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Dark Age Theology

We are facing a Dark Age. In this new era, theology will need to be sparer, stripped of speculative distractions, courageously at home with death and the “other world,” and, most important, deeply engrossed in Scripture. Otherwise, the public face of the Christian faith will be washed away by . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

Mark Bauerlein’s account of the English department’s decline in “Truth, Reading, Decadence” (June/July) makes for good reading. It is true to my experience in the field of literary study and helps give the tragedy our discipline has undergone intelligible structure. For those unfamiliar with . . . . Continue Reading »

On Creativity and Serving God

When it comes to creativity, some of us are of two minds. Important Jewish thinkers, including my mentor Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, suggest a positive view. They hold that when Genesis 1 describes the human being as the image of God, it means that God endows us with creative ability. When we create, . . . . Continue Reading »

Friendship in Truth

I have had many friends in the course of my life, but only since growing older have I given much thought to the nature of friendship. I have amassed a collection of quotations on this theme that have impressed me deeply. The English essayist William ­Hazlitt: “He will never have true friends who . . . . Continue Reading »

Origen’s Ladder

No Christian writer of the early centuries elicited greater hostility among critics of the new religion than did Origen of Alexandria. He was born toward the end of the second century, at a time when Greek thinkers began to sense that Christians presented a formidable social and intellectual . . . . Continue Reading »

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