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True Faith, True Love
This is a sermon (my first sermon) that I preached on May 5, 2024 at the 6pm service for the Cathedral Church of St. Luke. Readings “And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of… Continue reading
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Philosophy as Therapy
Since February 2020, I’ve been going to (mostly) bi-weekly counseling appointments. It’s been a tremendously helpful experience—one that I continue to this day and that I would praise and commend to anyone willing to listen and similarly knowing their need. But there have been a number of doubts—although doubts is too strong a word, perhaps… Continue reading
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Martha Tiller’s Voice
This is the first of what will hopefully be many oral histories for a book at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando, Florida. It was not intended as a eulogy, but a shortened version was read by Mtr. Patricia Orlando at Martha’s funeral on February 18, 2023, while I was unfortunately out of… Continue reading
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The Declaration and its Discontents
Review of Stuart Banner, The Decline of Natural Law: How American Lawyers Once Used Natural Law and Why They Stopped, Oxford University Press, 2021. “We hold these truths to be self evident…” is not how one would begin an argument in a modern courtroom–at least, not if you intended to actually win your argument. Nevertheless,… Continue reading
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A Reformation of this World
Review of Bruce Gordon, Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. Bruce Gordon, who a number of years ago wrote what I understand to be the standard biography of John Calvin, has written a new biography of the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli, although the subject of a substantial amount of name… Continue reading
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Cynicism and Criminal Justice
Review of Aaron Griffiths, God’s Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020. I’ve always approached the concept of criminal justice with a heap of cynicism. It’s hard to know how to think about these things. Law and order seems to be an unobjectionable concept, until you begin… Continue reading
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Art and Shalom
Review of Makoto Fujimura, Art and Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020). Makoto Fujimura, an American artist of Japanese heritage and training, has put together a remarkable little book on the relationship of art—broadly construed—to faith. One would have to think so given the blurbs he received: who else can lay claim to endorsements… Continue reading
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All Our Crises are Theological
Review of Mark Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Mark Noll’s Civil War as Theological Crisis isn’t a new book. It’s a book that I first heard of as an undergrad—and that remained on my “to read” list through graduate school, never graduating to the “have read”… Continue reading
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John Adams had a Real Job
Review of: R.B. Bernstein, The Education of John Adams New York: Oxford, 2020. John Adams will never be the most popular of the Founding Fathers. He did not have the commanding grace of Washington, the elegant pen of Jefferson, or Franklin’s way with a coonskin cap. Paul Giamatti is a compelling actor, but there is… Continue reading
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Every Table is the Lord’s
Book Review: Wirzba, Norman. Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating. 2nd Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Humans are fundamentally eaters. And yet today, we as a culture give less thought to how we eat than perhaps at any time before in human history. We fail to answer the fundamental question of why… Continue reading
