tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33849852011-08-21T05:02:00.883-07:00pappy was hereThese are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses;
and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline,
thought and action.
-----T.S. EliotChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.comBlogger3791100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-77450025996521141422009-12-10T11:17:00.000-08:002009-12-10T11:18:26.934-08:00This blog is essentially defunct. Please check out my new Tumblr page.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-4111992921606442082009-09-08T04:12:00.000-07:002009-09-08T04:13:49.180-07:00“It has become customary to classify views on the relation of Christianity to the world religions as either pluralist, exclusivist, or inclusivist… . [My] position is exclusivist in the sense that it affirms the unique truth of the revelation in Jesus Christ, but it is not exclusivist in the sense of denying the possibility of the salvation of the non-Christian. It is inclusivist in the sense Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-14612599358197659352009-08-24T17:04:00.000-07:002009-08-24T17:15:04.221-07:00"Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn't mind it at all: and again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself...I liked it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving God (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-14395567492556483782009-08-24T06:23:00.000-07:002009-08-24T06:27:55.627-07:00"The demands of God are understood in the Reformed tradition as the good gift of God to be received with gratitude, exercised for the welfare of all human beings, and obeyed in confidence that God's grace gives us the ability to do what God's law requires. Law, in other words, is a part of the gospel of saving grace, not something opposed to it or some alternative to it."-----"The Confessional Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-39233151913882434192009-07-19T18:27:00.000-07:002009-07-19T18:28:57.281-07:00“Please do not think that one of these views [i.e. naturalism and supernaturalism] was held a long time ago and that the other has gradually taken its place. Wherever there have been thinking men both views turn up. And not this too. You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-56500894742149424132009-07-17T04:08:00.000-07:002009-07-17T04:24:46.304-07:00"A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.""The economist is inside the squirrel cage and turning with it. Any question about absolute values belongs to the sphere, not of economics, but of religion. And it is very possible that we cannot deal with Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-21128097158473310782009-07-11T07:09:00.000-07:002009-07-11T07:10:34.435-07:00Irish Times Piece on Papal EncyclicalThis is a must read.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-65868758496749886952009-05-24T04:53:00.000-07:002009-05-24T04:54:46.533-07:00 X How can we be so superior to our forebears? The truth will never be complete in any mind or time. It will never be reduced to an explanation. What you have is only a sack of fragments never to be filled: old bones, fossils, pieces of writing, sprawls of junk. You know yourself only poorly and in part, the best and the worst maybe forgotten. However you arrange the bits, Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-12242767408198137282009-05-16T06:14:00.000-07:002009-05-16T06:19:55.619-07:00This made me interested in learning more about Cornel West."West never committed fully to the Black Panthers' view of the world. 'I could never join, because of my Christian faith,' he says. 'You had to be an atheist. My whole life as a person on the left, I've been saying, "I'm with you, but I'm never fully with you, because I'm a Christian." He believes in Marx's radical critique of capitalChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-20522497680352815672009-04-11T06:28:00.001-07:002009-04-11T06:32:25.759-07:00What thou lovest well remains, the rest is drossWhat thou lov'st well shall not be reft from theeWhat thou lov'st well is thy true heritage-----Ezra Pound, excerpt from "The Pisan Cantos"Augustine would be proud.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-14554012531715058442009-03-30T15:12:00.000-07:002009-03-30T15:50:57.188-07:00IN DEFENSE OF "MUSLIM WOMEN'S SWIM TIME"This past Sunday I went to the Princeton University pool to swim after church. I arrived a bit early, around 12:45. The pool wasn't supposed to open until 1pm. When I walked down into the basement of Dillon gym there was a sign on the door, "WOMEN ONLY SWIM, MEN KEEP OUT." Perplexed, I sat down on the steps outside the pool deck and waited for 1pm. NotChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-87089206086668869552009-03-28T14:01:00.000-07:002009-03-28T14:06:13.158-07:00"I felt it in myself, the glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands. To release the energy that fuels the stars. To let it do your bidding. And to perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky, it is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is in some ways responsible Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-64975172735251225122009-03-11T08:12:00.000-07:002009-03-11T08:41:42.182-07:00“Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain, because something that’s dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from.”"I was by myself, wearing nylon warm-up pants and a black Pink Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-21881214732925110292009-03-10T14:43:00.001-07:002009-03-10T14:46:02.299-07:00"Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible. If it were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shaw lived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for a Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-13927703596165077942009-02-25T05:07:00.001-08:002009-02-25T05:14:37.202-08:00I'll be reading through "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" by John Climacus, a 7th Century Eastern monk, for Lent this year. What follows for the next month will consist of a collection of quotations that I like from the work. Feel free to leave comments or add quotations of your own."It is risky to swim in one's clothes. A slave of passion should not dabble in theology.""Anyone trained in chastityChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-70338472846292932062009-02-02T12:09:00.000-08:002009-02-02T12:30:01.240-08:00"Where the evil of the existing order is recognized, revolution is born. The revolutionary would like to overthrow the old order, replacing it with 'justice'. But in that he does so, he too claims for himself that which no human being can claim. He treats the 'right' as a thing which he can control: 'he forgets that he is not the One, the Subject of that freedom for which he thirsts; . . . notChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-31703318333652588532009-01-27T09:19:00.000-08:002009-01-27T10:00:58.736-08:00Tolkien on exegesis. You can see here how he approached Christianity as myth become fact. I find this particularly interesting in light of the incompleteness of modern biblical criticism and the subsequent turn to theological/literary exegesis in biblical studies. It's also a strong argument against the reductions of classical materialism."We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-56211398068594867202009-01-27T07:41:00.000-08:002009-01-27T07:42:02.888-08:00My life before Sarah...Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-66488592682639778922009-01-23T16:18:00.001-08:002009-01-23T16:18:49.583-08:00Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-60850044327841760632008-11-27T09:42:00.000-08:002008-11-27T09:50:11.020-08:00"I wonder whether you are on the right track in expecting 'stable sentiments' and successful adjustment to life.' This is the language of modern psychology rather than of religion or even of common experience, and I sometimes think that when the psychologists speak of adjustment to life they really mean perfect happiness and unbroken good fortune! Not to get - or, worse still, to be- what one Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-19228130684181792992008-11-13T13:56:00.000-08:002008-11-13T13:57:12.391-08:00Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-19811835823565789912008-11-08T06:25:00.001-08:002008-11-08T06:25:22.181-08:00This is brilliant power-pop.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-14486831369688345262008-11-05T04:54:00.000-08:002008-11-05T04:55:08.035-08:00Bingo!Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-47726661588279179812008-10-27T10:04:00.001-07:002008-10-27T10:04:51.537-07:00The Wassup boys are at it again...Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-81825474342754148462008-10-24T19:12:00.000-07:002008-10-24T19:14:19.079-07:00This is beautiful. Reminds me of those Miguel Calderon paintings in the Royal Tenebaums.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-9097285402336120962008-10-22T05:40:00.001-07:002008-10-22T05:40:30.636-07:00Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-85122598714184256352008-10-20T08:07:00.000-07:002008-10-20T08:09:36.536-07:00"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God hasbestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with ahuman being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended tocreate a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-88624347878456569982008-09-25T04:18:00.000-07:002008-09-25T04:24:41.736-07:00"A life in academia formed, deformed and almost ruined David Foster Wallace's writing. Infinite Jest is nearly a thousand pages of exhausting, inexhaustible, hugely flawed and brilliant novel. It is followed by almost a hundred pages of endnotes (his editor made him cut as many again). The endnotes have footnotes. Wallace was, on one level, aware that he was cut off from ordinary America, but theChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-45168113347901870042008-09-05T07:05:00.000-07:002008-09-05T07:13:13.141-07:00A conversation at Brussels Bistro in Laguna Beach last night with John Kittrell.J: "Chris, I'm sorry you missed my friend who is getting his PhD in Dublin in Philosophy of Mind. He was here until yesterday. You would have enjoyed talking to him."C: "Oh really? I'm interested in Philosophy of Mind. Is your friend a cognitive materialist?J: "No! (he said with contempt, and the slamming of a Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-77940941969888547402008-08-21T14:10:00.000-07:002008-08-21T14:24:23.671-07:00"The obvious precedent for Beijing was the Berlin Olympics, in 1936. Both were showcases for a muscle-flexing nation, although Hitler made an elementary error when he chose not to dress his young National Socialists in lime-green catsuits laced with twinkling lights.""[Watching the opening ceremonies, we ask ourselves] what kind of society is it that can afford to make patterns out of its peopleChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-30605507722100692972008-08-15T11:32:00.000-07:002008-08-15T11:57:00.463-07:00Brian Eno sums "it" all up in a few sentences. I couldn't disagree more, but you're either with him or your against him as a modern. There are no other alternatives."I am an anti-Romantic. It's part of being an atheist. It's another version of being an atheist. It's anti...anti this idea that it's outside of us rather than inside of us. I think it's all inside of us. I don't think there's Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-50304687882255397792008-08-05T15:29:00.000-07:002008-08-05T15:32:24.194-07:00"How easy it is to live with You, O Lord.How easy to believe in You.When my spirit is overwhelmed within me,When even the keenest see no further than the night,And know not what to do tomorrow,You bestow on me the certitudeThat You exist and are mindful of me,That all the paths of righteousness are not barred.As I ascend in to the hill of earthly glory,I turn back and gaze, astonished, on the Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-71396863660367786122008-07-27T05:16:00.000-07:002008-07-27T05:23:35.713-07:00James Wood on Bart Ehrman and TheodicyChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-27335943910385259122008-07-17T18:34:00.000-07:002008-07-17T18:36:27.066-07:00Here's a little moment of zen for you. This is Matt Mahaffey (who records under the moniker - "Self") doing "Back In Black" by ACDC at Spaceland with nothing but a mini-moog, a kick drum, snare, high-hat and ride. Pretty hilarious. Matt is currently on tour with Beck if I'm not mistaken.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-73996870260270464202008-06-13T10:22:00.000-07:002008-06-13T10:38:14.796-07:00Alright, now for a silly post. These pics are from Face Transformer.Here I am as an old man:And here I am as a person of West-Asian descent (my personal favorite):Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-66134175086085063212008-06-04T08:30:00.000-07:002008-06-04T08:33:58.343-07:00Anthony Lane does it again...this time his target is the new "Sex and City" film. Brilliantly snarky criticism.Lane ReviewChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-84696137345681377692008-06-04T07:14:00.000-07:002008-06-04T07:27:26.904-07:00Edward Tingley taunts the new atheists with some logic from Pascal in this month's issue of Touchstone. You can find the article Here. Personally, I'm not sure what to make of it. On one hand, I see Tingley's point about the logic of scientific enquiry, but then I wonder about the positive value of going to look for God somewhere else---particularly in some place as nebulous as Pascal's "Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-90511220629634653462008-05-17T14:18:00.000-07:002008-05-17T14:22:18.176-07:00"Everything about you,My life, is bothMake-believe and real.We are a coupleWorking the night shiftIn a bomb factory. ...One can hear the fire engineIn the distance,But not the cries for help,Just the silenceGrowing deeperAt the sight of a small childLeaping out of a windowWith its nightclothes on fire."-----Charles Simic, "Listen"Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-37518377260284650372008-05-15T05:04:00.000-07:002008-05-15T05:38:26.191-07:00After spending the first 200 pages of his new book talking about objections to the gospel and reasons for the gospel, Tim Keller devotes the last few pages to the Christian life. Here are some excerpts. Let me know what you think."How do we respond to this [gospel]? When we look at the whole scope of this story line, we see clearly that Christianity is not only about getting one's individual Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-16091455503217587502008-05-09T06:28:00.000-07:002008-05-09T06:30:53.642-07:00Simultaneous volcanic eruption and electrical storm in Chile. Holy Moses!You can see more HereChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-42408547151069430882008-05-04T13:33:00.000-07:002008-05-04T13:45:17.842-07:00Aaron Rench: "In the chapter on poetry and religion you start off by saying, 'Art is like Christianity in this way; at its greatest, it can give you access to the deepest suffering you imagine.' Would you say this is why art resists sentimentalism?"Christian Wiman: "Well, the adjective is important there: greatest. I was trying to point out how the highest moments of art can at once enact our Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-13769925989773277152008-04-27T14:44:00.000-07:002008-04-27T14:47:15.599-07:00Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you good tidings! The Hobbit movie is on, as well as a sequel!! Del Toro will direct, and Jackson/Walsh will produce (hopefully they'll write too!).Check it out hereChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-23708782840444444632008-04-20T10:36:00.001-07:002008-04-20T10:37:25.527-07:00It was a toss up between Kings of Leon and Wilco for best album of 2007, but I have to give it up to the Kings for growing leaps and bounds over their previous efforts. Enjoy this tasty live performance of "Arizona."Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-15270618695558065282008-04-05T06:46:00.001-07:002008-04-05T06:48:31.860-07:00Bobby Kennedy's Speech On the Night MLK DiedChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-41667628817175205502008-04-01T16:23:00.000-07:002008-04-01T16:25:42.416-07:00This is one of my all time favorite Radiohead tracks, "Maquillador." It was a Bends-era B-side. The video is poor, but it's worth it to me to hear this song live. Great stuff. 1994!Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-69751892545725445102008-03-28T10:12:00.001-07:002008-03-28T10:12:44.176-07:00Classic Stewart - What's wrong with cable news...Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-69432337169672451912008-03-18T11:10:00.001-07:002008-03-18T11:11:27.967-07:00"A More Perfect Union," Barack addresses issues of race from Philadelphia.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-18605804583768090372008-02-16T11:35:00.000-08:002008-02-16T11:38:21.889-08:00"What belonged to the theater was brought into the church, and what belonged to the church into the theater. The better Christian feelings were held up in comedies to the sneer of the multitude. Everything was so changed into light jesting, that earnestness was stripped of its worth by wit, and that which is holy became a subject for banter and scoffing in the refined conversation of worldly Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-24090046237983251882008-01-30T05:32:00.000-08:002008-01-30T05:35:38.699-08:00Yes, at Princeton Seminary we really do have too much time on our hands, and too much Karl Barth on the brain. Check out this video spoof of Lazy Sunday. Pay special attention for the hip-hop duo of Schleiermacher and Hegel, as well as the "Orthodoxy" Betty Crocker spoon. Too much.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-43814746427544199472008-01-28T06:01:00.000-08:002008-01-28T06:04:26.534-08:00Scholars from around the world have finally weighed in on the Talpiot Tomb, the so-called "Jesus Family Tomb." Take a look at this article from Princeton for more information.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-58009803244086346652008-01-22T12:47:00.000-08:002008-01-22T12:58:39.037-08:00N.T. Wright recently wrote a critique and encomium for C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity over at Touchstone. Check it out. I think it's an interesting analysis. Another eminent Anglican, J.I. Packer, wrote something similar about Lewis many years ago, which you can find Here. I think it's interesting to compare what each of these authors appreciated and/or found distressing in Lewis.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-61943860945941777652008-01-07T08:20:00.000-08:002008-01-07T08:23:08.178-08:00"The professorship is something to which some of us are called by God---in the classic sense of Luther and Calvin, such that if we do not do it, we would be acting disobediently."-----Nicholas WolterstorffChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-59377319594690373622007-12-20T11:32:00.000-08:002007-12-20T11:38:06.697-08:00Six Beatitudes for Exegetes: Cribbed from Beverly Gaventa's lecture this morning....Blessed are the visionary (those who look at the text)Blessed are the eavesdroppers (those who pay attention to what people say, and how they say it)Blessed are the readers for they will have words for the WordBlessed are the day dreamers (they take the time to wonder imaginatively about the text)Blessed are the Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-83377116526002532772007-12-12T14:19:00.001-08:002007-12-12T14:25:53.062-08:00As elated as I was to see Led Zeppelin on stage together again, I must say, it's not Zeppelin without Bonzo. His son is good, but has nowhere near the feel of his father. Bonzo had funk and soul, and you can't mimic that with technical ability alone. So let's all take a moment to appreciate his greatness in memoriam.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-36415028515799219802007-12-07T09:41:00.000-08:002007-12-07T09:46:57.259-08:00E.B. White on Thoreau's Walden,"I was glad to learn from one of the notes that Thoreau was thirty-six years old before he discovered that he was tying his shoes with a granny knot. A man must take courage from something these days, while tying his shoes, and that is as buoyant a thought as any."-----E.B. White, from "Writings from the New Yorker: 1927-1976"Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-87969826414555432082007-12-03T18:12:00.000-08:002007-12-03T18:16:23.627-08:00Radiohead recently posted a number of live tracks via webcast. They can all be found on youtube now. This is "Headmaster's Ritual" by the Smiths. They also cover Bjork and New Order/Joy Division, as well as playing a couple of their own tunes.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-64886472016869948042007-12-02T15:44:00.000-08:002007-12-02T15:52:01.010-08:00""Justice is turned back,and righteousness stands at adistance;for truth stumbles in the public square,and uprightness cannot enter.Truth is lacking,and whoever turns from evil is despoiled.The LORD saw it, and it displeased Himthat there was no justice.He saw that there was no one,and was appalled that there was noone to intervene."-----Isaiah 58:14-16 NRSVChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-21831720754856853652007-11-23T06:07:00.000-08:002007-11-23T06:26:25.405-08:00We recently had a discussion in class regarding sanctification. Drawing three distinctions between Natural Theology (we have the power in Christ to do the good now and are made perfect through our works), Reformed theology (we are hopeless sinners, but we can limpingly progress toward our final destination in the power of the Holy Spirit, and should make some effort to that effect, though Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-76654678497571803672007-11-19T07:46:00.000-08:002007-11-19T07:59:26.693-08:00Until this morning I had no idea that "wintry mix" was an actual category of weather. I thought the phrase was just a catch-all for rain mixed with snow. I suppose in some sense that is true, that it really does practically function as a catch-all for the nightly news, but when I stepped out this morning and noticed that what I thought was rain was actually really tiny bits of ice (not hail, Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-84765917826922846832007-11-17T07:58:00.000-08:002007-11-17T08:36:43.770-08:00I just watched a really interesting movie on Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian philosopher/sociologist operating with a sort of Marxist/Lacanian method. While perhaps ultimately frustrating, his work seems to serve as an helpful analysis of why we philosophize, ie. what it means for us to say such-and-such. I won't attempt to define him anymore broadly than that in a blog post, but suffice it to say, Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-39701282414705046472007-11-11T11:34:00.001-08:002007-11-11T11:34:57.007-08:00"It was always assumed that the classics were a good line of work for me because I had a decent voice and the right nose. But anybody who comes from an essentially cynical European society is going to be bewitched by the sheer enthusiasm of the New World. And in America, the articulate use of language is often regarded with suspicion. Especially in the West. Look at the president. He could Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-20859604501368323312007-11-05T19:12:00.000-08:002007-11-15T12:13:24.517-08:00I don't know if you've been following the latest kerfuffle over Antony Flew's recent conversion to Aristotelean Deism or not, but you might want to check out Mark Oppenheimer's Article in last Sunday's NYT Magazine. Then, after reading that, you can bip-on-over to Victor Reppert's blog to see Varghese's Letter to the Editor of the NYT in response. You can also read more at Richard Carrier's Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-61804873336505070702007-10-29T14:21:00.001-07:002007-10-29T14:38:37.606-07:00I love the Irish. They have great ale, good cheese and onion slices. We went to the city this weekend and had beers at McSorley's, my favorite American ale house. Mmmm.In other news, the Coen brothers and Cormac McCarthy gave a joint interview recently. I haven't been able to find footage of it, but you can read a transcript (not sure if it's the whole thing) here, and the photo has the mostChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-60770847979883647372007-10-24T13:19:00.001-07:002007-10-24T13:23:55.518-07:00Ginger graciously offered a couple tickets to the Pumpkin's show in Philadelphia last night. It was great. I drove down with a buddy from Princeton and we sat in the 7th row. Good times. Click on the images for larger files.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-31798174488866413362007-10-22T08:00:00.000-07:002007-10-22T08:02:48.700-07:00Fall is officially here! These are the trees right behind our apartment.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-55326839411374055892007-10-21T11:17:00.001-07:002007-10-21T11:46:45.866-07:00It's reading week here at Princeton. For some that means it's Fall break. For me it means sitting in the library doing exegetical work on 1 Thessalonians 4:4. I'm looking at the Greek word "skeuos" (skoo-Os), which can mean alternately: vessel, body, member, or wife. It sounds boring right? Well, I'm loving it. You'd think, oh tedium, but I spent six hours in the library reading a bunch of Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-28670474204040447632007-10-13T05:53:00.000-07:002007-10-13T05:56:18.490-07:00Friends, this is one of my favorite charities. Go to Todd's Page for more info on the help they need.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-12858884629644130772007-10-01T13:14:00.000-07:002007-10-01T13:20:11.464-07:00Some of you have been asking what it's like here at Princeton Seminary. I think this quotation from Richard of St. Victor about sums it up. It might shock you to learn that Princeton is very much about the development of piety. This is an excerpt from one of my assigned readings."It is vain that we grow in riches of divine knowledge unless by them the fire of love is increased in us. For loveChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-56921945466788578482007-06-11T08:45:00.000-07:002007-06-11T08:48:57.813-07:00"Kant's critique of the classical proofs for the existence of God may be more of an asset to theology than has often been recognized. For it permits theology to turn its attention from strong rational proofs, on the model of basic science, to a softer rationality that views transcendent knowledge as reliable though mutable. This broader view of reason may help theology reclaim its distinctive Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-65270481917785855312007-06-09T10:58:00.001-07:002007-06-09T11:01:51.090-07:00"We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-87593316110057687962007-06-08T09:09:00.000-07:002007-06-08T09:12:50.984-07:00"O Lord, let Thy mercy be upon usWho have hoped in thee.O Lord, in Thee have I hoped;May I never be confounded."-----Augustine/Ambrose, late 4th century, baptismal hymn "Te Deum"Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-10331166390192446892007-06-07T10:36:00.000-07:002007-06-07T10:52:26.751-07:00"Knowing God rightly, in, through, and as Jesus Christ, believers can confidently 'seek the things that are above' (3:1). Knowing the good news of salvation (indicative mode), believers are to live a life clothed with love (imperative mode; 3:14). The command follows the proclamation of the good news as a consequence and never as a condition. This order is not reversible. Reverse it, and the Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-36421095527901428652007-06-05T08:19:00.000-07:002007-06-05T08:29:43.440-07:00"We must...go deeper than the half-twilight that has fallen over our culture at the end of the modern age. The lack of purpose, meaning, and pattern, which all our study of the natural world and society and the human psyche proclaim, should have made evident to this age that we cannot find life-giving truth and meaning by examining again and again nature, society, and the human psyche. The onlyChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-4227460735568993542007-05-31T16:45:00.000-07:002007-05-31T16:51:49.247-07:00Here's an interesting interview with Dave Bazan, of Pedro The Lion fame. I wrote an article on him some time ago you can find it here and I think I pretty much got the story straight.I like what he has to say about creativity and apologetics in the context of art ,for the Christian.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-38391333444375735742007-05-31T08:35:00.000-07:002007-05-31T08:45:45.155-07:00Earlier this year, the head of the Evangelical Theological Society, Francis Beckwith, announced that he'd re-entered communion with the Roman Catholic church. For many Protestant Evangelicals, this move was tantamount to apostasy, and the uproar over this guy has, at times, been deafening. This morning an acquaintance forwarded to me an interview with Beckwith where Beckwith talks about some ofChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-72013314728832049732007-05-25T11:34:00.000-07:002007-05-25T11:38:20.263-07:00I love Radiohead, and I wish they'd harken back to being a pop/rock band. I love the experimenal stuff too, but unrealeased tracks like this make me long for the Bends days. . .Enjoy it.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-59806491392000912962007-05-19T15:49:00.000-07:002007-05-19T16:00:37.397-07:00excerpts from this week's New Yorker....Anthony Lane on Nicolas Sarkozy: "Awaiting your hero for more than two hours is no hardship to the faithful; standing for two hours without earplugs, however, while the cream of soft Euro-rock is hosed into your consciousness, is another matter."Norman Mailer on losing his memory as he gets older: "It's awful--I'm absolutely without detail memory now. I Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-80464577065474901092007-05-15T18:49:00.000-07:002007-05-16T09:02:40.695-07:00Wikipedia. . .democracy in action or Colbert's "truthiness" in action? Both?For those of you not in the know, Wikipedia generates encyclopedic definitions by way of general consensus. That is, what passes for truth on Wikipedia is none other than the overwhelming opinions of the majority of people who decide to care enough to write and critique the work of others. . . on Wikipedia. At first Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-44633418072184137522007-05-07T09:43:00.000-07:002007-05-07T09:45:18.255-07:00this is too funny.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-766249587944067072007-05-03T07:55:00.000-07:002007-05-03T07:57:15.742-07:00“The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.”-----Albert EinsteinChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-78412640059963609452007-05-01T09:44:00.000-07:002007-05-01T09:50:54.855-07:00My new personal goal is to read (in this order) Robert Fagles' translations of Homer's Odessey and Virgil's Aeneid and then move onto Dorothy Sayer's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Anyone interested in joining me for some discussion around these three books and how each successive one builds on the other?Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-73692127816524279372007-04-26T11:06:00.000-07:002007-04-26T11:09:13.318-07:00McLuhan vs. MailerCheck out this google video with McLuhan and Mailer. Good stuff, especially watching it 40 years later! Who wins in hindsight?Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-27334050327936834322007-04-24T07:25:00.000-07:002007-04-24T07:45:38.807-07:00"Around 1965, I went to church and heard a priest describe Vietnam as a holy war. That's when I walked out. Something told me he's dead wrong."-----Martin Scorsese, from Rolling Stone interview (40th Anniversary edition)Why we continue to ascribe God's name to ventures that run counter to His explicitly stated desires is beyond me. I wonder how many others have shut the door on God for similarChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-71522537156804512672007-04-04T09:55:00.000-07:002007-04-04T10:00:33.575-07:00"It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy."-----Czeslaw Milosz, from "The Captive Mind"Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-53023998756582768092007-04-01T15:47:00.000-07:002007-04-02T10:22:54.051-07:00"As I see it, it probably really is good for the soul to be a tourist, even if it's only once in a while. Not good for the soul in a refreshing or enlivening way, though , but rather in a grim, steely-eyed, let's-look-honestly-at-the-facts-and-find-some-way-to-deal-with-them way. My personal experience has not been that traveling around the country is broadening or relaxing, or that radical Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-10409191253632107512007-03-31T08:09:00.000-07:002007-03-31T08:31:15.480-07:00"We come here from Georgia. Our family did. Horse and wagon. I pretty much know that for a fact. I know they's a lots of things in a family history that just plain ain't so. Any family. The stories get passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the sayin goes. Which I reckon some would take as meanin that the truth can't compete. But I don't believe that. I think that when the lies Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-37831035788810992952007-03-21T12:25:00.000-07:002007-03-21T12:27:10.757-07:00“We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”-----W.H. AudenChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-81549428978809593672007-03-20T08:48:00.000-07:002007-03-20T08:54:10.735-07:00"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." -----Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech in Washington, April 16, 1953Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-8392193133086498562007-03-04T15:12:00.001-08:002007-03-04T15:19:50.712-08:00"I ask you! [Lewis] put away three pints in a very short session we had this morning, and said he was 'going short for Lent.'"-----J.R.R. Tolkien forcefully responding to an article in the Daily Telegraph that characterized his friend C.S. Lewis as the "ascetic Mr. Lewis."Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-73721165521269525762007-02-15T11:24:00.001-08:002007-02-15T11:27:20.452-08:00"I think the trouble with me is lack of faith. I have no rational ground for going back on the arguments that convinced me of God's existence: but the irrational deadweight of my old sceptical habits, and the spirit of this age, and the cares of the day, steal away all my lively feeling of the truth, and often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existant address. Mind you I Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-91981361110515387532007-02-06T15:55:00.000-08:002007-02-06T16:04:09.597-08:00"To interpret the Bible truly, then, we must do more than string together individual propositions like beads on a string. This takes us only as far as fortune cookie theology, to a practice of breaking open Scripture in order to find the message contained within. What gets lost in propositionalist interpretation are the circumstances of the statement, its poetic and affective elements, and evenChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-79398187309064648582007-02-03T15:37:00.000-08:002007-02-03T15:39:08.986-08:00Three cheers for the new democratic congress signing off on unprecedented debt relief and benefits packages for Africa. You can read about it here. Finally someone is funding Bush's commitment!Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-8098599396446716162007-02-02T11:11:00.000-08:002007-02-02T11:15:12.549-08:00The tremulous scrupulosity of those who are obsessed with pleasures they love and fear narrows their souls and makes it impossible for them to get away from their own flesh. They have tried to become spiritual by worrying about the flesh, and as a result they are haunted by it. They have ended in the flesh because they began in it, and the fruit of their anxious asceticism is that they "use Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-80601969983158616382007-01-24T08:18:00.001-08:002007-01-24T08:18:35.953-08:00According to the "Which Big Lebowski character are you?" quiz:Why don't you check it out? Or we cut off your Johnson!Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-5570736786863893622006-12-29T12:01:00.000-08:002006-12-29T12:16:01.921-08:00"By the very cogent anthropology of Judeo-Christianity, whether or not one agreed with it, human existence was by no means to be understood as the transaction of a higher organism satisfying this or that need from its environment---by being 'creative' or enjoying 'meaningful relationships'--- but as the journey of a wayfarer along life's way. The experience of alienation was thus not a symptom Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-31301242164846183702006-12-19T16:01:00.000-08:002006-12-19T16:06:01.427-08:00"Since the modern world began in the sixteenth century, nobody's system of philosophy has really corresponded to everybody's sense of reality; to what, if left to themselves, common men would call common sense. Each started with a paradox; a peculiar point of view demanding the sacrifice of what they would call a sane point of view. That is the one thing common to Hobbes and Hegel, to Kant and Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-56947060987328532122006-12-02T20:29:00.000-08:002006-12-02T20:46:29.065-08:00"Only Jesus himself is the truth, the whole story of him. He will not let us settle for any truth less than that, tidier than that, easier than that. And the truth seems to be that if he is indeed everybody's best friend the way the old Jesus hymns proclaim, he is at the same time everybody's worst enemy. He is the enemy, at least, of everything in us that keeps us from giving him what he is Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-1164657842693144242006-11-27T11:58:00.000-08:002006-11-27T12:04:02.710-08:00"Jesus Christ is too important to be left to the theologians.""Everybody else is an expert on the present. I wish to file a minority report on behalf of the past.""Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."-----Jaroslav Pelican 1923-2006Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-1163093251518580102006-11-09T09:24:00.000-08:002006-11-14T14:15:19.493-08:00"Being, belief and reason are pure relations, which cannot be dealt with absolutely, and are not things but pure scholastic concepts, signs for understanding, not for worshipping, aids to awaken our attention, not to fetter it.""Every philosophy consists of certain and uncertain knowledge, of idealism and realism, of sensuousness and deductions. Why should only the uncertain be called belief? "--Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3384985.post-1162167057924931112006-10-29T16:00:00.000-08:002006-11-14T14:19:03.630-08:00"The majority [of people today] are left with their two poor values of personal peace and affluence. With such values, will men stand for their liberties? Will they not give up their liberties step by step, inch by inch, as long as their own personal peace and prosperity is sustained and not challenged, and as long as the goods are delivered?And since personal peace and affluence are so often Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01007093069888736130noreply@blogger.com1