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Jessica Williams: "Over Easy Eggs"
2007-10-24 17:26:00
Over Easy Eggs 10/16/07; 3:46am EST the castles in my femorathey have declared war on my circulationred and blue flagsi have turned purplemy jawis falling off my headand crushing the nerves in my necklike a mother bird cooing to her chicklets' bonesmy bloodis turning to teaa few of its leaves like driftwood in my heartbeating with meas tumorsmy liver won't filtermy earsmust smell like the oceanfor my hair has turned to seaweedhumid, the brainmy noseis in my neck, toobut it's an infectious swampi want to pluck out all its black treesand feel the satisfaction of stinginglet the mucus skithe lines in my palmsare meltingon the carpetand across the roommy stomachis growing cactiand i can feel the tumbleweeds rollingrolling rollingacross the prairiethat is my membranemy pelvishas swallowed iceit is sore from impactfrom my lust for youi lie down and feel only whale harpoonsmy eyeshave forgotten my facethey feel like snorkeling gogglesthey won't be blue tomorrowwhen i look at the suni fe...
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Transcending Singularity
2007-10-18 11:41:00
Apropos of my latest post on fear of the moment, here are two essayists -- one a Chassidic scholar, the other a Christian painter -- with encouraging insights into how imagination and spirituality help us not only transcend the particularity of our lives, but actually turn it into a richer experience than that of mere undifferentiated Being.At Chabad.org, Yanki Tauber writes in his essay "Three Divine Echoes: Singularity, Plurality and Oneness": Creation, as described in the teachings of Kabbalah, is an evolution from the utterly singular to the plural and dichotomous. The entirety of existence originates as the divine yen to create -- a desire as singular as its Conceiver. But latent in this desire is also another face of the divine -- the infinite possibilities implicit in G-d's unlimited potential. Thus, the singular desire for creation gives birth to our plural world, a world whose immense detail and complexity bespeak the infinite potential of its Creator.None of this, in...
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Fear of the Moment
2007-10-16 22:36:00
  Being present in the moment is unusually difficult for me. Ever since I was a child, I've had several elaborate fantasy storylines going on in my head, into which I plunge when I'm waiting for sleep, doing routine chores or even going for a walk. Last spring, I forced myself to abandon one of these long-running daydream sagas when I realized it was draining me of interest in my real life. Inhabiting my actual existence was terrifying. I remember standing on the curb outside my house, feeling naked under the huge sky. I was a tiny point on earth that the wind could blow away. I started writing my novel as a replacement for these abandoned scenarios in which I was the heroine of a life more exciting, empowered, or romantic than any real existence could be. Daydreams, like movies and unlike life, are all "good parts" (or at least interesting parts). All my libido was being diverted into unreal experiences. Writing fiction would discipline me to empathize wi...
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Poem: "The Happiness Myth"
2007-10-13 19:25:00
Do you bite the day or does the day bite you:the sun like a gear wheel spinning with    hooked edges,the sun a flaming pizza that greases your    mouth.Tell me why you stopped drinking.Are you in the oven or did you poke the witchinto the fire with her own iron-handled    paddl e?It's not obvious that you should be sober.Happiness spins like a drug lollipop,vortex of primary paints where lick or    be lickedis only a simple choice for boys fighting.The glass of euphoria fits in the palm of    your hand,barely enough to drown your tongue-tip,too much to empty.       ;      &nbs p;      &nb sp;      &n bsp;      A s for me,I now wear my whalebone stays under    my ribs,hoop skirts swishing in my womb like a   &...
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Mark Levine Interviewed at jubilat
2007-10-12 16:22:00
Mark Levine's second poetry collection, Enola Gay, is on the short list of books that expanded my understanding of what poetry could do. His post-apocalyptic, enigmatic ima ges make sense the way a door creaking in a horror film makes sense. You don't have to know what's behind there to realize it's something scary; in fact, it's scarier because your rational mind can't define it. Some excerpts from poems in the book:from Counting the Forests...He was counting the forests. That was his plan.He carried a sack of dried fishprepared by his servant and curedin sea-salt. His servant was near; he could hearthe rasp of his servant's breath. His servant was making the vigil in a mountainsomewhere in the ice-country; and the ice-country   was vastand blue and full of death-forms. So was the forest.Here in the red forest: a forest of birds.Birds and dark water and looming red leavesbrushed with murmuring voices.They swept towards him, the voices, like  ...
More About: Book Reviews , Mark

Interpreting Scripture: A Double Standard on Marriage
2007-10-09 12:06:00
Christians holding the line against recognition of same-sex relationships claim that Bible verses on sexuality must be taken at face value. We're not allowed to point out a particular interpretation's historical track record in fostering abuse and prejudice, as evidence that it's inconsistent with the Bible's overall message of mercy, equality and nonviolence. Nor can we look to history and science to argue that the verse's "plain meaning" may represent an anachronistic reading of words that meant something different in the ancient world. Yet Christians for quite some time have taken a much more flexible, holistic, justice-based view of Bible verses on heterosexual marriage, and the sky has not fallen. Faithful GLBT Christians ask nothing more than that the church apply the same hermeneutic to them as it does to straight partnerships. There's something askew when two straight people who want to break up their family are treated more leniently than two ...
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Signs of the Apocalypse: Smack That!
2007-10-08 10:36:00
Love your enemies, do good to them that persecute you, turn the other cheek, yatta yatta yatta. Who cares what the Bible says? Just getting our children into a church building has the magical power to save their souls. Let's not scare them off with all that boring content about, like, Jesus and stuff. From Sunday's New York Times: First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace. Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game Halo....Those buying it must be 17 years old, given it is rated M for mature audiences. But that has not prevented leaders at churches and youth centers across Protestant denominations, including evangelical churches that have cautioned against violent entertainment, from holding heavily attended Halo nights and stocking their centers with multiple game...
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To Whom Does the Church Belong?
2007-10-04 19:21:00
In this post I simply want to raise some questions that I don't know how to answer. As with many of my reflections on ecclesiology these days, it's prompted by the ongoing struggle over gay rights and Biblical authority in the Anglican Communion.The obvious answer to the title question would be "Jesus".  To which a beleaguered rector or worshipper might respond, "Yes, but...could you be more specific?"In other words, when conflicting factions differ on many of their basic assumptions, it's not enough to say "we're following Jesus" or "we're following the Bible". Whose Jesus, which Bible?On a more practical level, who gets to set the direction of a particular parish? The global denomination, the country's presiding bishop, the rector, the lay members? I've experienced this conflict from both sides of the fence. Last year, when the then-minister of my Episcopal church was tugging us in a Unitarian/skeptical direction, I felt personally affronted. "...
More About: Church , The Church , Belo

Christina Askounis: "The Novice"
2007-10-02 18:14:00
From the Fall 2005 issue of Image, this restrained, lyrical story traces the bittersweet spiritual awakening of a middle-aged bachelor whose adopted daughter has decided to join a convent: IT WAS Catherine?s last night. Lawson suggested they have dinner at her favorite restaurant, a resolutely untrendy bistro where the aged waiters knew them both by name. ?Since it?s your last night,? he?d said, conscious of the theatrical cast the words seemed to give the evening. Still, it was no more than the truth. Catherine, who tonight looked so lovely, so finished in her black sleeveless dress?Catherine was leaving him. Not the right way to put it, of course. But ever since that long-ago afternoon when she had been eleven and he twenty-eight?only twenty eight!?scarcely older than she was now?he had felt she did belong to him in a way, that they belonged to each other, and now she was going, never to return.Read the whole story here.
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Judy Kronenfeld: "Spaghetti Straps"
2007-10-02 12:17:00
On my campus walk a spring effusionof spaghetti straps, and?Madonna'slegacy?the inside outed, too delicatefor the name of straps, tender, silkybra linguine, tomato-red, celery-green,slipping off creamy shoulders, ortangling fetchingly with those spaghettistraps my daughter informs me, I, as an older woman, can not wear.               ;      &nbs p;      &nb sp;    Once, unwittingly,I draped my navy blazer onthe chairback in my class; twopale pink shoulder pads ploppedup like obscene pincushionsfrom the costumer's shop, abruptlyspotlit. The student they tickled apologized, but couldn't stop laughingeach time he looked. NowI pull my jacketaround me, though it's hot,      & nbsp;               ;      &nbs p;   t...
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Lance Larsen Interviewed at Meridian
2007-09-30 18:41:00
Award-winning poet Lance Larsen is the editor of Literature and Belief, the literary journal of Brigham Young University, where some of my poems have been privileged to appear. In this 2003 interview, he discusses writing and faith with Doug Talley at Meridian Magazine, a publication of Provo College in Utah. Highlights: MERIDIAN: Do you see yourself as tending toward melancholy, and if so, why?LARSEN: I don?t see myself as being melancholy, at least not unusually so. G.J. Nathan once said, ?Show me an optimist and, almost without exception, I?ll show you a bad poet.? Why? Because bad poets don?t usually wade into trouble; they don?t dive. If the scriptures and classic literature can be trusted, and I think they can, only trouble is of much interest. At heart I?m a romantic---but a romantic who believes that visions aren?t worth much if they aren?t tested by everyday living.****MERIDIAN: ...Do you, yourself, see the poems as largely autobiographical, or were you trying, instead, to ...

"The Approach" and Other New Poems by "Conway"
2007-09-27 18:48:00
My correspondent "Conway" has been very prolific this summer, writing poetry inspired by the books and printouts I've sent him: T.S. Eliot, Alexandre Dumas, Stephen Dobyns, and even yours truly. Conway is the pen name of a resident in a maximum-security prison in California, where he's serving 25-to-life for receiving stolen goods under the state's draconian three-strikes law. Here's a selection from his recent work:The ApproachThe Sky offers empty promisessmiling with toothy cloudsblades hiding in the invisible windpushing forward an orgasmic rainwide open mouth, stuttering-n-droolingover the gloriously ravaged landpolished and preened for the danceelectric frustration cracklinginstinctive thunder cacklingdestructively loud vibrations cussat all of mother nature's fussprimping for her approaching sunanother beautiful day begun...****PretenderSmell the dust circulatingrumble of gears, chattering windpushing past shadows of patience againpressed faces on clear glass, melted sand...
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"Grateful, Thankful" to Literal Latte
2007-09-25 12:47:00
The online journal Literal Latte has just posted their current issue, containing my story Grateful, Thankful, which won second prize in their 2006 fiction contest. This excerpt from my novel-in-progress finds Prue coping with the competing pressures of teenage sexuality and academic achievement. (Sex in bathrooms is becoming the King Charles's Head of this book; it just seems to find its way into whatever I am thinking.) Here's the opener: I could have avoided all that trouble if only I had remembered the capital of North Dakota. Normally I took schoolwork seriously, but it had been a late night at band practice and I decided to give myself a pass on memorizing stupid places I would never live. I couldn't see my mother moving us anywhere shotguns were more popular than cappuccino. I dropped my regulation #2 pencil and bent down to fetch it, so that on the upswing I could skim a peek at Ryan McFarrell's test paper. He winked at me, those blue eyes wide under s...
More About: Site News , Fiction , Hank

Old and New Friends in Charlotte
2007-09-23 19:21:00
We had a wonderful trip to Char lotte , NC this past week, where I read my prizewinning story at the monthly meeting of the Charlotte Writers' Club. Many thanks to contest coordinator Annie Maier, president Richard Taylor (editor of the Kakalak Anthology of Carolina Poets), and other club officers for making me feel like a queen for a day. My tech-savvy but overworked husband made a video of the reading, which I will post here as soon as I can prevail upon him to extract it from the camcorder. The featured speaker at the meeting was poet and novelist Karon Luddy, another past winner of the CWC's short story contest, who read a touching and hilarious excerpt from her new book Spelldown. Set in a South Carolina mill town in 1969, this novel follows a quirky, brilliant adolescent girl who is determined to win a national spelling bee, while coping with her father's alcoholism. I am looking forward to reading my signed copy. Karon also read from her po...
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Book Notes: Velvet Elvis
2007-09-23 19:19:00
Rob Bell, the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church, wrote a popular and controversial book two years ago called Velvet Elvis : Repainting the Christian Faith. The cutesy pop-culture title, like Bell's friendly conversational writing style, might lead you to dismiss it as a lightweight inspirational book to sell the gospel to Gen-X'ers. Don't make that mistake. Velvet Elvis may just be the emergent church's Mere Christianity. Taking his cue from N.T. Wright and other scholars of the "New Perspective on Paul", Bell wants to restore our sense of the Bible as a living narrative, an ever-evolving interpretive tradition in which we are called to participate, and he does this first of all by situating Jesus within his Jewish rabbinic heritage. Modernism has entrapped Christians into basing Biblical authority on a shared pretense that the text's meaning is objective and transparent -- as if we were saved by the correctness of our propositions, and...
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Ned Condini: "In the Farmer's Hut"
2007-09-23 17:11:00
(after Federico Garcia Lorca)When I feel lonelyyour ten years still remain with me,the three blind horses,your countless expressions and the littlefrozen fevers under maize leaves.At midnight cancer strode out into the hallsand spoke with the empty shells of      &nb sp;documents,live cancer full of clouds and thermometers,with its chaste desire of an appleto be pecked by nightingales.In the house where there's no cancerwhite walls break in the frenzy of      &nb sp;astronomyand in the smallest stables, in the crosses     &nbs p; of woods,for many years the fulgorof the burnings glows.My sorrow bled in the eveningswhen your eyes were two stones,when your hands were two townshipsand my body the whisper of grass.My agony was looking for its dress.It was dusty, bitten by bugs,and you followed it without tremblingto the threshold of dark water.Silly and handsomeamong the gentle creatures,with your mo...
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When Good Art Happens to Bad People
2007-09-17 18:51:00
Gregory Wolfe, editor of the award-winning literary journal Image: Art, Faith, Mystery, has a new blog that should be on the regular reading list of anyone interested in the intersection of the arts and religion. In his article In God's Image: Do Good People Make Good Art?, published in the magazine In Character and linked from his website, Wolfe ponders whether creativity could be considered a Christian virtue, and how this understanding of the creative process differs from the Romantic cult of genius, in which the personality of the artist becomes conflated with the work itself. As we all know, sublime art is often made by very flawed people, and vice versa. For some religious people, this would seem to undermine art's claim to be a spiritually significant activity. Unless aesthetics are strictly subordinated to moral concerns, artistic creativity could be a gateway to idolatry, worshipping the powers of the self unconnected to God or community. Wolfe suggests a less egocen...

Signs of the Apocalypse: Action Jesus
2007-09-12 18:00:00
It's almost too easy to make fun of Jesus kitsch, but if there were a Bulwer-Lytton Prize for the most delightfully awful representations of the J-Man, these statuettes at We Are Fishermen would win it. The hallmark of bad Jesus art is a belabored literalness that puts the big guy in situations that are anachronistic to the point of campiness. How will we know it's Jesus unless he's got the crown of thorns, the blissed-out smile and the white bathrobe? But dude...I know you have special healing powers, but you're going to get seriously banged up if you fall off the motorcycle wearing that outfit. This sacrilegious moment courtesy of MadPriest (who else?) who is looking for suggestions for items that would be banned from the Lambeth Conference gift shop. (The very existence of which is another Sign of the Apocalypse -- come on, guys, good taste is the only thing the Anglican Church has left!)   Update: MadPriest's equally mad commenters note that Ship of...
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Meet My Imaginary Friends in Charlotte, NC
2007-09-12 16:39:00
"The Albatross", a chapter from my novel-in-progress, has won the Elizabeth Simpson Smith Award for a Short Story from the Char lotte Writers' Club. The award ceremony, where I'll be reading my story and accepting a check for $500 that I've already spent, will be held on Sept. 18 at 7 PM at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 4345 Barclay Downs Drive, Southpark Mall, Charlotte, NC 28209. Come one, come all.Contest judge Meredith Hall, author of the memoir Without a Map, had these comments on "The Albatross": "The voice in this story is knockout wonderful. A child's voice is always very difficult to pull off. Often a child's voice is very sentimental, rosy, sweet, and we quickly become suspicious. More than that, the reader expects and needs greater wisdom and insight than a child possesses, but the writer must take care not to insert that adult sensibility into the child's perceptions. Here, Prue is so smart and so direct and so hungry to understand her world, we are led along by her, and...
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Poems for September 11
2007-09-11 21:45:00
Today is the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rather than add my own words to a subject that is nearly beyond words, I share below a winning poem from the Winning Writers War Poetry Contest that I judge every year.SUMMER RAIN by Atar HadariThis is the season people die here,she said, Death comes for them now.Sometime between the end of winterand the rains, the rains of summer.And the funerals followed that summerlike social engagements, a ball, then another ballone by one, like debutantesuncles and cousins were presented to the great halland bowed and went up to tendertheir family credentials to the monarchwho smiled and opened the great doorsand threw their engraved invitations onto the iceand dancing they threw their grey cufflinksacross each others' shoulders, they crossed the floorand circles on circles of Horasfilled the sky silently with clouds, that chilled the flowers.And funeral trains got much shorte...
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In Memoriam: Madeleine L'Engle
2007-09-09 21:17:00
Madeleine L'Engle, the celebrated author of A Wrinkle in Time and many other books of fiction and Christian essays, passed away on Thursday at the age of 88. From the New York Times, Sept. 8: Madeleine L?Engle, an author whose childhood fables, religious meditations and fanciful science fiction transcended both genre and generation, most memorably in her children?s classic ?A Wrinkle in Time,? died on Thursday in Litchfield, Conn. She was 88.Her death was announced yesterday by her publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux. A spokeswoman said Ms. L?Engle (pronounced LENG-el) had died of natural causes at a nursing home, which she entered three years ago. Before then the author had maintained homes in Manhattan and Goshen, Conn. ?A Wrinkle in Time? was rejected by 26 publishers before editors at Farrar, Straus & Giroux read it and enthusiastically accepted it. It proved to be her masterpiece, winning the John Newbery Medal as the best children?s book of 1963 and selling, so far, ei...
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Robert Bly Interviewed on PBS
2007-09-09 20:50:00
Last week the venerable poet Robe rt Bly was interviewed on Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS. Some highlights from their witty, uplifting conversation are below. I recommend watching the video online rather than simply reading the transcript, as Bly's joie de vivre is an essential part of the experience. BILL MOYERS: You know, when I first met you, you were just barely 50. And you read this little poem. You remember this one? ROBERT BLY: "I lived my life enjoying orbits. Which move out over the things of the world. I have wandered into space for hours, passing through dark fires. And I have gone to the deserts of the hottest places, to the landscape of zeroes. And I can't tell if this joy is from the body or the soul or a third place." Well, that's very good you find that because when you say, "What is the divine," it's much simpler to say there is the body, then there's the soul and then there's a third place. BILL MOYERS: Have you figured out what that third place is 30...

Resources for Postmodern Preaching
2007-09-07 21:27:00
Dr. David Teague, a former missionary who teaches at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts, has started the website Postmodern Preaching  as a resource for pastors and others who find the old methods of Christian apologetics irrelevant to a culture with postmodern ideas about truth and knowledge. The essays on this site are succinct and readable, providing a good starting place for the would-be evangelist. Here are some highlights from his article on Cultural Pluralism: In the postmodern world, all beliefs and belief systems are considered to be relative. We are told that there is no absolute truth. Faith is just a matter of private opinion. One person's faith is no more valid or unique than anyone else's. So, how do we preach in a world that is culturally pluralistic? We do so by being aware of: 1. The spirituality of postmodern people2. The uniqueness of Christianity 3. The need to be spiritually faithful yet also socially tolerant****... Cultural pluralism...suggests tha...
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Sponsor "Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights" at Soulforce
2007-09-07 20:53:00
Interfaith GLBT activist group Soulforce is coordinating a nationwide vigil for straight allies, called Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights . From the mission statement on their website: Seven Straight Nights will consist of a coordinated campaign of overnight vigils led by straight allies. It will sweep across capital cities throughout the nation during the week of October 7-13, 2007, gaining momentum in the national media as more states participate in the event.The vigil will be coordinated by a family, individual, or group (such as a church or student organization) who become the face of Seven Straight Nights in their state. Whether the State Leader is a single person or a group, the focus of the vigil, and the media coverage, will be the story of the State Leader's personal decision to speak out on behalf of LGBT equality. Depending on the state, the leaders will either offer thanks for the state's positive policy record or issue a call to action on pertinent issues such as ...
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Christian Wiman on the Blessings of Writer's Block
2007-09-06 20:51:00
This spring, Christian Wiman, the editor of the venerable Poetry magazine, published a controversial essay in The American Scholar, where he revealed his diagnosis with incurable blood cancer and how he had found his way back to both faith and writing after a period of darkness. Now, in an interview with Poets & Writers, Wiman shares updates on his condition (much improved, fortunately) and more wisdom about the spiritual side of writing. Highlights: P&W: How is the essay, which is very personal and intimate, different from confessional poetry, which has a bad reputation in some circles?CW: Among certain people, yes. With poetry about a very personal experience, for me, it usually gets transformed in some way by the form of the poem, just the demands of the art. I find that the essay is similar, actually?it requires a kind of discipline that removes you from the intensity of the experience, and helps to alleviate the intensity. I think it is possible to be much mor...
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Renee Ashley Interview: Thoughts on the Writing Process
2007-09-06 20:32:00
Wild River Review, a progressive e-zine of literature and politics, has an interview in their new issue with award-winning poet and fiction writer Renee Ashley , whose collection Salt won the 1991 Brittingham Prize in Poetry. The excerpts below particularly resonated with my own experience of the writing process, as well as my preferences as a poetry contest judge: WRR: Do all of your poems surprise you? RA: If they don?t, they get thrown away. The idea for me is to never settle for what I meant to say. And I seldom start out meaning to say anything. I wrote one poem trying to do something specific-from an idea. I wanted to recreate the rhythms of the gospel church I grew up in. Ma used to drive me there, drop me off, and I?d walk home. But that poem was a booger. The poem is fine. I stand by the poem. But the process was hell. I hope I never have another idea. Shoot me if I have an idea. I like it much better when I find out what the poem?s trying to say and then start aligning...
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"Art That Dares" to Comfort and Discomfort
2007-08-30 19:28:00
Images of Jesus are such common currency in our popular culture that we scarcely notice them, save to afford them a sentimental smile or an eye-roll of aesthetic disdain. From rappers in crucifixion poses on their album covers, to kitsch statues for your little softball player, Jesus is like Mrs. Dash, tossed in to spice up the processed images served up to our jaded palates.On the one hand, the Incarnation means that Jesus really is standing behind us in the batter's box (though he didn't help the Red Sox much this week). We mustn't get so churchy that we wall off certain areas of life as too mundane for his attention. He still knows when we're stealing from the cookie jar.On the other hand, casual handling of Jesus' image domesticates it, robbing it of its power, as least as often as Jesus-ification elevates the subject matter in question. For me, kitsch images of Jesus can clutter up my mind and block my ability to visualize him as a r...
More About: Disc , Comfort , Dare , Dares , Ares

Poem: "Gratitude"
2007-08-30 11:36:00
In green dusk the rowboat, cradledon lapping waves, floats unmannedlike the largest among fallen leaves.The wind leans on the pier, wood answersits old spouse, not needing half the wordsto understand the familiar reply.And still the scrub grass grips, leans into      & nbsp;each slapof water and reclines gleaming.Every leaf silver in the last lightwaving, though there are no more      & nbsp;departures.The trees are changing, cell by cell,so slowly that they seem to be waitingfor something that is already present. Flung by a scarf of breeze, a bird's foghorn     &nbs p; hootspreads its echo over the lake, telling     &nbs p; of distance,dares ropes to snap and oars to sliceinto the eely dark.But I, having learned of gratitudeso late, my best gift was turningto leave the grass untrodden, the boat empty.       ;published in the 2007 Voices Is...
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Psalm 91: Because I Said So
2007-08-26 19:00:00
I've always had trouble believing the more concrete promises of God: peace, food, shelter, protection, health. Spiritual ones are easier to fudge. I can't see whether God has answered someone else's prayers for discernment, peace of mind, comfort, or other invisible interior states. But I look around at the world where so many people are not peaceful, healthy, or materially secure, at least some of whom presumably are praying to God and are no less worthy than others (like myself) who have these blessings. Faithful people acting as God's hands in the world can remedy some of these inequities, but not all. So what do we do about the many Old Testament passages where God seems to be promising something He hasn't delivered?I was reciting Psalm 91 the other night as part of the Compline (evening) service in the Book of Common Prayer: 1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say [b] of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fo...
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Christian Books Resource, and Some Thoughts on Pascal's Wager
2007-08-22 18:13:00
Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan maintains the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, an extensive collection of theological classics that can be read online for free. Whether you're looking for a pithy quote from Saint Athanasius for your blog, or an alternative to computer solitaire during those low-energy afternoons in your cubicle, CCEL is the place for you.I came across this resource via James Kiefer's thumbnail biography of Blaise Pascal at The Daily Office yesterday, which is worth quoting below for its elucidation of an often-oversimplified argument: Pascal's WagerOne argument used by Pascal has been much ridiculed and (in my judgement) much misunderstood. It has come to be called Pascal's Wager, and may be stated thus: "If Christianity is true, then you stand to gain infinitely by accepting it. If it is false, then you stand to lose only a finite amount of well-being by accepting it. Therefore the odds make deciding to become a Christian the sensibl...
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