From the May First Things: “Unmythical Martyrs”

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The tedium of repeated déj vu in this sad little volume did at least send me back to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. It is as if a publisher came to Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Notre Dame, with a proposal for a quick buck, relying on the political twitter of the times: “You’re an expert: Reframe Gibbon’s notorious chapter on the Romans and the Christians with some contemporary scholarship and cultural fillips, and we can put out a nifty pamphlet that’ll sell.” … Continue Reading »

Unmythical Martyrs

From the May 2013 Print Edition

The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom by Candida Moss HarperOne, 320 pages, $25.99 The tedium of repeated déjà vu in this sad little volume did at least send me back to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. It is as if a publisher came to Candida Moss, a professor of . . . . Continue Reading »

Fathers Abraham

From the March 2013 Print Edition

Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by Jon D. Levenson Princeton, 288 pages, $29.95 In the wake of the religiously colored violence of 9/11 and the anxieties it spawned, numerous efforts in the West were made to engage Muslims in common discussions . . . . Continue Reading »

Quietist Controversy

From the October 2012 Print Edition

François Fénelon: A Biography”the Apostle of Pure Love? by Peter Gorday Paraclete, 258 pages, $24.99 As is usual in religious struggles, François Fénelon lost the battle in the early-modern debate over mystical prayer but is winning (for now) the war. Censured by the pope . . . . Continue Reading »

Margaret O’Gara, RIP

From First Thoughts

Professor Margaret O’Gara, a prominent Catholic ecumenical theologian, died on August 16 in Toronto at the age of 65. Prof. O’Gara spent her entire career as part of the Theology Faculty of  the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, at the University of . . . . Continue Reading »