In a brief discussion of tithing, Kapic ( God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity , 153) notes that the Levites received tithes from the people and then tithed the tithe to the priests “who had no other means of income.” That is somewhat overstated, since priests also received portions of sacrificial animals, firstfruits, and other gifts. Still, the point is true in general: Priests lived from the generosity of the people. And that is perhaps... Read more
In his excellent study of God’s generosity ( God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity , 134-5), Kelly Kapic summarizes the “righteousness” of Job: “In Job 29:1-25 this man describes, in his own words, what his righteousness actually looked like. Above all, we find that Job’s life was characterized by a ceaseless concern for the needs of the poor and oppressed. Job tells us that he rescued the needy and assisted the fatherless (Job 29:12). As... Read more
In his introduction to Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (p. 5), Richard Seaford argues that the “debate about the extent to which virtues in Homer are cooperative (such as justice and generosity) or competitive (such as individual prowess in war)” is wrong-headed. Seaford claims that “this distinction may obstruct our understanding of a system of ethics pervaded by reciprocity, for reciprocity transcends the distinction. Generosity may at the same time be admired as generosity and, precisely because it is so admired,... Read more
John Thompson explains Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence in his introduction to Language and Symbolic Power : “Instead of analyzing the exchange of gifts in terms of a formal structure of reciprocity, in the manner of Lévi–Strauss, Bourdieu views it as a mechanism through which power is exercised and simultaneously disguised. In a society like Kabylia, where there are relatively few institutions in which relations of domination can be given a stable and objective form, individuals must resort to... Read more
In his Megaevents and Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture , Maurice Roche has a scathing review of the International Olympic Committee’s interactions with the Nazis at the Berlin Olympics in 1936: “The IOC collaborated with the Nazi government in allowing what was predictably a major Nazi propaganda exercise to be staged, an event which would use and abuse the good name and reputation of the Olympic movement. They refused to acknowledge and/or condemn Nazi sport... Read more
David C. Young points out in his A Brief History of the Olympic Games that “The term Olympic Games is . . . a bad mistranslation of Greek Olympiakoi agones .” The problem is that agones gets converted into ludus , ludi , ludicrum , ie, diversions and games. “The Romans did not take Greek athletics seriously.” But the Greeks did: “the Greek word agones can never refer to ‘games.’ Rather, it means ‘struggles’ or ‘contests’; or even ‘pains.’ Our... Read more
Schindler ( Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God , p. 301) suggests that “creaturely power begins in wonder and gratitude before the inherent beauty of the Other.” Wonder is not a passive contemplation, he’s saying, but the source of our initiative, power, and creativity: “The power of creaturely being originates and consists primarily in the beauty of the Other: it is the attractiveness of the Other become effective in the self.” This sounds abstract, but it’s describing... Read more
Schindler ( Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God , 298-301) points to Mary as a model of created existence: “Mary reveals the original and abiding asymmetry in the creature’s relation to God” ( fiat ).” That is, all creatures receive the gift of existence from God. Second, “She reveals the ontologically consequent-but-simultaneous mutuality in that asymmetrical relation ( Magnificat ).” Consequent because her responsiveness to God depends on God’s gift, simultaneous because the gift of God’s fiat... Read more
In a long footnote in his brilliant Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God (p. 257) , David Schindler gives this lengthy quotation from W. Norris Clarke’s Explorations in Metaphysics: Being-God-Person : He refers to the “profound dimension of receptivity, hence relativity, in all of us, even preceding any action on our part.” Finite being, he concludes, has “a triadic aspect: being from another, being in itself, being toward others, or in the luminous terseness of the Latin,... Read more
Drawing from John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body (pp. 246-50). Shame means hiding, withdrawal from visibility, withdrawal from communion (Genesis 3:7). God created us with bodies so we can share ourselves with one another – with touch, with speech, with mutual regard. Shame means loss of confidence in the ability of the body to serve as the instrument of personal communion. Shame reduces sex from a personal communion to mere sensation. Because... Read more
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