Category: Blog
-
“G. K. Chesterton, We Love You!” – Brazil
There’s something funny about professors who teach old books being involved in new media. That’s what Scriptorium Daily is, of course — people talking about old stuff in a new venue. It’s funny because of what conventional wisdom leads us to believe – that the more old books we read, the more inclined we are…
-
What’s a Nice Christian Girl Like You Doing Reading Homer?
Two sisters sit at home, talking. The younger sister does needlework and arranges flowers picked from the garden, as she passes the time until her boyfriend comes to visit. The older sister, on the other hand, is trying to make some kind of sense out of her wasted life, having an emotional crisis brought on…
-
Henry More on Creation
Today (September 1) is the day Henry More (1614 – 1687), one of the Cambridge Platonists, died. More wrote a lot of very difficult theology, some of it in extended poetic form. He was a strange mix of rationalist and mystic. He was an important interpreter of Descartes, and probably a major influence on Newton.…
-
Wanted: Humility
Well, another school year is starting here at the Torrey Honors Institute, which means there are about 375 students roaming the halls again. It’s good to see the returning students, hear what they did over the summer (if anything!) and start getting to know the freshmen. Already in only three days of classes, I have…
-
Finney, Finney, Finney
Today (August 29) is the birthday of Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), whose accomplishments as a revivalist preacher are staggering. The most striking statistic usually reported is that when he came to Rochester, the population tripled but the crime rate dropped by two-thirds. Other preachers might be bold enough to preach against the evils of saloons,…
-
Who Said “The Trinity: Try to Understand It, and You’ll Lose Your Mind”?
Read Fred Sanders’s follow-up here. Here is a saying that you run into frequently in popular books on the Trinity: The Trinity: Try to Understand It and You’ll Lose Your Mind. Try to Deny It and You’ll LOSE YOUR SOUL! This aphorism is usually introduced with the vague reference, “As somebody has said…” In fact,…
-
How Augustine Died
Today (August 28) is the day Augustine of Hippo died in the year 430. His first biographer, Possidius, tells us how it happened in his Life of Augustine. Augustine died in the city of Hippo, which was under siege by barbarians throughout his final illness (he contracted a fever “in the third month of the…
-
Griffith-Thomas: Principles of Trinitarian Theology
William Henry Griffith Thomas (1861-1924) wrote an excellent one-volume systematic theology called The Principles of Theology. Published in 1930, it takes the form of an evangelical commentary on the 39 Articles of the Church of England. According to J.I. Packer, the book “may be said to have rounded off a four-hundred year era of Protestant…
-
Caesarius of Arles
Today (August 27) is the day Ceasarius, Bishop of Arles, died in the year 542. He is most important because of things he didn’t write. Caesarius never wanted to be original, and he wasn’t. He was a conservator and transmitter of the Christian tradition as he received it. He had been a monk at Lerins…
-
Karl Bahrdt, Worst Theologian Ever
Today (August 25) is the birthday of Karl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741-1792), a theologian so bad that it is hard to find anything good to say about him. (He liked tolerance. There, I said one good thing about him.) He was, says one encyclopedia, “a caricature of the vulgar rationalism of the eighteenth century.” A Lutheran…
-
What the Trinity is For
What is the Trinity for? I hear this question all the time, in churches and classrooms. It comes from different kinds of people: From well-established Christians who have the basics of a life of discipleship figured out, are spiritually healthy, and who are getting along just fine without thinking often of the Trinity. From apologists…
-
Bultmann and Tillich: Same Birthday, Same Problem
Two of the most influential academic theologians of the twentieth century share today, August 20, as their birthday: Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). What an odd coincidence. I wonder if they ever celebrated it together. Both men were prolific, and their theological projects were very different: Tillich was above all a theologian of…