Silent Nights
Well, kind of…
From the Editors
December 19, 2014 | Okay, so things have gotten a little thin here on The Narthex since the Thanksgiving break. Our bad. Totally our bad.
Sort of.
Though demands outside of our editorial vocation have pulled us both away for a few weeks, we’ve been silent in part because the news of the day has seemed to us to invite quiet reflection more than knee-jerk yammering. In the aftermath of Ferguson and New York, it’s seemed to us that there have often been too many words—especially from people like us: white WASPs with a reasonably well-trafficked platform. Sure, we have plenty of thoughts about the grand jury travesties in the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner. We’ve been sickened and troubled along with so many Americans in general and so many Christians in particular by the contents of the Torture Report released last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It’s certainly not lost on us that the circumstances surrounding all of this violence, abuse, and indifference to human suffering are but tragic postmodern echoes of the ancient colonial culture into which the Christ child was born.
It seemed worthwhile, through the Advent season, to sit with that reality for a while. To listen. And, certainly, to avoid what seems to us to be something of a moral bait and switch by pretending that there’s something else we should be thinking about this Christmas season.
We will have more to say in the New Year—not just the editorial “we,” but also a range of new voices who will be entering the conversation at The Narthex. Some of these will be joining us by way of our friends over at the “Bearings” blog at The BTS Center (which Elizabeth also edits). The BTS Center is developing as a think tank for 21st century ministry, and the blog is a front door into their reflections and ruminations on how the Church can change, grow, innovate, and prepare for more change in a world of new challenges and possibility.
Through the end of the year, we’ll be running stories from Kelly J. Baker, Maxwell Grant, Heidi Shott, and others through the generous sponsorship of The BTS Center. We expect this collaboration to continue in the new year, and, as always, we invite you to join the conversation.
Meanwhile, we thank you once again for your support as we’ve begun this conversation. We wish you peace through the holiday season and in the year ahead.
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