05 Dec 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Philip Melanchthon is nothing if not consistent in the way in which he handles the appropriation of classical, and particularly Aristotelian, thinking about virtue for the benefit of Christians (a topic treated recently at Mere Orthodoxy). Melanchthon finds Aristotle (or an eclectically ressourced...
Read more → 15 Jul 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
So let's talk about effeminacy. This came up as final point of criticism in my Mere Orthodoxy critique of the gay Christianity of Revoice and Spiritual Friendship. Now, I knew that "going there" would upset a lot of people. It's basically touching the third rail to even say the word "effeminate" today....
Read more → 09 Jul 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
As we continue our thoughts on gay Christianity and “spiritual friendship,” we need to take an important detour. My original plan to was to move from concupiscence to the topic of effeminacy, but as I worked through Augustine’s writings on concupiscence, I was confronted with his peculiar theories...
Read more → 07 May 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
The following passage is so over-quoted that I hesitate to quote it again (I discuss the general idea in an essay in this book), but I'm going to do it anyway to make just one tiny little point. That point is this: though Aristotle is enjoying something of a renaissance among "conservative" Christian...
Read more → 06 Mar 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
For good reason, one might find John Calvin referred to as an "anti-speculative" theologian. But as with so many other monikers applied to Protestant theologians (e.g. "anti-scholastic"), one must take the label in its relative rather than its absolute signification. When confronted with biblicism, Calvin...
Read more → 05 Mar 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Psychologist and University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson has become a recent internet sensation, with publications from the New York Times to The Federalist to the National Review and The Atlantic covering his rise and videos featuring him going viral on YouTube. It is a rise that has confounded...
Read more → 03 Jan 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
If one holds to some version of natural law or a natural knowledge of the virtuous and the vicious, it might seem to imply that nothing else is required for virtuous action. I mean, we all know what "the good" is, right? Well, yes and no. Affirming that everyone knows the distinction between right...
Read more → 19 Dec 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Charles Hodge's next reference to Schleiermacher in his notes as preserved in his son's Life comes from less than a week after the last reference, 14 March 1827 (a Wednesday, if you're curious). This journal-entry deals with the subject of pantheism, whether Schleiermacher was a pantheist, and the relation...
Read more → 09 Nov 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the fictional story of the Fall into Modernity (coming soon as a Netflix Original Series), Sir Francis Bacon sometimes plays the role of a big baddie for banishing formal and final causality from natural philosophy (i.e. science; what he calls "physic"). Never mind the benefits this has for, you know,...
Read more → 25 Oct 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, Pius XII, relying on Pius IX, makes a rather startling claim about the duty of theologians in the church: It is also true that theologians must always return to the sources of divine revelation: for it belongs to them to point out how the doctrine of the living...
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