Gilbert Meilaender on work By undergirding the dignity of irksome work in powerful religious language, we may too easily be invited to overlook just how hard and unsatisfying much toil is. We may recommend such work as service to the neighbor or, even, as spiritual discipline, but we should be careful lest this religious language […]
The Primacy of Practice in Nicholas Lash The truth of christian ‘theory’ is too closely bound up with the quality of christian ‘practice’ for it to be possible to press the necessary distinction between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ to the point where they can be handled as fundamentally separate issues. In 1837 Newman claimed that ‘Action […]
Austin Farrer on boredom in church Well, but if I go to church, I’ll be bored, and I shall scarcely pray. True enough, you’ll be bored; and I dare say your spiritual resources are very limited. You’ll be bored: but God will be publicly honored or — put it negatively — at least he won’t […]
Gilbert Meilaender’s Augustinian politics We look to politics for the satisfaction of so many of our desires; yet, thinking with Augustine should remind us that the deepest longings of the restless human heart can never be stilled by any good that politics provides. And because this is true, because even our most powerful institutions cannot […]
Austin Farrer on redemption What, then, did God do for his people’s redemption? He came among them, bringing his kingdom, and he let events take their human course. He set the divine life in human neighborhood. Men discovered it in struggling with it and were captured by it in crucifying it. What could be simpler? […]
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