Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Every attempt to understand the Christian sacraments makes use of comparisons or analogies with other rituals, events, or customs. Calvin and those who followed him, for example, spoke of the sacraments as “seals,” and compared them to the “seal of approval” that an official impresses on a document. Thinking about…
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy has pointed out in his essay "Hitler and Israel, or On Prayer" (available for $2.00 from Biblical Horizons ) that it is God’s word "No!" that establishes in a culture the distinction between the Creator and the creature. The Bible repeatedly says "No!" to every human attempt to…
If you missed Gattaca at the movie theaters, you can probably check it out from your local video store now. And you should. This is one of those relatively rare thought-provoking movies that can stand being watched with brain in gear more than once. It is also poetic, sensitive, visually…
Part 4: The Nephilim Factor Western Civilization partakes of what I call "the Nephilim Factor." The Enoch Factor means that the pagans get there first. This is both a blessing and a danger. As a blessing, it means that they work out techniques of dominion over the lower creation that…
The Worship Service Then the one speaking with me took me by the hair and lifted me into the air in the middle of the great room. And as I watched, I saw people entering the room to the sound of the great bells outside. Then entered from all four…
Part 3: Philosophy (continued) If we realize that human beings are the images of God, and that man hates God, then we realize that all non-Christian political philosophy is founded on a fundamental hatred of other human beings, a hatred manifest in contempt. Rome, like Enoch, was founded on the…
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Milbank’s criticisms of Kantian ethics begin from the observation that feeling enters into the ethical mix only as “the paradoxical feeling of ‘the sublime’ which is the feeling of a break with feeling, or the counter-attractive attraction of sacrifice.” This account of moral feeling, Milbank argues, arises from central themes…
My article on “re-paganizing the West” is up on the First Things web site: http://www.firstthings.com.
You’ll notice to the right that my book on postmodernism is due out early next year. In it, I use some of the images and categories of Ecclesiastes to explore some themes of postmodernism - specifically, language, the self, and politics.
In a web essay, Jean-Michel Rabaté traces the background to Lacan’s notorious coupling of Kant and Sade. One mediating figure is Freud. In an essay on the “economic problem of masochism,” Freud linked the Kantian categorical imperative with the cruel demands of the super-ego: “This super-ego is in fact just…
Part 2 of Kant’s treatise on rational religion is a philosophical allegorization of traditional Christology and soteriology, which he pursues in an effort to explain the formation of a humanity pleasing to God. Some notes on this section: 1) Kant approves of the Stoic notion of virtue as manly courage…
Kant admits that his philosophical interpretation of the fall is not “intended for Scriptural exegesis, which lies outside the boundaries of the competence of mere reason.” Putting the “historical account” to “moral use” leaves the issue of the writer’s intention, the text’s meaning, historicity to the side. But perhaps the…
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