Peter Says No

Just as Peter was not the dazzling originator of new teaching, his successors have more often served as a brake on innovation than as its impetus. This is as it should be. The Pope serves the Church best by saying “no” to errors and heresies. Continue Reading »

Reformed Ressourcement

Christian Dogmatics: Reformed Theology for the Church Catholicedited by michael allen and scott r. swainbaker, 416 pages, $36.99Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretationby michael allen and scott r. swainbaker, 176 pages, $21In his Essay on the . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholicism Embodied: “The Pivotal Players”

Pivotal Players is a follow-up to Bishop Barron’s immensely successful ten-part mega-series, Catholicism, the most compelling presentation of the symphony of Catholic truth ever created for modern media. Key figures in Catholic history appeared throughout the original series to illustrate this truth of the faith or that facet of the Catholic experience. Continue Reading »

Gain and Loss

John Henry Newman: A Portrait in Letters edited by roderick strangeoxford, 608 pages, $49.50 W riting to his sister Jemima ­Mozley in 1863, John Henry Newman commented that “a man’s life lies in his letters.” To him, letters offered a more accurate account of a life than a biography. . . . . Continue Reading »

What (Who?) Is a University?

There is an old story, much loved by academics, that in an address to the Columbia University faculty in 1948 Dwight Eisenhower, then President of the university, prefaced his remarks with the phrase: “Now, you employees of Columbia University . . .”A member of the faculty interjected to correct . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

africaJohn Azumah, author of “Through African Eyes” (October), has been my colleague and friend at Columbia Theological Seminary since he arrived here in 2011. We have agreed on some matters, disagreed on others, and maintained a clear and sincere sense of collegiality regardless of our . . . . Continue Reading »

Baylor at the Crossroads

I joined Baylor University’s faculty in July 2003 after a brief stint as a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton. What drew me to Baylor is what has attracted, and continues to attract, hundreds of other prospective faculty members: the ideals and goals of the school’s . . . . Continue Reading »