Thanks to repetition and the familiarity it breeds Palm Sunday’s second reading, as probably with any second reading (I suppose), doesn’t usually stand out as something all that special. Here’s how it reads, or rather, the portion of it that’s most potent: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself [~kenosis], taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human... Read more
I’ve penned an Immigration Manifesto with Sam Rocha over at Ethika Politika. Our displeasure with George Weigel’s reaction to the actions of the bishops is one important side issues. We might seem to be unduly harsh on the old Neo-Con icon, but he has only himself to blame for it. But George Weigel should also be praised for it. You’ll see why. Patrick Deneen in his “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching” is correct to identify the Neo-Conservatives and the Communio... Read more
There is nothing to be embarrassed by the overlaps between Christianity and other world religions. This is a normal part of an eminently incarnational faith. I’ve already mentioned Christianity’s fruitful borrowings of the practice of prayer, pagan myths and rituals, plus, the Greek language and all its philosophical baggage (in the New Testament). All of these are so much a part of Christianity that we forget that they did not originate with it. However, Christianity did combine them in a totally new way. Justin... Read more
John Paul II died nine years ago today. His background in the theater and poetry, especially Polish Romanticism, is something that is frequently overlooked. Needless to say, his connection with the Romantic theorist (and poet) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which I’d like to highlight today, does not garner any attention. Coleridge is one of those curious instances of a scholar who is known for perhaps the wrong things. True, his poetry is of the highest order, but his stature as... Read more
It took me a while to figure out a topic for April Fool’s that would confuse the hell out of everyone. The consistently ambivalent Famous Atheists Who Weren’t Atheists segment seems like the place to dig. Goodness knows how the deterministic cage of many an agnostic and atheist has been rattled by the revelation that famous nihilists such as Heidegger, Warhol, Sartre, Camus, and Hitchcock all ended up as religious believers (or just never stopped being believers). Now, everybody knows how... Read more
I’d like to enlist the poet Fanny Howe in the service of defending Eagleton’s characterization of humanity as “the scum of the earth.” I didn’t make that phrase up, I borrowed it verbatim from the title of the first chapter of Reason, Faith, and Revolution. What Eagleton said is not a term of opprobrium. It is a realistic assessment of life for those of us who do not inhabit a ship of the imagination. Meaning: everyone including deGrasse Tyson when he’s... Read more
What’s the difference between this… …and this? And what do both of them have to do with this? Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey has inspired much conversation about science and religion. I’ve had a fun time demonstrating how and why most of it is shallow. The latest episode begins with a vignette about how scientific knowledge is a panacea for our existential fears. But in reality science (see: last image above) has contributed to our fears with its picture of human... Read more
You might think the debunking of the Bruno, Galileo (Never tortured, spent three days in prison, if any), and Hypatia myths still doesn’t touch the so-called eclipse of science during those terrible Middle Ages. You’d be wrong, of course. One of the most pernicious Reformation and Enlightenment myths we persistently cling to is the erroneous belief that the middle ages impeded the advancement toward modern science. We were told that Bruno was a significant breakthrough from the crudeness and ignorance of the so-called... Read more
There is an extended footnote in Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book on the print-edition of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (Now available with a preface by deGrasse Tyson and new tie-dye art. MOICHANDISING!). It seems to me that the footnote also hits the spot for deGrasse’s Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey whose earnest but appalling rewriting of history was featured on CosmosTheInLost here (cold cosmos), here (Bruno), and here (Hypatia and other myths). DeGrasse Tyson’s playing fast with historical facts makes me... Read more
The third part of my interview with Larry Chapp on the state of the dialogue between science and theology, entitled “Understanding the Mechanics of the Incarnation,” is now up on Ethika Politika. In this portion of his interview Larry concentrates upon how modern science has expanded the horizons of theology. He identifies four main areas of transformation. 1) The rapid expansion of our understanding of the universe’s size, which, as Thomas O’Meara argues, has implications for the doctrine of Incarnation. 2) The... Read more
Cosmos The In Lost
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