The subtitle of Benjamin Crowe’s Heidegger’s Religious Origins: Destruction and Authenticity (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion) highlights the twin themes of his book, both of which, he argues, were shaped by Heidegger’s study of Christian theology. The notion that . . . . Continue Reading »
Bruno Latour’s Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society is built around the insight that science is a Janus, one face “ready-made science” with its apparently closed black boxes and the other the face of “science in the making” where we . . . . Continue Reading »
For all of Hofstadter’s partisan distortions, he was right to note that paranoia, anxious defensiveness, characterizes American politics. But this paranoia is more deeply rooted in American character and institutions that Hofstadter imagined. America has regularly seen itself as the guarantor . . . . Continue Reading »
“It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our . . . . Continue Reading »
Jenson writes: “Time is because the Spirit is not the Father, and beacuse both meet in the Son. Time is because God is his own origin and as such is not his goal; because God is his own goal and as such is not the ‘natural’ result of his own being as origin; because origin and . . . . Continue Reading »
David Dorsey offers these neat contrasts between the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 and Yahweh’s Suffering Davidic servant in the latter part of Isaiah: The king of Babylon smites ( nakah ), 14:6; the Servant is smitten ( nakah ), 53:4-5, 10. The king of Babylon slays and oppresses ( nagash ), . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah’s references to the Sabbath occur at the beginning (1:13) and end (56:2, 4, 6; 58:13; 66:23) of his prophecy. The book is framed by an initial condemnation of the Sabbath and a promise that all men will bow to Yahweh from Sabbath to Sabbath. Along the way, the word is used eight times. . . . . Continue Reading »
In The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity From 1492 to 1800 , Jack Greene reviews the literature on “American exceptionalism,” and takes exception to the common notion that this theme is a 19th or 20th century phenomenon. He opposes the “current . . . . Continue Reading »
The notion that the Constitution has to grow with the nation is often seen as an innovation of the twentieth century. Yet, similar arguments were being aired early in the 19th century. Henry Clay, erstwhile ally of Jefferson and Madison, stated a form of “National Republicanism” that . . . . Continue Reading »
Some early modern thinkers saw the American Indians as exemplars of natural man, but JQ Adams believed the opposite: “Shall [Indians] doom an immense region of the globe to perpetual desolation, and to hear the howlings of the tiger and the wolf, silence forever the voice of human gladness? . . . . Continue Reading »
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