Author: Jesse

Full Transcript of “Ep. 113 David Bentley Hart responds to Alan W. Gomes critique of That All Shall Be Saved” from David Artman’s Grace Saves All

Transcriber’s note: Thank you for the permission from both David Artman (with the Grace Saves All podcast) as well as his guest David Bentley Hart to transcribe this episode in full and to post it here. This podcast episode 113 is a delightful listen, and I recommend that you find it on your favorite podcast … Continue reading Full Transcript of “Ep. 113 David Bentley Hart responds to Alan W. Gomes critique of That All Shall Be Saved” from David Artman’s Grace Saves All →

A Chat about Reading, Walking, David Hart, and Various Qualities of Angelic Light

This is an audio recording of a conversation that took place over a video conference call with a friend who I've known primarily in an online forum for those who love David Bentley Hart. He is a young professional living in London who has blessed me tremendously with his many reading recommendations and incisive comments. … Continue reading A Chat about Reading, Walking, David Hart, and Various Qualities of Angelic Light →

Animal Suffering and What Christopher Southgate Missed

I'm only responding fifteen years late, but Christopher Southgate’s book The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008) was moving to me with its rare level of concern for animal suffering. It is a profoundly thoughtful book with many insights to recommend it. As my title suggests, … Continue reading Animal Suffering and What Christopher Southgate Missed →

Precisely the Thing that Led to the Secularization of Culture

On his Leaves in the Wind newsletter, David Bentley Hart recently posted a video chat with the essayist Ed Simon, in part because Hart so admired Simon's book Binding the Ghost: Theology, Mystery, and the Transcendence of Literature the last chapter which ("Binding the Ghost: On the Physicality of Literature") almost cause Hart not to … Continue reading Precisely the Thing that Led to the Secularization of Culture →

The “Pre-Cosmic Fall” of N. P. Williams

Sergius Bulgakov (1871 – 1944) N. P. Williams (1883 – 1943) In working on a new Wikipedia article about the idea of a meta-historical human fall, I noticed an interesting set of similarities between the concepts of two eminent Christian theologians publishing within the same year: one in English within the Anglican tradition and the … Continue reading The “Pre-Cosmic Fall” of N. P. Williams →

Skimming Through a Difficult Book: Angels, Archons, & Aliens by Ambrose Andreano

Book Cover (downloaded from Amazon.com) My friend Ambrose Andreano has published a difficult book called Angels, Archons, & Aliens: An Assessment of the Theological Implications and Psychological Impact of the Close Encounters Phenomenon that is now available as both a paperback and a Kindle ebook. I’ve enjoyed and appreciated Andreano’s thoughts on a wide variety … Continue reading Skimming Through a Difficult Book: Angels, Archons, & Aliens by Ambrose Andreano →

What’s the Point of Being Christian?

My online friend, Maurice Mo Hagar II, recently passed a question along to me and several others. He first pointed to this example: If universal salvation is true, what’s the point of being Christian, of believing in Christ, getting baptized, belonging to the church… preaching the gospel, teaching the Bible, sending missionaries, and planting the … Continue reading What’s the Point of Being Christian? →

Joy and Transfiguring Sorrow on this Feast of the Holy Innocents

The poet Christian Wiman notes, in Joy: 100 Poems, that “literature distinguishing between [happiness and joy] is extensive” and that “writers from Aristotle to C. S. Lewis have tended to draw a stark line.” With joy, Wiman says, “there is always an element of having been seized” by an outside force. Putting it into slightly … Continue reading Joy and Transfiguring Sorrow on this Feast of the Holy Innocents →