This week I’m off to the Touchstone Conference, “Great & Wonderful Days Recovering the Christian Life in a Post-Christian Age,” while the following week I’m headed to the OCAMPR conference, “The Passions: The Theology & Science of Addictions and Compulsions.” (OCAMPR stands for Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology, and Religion.) In between the two conferences, both in Chicago, I hope to grab a brief vacation in Northern Idaho, though I’ll still have my teaching duties with two online classes for Laurel Ridge Community College so it won’t be a full vacation. (In fact, I am limiting my hikes to only two). In the days ahead, I’ll likely have more to share about the OCAMPR conference, where I am part of a panel on digital addiction, exploring with clinical professionals some of the material discussed in chapters 30 and 31 of Are We All Cyborgs Now?: Reclaiming Our Humanity from the Machine. But for the present post, I’d like to say a few words about Touchstone.
Touchstone is an ecumenical Christian magazine that, among its various undertakings, attempts to reposition classical metaphysics at the core of our nation’s various debates. Previously I have showcased two examples of this, one from Ken Myers and another from Hans Boersma, both demonstrating that metaphysics is political and the political is metaphysical.
Over the years, I have enjoyed publishing with Touchstone, exploring themes that include, but are not limited to, the following:
- a critique of cross-less evangelicalism
- a theological defense of “art for art’s sake”
- my response to the, so called, “Omnibus” curriculum of Veritas Press
- my review of the 2010 Dawn Treader movie disaster
- a discussion of Dorothy Sayers’ teaching on the perils of Gnosticism
- a review of Vigen Guroian’s book Tending the Heart of Virtue
- others
In addition to writing for the magazine, every year I get to be part of a shoestring crew to help put on the conference, with duties that range from being bartender in the evening reception to manning the booth of our sister publication Salvo, to playing background music as the attendees arrive.
This year’s conference will be featuring Jonathan Pageau, Rod Dreher, Paul Kingsnorth, Matthew B. Crawford, Richard Rohlin, Hans Boersma, C.R. Wiley, and others, all coming together to help us tease out the implications for Christians of life in a post Christian world. This will be an interesting conference, particularly for those who have been tracking the ongoing evolution of Touchstone‘s mission as the magazine adapts to a quickly changing society.
“As the Republican establishment is increasingly colonized by right-wing identity politics, the Overton Window is shifting so fast you can see it in real time… Ideological purity cultures. A personality cult. Death threats against fellow conservatives. Self-censorship. Ressourcement of Marxist texts. These are not signs of a conservative resurgence, but of the revolutionary mind.” From MAGA goes woke. https://robinmarkphillips.substack.com/p/maga-goes-woke
– Robin Phillips