To Roman pagans, Judaism was a solvent of the bonds linking religion, household, and polity. Tacitus wrote, “Those who come over to their religion . . . have this lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and brethren” (quoted by Stephen C. Barton, Discipleship and Family Ties in Mark and Matthew, 2). Stephen Barton observes that Tacitus makes an “assumption about the strength of the bond between cult,... Read more
A faith has been shaken, illusions shattered, pieties punctured,” writes Damon Linker at The Week. The faith is progressivism, which Linker characterizes as liberalism-plus. Progressives believe in rights and all that but “add something else: a quasi-eschatological faith in historical progress that gives the movement its name. This belief has many sources, and it takes many forms. One stream flows from liberal Protestant theology on down through Woodrow Wilson’s hopes for moral advances at home and an end to armed... Read more
William Johnstone (1 & 2 Chronicles, Volume 1) argues that the Chronicler depicts Israel’s warfare as “sacramental.” The brief account of the war with the Hagrites in 1 Chronicles 5:18-22 is an early example. “Israel is the agent of the LORD’S rule on earth,” he writes, adding that “It is the ‘outward and visible sign’, the earthly counterpart, of the hidden cosmic reality and power of the LORD of hosts. In a word, C’s theology of Israel is sacramental. Since... Read more
Hope Jahren’s memoir of a life in science, Lab Girl, has three sections: “Roots and Leaves”; “Wood and Knots”; “Flowers and Fruits.” She intersperses autobiographical chapters with vivid, personified descriptions of the life of plants. “No risk,” she writes, “is more terrifying than that taken by the first root. A lucky root will eventually find water, but its first job is to anchor—to anchor an embryo and forever end its mobile phase, however passive that mobility was. Once the first... Read more
Evangelicals have long been dismissed by Catholics, Orthodox, and confessional or mainline Protestants as “biblicists.” Evangelicals are still being dismissed as biblicists these days, but more often than in the past the charge comes from others within the broadly Evangelical world. It’s not always clear what’s being condemned when biblicism is condemned. Christian Smith at least has a precise definition: A biblicist is someone who believes the Bible is God’s word and therefore has divine authority, that its plain sense... Read more
Paul’s Damascus road conversion from persecutor of the church to apostle is well-known. His life story figures his hope for Israel, that the people who killed the Lord of glory would see the pierced Shepherd and repent. Peter’s transition from persecutor to apostle is less obvious, but no less dramatic. In a brilliant treatment of Peter’s denial, René Girard points to the communal dynamics of mimesis and crowd contagion evident in the narrative. Responding to Auerbach’s reading, he writes, “Mimesis... Read more
In his long-anticipated and dramatically-completed (read the Preface) Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, Richard B. Hays devotes a few pages to the parable of the vineyard as recounted in Mark 12. He observes, as every commentator does, that Jesus is the son who is finally sent to collect produce from the tenants who have charge of the vineyard. Being Richard Hays, though, he hears more of the text’s music than most. He highlights the allusion to Isaiah 5, but... Read more
Ian Morris puts the discontent with Western elites, reflected most dramatically in Britain’s departure from the E.U., in a larger historical perspective. “Throughout history, when things have gone wrong, people have blamed their leaders,” Morris writes. “In the West, things are now going wrong more than they used to, and in the decade to come they will go wrong even more. There is nothing that Western leaders can do to turn the clock back; the only way to try to... Read more
Ian Morris puts the discontent with Western elites, reflected most dramatically in Britain’s departure from the E.U., in a larger historical perspective. “Throughout history, when things have gone wrong, people have blamed their leaders,” Morris writes. “In the West, things are now going wrong more than they used to, and in the decade to come they will go wrong even more. There is nothing that Western leaders can do to turn the clock back; the only way to try to... Read more
Mary Eberstadt doesn’t believe we’re in a war of the religious v. the secular. In an adapted excerpt from her newly-released It’s Dangerous To Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies, she argues that the battle is between “competing faiths: one in the Good Book, and the other in the more newly written figurative book of secularist orthodoxy about the sexual revolution.” The basic premise of the “secular catechism” is that “the sexual revolution—that is, the gradual de-stigmatization of all forms... Read more
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