Wednesday's News & Ideas
A believer's last day, his best day
ChristianHistory.net: A Puritan funeral sermon sets death in its true perspective.
Larry Summers and the myth of the tireless leader
Harvard Business Review, Editors’ Blog: Forgoing sleep doesn't make you a hero. It makes you ineffective.
Torturing the image of God
Washington Post, On Faith blog: At the heart of Jewish prohibitions against torture is a central teaching from Torah: All human beings are made in the Image of God.
Why I believe again
The News Statesman: A.N. Wilson says his conversion to atheism may have been ‘a road to Damascus’ experience but his return to faith has been slow and doubting
The Spark
In It for the Duration
In his 34 years as president of Bard College, Leon Botstein has morphed from wunderkind to elder statesman of higher education. Scholar, musician and intellectual provocateur, Botstein is a ferocious champion of small liberal arts colleges and a perceptive critic of education-as-usual. In a wide-ranging interview with Miller-McCune, he addressed the current economic plight of Harvard and other wealthy universities that have experienced huge losses in endowment. “I don't feel particularly sorry for them,” he said. “These institutions grew without a lot of discipline.”
A Believer's Last Day . . .
One of the unfortunate caricatures of Puritans is that of the dour, stern-faced cleric, certain he (they were always he)clearly heard and comprehended the Word of God. What is striking in Brooks' funeral sermon is the underlying theme of humility: we cannot claim, in this life, to know God fully or understand perfectly, and this partial knowledge leads to hope for the life to come. This is reminiscent of Paul in I Corinthians 13, saying he now understands only in part but one day will understand fully, even as he has been fully understood. Isn't it those who lack this humility, who claim to know God well and hear her with perfect clarity, who sow turmoil and set folk against each other? From a 17th century Puritan comes a clear word for the 21st century: humility as a virtue.
Post new comment