It wasn’t difficult to find our way to Walsingham but when we arrived it wasn’t clear what we should do. I had persuaded my partner and our three children to come with me to visit Walsingham. My partner was interested in going but the three children had asked me “what is it?”. It’s the site …
Category archives: religion
apostasy
The conceit of the development of Renaissance humanism was that, like Hercules, “man” could perfect “himself” and become a God. The apostasy of Salman Rushdie was to take the word of God and relativise it, offering a human interpretation to something inspired and directed by God. In the Western intellectual tradition, the Western philosophical tradition …
God is Beauty (not a compliment I fear)
I was thinking about a friend going away for a week to The New Wine Convention with the Church of England group of which he is a member. I was thinking how could he possibly believe in God enough to go away like this? I realise this was a mistaken question. For me, now, finally, …
brother, where art thou from?
Everywhere – if I go downtown – I am referred to as ‘brother’. I am tempted to use it in response – if you call me brother I’ll call you the same.
protecting bodies
The furore over Kate Middleton’s body and the film of the Prophet share an important feature – outrage protects the body of the believed and the offending article (the photo/the film) both offend the believer. In the west few believe in Royalty and it is the young woman to-be-Queen who believes in herself and as …
babylonian virtues – minority report
Babylonian Virtues – Minority Report is the title of the second chapter by Gunjević in God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse. I didn’t read directly a reference to the film Minority Report in the chapter which is, effectively, an evaluation of Negri and Hardt’s book Empire in the context of their use of Augustinian ideas to …
apocalyptic prevarication
Far from luring us into a perverse self-destructive rapture, adopting the properly apocalyptic stance is – today more than ever – the only way to keep a cool head. This is Zizek (should I say of course) turning an idea on its head with a hope filled lucidity. The idea is that the apocalyptic stance …