Ramachandra notes a couple of limitations in recent post-colonial discussion. One is the blindness to the influence of Christianity. Christianity is “naively identified with Europe and the United states,” and thus missionaries, their achievements, and their disciples, are considered . . . . Continue Reading »
In God and the Crisis of Freedom , Richard Bauckham offers this superb example of freedom and self-creation: “If I make myself, for example, into a brilliant musician, then certainly I am exercising a real freedom to make all the choices, some no doubt very hard, that lead to this. But this . . . . Continue Reading »
In his The Just War Revisited (Current Issues in Theology) , Oliver O’Donovan distinguishes between collateral damage and indiscrimination (a violation of just war criteria) by pointing to the intention. How can intention be determined? He offers this analysis: “One can test the . . . . Continue Reading »
In one of his many provocative asides during his lectures on Revelation, James Jordan suggests that the sevenfold praise of the Lamb (5:12) matches the sevenfold description of Jesus in the first vision (1:14-16). Jordan doesn’t elaborate, so let’s see how this works out. As usual, some . . . . Continue Reading »
Thomas (ST II-II, 2, 3) asks whether faith is necessary for salvation or the “perfection” of human nature. Citing Hebrews 11:6, he concludes, of course, that faith is necessary, and in the process argues that rational creatures reach perfection not only “in what belongs to it in . . . . Continue Reading »
That hint of a slightly canceled question mark at the end of sentences ? You know what I mean ? Seems pretty innocuous ? Milbank doesn’t think so ( The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology ): “People who fondly imagine themselves the subjects of their ‘own’ choices . . . . Continue Reading »
In The Ways of Judgment: The Bampton Lectures, 2003 , Oliver O’Donovan suggests that the notion of world government is conceptually contradictory: “World government is an abstract idea: the government of a people with no internal relations of mutual recognition. A people with no . . . . Continue Reading »
Senator Albert Beveridge described our mission in 1898: “God has . . . made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adept in government that we . . . . Continue Reading »
In his recent Republic of Grace , Charles Mathewes describes the widely known but still startling demographic crisis of Europe: “By midcentury, including immigration, Europe’s population is projected to be 13 percent smaller, with the working age population declining by 27 percent, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd ( The Politics of Secularism in International Relations ) notes the role that Islam plays in Western views of its own secular order: “More than any other single religious or political tradition, Islam represents the ‘nonsecular’ in European and American . . . . Continue Reading »
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