Covenant precedes creation
Much of my own research and writing over the past year has focused on the Barthian theme of the priority of salvation over creation. God's act in Christ "precedes" the creation of the world, and is its foundation. Just this morning, I came across this nice passage:The history of salvation is not a small event, on a poor planet, in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing which happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motive for everything, the motive for creation. Everything is created so that this story can exist – the encounter between God and his creature. In this sense, salvation history, the covenant, precedes creation. During the Hellenistic pe

Homeward, these shoes worn to paper: thin as the reason I left here so young
Why Rowan Williams is the only real theologianWhy Benedict XVI is the only real theologianA new article by Cynthia Nielsen: "What Has Mozart to Do with Coltrane?"Some

Holy Spirit: readings and poems
As mentioned in an earlier post, this semester I taught an undergraduate course on the Holy Spirit. There were

Scammer ping pong: how to play with an email scammer
So I decided to sell my Ford Laser, and I listed it on a used car website. I was promptly contacted by a Nigerian scammer who called himself Nicholas Smart (nicholaszx002@yahoo.com). I was feeling bored at the time, so I decided to have a bit of fun with him. Below is a sample of our email exchange. I call this game

Happy birthday, Edward Schillebeeckx
A reader informed me that today is the 95th birthday of the great Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx. So in his honour, I'm re-posting a short piece from a couple of years ago:Among modern Catholic theologians, there’s no one I like better than Edward Schillebeeckx. I pay visits to Rahner and Balthasar and Ratzinger, but I come home to Schillebeeckx.Why do I love Schillebeeckx? There are many reasons. His whole theology is worked out amidst a momentous wrestling with the biblical texts. He has an extraordinary