1. Photography, angels, and memories of war
The New York Times’ Lens blog has a piece on Guatemalan photographer Daniel Hernández-Salazar, along with a slideshow of his work, documenting the country’s recent past:
Daniel Hernández-Salazar has made it his life’s work to remind his fellow Guatemalans of a painful history many have tried hard to forget. From his pictures of the country’s civil war, a genocide that claimed the lives of some 200,000 people, to the exhumations of clandestine graves and the cries for justice after the murder of a bishop who championed human rights, he has been there to record and remind.
2. Christians and the future of Egypt
A few months ago I met Ayman Ibrahim, an Egyptian Christian and PhD candidate at Fuller Seminary. This week he wrote an article for EthicsDaily.com about Egypt’s presidential runoff between a candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood and the former prime minister from the old regime, and he considers what it means for the country’s Christians:
Most Egyptians feel that they are left with two choices, each worse than the other. The people of Egypt – my people – want to live honorable lives without thinking much of political power or dreaming of wealth. Yet I know of more than 100 Egyptians, mostly Christians, who have decided to leave Egypt and filed for asylum. They claim they are persecuted in Egypt. However, the way I see it, they fear the future.
3. Art for the common good
Art historian Dan Siedell has a fascinating piece at Q Ideas:
I have spent my professional life working in or with art museums as an art historian. These wonderfully complex institutions exist because their founders believed that art is a common good: that the work done in the privacy of an artist’s studio, emerging from an artist’s distinctive experience of the world, is not only worth sharing with others but worth making it part of a community’s public trust. Art enriches our lives by reminding us through such ordinary materials as oil paint and canvas that we are more than our own ordinary materials. Art deepens and broadens our humanity, which we receive as a gift to be shared with others.
4. God and Twitter
The New York Times has an interesting story about how big-name Christian leaders have disproportionate influence on Twitter, leading one of Twitter’s senior executives to move from San Francisco to Atlanta to be able to hob-knob with this key demographic a bit more easily.
5. Latin American politics and literature
Peruvian novelist and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010 and is one of Latin America’s most well-known authors, was recently featured on PBS’ NewsHour, talking about Latin American literature and politics.
Watch Writer Mario Vargas Llosa on the Importance of Literature on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!
[Photo credit: Daniel Hernández-Salazar via nytimes.com]
