My latest (six): UFOs, leftists, Hitler, Scripture, doctrine, and PSA
I’ve been remiss of late, not sharing links to my latest pieces when they go up. I’ve had six essays or reviews published since August 7, the last time I posted on this blog. Here’s a quick round-up of links:
“Lexicon for the Phenomenon” is in the latest issue of The Hedgehog Review, and is no longer paywalled. It’s about UFOs, or rather, how we talk about UFOs in public, and the ways theology can shed some terminological light on ufology.
“Hating Hitler Is Not Enough” (CT, August 12) is my review of Alec Ryrie’s new book The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It. The book is very good—indeed, welcome and opportune—but the final two chapters, in which Ryrie gives advice to conservatives and progressives, left me underwhelmed.
“The Bible Is About Jesus—but Not Jesus Without His Bride” (CT, August 26) is my review of Jonathan Linebaugh’s new book The Well That Washes What It Shows: An Invitation to Holy Scripture. Wonderfully written and engaging and Lutheran in the best way—but almost completely devoid of the church, both as an encompassing liturgical-sacramental context for the hearing of Scripture and as the corporate communal human agent for the writing of Scripture. Alan thought I was unfair, but I leave you to be the judge.
“The Way We Debate Atonement Is a Mess” (CT, September 16) is my attempt to arbitrate between pro- and anti-PSA Christians, who very rarely either argue well or even get each other’s views right. I’m not much of a PSA-er myself, but nine times out of town I’m unimpressed by the anti-PSA brigade: its posture uncharitable, its rhetoric overheated, its arguments overcooked. Then again, neither are pro-PSA folks faultless in these debates. So I say: Let’s argue better—as Christians.
“Politics for Losers” is in the latest issue of First Things, paywalled for now but not for long. It’s my review of Phil Christman’s new book Why Christians Should Be Leftists. I see that Phil has read it and isn’t angry but isn’t sure whether he’ll reply. While he holds us in suspense, check out some other reviews of the book by Matthew Loftus, Todd Shy, Adam Roberts (paywalled for me), and (not yet published, but forthcoming in Mere Orthodoxy) Bonnie Kristian.
Finally, The Heythrop Journal published my review of Frances M. Young’s two-volume Doctrine and Scripture in Early Christianity. If you know Young, you already know how fortunate we are that we have these two works of extraordinary patristic scholarship. I’ll close this post with the paragraph that opens the review:
Midway through her ninth decade of life, after nearly sixty years of prolific and wide-ranging scholarship, Frances Young offers us, if not a parting gift, then a fitting one: a two-volume summative account of Doctrine and Scripture in Early Christianity. At around 650 pages total, and running from Justin Martyr to Theodoret of Cyrus, or the roughly 300 years from the middle of the second century through to the middle of the fifth, this single work is the capstone to an extraordinary career. The books, articles, and accolades are too many to count. I pause here at the outset, then, instead of waiting until the end, to register my thanks and not a little awe. Young has not only deepened scholarly understanding of early Christianity in all its vast complexity. She has built up the people of God. Would that all of us could say the same.
