The Fourteen Foreskins of Christ and Mary’s Hymen

Last updated on: September 9, 2014 at 11:11 am By Artur Rosman

One of my readers asked the following legitimate question in response to Nudus Nudum Christum Sequi: On Christ’s Genitalia: I wonder how you would feel if someone wrote a similar post discussing and depiciting [sic!] your wife’s genitalia. Have some respect for Jesus’ Holy Body. I’m sure I wouldn’t mind if I could concoct a salvific significance to writing about my wife’s genitalia (topic for a future post?). On the other hand, there’s always been a salvific dimension to discussions of... Read more

What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Art and Revelation?

Last updated on: September 9, 2014 at 11:31 am By Artur Rosman

Will Beauty Save the World? The slogan “Beauty will save the world” is increasingly invoked by religious believers these days. What this might actually mean is not given much thought, as is the case with most reflex responses. The words come from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. The Christians who use the phrase usually think the words issued from the lips of the story’s main protagonist, Prince Myshkin. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dostoevsky’s intended ambivalence toward the phrase... Read more

Nudus Nudum Christum Sequi: On Christ’s Genitalia

Last updated on: January 31, 2016 at 7:56 pm By Artur Rosman

Ever since graduation my mornings have followed the routine of studying actively-engaged anthropology. tears, poop, and pee are my daily bread. My post-doctoral work consists of taking care of our two young girls while the eldest boy is now finally (and mercifully) off to kindergarten. At the same time I am in the middle of writing for you and an intensive job search that might take me out of academia (do contact me if you have any leads, academic or... Read more

Christ Is No Longer On Top

Last updated on: September 3, 2014 at 1:54 pm By Artur Rosman

The reactions to yesterday’s intentionally provocative post on the centrality of the resurrection of the body were expected. Those who got the joke didn’t say too much. Those that didn’t get it were adamant about scoring points. The latter group was conspicuous for its inability to stretch their thinking beyond making obvious doctrinal affirmations–as if those are immediately self-explanatory. If I may pull back the curtain on yesterday’s post, I’d like to tell you what that parable was all about.... Read more

FACT: Christians DON’T Believe in the Immortality of the Soul

Last updated on: September 3, 2014 at 12:24 pm By Artur Rosman

I’m sure you’ve spent many a night in college, arguing over a beer, or over an even more punishing sobriety, with your skeptical roommate about the immortality of the soul until you were blue in the face. Or maybe you even took to convincing yourself that there is something like this airy substance somewhere in you? In all this you maybe even took it far enough to estimate how many grams lighter you’d be after death when your soul is... Read more

Holocaust in Context: Auden’s September 1, 1939

Last updated on: January 27, 2015 at 9:49 pm By Artur Rosman

Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” in his Requiem for a Nun. One prime example is World War II. The memory of this almost now mythical conflict continues to shape the Western social imaginary in a multitude of ways; for example, Western Europeans use it to bolster their unpractical cowardly pacifism, while the Americans use it to bolster their equally unpractical rash militarism. Even more profoundly, the Holocaust has become an almost metaphysical measuring stick... Read more

The Call to Being Has Already Exiled You: Sam Rocha’s Late to Love

Last updated on: August 29, 2014 at 1:39 am By Artur Rosman

I’ve been trying to write about Sam Rocha‘s album Late to Love all morning long. It’s such a saturated phenomenon that I’m having trouble paring down the superlatives, so it doesn’t look like I’m kissing too much butt. The album bills itself as an Augustinian soul album. Its lyrics range from despair to joy, from praise lament, there are even a few pieces played solely on instrument. The opening song of Late to Love, “In the Self’s Place,” first caught... Read more

Our Second Scientific Revolution. What Can Theology Expect?

Last updated on: August 27, 2014 at 1:41 pm By Artur Rosman

The intersection of religion, the imagination, and science is a constant preoccupation of mine. I believe this topic first became an obsession upon reading Czeslaw Milosz‘s The Land of Ulro. The poet’s book is one of those weird works that is way ahead of its time. It goes beyond all the prescribed literary boundaries. After having read it four or five times I still can’t tell whether it’s autobiography, literary criticism, philosophy of science, history, anthropology, theology, and so on.... Read more

Patrick Deneen on Economic Two-Way Baloney

Last updated on: August 26, 2014 at 11:41 am By Artur Rosman

Today, with an uppercut, I’d like to redirect you to Ethika Politika. I’ve wrapped up another installment of my interview with Patrick Deneen on the Neo-Conservative imagination. Patrick Deneen holds a Ph.D from from Rutgers University. He is professor of political science at Notre Dame University. His published writings include The Odyssey of Political Theory and Democratic Faith. This part of the interview grows out questions readers had about the much circulated The Neo-Conservative Imagination: An Interview with Patrick Deneen. As a result, in... Read more

Tolkien’s Smaug of Money: Class Conflict in a Children’s Classic

Last updated on: August 20, 2014 at 1:49 pm By Artur Rosman

My resistance to the Inklings is strong, but breaking down. Two causes stand behind my aversion. First, all my dorky church friends in high school–Evangelicals, Mormons, and even some Catholics–spent a lot of their free time talking the greatness of C.S. Lewis. I was alienated from church and their witness frankly didn’t help. Their enthusiasm skipped off of me because at that point I was enjoying the comforts of atheism. Second, I was also in the process of discovering truly great... Read more