February 2012
1 post
“In the centre of the picture a gigantic Christ, of disproportionate size if...”
– Grunewald, J.-K. Huysmans
January 2012
16 posts
“God, that madest earth and Heaven,
Darkness and light;
Who the day for toil...”
– Suggestion: This old hymn makes a good bedtime prayer.
This week I taught a class in Christian theology. All day, 5 days in a row. I thought I had it rough.
One of my students was legally blind. His name is Tom. He has partial vision in one eye, and uses a special device to read the copies of my lecture notes I printed out for him. The scanner blew every word up to about a million-point font on his TV monitor. Inverting the black and white to make it...
“Two late-stage terminal drug addicts sat up against an alley’s wall with...”
– David Foster Wallace, “Octet” (via on dfw)
We need more philosophers and theologians who engage in “indirect communication.”
“Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,...”
– - Shakespeare, As You Like It
This is helpful to say to yourself in tough times, probably a bad idea to say to others.
“[C]heap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,...”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s response to that rapping guy who hates the church - from The Cost of Discipleship.
“You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes...”
– Athanasius, On the Incarnation
In §13-14 Athanasius’s theological argument seems informed, fundamentally, not by divine justice, or abstract agape, but by a yearning for a particular “thou.” Even his kingly metaphors are all centered on the king’s loving attachment to...
The present importance of the Book of Job cannot be expressed adequately even by saying that it is the most interesting of ancient books. We may almost say of the Book of Job that it is the most interesting of modern books. In truth, of course, neither of the two phrases covers the matter, because fundamental human religion and fundamental human irreligion are both at once old and new; philosophy...
“St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the...”
– C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
“Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by...”
– Pascal, Pensee 233, The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pascal’s Pensées, by Blaise Pascal.
“In order to attack it, they should have protested that they had made every...”
– Pascal, Pensee 194 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pascal/pensees.txt
“The Song helps us relearn what nearly every civilization before ours already...”
– Peter Leithart, The Poetry of Sex | First Things
“This is why the loss of religious certainty facilitated the birth of kitsch....”
– Kitsch and the Modern Predicament by Roger Scruton, City Journal Winter 1999
“Kitsch is pretense. But not all pretense is kitsch. Something else is needed to...”
– Kitsch and the Modern Predicament by Roger Scruton, City Journal Winter 1999
“The world of kitsch is a world of make-believe, of permanent childhood, in which...”
– Kitsch and the Modern Predicament by Roger Scruton, City Journal Winter 1999
“Wright on the Virgin Birth:
We would have to suppose that, within the first...”
– Suspending scepticism: History and the Virgin Birth – Opinion – ABC Religion & Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
December 2011
5 posts
“Because of piety’s penchant for taking itself too seriously, theology does well...”
– Tom Oden (via Philip Tallon on Twitter)
I take pleasure in three things, and they are beautiful in the sight of God and of mortals: agreement among brothers and sisters, friendship among neighbours, and a wife and husband who live in harmony.
- Sirach 25:1
“The most important element in this teaching declares: the ultimate fulfillment,...”
– Infinite Resources: Josef Pieper’s Only the Lover Sings
Ambrose's Advent Prayer
In honor of St. Ambrose Day (Dec. 7th), an advent prayer by the man himself:
O God, who did look on humanity when they had fallen down into death and resolve to redeem them by the advent of your only-begotten Son, grant, we ask you, that they who confess his glorious incarnation may also be admitted to the fellowship of him their Redeemer; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
November 2011
1 post
Larry Doyle on Comic Writing | FiveBooks | The... →
August 2011
2 posts
July 2011
2 posts
“[CRITIC A wrongly interpreting Malick’s TREE OF LIFE:] For all the...”
– The Conversations: Terrence Malick, Part 2: The Tree of Life | The House Next Door
January 2011
1 post
November 2010
2 posts
“Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line,...”
– Journey of the Magi - T.S. Eliot
“For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
Play’d foul play with our...”
– Love’s Labour’s Lost: Entire Play
October 2010
1 post
September 2010
3 posts
“”A secular world has no time for mystery…..the basic and...”
– via Charles Twombly
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
THE GOOD AND BAD WIZARD:
One day you meet a wizard who offers you a deal. He tells you that he can either make you much more beautiful or much more intelligent, but not both.
Now, let us say instead of meeting this nice wizard you meet a bad wizard. This wizard tells you that he is going to make you either much less good looking or much less intelligent, and you get to choose which.
Which do...
July 2010
2 posts
“Inception demands sustained attentiveness. As AKMA Adam wrote in an insightful...”
– Inception: The Art of Paying Attention in Books and Film - Debra Dean Murphy - God’s Politics Blog
May 2010
10 posts
“In his sharp assessment of SATC2, Matt Zoller Seitz calls the film “an...”
– The second Sex and the City movie is even worse than the first. - By Dana Stevens - Slate Magazine
The problem isn’t primarily with Evangelical art, it’s with Evangelical theology. More specifically, it’s with the crummy theology of creativity and creation most Evangelicals have inherited, which sees all media as neutral vehicles for communication. The pulpit, the radio, the book, the movie, the rock anthem - all identical. Valuing these things only for their instrumental,...
“Brought up an atheist, he has twice failed to pass through the Rite of Christian...”
– Details’ 1996 Profile of David Foster Wallace « Craig Fehrman
““In this country,” he says, “we’re unprecedentedly safe, comfortable, and well...”
– Details’ 1996 Profile of David Foster Wallace « Craig Fehrman
April 2010
12 posts
“GameStation, a British computer game retailer, added an “immortal soul” clause...”
– The clause was unnecessary. Video games do this already.
Have You Accidentally Sold Your Soul Lately? - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com
Just read a book on media for pastors written by a pastor who had read a few books on media. Similar experience to overhearing an 8th grader tell a 6th grader about the ways of love.
Superman vs. Batman
Premise 1: Superman is stronger than Batman.
Premise 2: Batman is smarter than Superman.
Premise 3: Superman has a high level of moral integrity, and would never start a fight with a weaker opponent, especially a fellow superhero, unprovoked.
Premise 4 (Corollary to Premise 3): If Batman and Superman fought, it would be because Batman initiated the fight.
Premise 5: Batman would never initiate...