Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

politics

  • You’ve no doubt read enough about what President Barack Obama’s public statement about gay marriage means. That is so last week. But as I’ve been catching up on my podcasts, I’ve discovered an important element missing from the coverage. What it means to the metanarrative of American politics. The Negative Much of the obvious response…

  • In an article I read this morning (but can no longer track down), one of the people interviewed spoke of “eliminating spending”. Not cutting spending or reducing spending, but eliminating spending. As in all. It occurred to me that this is the most obtuse, and natural, of directions for the debate to go, because it is based on…

  • Considering all the overblown rhetoric about how post-racial we’re supposed to be, I thought a short description of how post-racial we actually are, and how post-racial we could be, might be useful. Our society is post-racial We actually do live in a post-racial society, if by society we actually mean culture. The pervading culture is…

  • [SPOILER ALERT: This post contains Season 2 spoilers of The Walking Dead. I’m not kidding. Seriously important ones. If you have any interest in enjoying this show, stop reading, bookmark this page, and come back later. Otherwise, read away. Chris and Emily, you are absolved.] The second season of The Walking Dead revealed the most important ethical quandry…

  • In church circles there is a lot of exercise around the idea that there is dichotomous relationship between our beliefs and our actions. This is particularly evident between the groups Phyllis Tickle refers to as the Social Justice Christians (ie. the Mainliners) and the Conservative Christians (conservative evangelicals and Southern Baptists). In this paradigm, one…

  • It has become clear that we are in an age in which process and system are colliding. Our institutions aren’t failing because they are institutions (and our government isn’t failing simply because it is government).  They fail because the process is obstructing the system. What I mean by process and system are simply the difference…