedom, joy, truth, and love, Kilgore ministers to the soul. It’s a taste of the beloved community we hunger for.

A Black queer man, Kilgore uses his platform and prodigious talent to advocate for Black and LGBTQ issues. With a Grammy nomination in 2020 for his performance of the song “Let Me Go” further raising his profile, he’s getting even more opportunities to educate and entertain. In December, Kilgore spoke with writer and filmmaker Rebecca Riley via Zoom.

Rebecca Riley: When you perform, what do you hope audiences experience and take with them?

Mykal Kilgore: I want us to do a better job of being present with one another and seeing the thing inside each other that is eternal and sacred and perfect and special: I think that it is God. I want people to leave feeling like they have had a human experience at the show that allows them, and forces them, to be in their own emotions, to find pockets of empathy for others, and, more than anything else, to just truly see one another.