Category: Blog
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Edward Knippers, Theologizing in Paint
The folks over at Theology Forum are hosting a blog exhibition this week on the work of Edward Knippers, an important American painter. On Monday they posted several pictures along with a statement by the artist. Not all artists are able to write about their own work in a helpful way –some of them should…
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Two Ways to Study Great Books: Torrey Honors Institute
Everything that we post here at the Scriptorium Daily is an overflow from the learning community we have in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola. The faculty members who contribute to this blog all teach in our great books program. All the faculty teach all the books, so we’re always stepping on each other’s toes,…
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Beyond Left and Right
I’ve just reviewed Amy Black’s utterly sane, entirely helpful Beyond Left and Right: Helping Christians Make Sense of American Politics over at The Other Journal. Check it, and this fun, provocative journal out here.
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Vote. A Right…
Citizens of the United States of America are quick to argue that they have constitutional rights – for everything. Citizens defend clearly expressed rights such as the right to free speech, the right to not be searched or seized unreasonably, and the right to peaceably assemble. Citizens are also quick to “invent” rights not stated…
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Are We Seven?
First: A classic early poem by William Wordsworth. Then: Four visual analyses of the evidence. We Are Seven A little child, dear brother Jem, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? I met a little cottage girl: She was eight years old, she said;…
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Proud to be Protestant
In the few years that I have been an Anglican, I have met a number of people who identify themselves as Anglo-Catholics. What these particular Anglo-Catholics mean by this, of course, is that they are Anglicans who see themselves in unbroken communion with the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” What they do not mean…
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If You’re Not Much of a Hugger…
My colleague Joe Henderson has been in a cave writing a doctoral dissertation. But today, he poked his head out long enough to relay his hesitancy to hug. ‘I’m a handshaker, not a hugger,’ Joe tells me. He’s not alone. Fellow-blogger and colleague Fred Sanders is another non-hugger. For all of you non-huggers, then, and…
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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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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…