One of the heads of the beast of Revelation 13 is slain and then healed. The term (sphazo) is the same as that used for the Lamb (5:6, 9, 12) and for the saints (6:9). The Lamb was slain and then “healed” in the resurrection and ascension. When the slain and healed Lamb appears in heaven, the angels and other creatures of heaven join in worshiping Him. They are inspired to worship by the glad surprise of the Lamb’s reappearance after... Read more
Richard Beck describes love as the overcoming of boundaries, and in defending that description deals with the concern of psychologists for establishing “healthy boundaries” (Unclean, 129-30). Drawing on Charles Taylor’s analysis of the modern self, he argues: “Modernity can talk about ‘healthy relationships’ and make numerous recommendations about how we ought to manage life across the boundaries of selfhood, about whether we should accept or reject the claims upon the self from other buffered selves. Modernity will, thus, use economic... Read more
Ernest Becker argued that the “self” is not limited to the body but extends to “the things in which our true feelings are located”: “A person literally projects or throws himself out of the body, anywhere at all. As the great Williams James put it almost 80 years ago: A man’s ‘Me’ is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his mind, but his clothes and house, his wife and children, his... Read more
Ernest Becker argued that the “self” is not limited to the body but extends to “the things in which our true feelings are located”: “A person literally projects or throws himself out of the body, anywhere at all. As the great Williams James put it almost 80 years ago: A man’s ‘Me’ is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his mind, but his clothes and house, his wife and children, his... Read more
At the heart of Richard Beck’s brilliant Unclean are two related mistakes that amount to the same mistake. The first has to do with sacrifice. He begins from Jesus’ claim in Matthew 9 that God desires “mercy, not sacrifice.” The two are not logically opposed, nor are they opposed situationally. Beck argues that they are psychologically (or psychosocially) in opposition. Sacrifice draws boundaries; mercy transgresses boundaries. Sacrifice expresses a “will to purity” (Miroslav Volf’s language); mercy a will to embrace. (Beck supports... Read more
Newt Gingrich and Vince Haley suggest that the subpoena of sermons and other communications from Houston pastors is an attempt to exploit Justice Kennedy’s arguments in Windsor: “there is now an established and successful political and constitutional strategy to paint the protection of traditional moral values – and opposition to newly-invented sexual and gender identity rights – as motivated by malice. In the 2013 Supreme Court decision (United States v. Windsor) that invalidated Congress’ enacted definition of marriage as between one man... Read more
In a 2009 First Things piece reprinted in It’s Not the End of the World: It’s Just the End of You, David P. Goldman explores how Western tonal music is able to capture higher orders of time and that evoke eternity. Drawing on Augustine’s account of time in terms of memory and anticipation, Goldman argues that Western composers learned to extend “the tension and resolution of dissonance and consonance in longer musical forms.” In early modern tonal music, “tonality made possible whole... Read more
At the beginning of Revelation 13, the dragon – Satan – goes to the seashore. He places himself in the same position as the Spirit at the beginning of creation, who hovered over the water and called up the land from the sea and the many other things from the land, including human beings. The beast is imitating God. The scene is obviously taken also from Daniel 7, but again the imagery is inverted. In Daniel 7, the wind goes... Read more
God created two different kinds of land creatures, which are identified with two different sorts of names in the Old Testament. Wild animals are classified as “living things” (chayyah), while domesticated animals are classified as “cattle” (behemah). This is a division built into the original creation, and does not have to do with sin. Sin may affect the behavior of different animals, but already at the beginning God created different sorts of animals, classified by their nearness and friendliness to... Read more
Scholastic and exegetical theology are sometimes contrasted. Scholastics reason logically from axioms; exegetical theologians go wherever the text takes ‘em. While the contrast may have some rough truth to it, it’s never been an absolute one, and can be misleading. Scholastics deal with biblical texts. More importantly, exegetes have to act like scholastics. For example: “Do not answer a fool according his folly (Heb. ke’iwwalto), lest you will also be like him.” And,”Answer a fool according to his folly (ke’iwwalto),... Read more
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