Writings and rehearsals by Nathan Schneider

Author: Nathan

  • Captive Meditation

    Prisons in the United States are a profound kind of disaster, and lately I and some friends have been doing some thinking about how the conversation can be changed, away from the self-defeating logic of “tough on crime” to something that will actually, well, be tough on crime, rather than simply tough on the bodies…

  • The Right to Truth

    What does it take to make reconciliation—even forgiveness—possible? Today at The Immanent Frame, I talk with Eduardo Gonzalez, a sociologist who directs the International Center for Transitional Justice’s program on truth and reconciliation commissions. Before that, he was involved in organizing and executing the commission in his native Peru. We discuss, among other things, the…

  • On Being a Talking Head

    This week I had the chance to take part in my first “diavlog” at Bloggingheads.tv. I was fortunate to have as my counterpart Richard Amesbury, a scholar who has done some fascinating work about religion in human rights and the politics of New Atheism. We had a good conversation about those things, though I find…

  • Milbank, Orthodoxy, Politics

    Anglican theologian John Milbank has been defying expectations for a long time. His ideas, which have driven a movement called Radical Orthodoxy, refuse to be either liberal or conservative, radical or reactionary. They’re always challenging. In a classic Killing the Buddha essay about him, Jeff Sharlet wrote, with sensible hyperbole, that Radical Orthodoxy “may be…

  • Judith Butler’s Carefully Crafted F**k You

    In the current issue of the wonderful online magazine Guernica, I’ve got an interview with none other than the critical theorist Judith Butler. Her latest book, Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009), reflects on the past decade’s saga of needless war, photographed—even fetishized—torture, and routine horror. It treats these practices as issuing from…

  • Papal Peacemaking

    When I spoke with the theologian Harvey Cox a few months ago, he told me enthusiastically about his experiences with Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic organization that he sees as representing the future of the Church and, in turn, of religion in what he calls the coming “age of spirit”: I was over there in Rome…

  • Religion Blogs: Too Many to Count

    Lately I’ve been waking up with these terrible cold sweats. Reptilian reflexes bounce me out of bed and to my laptop across the room, where my fingers pull up a familiar spreadsheet. I’ve forgotten a blog! How could I leave that one out? Now I’ve got to spend half the morning revising the whole thing…

  • Atheist, Ensouled

    I can’t help but be grateful for the so-called New Atheists. They’ve given me lots of excuses to write articles, for instance. It’s a common trope, one that I’ve been guilty of on occasion, to dismiss them out of hand as, in one way or another, deranged lunatics who don’t know what they’re talking about.…

  • What’s The Point of War?

    What will it take to prevent the next war? Can’t say I know exactly, but, like how many others in the same boat, I keep writing about it anyway. I just received in the mail the elegant new second issue of The Point magazine, out of Chicago, which includes my essay “The War at Home.”…

  • Karen Armstrong’s Compassion

    It’s a common refrain that one hears among those of us looking to think responsibly about the world’s religions: at bottom, they all have a common core, and the core is a genuinely good one. That would be nice, but I’ve never really bought it. To be honest, I don’t even think it would be…