Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.Manners, Humility, and Dignity
The author, George W. Rutler, is Catholic–but his topic is universally human. And worth considering in an age of increasing brutality.
What Has Happened to English Departments?
Finnegan Schick explains at the New Criterion.
Faculty have “dismembered” their curricula, Stanford English Professor William Chace argued in The American Scholar, supplementing traditional classes with a smattering of “themed” courses. These new courses raise questions of gender and racial identity, sexuality and popular culture, at the expense of a foundational syllabus already equipped to answer these very questions. The English canon is a wellspring of wisdom, yet many academics dismiss the classics in favor of more contemporary or marginal literatures.
Incidentally, now that the university professors have left English for ideology, Christian colleges and universities have a platinum opportunity to salvage the best of the discipline. It may well be that Christian institutions can preserve learning through the next dark age, much as the monasteries did through the last one.
More than Blog Posts
Michael Kruger lists academic articles on the origins of the New Testament canon.
Hymns Didn’t Come from Drinking Songs
So says Jonathan Aigner at Ponder Anew. The essay includes a long string of Twitter exchanges. And it’s worth reading.
It’s a poor argument, and a lousy excuse for using any disposable ditty available to entertain people in Jesus’ trademarked name.
Chesterton on Modernity and Hair
Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home: because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution. That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.
Conclusion to What’s Wrong With the World
Why Jesus Needed the Holy Spirit
Nick Batzig explains for Reformation 21.
While the human nature of Jesus was inseparably united to the Divine nature of the second Person of the Godhead, Jesus needed to live a perfectly sinless life in the power and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It was not sufficient for Him–as the second Adam and representative of a new humanity–to merely live according to His Divine nature. What we need as fallen men is a human Redeemer who would gain a human holiness for His people and would die a human death in their place
Only In Minnesota . . .
. . . The North Shore, with Split Rock Lighthouse and Gooseberry Falls.
For Tolkien Fans . . .
All twenty-something verses of “Far Over Misty Mountains Cold,” sung to Howard Shore’s music by Clamavi De Profundis. Hat tip to middlingpoet.
The Cell of Saint Columba?
Columba is remembered as the Irish missionary who did much to evangelize the Picts in northern Scotland. Archaeologists have identified a site in Iona that dates to the time of Columba and that they believe may have been the cell where he prayed and wrote. You can read the story at Atlas Obscura.
The missionary was also a hymn writer. Here is a fragment of his most famous hymn, Altus Prosator, as translated by Samuel Stone.
High Creator, Unbegotten,
Ancient of Eternal days,
Unbegun ere all beginning,
Him, the world’s one source, we praise:
God who is, and God who shall be :
All that was and is before:
Him with Christ the Sole-Begotten,
And the Spirit we adore,
Co-eternal, one in glory,
Evermore and evermore:—
Not Three Gods are They we worship,
But the Three which are the One,
God, in Three most glorious Persons :—
Other saving Faith is none.
All good angels and archangels,
Powers and Principalities,
Virtues, Thrones, His will created—
Grades and orders of the skies,
That the majesty and goodness
Of the Blessed Trinity
In its ever bounteous largesse
Never might inactive be;
Having thus wherewith to glory,
All the wide world might adore
The high Godhead’s sole-possession
Everywhere and evermore.
Darnell Weeden on Marriage Equality and Religious Liberty
Writing for the Southern Illinois University Law Journal, Darnell Weeden argues that
Religious freedom, a long-standing right protected by the Free Exercise Clause, has become significantly diluted by the enhanced protection of marriage equality rights that restrict religiously motivated conduct.
In the Nick of Time
Final thoughts on the FBFI and the NTAIBC.
How to Wear a Polo Shirt
And here I thought I knew. There’s a good tutorial at The Art of Manliness.
AIG Reclaims the Rainbow
Read Ben Zornes’s comments here.
So, the Ark Encounter exhibit has marvelously trolled this deep conviction of the GQBLT tolerance crowd. Do they really have respect for all cultures, including Christian culture? If so, why have they appropriated Christian culture and used it contrary to our “deeply held beliefs”? If dressing up in a hijab, or blackface, or warbonnets, or gangster garb is so offensive, shouldn’t they show more respect to such a sacred component of Christian culture, doctrine, and symbolism?
Introducing Christopher Dawson
If you’re a conservative–or even if you just think you are–Christopher Dawson is one of the names with which you should become familiar. The Imaginative Conservative has published a long-form article by Russell Hittinger that serves as a useful introduction.
As one sits in the pews of many Christian churches today, he has his attention called to world-historical issues: to the “new” historical moment of the nuclear arms race; to the movements for social justice in the Third World; to the struggle to liberate men and women from structures of “patriarchal oppression;” and, in general, his attention is called to all sorts of momentous issues which are linked together by hyphens along what Kierkegaard called the “prodigious railroad” of world history. Rather than being addressed as individuals who need to cultivate the virtue of justice—as well as the other interior excellences of the soul—we are all too often invited from the pulpit to jump aboard the caboose of the train of world history lest it pass us by altogether.
A New Hymn
Actually, an old psalm (Psalm 122), newly metricized. Along with a reflection on Jerusalem.
Jewish Baptistery Discovered Under Al-Aqsa Mosque
Back in 1927 an earthquake damaged the Al-Aqsa mosque, which occupies the Temple Mount. During the repairs Robert Hamilton, a British archaeologist, was allowed to sift through the rubble, but he was forced to hide much of what he found. Certain artifacts were hidden away, but have now come to light as part of the Antiquities Authority archives at the Rockefeller Museum. Among other things, it appears that the Al-Aqsa mosque is built over the site of a mikveh, a baptismal pool in which Jewish worshippers would immerse before entering the temple.
More recent discoveries indicate that a Byzantine church occupied the temple mount before the Muslims built the Al-Aqsa mosque. Evidently these discoveries are creating a bit of a stir. Read the entire story at Israel Hayom.
Hechinger Report Argues for More Homeschooling Recognition
“Despite Opposition, Homeschooling Is Thriving.” So writes William Heuer in an opinion piece that was even acknowledged by Education Week.
Homeschooling has been legal in all 50 states since 1993. Yet relatively little information is made available to parents about homeschooling as an option. In Massachusetts, for example, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education lists and links to all private and parochial schools in the commonwealth. Yet its website provides no equivalent links to statewide homeschooling organizations. Why leave out valuable information that could assist families when making educational decisions?
The Vice President’s Speech on Israel
To Christians United for Israel. The full text is here. It’s mostly good politics. Theologically? Well, there’s this:
Ezekiel prophesized: “Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.” And the State of Israel and her people bear witness to God’s faithfulness, as well as their own.
How unlikely was Israel’s birth, how more unlikely has been her survival, and how confounding, against the odds, has been her thriving.
Bill Barrick’s Book Recommendation of the Week
See it here. And I’ll add my endorsement. This is one of the books that are tedious to read, but necessary to understand.
19 Odd Musical Instruments
Most defy any brief names. See them at Atlas Obscura.
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