John Henry Newman

Loads of good stuff lately at ABC Religion and Ethics, including a whole suite of posts to mark Cardinal Newman's beatification:

• Tracey Rowland on the influence of John Henry Newman on Benedict XVI
• Benedict XVI's homily for Newman's beatification
• Ian Ker on Newman's biglietto speech: the church succeeds by failure
• Austin Cooper on Newman's defence of the church
• Scott Stephens in defence of Benedict XVI 
• Tracey Rowland on Benedict and the banality of sacro-pop
• Paul Griffiths on Catholic sins and presentism
• Alister McGrath on Stephen Hawking, and again on the limits of science 
• Tamas Pataki on religion and violence
• Jonathan Malesic on why politicians should keep their faith hidden

And speaking of Newman, Kim has written a wondrous clerihew for the occasion:

Cardinal Newman
Wasn’t at his own exhuming,
Nor does his miracle,
For all the panegyricals,
Pass muster as empirical,
So a saint
He ain’t.

I tried to save the things I made

Well, it's been ages since my last link roundup – so here are some notable things from around the web:

• James K. A. Smith with a eulogy for Clark Pinnock
• And a eulogy for Donald Bloesch (whose books made a big impression on me when I was first getting interested in theology)
• Stanley Fish with an incisive comment on the furor surrounding the so-called Ground Zero mosque
• Andy has gotten me into Rev., a hilarious new TV series about an inner-city Anglican vicar. Episode 2 (about a charismatic minister) is absolutely priceless: here's an excerpt.
• A new dissertation on Melville's theology – I'm staggered by the suggestion that there's no publisher for this. We all need more Melville in our lives! (Have you tried Baylor UP? They have a few series in religion and literature, and they've been doing good things in this area of heterodox writers.)
• For those interested in the Uniting Church, there's a report on the recent conference where I spoke about the church's confession of Christ
• Steve Holmes on analytic theology and conceptual clarity
• William Cavanaugh on Christopher Hitchens and religious violence
• Sam Wells on forgiveness and justice
• Paul Griffiths on impotent religions and state violence
• And Paul Griffiths on plagiarism again
• Milbank on Christianity, Enlightenment and Islam
• The importance of genuine argument
• The Bonhoeffer effect in Australian politics
• A bad liturgical invention: giant papier-mâché Calvinist puppets of doom
• How a dead fish nearly destroyed a childhood
• A reader informed me that this F&T post is cited in the latest New Blackfriars – that's nice to see!
• A good review of Sufjan Stevens' beautiful new EP, All Delighted People
• Someone has even assembled a Sufjan Stevens order of service (sounds creepy when you put it like that, but it's great stuff)
• And, wonders never cease, there are some job openings in theology: theology at Duke; theological ethics at Duke; theology and ethics at Fuller
• Finally, since we've been talking about drawing, I leave you with some astonishing lead pencil art

Now don't just sit there – get up and praise-r-cise!

Never trust a millionaire quoting the Sermon on the Mount

Sorry it's been so long since my last round-up post. Some of these links are from a while back now, but still well worth checking out:

• The recent Holy Spirit in the world today conference is available in audio (includes Rowan Williams, Jürgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, David Ford)
• T. F. Torrance's lectures on the "Ground and Grammar of Theology" (one of his best books) are available in audio
• Michael Jensen on martyrdom as an affirmation of life
• Simon During with a great piece on Catholicism, conservatism and antihumanist politics
• Jim on R. S. Thomas, the crucified God and metaphysical humility
• On Philip K. Dick and Heidegger
• Evan unearths an interesting detail about Sarah Coakley
• Jason's series on William Stringfellow is growing to gargantuan proportions
• Flannery O'Connor and theological writing
• Jamie Smith on David Kelsey's Eccentric Existence
• Barry Spurr on T. S. Eliot's faith
• Finding Barth in Berlin
• Rick Floyd on disability and grace
• Ben Zimmer on the language of Mad Men
• Nancy Bauer discusses Lady Gaga and feminism (I admit it: the music does nothing for me, but I find Lady Gaga's videos absolutely enthralling. Inception is child's play compared to the dark imaginative vision of some of these videos.)
• Mike Bird on Ernst Käsemann and discipleship
• Davey reviews a new Calvin book by Paul Helm
• A sermon on Romans 13: obeying the state?
• Sacred tensions at the World Trade Center 
• A news piece on Princeton Seminary's wonderful Special Collections
• Anyone know what John Howard Yoder was working on when he died?
• Logos releases the Adolf von Harnack collection
• Dan comments on the great new Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs
• And David emerges from hibernation to review an Arcade Fire concert

Younger than that now

It's been ages since my last link round-up – so some of these posts are getting a bit long in the tooth, but they're still well worth checking out:

• Scott Stephens on the finally penitent pope
• First of a two-part review on Yoder and radical ecumenicity
• Second part of the review by Nate Kerr
• A brilliant analysis of the new John Lewis ad
• Thoughts on Hauerwas's new memoir
• The Edward Schillebeeckx essay prize
• A literature review on churches and politics
• A video series with David Bentley Hart
• Audio lectures on baptism by Markus Barth
• Audio lectures by Douglas Harink
• Sven Birkets and reading in a digital age
• A discussion of hedonism, ethics and God
• On analytic philosophy of religion
• A bibliography on evil and theodicy
• Henri Blocher on evil and the cross
• Historical note on histories of the self
• On T. F. Torrance and stratification
• In defence of grey ecology
• And I quite like this comment on green Stalinism
• A website in honour of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed
• Troeltschian pessimism on the state of theology
• Finally, if you're in Brisbane this Thursday (6 pm), Scott Stephens will be speaking at the Institute of Modern Art. His public lecture, “The Sign of the Cross: On Blasphemy and Christian Art”, explores the aesthetics of crucifixion, the problem of blasphemy, and the art of Andres Serrano and Ron Mueck.

A handshake of carbon monoxide

OK, while you ponder this awesome album cover, let me draw your attention to a couple of first-rate posts:

• Graham Harman has a blisteringly good post on "the most overrated philosopher of all time". I found his logic terrifying and compelling – and his post generated a storm of responses around the blogosphere. I can hardly bear the thought of what might happen if you used this logic to identify the most overrated theologian of all time! (Please, don't ever mention this again.)
  

• Meanwhile, Bruce Hamill has broken up with his boyfriend – that is, with Jesus. He writes very perceptively about the experience of having Jesus as an eroticised "invisible friend" – a "relationship" that can be maintained only through the laborious exercise of all manner of psychological and spiritual techniques. Personally, I'm very grateful for my Pentecostal background, but it left me with a painful awareness of the narcissistic dysfunction of this kind of "relationship" with Jesus. Bruce's account should remind us that the only Jesus we want anything to do with is the Jesus narrated in the Gospels – not Jesus the friendly poltergeist (as Robert Jenson once put it), but the crucified and risen one who summons us to discipleship.
  

You're my pride and joy et cetera

• Video: a rousing talk by Eric Gregory on contemporary theological discourse (including blogging). "Theology's not going to save us. But the way we do theology can be bad for our souls."
• Report: Lewis Ayres on a recent conference on the Trinity
• Painful: gloss on Isaiah 1:10-17 (painful because it's true)
• Cool: new theology blog
• Fail: is my Theology FAIL series a fail?
• Biography: of Maurice Blondel
• Teaching: some good thoughts on teaching the Christian tradition
• Games: theology after Playstation
• The secular: is it real?
• Moments: of speechlessness. Including this great line: "We are a generation that scrupulously tip toes around stereotypes of our contemporaries on the way to grand caricatures of our ancestors."
• Theses: by Brueggemann
  
• Missional: a weasel word
• Award: Rowan Williams is the man
• Preaching: "the marginalization of the word of God fractions it into a hundred lesser duties"
• Book: Werner Jeanrond's new Theology of Love
• Novel: Paul Griffiths on John Banville's pagan novel, The Infinities (which I read over Christmas, and enjoyed very much)
• Barth: this year's Barth Blog Conference
• Writing: on learning to write
• Scholarships: in New Testament
• Horror: a painful example of academic-speak
• Simplify: your life
• Humour: a funny Jesus Facebook update

Homeward, these shoes worn to paper: thin as the reason I left here so young

• Why Rowan Williams is the only real theologian
  
• Why Benedict XVI is the only real theologian
• A new article by Cynthia Nielsen: "What Has Mozart to Do with Coltrane?"
• Some early reviews of Douglas Campbell's mighty tome, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul
  
• James K. A. Smith: is there room for martyrs in today's church?
• Jamie Smith again, on film, freedom and fearless speech
  
• Top 10 indispensable books on theology of childhood
• And some good resources on children's literature
• Some entertaining comments when Halden asked for nominations of a desert island novel. Just in case there's any uncertainty about this, let me state that Moby-Dick is definitely and unequivocally – without any competition to speak of – the greatest novel ever written. To anyone who disagrees, I say: "Ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder yet, have ye?"
  
• Read Rowan Williams' response to Rome
• Some heretical thoughts on pedagogy (also published here), with a follow-up here
  
• Some nice scholasticism: whether Jesus can be an "interest" on Facebook
• Why conservatives shouldn't make manifestos
  
• Three new books on Augustine
• And please, if you do nothing else next year, make sure you read Lewis Ayres' forthcoming book, Augustine and the Trinity
• A new dissertation on the holy fools
  
• Redeeming the Enlightenment: new histories of religion toleration
• A nice passage on Karl Barth's way of theologising
• Peter Leithart on Robert Jenson and time
  
• Report on a sweet film fest
• Literature review on interfaith relations
• An essay prize competition
  
• Applications are open for the Brill Fellowship
• The Centre of Theology and Philosophy has a new website

I'm not able, I'm just Cain

A big round-up of links this week...

• My college library has launched its nice new website, with some cool features, including regular news and updates about new theology books (e.g. a feature on the library's 1599 Geneva Bible, and a feature on Australian mission in Korea). The library has also started its own online review: e-Theo: Book Reviews for Mind and Ministry.
  
• What religion should you follow? Here's a handy flowchart to help you decide
• In praise of Bob Dylan's new Christmas album. (I would buy an album of Bob Dylan breathing heavily – so why not a Christmas album too?)
• The power of religion in the public square
• Some visceral responses to "analytic theology". This is a comment on Oliver Crisp's new edited collection, Analytic Theology, which I'm reading at the moment – together with his new book on christology, God Incarnate.
• In New Zealand, there is a new indigenous confession of faith
• Stop calling it a "community of faith", start calling it "church". (I say: Amen!)
• A very informative post about the new German postmodern Christianity
• A forthcoming book event on Goodchild's Theology of Money. (Confession: I still haven't gotten around to reading this one.)
• And a blogged book discussion too: I reckon this is a great idea. Should we do something like this at F&T some time?
• God said it. I interpreted it. That doesn't exactly settle it.
• Reading Bonhoeffer is good for your soul
• Evangelicals and Catholics Together with a statement on Mary
• (Not all) Evangelicals and Catholics together
• Evangelical universalism: a postscript by Kim
• Jaroslav Pelikan audio lecture on the need for creeds
  
• Paul Griffiths: why it would be better for the church to live under an Islamic state than under liberal democracy
• Tom Wright invites Pope Benedict
  
• Tragedy and comedy: a review of Milbank and Žižek
• The full transcript of an interview with Žižek
• Hans Küng on the Vatican's recent ecumenical skullduggery
• A video of James Cone, on "success" in the black church
• James K. A. Smith on the tyranny of email
• Call for papers: mission and ecumenics
• And finally, I leave you with a link to what may be the most fantabulously cool peer-reviewed journal in existence: GOLEM: Journal of Religion and Monsters. Looks like I've finally found a place to submit my essay on the theology of Tom Waits...

The unpayable debt that I owed you

• It's official. Some churches are actually more evil than the devil
• And speaking of our cloven-footed friend, the world's stupidest Bible translation is underway. (I assumed this was a parody, but apparently it's horribly real. Much discussion in the blogosphere.)
• The Glo Bible, on the other hand, looks like fun. Very Mac.
• And another new Bible, illustrated by R. Crumb. You can see some of the controversial sex scenes here and here.
• A five-part video interview with Miroslav Volf
• A discussion of Sarah Coakley's inaugural lecture at Cambridge, on evolution and sacrifice
• Charles Taylor on Habermas
• James B. Torrance audio lectures: prayer and the triune God of grace
• On Oliver O'Donovan and Christian mission – with a response by Halden
• God as audience
• More on theologians and their crazy talk
• Investigations of Benny Hinn continue
• Essential books for preachers
• (In)essential systematic theology texts
• Best theological toilet book?
• And I'm sure you've heard by now of the Vatican's astonishing new apostolic constitution, opening the way for disaffected Anglican groups to enter into full communion with Rome. Evan has some commentary. And here's a video of Rowan Williams, pretending not to be stunned in the headlights.

I wish I had a suntan; I wish I had a pizza and a bottle of wine

• Against expository preaching
• Paul Griffiths on Christian principles concerning peace and violence
• And a response by Halden
• A post on Bart Ehrman and Stephen Colbert, and another one on parenthood, from a new(ish) Duke faculty blog
  
• A very thoughtful response to R. R. Reno's ranking of American theology programs
• No, Jesus is not likable
• Public theology before another god
• Mike Bird is planning to write a NT theology, and he has uploaded a manifesto outlining his approach
• Speaking of NT theology, I've been checking out Ben Witherington's new 850-page volume, and it looks very good
  
• A new Brill series in systematic theology
• Some nice audio theology books
• Paul Tillich on video
• A sweet video introduction to Karl Barth: Jesus loves you, and keep your pipe lit
• Speaking of which, no words can describe the awesomeness of this satirical treatise: A Theology of Pipe Smoking

I suggest we all get some rest and reconvene

• Theologian trading cards are coming soon!
• A new blog: The Evangelical Calvinist
• And another one: Paul Griffiths
  
• A fantastic post on Augustine's De Trinitate
• A liturgy for a miscarried child
• On Inglourious Basterds and the ethics of cinematic violence
• A compilation of audio resources for theology
• Audio Foucault lectures
• A revealing study of the cost of humanities journals
• John Colwell's new book reflects theologically on his struggles with bi-polar disorder
• Christian theology of religions blog conference: call for papers
• A journal issue devoted to the work of William Cavanaugh
• Andrew with the best F&T posts on Karl Barth (thanks Andrew!)
• Another reflection on the awesome kids' band, Butterflyfish
• Why men shouldn't be ordained
• Analogia entis revisted
• Rowan Williams does a little Hegeling
• And Rowan on how to be accessible without being banal
• On David Bazan and poetry
• A long and remarkable interview with Marilynne Robinson
  
• A new live Tom Waits album coming soon

• Finally, my curiosity got the better of me: I just had to see Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Is it really as bad as everyone says? No. It's worse – much worse. In my favourite scene, the characters are discussing the impending global catastrophe: "Civilian casualties have already skyrocketed on both sides of the world.... This cannot be allowed to happen. The devastation of marine life [would be] unimaginable. Miles of oceans would be poisoned with fallout. Also the potential for coastal damage and human casualties are extremely high. Plus massive tidal waves. We'd better think of something fast." After a solemn pause, our hero replies: "I suggest we all get some rest and reconvene."
• (Oh, and the sign pictured above is thanks to Jason.)

Creating a radio played just for two

• Anna has created an impressive new directory of Christian scholars on the web, in three parts: A-G, H-M and N-Z.
  
• For God’s sake, please stop working on your relationship with God
• On Ben Quash’s Theology and the Drama of History
• A first-rate course syllabus: theology and film
• Oliver Crisp’s fantastic new book cover
• The dark theology of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist
• A conference later this month on theology and the humanities
• And a Bonhoeffer conference [pdf file] here in Australia
• Hauerwas’s problem with liberalism
  
• Marilynne Robinson on Christian fundamentalism
  
• Barth’s hymn to Calvin
• Rowan Williams on communion and covenant
• Liberated into gifts
• On meritocracy and Nazism
• A devastatingly severe book review – by the book’s author!
• A hilarious video: Mike Bird on the books that influenced him
• A bloodless feast: swine flu and the eucharist
• On organising your desk (this post inspired me to clear about six piles of books and papers from my desk: now they surround me on the floor...)
• On biographies
• New online audio lectures by Foucault
• Bob Dylan to record a Christmas album
• Finally, I leave you with some images from the wonderful new Tom Waits Flickr set. No doubt about it, the man really knows how to strike a pose: only Lucifer himself, or a deranged dictator, could be so confidently and so infallibly photogenic.

Gonna make me a home out in the wind

• A new symposium on art, with a great opening post by Jamie Smith
• A nice new theology blog from Harvard: The Fish Tank
• A fantastic discussion of Lou Martyn, militaristic metaphors, and apocalyptic
• New Calvin resources
• On Augustine, politics and Eric Gregory
• Time to republish the works of Donald MacKinnon (amen to that – I had to prowl around the web for about a year to collect all his books!)
• An audio talk by William Cavanaugh
• On suffering and desire
• A Yoderian natural theology
• The sex discussion continues: why should the devil have all the good sex?
• An entire blogged commentary on Galatians!
• Reviewing Caritas in Veritate
• Against the Christian education of youth
• Craig Blomberg reviews Mike Bird's new introduction to Paul
• The best music video I've seen in ages

Now lay your faithless head down

• A brilliant new logo for the Church of England
• Another confession of book stealing
• A superb post by Carl Raschke on Derrida and Kandinsky
• Benedict's new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, is coming soon
• On Charles Mathewes, eschatology, and the fourth of July
• And now I finally understand why there is no fourth of July in England
• A video panel of Cornel West, Serene Jones and Gary Dorrien
• On the blogosphere 2.0
• Tweeting in church
• On Nate Kerr and church-as-polis
• Whether modernity is a Christian heresy
• A list of the best kids' books ever (I'd love to do a post on this topic one of these days: kids' books rock)

Hunched over a typewriter, I guess you call that painting in a cave

• On iTunes, you can hear or watch a sermon on Judas by our recently departed friend, Ray Anderson
• Travis and Darren have completed their commentary on the Barth conference
• An Adornian homage to Bob Dylan
• Two posts discussing John Howard Yoder’s unpublished paper on Bonhoeffer
• A review essay by Halden on evangelical and empire
• An mp3 debate between Milbank and Žižek
• On Yoder and apocalypticism
• Advice from William Willimon
• A reflection on Serrano’s Piss Christ
• On conservatism and Augustine
• Some new books by Mike Bird
• The latest in an ongoing series on the canon in Protestant dogmatics
• A sneak preview of John Goldingay’s forthcoming third volume
• Finally, I wandered into the wonderful Labyrinth Books here in Princeton, and was excited to see Leland de la Durantaye’s new book, Giorgio Agamben: A Critical Introduction. It looks impressively fat and austere, so I think I’ll enjoy it.

Clothed in all that's prodigal and strange

• Richard Bauckham wins a big theology prize
  
• Halden on abortion, violence and moral consistency
• Tom Wright has a cool device on his desk
  
• The holiness of buying books
  
• On generalist and specialist scholars
• The worst Bible ever
  
• Jim has a great book giveaway
• On critical theory in theological education
  
• On the uselessness of art
  
• A forthcoming big biography of Carl Schmitt
  
• And two translated volumes by Jacob Taubes
  
• The latest from Stuff White People Like
  

The hopeless hungry side of town

• A lecture by Oliver O'Donovan on scripture and church
  
• The best theology books of the past two years?
  
• A desktop picture challenge
  
• On Jeffrey Stout and democracy
  
• An Eastern Orthodox approach to scripture
  
• Dan Brown the symptom
• Angels and Demons: fact or science fiction?
  
• An album review: So Elated
  
• On technology and the body
  
• A song from Dave Belcher
  
• A series on Stephen Fowl's new book on scripture
• Some funny ideas for new Christian books
• Cynthia is blogger of the month; in the interview she talks about jazz, philosophy, theology, and more
  

Four walls and adobe slabs for my girls

• On Milbank and Žižek
  
• Michael Gorman has a blog
  
• Stanley Fish on God and Terry Eagleton
  
• On Foucault, history and suprahistory
  
• The complete series on Agamben
  
• Call for papers: theology and race
  
• Call for student papers: Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference
  
• A conference on Vatican II
  
• Barth on astronomy
  
• N. T. Wright gets grumpy about blogging
• On Yoder and conservatism
  
• An apocalyptic glossary
  
• Ten most pressing evangelical issues
  
• A job opening in Christian doctrine
  
• Halden has got the good stuff
• One of Iron & Wine’s best songs is available for free download – a sample from their forthcoming album
• Bob Dylan has great taste...
  
• ... and you can hear all of Tom Waits’ strange and unnatural appearances on Dylan’s radio show: May all your teeth fall out except one, which is for toothache.

We speak our vows in sorry whispers

• A call for mp3 theology lectures
  
• Why you should melt your Kindle
  
• On the standard assumption underlying environmental theologies (“that human interests must be restrained before nature’s rights”)
  
• Notes on a new book by my favourite contemporary philosopher: Il sacramento del linguaggio
• An Aussie seminar on Paul and continental philosophy
  
• A new article on Barth and McCormack in Westminster Theological Journal
  
• A lively discussion of conservatism and sex
  
• And speaking of conservatism, here’s a good lecture by Niall Ferguson
  
• A blog devoted to the inimitable Peter Brown (h/t Evan)
  
• Mark C. Taylor against today’s university model
  
• A narrative CV (perhaps all CVs should follow this format – it’s much more interesting than the usual format!)
• On Carl Trueman’s porky pies
  
• What does it mean to be “Reformed”?
  
• An Augustinian take on bullshit
  
• A great Carl Schmitt bibliography (h/t Danny)
• David Bentley Hart on why it’s hard to be a theologian
• And don’t forget that the great man’s new album is released within the next day – it’s real nice, and you even get to hear a bit of dark evil laughter: “I just wanna say that hell’s my wife’s home town...”
• You can also hear all sorts of nice bootlegged music here

Twenty-nine days of sinning and forty to repent

• On graduate study in theology
  
• A massive blog series: the good news
  
• I ♥ chick tracts
  
• A wonderful series: theology of childhood
  
• A new open source online journal on Theological Librarianship
  
• A. N. Wilson believes again
  
• An interview with Robert Jenson
• A critique of David Bentley Hart on pacifism
  
• Cynthia on Nietzsche and metaphor
• A new edition of Calvin’s 1541 French Institutes
  
• A Times Higher Education piece on Milbank and RO
  
• An excellent series of radio interviews with Thomas Szasz, on the idea that we live in a therapeutic state or “pharmacracy”
• Rowan Williams’ Holy Week talks on prayer (I haven’t listened to them yet, but I’ve heard that they’re excellent)
  
• Finally, a stunning polemical assessment of David Bentley Hart’s book In the Aftermath – here’s an excerpt: “In what can only be described as a tone of lament, Hart mourns that we no longer have the gods of antiquity, since it was they who provided for the church ‘enemies with whom it could come to grips’…. This narrative of world history is quite simply Hegelian: the church (or, better, Christendom) by Hart’s lights persists through the destruction of its enemies, and alongside and over against that nothingness it summons from the past. His is a dark vision in which Christendom persists, in the aftermath, as the very mediation of that nothingness. With no paganism left to slay, Hart would have the church now subsist on its rotting corpse. There is a fierce horror erupting here, appropriate for the Schmittian animus of which it partakes. This nothingness that is the residue of the ancient world – this is the true (unknown, but anticipated) enemy of Christendom precisely because it tells Hart who the church is. As he would have it, the church’s very relation to the nothingness, anticipated and disclosed by Christendom, simply is the church in the present.”
• And for a bit of light relief: the world’s most alienating airport