Two central motifs which shape John Donne’s Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward make the poem challenging for contemporary readers: cosmology and liturgy. To some degree, they are a single motif, as the poem seems to argue. The poem, a meditation on the Crucifixion and the narrator’s spiritual condition, is set in the context of the motion … Continue reading Direction in Donne’s Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
Unlike computers, we can and often do learn in a manner which requires time. We come to know a thing by living with it. We read a book and slowly discover that we love a character or don’t trust them; we live year after year with a child or spouse and come to recognize them … Continue reading Like Yeast
There is a lot of good literature on shame, but it can be confusing to assess from a Christian perspective. There are three major reasons for this First, many of those with good things to say about shame often dismiss the concept of sin, even treating it as the boogeyman of our psyches. This is … Continue reading On Whether We are to be Ashamed
Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre! For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation. Psalm 149:3-4 Debts There are certain debts that are never be paid back, that we never fully make good on.* If a woman saves my child’s life, there is no sufficient currency … Continue reading Liturgy, Religion, and the Obligation of Worship
[He] was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). The priesthood of Christ not only presents us with a sympathetic mediator, with a minister of mercy, but makes possible a new sort of holiness, a different kind of sanctification then we might imagine. In approaching this Great High Priest, I come nearer to … Continue reading On the Priesthood of the Wounded
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Romans 8:29) Paul nests this verse between one which declares that God shall use not only hardship, but all things to the Good of those who love God … Continue reading That He might be the Firstborn among many Brothers and Sisters.
In Menander’s One-line Opinions (Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι), we find the following aphorism:
A bride without dowry has not freedom of speech (παρρησίαν). Continue reading “The Boldness of a Bride without Dowry”
A Meditation on Palm Sunday and folly over at the Blog of the Emerging Scholars Network. Thanks for featuring my work again folks! Continue reading The Perfection of our Praise: Reclaiming our Inner Folly on Palm Sunday– A Post on the Emerging Scholars Blog
There two schools of Christian anthropology. The first school I will call the Noetic. It advocates the transforming power of knowing God. To know God’s love is to be transformed by that love. The second is the school of Praxis and Discipline. We needs to press on and take hold of what Christ has secured for us, thereby … Continue reading Noetic Transformation vs. Discipline and Praxis
To be a disciple is fundamentally to be a learner. But while a geometry student submits his mind to a proof or theorem, a learner of Christ is called to submit his whole being to God. And while the student may come to internalize a truth, the disciple can come to embody God’s presence. This is because both Learning and discipleship happen through a process of poetic formation. In … Continue reading The Poetics of Faith and Learning, Part 4
Same & Other 