O God of earth and altar, bow down and hear our cry, our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die; the walls of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide, take not thy thunder from us, but take away our pride. From all that terror teaches, from lies of tongue and pen, from all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men, from sale and profanation of honor, and the sword, from sleep and from damnation, deliver us, good... Read more
My End of Protestantism (the book) deals with a number of the questions Doug Wilson raises in his brief review. Here I correct several of Doug’s misrepresentations and clarify some points, but mainly point to fuller discussions in the book. First, on John 17: Doug says that I’m “adamant” that the the church isn’t unified, and so I must be saying the Father refused the Son’s request. For his part, Doug says “the Father must be saying ‘not yet’ instead... Read more
The Hebrew word ma’al is a key term in Chronicles. It means “act of unfaithfulness” or “sacrilege,” and is the sin that leads to Saul’s fall (he ma’aled a ma’al, 1 Chronicles 10:13) and to the exile of Judah, whose officials and priests ma’aled a ma’al (2 Chronicles 36:14). David doesn’t commit a ma’al. Instead, his kingdom is “highly exalted” in the eyes of Gentile rulers like Hiram (1 Chronicles 14:2). “High exalted,” though, translates the Hebrew lema’lah, which contains... Read more
The Reformation was highly improbably, writes Andrew Pettegree in his lively, vivid Brand Luther: “that a monk who into his thirtieth year had published nothing, and who shared the conventional education of other churchmen, should somehow reinvent himself as a writer and polemicist of astonishing power.” More, “in an age that valued prolonged and detailed exposition, complexity, and repetition, it was astonishing that Luther should have instinctively discerned the value of brevity. Luther in effect invented a new form of... Read more
In his elegant study of Reformation commemorations (Remembering the Reformation), Thomas Albert Howard notes that the first centenary of the 95 Theses started out as an ecumenical effort. Elector Friedrich V of the Rhineland Palatinate hoped to “reduce tensions between Lutheran and Calvinist members” of the Protestant Union. Calvinists were not recognized within the HolyRoman Empire, and they “desired to build bridges to their Protestant co-religionists, differences and acrimony notwithstanding” (13). A joint resolution of April 1617 “affirmed that during... Read more
Bruce Ellis Benson (Improvisation of Musical Dialogue) doesn’t think that “the binary schema of ‘composing’ and ‘performing,’ which goes along with the construal of music making as being primarily about the production and reproduction of musical works” describes “what musicians actually do.” In place of the binary scheme, he offers “an improvisational model of music, one that depicts composers, performers, and listeners as partners in dialogue. From this perspective, music is a conversation in which no one partner has exclusive... Read more
There were many Dick Turpins, writes James Sharpe in his study of the mythical English highwayman. There was “the son of John and Mary Turpin, born in Essex in 1705, who was a butcher by trade, drifted into crime, became a notorious highwayman, and was eventually executed at York in 1739.” No one knows that “pock-marked thug.” The Dick Turpin everyone knows “is a romantic, courageous, daredevil figure, elegantly clad and handsome, robbing the rich to help the poor, defying... Read more
Tracing the pre-history of European modernity that started with the Cartesian cogito, Enrique Dussel (Underside of Modernity, 135-6) calls attention to the role of European exploration and conquest in the Americas. Modernity doesn’t begin with Descartes, but with the European discovery of the new world. From that point, Dussel argues, modernity has been a dialogue of center and periphery; the counter-discourse coming from the colonies isn’t “outside,” but internal to the development of modernity itself. Dussel writes, “modernity being a... Read more
In several places in Scripture, idols are characterized by their sensory deprivation (Psalms 115; 135). They have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear prayer, noses but cannot smell incense of sacrifice. By implication, Yahweh the living God can do all these things. Elaine Scarry points out (The Body in Pain, 132-3) that Yahweh distinguishes Himself as the God who has working, sentient organs: “Divine contempt for these statues is based on the fact that they do not see,... Read more
Age obliterates and collapses our world, writes Elaine Scarry in The Body in Pain (32-3): “the body works to obliterate the world and self of the old person. Something of this world dissolution is already at work even in the tendency of those in late middle age, no longer working, to see their former jobs, their life actions, their choices as wrong or trivial, jobs, actions, and choices . . . seem insignificant by virture of the same process, though... Read more
Select your answer to see how you score.
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In