Year: 2008
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Leave it to a poet…
A selection from W. H. Auden, ‘The Poet & The City’, in The Dyer’s Hand and other essays (London: Faber and Faber, 1963), 86-87 …to speak sense into politics. ‘There are two kinds of political issues, Party issues and Revolutionary issues. In a party issue, all parties are agreed as to the nature and justice…
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Patriotism Firmly Rooted in Mid-Air
One morning last week, as I was driving to the Biola campus to teach a session on Aeschylus’ The Oresteia, I came across two vehicles with two very different sets of bumper stickers. One said “God Bless the World,” and the other, displaying his patriotism for all to see, featured a proud portrayal of the…
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A Theology of Hugging
I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about the call to let others be. This, I take it, is the ethical correlate of the Christian doctrine of creation, in which the perfectly strong God makes room for the world, in which he lets it be. It is true that creation is always utterly dependent on…
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The Coming of the Book
What are the major events in the history of salvation, according to Christianity? If you made a little diagram with stick figures, what would you have to include? The choosing of Abraham, of course. The giving of the law, and the whole Mosaic ministry of God redeeming his people from Egypt and making them his…
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Victor Davis Hanson: Thucydides
On October 8th, Victor Davis Hanson spoke at Biola University on Thucydides: Understanding the Pellopenessian War and the principles which translate from a study of this ancient Greek historian to the modern political-cultural sphere. This event was sponsored by the Biola Marines Club and the Torrey Honors Institute. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,…
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Vocabulary Quiz on The Horse and His Boy
A few years ago, I taught the Chronicles of Narnia as part of a college course. I always feel odd teaching a class on books that people read for fun, books with a very high entertainment value. Isn’t that what people outside the academy assume we’re doing on campus: giving college credit for watching cartoons…
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Lyra Fidelium
Samuel J. Stone (1839-1900) was an Anglican clergyman and poet whose claim to fame is that he wrote the hymn, The Church’s One Foundation. But that’s just the hit single off a great album. That hymn is from an interesting collection that Stone wrote in 1866 entitled Lyra Fidelium: Twelve Hymns on the Twelve Articles…
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Are the Harry Potter Novels Great Books?
Homer, Cicero, Calvin, Austen, Nietzsche, and Rowling? John Granger joins Middlebrow’s John Mark Reynolds and Paul Spears to discuss whether the Potter novels belong in the canon of great Western literature. Listen to it here!
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On Remembering Facebook Friends
Just the other night I was doing something that all middle-aged university professors do on a regular basis — maintaining my Facebook! Yes, I have a presence on Facebook and, yes, on occasion I visit the site to see what all of my “friends” are doing. I originally created my Facebook presence simply because my…
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The Election in Classical Context: Victor Davis Hanson at Biola
Here is audio from Victor Davis Hanson’s recent speech at Biola. Following the news day by day can kind of beat up your mind, especially right now with the election, the war, and the financial crisis. These are all big stories that don’t fit daily updates very well. Every now and then it’s nice to…
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Victor Davis Hanson: The Election in a Classical Context
On October 8, 2008, Victor Davis Hanson spoke at Biola University about the issues facing our modern nation, and the lessons we can learn from the classical tradition. This event was sponsored by the Biola Marines Club, the Torrey Honors Institute, the Christian Apologetics Department, and Associated Students. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,…