THE NEW JERUSALEM

5 days ago | thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan

I wish I liked classical music more. I consider it a flaw in myself, not the music, but I confess it’s just never my first choice of things to listen to. I’ve found other forms of high art to be like coffee or wine—you have to cultivate a love of them at first, but then you start to seek them out of your own accord. They become some of life’s richest and most exquisitely varied pleasures.

6 days ago | thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan

Dad,As a scholar, it’s my job to pop in from time to time and note that absolutely everything has been thought before by someone. Personally, I find this comforting. Most people find it excruciatingly dull. Some people find it infuriating. I like to amuse myself at parties by testing to see which is which!Let’s play that game now.

1 week ago | thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Andrew Klavan

Spence!Personally, I never like to mention the word Death. I’m always afraid I’ll be answered by his hollow voice behind me, like Lurch in the Addams Family: “You rang?”Yet there’s no denying it: Death not only defines the limit of life, it gives shape to life's meaning. In TheKingdom of Cain, I put forward an alternative reading to the Genesis story of the fall of man. Normally, we hear, as in Romans, that Adam’s sin brought death into the world.

1 week ago | thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan

Join us for another livestream! A week from today (Tuesday, May 13) we’ll chat with subscribers on Substack at 6pm ET. Dad,Congratulations on this essay and on the powerful book it’s drawn from. Our readers will be jealous to know I got an advanced look at it, and I loved it. You should be very proud. “Death writes the rules of the game,” you say—in murder stories and in life itself. This was the curse, or perhaps simply the consequence, that we met with when we strayed off God’s path of life.

1 week ago | thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Andrew Klavan

What follows is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness, which is published this week. Rejoice evermore!So Scripture commands us. But how can you rejoice in a world of so much darkness? At a time like twilight when darkness gathers, ready to fall? The comforting bromides of belief can seem pat and complacent in the shadow of very present wickedness. Everything happens for a reason. There must be evil so there can be free will.