Peter Leithart meant to be provocative in his Against Christianity, but the provocation is the “make you think” kind, and not the bomb-throwing kind. But when you tease out the ramifications of what he is saying, what you have on paper sure looks like it ought to be the bomb-throwing kind, but it still isn’t. …
When Bread Goes Odd
We had some short showings of original films at Trinity Fest, but I was occupied with things and stuff and didn’t get to them. But afterwards, when I had a moment to breathe, I went down to Canon and got a copy of Sourdoughs by Doug Jones, and watched it at home. It was just …
Blessed Meat and Wine
Gracious Father and God, we rejoice before You now, and look to You to continue to pour out Your grace and mercy upon us. We are glad that You have given us this food, and we thank You for the hands that prepared it all. We ask You to bless the meat and the wine, …
Good Old Latin
“In arguing for a return to the disciplined study of Latin, we do not do so mindlessly, simply because Latin is old. Some things improve with age, like wine, but other things do not, like pizza. I want to argue that Latin is in the former category” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 139).
Chocolat
“Neopaganism can be seen as the driving force behind the Oscar-nominated Chocolat (2001), written by Robert Nelson Jacobs from Joanne Harris’s novel. In this clever version of neopagan redemption, an entire French town is oppressed by the moral scruples of a patriarchal Roman Catholic mayor. The town is then scandalized by the arrival of a …
The Veil Sometimes Slips
“Herodias and Caiaphas could be defined as living allegories of the rite that is forced to return to its nonritual origins, the undisguised murder, by the power of the revelation that forces it out of its religious and cultural hiding places” (Girard, The Scapegoat, p. 140).
The P-38 Era
A brief glance around the blogosphere indicates that the word theonomy got people’s attention. Of course, it always did. Let me put the disclaimers in the first couple sentences so I can continue to kick this particular can down the road. No, this is not going to be done through politics. No, it is not …
History Is A River
“In our individualistic times, we tend to think of previous generations or eras as tthough they were a series of ponds. We used to live around a pond that everyone called ‘the fifties.’ Then later we lived aroaund another pond called ‘the nineties.’ But this is not how the Bible encourages us to think about …
Time and Gump Happen to Them All
“Forrest Gump (1994) and its predecessor Being There (1979) are both popular movies that communicate the idea of a chance world in which events occur without purpose. The use of mentally challenged men in both films is a metaphor for chance itself. They have no ‘intelligent design’ to their lives and yet both of them …
Can’t Help Returning
“Derived from skadzein, which means to limp, skandalon designates the obstacle that both attracts and repels at the same time. The initial encounter with the stumbling block is so fascinating that one must always return to it, and each return becomes more fascinating” (Girard, The Scapegoat, p. 132).