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An Architectural Historian Weighs-In On Confederate Monuments

Posted by Caleb Coy on

A thoughtful middle ground

John Fea's avatarThe Way of Improvement Leads Home

Confederate_soldier_monument,_Union_County,_AR_IMG_2583

Back in the days when I was a post-doctoral fellow with the Lilly Fellow in Humanities and the Arts, I had a Valparaiso University office next to a young architectural historian named Louis Nelson.  (Actually, we were also next-door neighbors on Valparaiso’s “famous” McIntire Court).  Nelson left Valpo after a year in the program and headed off to Charlottesville to become a faculty member in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia.  Today he is a Professor of Architectural History and the Associate Dean of the school.  Nice work.

Over at the website of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, Nelson argues that Confederate monuments should stay and be contextualized.  Here is a taste of his interview with the website:

The national debate surrounding confederate monuments is often presented in very narrow terms – as a battle between those who want them to stay and those who…

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Reading Flannery O’Connor’s “The Displaced Person”: Part III

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Part III—Jesus was just another dirty Refugee

[Read part I and part II]

In the third act of Flannery O’Connor’s short story, having stood on the assumption that none of the world’s miseries are her responsibility, Mrs. McIntyre justifies her own lack of care for those in her care, rejecting the call of the Gospel. Expecting her employees to be grateful to work for her, she hypocritically fails to embrace gratefulness. Like someone who only reads half of the creation account, she wants to be a master without being a caretaker. The world revolves around her.
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Forsythia: A Poem

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Forsythia

I walked my dog about the day
After a mild snow melting
The pavement soaked by
The gushing of swollen
Grasses saturated and dark
Littered with chunks of snow.

The air was fresh and crisp
My flannel sleeves rolled up
And beside the damp Bradford pears
Broke the yellow forsythia blooming
the first of bushes of the spring
In these rusty Virginia hills.

7 Reasons Nationalism Harms the Church

Posted by Caleb Coy on

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
-Albert Einstein, Jewish German immigrant to America

In 1942 Gerald Smith founded the Christian Nationalist Crusade, a political organization aimed at making America more Christian. What did that mean? Using their magazine, The Cross and the Flag, Smith’s organization took a stand against, among other things, Jews, jazz music, and interracial marriage. To make America more…Christlike?
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