Rosenstock-Huessy argues in Speech and Reality that speech creates space and time: “Without speech, the phenomena of time and space cannot be interpreted. Only when we speak to others (or, for that matter, to ourselves), do we delineate an inner space or circle in which we speak, from the outer world about which we speak. . . . And the same is true about the phenomenon of time. . . . By human speech, space and time are created. The scientific... Read more
David Nelson’s The Interruptive Word is a lucid exploration of the difficult theology of Eberhard Jungel, stressing, as Nelson’s subtitle has it, “the sacramental structure of God’s relation to the world.” At the center of Jungel’s theology is the claim that, in Nelson’s words, “God comes to the world by coming-to-speech” (11). This coming-to-speech is sacramental in the sense that “in the reality which surrounds us, God brings himself to speech through this reality. God’s being-as-objet as sacrament means: God speaks... Read more
At the beginning of her The Philosophical Question of Christ, Caitlin Smith Gilson sketches the multiple dilemmas of historicism. Historicism “takes the historicist out of history,” which is not only paradoxical but, on historicist terms, impossible, since outside history “there is no place to be” (xiii). How does this happen? It happens because the historicist says that there is nothing more to history than just history, and this “nothing more” implies a “nothing at all.” On the one hand, “history as... Read more
E.V. Gerhart argues in his 1873 Mercersburg Review article that the Heidelberg Catechism teaches that “Baptism makes the sinner a new man.” He explains: “The word ‘renewed’ in this connection . . . is to be taken as affirming a new organic relation of the subject of Baptism with Christ, the Head of His mystical body. It means that we are made partakers of His life.” This is evident from the fact that the Catechism connects this renewal with being... Read more
In an 1873 article in the Mercersburg Review, E.V. Gerhart, a professor at Mercersburg seminary, argued that nineteenth-century views of baptism had departed radically from the viewpoint of the Protestant confessions: “Claiming to be the faithful representative of Reformational ideas, the religious press of our day, generally at least, denies, respecting the efficacy and necessity of Baptism, what the most authoritative Confessions of the Protestant Church with one voice affirm, and affirms what these confessions explicitly deny” (p. 537). The... Read more
Astronomers keep discovering undiscovered planets: “NASA . . . announced a torrent of new planet discoveries, hailing a ‘bonanza“‘of 715 worlds now known outside the solar system thanks to the Kepler space telescope’s planet-hunting mission. A new method for verifying potential planets led to the volume of new discoveries from Kepler, which aims to help humans search for other worlds that may be like Earth.” The newly discovered planets are in orbit around over 300 stars. The total number of known planets... Read more
Astronomers keep discovering undiscovered planets: “NASA . . . announced a torrent of new planet discoveries, hailing a ‘bonanza“‘of 715 worlds now known outside the solar system thanks to the Kepler space telescope’s planet-hunting mission. A new method for verifying potential planets led to the volume of new discoveries from Kepler, which aims to help humans search for other worlds that may be like Earth.” The newly discovered planets are in orbit around over 300 stars. The total number of known planets... Read more
Evan Selinger reports at Wired on BroApp, which helps you manage relationships by sending automated messages to the object of your eternal devotion. BroApp’s creators describe it as “a ‘clever relationship wingman’ (their words) that sends ‘automated daily text messages’ to your significant other. It offers the promise of ‘maximizing’ romantic connection through ‘seamless relationship outsourcing.’” The app “not only sends scheduled texts, but comes preloaded with 12 messages to help users get started. The developers also took steps to conceal... Read more
Evan Selinger reports at Wired on BroApp, which helps you manage relationships by sending automated messages to the object of your eternal devotion. BroApp’s creators describe it as “a ‘clever relationship wingman’ (their words) that sends ‘automated daily text messages’ to your significant other. It offers the promise of ‘maximizing’ romantic connection through ‘seamless relationship outsourcing.’” The app “not only sends scheduled texts, but comes preloaded with 12 messages to help users get started. The developers also took steps to conceal... Read more
I reflect on the political potency of symbolism at Canon and Culture, the web site of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Read more
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