MOCKINGBIRD

Paul Zahl, of this site's The Zahl File, is, as I've mentioned before, a preacher, but his most impressive contribution to the revival of humane religion in our time may have been fathering three sons who are also preachers — this is where Protestantism has a distinct advantage over Catholicism in keeping the clergy ranks full.

His sons are all contributors to the Mockingbird blog, which you should check out.  Mockingbird is a youth-oriented Christian organization based in New York and its blog is both serious and cheerful, with a cheeky attitude towards popular culture that you'll find refreshing, and probably surprising if all you know of Evangelical Christianity is that part of it which attracts the media's attention — the grim, self-righteous, judgmental and often spectacularly hypocritical part.

I myself have no use for institutionalized religion of any stripe, but I've never forgotten something Camille Paglia once said . . . roughly, “Evangelical Christians are the only group in America who are asking the right questions, it's just that they're coming up with all the wrong answers.”  That may be true as a general rule, but the right questions are still the right questions.

Incidentally, if you scroll down the main page of the Mockingbird blog, or click here, you'll find a very interesting piece by Paul Zahl about three extra-ecclesiastical religious artists — the Victorian novelist Mark Rutherford, George Harrison and Jack Kerouac.