Category: Reading Out Loud
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On Dolly Parton and the Beauty of Virtue
Dolly Parton is not simply a good person, or a beautiful poetess; she is both beautiful and good, in a way the philosophy of character strives to explain but can’t always illustrate convincingly. … it may be that Dolly can do more to explain the philosophers than the other way around. Let us make a […]
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Eberhard Arnold on “The Interim God”
The great division between God and the devil is not the division between life here and life beyond, between matter and spirit, between corporeality and incorporeality – no, it runs right through all spirits and all bodies, through all eternities and all times. In every body, every human being, both powers are at work. Both […]
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A Model of Abundance
“What Did the Early Church Say About Economic Justice?” – from Plough – this morning’s email. Image: “Stilleben: Alter Wein und Brot,” Albert Anker, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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Convicted of being powerful?
Tikva Frymer-Kensky reminds us that deception is a necessary tool of the powerless: “The biblical world valued cunning in the underdog. Only the powerful value honesty at all costs.” [emphasis added] Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories (New York: Schocken, 2002), 19; quoted in Meira Z. Kensky, […]
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Modern Day Prophecy
Pew Research Center has published their detailed report Beyond Red and Blue: The Political Typology. The way I read it, it’s discouraging. It’s not obvious to me that the people this survey is about – us, that is – have the tools we need and the skills we need to do the things we would […]
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Russell Moore on “Integrity and the Future of the Church”
Here. Aside from the fact that I agree with him, what struck me in particular was that it was in Plough. And that it was Russell Moore. There are all kinds of ways to strike a Constantinian bargain. Images: “Antiquariat saint pierre de clages valais,” (book shop), An image by Lysippos, CC by SA 3.0, […]
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Wisdom Personified
Now that we are reading Ecclesiastes in Wednesday night book study, this is the kind of email we’re getting, Because everybody knows …
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Cue the Spooky Music
[Tucker] Carlson talked up Hungary’s anti-immigration policies and what he described as the country’s support of families, but in a speech he gave—and later promoted on social media—he also addressed what we might call the politics of aesthetics. He emphasized the need for “order and cleanliness,” which he called “essential to human happiness.” He railed […]
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Francis Bacon comments on today’s “Republicans”
… surely, the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold, that, when “Christ cometh,” he shall not “find faith upon the earth.” (Luke 18:8) Francis Bacon, […]
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Vote Honestly
According to Confucius: Everyone has a stake in the moral standing of the human community, and at the same time the wherewithal to affect it either positively or negatively. But rulers are uniquely positioned, because of their unparalleled authority, to affect whole nations. A scrupulous gentleman might be able to affect his family and perhaps […]
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An Arresting Poem
Among other things, it illustrates the point that lived religion is worlds apart from theology and religion in books. “When I Became La Promesa,” Peggy Robles-Alvarado [Image: Portrait of Cécile Anker reading, Albert Anker, 1886, public domain]
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Some Thoughts on Christians and Politics
… Christians embrace their political responsibilities – not primarily as citizens, or as representatives of political parties, or as a lobby group shouting to be heard, but as ambassadors of the Prince of Peace who came as a servant, welcomed children and foreigners into his circle, and taught us to love our enemies. John D. […]
Matters of Interpretation 