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 →

Jews, Christians, and Holy Week

Note: this was taken from an informal, online share by David Armstrong and posted with his permission. As we get closer to Holy Week, if you’re a Christian, you’re statistically very likely to hear a sermon or homily or hymnography at church that will misrepresent Jews and Judaism to various degrees. For many if not … Continue reading Jews, Christians, and Holy Week →

Hart’s Laughing Witch Hazel Tree

David Bentley Hart tells the story of a tree that he saw shaking with laughter and that sent him running away in fear as a boy of about seventeen. This is from "A Conversation Between Salley Vickers and David Bentley Hart" posted to Leaves in the Wind on November 7, 2022 (between minutes 52:38 and … Continue reading Hart’s Laughing Witch Hazel Tree →

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 →

How we should tread

There is no truth or value that imposes itself to which we ever manage to appeal in perfect abstraction from experiences and traditions given social life by human beings in just such and such a manner that they could not have foreseen or intended from the outset. A pure rational appeal to any principle that … Continue reading How we should tread →

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 →

The Elder Zosima and St Isaac the Syrian

Like many others, encountering the radiant love of the Elder Zosima in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov was a formative early event in my being drawn to the Orthodox Church. Similarly revelatory was my first exposure to the great 7th century Saint Isaac of Syria, whose feast day is today, January 28. Like the fictional elder, Saint … Continue reading The Elder Zosima and St Isaac the Syrian →

In Wild Thyme

Guest Author: We are delighted to share this fairytale by Shelley K. Davenport. She lives and writes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She can be found at shelleykdavenport.com. Once upon a time, there was a handsome dog named Hank. A purebred Rottweiler, he had velvety ears, a barrel chest, and large, competent paws. Hank was proud of … Continue reading In Wild Thyme →