I tweeted, “In Christ’s body, there are no vestigial organs.” One might respond by pointing out that some members of the visible church are dead, some so cancerous that they take over other body parts. We might then say, “the whole body, being fitted and held together by . . . . Continue Reading »
Peter Brown gives thumbs up to Kyle Harper’s From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity : “Not only does it measure the exact nature of the tension between the familiar and the deeply unfamiliar that lies behind our image of the sexual morality . . . . Continue Reading »
Keith Miller has a perceptive review of Geordie Grieg’s book about Lucian Freud, Breakfast with Lucian: The Astounding Life and Outrageous Times of Britain’s Great Modern Painter . He is perceptive on the paintings: “A large irony of Freuds career is that while he was, or seemed, . . . . Continue Reading »
When Moses strikes the rock in the wilderness, it pours out water. When the Angel of Yahweh strikes a rock in Gideon’s presence, it bursts into flame and eats up the sacrificial meat and bread (Judges 6:21). In both cases, we can say with Paul “the Rock was Christ.” That’s . . . . Continue Reading »
“Is anyone sick? He must call for the elders of the ecclesia and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14). Elders? Why not the physicians? Only two passages in the Old Testament mention elders in connection with anointing, both of them . . . . Continue Reading »
A third of the way through John Grisham’s Pelican Brief many years ago, I recognizedDarby Sharp, the novel’s protagonist: She was Julia Roberts. Sure nuff, Roberts played the role in the film, no doubt just as Grisham had hoped she would. As it turns out, Grisham has some tradition . . . . Continue Reading »
Lopez ( Gift and the Unity of Being ) ends a discussion of the home as a paradigm of giving with this lovely summary: “In spousal love, the husband gives himself and, in giving himself, receives his wife, who, in receiving the husband, gives herself. Through the parents, the child is given to . . . . Continue Reading »
Again drawing on the work of Luigi Giussani, Lopez ( Gift and the Unity of Being , 29-30 ) discusses the centrality of birth, the retrieval which is “the crucial cultural problem today.” According to Giussani, “every evil originates with the lie according to which man . . . . Continue Reading »
Lopez ( Gift and the Unity of Being , 25 ) makes the crucial point that “give is also a logos, ‘a word, an invitation,’ that speaks of another.” This is essential to the gift: Quoting Luigi Giusanni, he writes that “the gift whose meaning is not also given is not . . . . Continue Reading »
Antonio Lopez argues in his Gift and the Unity of Being for the priority of reception to creativity. This is not, he insists, “a diminishment of man’s greatness,” but rather “indicates his true stature.” He explains using the analogy of a traveler and the way: . . . . Continue Reading »
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