Here are a few thoughts on the Auburn Avenue controversy, snipped from an intervention I made on a discussion list. The specific issue in question is Steve Wilkins’s claim that all who are baptized receive “every spiritual blessing in Christ.” First, an exegetical point: Who is Paul addressing when he uses the phrase “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ”? Is he addressing the church at Ephesus, or the elect within the church at Ephesus? It seems to... Read more
Cartoons have always been a bit subversive: We root for the rabbit against the hunter, and the carnivalesque characters are always preferable to the law-and-order types that they mock. The underdog roadrunner always triumphs over the predatory coyote. And so on. Some recent cartoons continue to be quite clever, especially for adults. Dexter’s Laboratory is very funny, as is Johnny Bravo . But I’ve noticed a couple of somewhat more disturbing trends in recent cartoons. First, the cartoons have become... Read more
Any idea of cooperation with grace rests on a nature/grace dualism. To say that I cooperate with grace implies that I have some sort of independent power of action that is not always already the product of grace. That is, it depends on the assumption that there is some independent realm of “nature.” If, on the other hand, my very existence depends on God’s gift, IS God’s gift, and if God is always concurrently active in my every action, then... Read more
I’ve argued in several recent venues that Gen 15 is not the story of Abraham’s conversion. He was a worshiper of God before that time, and Hebrews 11 is explicit that Abraham was a believer from the time he left Ur (or when he left his father’s house). Unless we want to assume that Paul deliberately and perversely misread the story of Abraham, we have to say that Paul knew that and that his use of Abraham in Rom 4... Read more
I’ve argued in several recent venues that Gen 15 is not the story of Abraham’s conversion. He was a worshiper of God before that time, and Hebrews 11 is explicit that Abraham was a believer from the time he left Ur (or when he left his father’s house). Unless we want to assume that Paul deliberately and perversely misread the story of Abraham, we have to say that Paul knew that and that his use of Abraham in Rom 4... Read more
Accommodation is a way of handling the “problem” of theological language. Since God is the infinite Creator and we are creatures, He can speak to us only by “accommodating” His language to our capacities. This sometimes goes so far as to suggest that God has given us “divine misinformation” in revelation, things that are not, strictly, true, but true enough for us. A far better way to handle this is to say that God is multi-lingual. He can speak to... Read more
Leon Wieseltier , not surprisingly, has a blisteringly negative review of Gibson’s film in the March 8 issue of TNR . Along the way, though, Wieseltier’s article is inadvertently insightful. Here is his description of the violence of the torture: “There is only the relentless destruction and dehumanization of a man, who exists here to have his body punished with an almost unimaginable fury. He falls, he rises, he falls, he rises; he bends beneath the blows, but never mentally;... Read more
The Winter 2004 issue of The Wilson Quarterly also has an article on Darwin’s studies of earthworms, in which Darwin made innovative contributions. Darwin was inspired to study works after a visit to his uncle, Josiah Wedgewood: “Upon arriving, he scarcely had time to put down his hat before Wedgewood had him out in the pastures, where he pointed to cinders and pieces of brick that had been spread on the ground years before and had since become buried some... Read more
The Winter 2004 issue of The Wilson Quarterly also has an article on Darwin’s studies of earthworms, in which Darwin made innovative contributions. Darwin was inspired to study works after a visit to his uncle, Josiah Wedgewood: “Upon arriving, he scarcely had time to put down his hat before Wedgewood had him out in the pastures, where he pointed to cinders and pieces of brick that had been spread on the ground years before and had since become buried some... Read more
The Winter 2004 issue of The Wilson Quarterly has several intriguing articles on shopping and the institution of the shopping mall. The articles cover the rise of the shopping, consumer culture; the strategies behind the arrangement of various departments of a mall store; and moral concerns with materialism and hedonism. A stimulating set of essays. Read more
Leithart
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