Books, Links, and Ramblings

My reading has taken on a historical theme recently, with Pelikan’s The Growth of Medieval Theology and MacCulloch’s The Reformation currently occupying any free time I can find.

Next up, Gordon’s biography of Calvin.

Also of note, I just finished Jamie Smith’s The Fall of Interpretation (which was brilliant), and am adding a couple volumes by Barth and Torrance to the top of my reading list.

This morning I stumbled across the blog The Evangelical Calvinist. So far I’ve only read a couple posts – Thomas Torrance’s View of Scripture as ‘Human’ and Calvin: Right and Wrong on Predestination, Election – but it looks promising and ties into my other reading well at the moment.

I couldn’t be happier that the election is over, but I continue to find the apocalyptic language of both the Religious Right and the Religious Left incredibly disheartening. If Jesus is Lord means anything, it ought to mean the Church participates in a different sort of politics. As Augustine argued, Christians are part of a different polis, and that should determine how we approach the polis of the world – which one would hope leaves little room for uncritical partisan loyalties.

Speaking of Augustine (and Barth, Torrence, Smith, Calvin, the Reformation, etc.), might there be way of being [faithfully] “Reformed” that looks quite different from the way Piper and Co. have defined that term?

I believe so, but I am still wrestling with what that might look like.

On a tangentially related note – it seems I’m not the only one tentatively exploring a more traditioned stream of the faith these days. I have only anecdotal evidence for this, but it seems many who were engaged with emgerent have slowly and quietly begun moving towards something else. Of course, there is a significant difference between taking your next step in a journey and recanting your previous step.