The TLS reviewer says that Richard Flannagan aspires to poetry, and fails dismally, in his Man Booker nominated The Narrow Road to the Deep North. “The Narrow Road to the Deep North confuses poetry, the higher register, with the trope of repetition – and it is fatal. . . . This is Dorrigo Evans falling in love: ‘He was falling. He listened to the waves break and shimmer sand and he was falling. A slight breeze rose from the long shadows... Read more
The Paradosis Center of John Brown University put on an ecumenical conference on the gospel of John last week. I posted a brief report on the event on the Trinity House site. Read more
The first installment of a review of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice at the Trinity House site. Read more
In an insightful piece at BloombergView, Michael Lewis analyzes the ways Wall Street affects the character of the eager young graduates who come to make their fortunes. Some of the temptations, he says, are obvious – emphasizing short-term gains or using financial success as a cover for moral laziness or failure in the rest of life. Some are more subtle. Lewis writes, “Anyone who works in big finance will also find it surprisingly hard to form deep attachments to anything much... Read more
At the Paradosis conference at John Brown University, Edith Humphrey remarked briefly on the paradox of mediation and presence. Her point was that, though God’s presence to us is mediated, that mediation is embedded in or infused by an immediacy of presence. This must be so if we are going to talk about mediation Trinitarianly. God the Father mediates His presence through the Son, but the Father is also in the Son and the Son is fully God. The Son... Read more
At the Paradosis conference at John Brown University, Edith Humphrey remarked briefly on the paradox of mediation and presence. Her point was that, though God’s presence to us is mediated, that mediation is embedded in or infused by an immediacy of presence. This must be so if we are going to talk about mediation Trinitarianly. God the Father mediates His presence through the Son, but the Father is also in the Son and the Son is fully God. The Son... Read more
David Fiensy tries to avoid “polar opposites” in the essays collected in Christian Origins and the Ancient Economy. He doesn’t think Jesus was “desperately poor” or that Galileans in general were “half-starving.” Galilee wasn’t a “boom center” but it wasn’t famine-ridden either. On Jesus in particular, Fiensy explores the opportunities that would be available to artisans like carpenters. Nazareth wasn’t very big, but it was only a few miles from Sepphoris, one of the largest cities in the area. It’s... Read more
James Hamblin reports on new research that shows almonds are even better for us than we thought. Eating an ounce of almonds a day is associated with lower rates of heart disease, prevention of diabetes and arthritis, lower changes of Alzehimer’s. No wonder the almond has overtaken the peanut as America’s most popular nut. But there’s always a cost. Water from the Klamath River in California has been diverted to water almond groves, and salmon are suffering as a result. Almond-growers need... Read more
Justin Holcomb, co-founder of Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST), will speak in Birmingham, Alabama on sex-trafficking on November 19. See details and register at the Trinity House site. Holcomb serves as Canon for Vocations in the Diocese of Central Florida and teaches at Gordon-Conwell and Reformed Theological seminaries. Read more
Justin Holcomb, co-founder of Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST), will speak in Birmingham, Alabama on sex-trafficking on November 19. See details and register at the Trinity House site. Holcomb serves as Canon for Vocations in the Diocese of Central Florida and teaches at Gordon-Conwell and Reformed Theological seminaries. Read more
Leithart
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