The opening verses of Isaiah 41 are laid out in a neat chiasm: A. Islands: be silent, draw near, v 1 B. Who awakens righteousness? v. 2a C. Feet, v 2a D. Gives nations, rules kings, v 2b D’. Sword and bow against dust and chaff, vv 2c-3a C’. Feet, v 3b B’. Who has performed? v 4 . . . . Continue Reading »
In nearly every passage of Scripture that mentions “chaff driven away,” it’s the wind that does the driving (Job 21:18; Psalm 1:4; 35:5; 83:3; Isaiah 17:13; Daniel 2:35). Yahweh’s Spirit is a wind storm taht drives the wicked away like withered chaff. Isaiah 41:2 is the . . . . Continue Reading »
Some of my critics have objected to my use of the word “catholic” to describe my “ecumenism.” I would point out that my use of “catholic” is a perfectly understandable one in English. Dictionaries define the word as “all-inclusive” or . . . . Continue Reading »
James Jordan has often said that Protestants regard the Lord’s Supper as a sermon cleverly disguised as a meal, and that Catholics see the Supper as a prayer cleverly disguised as a meal. There are sermonic features to the Supper, and aspects of prayer as well. But Jordan is right that . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the respondents to my recent First Things piece on communion acknowledged that the undivided table is intolerable, but qualified that with the statement, “If you assert that an undivided table is more important than defending the table’s main purpose, a means of salvation whereby . . . . Continue Reading »
Visser (p. 128) traces the separation of the household from the economy, and the resulting separation of economic relations from social relations. These divisions can be summed up as the division of Commodity from Gift: “In opposition to the invading force of cold, calculating, purely . . . . Continue Reading »
Visser ( The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude , p. 118) notes, “The mobility of modern life demands . . . that our personal links receive repeated affirmation. The close-knit small social worlds that we create, like islands in the sea of our mass society, are essential to . . . . Continue Reading »
In her wonderful The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude , the incomparable Margaret Visser contrasts the freedom of modern gift-giving with the obligatoriness of gifts in “Gift societies”: “In our culture, once a gift is given, it belongs entirely to the receiver. . . . . Continue Reading »
Karuna Mantena ( Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism , pp. 68-70) describes the rise of modern social theory (in line with Arendt, Strauss, and Wolin) as the displacement of politics by society. He disagrees with Strauss and others because he argues that the politics . . . . Continue Reading »
Karuna Mantena spends a chapter of his Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism explaining the 19th-century origins of social theory. He begins by pointing to what he calls “one of the characteristic features of nineteenth century social theory,” namely, . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
