Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

‘…[L]ook around you on the Metro; seated or standing, every single person has a finger in some orifice of his face – in the ear, in the mouth, in the nose; no one feels he’s being observed, and everyone dreams of writing a book to tell about his unique and inimitable self, which is picking [...]

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Bruce Winter on Seeking the Welfare of the City in 1 Peter 1-2:11

This is one of a series of posts developing material read for a Gordon-Conwell course on Social Justice for the efforts of Christ the King Presbyterian Church to reach out to our city.  The full index of such posts can be found here.  Critical comments are encouraged.
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Bruce Winter’s Seek the Welfare of the City (Eerdmans/Paternoster, [...]

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Theology and Practice of Social Justice

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve just completed a reading course in Theology and Practice of Social Justice.  I’ve been involved (though less than I’d like) in my church’s efforts to seek the welfare of the city (including our immediate neighborhood of Central Square, the city of Cambridge, and the greater Boston area).  Beyond [...]

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The List

‘Do you have any idea how many books there are out there that I haven’t read?’
So went an attempt some time ago to explain to my wife why I spend so much time reading, and get stressed out when I’m not reading.  It is, admittedly, a fairly stupid reason for anxiety, given the other more [...]

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Neighborhood Fair

A few weeks ago we hosted a neighborhood fair at CTK.  The aim was simple:  to get to know our neighbors by opening up the front of our church for an afternoon of games, crafts, and food.  On the whole the event was a rousing success.  We weren’t mobbed, but there was a steady stream [...]

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Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

‘When a person desires to love, what he desires is that he be in a position to act with confident and settled purpose. By providing us with final ends… love saves us both from being inconclusively arbitrary and from squandering our lives in vacuous activity that is fundamentally pointless because, having no definitive goal, it [...]

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Aquinas and Kuhn

WTM writes:
Consider this passage from the Summa Theologica – I.q1.art8:
As other sciences do not argue in proof of their principles, but argue from their principles to demonstrate other truths in these sciences: so this doctrine [theology] does not argue in proof of its principles, which are the articles of faith, but from them it goes [...]

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A (relatively) clear explanation of the past ten days on Wall Street

I concur with Steven Levitt when he writes this morning that,
As an economist, I am supposed to have something intelligent to say about the current financial crisis. To be honest, however, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what this all means.
Fortunately for me, Steven works down the hall from two of the giants of financial [...]

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Back to normal…

Once again I begin by apologizing for the lack of posts recently. Work has been fairly all-consuming for the past four or five weeks, but last week the deadline for the report I’ve been working on was extended, and we’ve been able to return to a more civilized, normal-business-hours pace. Though I was [...]

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Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

‘The most seminal impact of envy consists… in transforming “the ideas of the dominant” into the “dominant ideas.” Once the link between the privileged position and certain values has been socially constructed, the disprivileged are prompted to seek redress for their humiliation through demanding such values for themselves – and thereby further enhancing these values’ [...]

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