In his commentary on 2 Corinthians ( The New American Commentary Volume 29 - 2 Corinthians ), David Garland asks what “in Christ” means in 5:17, and answers: “This phrase, ‘in Christ,’ can mean several things that are not mutually exclusive: that one belongs to Christ, . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s remarkable how often de Lubacian themes come up in political discussions nowadays. Kahn: In calling citizens to sacrifice, “Political rhetoric affirms that in the life of the nation, we never die. We are assured of a kind of secular resurrection: he who believes in the nation shall . . . . Continue Reading »
As I suspect, it always comes back to baptism, infant baptism in particular. Kahn: “Liberalism has never produced an adequate explanation of the family, because we cannot understand children” without the framing assumptions of liberalism - its assumption that the individual is the . . . . Continue Reading »
Kahn: “No great insight is required to see the movement toward the pornographic in the representations of romance, or the move toward romance in the genre of the pornographic. This is the great secret inside the romantic: romantic lovers are coconspirators in the pornographic moment. The . . . . Continue Reading »
Kahn again, using the story of Abraham to discuss the erotic foundations of both family and political order: “The Abraham story . . . tells us that meanings must be borne directly on the body. The covenant requires circumcision . . . . The flesh must bear the idea; it must appear as a text . . . . Continue Reading »
Kahn again: “We simultaneously affirm an international legal order of human rights; a global order of sovereign states; and a single market that knows no geographic bounds. These are the perspectives of reason, will, and desire. Each can make a global claim, geographically and conceptually. . . . . Continue Reading »
Paul Kahn ( Putting Liberalism in Its Place ) traces the dominance of economic/market logic in modern politics to questions about the “faculties of the soul.” On the economic model of these faculties, he argues, interest is “modeled on bodily desire.” This does not mean that . . . . Continue Reading »
Jesus says, “I am the arche and telos ” (Revelation 21:6). “Beginning and end” is too colorless, too geometric. Jesus is not the two points at either end of a line segment. Better to render this more “dynamically” and “organically” (forgive the hurrah . . . . Continue Reading »
Like his earlier book on Revelation, Wes Howard-Brook’s “Come Out My People!”: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond has its goofy moments, as when he claims that Jesus completely rejected “imperial economics,” by which he means the money economy that . . . . Continue Reading »
Some aspects of Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther’s Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (Bible & Liberation) are silly, but there is a lot of very helpful material on the book of Revelation. For instance, the authors point out that there are seven worship scenes in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
