It’s ironic that love is the only theological virtue missing in the subtitle of Brad Roth’s book God’s Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church, because God’s Country is fundamentally a book about love (and, crucially, as we’ll see, not just human love). At one level, you might say the book is…

Let me try to get from Friends to Dante in a more or less plausible manner. You might know that Ross always had a thing for Rachel, but Rachel never took Ross seriously. This was the dynamic for several seasons until they finally got together. In the “emotional,” climactic moment when she at last returns his…

We’re at the heart of Purgatorio, and the heart of the Commedia, but things get a little weird. There are all these dream visions, and then a lot of philosophy. To be honest, he starts to lose me a little; less seems to be happening than in earlier episodes. But what is all this talk about? Love. Love, remember, created the cosmos all the way down…

We looked at green as the color of hope as well as ephemeral fame. Of course, it is also the color of envy, which in Dante’s fruitful imagination becomes purified through a metaphor of seeing. A Way to Look at Envy The prideful bore a burden that brought them low, and it seemed a difficult but…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> Continuing my slow start to Dante’s Comedy, I look here at additional themes of love, community, and spiritual journey as the pilgrim prepares to enter the Inferno. N.B.: To get your bearings in our Dante series, start here. Canto II 1. Though the pilgrim has a guide in Virgil,…

Recently I participated in a panel discussion that was entitled “Race and the Church.” I was asked to contribute a historical perspective on the matter by sharing some information from the life and thought of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This I attempted to do though knowing that I was anything but a Dr. King…

“[I]t is more inhuman to love a man not for being a man but for being your son. For this means not loving in him what belongs to God but loving what belongs to you.” [On True Religion 46, 88 (New City Press)] Ever since I read this statement, it has bothered me. Is it…

Next Wednesday February 20th, The Henry Center is hosting Michael McClymond for our next Scripture & Ministry series. Michael McClymond is an Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. His lecture, entitled “Christ Between the Thieves: The Theological and Pastoral Challenge of Christian Universalism,” will address the hot issue of universal salvation, popularized…

Ryan Harding, MDiv student and Henry Center intern ***** One of the most profitable disciplines for me in seminary has been the study of church history. Hearing of the pastoral hearts of the early church fathers, the careful thought of the apologists, and the unflinching courage of the martyrs has been edifying, inspiring, and humbling….