John's Town Hall, RIP My good friend and colleague Chris Born and I walked a few blocks from Concordia Seminary today to have lunch at one of our regular haunts, John’s Town Hall , on Skinker in the Dorchester. The place was empty. Closed.

“The Dude abides.” It’s a topic that, in one way or another, we’ve talked about numerous times in this blog, like here , here , here , or here . Or you could just see them all in the movies category. It’s also the name of a seminar I will be team-teaching on the four Tuesday nights of April. The course carries this premise: “Even if God isn’t mentioned, nearly every film contains an implied theology.” And we’ll look at plenty of examples to prove that thesis: “Citizen Kane,” Ingmar Bergman, “Star Wars,” Woody Allen, Spike Lee, “Toy Story,” the Coen brothers…you name it.

I haven’t owned a video gaming system since my parents got my brother and me the original Nintendo. But I’ve seen the commercials for “Dante’s Inferno” a number of times now, and I confess I’m captivated. Not that I intend to buy it. The real Dante’s Inferno is one of the great works of world literature, and still defines much of our visual mythology of hell. (This despite the fact that, for Dante, hell was freezing cold rather than burning hot.)…

María Teresa Dávila Noted ethics scholar Dr. María Teresa Dávila will speak at Concordia Seminary tomorrow night, Thursday, March 18, at 7:00PM. A professor at Andover Newton Theological School, she will be giving the fifth Annual Lecture in Hispanic/Latino Theology and Missions of Concordia’s Center for Hispanic Studies (CHS). The theme for Dr. Dávila’s lecture is “ Unión, Reunión y Comunión : Latino/a Religious Diversity and the Wager of Ecumenical Communion.”…

So I just ran across this from another blog : ChurchRater.com . Evidently, founder Jim Henderson decided to start the Web site to rate churches–in the same way that TripAdvisor rates hotels or Yelp rates everything else–to help people find local faith communities. And in case you were wondering, Jim owns a consulting business to help churches “see themselves through the eyes of Outsiders.” Yeah, I’m not surprised either. I’m curious to see how high this gets off the ground. I have found myself using Yelp or AroundMe on my iPhone to check out churches when I’m out of town. The pickings are slim. Perhaps this will fill a void. As to what it says about the commodification of American religion, there’s a long line in that check-out lane.

Image credit: Mark Peterson/Redux. From the Atlantic Monthly. I’ve been thinking about this question ever since I ran across Hanna Rosin’s article on the topic in The Atlantic .

John Danforth delivering the homily at Ronald Reagan's funeral in 2004 (Screen capture: C-SPAN) The New York Times broke the story on the formation of this new center yesterday, named for one of our state’s most distinguished senators, John C. Danforth, who is also an ordained Episcopal priest. Washington University announced the center in a press release and news conference today.

Peter Mayer playing his "Stars and Promises" concert in 2008 While I’m at it, my wife asked me the other day what my favorite Christmas album is. It got me to thinking, but I can’t pick just one

Sting at NYC's St John the Divine. (Photo: Chad Batka for the New York Times) The New York Times posted today a review of Sting’s concert this week at, of all places, the famous Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine , the Episcopal equivalent to St

Vaclav Havel, center in red scarf, placing a candle at a Prague commemoration of the Velvet Revolution (Petr David Josek/AP) The New York Times did a nice retrospective yesterday on Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution on its 20th anniversary. I was 15 years old when the Berlin Wall fell along with all the other Eastern European dominoes that fell in its wake.