The Christian Humanist

Gadamer’s analysis of aesthetics will be oriented around the notion of play, but he wants to liberate the concept from the subjective bearing that it finds in the work of…

Art has not always been a matter of “appearance” as opposed to the sciences’ “reality” or a matter of the “timeless” in any uncomplicated sense.  This section of Truth and…

In the last few pages of the previous section, Gadamer dismissed the relegation of taste to the realm of aesthetics; in this section, he is going to critique two major…

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, Second Revised Edition Certain writers linger at the borders of certain disciplines, and I always feel somewhat bad for neglecting them.  Thus in 2009 Michial…

To get the first question out of the way, yes, I’ve been calling the last Cantos of Purgatory the Dante Apocalypse for several years now, and my term predates the…

General Introduction – The end of the season – On doctoral regalia – Summer courses – Slightly less minor internet celebrities – Ongoing projects Witches in the Bible – Saul…

Rather than write a giant post about the last nine Cantos, I’m going to attempt two short ones, the last dealing mainly with Dante’s apocalypse.  If, as I plan, I…

It’s fitting that my Dante posts stalled out right when it was time to write about sloth, no? Good Desire and Bad Desire In Canto 18 Virgil continues his explanation…

General Introduction – Yet more weather talk – Light and heavy episodes – Books for aspiring seminarians – Listener feedback Historical Background – The dedicatory epistle – Flattering the pope…

General Introduction – More weather talk – Feed problems Not Etymology but History – David turns to the OED – The Enlightenment – Byron’s parody – Intellectual vs. physical –…

The Architecture of Purgatory This section of Cantos begins to reveal connections between the terraces, both in terms of the media through which the tragic and exemplary stories come to…

General Introduction – Should we talk about the weather? – Listener feedback – The Purgatory Experiment Poe Myths – Marrying his cousin – Drug addiction – Alcoholism – Death –…

Revised Common Lectionary Page for 21 April 2013 (4th Sunday of Easter, Year C) Acts 9:36-43  •  Psalm 23  •  Revelation 7:9-17  •  John 10:22-30 I’ve taught Revelation, in its entirety, four times in the last…

I’ve often told people who aspire to graduate school in Biblical studies or theology that an English major might just serve them better than a Bachelor’s degree in ministry.  Most…

Finally entering Purgatory, our pilgrim gets into some of the coolest parts of the poem, those passages that start to form both a theology of desire and a theological account…