I’ve been following Teju Cole on Twitter for a while now. I’m not sure how I stumbled upon him, but when scrolling quickly through tweets on my iPhone, almost without fail I stop and read his, as odd as they tend to be.

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Cole returned to the US two decades ago, and is a writer, photographer, and “professional historian of early Netherlandish art.” His book, Open City: A Novel, was published in hardcover a year ago today. I just finished the paperback (thanks to Random House for the review copy; they haven't paid me to make the book sound good, by the way).

The narrator of the story is Julius, a young Nigerian psychiatrist who, like the author, lives in New York. Much of the book consists of his thoughts and experiences as he wanders the streets of the city, with a short stint in Brussels, and memories of Nigeria interspersed here and there. While reading I was struck by the strange juxtaposition one experiences living in a big American city like New York -- people everywhere, but everyone (seemingly) alone. An immigrant feels this acutely.

Many of his thoughts and conversations have to do with identity -- his own, and that of others. Having been a dual citizen of two quite different (but geopolitically connected) countries for the first eighteen years of my life, I can relate to those identity questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? For more and more of us these days, such questions are inescapable.

There’s a bird on the cover of the book, and birds are scattered throughout its pages as well. The metaphor is profound. In anticipation of winter they migrate south, and in the spring they return, and in between they do the best they can wherever they are. We’re led to consider that perhaps birds, creatures both communal and migratory, can teach us a thing or two about life itself. In the closing pages of the book, scores of birds meet their fate in an iconic and paradoxical way, amplifying, I think, Julius’s storyline.

While the story may seem slow-moving and relatively uneventful, Cole is a masterful writer, and has a knack for surprising us -- and Julius too, maybe -- with unexpected twists and turns, including some strange ones. Some of the subject matter isn't for everyone, but all in all, I’m glad I read it.

Here’s a short video with Teju Cole on some of what undoubtedly provided inspiration for the novel from his own story:

[Photo credit: RadioOpenSource.org]

There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out,  “This is mine! This belongs to me!”

Regrettably, I must confess that I haven’t yet read any actual books by Kuyper himself, though the recently released English translation of Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art (Christian's Library Press) will soon remedy that. Thus far my introduction to Kuyper has come through a couple of books by Richard Mouw, recommended to me by Gideon Strauss. The first, which I wrote about in January, is a more general book on common grace theology, rooted in Kuyper’s thinking and published a decade ago.

The other is a new book called Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction (Eerdmans). It really is both short and personal. The first half is an overview of Kuyper’s thought on a number of issues related to theology and culture, and the second half is a sort of appropriation of that thinking for the twenty-first century. Mouw focuses on the parts of Kuyper’s thinking that have meant the most to him and that, in his view, have the most relevance for today’s reader.

Among the ideas Kuyper is most well known for is what is called sphere sovereignty. In this way of thinking, culture is composed of a number of distinct spheres. A sphere, as Mouw defines it, is “an arena where interactions take place, and where some sort of authority is exercised.” So the family, church, state, business, art, and university are each spheres, and each “has its own place in God’s plan for the creation, and each is directly under the divine rule.”

That concept may at first seem abstract or irrelevant to some, but to me, it provides a cohesive way of viewing the world, a language for talking about it, and it hints at both the why and the how of Christian cultural engagement. In this view, God intends for the family to be a family, for the church to be the church, for a business to be a business, for the state to be the state, and so on. These different spheres have different purposes and limitations, and it’s important to recognize both. And it’s important to recognize that in the Christian view, Christ is Lord over them all. He’s not unconcerned about any sphere; no sphere is to be tossed aside.

This has huge implications for how Christians view faithfulness in terms of vocation and citizenship and church membership and family life and, well, faithfulness in every square inch of creation.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say I’m ready to label myself a Kuyperian just yet, but I’m wondering if maybe David Brooks was onto something in his column on Friday:

For generations people have been told: Think for yourself; come up with your own independent worldview. Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea. Very few people have the genius or time to come up with a comprehensive and rigorous worldview.

If you go out there armed only with your own observations and sentiments, you will surely find yourself on very weak ground. You’ll lack the arguments, convictions and the coherent view of reality that you’ll need when challenged by a self-confident opposition...

The paradox of reform movements is that, if you want to defy authority, you probably shouldn’t think entirely for yourself. You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of thought that has been developed over the centuries and that seems true.

What about you? Which influential thinkers or traditions have shaped how you see and live in the world? What does it look like to appropriate an old tradition for the twenty-first century?

The Voice of Justice from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

1. Photos from Guatemala’s war years

2. The MBA Oath
We’ve all heard of the Hippocratic Oath - an ethical pledge for medical professionals “to do no harm.” In December I wrote about a similar oath for those working among the poor. Here now is an oath for business school grads, developed by Max Anderson and his classmates at Harvard Business School. It’s an idea whose time has come.

3. Dakota prisoner letters
Minnesota Public Radio has a segment about letters that have emerged from “concentration camps” in Minnesota where members of the Dakota tribe were held 150 years ago. This is a painful story for everyone to face up to, but for Clifford Canku, a Dakota elder who teaches at North Dakota State, the story needs to be told. (HT Richard Twiss)

4. The working class in Latin America
Sara Miller Llana writes for the Christian Science Monitor about how life is changing for the working class in urban Latin America, the region where the gap between the richest and the poorest is most stark in the whole world. While I don’t think that life for rural indigenous people has improved enough for the issue to be pushed aside, I do appreciate this broadening of the focus:

For two decades, social movements in Latin America have centered on indigenous rights. Today the indigenous have earned new political representation, and open mistreatment will draw complaints. Yet daily life across Latin America is replete with symbols of stubborn class inequality that go unchallenged, such as condominium buildings that have separate elevators for domestic workers.

5. Religion, science and naturalism
NPR’s Weekend Edition interviewed Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga about the common ground between religion and science, saying the real disparity is between religion and naturalism.

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: Jean-Marie Simon via New York Times]

Some may take issue with that claim, but Phoenix’s problem is evident: a sprawling population of four million and counting in a sun-scorched desert certainly poses significant sustainability challenges. Further, as Ross argues, a prevailing culture of rugged individualism and a widespread aversion to all forms of regulation have only exacerbated the sustainability challenges.

As a relative newcomer to Phoenix, I was particularly interested to learn what is being done to make Phoenix more sustainable, and what obstacles stand in the way. According to the book, the obstacles have for the most part gotten the upper hand. But with a heightened awareness of the need for more sustainable living across the country and around the world, Ross believes that Phoenix can point the way to the future, for better or worse...

Read my full review of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City (Oxford University Press) at Englewood Review of Books.