"From symbols and notions to literary and religious allusions,
this chart contains [W.H.] Auden's view of the world (and of worlds beyond), at least as he envisioned it in the 1940s."
[more inside]
posted by Iridic
on Feb 1, 2013 -
17 comments
For those tired of watered-down, light-beer theology...Check out the
Homebrewed Christianity Podcast, started by process-theologians Trip Fuller and Chad Crawford. Today's podcast interviews Old-Testament scholar
Walter Brueggemann. The highlight is the lightning round finale (starts at ~61 min) where Walter gives rapid thoughts on such topics such as religious pluralism, ecological crises, immigration, homosexuality, economics, empire, and his favorite Bible story for his grandchildren. Also this week, a conversation with
Barry Taylor (ACDC Sound Engineer, Episcopal Priest, and philosopher).
posted by womprat78
on Nov 13, 2012 -
12 comments
Open to Revisions. "Some religious entrepreneurs have adopted an 'open source' model, where rituals and doctrines can be rewritten as easily as computer code."
posted by homunculus
on Jun 11, 2009 -
54 comments
The Temple Gallery in London has more than 200 items of Eastern Orthodox religious art, principally icons, on its website, both from the
current exhibit as well as
older pieces. Icons have been a part of Orthodox Christianity for centuries and they are loaded with meaning. The theology is elaborated upon in
this essay on the history, principles and function of icons by iconographer Dr. George Kordis. One of the subjects of the essay is the
Byzantine iconoclasm, a central event of which was the Seventh Ecumenical Council,
depicted here in an icon. Here are some other icons I like:
The Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia,
St. Alypius the Stylite,
Synaxis of the Archangels,
Dormition of the Virgin and
Presentation of Christ in the Temple.
[Click on any image for a larger view]
posted by Kattullus
on May 10, 2009 -
9 comments
The University of South Carolina recently completed an
ambitious survey of all medieval texts in the state for an exhibit at the university library. All the works were scanned and archived electronically. However, not only can you
view the texts online, you can hear the university's chorus
sing (MP3) the musical manuscripts.
[more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf
on Mar 18, 2008 -
8 comments
God vs. the Devil: a Death Toll Perspective So, who has killed more people throughout human history? In the blue corner, it's the Lord of Hosts, the Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth and all Things Seen and Unseen:
God!!!
In the red corner, it's Old Nick, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, the Sultan of Sulfur, the Bringer of Brimstone:
Satan!!!
posted by Tommy Gnosis
on Apr 5, 2007 -
127 comments
Interpreting Revelation's "Millenium." Outside of the all-too-virulent
rapture-crazy pre-tribulational dispensationalist premillenialism permeating JesusLand, some Christians hold to other, more nuanced eschatological alternatives. You've got
historic post-tribulational premillenialism, which places the transformation of the faithful at the final judgment rather than before it;
amillenialism, which regards Christ's "millenial" reign as a symbolic spiritual reign culminating in the last judgment; and
postmillenialism, which sees the millenium as a gradual progression towards goodness and light. Overlapping those, you have the "it's all been fulfilled"
preterists, and their prophecy-party-pooping compatriots, the
hyper-preterists. It's a debate just slightly more fun than
the end of the universe. Meanwhile, the
noncanonical apocalypses sit in a corner, sadly ignored, and
sunny Megiddo is still waiting for some end times
action.
posted by brownpau
on Feb 1, 2006 -
76 comments
"... Giordano Bruno might have been a pantheist. A pantheist believes that God is everywhere, even in that speck of a fly you see there. You can imagine how satisfying that is—being everywhere is like being nowhere. Well, for Hegel it wasn’t God but the State that had to be everywhere; therefore, he was a Fascist.”
“But didn’t he live more than a hundred years ago?”
“So? Joan of Arc, also a Fascist of the highest order. Fascists have always existed. Since the age of . . . since the age of God. Take God—a Fascist.”
Umberto Eco in the
New Yorker
posted by matteo
on Feb 28, 2005 -
36 comments
The Meaning of Life according to various rather famous people (Dennett, Fukuyama, etc). I'm watching the Dennett video at the moment and it starts rather weakly, but, by midway through, is rolling along nicely. With topics like "being good without god" and "the anthropic principle" it struck me as relevant to a couple of recent
askmefi threads.
Dennett: [pause] i guess i'll say it again, more slowly...
(oh, and the player interface is rather delicate - give it time to load and click play a few times...)
posted by andrew cooke
on Oct 1, 2004 -
17 comments
"How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state? OVER THE PAST few years, as the poor got poorer, the health care crisis worsened, wealth and media became more and more concentrated, and our political system was bought out from under us, prophetic Christianity lost its voice. The Religious Right drowned everyone else out. And they hijacked Jesus. The very Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed, 'The Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.' The very Jesus who told 5,000 hungry people that all of you will be fed, not just some of you. The very Jesus who challenged the religious orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who raised the status of women and treated even the tax collector like a child of God. The very Jesus who drove the money changers from the temple. This Jesus has been hijacked and turned into a guardian of privilege instead of a champion of the dispossessed. Hijacked, he was made over into a militarist, hedonist, and lobbyist, sent prowling the halls of Congress in Guccis, seeking tax breaks and loopholes for the powerful, costly new weapon systems that don't work, and punitive public policies."
Bill Moyers on democracy excruciate.
posted by fold_and_mutilate
on Jul 15, 2004 -
91 comments
The Beecher Family. 'Families that have been influential in American life and culture are often recognizable by their signature names. The Beecher family is an example of one such family whose deep religious convictions and social conscience spanned the nineteenth century and made them prominent historical figures whose impact on religion, education, abolition, reform movements, literature and public life were exceptional. Biographer Milton Rugoff claims that in "two generations the Beechers emerged, along with many other Americans, from a God-centered, theology-ridden world concerned with the fate of man's eternal soul into a man-centered society occupied mainly with life on earth." ... '
posted by plep
on Jun 25, 2004 -
8 comments
"Jesus?" he murmured, "Jesus -- of Nazareth?..." Pontius Pilate,
prefect of
Judea, is
the only historical figure named in the
Nicene Creed -- Coptic
saint or
eternally damned, his role in the
greatest story ever told has been debated by many of history's greatest minds:
St Augustine,
Dante Alighieri,
Tintoretto,
John Ruskin,
Mikhail Bulgakov,
Monty Python. Unfortunately,
there is very little historical evidence about him. His role in the
death of a
certain charismatic
Galilean healer and
apocalyptic preacher
is still being debated today by
theologians and historians
alike. He is also, of course, the main character of
The Procurator of
Judea, the classic short story (complete text in main link) by
Anatole France. (France's magnificent story has lately been tragically neglected by publishers, even if the author was one of his era's most acclaimed writers in the world -- he won the Nobel Prize in 1921 over Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, and Proust, and when he died in 1924,
hundreds of thousands of people followed his funeral procession through Paris). These last 2,000 years of fascination with
Pilatus can be explained, some argue...
(more inside, for those unwilling to wash their hands of this post)
posted by matteo
on Jun 24, 2004 -
37 comments
Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of the
Opus Dei movement, was
canonized today. Opus Dei is a conservative
movement within the catholic church, and counts many powerful people among its
adherents - the current pope among them. However, it is not
without its
detractors and
opponents. Some of
the most important people in the
Franco
dictatorship were part of the group, as were several of the participants in the
Venezuelan coup
earlier this year. Should
we keep an eye on
these guys? They are certainly
secretive and aggressive, but are they just a group of
concerned, pious Catholics, or a power-hungry fraternity? I'm half-catholic myself, and certainly curious to hear if any Catholic MeFiers have thoughts on this subject. Even better, an Opus Dei member to clarify some of these misunderstandings...
posted by charlesv
on Oct 6, 2002 -
24 comments
The World Politics Heavyweight Fight: Huntington vs. Fukuyama: Which of these two now classic approaches offers a more plausible vision of the world's future? Huntington's
Culture Clash[
Foreign Affairs, 1993] or Fukuyama's
Pax Democratia[
National Interest, 1989]? In an updating mode,
Stanley Kurtz[
Policy Review, 2002] measures their chances from a political viewpoint. On the same front,
Jack Miles[
Cross Currents, 2002] offers a refreshingly liberal and optimistic theological perspective. Yep, it's
still all about East meeting West, the Muslims and the rest of the us. Or even
increasingly...
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jul 9, 2002 -
11 comments
Today is Reformation Day, the anniversary of
Martin Luther nailing the
95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church in 1517. He was largely criticizing the practice of selling indulgences (forgiveness for sins). He didn't intend to split with the church. He left room for the Pope to slip out of the indulgences corruption. But the Pope didn't, and the split eventually came.
posted by Sean Meade
on Oct 31, 2001 -
12 comments
I went to Catholic high school for two years, and being the incredibly geeky type, I wondered, given the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, how he ran the whole church and his provincial diocese. This
site is a good snippet that answers the question, for those people like me who have academic interests in theology.
posted by tdecius
on Oct 18, 1999 -
0 comments
