Cavanaugh points out that until the middle of the 20th century, American law regarded religion as a social glue rather than a provocation to civil war. The “social glue” view is of course widespread in sociology (from Durkheim) and anthropology. So, why is Western religion . . . . Continue Reading »
Women should never “settle” with a man in order to have a child. Granted, women are created by God to have longings for procreating and nurturing, and I believe this is evidenced in the fact that women will go to all kinds of technological extremes to have their own biological children. . . . . Continue Reading »
In his stirring, challenging Good News About Injustice, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World , Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission gives a fresh spin to living by faith instead of sight: “Christians . . . are meant to be particularly gifted in . . . . Continue Reading »
In his book on Gregory of Nyssa ( Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa (A Communio Book) ), von Balthasar contrasts Nyssa’s epistemology with that of Zeno and the Stoics. Zeno described a progression of thought under the image of the hand: an open . . . . Continue Reading »
Throughout Church history, theological controversy has been one of the enduring features. Name any communion or denomination and you will find one which has struggled with this matter. St. Maximus the Confessor was imprisoned, exiled, and lost his tongue and compared to many he got off easy. For . . . . Continue Reading »
Orthodox ethicist Vigen Guroian suggests that conservative Protestantism in the US has relied on American Christendom to buttress itself. American Christendom was the body for bodiless evangelical churches. Now that Christendom is gone, there’s little holding evangelicalism up. . . . . Continue Reading »
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, “Jeroboam Sacrificing to the Golden Calf” (1752), École des Beaux-Arts, ParisWhat if the intractable problem of evil, in which evil and suffering make the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God extremely dubious, isn’t a problem after . . . . Continue Reading »
One week from Saturday, I’m giving an oral final/homily to a (late vocations) N.T. class that I’m taking. I had a suggestion to do my homily concentrating on the topic of tolerance. Right now I’m thinking of starting (and wrapping up?) with a look at the section in John in which . . . . Continue Reading »
In part 1 we briefly examined the theological persuasion of the dispensational evangelical. Now in part two we look into some of current attitudes that exist in the world outside of dispensational evangelicalism.The tragic history of Luther’s later years has haunted Europe for centuries. Early . . . . Continue Reading »
An eighth-century iconodule tract claims that the iconoclasts have “perpetuated the work of the Jews,” and compared the iconoclasts to Jewish priests conspiring against Christ. Like many other ironodule treatises, it accused the Jews of corrupting the minds of iconoclast emperors. . . . . Continue Reading »
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