Making leisure really count.
“… I have no interest in frittering away a minute of my day on fruitless pursuits. I want everything I do to be generative. I want to use my nonwork activities, as much as my work ones, to become a wiser, happier, more effective, better person. Leisure is serious business.
“My attitude is not, in fact, especially original: The 20th-century German philosopher Josef Pieper believed that when we understand and practice leisure properly, we can achieve our best selves—and even our capacity to transform society for the better. But to do leisure like this, we must treat it with every bit as much seriousness as we do our careers…
“Leisure, in other words, is far from the modern notion of just chillin’. It is a serious business, and if you don’t do leisure well, you will never find life’s full meaning. Properly understood, leisure is the work you do for yourself as a person without an economic compulsion driving you. For Pieper, this work of leisure—no contradiction, in his view—would not involve such “acediac” activities as scrolling social media and chuckling at memes, getting drunk, or binge-streaming some show. Rather, true leisure would involve philosophical reflection, deep artistic experiences, learning new ideas or skills, spending time in nature, or deepening personal relationships.
“Pieper especially focused on faith experiences, because he believed that ‘culture lives on religion through divine worship.’ Perhaps you have never thought of going to a house of worship as leisure, but Pieper would say that’s because you never took your leisure seriously enough.”
[From “You Can Do Leisure Better, Seriously” by Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic; March 27, 2025]
A Confessing Church in America
“Most American Christians know the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who heroically defied the Nazis.
“He and a small number of other German Protestant leaders gathered, calling themselves the Confessing Church. They issued the Barmen Declaration in 1934, affirming the church’s independence from the Nazi government, which tried to force them to join an official “Reich Church.” They were right to do so, but by then the Nazis were too entrenched, too powerful, and too popular. Most of the Barmen leaders lost jobs, several spent time in the concentration camps, and many were executed for the principled stand against Nazi tyranny. Bonhoeffer himself took part in a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Tragically he was caught, imprisoned, and ultimately martyred in the waning days of World War II…
May we all be as courageous…
We rightly applaud Bonhoeffer today. But, if we are allowed to critique our martyrs, can’t we say that heroic as they were, Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church were ultimately too late?…
“What would a Confessing Church have looked like if it had formed before the Nazis took power, when it faced murkier waters with moral evils on the left and right alike?
“That seems the right question for our time too. American Christians seem divided over who the good guys and bad guys really are and what the historical analogy should teach us. To some, the secular progressive left is the obvious modern equivalent of the Nazis: allowing a Holocaust on the unborn, fostering an authoritarian culture on campuses and in newsrooms, demanding the state’s validation and endorsement for every excess of the sexual revolution. To others, President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are the baddies: preaching belligerent nationalism, demanding absolute loyalty to a singular leader, subverting the rule of law, and rewarding political violence…
“A Confessing Church for Today
“Christians who vote for Republicans are called to be salt and light within the Republican Party. That means being a voice calling the Republican Party to obey the rule of law. Yours should be the loudest voice condemning Trump’s pardon for January 6 rioters and pushing against his challenge to the checks and balances that are supposed to constrain the executive. You should speak up in favor of the poor and powerless and against the culture of cruelty, spite, and vengefulness Trump cultivates. It corrodes our public square and demeans our shared citizenship even as it poses more specific dangers to those targeted by Trump’s weaponization of federal law enforcement. If you do not speak up, you are both credulous and culpable, complicit with the party’s sins—including those yet to come.
“If you vote for Democrats, you are called to be salt and light within the Democratic Party. That means calling on the Democratic Party to heed “Nature and Nature’s God.” The secular left sometimes gives off an odor of being godless, rootless, power-hungry moral relativists. They deny transcendent truth one day; the next, they announce a new truth, and their online mob will bully and harass us for failing to jump on their latest cause de jour. Their lack of moral foundation is exactly why they turn into moral authoritarians, certain of their own newfound truths—about race, class, and gender—and impatient for their fellow citizens to catch up. Open, tolerant, classically liberal government cannot survive without foundations, and Thomas Jefferson was right to point to nature and nature’s God as the right ones when he penned the Declaration of Independence. Natural law is transcendent, but not sectarian; it is a shared foundation on which believers in any religion or none can stand together.
“These are the sorts of lessons a Confessing Church today would preach from its pulpits and podcasts. American Christians need a robust theology of civic engagement that teaches the moral good of republican government, the rule of law, and constitutionalism. It would teach respect for pluralism, anti-utopianism, and the wisdom that comes from learning from the history of totalizing political religions and their fruit. It would teach critical detachment from parties coupled with selective and narrow cooperation with them.
“The church would teach its members to tell the truth—always, fully, and simply, without spin or guile. The most radical thing you can do in today’s information environment is to speak with earnest simplicity about truth, goodness, and beauty. A party that demands that we recite lies as the price of membership is a party that cannot be trusted with power.
“The church would teach its members to “let your speech always be gracious,” (Colossians 4:6). A political culture that trains you to speak with snark and half-truths for party advantage is not a culture that will train you to think and dwell on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, or admirable (Philippians 4:8).
“The church would warn its members against the dangers of “the wisdom of the world” (1 Corinthians 1:20). Media personalities who peddle fear and anger for clicks and ad dollars are the shabbiest of worldly philosophers.
“Above all, a Confessing Church would teach its members to discern the times and practice the ethic of self-scrutiny. “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” Jesus asked. “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye,” (Matthew 7:3-5). Practicing self-scrutiny is an important step of obedience to Christ’s command.
“There is a style of partisanship that looks at any criticism of one’s side as disloyal, even traitorous. That sort of partisanship on the right adheres to the “no enemies to the right” ethic, which means turning a blind eye to the racists and bigots on their side so long as they show up on Election Day. That same sort of partisanship on the left has no courage for a “Sister Souljah moment” to denounce the extremists in their ranks who chant pro-Hamas slogans or who weaponize DEI as a tool of illiberalism and cancel culture.
“A Confessing Church would disciple its members to recognize that kind of partisanship is a form of disobedience to God. If you must be a partisan, be a good partisan, one who is a good gatekeeper, one who scrutinizes your own movement. Not just for the strategic necessity of broadening the base to win elections, but because of the moral necessity of standing for something good.”
[From “A Confessing Church for America’s Weimar Moment” by Paul D. Miller in The Dispatch (Dispatch Faith); March 23, 2025.]
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