The Scriptorium Daily

Author: Fred Sanders

  • Honest to God, a Voice from Heaven! Vanhoozer's Remythologizing Theology

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    Fred Sanders
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    Kevin J. Vanhoozer published a very important book in 2010, entitled Remythologizing Theology. It’s a long book (500 pages), and though Vanhoozer is a clear writer, his target audience here is people who have already read a lot of recent theology. It’s also a very expensive hardcover from Cambridge University Press. Good news on that…

  • Finishing Up With "On This Day" In This Year

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    Fred Sanders
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    Since 2009 I’ve been noodling away at the “On This Day” essays here at Scriptorium Daily. I started them on a lark during Christmas break 2009, got around to describing my goals for the series sometime in March, and kept at it whenever time permitted. I wrote entries for about half the days of the…

  • The Spirituality of the Second Coming

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    Fred Sanders
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    From the Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (pages 740-741), here is my attempt to describe the second coming from the point of view of spirituality, in 400 words. For New Year’s Day. When Christ ascended into the clouds to take his seat at the right hand of the Father, the angels of the ascension said, “This…

  • When Did Aslan Banish Winter?

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    Fred Sanders
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    I’ve pondered before how odd it is that there is no Narnian nativity, no incarnation of Aslan in the fantasy world of C.S. Lewis. Lewis has his Christ-figure die and rise again, create heaven and earth, and return in judgement, but he carefully avoids depicting the incarnation of Aslan as a cub. There is no…

  • Cat Walking Monster

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    Fred Sanders
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    The representational skills of the artist known as Phoebe Age Nine have undergone considerable development in recent years. Her early work was already masterful, but in earlier compositions, she tended to concentrate on a few simple shapes. The power of early works like 18 Cats in 5 Minutes came from the strict limits she placed…

  • Fundamentalist Spirituality

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    Fred Sanders
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    For the Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, I wrote a short essay about fundamentalism. It’s interesting that a spirituality reference work would include an entry on this topic; the normal associations of the term “fundamentalist” tend to be doctrinal or cultural, but not spiritual. Put another way, spirituality is a soft word, fundamentalist a hard word.…

  • Okay, So You Got the Ring, Smarty-Eye

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    Fred Sanders
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    Phoebe Age Nine imagines Sauron, the Lidless and Unblinking Eye of Mordor, in his great lust for the One Ring. Here he is supported by worker Orcs: Cowering at the bottom, barely visible, is Gollum, pitifully protesting, “it is my prechus golem golem.” We can’t even tell if he’s a line drawing or something more…

  • Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, Torrey Edition

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    Fred Sanders
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    Here’s a large and definitive reference work from Zondervan in 2011, the Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. It’s a brick of a hardcover, but with such an ambitious title, it’s surprising to find it weighing in at just over 800 pages. The editors (Glen Scorgie, Simon Chan, Gordon Smith, and James D. Smith III) seem to…

  • Emerson's Evangelical Primer

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    Fred Sanders
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    This Christmas, a friend gave me an old book. It’s a pocket-sized catechism printed in 1818. Its original cover is missing, but somebody has lovingly hand-stitched a decorative long-grain paper cover to it. It measures 3.5 x 6 inches, and is 75 pages long. It is The Evangelical Primer, compiled by Rev. Joseph Emerson. Here’s…

  • Spiritual Disciplines & Physical Bodies: Earthen Vessels

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    Fred Sanders
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    One of the most interesting books of 2011 was Matthew Anderson’s Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith. It’s interesting in a couple of different ways, though. First, it’s interesting because it takes on just about every hot topic you could. . .

  • In the Fullness of Time, A Silent Night

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    Fred Sanders
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    It’s not leftovers, it Scriptorium Classic! Reposted from Dec 25, 2007. And I Joseph was walking, and was not walking; and I looked up into the sky, and saw the sky astonished; and I looked up to the pole of the heavens, and saw it standing, and the birds of the air keeping still. ……

  • God as Gift: 3 Questions for Kelly Kapic

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    Fred Sanders
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    One of my favorite books from last year was Kelly Kapic & Justin Borger’s God So Loved He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity (Zondervan, 2010). It’s a meditation on divine generosity, and it reaches from the very nature of God (that high!) all the way down to financial decisions in daily life (that…