Category: Modernity
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Unavoidable Suffering and Salvation – The Way of Shame
At the heart of the modern narrative is a concern to alleviate and even eliminate suffering. This understanding is rooted in the Christian virtue of compassion. In many ways, however, modern compassion has been detached from its original context and become a thing-in-itself. Modernity is an arena where compassion has run amok, and, ironically, promises…
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God By The Numbers
Math is very strange stuff. A serious question within the community of science and math is whether math is an invention or a discovery. Is it something that we have just made up out of our head, or is it something we observed and discovered (because it is already there)? This might sound like a…
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Care for the Soul
I do not understand Zombies. When I was a child, Zombie movies were virtually non-existent. The word referred to something like a Golem in Jewish thought – a creature without a soul. It is properly a frightening thing – for that which we think of as the soul, is also the seat of compassion and…
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Theology and Faerie – The Modern Tragedy
How do we think of a world without faerie? And how would such a world relate to God? In many ways, the answer to this question is an explanation of classical Protestant thought and the religious belief of contemporary Christians. For as Christianity began the journey away from its classical roots and into the world…
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Making It Up in America
As I noted in my previous article, stories are essential in the formation of character. We do not simply exist, we think about our existence and are driven to make sense of it. The sense we make takes the form of a story. For people in the contemporary world, this is simply problematic. Stanley Hauerwas…
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About Fairy Tales
If you want to teach a child not to do something, then clear directions and consistent discipline will generally do the trick. However, if you want to teach a child not to do a certain kind of thing, something completely different is called for. Most likely, you will have to resort to stories. Stories tell…
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We Are Not Here to Help
My writings are sometimes treated as though I’m offering some new insight. That only tells me that the reader has only just begun to read. I pray God never to be original in my thoughts, for I long for nothing other than the Tradition. At best, I simply bring the Tradition back into the conversation…
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Excuse Me, You Are Not Rational
Words have a way of getting hijacked. Language refuses to stay unchanged and the result can be confusion, particularly when language is compared across the centuries. A common sentiment, written in one century, can be taken to mean something completely different in another. Such is the case with the word “rational.” The word was hijacked…
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Human Tradition in a Modern World
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. – Monty Python and the Holy Grail The comic genius of Monty Python often shows it face when interjecting the present into the past. The charming…
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Understanding Evil and Doing Good
The Fathers commonly spoke of three things together: Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. The three are related. And it is necessary to understand these three in order to understand the nature of evil – both why it is evil and how it behaves. The root of Truth, Beauty and Goodness in the Fathers is Being and…
Dear Father, I’m so very grateful you have found a new home and parish home! Especially the new relationships and…