Theology: Creatures of Possibility by Ingolf U. Dalferth

The news continues to be dire about the bottoming-out of the church in North America (and Europe, too), from the Millennials and Gen-Zs declaring themselves “Nones” to the hemmorhage of both clergy and members in the wake of covid. But at root, I think, is not so much a church-membership-crisis as a humanity-crisis, as in, we have no idea what it actually means to be human anymore. And that in turns means that the root of both crises is in fact theological and religious in nature. Hence the urgent need for you to work your way through Dalferth’s incredibly insightful study. Don’t be alarmed by the German name: yes, it’s a challenging read, but clear and fairly short, and it will richly reward your effort. Dalferth defends the deep structure of human existence as one of passivity, or being in a posture of receptivity, in which contingent possibilities flow toward us from sources outside ourselves over which we have no control—and that is all to the good. The further implication is that, in this state of passivity, freedom is not inherent or automatic, but a practice undertaken out of the depths of our passivity. “Passive recipients of possibility and freedom” is another way to say “creatures of God.” If you, like me, feel both exhausted and irritated by culture-critic attempts to get you to work more efficiently or rest more intentionally, this will speak to your soul. It gets down to the roots of our ailments, but more importantly to the roots of our humanity.

Cookbook: The Surreal Gourmet by Bob Blumer.

Out of the infinite number of human possibilities, someone was going to blend a love of Salvador Dalí with a love of cooking, and that someone is Bob Blumer. I found this, his first book, ages ago in a bookshop in Vienna, and for a price that suggested it had been hand-delivered by a camel that swam across the Atlantic Ocean. I regretfully let it go. Some years later came the first wave of online used book sellers, and this was one of my first purchases. I still love it in all its weirdness, from weird recipes to weird paintings. Try especially Chez Bob’s Caesar Salad (still my all-time favorite recipe for this dish), Cajun Fusilli Pasta, and Glazed Italian Chicken.

Novel: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick.

You’re most likely to be familiar with Philip K. Dick’s work through the movie adaptations: Blade Runner, Minority Report, The Adjustment Bureau (which, intriguingly, posits freedom as something acquired with practice rather than inherent) or the TV series The Man in the High Castle. Reading him is something else again—less linear, but more evocative and provocative. This novel explores in good dystopian fashion what happens when the human problems of freedom, limitation, and error are solved (or try to be solved) with control, which inevitably leads to dehumanization. It also explores what you might call a dysChristian vision, in which “no longer I but Palmer Eldritch lives in me.” On top of that, the book (first published in 1964) anticipates climate change, widespread drug addiction, and preferring imaginary avatars to reality. Dick’s output is extremely uneven, but another of his well worth reading is Clans of the Alphane Moon—quirky and not quite so dire.