Colin Firth’s dive into Pemberly’s pond is either the highlight or the lowlight of the epic A&E P&P. For newbies, it’s a a highlight; for purists, it represents a capitulation to the standards of contemporary romance and it’s not even in the book! Alana Semuels presents a lively defense of the dive and the SHIRT. It’s not in the book, but, Semuels argues, it captures an essential dimension of Austen’s fiction, the valorization of the female gaze and the sexual... Read more
From a TLS piece published late last year (I’ve unfortunately and inexplicably lost the reference): It’s striking how many of those associated with Bloomsbury articulated the idea that houses, as well as being shaped physically by the tastes and attitudes of those who live in them, also possess a less tangible power to influence the destinies of their inhabitants. “In my experience,” Leonard Woolf wrote in his autobiography, “what cuts the deepest channels in our lives are the different houses... Read more
This is old news, but still: In late 2016 Science News reported on the work of archeologist and epigraphy Douglas Petrovich, who claims that “Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt. . . . Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters.” Petrovich... Read more
Orthodox theologian Pantelis Kalaitzidis (Orthodoxy & Political Theology) follows Erik Peterson’s analysis in Monotheism as a Political Problem. Peterson critiques the “political Arianism” in patristic imperial apologists like Eusebius, a position that treats the emperor as an emanation from God, like the not-eternal Son. Peterson “suggests that the authentic political teaching of Christianity—based, as it is, on the Trinity—should actually undermine the unholy union of religion and politics” (31). Political Arianism forgets that “the very being of God is communion... Read more
R.W. Dale was the most prominent orthodox Congregationalist pastor in late Victorian England. As Herb Schlossberg puts it, he “was dismayed by the decline of the old theology in favor of an easy-going God, who was not to be feared. He thought rather that fear was a legitimate part of Christian faith, and that the sentimentality of so many hymns was deceptive in this respect” (Conflict and Crisis in the Religious Life of Late Victorian England, 118). His criticisms of the... Read more
Richard Oastler, advocate of the Ten Hours Bill to limit the work week, was a decided Tory, not because he wanted to preserve class privilege but because he believed that conservative policies benefitted the most vulnerable: A Tory is one who, believing that the institutions of this country are calculated, as they were intended, to secure the prosperity and happiness of every class of society, wishes to maintain them in their original beauty, simplicity and integrity. He is tenacious of... Read more
Herbert Schlossberg recounts efforts at school and university reform following the religious revivals of the late 18th and early 19th centuries (The Silence Revolution & the Making of Victorian England). One of the factors that stymied reform was religious disunity. Tractarians resisted any educational system that didn’t have the Church of England at the center; Dissenters, of course, didn’t want their children educated in schools dominated by doctrine and practice with this they disagreed, sometimes vehemently. Schlossberg writes, “For those who advocated... Read more
The similarities between Israel and paganism have vexed, tantalized, and intrigued Christian thinkers for millennia. It was a central issue in the apologetic writings of the early church, and from the patristic through the medieval period Christian intellectuals attempted to fit paganism within the framework of redemptive history. I have addressed this issue from a theological angle in the body of the book, but here I wish to make some gestures toward an historical account of the religious consensus of... Read more
Paul encourages the Romans to endure because the sufferings they endure pale in comparison to the glory that will be revealed “into” them. Paul’s language suggests that glory will not merely be shown to the sons of God, but that it will be bestowed on us (Romans 8). The reason (“for,” v. 19) that the glory is greater is because the glorification of the sons of God goes beyond the restoration of humanity to its created glory. When the sons... Read more
Thomas Hamilton writes to challenge last week’s essay on Putin, nationalism, and globalism. He doesn’t think that I fairly captured why American conservatives are partial to Putin: I didn’t think your article on Putin and the American right quite represented what many paleoconservatives (including myself) see in Putin. Buchanan, for example, does not like Putin because of machismo and an expansionist agenda, but rather because he does not interpret what has occurred in Ukraine as part of an expansionist agenda. Buchanan has argued... Read more
Leithart
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