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Cursing our enemies before God
Given the debate over the last few days about whether it’s appropriate to be happy about, and even celebrate, the death of Osama bin Laden, I thought it would be worth revisiting Ellen Davis’s discussion of the cursing (imprecatory) psalms in her book Getting Involved with God. These psalms, which call God’s wrath down upon…
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Drinking liberally
I stopped by my local liquor store this evening in the hopes of getting my hands on a six-pack of the recently launched local beer DC Brau. Unfortunately, they were all sold out and didn’t expect to have any more in stock for a few weeks. (From what I gather, it’s been quite popular.) Of…
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Justice, just war, and the killing of Osama bin Laden
This story asks whether it’s wrong to celebrate bin Laden’s death. It quotes, among others, moral philosopher Christine Korsgaard who says: “Most people believe that the killing we do in war is justified as the only way to disable an enemy whose cause we believe to be unjust…. And although it is more controversial, many…
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The prayer of suffering
Another insightful passage from Ellen Davis on the Psalms: The preponderance of laments in the Book of Praises is a fruitful contradiction from which we can learn much. But we live with a second discrepancy that should trouble us more than it does; namely, the contrast between the biblical models of prayer and our own…
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The First Amendment of faith
The problem with [many common] notions of prayer is that we cannot have an intimate relationship with someone to whom we cannot speak honestly–that is, someone to whom we cannot show our ugly side, or those large clay feet of ours. We in this culture are all psychologically astute enough to know that honest, unguarded…
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bin Laden
Clearly no American is going to shed any tears for Osama bin Laden, me included. And based on the president’s statement last night, it sounds like the operation that got him was of the right kind–targeted, based on sound intelligence, avoiding both American and civilian casualties. If we’re going to fight terrorism, this is vastly…
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Putting down roots in a place of transience
I mentioned in my last post that my wife and I are buying a house. This has been a big step for us, though after having a child nothing seems like quite as big a step as it did before. Longtime readers may recall that we’ve bounced around quite a bit during the course of…
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Life
Sorry for the relative lack of substantive posting lately. We’re moving in just over a week (we just bought a house–our first) and our daughter just turned one, so things have been busy, as you might imagine. I spent part of today packing and part of it enjoying the absolutely perfect spring weather with my…
