“A God That Can Dance”: Nietzsche and the Logos

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. —John 1:1 In his magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that he “would only believe in a god who could dance.” Nietzsche … Continue reading “A God That Can Dance”: Nietzsche and the Logos

The World Is Fair, in Spite of the Old Fall

This past July on a warm summer afternoon, I attended a family friends’ poetry night—a classy little shindig with hors d’oeuvres, heels, sophisticated people, and, of course, poetry. A few months later, one of these poems unexpectedly resurfaced in a conversation with a friend. It was a poem entitled “A Fair World Tho’ a Fallen” by Christina Georgina Rossetti: You tell me that the world … Continue reading The World Is Fair, in Spite of the Old Fall

In My End is My Beginning: On the Mercy of Time in the Season of Lent

This is the cold time, the long time, the Lenten time. All of creation groans for new life, but the ground whispers, Not yet. All of God’s people groan for the final redemption, for the here-and-now of God-with-us, but the still, small voice whispers, Not yet. The Resurrection is coming. The Resurrection has come. From an eternal perspective, the Resurrection is. Christ cried, “Finished,” as … Continue reading In My End is My Beginning: On the Mercy of Time in the Season of Lent

“An old thing born of a very distant place”: On the oddness of Christianity

By Evan Gage “Christianity was the last great work of Greek mythology.”I’d heard some odd things hosting an English conversation club with a Turkish university’s Theology Department, but I couldn’t quite make sense of this one. I must have betrayed my confusion, so my student continued.  “It’s just another Zeus story. Zeus is a god, then Zeus is a bull. Zeus, God, comes to earth. … Continue reading “An old thing born of a very distant place”: On the oddness of Christianity

Restoring Liturgical Imagination

By Timothy Troutner By the time I returned from Turkey this summer, I’d become convinced that American Christians have a lot to learn from the builders of the underground cities and towering domes that I and the rest of my class in the Honors Program had wandered through on our three-week trip. The iconography and Marian devotion displayed in ancient near eastern Christianity presented a … Continue reading Restoring Liturgical Imagination

Bible!

Biblical inerrancy is a modernist mistake

Fighting modernity with modernity places limitations on the study of scripture. by Timothy Troutner Though Hillsdale students gladly consider differing perspectives on politics and theology, I have seldom seen tools of historical and literary analysis turned on the Bible itself. Outside Associate Professor of English Dr. Justin Jackson’s class on Reading Biblical Narrative, there seems to be a disconnect between our education and our reading … Continue reading Biblical inerrancy is a modernist mistake