Over at Grantland, Wesley Morris traces the shift in romantic comedy in the 1980s to the politicization of the genre: “By the 1980s, romantic comedy had started to turn inward, away from fights between two equals. Women took center stage — unless the movie was Tootsie, in which Hoffman wore a wig and a dress. This was how we got from romantic comedy to rom-com: politics. Tootsie was part of a series of workplace comedies in which the romance was essentially, unapologetically... Read more
Reformed theology has always stressed the utter sovereignty of God. He has planned all things, and works all things. But in certain forms of Reformed theology, this is subtly undermined and turns into its opposite. I’m thinking of Reformed theology (a hyper-Calvinist tendency) that so stresses God’s sovereignty that it effectively cancels out created will, freedom, and action. Zero-sum games are rife in this sort of Reformed theology: If God does X, creatures don’t. Zero-sum games assume that God and... Read more
Reformed theology has always stressed the utter sovereignty of God. He has planned all things, and works all things. But in certain forms of Reformed theology, this is subtly undermined and turns into its opposite. I’m thinking of Reformed theology (a hyper-Calvinist tendency) that so stresses God’s sovereignty that it effectively cancels out created will, freedom, and action. Zero-sum games are rife in this sort of Reformed theology: If God does X, creatures don’t. Zero-sum games assume that God and... Read more
Here’s an odd thing. Revelation 12 begins with a clear vision of incarnation and exaltation: A woman gives birth to a messianic child who is taken to the throne of God. But then the child disappears. The dragon attacks the woman; no Messianic intervention to rescue. The dragon calls up two beasts who overcome and slaughter the saints. No child. Christ appears in chapter 14 as the “one like a son of man” who harvests the grain and grapes, but... Read more
Here’s an odd thing. Revelation 12 begins with a clear vision of incarnation and exaltation: A woman gives birth to a messianic child who is taken to the throne of God. But then the child disappears. The dragon attacks the woman; no Messianic intervention to rescue. The dragon calls up two beasts who overcome and slaughter the saints. No child. Christ appears in chapter 14 as the “one like a son of man” who harvests the grain and grapes, but... Read more
Salvatore Basile’s fascinating history of air conditioning, Cool, examines the technology and its penetration into American life. He highlights the role of vaudeville and movie theaters in extending the realm of cool. But he is also interested in the reaction to the new technology. And the reaction was surprisingly mixed. Even during sweltering summers when people died of heat exposure, some were resistant to air conditioning. Why? Basile blames part of it on moral scruples: “for a number of Puritanical souls,... Read more
Salvatore Basile’s fascinating history of air conditioning, Cool, examines the technology and its penetration into American life. He highlights the role of vaudeville and movie theaters in extending the realm of cool. But he is also interested in the reaction to the new technology. And the reaction was surprisingly mixed. Even during sweltering summers when people died of heat exposure, some were resistant to air conditioning. Why? Basile blames part of it on moral scruples: “for a number of Puritanical souls,... Read more
Michael and his angels fight the dragon and his angels, and expel them from heaven (Revelation 12). Who is this Michael? Michael appears in Qumran texts, and in apocalyptic texts outside the canon. My focus here, though, is on the what the Bible itself says about Michael. Revelation 12 begins with the birth of a male child who is exalted t0 God’s heavenly throne (v. 5). His enthronement provokes a war with the dragon (v. 6), who has already been... Read more
Michael and his angels fight the dragon and his angels, and expel them from heaven (Revelation 12). Who is this Michael? Michael appears in Qumran texts, and in apocalyptic texts outside the canon. My focus here, though, is on the what the Bible itself says about Michael. Revelation 12 begins with the birth of a male child who is exalted t0 God’s heavenly throne (v. 5). His enthronement provokes a war with the dragon (v. 6), who has already been... Read more
In his stimulating study of Augustine, Barth, and contemporary Trinitarian theology, Incarnational Realism, Travis Ables summarizes two tendencies of recent Trinitarian thought: Hegelian idealism and personalism. He sees both “as salutary in their intentions” but in danger of service “as an increasingly formalistic conceptual paradigm to serve idealist or personalistic ends” (11). What might a “formalist” Trinitarian theology be? Ables points to critics of Augustine, who complain that he “posits a formal resemblance between the memoria-intelligentia-voluntas triad . . . and... Read more
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