Reformation
Another Week Ends: Assurance Anxiety, Genesis Lessons, Tumblr Love, Lost in the Cosmos, Iron Man Prep, and Hatsune Miku’s Pizza Stage
Film / Identity / Literature / Philosophy / Reformation / Religion / Sermons / Technology / Theology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Assurance Anxiety, Genesis Lessons, Tumblr Love, Lost in the Cosmos, Iron Man Prep, and Hatsune Miku’s Pizza Stage

by David Zahl on Mar 8, 2013 • 3 Comments

1. First off, a little pop theology. Phillip Cary contributed an encouraging review of J.D. Greear’s sensationally titled Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart to the recent issue of Christianity Today, under the header “Anxious About Assurance”. As he does in his book Good News for Anxious Christians, Cary gets straight to the heart of the matter:

Greear is not saying it’s wrong to ask Jesus into your heart. He’s saying it’s not the same thing as believing the gospel. And if we want to be assured of salvation, it’s believing the gospel that actually counts. We are saved by faith…

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The Duality of Lance Armstrong: Simul Jerk et Humanitarian
Celebrity / Interviews / Reformation / Sports

The Duality of Lance Armstrong: Simul Jerk et Humanitarian

by Matt Schneider on Jan 24, 2013 • 3 Comments

I have been in mourning over the revelation of cyclist Lance Armstrong’s guilt for several months now since the preponderance of evidence seemed to point toward his having indeed doped (using banned performance enhancing substances) during his seven-year Tour de France reign. Of course, the man himself finally confirmed his guilt last week during a highly publicized two-part interview/confession with Oprah Winfrey. Now I find myself at a new place with the story since I am finally viewing Armstrong (and the many other cyclists allegedly guilty of doping) through a theological lens. In fact, I found Armstrong’s confession to be…

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Bible / Christmas / Reformation / Sermons

Rod Rosenbladt Reads Martin Luther’s Christmas Sermon

by Matt Schneider on Dec 25, 2012 • No Comments

This recording of the Great Reformer’s Christmas sermon was posted by the good folks at the White Horse Inn a couple of years ago (it was dug up from their tape archives). It’s a great read and an even better listen from the lips of Dr. Rosenbladt. I should note that it isn’t one of Luther’s actual sermons but an assembly of pieces from his many Christmas writings, put together by Roland Bainton as he envisioned Luther might have preached them.

Martin Luther on the Humility of Mary and the Work of God
Christmas / Reformation

Martin Luther on the Humility of Mary and the Work of God

by David Zahl on Dec 18, 2012 • 1 Comment

A couple of beautiful excerpts from the Great Reformer’s Sermon on the Visitation, in which he sounds very much like the progenitor of Alcoholics Anonymous that he is. Taken from Martin Luther’s Christmas Book that Roland Bainton put together (indispensable reading this time of year), these paragraphs are part of Dr. Luther’s exposition of The Magnificat, AKA Mary’s song in response to news delivered by the angel Gabriel:

“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.” (Luke 1: 46-48a)

The stress should not be on…

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Another Week Ends: Exceptional Children, Holiness Holes, AA Slogans, Reformation Sincerity, Online Niceness, Grateful Dead, Aimee Mann and Seinfeld-ized Game of Thrones
Addiction / Books / Children / Grace in Practice / Humor / Identity / Law / Literature / Music / Psychology / Reformation / Religion / Technology / Theology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Exceptional Children, Holiness Holes, AA Slogans, Reformation Sincerity, Online Niceness, Grateful Dead, Aimee Mann and Seinfeld-ized Game of Thrones

by David Zahl on Nov 30, 2012 • 5 Comments

1. An encouraging number of signs of life in the bibliosphere this week. First, over at The New Statesman, much to my surprise (and much to his credit), renowned atheist Alain de Botton selected Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense as his favorite book of the year. For a profound little excerpt from the book, go here. Can’t wait for it to come out in the States. Second, there’s the arresting depth of understanding and engagement in From Exile, Grow Man’s review of PZ’s Grace in Practice. Probably the most honest review I’ve…

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A Reformational History of the English Reformation, Part 1
Reformation / Theology

A Reformational History of the English Reformation, Part 1

by WB on Nov 29, 2012 • 1 Comment

In eager anticipation of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (not to happen, incidentally, for another five years), we’re doing a short, slightly speculative series on a Reformational history of the English Reformation. It also doubles as a book review of Hilary Mantel’s fantastic, Booker-winning Wolf Hall, the source for a fair amount of the detail here:

King Henry the VIII had earned the title “Defender of the Faith” for his jeremiads against the burgeoning Lutheran movement in central Europe. God-fearing in a quite literal way, it seems he valued theology highly, was constantly nervous about the threat of divine…

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Why Then the Law? The Persistence of Original Unbelief
Law / Reformation / Religion / Theology

Why Then the Law? The Persistence of Original Unbelief

by JDK on Nov 8, 2012 • 3 Comments

One of the great tragedies of the Christian life is captured in Article 9 of the 39 Articles of Religion in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Article 9 is entitled “Of Original or Birth-Sin,” and argues that “Original Sin,”

Is not found merely in the following of Adam’s example (as the Pelagians foolishly say). It is rather to be seen in the fault and corruption which is found in the nature of every person who is naturally descended from Adam. The consequence of this is that man is far gone from his original state of righteousness. In his own nature…

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Another Week Ends: Wiman’s Abyss, Opinionless Boyfriends, Compassionology, Lehrergate, Antinomianism, Revolution, Taylor Swift, and Wreck-It Ralph
Film / Grace in Practice / Humor / Music / Poetry / Reformation / Relationships / Religion / Social Science / Suffering / Theology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Wiman’s Abyss, Opinionless Boyfriends, Compassionology, Lehrergate, Antinomianism, Revolution, Taylor Swift, and Wreck-It Ralph

by David Zahl on Nov 2, 2012 • 2 Comments

1. Every once and a while something comes across your screen that is so beautiful and honest and profound and enlivening that you want to force others to watch it. If commands of this kind worked, that’s what I’d do here. I’m referring to the interview that Bill Moyers conducted with poet (and Poetry Magazine editor) Christian Wiman this past February. Much like the essay of Wiman’s we featured last week, this is gut level stuff; he touches on pretty much everything that’s important. Or I should day, nothing that he touches on isn’t important: love, marriage, cancer, beauty, poetry,…

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Why Then The Law? Part 4: Vanity, Mortality, and the Shipwreck of the Soul
Law / Reformation / Religion / Theology

Why Then The Law? Part 4: Vanity, Mortality, and the Shipwreck of the Soul

by JDK on Nov 1, 2012 • 1 Comment

We have come to a point in our discussion where we have ruled out a few of the more traditional ways of misunderstanding the role and function of the law in the life of the world. We have seen that the attempt to do away with the law as something that only applied “back then,” (a’la Marcion) rested upon a misunderstanding of its continued pedagogical role in leading people to Christ, i.e., its end. On the other hand, we saw how attempting to rescue the law from the Marcions of the world by boiling it down to a set of…

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Film / Grace in Practice / Reformation / Suffering

Happy Reformation Day! Martin Luther on Robbers, Suicide and the Mercy of God

by David Zahl on Oct 31, 2012 • 1 Comment

The 2003 movie Luther may have left a bit to be desired, aesthetically speaking, but it did contain a few undeniably powerful moments, not the least of which is the scene–based on a comment in his Table Talks–in which the Great Reformer encounters a local suicide. Be warned, it’s (appropriately) heavy:

Another Week Ends: Anglican Anniversaries, Attractive Uncertainty, Battlestar Theology, The Cooler and Better You, Compulsive Tweeting, and Neurotic Parenting Art
Grace in Practice / Literature / Psychology / Reformation / TV

Another Week Ends: Anglican Anniversaries, Attractive Uncertainty, Battlestar Theology, The Cooler and Better You, Compulsive Tweeting, and Neurotic Parenting Art

by WB on Oct 19, 2012 • No Comments

1. As the current edition of the Book of Common Prayer celebrates its 350th anniversary, James Wood at The New Yorker offers a fascinating reflection on the book’s literary and cultural significance. It’s not everyday you read the sentences in those pages like “The sinner is justified—redeemed from sin, made righteous—by faith alone in God, not by doing good works or by buying ecclesiastical favors”:

Cranmer had been a Cambridge scholar (he had held a lectureship in Biblical studies) and a diplomat, before being plucked by Henry VIII to be archbishop, and he almost certainly did not imagine that he was writing one…

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John Calvin on Repentance, Regeneration, and Pastoral Care
Reformation / Theology

John Calvin on Repentance, Regeneration, and Pastoral Care

by WB on Oct 16, 2012 • 5 Comments

It’s easy to either write off John Calvin for certain interpretations of his theology or to invoke his name indiscriminately as a supporter of one’s own point of view. Reading his Institutes lately has been an interesting project for me, if for no other reason than to clarify Jean’s actual position on things. Some observations:

“…by repentance I understand regeneration, the only aim of which is to form us anew in the image of God, which was sullied, and all but effaced in the transgression of Adam.” (Institutes, III.3.ix)

1. First, in looking at Calvin’s view of ‘regeneration’, we should see clearly his…

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Bliss Is Not For Sale: Catastrophic Conversion and the Roots of Protestantism
Reformation / Theology

Bliss Is Not For Sale: Catastrophic Conversion and the Roots of Protestantism

by David Zahl on Jun 12, 2012 • No Comments

This one comes to us from W.H. Auden, who included it as the entry on Puritanism in “A Certain World: a commonplace book,” his collection of alphabetized wisdom. As beautiful a distillation of the Protestant ‘break-through’ as it may be, the words are actually not Wystan’s. It’s an excerpt from The Oxford History of English Literature, written by none other than Clive Staples Lewis.

“Theologically, Protestantism was either a recovery, or a development, or an exaggeration (it is not for the literary historian to say which) of Pauline theology… In the mind of a Tyndale or Luther, as in the mind…

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Joy to a Broken Heart, or, Did the Law Ever Love Martin Luther?
Reformation / Theology

Joy to a Broken Heart, or, Did the Law Ever Love Martin Luther?

by David Zahl on May 29, 2012 • No Comments

From the great Reformer’s commentary on Galatians, pgs 155-56, ht CB:

“Did the Law ever love me? Did the Law ever sacrifice itself for me? Did the Law ever die for me? On the contrary, it accuses me, it frightens me, it drives me crazy. Somebody else saved me from the Law, from sin and death unto eternal life. That Somebody is the Son of God (Who loved me and gave Himself for me). Hence, Christ is no Moses, no tyrant, no lawgiver, but the Giver of grace, the Savior, full of mercy….. Visualize Christ in these His true colors. I do…

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Conference Breakout – People are Strange: Modern Family, the Un-Free Will and the Roots of Compassion
Addiction / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Identity / Psychology / Reformation / Relationships / Social Science / TV

Conference Breakout – People are Strange: Modern Family, the Un-Free Will and the Roots of Compassion

by R-J Heijmen on Apr 17, 2012 • 10 Comments

Alright, so I know that my breakout session was supposed to be “What Would Don Draper Do (to Eric Taylor)? Downward Mobility and Grace in Mad Men and Friday Night Lights”, and I’ll touch on those themes and would be happy to discuss them over drinks (Shiner or Rye:), but as someone once said, “the wind blows wherever it pleases,” and I have found my thinking gusting in other directions. Not to mention that, judging by Season 5 of Mad Men (at least so far), Don Draper and Eric Taylor aren’t such polar opposites anymore, and might actually be friends!…

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