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When the Bible Became a Musical

As a rule, I don’t like musicals. Well, it’s not “as” a rule. It is a rule. I do not like musicals. I never watched Glee, unless the women at my house were monopolizing the television. I walked out of The Sound of Music; something about Maria racing to the top of a hill singing with no hint of asthmatic reaction ruined it for me. I did stay through Les Misérables, though dying people singing tend to annoy me, but it was operatic and no one was asking me to believe that perfectly ordinary people frequently burst into spur-of-the-moment song. I never break into spontaneous song, not if someone might be listening. Why should anyone else? Continue Reading »

Explaining Agamben

Several years ago, Giorgio Agamben began one of his lectures by asking why he had made law and theo­logy the areas of his recent investigation. “A first answer,” he said, “which is obviously a joke, but every joke has a serious core, would be, because these are the only two fields in which . . . . Continue Reading »

A Tale of Two Thomases

Consider this description of one of “America’s Byways”: “Traversing the lush hills and farmlands of southern Indiana, and paralleling the mighty Ohio River, this route marks a timeworn and history-rich corridor linking historic villages and farms through a picturesque landscape. Rock . . . . Continue Reading »

The Orthodox Renaissance

At the beginning of the twentieth century, those Westerners who knew about the Orthodox Church tended to think it exotic and theologically and culturally irrelevant. Orthodox theology was very little known and even less understood, and perhaps even less valued than understood. The Bolshevik . . . . Continue Reading »

What Are the Best Books about Heaven?

Excepting of course, The Book. I ask this question jumping off of Paul’ comment in the thread below. I’ve always been a doubt-bedeviled Christian, and whereas when I was younger it was the multiple issues raised by predestination and hell that caused me the most concern, the older I get . . . . Continue Reading »

Renewing Dogmatic Theology

Catholics in the last fifty years or so have almost completely ceased to do dogmatic theology. Save for a handful of admirable holdouts, we have practically given up the fruitful enterprise of a millennium: the believing mind’s effort to understand the Christian mysteries. The deep things of God, . . . . Continue Reading »

Dogma’s Defender

Theological Tractates by erik peterson, edited and translated by michael j. hollerich stanford, 296 pages, $24.95 Germany’s most famous convert from Protestantism to the Catholic Church between the two world wars, Erik Peterson was also one of the most gifted theologians of his generation and, . . . . Continue Reading »

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