Stones Crying Out

If the disciples are silenced, Jesus says in answer to the Pharisees who demand that they stop hailing Him as king, then these very stones will cry out. He is on His way into Jerusalem, and the stones are the same stones that will someday be thrown down, the stones of the city and temple. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Scruton on Westernism

Roger Scruton reviews David Hurst’s *On Westernism* in the January 23 issue of the TLS . While challenging Hurst’s use of Richard Dawkins’s concept of “meme,” he concludes that it is an important book about the contours and imposition of the global ideology that Hurst . . . . Continue Reading »

Perl on Contemporary Painters

Jed Perl, art critic for the New Republic , has a rant about John Currin and other contemporary painters in the Feb 16 issue of TNR . Scathing is too weak for this review. He says that Currin produces trash, and incompetent trash at that. Currin believes in nothing other than his own . . . . Continue Reading »

Shakespeare’s Catholicism?

Peter Dickson reviews Michael Wood’s BBC film In Search of Shakespeare in the Feb 16 edition of The Weekly Standard . He points out why many scholars are not convinced by Wood’s claim that Shakespeare was a Catholic He admits that “the evidence for the staunch Catholicism of . . . . Continue Reading »

Eucharistic Meditation, February 15

Eucharistic meditation, Feb 15: Luke 19:5-7 In one sense, both of the events in Jericho are about sight and blindness. On the way in to Jericho, Jesus healed a blind man, and at the beginning of our sermon text today we were introduced to a man who wanted, above everything else, to . . . . Continue Reading »

Exhortation, February 15

Exhortation for February 15: Since the time of David, Psalm-singing has been the center of prayer and singing for the people of God. That is obvious in Judaism, for from the time of Solomon’s temple, through the “Second temple” period after the exile, and into the period of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Abraham’s Sinfulness in Gen. 15

Though the issue of Abraham’s sinfulness is not immediately in view in the “justification” text of Gen 15, it is a crucial issue in the deeper context and structure of Genesis. This is true in two ways: First, Abraham is suffering under the curse of barrenness and death, and the . . . . Continue Reading »

Casting Out

Luke Timothy Johnson points out that Luke 19:45 uses ekballo to describe Jesus casting out the money-changers from the temple. This is the same verb used throughout Luke’s gospel to describe exorcism. Jesus has come to the temple, found it infested with demonic “brigands,” and . . . . Continue Reading »

Laying Down Garments

Why do the disciples put their garments down in front of Jesus as he comes into Jerusalem? Why did Jehu’s soldiers do the same for him in 2 Kings 9? A couple of answers are possible: 1) Perhaps there is some sort of parallel between this practice and the scene in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon , . . . . Continue Reading »

Calvin on Signs

A remarkable statement of Calvin’s, from Institutes 4.14.18: speaking of the tree of knowledge and of the rainbow, Calvin says that these are given new being by the word of God that designates them as signs or testimonies. Then this Et antea quidem arbor erat arbor, arcus arcus; ubi inscripta . . . . Continue Reading »