Keanu Heydari
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keanuheydari.bsky.social
Keanu Heydari
@keanuheydari.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1.5K following 1.9K posts
History Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Michigan | PC(USA) Deacon | Modern Europe & Iran | Apocalyptic & New Testament Studies
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keanuheydari.bsky.social
The Beaune Altarpiece.
The Beaune Altarpiece, c. 1443–1451. 220 cm × 548 cm (excluding frames). Oil on oak, Hospices de Beaune, interior view.
November 18, 2025 at 1:35 AM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
From a prayer of confession in the Book of Common Worship.
White square graphic with black serif text displaying a prayer of confession from the Presbyterian Church PC(USA), Book of Common Worship. The text reads: “We have used our power to dominate and our weakness to manipulate; we have evaded responsibility and failed to confront evil; we have trusted false gods and listened to their promises; we have denied dignity to ourselves and to each other; we have fallen into deep despair. In our despair we have forgotten you, and have gone away from your path.” Attribution line at the bottom reads “Presbyterian Church, Book of Common Worship,” with the hashtag “#kindlequotes” underneath.
November 17, 2025 at 3:04 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Currently reading. It’s really good.
Book cover for “Living on After Failure” by Irving Goh.
November 16, 2025 at 10:27 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
“Their hearts hunger and thirst; they are aware that something of God’s eternity and truth should be revealed in us, but they don’t quite know what to do about it.” – Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
Interior page from Action in Waiting showing page number 2 with a running header at the top right. The page is filled with justified black serif text and reads as follows: “A tremendous misunderstanding has come about wrich. regard to God's kingdom. Much has been said abour the church. Much has been said about the teachings that are preserved in the church, about the various denomina cions that have become a sacred good within the body of Christianity. Too much emphasis has been placed on forms by which we express ourselves as Christians. Thus today wre cannot deny that many people no longer really find the living qualities that our Father in heaven wanted to give us in Jesus Christ. They have neither seen nor experienced the life that comes from God, and so they are in a fix. On the one hand they cannot deny that they too need God, God's word, God's revelation, in their hearts. On the other hand they no longer quite believe in the means through which God's word is being proclaimed, and thus many of them no longer know what to do with themselves in regard to God's kingdom. Their hearts hunger and thirst; they are aware that something of God's eternity and truth should be revealed in us, but they don't quite know what to do about it.”
November 15, 2025 at 8:12 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Now reading.
Book cover for Action in Waiting by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. The top band, in muted gold, lists the author’s name. Below it, an impressionistic painting shows a small sailboat with a cream-colored sail cutting across dark, choppy blue water toward a hazy horizon lit by the setting or rising sun. The lower third of the cover is a cream panel with the title “Action in Waiting” in large serif type and the subtitle “With an Afterword by Karl Barth” in smaller text beneath.
November 15, 2025 at 8:02 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Further evidence that everything in the world indeed circles back to Karl Barth. See below my translation from an interview with a former Iranian student activist conducted by one of my dissertation committee members in the late 1980s.
Screenshot of a text document showing two bulleted lines from an interview transcript. The first bullet reads “Interviewer: I can help you with that.” The second bullet begins with the speaker’s name blacked out, followed by a long paragraph. The speaker explains that in his youth, before the 28 Mordad coup, Mr. [name blacked out] had been a member of the Tudeh Party’s Youth Organization. They met in Europe, became friends, and through this connection linked up with a Munich group. To help save several condemned men, they undertook various efforts, including a trip to Switzerland where the speaker and a friend met six or seven prominent cultural figures and gathered their signatures in support of the prisoners. The paragraph notes that these figures included the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt and the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, described as then regarded as the leading Catholic theologian in the world. The speaker says they met some signatories in person and offers this story as an example of how such contacts led them into broader political activities.
November 15, 2025 at 4:26 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
If you’re looking for something to do today, take a look at my post on Barth and his “actualist ontology.” Link below.
A screen capture generated by Instapaper from my Substack post, “Karl Barth, ‘Happening,’ and an Actualist Ontology of God.” The quoted paragraph reads as follows: “At the heart of this linguistic subtlety lies Barth’s actualist ontology of God. The maxim “Gottes Sein ist in der Tat”—God’s being is in act—summarizes it succinctly. Barth rejects attempts to conceive God as a static substance or a set of properties to which activity is later appended. God is who God is precisely in the freedom of divine action. The perfections of God are determinations of it: holiness as holy loving, freedom as the freedom to be for us, immutability as the steadfast constancy of this free love. For Barth, the history of Jesus Christ is the decisive act in which God determines to be God for humanity. Election itself becomes the self-determination of God to be the God of this covenantal history.”
November 15, 2025 at 3:38 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
So well deserved! I loved reading “Black Knights!”
Cover of Rachel Schine’s “Black Knights: Arabic Epic and the Making of Medieval Race.”
November 14, 2025 at 6:49 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
The audacity of Edwin publishing this book before I had the chance to write it first.
Book cover for “The Incarnation as God’s First Intention: Supralapsarian Christology for Faith and Practice” by Edwin Chr. van Driel, with the title in elegant black serif type on a cream background overlaid with faint gold botanical illustrations.
November 13, 2025 at 8:01 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
New arrivals.
Four books are arranged in a square on a desktop keyboard and desk surface. The top left book is Dominion by Addie E. Citchens, with a dark green cover and a bold orange abstract snake-like shape. The top right book is Harper Lee’s The Land of Sweet Forever, featuring a cream-colored cover with branches and leaves. The bottom left book is Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon, showing a dark, grainy nighttime cityscape with orange and purple text. The bottom right book is Unwavering Faithfulness by Walter Brueggemann and Brent A. Strawn, with a bright yellow and orange cover depicting an abstract flame-like form rising above a small human figure.
November 12, 2025 at 11:27 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
“When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” – John 11:43–44 (NRSVue)
A quote by Padraig O Tuama from Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community reads, “Lazarus, silent brother of Bethany, When you died, they washed and wrapped you. And when you came back they unwound you, and you washed yourself. In all of this, you said nothing. We, like you, are silent in the face of death. But may we wash and wrap love around sorrow Because sometimes, that’s all that we can do. Amen.” The text appears centered on a plain white background, with attribution and a small hashtag “#kindlequotes” at the bottom.
November 12, 2025 at 5:26 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
“When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.” – Luke 19:5–6 (NRSVue)
A white background features a quote in black serif text that reads, “God who made trees and bodies, God who made the ground and grand gestures, May we practice happy hospitality, because here, hostilities can be healed. Amen.” Below the quote, the author is credited as “Padraig O Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.” The image includes a small hashtag “#kindlequotes” at the bottom.
November 11, 2025 at 1:22 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
See the link in the thread to read the whole thing.
A Substack note by Keanu Heydari, dated November 11, 2025, set against an orange background. The post discusses theological views of Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann on Christian hope and eternal life.
November 11, 2025 at 2:29 AM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Now reading.
Book cover of Paul B. Miller’s “From Revolutionaries to Citizens: Antimilitarism in France, 1870-1914.”
November 10, 2025 at 9:26 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
My two cents.
Tehran's water shortage has become a lens through which the limits of Iran's developmental and administrative model are revealed. The capital's principal reservoirs (Karaj, Lar, Latyan, Mamloo, and Taleghan) have declined to levels that threaten urban stability. This depletion results from overlapping pressures: persistent drought, decades of over-extraction, and a policy framework that privileges short-term economic output over sustainable resource management. Industrial and agricultural expansion into semi-arid regions has intensified demand while outpacing the capacity of existing infrastructure. The crisis is therefore less an isolated ecological event than a structural feature of governance, shaped by the state's dependence on growth-oriented planning and the absence of coherent environmental regulation. The political repercussions extend beyond water management. Unequal distribution across neighborhoods reinforces class divisions within Tehran's urban fabric. Households in the city's periphery experience scarcity most acutely, transforming technical dysfunction into a visible sign of administrative inequality. Each episode of rationing or emergency relief amplifies the perception that state institutions lack the capacity to guarantee basic welfare. Environmental governance thus becomes a domain of political accountability to the extent that citizens interpret the management of water as a measure of fairness and authority. Tehran's water crisis discloses a broader tension within the Islamic Republic's social contract.
November 9, 2025 at 5:10 AM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
In “The Passion of God Himself: Barth on Jesus’s Cry of Dereliction,” in “Reading the Gospels with Karl Barth,” ed. Daniel L. Migliore (Eerdmans, 2017), pp. 155–173, Bruce McCormack contends that Barth locates the cry within the Son of God’s human life.
Gold-ground medieval mosaic of the Crucifixion. A tall, jeweled cross rises like a tree, studded with white doves. Christ hangs at center; the Virgin and John stand below, gesturing in grief. Blue-green vine scrolls spiral around with birds and small vessels, evoking the Tree of Life. Vivid gold, deep blue, teal, and red dominate.
November 8, 2025 at 5:11 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
We do grieve.
White quote card with black serif text reading, “As witnesses to the significant work the Office of Theology and Worship has done since 1989, we do grieve.” Below: article snippet “Grief and gratitude: Celebrating the work of the…,” source “pres-outlook.org,” and label “Shared via Instapaper.”
November 8, 2025 at 1:15 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Not Christmas yet, but @chuckweatherby.bsky.social and I are trying.
A whimsical gingerbread castle decorated in shades of blue, white, and purple. The walls are made of dark purple cookies outlined with blue icing to resemble bricks, while white icing drips like snow from the roof. The castle is adorned with colorful round candies and small blue snowflake decorations. At the entrance, outlined with pastel candies, sits a small blue dragon made of fondant or icing. Blue sugar crystals are scattered around the base, suggesting snow or ice.
November 7, 2025 at 8:29 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
On Monday, I'll be zooming in to a friend’s undergraduate class to talk about the French Revolution and human rights!
A presentation slide titled “The French Revolution and Human Rights.” On the left side, white text appears against a muted mauve background listing: “Keanu M. Heydari, Doctoral Candidate (History), The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, [email address].” On the right side is an image of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), depicted as a neoclassical tablet framed by two pillars and draped with garlands.
November 7, 2025 at 1:26 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Black background with centered white text in all caps containing a prayer from The Northumbria Community’s Celtic Daily Prayer. The text repeats the refrain “Today I believe” after each affirmation of God’s past faithfulness: giving bread, strength, peace, safety, guidance, light, and speech. The prayer expresses trust in God’s continued presence even amid poverty, weakness, anxiety, trials, darkness, and silence. At the bottom, in gold text, it reads “The Northumbria Community, Celtic Daily Prayer,” and in small white text below, “#kindlequotes.”
November 7, 2025 at 12:37 AM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Text of a prayer excerpt from Celtic Daily Prayer by The Northumbria Community. It reads: “Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of Your light like dew.” Below the prayer, the attribution appears in smaller text: The Northumbria Community, Celtic Daily Prayer with the hashtag #kindlequotes underneath. The text is centered on a plain white background.
November 6, 2025 at 12:11 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Wednesday: The Goodness of Creation and Care for the Earth
A page from “Celtic Prayers from Iona.”
November 5, 2025 at 8:45 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
Siri, please hold my calls.
The image shows the cover of the book True Materialism: Hegelian Marxism and the Modernist Struggle for Freedom by Jensen Suther.
November 5, 2025 at 6:56 PM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
a better world is possible
White spray-painted words on an empty urban street read “A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE.” The message stretches across the asphalt in large, uneven capital letters. Surrounding the street are city buildings, crosswalks, and a few pedestrians, with traffic lights and signs visible in the distance under a bright, sunny sky.
November 5, 2025 at 2:47 AM
keanuheydari.bsky.social
🎉🥳🎊
“Lord, keep this nation under your care. Bless the leaders of our land, that we may be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth. Help us elect trustworthy leaders, contribute to wise decisions for the general welfare, and thus serve you faithfully in our generation, to the honor of your holy name; through Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.” (BCW)
November 5, 2025 at 2:18 AM