What would you recommend? Books on ecotheology

I frequently get asked for recommendations of which book(s) to read on ecotheology.* If Christians want to start thinking more seriously about God amidst our ecological crises, where should they begin?
I use ecotheology fairly broadly to mean the study of theology from an ecological perspective, or the study of ecology from a theological perspective, rather than a particular movement within those fields.

I have a few ideas, though am very open to finding new texts as I've only read a tiny fraction of what is out there. Obviously, different books will suit slightly different purposes. Some might do better at introducing the major intellectual debates, some relate ecology to major theological themes and scriptural passages, some aim to persuade suspicious Christians of why we might bother with ecological matters, some give better grounding in the science and ethics of the key threats and challenges, some give a greater sense of direction and application regarding what we can do in response to them. All are needed for their various purposes.

Eco-parables for children: Where is the Green Sheep?

A while back I suggested that many nursery rhymes could be read as coded eco-parables, offering a reading of Sing a Song of Sixpence and sketching out a few more. As father to a toddler, these keep jumping out at me in all kinds of places. Does anyone else see the award-winning children's book Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek as a lament for the relative absence of an effective green social movement? Starting with the obvious presence of the red and blue sheep (the traditional colours of the mainstream parties in many nations), and all kinds of other sheep (the car sheep has broken down while the train sheep travels happily, even sun, rain, wind and wave sheep have showed up - renewable energy sources), finally the green sheep is discovered to be sleeping under a bush.

Wake up green sheep!

Don't interrupt me

H/T Dave Lankshear.

Summary of O'Donovan's The Desire of the Nations

Oliver O'Donovan's The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the roots of political theology is often regarded as a difficult and dense read. And it is. But it is worth it. For those who would like a brief summary to guide their reading (or to get a sense if the book could be worth the effort), there is quite a good one here, written by Alex Abecina, who is a Masters student at Regent College in Vancouver.
H/T Ben.

Jesus: all about life (new book)

While I try to avoid excessive advertising on this blog (and have not and will not ever include paid ads), I have no qualms about the occasional plug for for quality material produced by some of my nearest and dearest.

Jesus: All about life
As part of the Jesus: all about life campaign, my brother Murray has written a short book introducing Jesus to high schoolers (teenagers between about 13-18 for those outside Australia).

At first glance, the book is attractive and accessible. Published in a widescreen format (I would use the more technical publishing term, but members of the visual age will probably get this better) with images on one side and text on the other, it feels like something you can dip into, or read from start to finish. The images are varied and high quality and the headings draw even idle readers in.

And when we take a longer look, the message of the text is just as interesting and attractive as the initial impression. Dealing with a wide range of issues in a personable and relaxed tone, the text approaches Jesus via reflections on the good bits and the ugly bits of life. Murray's historical knowledge (he is currently completing a PhD in early Christian history) is shared without excessive technicality or over-simplification. And throughout, the life of Jesus is put forward as the hidden cohesion and meaning of all of life, both the good bits and the ugly ones.

Although aimed primarily at youth, Jesus: All about life would not be inappropriate sitting on almost any coffee table or bedside table. You can order copies from here and you will find them quite easy to give away - if you can avoid diving in yourself!

Jesus: All About Life
by Murray Smith
RRP $14.95 AUD
Bulk Price (30+ $7.95)
Preview (3.2MB pdf)
Order here

Good books: a meme

I've been memed again. This time Matthew Moffitt from Hebel has tagged me and given me a list of theological book categories. The instructions tell me to:

i. List the most helpful book you've read in this category;
ii. Describe why you found it helpful; and
iii. Tag five more friends and spread the meme love.

I am going to break the rules immediately and amend the first point to read "List the most a helpful book you've read in this category". Here are the categories and my answers:

1. Theology
• Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine
I take it that since "God" is listed (rather dubiously) at #3, this category is for books on the "method" or "how to" of theology. This wouldn't be the top book out of this list of 11, but it was one I enjoyed. I have reviewed it at length here.
Summary: All the world's a stage.

2. Biblical Theology
• Augustine, City of God
The first biblical theology. And the best. I received this as a 21st present from a far-sighted friend (thanks Ben!), who didn't realise that it would help send me to the other side of the world.
Summary: A tale of two cities.

3. God
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1
I never promised this would be an easy list. But if you want to get into glories of God, then there are few more profound guides than uncle Karl. Read this quote and then decide if you want to dive into the depths and discover that God is there too.
Summary: God is with us.

4. Jesus
• Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God
Although incomplete (and what account of Jesus isn't? Even John recognised as much), this book will push you to really think about what Jesus means for our understanding of God. ‘When the crucified Jesus is called the ‘image of the invisible God’, the meaning is that this is God, and God is like this. God is not greater than he is in this humiliation. God is not more glorious than he is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humanity.’ (205)
Summary: God looks like this.

5. Old Testament
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall
A short little book based on lecture notes from students who listened to lectures Bonhoeffer gave on Genesis 1-3. In many ways, these lectures are a model of creative faithfulness to the text, theological exegesis that asks after God and humanity, not just about me or about historical debates or contemporary fads.
Summary: They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way.

6. New Testament
• N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (or for the attentionally challenged, The Challenge of Jesus)
The book that took all the fragments of Sunday School stories and sermon pieces into which the Gospels had shattered and pieced together a picture of a human saviour who wins God's victory for Israel and the world. It took me almost two years to read (in a group), but I am a different person for it.
Summary: God wins.

7. Morals
• Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order
How could I resist? Not an easy book, but one to chew over and digest slowly and repeatedly. It will nourish you for a long time if you are patient with it.
Summary: Ethics is good news and the resurrection is God's affirmation of creation and humanity.

8. (Church) History
• Meredith Lake, Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord
So I thought I'd pick something a little more contemporary, since this is the (church) history section. Meredith (known to many though her wonderful, though now somewhat neglected blog Faith and Place. If you read the current post, you'll understand why; her love for it has run into some competition) put together a history of the first 75 years of the Sydney University Evangelical Union. Since this was the context in which I cut my theological, pastoral, ministry and leadership teeth, I found the book fascinating. Perhaps a little less riveting for those not from Sydney, but it will really help you understand where many Sydney University Christians (like myself) are coming from.
Summary: And now these three remain: object one, object two, object three...

9. Biography
• Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo.
I must say that I am not much into biographies for some reason, even though I know many people love them. I have enjoyed nearly all the ones I have read, but they have been few and far between. However, this is one that stands out for me because it is almost impossible to walk past Augustine for historical importance and Brown's biography is the definitive one against which others are judged. I read this book in fourth year while writing a thesis on Augustine in order to get some more context for his thought and found it fascinating. In particular, the evocation of the late Roman empire I found quite moving. Augustine lived in the dying days of the West and he knew it (and his greatest work, The City of God was written to address the issue). The image of Augustine dying as Hippo was under seige by barbarians and of his fellow monks smuggling his works out to save them from the destruction when the city fell will stay with me for a long time. In fact, it was a large part of the impetus behind my PhD project (outline coming soon).
Summary: Lord, make me pure, but not yet!

10. Evangelism
• John Dickson, Promoting the Gospel
Dickson combines deep historical knowledge, biblical deftness and theological nous with apparently effortless communication skills. This book will liberate you from the straightjacket of guilt that prevents you from promoting the gospel by showing you all the ways you are already involved in this great privilege. Shunned by some for rejecting the idea that every Christian is an evangelist, that is precisely why I recommend it since that is how the Bible pictures the church, in which each part does its work.
Summary: Not everyone is a mouth.

11. Prayer
• Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another
Perhaps a surprising book to recommend on prayer, since it primarily addresses those familiar with meditative prayer. However, it is not limited to this audience, since its foundational message - that we discover Christ through loving our neighbour and prayer is what helps us pay attention - is universally applicable. Perhaps it sounds trite as I explain it there, but this little book is anything but.
Summary: "Everything begins with this vision and hope: to put the neighbour in touch with God in Christ."

I would provide links to each of these books at their various publishers, but I'm lazy. You have fingers. Google hasn't crashed. Do it yourself. I tag the first five people to read this post (which probably means you, unless the comments are filled with people saying that they have completed the task).

New book(let): Can we trust what the Gospels say about Jesus?

Christians place great weight on the stories about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. There are four accounts of his life that are universally accepted by the church across the ages, named after the four figures traditionally considered to be the authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These are known as the Gospels, since they present the "good news" (gospel) about Jesus.

However, a spate of recent popular documentaries and publications have thrown up all kinds of questions about these writings and others like them which are much less well known. For many people, the appearance of contradictory viewpoints is enough to provide an excuse to avoid the whole deal, since what can we really know anyway? Can we trust what the gospels say about Jesus?

Andrew Errington thinks that we can. He has written a very useful little introduction to the historical issues around the Gospels. At 32 pages long, it is very readable for the non-expert and yet avoids gross oversimplification. You can order it here.

O'Donovan on reading

Reading is the act which opens us to the voice of Jesus’s witnesses, and so to history, to the world, and to the empty tomb at the world’s centre. Reading should be the core moment in all our liturgy, the heartbeat that gives life to the sacraments, the preaching and the prayers. Reading should be at the focal point of our church buildings, so that what we see first is not an altar, not a pulpit, but a lectern. Reading should be the lifeblood of our preaching, so that every new sermon we compose springs from a study of the Scripture that is for us as though for the first time, new, vital, surprising. Reading must be the rhythm of our life, the daily beat of the Gospel which gives order to the flurry of undertakings all around it. Reading schools us in self-denial and flexibility, emptying out the imaginations of self-generated visions and filling us with the thoughts of others. Reading accepts the divine violence upon the world that has given us life, but offers no violence back to the messengers through whom the news of that life comes to us.

Oliver O'Donovan, "Saint Mark, violence, and the discipline of reading: a sermon"

I am astonished when church services are confined to a single short reading to make more time for preaching (or singing, or coffee). This usually means the congregation rarely hears the Old Testament and what it does receive frequently lacks much context. Worse is when a "reading" from an extra-scriptural source is regularly substituted for the Bible. I am all for introducing congregations to the riches of Christian thought through the ages, but not as a substitute for Scripture. Using a lectionary makes more and more sense to me as a liturgical discipline of regular, systematic, extended engagement with the actual words of Scripture.
Thanks to Æ for posting this sermon. He also points out that a book of O’Donovan’s sermons, “The Word in Small Boats”, will be published by Eerdmans in the northern Spring of 2009.

On Rowan Williams: now available

For those who may be interested, Wipf and Stock have recently published a new volume of essays titled On Rowan Williams: Critical Essays, edited by the irrepressible Dr Matheson Russell from the University of Auckland. The collection includes nine contributions from young Australian Anglicans, such as Ben Myers (Faith and Theology), Michael Jensen (The Blogging Parson), Andrew Cameron, Greg Clarke and more. There is a foreword by Oliver O'Donovan and a twenty-eight page bibliography of all Williams' published works. Here is the blurb from the publisher's site:

Theologian, poet, public intellectual, and clergyman, Rowan Williams is one of the leading lights of contemporary British theology. He has published over twenty books and one hundred scholarly essays in a distinguished career as an academic theologian that culminated in his appointment as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. Williams left this post to serve in the Anglican Church, first as Bishop of Monmouth, then Archbishop of Wales, before finally being enthroned in 2003 as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury.

In this collection of essays, a talented younger generation of Australian theologians critically analyzes the themes that bind together Williams's theology. These sympathetic yet probing essays traverse the full breadth of Williams's work, from his studies on Arius, the Desert Fathers, Hegel, and Trinitarian theology to his more pastoral writings on spirituality, sexuality, politics, and the Anglican Church.

Here is what you get:

Foreword: Australia on Rowan Williams • Oliver O’Donovan
Introduction • Matheson Russell
1. The Ecclesiology of Rowan Williams • Rhys Bezzant
2. The Hidden Center: Trinity and incarnation in the Negative (and Positive) Theology of Rowan Williams • Andrew Moody
3. Disruptive History: Rowan Williams on Heresy and Orthodoxy • Benjamin Myers
4. Krisis? Kritik?: Judgment and Jesus in the Theology of Rowan Williams • Michael Jensen
5. Dispossession and Negotiation: Rowan Williams on Hegel and Political Theology • Matheson Russell
6. The Humanity of Godliness: Spirituality and Creatureliness in Rowan Williams • Byron Smith
7. Desire and Grace: Rowan Williams and the Search for Bodily Wholeness • Andrew Cameron
8. Rowan Williams on War and Peace • Tom Frame
9. The Beauty of God in Cairo and Islamabad: Rowan Williams as Apologist • Greg Clarke

The price is a mere US$29.00, or $23.20 from the Wipf and Stock website. Unfortunately, if you happen to live outside the US, then you'll need to contact the publisher to ask for a special order form (and pay approx US$13 in P&H). I have no idea why any non-US resident would consider buying a book about a Brit by a bunch of Aussies.
Twenty points if you purchase a copy of the book. Prove it by quoting the first sentence of a random page in the book. (Hahaha, what a brilliant marketing ploy!)

UPDATE: A nice review by Bruce Kaye.

YOU: An Introduction

The inestimable Michael Jensen, a.k.a. the blogging parson, has just had his first book published. I mentioned that he was working on it back here and here. It's called YOU: An introduction and can be ordered here (or here if you are in the US) for the bargain price of AUS$16.95. You can even download the cover, contents, introduction and first chapter here.

The book was originally posted (in small sections) on a blog (now closed, I guess the publishers want people to buy the book!), and the comments made on the posts (and Michael's replies) have been included in the book, sometimes taking the discussion in unexpected directions. Since I made one or two of the comments, if you buy it, you are also getting my first published book (well, I can pretend)!

Oh, you want to know what it's about? Details, details. Besides, I would have thought the title sufficient. If not, here is the blurb from the publisher's website:

Who are You really? What are You supposed to be like? What—or whose—purpose do You serve? It's never been more complicated—or more confusing—to be a human, and it's never been harder to answer the question of who You are. But in You: An introduction, Michael Jensen sets about doing just that. In his exploration of some of the different facets of the human condition (You are alive; You are free; You are a child), we soon discover that the question of who we are is essentially bound up with the question of who Jesus is ...

Great to read and even better to give away!

Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion

Oliver O'Donovan has just released a new book published by Wipf and Stock called Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion. Here is the publisher's blurb (which, given the Latin, I assume probably originated with the author):

What if the challenge gay men and women present the church with is not emancipatory but hermeneutic? Suppose that at the heart of the problem there is the magna quaestio, the question about the gay experience, its sources and its character, that gays must answer for themselves: how this form of sensibility and feeling is shaped by its social context and how it can be clothed in an appropriate pattern of life for the service of God and discipleship of Christ? But suppose, too, that there is another question corresponding to it, which non-gay Christians need to answer: how and to what extent this form of sensibility and feeling has emerged in specific historical conditions, and how the conditions may require, as an aspect of the pastoral accommodation that changing historical conditions require, a form of public presence and acknowledgment not hitherto known? These two questions come together as a single question: how are we to understand together the particularity of the age in which we are given to attest God's works?

H/T Halden.

UPDATE: In the UK, the book has been published by SCM with the title, A Conversation Waiting to Begin: The churches and the gay controversy. This is, I believe, a superior title in that it better reflects the tone and content of the text. The breathlessness of the US title seems to be more concerned with trying to shift copies. A good review of the book can be found here.

Lingua Latina: want to learn Latin?

I have recently started learning some basic Latin (beyond the vocab that it's possible to guess from having a good knowledge of English) and on the recommendation of Seamus, I have invested in a wonderful textbook called Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. Pars I: Familia Romana. There is no English in the entire book, you are simply immersed in Latin from page one. However, it is so cleverly structured in always building on what you already know that each page makes sense. For instance, here is the first sentence: Roma in Italia est. Even without the map of Europa on the opposite page, I bet you can understand it. Each sentence introduces one new idea, gradually building (with the help of a few handy illstrata) both your competence and confidence until you're reading fun little narratives about the life of a familia Romana. Who ever imagined that language learning could be so much fun?

Invisible Cities

This little book by Italo Calvino was easily my favourite novel of 2007. Consisting of a series of conversations between Italian explorer Marco Polo (1254-1324/5) and Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan (1215-1294), the majority of the book focuses on Polo's brief (one to three page) descriptions of 55 cities allegedly found in the Khan's empire. Hilarious, tragic, insightful, surreal and philosophical, each city is really a thought experiment, a prose poem about our relationship to memory, desire, death, dreams, signs, fate and the spaces we inhabit. Here is one example. I might post some more in time. As you'll notice, the cities are not limited to the 13th century, nor even to the realms of possibility, though some come too close to reality to be entirely comfortable.

Cities & Memory • 5
In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old post cards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory. If the traveler does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the postcard city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits: admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared with the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain lost grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old cards, whereas before, when that provincial Maurilia was before one’s eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and in any case the metropolis has the added attraction that, through what is has become, one can look back with nostalgia at what it was.

Beware of saying to them that sometimes different cities follow one another on the same site and under the same name, born and dying without knowing one another, without communication among themselves. At times even the names of the inhabitants remain the same, and their voices’ accent, and also the features of the faces; but the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and outsiders have settled in their place. It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them, just as the old post cards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which, by chance, was called Maurilia, like this one.

Grief and love (Book tag)

Benjamin tagged me in a game with the following rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other people.

Here is my quote, see if you can guess the author:

"The person who mourns deeply has loved greatly. The person who cannot mourn has never loved. It is true that at the present time and in our present culture we are so conditioned that we want to have happiness without pain, and love without grief. We flee the grief and seek a painless happiness. What is on offer in modern society, culturally and medically, is designed to meet this personal wish. But if it is true that mourning is not the farewell to love but love's reverse side, then we can explore the mystery of mourning without fear, and surrender ourselves to mourning without being afraid of losing ourselves."

I included a few extra sentences at the start so that it made more sense, but I think it is quite a typical quote from this author, who is no stranger to this blog.

Having enjoyed that so much, I thought I'd try it again with the second closest book at hand. Again, I scored a very typical point from a much imitated and much parodied author.

"All this leads in conclusion to the area that, it seems to me, is just as vital a part of the contemporary christological task as learning to speak truly about the earthly Jesus and his sense of vocation. We must learn to speak biblically, in the light of this Jesus, about the identity of the one true God. There can be no more central task within our learning to follow Jesus and to transform our world with his gospel."

I was then about to try it with the third closest book, the Concise OED, but it came out at the entry on "behave", so I thought I'd better get back to work.

I tag Justin, Rory, Rev Sam, Meredith and æ (and you, if you feel like it).
Twelve points for the first to correctly guess either of the authors; twenty if you can pick the book.

Introductory theological text book?

In first term next year I will be teaching a Moore Theological College external studies course over seven weeks at Pennant Hills. The course is "Doctrine 1" and covers the doctrines of God, revelation and the person and work of Christ (and perhaps some other things; I'm still yet to receive a syllabus). I'd love to hear suggestions of possible introductory level textbooks to set as required reading. The participants are likely to have never studied any formal theology before and the classes are only two hours per week, so conciseness and accessibility are priorities. I am happy to include more stretching exercepts or texts as extension or recommended reading. Any ideas?

After Christmas

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

- Arnold Lobel  

Some of the books I received for Christmas: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel by R. Alan Culpepper, Guns Germs and Steel: a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years and Collapse: how societies choose to fail or survive both by Jared Diamond, 666 and all that by Greg Clarke & John Dickson and Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright. Feeling jealous yet? My wife says my beard is already too long.

Borges on paradise

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

- Jorge Luis Borges

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.

- Desiderius Erasmus

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

- Anna Quindlen

Books

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.

- Paul Valery (1871 - 1945)

Read any good books recently? Two have captured my interest of late. The first is The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to Saint John of the Cross by Rowan Williams. Williams is a senstive reader of and an excellent guide to a variety of patristic and medieval thinkers. It's been a refreshing tour of some Christian tradition too often ignored in Protestant circles. It can be easy to get the impression sometimes that after Paul, the next great thinker was Luther or Calvin (with perhaps a passing reference to Augustine or Athanasius). Speaking of Augustine, Williams' chapter on the bishop of Hippo was a real highlight.

The second book is a piece of popular history called Tamberlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World, a portrait of a Turkic-Mongol warlord in the late 14thC (and early 15thC) variously known as Timur/Temur/Tamberlaine/Tamerlane, who conquered central Asia from the borders of China and northern India to Turkey and Egypt. Along the way, he killed somewhere in the region of 15 million people and probably inadvertently saved Europe from becoming part of the Ottoman empire.

Resurrection books?

Does anyone know of any good, readable books on the resurrection that deal with historicity and theological implications? All the ones I can think of focus on either history or theology, or are out of date, or mediocre, or 740-pages long. I've had a few conversations recently where I found myself wishing I had something to recommend/loan/give. Any ideas?

PS On a personal note, I had another CT scan yesterday, which had good news.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the suggestions. I should have been clearer in my original post, but I was particularly interested in popular, rather than academic, texts: books that an interested investigator or younger Christian might read.

Kierkegaard on hermeneutical thrombosis

How many no longer want to read this post because of the offputting title? Would it make a difference if I had said 'Kierkegaard on how not to read the Bible'? Thrombosis is where circulation of the blood is slowed or stopped by a local hardening/coagulation of the blood flow.
How not to read the Bible

...the Bible has often had a harmful effect. In beginning a deliberation, a person has certain classical passages fixed in his mind, and now his explanation and knowledge consist in an arrangement of these passages, as if the whole matter were something foreign. The more natural the better, [however, particularly] if he is willing with all deference to refer the explanation to the verdict of the Bible, and, if it is not in accord with the Bible, to try over again. Thus a person does not bring himself into the awkward position of having to understand the explanation before he has understood what it should explain, nor into the subtle position of using Scripture passages as the Persian king in the war against the Egyptians used their sacred animals, that is, in order to shield himself.

-Søren Kierkegaard (or rather, his pseudonym: Vigilius Haufniensis), The Concept of Anxiety: A simple psychologically orienting deliberation on the dogmatic issue of hereditary sin, 40.

This is a great image: in the siege of Pelusium, Cambyses, the Persian king, placed animals sacred to the Egyptians in the front of his army. Sometimes, we take key biblical passages hostage as sacred animals in order to thwart attacks on a cherished theological position. Haufniensis wants instead a more 'natural' reading, where we submit even our long-established beliefs to 'the verdict of the Bible' time and time again. This means looking at problem passages and letting them loosen our grip on those we feel we know and love. This seems to be the complement to the usual hermeneutical principle of reading difficult passages in light of easy ones: re-reading familiar passages in light of difficult ones.
Ten points for the name of this famous ancient copy of the Bible. And ten for being able to pick the passage.
I've joined a new reading group attempting to tackle Kierkegaard/Haufniensis' Concept of Anxiety. We've set up a blog for the group to discuss the text here.
In other news, Barth CD II/2 arrived today.