Jacob Taubes – part historian, part philosopher, mostly stand-up comedian – gives this hilarious anecdote to illustrate how Paul conquered the European imagination ( The Political Theology of Paul (Cultural Memory in the Present) , 41): “I have a very good friend – now he’s a bishop in Stockholm, he used to be a professor at Harvard, where I knew him well – Krister Stendahl. And I remember . . . he visited me once in New York, and we... Read more
At the outset of Cur Deus Homo? Anselm cannot pull himself away from the beauty of the atonement. To say God humbled himself is not unsuitable ( convenire ) and makes no injury to God. It is perfectly appropriate, as evident from the symmetry of fall and redemption: Death enters through disobedience, life through obedience; sin originated from a woman, the redeemer was born of a woman; man who fell at a tree is by a tree saved. It is... Read more
For a sophisticated theologian, Conor Cunningham’s arguments ( Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong ) against a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 are remarkably thin. He follows what he describes as a “sophisticated” patristic hermeneutics, and adds “After all, if the first two chapters of Genesis are about the very creation of existence and all that partakes of it, about how everything that is relates to its Creator, then what we might call a... Read more
After they die, the two witnesses are caught up to heaven (Revelation 11:12). As James Jordan points out in his lectures on Revelation , this is not the first time someone is caught up to heaven. Enoch was, so was Elijah. Then Jesus, then the witnesses. Each is a preacher of righteousness in a world of idolatry and evil. Enoch warns about a coming judgment (Jude 14-15), Elijah preaches against the house of Ahab (1 Kings 17-22), Jesus warns of... Read more
Throughout the Christian centuries the primary means God has used to form his people as Christ’s inheritance is their gathering to him in worship where they hear his word, rejoice in his grace, revere his Name, and receive his many gifts. For too long now this sacred meeting of man and God has been neglected as irrelevant, stripped of its beauty, or perverted into entertainment. Thankfully that decline is being reversed in many quarters, and this recovery of authentic congregational... Read more
Darrin Belousek ( Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church ) wants to disconnect substitutionary atonement from the principle of retribution, the notion that “doing justice in response to crime requires ‘repaying’ the offender his ‘due’ in punishment for the crime and that making peace in conflict justifies using force in return for force” (29). In an early ground-clearing chapter, he argues that the principle of retribution underlies both atonement theories and... Read more
Philip Jenkins argues in Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses that, though “a few passages in the Hadith are venomously anti-Jewish,” none in the Qur’an are. And the anti-Jewish statements in the Qur’an derive, he suggests, from Jewish sources: “Historians have long known that Islam emerged within Jewish and Christian cultural environments, and scholars increasingly see the breach between the different traditions – and the emergence of Islam as a separate faith – as... Read more
With the splashy discovery of the supposed remains of Richard III by archaeologists from the University of Leicester, the old question of Shakespeare’s Richard demands review. Sarah Knight and Mary Ann Lund summarize the contemporary testimonies to Richard’s physical appearance, including Shakespeare’s innovations: “If Shakespeare can be absolved of inventing the ‘bunchbacked’ Richard through deliberate manipulation of his sources, it is doubtless true that he exaggerates physical details. Early chroniclers such as Polydore Vergil had emphasized that Richard lived with... Read more
David Cole offers a chilling analysis of the Justice Department white paper on drones. The news reports have highlighted the fact that the document endorses killing US citizens who are deemed by “an informed, high-level official” to be “an imminent threat” against the US, provided the person cannot be captured and provided the operation minimizes collateral damage. But Cole claims that “the paper offers no guidance as to what level of proof is necessary: does the official have to be... Read more
Karl Wojtya (aka, John Paul II) deftly charts the collapse of utilitarianism into egoism in Love and Responsibility (37-39): Utilitarianism makes pleasure the overriding aim of human action. But pleasure is a momentary good, and a good only for a particular person. A utilitarian might attempt to maximize the pleasure of another, but, if consistent, only insofar as and as long as it gives pleasure to the utilitarian. (more…) Read more
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In