Gunny Hartman on Church and State

In light of a few recent heated discussions on the blogs of Halden and Christian, I thought I’d call on the trusty Gunnery Sergeant Hartmant for some assistance in shedding light on some assumptions that few would want to fess up to, while continuing to reason on the basis of them. I just couldn’t resist [...]

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J. Kameron Carter on Baptism

J. Kameron Carter has been an exciting discovery for me lately, and I’d like to pass on a cool little essay entitled “Whiteness as a False Reality: the Baptismal Identity of ‘the Now, but Not Yet,’” which explores some of the similarities between the film The Matrix and baptism.
[Afro-Christians'] entry into Christianity was a baptismal [...]

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Cyril of Jerusalem on Baptism

I just read St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s wonderful little treatise, Lectures on the Christian Sacraments, and thought I’d share a quote.
And each of you was asked, whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and ye made that saving confession, and descended three times into [...]

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Eugene McCarraher’s Suggestions For Resisting the Culture of Death

What can Christians do to resist the dominant culture of fear, domination, death, greed, and so on? I threw out some of my Yoderian/Hauerwasian stock ideas in a comment on the last post. Here is Eugene McCarraher himself in a recent interview in The Other Journal.
TOJ: You have argued that our culture in North America [...]

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Some Quotes on the Authority of a Diverse Canon

The biblical scene itself…in both the Old and New Testaments, is a vivid and lively pattern of argument and controversy…. The sense which the reader derives from the Bible will depend not only on that which is positively stated by the Bible, but also on that with which the Bible is in conflict or, [...]

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Voltaire: The Stock Exchange as England’s True Church

How’s this for simulacrum?

Go into the London Stock Exchange – a more respectable place than many a court – and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only [...]

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Joshua Foer: “Remeber This”

I couldn’t resist posting a couple of quotes from the absolutely fascinating article by Joshua Foer in this month’s National Geographic on memory. I’ve been a regular reader of the captions under the pictures in National Geographic since early childhood, but every now and then I read one of the articles that appear [...]

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Foucault: Why Have We Made Sex Our God?

I just finished vol. 1 of The History of Sexuality – my first Foucault book, huzzah! A personal reflection: I am convinced of the good intentions of the furor over sexual purity that was prevalent in two of the three main discourses of my childhood and adolescence (home and church – definitely not public [...]

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Douglas Knight on Modernity, Individuality, and Communion

Douglas Knight, who runs a very productive blog, has recently possed a stellar essay entitled “Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Colin Gunton and the doctrine of God”. It was really difficult trying to figure out what to quote, because the whole thing is just great. So here’s a bit, but do yourself [...]

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