This 2004 Indian musical version of the Austen novel is energetic, colorful, distracting fun. At several points, it departs from Austen’s novel. Darcy’s proposal does not come out of the blue, but at the end of a series of dates (including a helicopter ride over LA and a sunset walk on the beach, accompanied by a very large robed church choir). Darcy doesn’t secretly take care of the Wickham-Lydia affair, but chases Wickham down in a theater, where they slug... Read more
Ephesians 5:18-20: “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.” Scripture issues a number of warnings against drunkenness. “Blessed are you, O land, whose king is of nobility and whose princes eat... Read more
Laughter is a gift of God, a sign that we are made in God’s image. The Lord enjoys slapstick humor and pratfalls, laughing at the folly of the raging nations that conspire against Christ (Ps 2) because He knows that the wicked will fall, like Wile E. Coyote, into the trap they set for the righteous (Ps 37:13; 59:8). The Lord invites the righteous to join in: “The righteous will see and fear, and will laugh at him, saying, ‘Behold,... Read more
I recently picked up two short novels by the Hungarian writer, Imre Kertesz, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature. I was surprised to discover that the novels – Liquidation and Kaddish for an Unborn Child – both told the same story, although from different perspectives and with very different styles. In both, Auschwitz, where Kertesz himself was imprisoned, figures prominently. Kaddish was first published in 1990, and in an English translation in 1992; Liquidation was published in Budapest... Read more
Thanks to Joel Garver for this reference: Charles Hodge points out that LC 158 claims that only those who are “sufficiently gifted, and also duly approved and called to that office” may preach. The requirements for sacramental presidency and preaching thus appear to be the same. And if there are exceptions to the requirement that ordained men preach, then it might be within Confessional bounds to say that unordained men may preside at the sacraments. Read more
I was asked by the Pacific Northwest Presbytery to explain my views on whether an ordained minister must administer the sacraments, as the PCA Book of Church Order and WCF require. Here is part of my response to those inquiries. My overall position on this is as follows: I believe that it is best for a minister to administer baptism and preside at the Supper, for the sake of order and for assurance that the sacraments are acts of Christ.... Read more
Augustine has a sense of cultural diversity and historical change usually associated with post-Renaissance western thought. In Book 3 of On Christian Teaching he warns against the mistake of taking a literal statement in Scripture as figurative, and offers this test to determine what is literal and what figure: “anything in the divine discourse that cannot be related either to good morals or to the true faith should be taken as figurative. Good morals have to do with our love... Read more
In an essay on manhood and heroism in Homer, Michael Clarke describes Achilles’ towering rage as he returns to the field to avenge Patroclus, and asks: “is Achilles’ heroic excellence fulfilled or undone by his wildness as he moves towards death? The poem forbids us to frame an easy answer. Perhaps, however, there is no more authentic response to the crux than the interpretation of Achilles which Plato puts in Socrates’ mouth in the Apology. Addressing a jury of everyday... Read more
Proclussaid of the Odyssey, “Many are the wanderings and circlings of the soul: one among imaginings, one in opinions and one before these in understanding. But only the life according to NOUS has stability and this is the mystical harbor of the soul to which, on the one hand, the poem leads Odysseus through the great wandering of his life, and to which we too shall draw ourselves up, if we would reach salvation.” This fancy has little to do... Read more
Milgrom says that the “purification offering” deals with impurity and not with sin. Kiuchi says that it deals also with sin, suggesting that the “problem of terminology arises from the fact that the cultic law distinguishes between physical uncleanness and . . . (sin), whereas . . . (sin) itself can be an intense form of uncleanness.” Jonathan Klawans’ book on sin and impurity helps to resolve this dilemma; Klawans argues that the language of impurity is applied to sins... Read more
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