December 15, 2009

A commitment to mediating conflicts has taken John Paul Lederach to all corners of the globe. He is professor in the Kroc Institute for Inter national Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and he recently won the Reinhold Nie buhr Award given each year to a member of the Notre Dame community whose life and writings exemplifies a passion for social justice. His books include The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford, 2005).

How was your approach to peacebuilding formed?

Pope Benedict’s invitation to Anglican bodies to join the Roman Catholic Church was seen by some observers as historically momentous and by others as insignificant (after all, a provision has always been there for Anglicans to convert). Which is it?

In the midst of a theology conference, two postmodern theologians sit down to lunch. [This is just an excerpt of the print article. For the full version, please see the December 15 issue of the Century.]

Spike Jonze’s film of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, substitutes pop psychology for Sendak’s exuberant, anarchic vision of childhood. Sendak’s hero is a boy named Max who’s sent to bed when his high spirits turn the corner into aggressiveness. He finds his room transformed into a jungle inhabited by savage creatures who make him their king. Max plays with them until his wild side is spent and then returns to his warm bed and a hot supper.

Skip the American movie version of this story and view the series made by BBC for television. Focused on the press and shady doings in the upper echelons of government, this investigation of a murder unfolds over six hours. The depth of characterization gets viewers invested in the story and makes the suspense all the more (pleasantly) unbearable.

Here are choral works by a teenaged Felix Mendelssohn, including large-scale settings of the Magnificat and Gloria, along with some shorter works. The influences of Bach and Haydn are evident in the early work of the composer, who would go on to write Elijah and St. Paul.

Dave Bazan, Curse Your Branches. Bazan’s confessional songwriting is dark and intense, but his impeccable craft makes it a pleasure. Bazan has put out album after album (many as Pedro the Lion) of precisely described internal turmoil set to spare rock and roll—with delectable pop hooks, here more confident and lilting than ever. Branches is a post-evangelical twist on a breakup record, chronicling in messy detail Bazan’s traumatic loss of a deeply personal faith.