As early as Xenophon, ingratitude has seen as a cause of sedition, and during the middle ages the social and political context of feudalism strengthened this link. Xenophon wrote, “And they [the Persians] bring one another to trial also charged with an offense for which people hate one another most but go to law least, namely, that of ingratitude; and if they know that any one is able to return a favour and fails to do so, they punish him... Read more
Nation states have enormous power, which can be projected outwardly and exercised within. We can bomb targets on the other side of the world; the NSA can find out whom you call when for how long. It’s also become clear that nation-states are also deeply vulnerable. The most sophisticated technologies of power could not prevent 9/11 or the Paris attacks; firepower couldn’t subdue Iraq or stop the civil war in Syria. We can’t entirely control who moves with the crowds... Read more
It’s significant, writes Walter Kasper (Handbook of Spiritual Ecumenism), that “Jesus did not primarily express his desire for unity in a teaching or in a commandment to his disciples, but in a prayer to his Father. Unity is a gift from above, stemming from and growing toward loving communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” When Christian pray for unity, we share in Jesus’ prayer, “who promised that any prayer in His name would be heard by the Father” (10).... Read more
The contributors to Rousseau and the Dilemmas of Modernity share a skepticism of accounts of “Rousseau the totalitarian” and “Rousseau the illiberal menace.” Positively, they share a conviction that Rousseau has great relevance to present day dilemmas. As editor Mark Hulliung says, “When it comes to whether we can attain self-knowledge, or whether each person is one or many selves, Rousseau is our forebear. Rousseau also preceded us when he used science to question science. As for his position on... Read more
Is China poised to rule the world? Will its growing economic and political clout fundamentally transform the way the world whirls? Ho-fung Hung (China Boom) doesn’t think so. On the contrary, China “has both helped to perpetuate the existing U.S.-centered global neoliberal order and reshaped the balance of power in this order at the same time.” Hung’s premise is that “the persisting U.S. economic and military power is attributable largely to the ongoing status of the U.S. dollar as the most... Read more
In a brief 2002 essay on “Creator and Creature,” reprinted in Theology as Revisionary Metaphysics, Robert Jenson admits that “we indeed need to move conceptually outside the biblical narrative as such,” but he argues that common ways of conceptualizing the Creator-creature distinction are self-contradictory, incoherent, or depart from the biblical storyline. “In Scripture itself, the difference between the Creator and his creatures is not laid out conceptually at all, but rather narratively. . . . commented narration remains the fundamental and the... Read more
God speaks and light appear. He separates light and darkness, assigns names to each, and judges the whole to be good. Next day, He’s at it again, speaking, separating, assessing, judging. And so it goes throughout the days of creation: With an insistent, incantatory rhythm, God speaks, sees, names, judges. Poetic yes, but more fundamentally, creation unfolds as the enacted poetry of liturgy. From the first pages of Scripture, before we know much of anything about God, we know He’s... Read more
Kevin M. Schultz’s contribution to Faith in the New Millennium is “The Blessings of American Pluralism, and Those Who Rail Against It.” The essay is partly a study of the history of Americans’ reconciliation with American pluralism. He starts with Sonya Sotomayor’s appoint to the Supreme Court. A Catholic, she replaced the last Protestant on the court: “for the first time in American history, not a single Protestant sat among the constituents of one of the three branches of the federal... Read more
Nikolaus Pevsner (The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design) quotes Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, writing in 1841: “There should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety . . . The smallest detail should . . . serve a purpose, and construction itself should vary with the material employed” (9). The source of that quotation occasions some surprise, because “the hook which he started with this clarion call The True Principles of Pointed or... Read more
Isaiah 19-20:6 is an oracle against Egypt. It’s not good news for Egypt. Egypt will come under a savage king. The following verses evoke the plagues and the passage through the sea: waters dried up (v. 5), canals emit a stench as they did when the fish died in the bloody water (v. 6; cf. Exodus 7:18), fields devastated by drought (v. 7). Ultimately, it is good news, the good news of exodus. If the Egyptians are suffering under a savage... Read more
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