Caroline Webber reviews Alisa Solomon’s Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof in the NYTBR . You thought it was just a musical? Think again. Solomon’s book “explores not only the making of the musical, but also the way the show reflects evolving Jewish . . . . Continue Reading »
Michel Delon’s recently translated The Libertine: The Art of Love in Eighteenth-Century France examines one of the main cultural values of eighteenth-century France. It documents, in the words of the NYTBR reviewer, “the dazzling breadth and depth of the 18th-century obsession with . . . . Continue Reading »
The intimate link between the eucharistic and ecclesial body of Christ was a commonplace of medieval theology, and continued into the early Reformation. Thomas Davis writes that “before the Protestant conflicts over the presence of Christ’s true body in the Eucharist came about, it was . . . . Continue Reading »
Stephen Strehle examines the differences between Luther and Zwingli on faith and righteousness in a 1992 article in the Sixteenth Century Journal . Faith in the accomplished work of Christ on the cross dominates Zwingli’s views, while Luther focuses on the Christ who died and rose again who . . . . Continue Reading »
Calvin’s early Eucharistic theology was neither Zwinglian nor Lutheran. It was Melanchthonian, argues Richard Muller in a 2010 Calvin Theological Journal essay: “Of great interest here is that the 1536 Institutio, despite its denial of a substantial presence of Christ’s natural . . . . Continue Reading »
Anthony Baker begins his mediation on the notion of “perfection,” Diagonal Advance: Perfection in Christian Theology , with the Romantic Prometheus and various responses to it. Deleuze and Guattari make an appearance, and one would think that they have put the Romantic well behind them. . . . . Continue Reading »
Andrew Louth explains the fundamental intuition of sophiology in his characteristically lucid Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology : “the gulf between the uncreated God and the creation, brought into being out of nothing, does not put creation in opposition to God; rather, Wisdom constitutes . . . . Continue Reading »
Israel camps at Kadesh, sends in spies, but ultimately refuses to enter the land (Numbers 13-14). “Kadesh” transliterates qedesh , from qadash , which means “make holy.” Kadesh is not only an oasis in the desert, but a sanctuary. Like Adam, Israel sins in a garden-temple. . . . . Continue Reading »
Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie promoted and even committed violent acts against the Apartheid regime. Earlier this year , I summarized Tom Lodge’s review of Stephen Ellis’s External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990 , which maintains that Mandela was part of a small group of . . . . Continue Reading »
The saints who overcome the dragon do so because of the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and because “they did not love their life even to death” (Revelation 12:11). Martyrs don’t care enough about their own lives to preserve them in the face of threats. This is the . . . . Continue Reading »
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