Leithart
I offer reflections on the problems of political gratitude this morning at http://www.firstthings.com/ . Read more
I offer reflections on the problems of political gratitude this morning at http://www.firstthings.com/ . Read more
Griffiths again ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , 62) on the “gazelle and hind” of the oath in Song of Songs 2:7. He connects this passage to the image of the hart longing for God in Psalm 42 “When the lovers like one another to deer in the Song, this theme lurks in the background: their beauty and agility and passion participates in the soul’s passion for the Lord, and in seeing this the Song’s... Read more
Griffiths again ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , 60): “The placement of the adjuration formula is important. Here in 2:7 it concludes a series of endearment exchanges between the lover and the beloved (1:9-2:6). Those exchanges have a rhythm: they move from memory to yearning to anticipation to something close to fulfillment in 2:5-6; and then, suddenly, they cease. The lover stops speaking to and with the beloved and instead addresses the daughters [a debatable... Read more
Working from the Vulgate text, Paul Griffiths ( Song of Songs (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) , 59) has this helpful comment on the adjuration of the daughters of Jerusalem in Song of Songs 2:7: The “charge to [the daughters] can be read simply as an adjuration not to wake her up. She sleeps, and it is (by implication) his task to wake her, not theirs. But there are further layers of meaning: they are not to encourage her... Read more
When Jacob arrives at Haran, Laban runs to meet him, embraces and kisses him, and welcomes him into the house (Genesis 29:13). When Jacob returns to the land, Esau runs to meet him, embraces and kisses him, and the two weep together (Genesis 33:4). Jacob’s exile is literarily embraced with embracing. I think the two embraces should be contrasted. Laban kisses and embraces Jacob, but ends up abusing him. Esau embraces and kisses Jacob as a sign of genuine welcome... Read more
In a 2010 article in the Lutheran Quarterly , Oswald Bayer examines the pre-ethical conditions for Christian ethics: “Over against a prescriptive overheating of ethics which has taken place since Kant, and the actualism and activism often bound up with this overheating, it is necessary to make clear the significance of the pre-ethical for the ethical, the priority of gift over task. Language, by which we perceive the world, is prior to morality—at least whenever a conception of behavior in... Read more
Lester Little again: “By a curious paradox, the most significant and lasting vestiges of monasticism occurred either where monasticism was totally wiped out or had never before existed; they are found in English and American colleges and in radical Protestant sects. The collegiate debt to monastic culture is most apparent in the architectural layout of colleges and the complex of buildings essential to each: the enclosure with its carefully controlled entry gate (the porter’s lodge), the bell tower, the imposing... Read more
In a 2002 article, Lester Little notes the biblical inspiration for Carolingian Benedictine monasticism: “In inspiration, thought patterns, and rhetoric, this liturgical monasticism shared in a culture that was deeply indebted to the Old Testament. Models for the duties and prerogatives of the religious were found in the instructions given the Levites in the Book of Numbers.” This replicated the Old Testament grounding of Carolingian political order: “The very basis for political legitimacy devised for the Carolingian dynasty came from... Read more
Charles Eisenstein offers this arresting description of the divine attributes of money in modern culture ( Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition , xiii-xv): “The one thing on the planet most closely resembling the . . . conception of the divine is money. It is an invisible, immortal force that surrounds and steers all things, omnipotent and limitless, an ‘invisible hand’ that, it is said, makes the world go ‘round . . . . It... Read more
In his Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters , Thomas H. McCall cites some alarming statements about the logic of atonement from evangelical theologians, who claim that there is a “strife of attributes” in God: “Gregory Boyd and Paul Eddy describe this position as one that sees a real dilemma in God: ‘This sinfulness poses a dilemma for God, for he perfectly loves us, on the one hand, but he is perfectly holy and cannot have... Read more
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