In the December issue of The Atlantic , Andrew Sullivan describes Barak Obama’s conversion. In an interview with Sullivan, Obama said, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values or ideals that were first instilled in my from my mother, who was, as I called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists – you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility – those kinds of values. And... Read more
In the December issue of The Atlantic , Andrew Sullivan describes Barak Obama’s conversion. In an interview with Sullivan, Obama said, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values or ideals that were first instilled in my from my mother, who was, as I called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists – you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility – those kinds of values. And... Read more
David Bevington points out in his performance history of Shakespeare that in both Measure for Measure and The Tempest , the villainous characters are those that attempt to elude the all-seeing surveillance of the Duke and Prospero. Villains are particularly villainous when they think they can do evil without detection. Read more
It has been customary since the middle ages to define sacrifice in terms of death. To sacrifice is to give something over to destruction. Roy Gane points out in his Cult and Character that this does not conform to the biblical usage. The bread of the presence is described as a “food-offering to Yahweh” (Leviticus 24:7), yet it was never destroyed but only consumed by the priests. It was a presentation offering before the Lord, and there was clearly no... Read more
In a 1997 review in First Things, Andrew McKenna suggests that Derrida’s most important contribution might ultimately be to deconstruct philosophy so thoroughly that one is left only with theology: “the Sermon on the Mount performs a critique of difference to which any deconstructor can subscribe. Subject to serious misuses, deconstruction is nonetheless, in its right use, not a simple trashing of culture and tradition, but a critique of differences-of the arbitrary semantic and institutional constructs that impose rather than... Read more
Jordan’s reflections on “leprosy” help to explain why Miriam, and not Aaron, becomes leprous in Numbers 12. Jordan notes that the term for “plague” used in Leviticus 13 is actually “touch,” and suggests that the leper is “touched” by Yahweh, sometimes in response to sacrilege, a violation of God’s holiness. Touch Yahweh’s stuff; Yahweh touches you. This touch communicates holiness, in part or in whole. When the “leper” becomes completely covered with white skin, he is pronounced clean; he is... Read more
Jordan’s reflections on “leprosy” help to explain why Miriam, and not Aaron, becomes leprous in Numbers 12. Jordan notes that the term for “plague” used in Leviticus 13 is actually “touch,” and suggests that the leper is “touched” by Yahweh, sometimes in response to sacrilege, a violation of God’s holiness. Touch Yahweh’s stuff; Yahweh touches you. This touch communicates holiness, in part or in whole. When the “leper” becomes completely covered with white skin, he is pronounced clean; he is... Read more
In his stimulating essay on Leviticus 13 (available from Biblical Horizons), Jim Jordan reflects on the fact that a white hair in the flesh makes a man unclean. White hair is associated with glory, and so the uncleanness results from the contradiction between glorification and flesh. The unclean “leper” is partially, not fully, glorified; his flesh is white but not wholly; he is prematurely glorified. This is also the situation of Adam: He seeks glory before his time, the white... Read more
Robyn Horner helpfully expounds on Derrida’s deconstruction of the gift by considering whether the text can be construed as a gift. In a section of Given Time , Derrida discusses a text by Baudelaire, noting that it is a given “not only because we are first of all in a receptive position with regard to it but because it has been given to us.” But is it a gift? Horner has already explained that for Derrida the conditions of the... Read more
J. Todd Billings compares Milbank’s theology of gift with Calvin’s theology of grace in a 2005 article from Modern Theology . He focuses attention on Milbank’s criticism that the Reformation put such emphasis on the unilateral character of grace and so highlighted the passivity of the reception of grace that it deleted any notion of mutuality, reciprocity, or active reception. Billings’s essay has two main aims: First, to show that Calvin escapes Milbank’s criticisms and actually does include an element... Read more
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