So some of you are thinking, “Frank, you’re a jerk, you know that? This is the Christmas season, and you’re ignoring the fact that the Angels we have heard on High sang Glo-o-o-ria in-ex-chel-sis-day-o. They were happy – John Piper would say they were happy. John Mark Reynolds . . . . Continue Reading »
I am happy to see Kevin’s excellent post and essay on the doctrine of justification. And I am not surprised to see him come to the conclusion that our failure to articulate it is at the core of our impotence. Bruce McCormack started from the same point in his brilliant essay on the role of . . . . Continue Reading »
You know: when most people get ready to write a little something for the Christmas season, they fire up the Yule log, and they have a little eggnog, and toss a little tinsel, and eat a cookie, and then they have this sweet smell on their breath as they talk about how joyful a season this . . . . Continue Reading »
Catholic and Feminist: The Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement by mary j. henold university of north carolina press, 304 pages, $32 Ihave never met a nun—there was a time when this would have been a truly bizarre statement from an American Catholic. Nuns were everywhere: . . . . Continue Reading »
The Bible contains a verse that scholars like to quote. It is from the book of Ecclesiastes: “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is weariness of the flesh” (12:12). In context it serves as a warning against the vain illusion that we can study our way to the Kingdom of God. The . . . . Continue Reading »
Voting About God in Early Church Councilsby ramsay macmullen yale university press, 192 pages, $30 What do we know about the early Christian councils? We know quite a bit about the great figures who normally occupy attention—an Athanasius, say, or a Cyril of Alexandria—but what . . . . Continue Reading »
Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Chenu to Ratzinger by fergus kerr blackwell, 240 pages, $29.95 Over the last decade, a Scottish Dominican named Fergus Kerr has produced a series of books designed to orient readers to contemporary trends. In the 1997 Immortal Longings, he discussed a . . . . Continue Reading »
Alyssa Lyra Pitstick Hans Urs von Balthasar once keenly observed what makes someone an ecclesial theologian: “It is quite clear that anyone who practices theology as a member of the Church must profess the Church’s Creed (and the theology implicit in it), both formally and materially. This . . . . Continue Reading »
That extraordinary writer of stories about the “Christ-haunted” American South, Flannery O’Connor, was frequently asked why her people and plots were so often outlandish, even grotesque. She answered, “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you have to draw large and . . . . Continue Reading »
Some of the greatest Modernists, including the painter Georges Rouault, the poet T. S. Eliot, and the composer Igor Stravinsky, found in the language of abstraction, fragmentation, and primitivism ways to reconnect ancient religious truths with the conditions of the modern . . . . Continue Reading »
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