Consider the birds, Jesus said. And the lilies. Solomon had: “How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are doves” and “Like a lily among the thorns, so is my darling among the daughters.” Jesus assures us that our Father feeds and . . . . Continue Reading »
Hegel wants to rebut the Enlightenment dismissal of Christianity. He doesn’t do this by reaching back to pre-critical forms of faith, but by ingesting criticism, deconstructing traditional theology, and reconstructing what he claims is a purer form of faith. Rowan Williams . . . . Continue Reading »
It is not good for man to be alone. Hegel says, It is impossible. “I have my self-consciousness not in myself but in the other. I am satisfied and have peace with myself only in this other - and I am only because I have peace with myself; if I did not have it, then I would be a . . . . Continue Reading »
Summarizing “logic and spirit” in Hegel, Rowan Williams describes the pressure toward relationality that is inherent in any act of thought: “We think in relation to particulars; but we cannot, quite strictly cannot, think particulars simply as particulars, because we can’t . . . . Continue Reading »
1 Peter 2:12: Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. As Pastor Sumpter has reminded us today, God visits us in many ways. . . . . Continue Reading »
John 20:21-22: So Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. In Scripture, water is often a boundary. Israel exited the land of Egypt by going through the . . . . Continue Reading »
“Abstain from fleshly lusts,” Peter says in this morning’s sermon text, “which war against the soul.” It sounds as if Peter is saying that our bodies are evil, but that’s not what he means. Later in the letter, Peter warns us to put aside the flesh and the “lusts . . . . Continue Reading »
A funny thing happened on the way to mapping the genome, says James Le Fanu ( Why Us?: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves ). Humans have 25,000 genes. That’s enough to get the job done, of course, but scientists were surprised to discover so few. To transform . . . . Continue Reading »
Athanasius’ treatment of Proverbs 8 is not convincing as exegesis, but as a piece of theology it is brilliant. When Proverbs says that God “made” and “created” His Wisdom (in the LXX), it doesn’t refer, Athanasius says, to His nature but to His incarnation. . . . . Continue Reading »
Athansius of course thinks the Arians are wrong because the Son is eternal. But one of his more intriguing, and satisfying, arguments is based on the biblical notion that the Son is the one through whom the “ages” came into being (Hebrews 1:2). Athanasius says, “every . . . . Continue Reading »
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