Dallas Willard on Poverty and Christian Spirituality
I have found Dallas Willard's essay "Is Poverty Spiritual" very helpful. Here is the essay.
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- Published: 24 April 2015 24 April 2015
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Studying Hebrew in Cambridge
From January through August 2014 my family lived in Cambridge, England. It was an absolute joy. One of my goals was to read/study Hebrew. I met virtually weekly with a friend at The Red Bull to do so. My friend/Hebrew tutor recently sent me this picture of The Red Bull. Good memories.
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- Published: 22 April 2015 22 April 2015
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Allan Carlson on the Family in the United Nations
Here is an essay/address by Allan Carlson titled: "A History of the Family in the United Nations," originally given in 2000. The essay is here.
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- Published: 22 April 2015 22 April 2015
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Doug Wilson on Reforming Marriage
Chapter One from Doug Wilson's Reforming Marriage.
| File | Description | File size |
|---|---|---|
 Doug Wilson on Marriage | Doug Wilson on Marriage | 2032 kB |
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- Published: 17 April 2015 17 April 2015
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Bauckham on Retrieving the Past for the Sake of the Future
For those of us who have an interest in an older conservativism--of the Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, and Edmund Burke variety, an essay I have been reading by Richard Bauckham is fascinating. Bauckham's essay is "Tradition in Relation to Scripture and Reason." About p. 134 Bauckham begins to discuss the way in which a traditional Christian might draw upon the theological past (in this instance, Scripture). The question is: how is one to draw upon the theological past/Scripture in a culture which has--in principle--left behind any sort of interest in, and adherence to, the Christian tradition (including its charter documents, Scripture).
Bauckham seeks to avoid two twin errors: (1) a "catch-up mentality in theology" (seeing how fast you can discard the past in favor of the latest fad); and (2) "mere conservative traditionalism" (essentially, living in the past).
Some of Bauckham's insights are wonderful (pp. 135 and following) . . .
"In such a context [i.e., traditional Christianity existing amidst a culture which has in principle left it behind] the place of Christianity is that of a 'productive non-contemporaneity.' By drawing on the resources of a tradition outside the parameters of contemporary thought, it can offer alternatives which are not available from within the historically limited world of the present. It shows up the historicity of modernity [emphasis mine]."
"If, as a tradition superseded by modernity, it must allow that modernity has rendered it questionable, no longer to be accepted simply as given, it may also, as a past tradition which can prove itself to be not simply used-up, but as productive past, render modernity questionable, not to be accepted simply as given."
"The dismissal and suppression of questions of transcendent meaning--by Enlightenment rationality and its 'postmodern' succesors alike--can be rendered questionable not simply by listening to a tradition of attempted 'answers' to such questions, but discovering, first by observation and then by experience, how the appropriation of such a tradition enhances human life and opens up prospects for meaningful living beyond the increasingly closed options of modernity."
Finally: "The point to be maintained is that 'producitve non-contemporaneity' [i.e., Christianity's situation vis-a-vis contemporary secular culture] is not backward-looking. Its resort to the tradition is not in order to reproduce the past, but to find future in the past, the possibilities which have been left behind but can be taken up in a creative way. Not that the tradition is merely to be plundered for what, judged from the standpoint of modernity, seems useful. It must be listened to attentively in its deepest dissent from modernity for precisely that may be its relevance."
Henri Blocher once called this essay the finest he had read on the question at hand. Now I see why.
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- Published: 14 April 2015 14 April 2015
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Richard Bauckham on Christianity and Culture
For some writing I am doing I am reading Richard Bauckham's essay, "Tradition in Relation to Scripture and Tradition," in a book he and Benjamin Drewery edited, Scripture, Tradition and Reason: A Study in the Criteria of Christian Doctrine. He has an insightful comment on the role of traditional/historic Christianity in modern culture: "The real problem of the relation between the Christian tradition and secular rationality for the Christian in the modern West is therefore not in the realm of particular criticisms levelled at particular aspects of Christian belief or practice, but the problem of the sense it makes for a participant in modern culture to appropriate a tradition which that culture has deliberately left behind" (p. 134).
I suspect grasping this "dilemma" could help contemporary Christians to understand why so many moderns are quite happy to use the law and the force of the state to marginalize, criminalize, punish, etc., those persons (traditional Christians) who continue to affirm traditional biblical notions of human sexuality and marriage. For some secular modern folks, it must be extremely difficult to make sense of the fact that some of us even think or believe the way we do. And the more difficult it is for such secular modern folks to make sense of those who embrace older moral norms, the easier it will likely be for such secular moderns to continue to use the power of the state to arrest and punish this odd relic of the past.
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- Published: 14 April 2015 14 April 2015
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