Last year I discovered, much to my surprise, that the tune to Go Tell Aunt Rodie, played by every young violin student of the Suzuki method, was composed by none other than Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the Presbyterian Church of Canada’s Book of Praise the tune is called ROUSSEAU, while . . . . Continue Reading »
This started as a reply about hermeneutic in the context of the flood on my personal blog. Do we take the flood literally or not. My interlocutor was exasperated exclaiming that to not take the text literally implies words have no meaning. This is exactly backwords. Here is my response to him.Yes, . . . . Continue Reading »
The next stop on the BUILDING BETTER THAN THEY KNEW TOUR is Assumption College in Worcester, MASS. I’ll be giving a conference keynote talk Friday night at 7:30 in the auditorium of La Maison. The next day will feature presentations by some genuinely legendary figures—such as Dan . . . . Continue Reading »
Among contemporary American philosophers, Martha Nussbaum has long represented the best and the worst of the urgent liberal conscience. One feels the moral seriousness of her work—and one worries (at least I do) that intellectual corners are being cut and complexities set aside so that her . . . . Continue Reading »
I am convinced that President Obama is ignorant—not generally, but about how medicine is actually practiced. Recall when he defamed pediatricians by claiming that some perform unnecessary tonsillectomies for the money, apparently unaware that a child’s primary care doc would not be . . . . Continue Reading »
On Easter Sunday, at New York’s one-hundred-and-one-year-old Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, a combination of readings from Scripture, lively preaching, and beautiful choir music filled the historic structure. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Fred R. Anderson, explored traditional . . . . Continue Reading »
On Good Friday, NPR ran a piece of mine wherein I discuss why I remain a Catholic . This week, they present the flip side, showcasing an essay by author Julianna Baggott, who writes about leaving the Catholic Church, but not the identity : I am deeply Catholic and always will be, but I’m no . . . . Continue Reading »
There have been many write ups on the so-called “New Calvinism” sweeping through the evangelical landscape, and much attention has been paid to highly organized leadership behind it. It seems that what Emergent Village was trying to accomplish through networking and organizing with other . . . . Continue Reading »
Samuel Arbesman defines the area between facts that are permanent and those that change rapidly: When people think of knowledge, they generally think of two sorts of facts: facts that don’t change, like the height of Mount Everest or the capital of the United States, and facts that fluctuate . . . . Continue Reading »
So as a lead-in to the chapter-by-chapter reviews I’m going to do on the two books I recommended this weekend, let me ask you to consider something: what do we mean when we call something “pastoral”?For example, a lot of people are hot for teaching the word because they are . . . . Continue Reading »
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