The Matthew’s House Project | culture
| culture
is orthodox feminism like military intelligence?
by Kate Hallman
Orthodox Judaism has a reputation for being very patriarchal and unequal towards women. I certainly feel like a lesser member of society when banished behind the mechitsa (barrier to separate men and women), not allowed to sing in synagogue (because a woman's voice might tempt the men), and not allowed to become a rabbi.
AUG 2008
tracing continuity
by James Stewart
The park (Finsbury) we walk past to get to our nearest tube stop has a curious feature, an entire field set aside exclusively for the playing of American sports. Moving back to London from Michigan it was rather surprising to go for a walk and see kids playing Little League along the way. I've not yet made the time to go and find out if those using the facility are primarily ex-pats and their children, but based on conversations I overheard on the bus it seems quite a few are English kids fascinated by US culture.
disappointing psalms
by Rupert Loydell
The narrator of Disappointed Psalms is a contemporary Job, ranting against politicians, against wars, against God himself; he is also a sorrowful psalmist, lamenting the fact he finds himself doing so. This, of course, is one of the contradictions of the book: how to shout at the God you no longer believe in.
An MHP Interview with Tom Breen
“Today’s Christianity is first and foremost dynamic,” writes Tom Breen in the new book The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus. “It is not merely something people are guilted into doing on Sundays by their nagging, churchy spouses.”
From 1908 to 1932, Sidney Gamble (1890-1968) visited China four times, traveling throughout the country to collect data for social-economic surveys and to photograph urban and rural life, public events, architecture, religious statuary, and the countryside.. Explore the recently released digital library of nearly 5,000 images through Duke University’s Digital Collections.
culturing your culture
An MHP Interview with Andy Crouch
Go to the website of any major Christian publisher and search for books on “culture”. What you receive is a virtual Noah’s flood of materials. We’ll use IVP as our example since the book touted in this piece hails from their hands, but any of them - Zondervan, Tyndale, Eerdmans, Baker - have warehouses of titles.
