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Another note on The Road
You have to carry the fire.
I don’t know how to.
Yes, you do.
Is the fire real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I don’t know where it is.
Yes you do. It’s inside you. It always was there. I can see it.
— Cormac McCarthy “The Road”
Engulfed in utter darkness and complete despair, the road presents a story of faith, hope, and a selflessness that allows an individual to be a part of something greater than himself. The force that sustains the pair through the destruction of everything is utter altruism, a form of love that is unfathomable because the essence of it is complete selflessness. It is this love that drives the father to go to such lengths to protect his son.
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Poets, Philosophers, and Beauty
If there is a war between reason and imagination, the first volley was fired by Plato, who famously decreed that poets were to be thrown out of his ideal city. This would be understandable if he were speaking only of the Greek equivalent of trashy romance novels; but he prohibits even Homer, who he admits to be a master artist who would deserve much praise—if he were not a danger to the morals of the city.
An Ethical Example: Responding to “On Not Being Narrow-Minded”
After perusing the latest issue of the Ichthus, I had some reflections on Nick Nowalk’s latest feature “On Not Being Narrow-Minded.” Nick focuses heavily on the writings of Jonathan Edwards, a preacher from the first Great Awakening who was quite influential despite the fact that he graduated from Yale. Edwards resisted the Enlightenment thinkers who increasingly strove to separate ethics from Christianity. Instead, as Nick put it, “he insisted upon a teleological ethic grounded in God’s purpose in creating the universe.” READ MORE
The Strange Triumph of the Lamb (3): Filling Up What is Lacking in the Afflictions of Christ
“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p. 99)
On the face of it, Colossians 1:24 strikes me as potentially the most heretical statement in the entire New Testament. Here Paul not only states that he is rejoicing in what he suffers on behalf of these early Christians (strange enough), but even goes so far as to claim that by means of such a Spirit-filled encounter he is actually filling up what is lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions for his body, the church! Is the sacrifice of the fully human and fully divine Jesus not enough to bring sinners back to God? In his commentary, Peter O’Brien predictably points out that “this verse has been an exegetical crux since earliest times…” (Colossians, p. 75). What are the possibilities for interpretation with regards to this bizarre passage?
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Where Were We in Haiti?
I recently received an email from a friend with a simple question: Where was God in Haiti?
I imagine this question (hardly a new one) has been on many minds – and on many hearts – in the past few weeks.
I am not so bold as to attempt a thorough answer here and now; in my mind, there may be no more difficult question to answer. (Such answers, of course, have been advanced.) Instead, I have my own slightly different question to ask: Where were we in Haiti?
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The Tragedy of Time
“I am not Hermione Granger.”
As the end of shopping period draws near, I suspect that most Harvard students share this sentiment. Unlike the girl from Harry Potter who can magically go back in time to take multiple courses in one time slot, we have to choose. If my dream seminar and the least painful Ethical Reasoning core both take place at, say, Thursdays at ten o’clock—well, too bad. There’s nothing to be done. Choices must be made, simply because of the inescapable fact that we are beings who live in time.
Perhaps having to choose one class over another is not a deep tragedy. But the longing not to decide—not to cut off one way of life irrevocably—goes deeper than surface decisions. It is more than the simple desire for more time to do more work. Indeed, it is a recognition of mortality. Choices are only irrevocable because we have a limited amount of time—because sooner or later we will die, and all choice will be stopped.
The Strange Triumph of the Lamb (2): Jesus’ Veiled Coronation
Throughout the gospel of Matthew there exists a steadily mounting anticipation of Jesus’ coming enthronement as the king of Israel, in fulfillment of the prophetic Old Testament messianic hope. Such an emphasis is obvious, of course, in the central place the “kingdom of God” occupies in Jesus’ teaching and life (and the preeminent role he himself plays in the kingdom) throughout the narrative. But the motif is similarly plain in a number of other ways, as well. In 2:2, King Herod’s horrible infanticide is motivated by fear stemming from rumors of a soon to be born “King of the Jews.” Jesus, as depicted by Matthew, is the proverbial man born to be king. During Jesus’ 40 days of temptation, the third and climatic temptation (4:8-10) revolves around the nature of how Jesus might seize the messianic throne with all its glory and power. Satan offers to deliver all the kingdoms of the world to Christ through a thoroughly worldly agenda of disobedience, selfishness and idolatry—which, of course, Jesus refuses. Such is not the pathway to power for this One.
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