Aslan, Ethics, and Apologetics

The basis of the moral life is to see the truth, for only as we see correctly can we act in accordance with reality.  Even though the good can be embodied in our choices, we do not create it through our choices.  However, we are not able to ‘see’ the good simply by looking; to [...]

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The Desacralized State

What happens if Christians do not take up their freedom in Christ? There then takes place what we have seen.  The desacralized, “dereligionized” state becomes autonomous, rational, and totalitarian.  Being no longer subject to the divine order which was integrated into it, it obeys its own law and intention and has in instelf the principle [...]

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F.H. Bradley

A friend recently passed this quote on to me.  The quote is an excerpt from a book (no reference) of essays on T.S. Eliot, who wrote his own doctoral dissertation on the British philosopher F.H. Bradley. As Eliot himself said, his prose style is modelled on Bradley’s. The combination of humility and irony, of feeling [...]

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Ellul on Barth

Ellul looks to Barth’s theology for his starting point.  But Ellul, trained in law, history, and sociology, was not satisfied with Barth’s non-theological work on understanding the world we live in.  In the essay, “Karl Barth and Us,” Ellul explains how he sees his “mission” after Barth: I had the impression that the ethical consequences [...]

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Seven Points

Marva Dawn wrote her doctoral dissertation at Notre Dame under the supervision of John Howard Yoder.  Her work, “The Concept of ‘the Principalities and Powers’ in the Works of Jacques Ellul,”  is one of the most insightful studies on Ellul available.  Drawing specifically from The Presence of the Kingdom, one of Ellul’s earlier and most [...]

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Stringfellow on Technocratic Totalitarianism and the Primacy of Human Life

“The ethical origins of the nation can be seen as ambiguous because they contain so much that renders property, as a social ethic, more basic than the concern for human life.  It may be argued that technology and the technocracy that it supports are an implementation, in extremely elaborate and sophisticated terms, of the primitive [...]

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How to Read Jacques Ellul

Anyone who has tried to read Jacques Ellul will have had a few moments of despair.  Just when you think you’ve got him figured out, he goes and makes a statement that completely contradicts something he said earlier.  This is not an uncommon experience, and probably one of the main reasons that people have trouble [...]

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