Category Archive: Miscellaneous
Return of Jeff Meyers
It’s good to see Jeff Meyers blogging again. His new blog is entitled Cacoethes Scribendi”. Already, he has posted a number of very good items, among them
* “Ordination for Life?” examines the popular idea that a man may continue to be ordained and should continue to be regarded as a pastor even when he has been deposed or has left the ministry.
* “Abba in Gal. 4:6” rejects the idea that “Abba” means “Daddy,” and asks why Gal. 4:6 would include two words for “father” back to back.
* “Pure Unadulterated Theological Speculation” provides some interesting thoughts on the doctrine of the Trinity drawn from Hans Urs von Balthasar.
* “Subscription and Freedom” looks at confessional subscription and the freedom of exegesis and includes some very helpful stuff from John Calvin’s life.
* “My Testimony,” in particular, is must reading, especially for people who were baptized as infants, grew up in the church, and have been told that their early experience was probably not genuine.
Good stuff! Welcome back, Jeff.
Reading Silently
Recently, I’ve been reading C. S. Lewis’s The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. In an earlier life, I was an English major with a strong interest in medieval and Renaissance literature, and though I don’t get to do as much study in literature as I would like my interest has not evaporated.
I’ve long wanted to read through Lewis’s works, and this one aroused a sense of nostalgia for the days when I was studying Chaucer under Dr. Stephen Reimer and Shakespeare under Dr. James Forrest at the University of Alberta. In it, Lewis discusses the rise of “courtly love” and medieval allegorical poetry before examining The Romance of the Rose and works by Chaucer, Gower, Usk, and Spenser.
In the course of that discussion, Lewis touches on a number of other topics. This side-comment I found particularly interesting:
But perhaps there is no writer who admits us so intimately into the heart of that age as Augustine. Sometimes he does so by accident, as when he comments on the fact — to him, apparently, remarkable — that Ambrose, when reading to himself, read silently. You could see his eyes moving, but you could hear nothing. In such a passage one has the solemn privilege of being present at the birth of a new world. Behind us is that almost unimaginable period, so relentlessly objective that in it even “reading” (in our sense) did not exist. The book was still a logos, a speech; thinking was still dialegesthai, talking. Before us is our own world, the world of the printed or written page, and of the solitary reader who is accustomed to pass hours in the silent society of mental images evoked by written characters (pp. 64-65; I’ve transliterated the Greek, because I can’t do Greek font on this blog yet).
Welcome
In January 2003, I had the opportunity to spend a weekend in Ruston, Louisiana, visiting with Jeff Steel and his family. Jeff was the pastor of the PCA in Ruston. While I was there, I also met a young man named B. J. Kennedy. For a while, B. J. had a blog, to which I linked, but one day the blog was no more.
Yesterday, I discovered that B. J. is back. His new blog is entitled Canterbury Trail. What’s more, Jeff Steel is also blogging. Jeff is now in Durham, England, preparing to start doctoral work on the Eucharistic theology of Lancelot Andrewes. Jeff’s blog will probably be more theological; his wife Rhea’s blog will probably provide more news about the family.
Welcome to the blogging world, Jeff and Rhea, and welcome back, B. J.!
Americans Speeding
As I entered Canada last Friday afternoon, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a sign urging American drivers to “Thinkmetric,” complete with that cute little “km” in the centre. The thing I found especially interesting, however, was the example posted on that sign:
60 mph is 90 kmh
Um…. Not quite. In fact, 60 miles per hour is much closer to 100 kilometres per hour. So if a policeman stops an American tourist who is going 100 in a 90 zone, may the American point out that the fault really lies with the sign at the border? After all, it told him that whenever he saw the 90 kmh sign he could go 60 mph, right?
Type & Antitype
The upcoming Christ Church Ministerial Conference looks great. It’s entitled Type and Antitype: Seeing Christ in All of Scripture. Here’s the line-up:
Douglas Wilson
* Reading the Old Testament with New Testament Eyes: The Necessity of Typology
* The Second Adam and the New Eve
* Hebrews: A New Testament DeuteronomyDouglas Jones
* Reading Pictures
* Practicing the ImaginationPeter Leithart
* Destroy This Temple: Typology of the Sanctuary
* A Ram Without Blemish: Typology of the Offerings
* Death and Resurrection of David: Typology and Structure of 1-2 KingsJeff Meyers
* A Trinitarian Typology of History: Discerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Hebrew History
* My Father Was a Wandering Moralist: How to Hear and Read the Gospels
* The Da Vinci Code Be Damned: A Typological Reading of Mary Magdalene
Last year’s conference on the Trinity was great, and I’m definitely looking forward to this one!
Self-Made Men
Though we love to think of ourselves as self-made people, in our better moments we know that who we are is a gift — the sum of the countless gifts we have been given by God and other people. As the great preacher Paul Scherer once said, “I’ve always lived my life in the red — a debtor to others who have given me so much.” (A person who claimed to be “self-made” was once called, by a preacher of my acquaintance, a man built by unskilled labor.) — William Willimon, “Gospel Stories: A Preacher’s Voice,” Christian Century 110.3 (Jan. 27, 1993): 76.
Starting to Write
Our first efforts with the pen are servile imitations. It requires much experience and exercise of writing before we can write like ourselves, and not like our favourite author, the newspaper, a Government form, or the advertisement on the outside of a cereal packet. — Austin Farrer, A Study in St Mark, p. 32.
DougWils.com
He’s been doing something like blogging in Credenda for some time, but now he has a website. Welcome, Doug, to the world of blogging.
Real Genius
Another snippet from Borges‘ “Autobiographical Essay.” He’s been talking about a friend of his, a philosopher and conversationalist of a rather eccentric bent:
Macedonio was fond of composing small oral catalogs of people of genius, and in one of them I was amazed to find the name of a very lovable lady of our acquaintance, Quica Gonzalez Acha de Tomkinson Alvear. I stared at him open-mouthed. I somehow did not think Quica ranked with Hume and Schopenhauer. But Macedonio said, “Philosophers have had to try and explain the universe, while Quica simply feels and understands it.” He would turn to her and ask, “Quica, what is Being?” Quica would answer, “I don’t know what you mean, Macedonio.” “You see,” he would say to me, “she understands so perfectly that she cannot even grasp the fact that we are puzzled.” This was his proof of Quica’s being a woman of genius. When I later told him he might say the same of a child or a cat, Macedonio took it angrily (pp. 229-230).
Speeches
All long programmes, on political or other occasions, are a mistake. It is utterly an error, for instance, to suppose that because the list is long the individual speakers will make short speeches. People never make short speeches. A short speech is a rare, romantic, heroic exploit, much more uncommon than a religious martyrdom or a VC [Victoria Cross, awarded for bravery in the face of the enemy]. When people are on their legs (as they always say) you will find it very difficult to get them off their legs, except by pulling them off. I have seen many meetings — political, religious, irreligious, festive, funereal, and even financial. And I can with a clear conscience lay it down, as the outcome of all human experience, that there are in this world of ours only two kinds of speakers. There are two public orators and no third. The first is the man who is making a good speech and won’t finish. The second is the man who is making a bad speech and can’t finish. The latter is the longer. — G. K. Chesterton, “On Long Speeches and Truth,” The Illustrated London News, February 24, 1906.
=) =O =)
While I know that our bodies are designed by God and that, strictly speaking, there are no design flaws … have you ever noticed that you can’t whistle and smile at the same time?
View From Peniel
Now that Jon Amos has let the cat out of the bag, I can point you to the blog I’ve been wanting to share with you for the last month and a half, namely Peter Leithart’s View from Peniel. He’s been blogging several times a day, it seems, so you have a lot of catching up to do. Enjoy!
And while I’m recommending new blogs, let me also point you to Kevin Bywater’s homepage and to his blog, By Living Waters. Kevin works for Summit Ministries, and now he’s off to the University of Durham to do a doctorate on Romans 1.