Elshtain, Billy Graham, 9/11

"Finally, the Reverend Billy Graham, dean of American evangelism, reminded us of the fog of history's unfolding in his remarks at the service in the National Cathedral for the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance on September 14, 2001. Reverend Graham insisted that he did not know the answer to why God allows tragedy, and that there is a mystery at the heart of this question. September 11 did teach some lessons, however--lessons about 'the mystery of iniquity and evil, but, secondly, it's a lesson about our need for each other,' and in this need lies hope. This may be the only true Christian message to have come out of the horror of that day--a message of hope and human solidarity."

Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War Against Terror (New York: Basic, 2003), p. 123.

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Cultural pessimism and our gravest error

Cultural pessimism is always fashionable, and, since we are human, there are always grounds for it. It has the negative consequence of depressing the level of aspiration, the sense of the possible. And from time to time it has the extremely negative consequence of encouraging a kind of somber panic, a collective dream-state in which recourse to terrible remedies is inspired by delusions of mortal threat. If there is anything in the life of any culture or period that gives good grounds for alarm, it is the rise of cultural pessimism, whose major passion is bitter hostility toward many or most of the people within the very culture the pessimists always feel they are intent on rescuing. When panic on one side is creating alarm on the other, it is easy to forget that there are always as good grounds for optimism as for pessimism--exactly the same grounds, in fact--that i, because we are human. We still have every potential for good we have ever had, and the same presumptive claim to respe...

Don't vote for Kant!!!

Pauline Soteriology: Theosis or Deification (Part II: M. David Litwa)

"Today, biblical scholarship on deification is more or less dominated by theological discourse and presuppositions. In this climate, it is tempting to simply focus on Christian forms of deification when treating Paul. I am convinced, however, that scholars will never understand Paul and deification until they open themselves up to honest historical inquiry about other, larger discourses of deification in the Greco-Roman world. ...If we are going to achieve a truly historical understanding of deification in the Greco-Roman world (including Christian deification), it seems to me that scholars need to be more sympathetic to ancient forms of thought. In modern theology, the very way we think about humans and God(s) tends to preclude deification. ...In this study I try--as best I can--to peer behind centuries of Christian theological discourse about deification. But the road is hard. Some of the texts are scattered and unfamiliar. ...

Andrew Guffey

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