Over the course of blogging I have discovered that words can be taken in all kinds of ways, many of which I did not intend. While this is the case with all writing, it takes on a particular vigor in the virtual world. Reader-response is alive and well in the blogosphere. Part of this is no doubt due . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m not a product of the digital world that everyone under thirty seems to take for granted. When I started watching television, we had seven channels. Three of them had bad reception some of the time, and the other four had bad reception most of the time. There was no remote control and the . . . . Continue Reading »
Are you interested in reading one of the most influential books in the history of western civilization? Do you have five or ten minutes a day? If so, you should seriously consider reading City of God in 2014.This year I plan to read Augustine’s City of God from cover to cover. If I read a . . . . Continue Reading »
Today’s eccentric item: How The Hobbit Learned Yiddish from Jewniverse. Computer programmer Barry Goldstein translated the book for fun, the work being “much less stressful than wrestling with a recalcitrant computer.”“This translation marks the book’s . . . . Continue Reading »
So Pseudoplotinus (aka not THAT Michael Davis) deftly sums up the long and intricately detailed film American Hustle: “Just saw American Hustle. Great, entertaining movie but ultimately not serious about the ethical realities of its story. In the end we’re supposed to sympathize . . . . Continue Reading »
The Crisis of American Religious PluralismKenneth L. Grasso, Modern AgeDo You Even Want to Win the Culture War?James Chastek, Just ThomismSaving the Art of ConversationMegan Garber, AtlanticIs “Write” Wrong?: A Discussion of Iconology LingoMary Lowell, Orthodox Arts JournalPeter Geach, . . . . Continue Reading »
[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”485”] Photo from the International Business Times[/caption]Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fulfilled an oft-repeated wish to visit Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine while in office. In Shinto belief, the shrine . . . . Continue Reading »
I have been trying to understand why Genesis speaks of the woman’s desire for her husband only after the first disobedience. This requires an understanding of the justice of God in the sequence of three speeches addressed to the serpent, the woman and the man (in that order) in Gen. 3:14-19. I’m . . . . Continue Reading »
The latest issue of Participatio takes up the relation of the work of the Scottish theologian T. F. Torrance and Orthodoxy. The very rich (and thick) volume includes a biographical essay, a personal memoir by one of Torrance’s students, now an Orthodox priest; nine substantial papers on . . . . Continue Reading »
So I did everything I could to make our pope’s teaching a challenge to BIG THINK readers. It goes without saying that what I said goes without saying he should have said too. The church should function as a relational, personal counterweight to both individualism and . . . . Continue Reading »
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