Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Place names become fraught with meaning by association with people and events. The name “Wittenberg” calls to mind Luther and the Reformation for Protestants and Catholics alike. Geneva has a wider range of associations, but the Reformation Wall, with its four main statues of William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza,…
“…a mystery without a solution, a horror story without savagery, a nightmare in which all the watches stop at noonday…” The Bestial Gardens of Men Then they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” (Luke 23:30) The following lines by Edgar Allan Poe,…
2 Samuel 11-12, which record David’s sin with Bathsheba and its aftermath, is structured chiastically: This arrangement highlights several things about the episode. It reinforces what is obvious from even a casual reading, that the transition in the story occurs with Nathan’s confrontation of David’s sin and David’s confession. Up…
Medieval bestiaries are packed with quaintly inaccurate information about animals, birds, and other created things. Foxes and snakes are devilish critters; stags, pelicans and elephants are Christlike in their various ways. Of course, the medievals picked this up from the Bible, where bestiary observations are fairly common. “Go to the…
What do Reformational Catholicism and craft beer have in common? The question seems to beg for a punchline. Better yet, it would be pretty good clickbait for an article on Katharina von Bora’s “spirited” contribution that helped spark the Protestant Reformation. Well, this is no joke and I am certainly…
Suffering Defined Suffering happens. We witness it all around us and experience it in our lives. It often comes from forces beyond our control. Suffering is inscrutable; it strikes unexpectedly, on a bright summer day or a cold winter night. We lament and are bewildered by suffering. But we are…
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Aesthetic consciousness - the capacity to abstract the aesthetic component in all perception, so as to view everything “aesthetically” - also implies, Gadamer argues, a particular notion of simultaneity. Because it abstracts the aesthetic value of the work, and downplays or ignores all other aspects of an aesthetic object, the…
After Kant, and especially after Kant’s romantic disciples, art came to be viewed as a matter of beautiful appearance, consciously defined in contrast to practical reality. This had not always been the Western conception of art. Gadamer comments, “Traditionally the purpose of ‘art,’ which also includes all conscious transformation of…
In 1439, representatives of Eastern and Western churches met in Florence to heal the schism of 1054. An agreement was reached, but it remained a paper agreement only. But the event had enormous consequences for the future of the Western world. Because of the good will this ecumenical meeting produced,…
Still on Rosenstock-Huessy: “How could we enjoy a restful sleep without social peace? The Gestapo in many countries changes man back to the deer whose sleep is perfunctory and scanty.” No political theory, or sociology, can be complete if it does not “include those who must wake when we are…
Rosenstock-Huessy cites Josiah Royce’s The Philosophy of Loyalty as an example of a reductive view of human life. Royce rightly emphasizes the importance of loyalty, but then “could not resist the temptation to explain everything in terms of this one power which essentially binds us to the past.” But the…
Rosenstock-Huessy again: He writes that Christian conversion always involves a break with an old way of life, a breach with old loyalties and commitments, and a “verification” of that experience by an induction into a new people, “formerly overlooked or even despised, who now enable us to strengthen experience into…
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