Saturday Good Reads - June 4, 2022

Britain, and a lot of the rest of us, are celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. I was only nine months old when she was crowned; I can’t speak to a time when she wasn’t queen. And while the royal family has had its share of troubles and unwanted publicity over the years, the Queen herself has remained a steady presence. Marcus Walker at The Critic Magazine celebrates the universal realities of life, love, and death that are at the core of the strength of the monarchy. On a lighter note, Louisa Buck at The Art Newspaper picks the best portraits of the Queen (including a couple I wouldn’t have chosen myself).  

Around 1700, the Pietist Movement began to arise in Silesia, a part of the then-Habsburg Empire and located in Silesia, what is now part of Poland, Czech Republic, and Germany. Eventually, a leader emerged, a Pietist minister named Johann Adam Steinmetz. A movement became a revival that began to spread across Europe. Steinmetz strongly influenced other religious leaders, like Jonathan Edwards and the Wesley brothers. And what started in a corner of the Austrian empire became the great awakenings of the 18^th century. Nathan Finn at Desiring God tells the story of the hundred-year prayer meeting.

 

Quick – can you describe the counterculture in the United States? Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker believes we no longer have one, and he identifies 14 warning signs that a counterculture doesn’t exist. After providing a summery, he tells the story in a series of tweets. (I’d suggest that the reason why we don’t have one is because the counterculture became the dominant culture, and there’s very little left to counter it.)

 

More Good Reads

 

Faith

 

Hero in an Unmarked Grace: The Unusual Modesty of John Calvin – Ryan Griffith at Desiring God.

 

Meaning of the Ark of the Covenant – Jordan Peterson at B&P Motivation.

 

Help Your Neighbor, Heal the Nation – J.K. Wall at Gentle Reformation.

 

Lessons from Mainline Decline – Kevin De Young.

 

Art

 

The Great Debasement – Alice Gribbin at Tablet Magazine. 

 

Anselm Kiefer’s vast studio complex and former home in southern France—likened to a 'human ant hill'—opens to the public – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

 

British Stuff

 

Charles Dickens in Shadwell & Limehouse – Spitalfields Life.

 

Poetry

 

Another Sunday – Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

Expansive Poets, Classical Poets, and the Future of Poetry – Michael Curtis at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Life and Culture

 

Plutocratic Socialism and the Corruption of Democracy – Mark Mitchell at Front Porch Republic.

 

An Honest Look at the Consequences of Overturning Roe v. Wade – Jessica Keating at Church Life Journal.

 

American Stuff

 

“New Orleans gone and with it the Confederacy” – The Fall of New Orleans – Patrick Kelly-Fischer at Emerging Civil War.

 

He Will Hold Me Fast – Keith & Kristyn Getty

Painting: Alexander Serebryakov, reading a book, oil on canvas (1946) by Zinaida Serebriakova (1885-1967).