E-SUPPLEMENT TO THE JOURNAL FOR CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS THEORY
The following is the first lecture in an eight lecture series. A couple of days ago, I read a column in a national newspaper whose title had a strange attraction on me. It read, “Only theologians really understand religion.” Deep within me this must have struck a chord, though at the same time I was […]
The following is the second part in a two-part installment. The first part can be found here. On Epistemology Postmodern thinking is generally suspicious against post-Enlightenment epistemological projects, which aim to achieve objective knowledge. Postmoderns typically deny the possibility of having neutral “God’s point of view” or “a view from nowhere” to things. Instead, our […]
The following is the first installment of a two-part series. Recently, Martin Luther and the Lutheran Reformation has received heavy criticism in various theological and philosophical circles. In many scholarly treatments of the history of western philosophy and culture, Reformation has been treated as one step on a trajectory from nominalist revolution to liberal Protestantism, […]
I am told by Zizek—as well as Hegelian friends—that any attempt to argue or disagree with Hegel fits nicely within his dialectical scheme. “Oh, you disagree with Hegel,” they say, “so you agree with him?” As Zizek warns, even Gilles Deleuze’s “generalized anti-Hegelianism” “…is much more ambiguous than it may appear: the elevation of Hegel […]
Pious Irreverence: Confronting God in Rabbinic Judaism. Weiss, Dov. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. ISBN 9780812293050. Hardcover, ebook. ix+291 pages. Pious Irreverence opens with a quote from America’s favorite fictional president, Josiah Bartlet of The West Wing. After the funeral of his friend and personal secretary, Dolores Landingham, Bartlet asks for some time alone […]
In the Christian Antiquity and later on during the Middle Ages, there was neither separation nor much distinction between the theological and the political matters. It was common that theological doctrines induced political philosophy and practice, and vice versa. Theological interpretations of the Incarnation as they developed during the Late Antiquity, had political extrapolations and […]
The following is the second part in a two-part installment. The first part can be found here. III. Prayer As Confession: Thinking in love This abandonment is not a permanent void; rather, it demonstrates the Eckhartian notion of leaving behind beings not because they are insufficient, but because they are allusions, traces, references to love.[1] […]
The following is the first part in a two-part installment. Metaphysics is onto-theo-logy. Someone who has experienced theology in his own roots, both the theology of the Christian faith and that of philosophy, would today rather remain silent when speaking in the realm of thinking. – Martin Heidegger, “The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics”[1] …if there […]
The following is the second part in a two-part installment. The first part can be found here. A Kearnian Reading of the Lukan John In Kearnian terms, then, the John portrayed by Luke is one who has a special, though not as paradigmatically unique as Jesus’, openness of persona to the God of possibility. Might […]
The following is the first installment of a two-part series. The wild hair, the scratchy clothing, the grit and body odor, and the exotic diet. All of these images typically come to mind when one mentions John the Baptist. He is a cartoonishly fiery, angry (and a wee bit insane) prophet railing against the system […]