I find pleasure in the lurch to my sensibilities that occurs when something I have always taken for granted runs headlong into that which I have come to believe. It’s those moments of dissonance that often provide the best insight into the sometimes tenuous relationship between what is true and what I believe. I grew …
Some time ago I read a sermon on an Orthodox parish website. Unfortunately, I don’t know which parish. The sermon was about liberty (as the French would say) or freedom (as we Americans would say), putting it in context of the larger scheme of salvation. The fourfold path of liberty is as follows:: From Slavery …
Reading St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain (also known as Nicodemos the Hagiorite, if you go looking for him), I was struck by the almost opposite manner that Nicodemos (d. 1809) and John Calvin (d. 1564) define righteousness. In a word, for Calvin, God’s righteousness is revealed in what he does. For Nicodemos, it is …
In Enlightenment political theory (this is the political theory that is foundational to the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution) the two primary natural "endowments" are life and liberty (and yes, the Declaration adds Happiness, but that's another story). Given the history of American jurisprudence, the most appropriate definition of liberty is "the right to …
I’ve been reading parts of Luther’s Bondage of the Will again to make sure I’m not misremembering his argument. Luther’s argument is quite similar to Calvin’s later argument that gets filed under “predestination,” although there are differences. In both cases I have no doubt that the Reformers are trying to figure out things that are …
Continue reading The Bondage of the Will & Christian Liberty
I read the article because of the title. "Rohingya see glimmer of hope in Suu Kyi’s election victory." I never heard of Rohingya and was curious why his name popped up in my news feed. Turns out that it was not a person. The Rohingya are a minority group in Myanmar. The article came from …
Just Another Jim 