Speech is that by which a person is led to the knowledge of the unknown, because, through speech, something becomes present to him that would otherwise be absent (On Truth 9.5).

A brilliant insight by F.D. Maurice: "Kindness and Gentleness cease where there is no sense of a Kind or Gens. They grow with the growth of that sense...A creature sinking into itself dies; so long as it is associated with a kind, it lives".

"To raise children to be Christians is to raise them to follow Christ; to raise them to follow Christ is to unclench one’s parental fists, entrusting them to the Lord’s care, with the full knowledge that the Lord may lead them to where he himself was led" bradeast.org/blog/christian…

"Ever to excel", indeed!

Cf. Iris Murdoch in "The Sublime and the Good": 'Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real'

Probably 11 yrs ago, while working for a com dev org, I raised my hand and asked Brueggemann a question a/b how in the world to help our neighbors succeed in a broken system w/o buying into it. Be like Daniel, he said. Go to work, but remember your name. Refuse the food.

"I do not and cannot know what lies ahead for my mom, or for me, or for anyone I love. I do not know what I will remember and what I will not...But my hope is that we are held fast, even now, in the eternal memory of God." nytimes.com/2022/09/18/opi…

A bit late, but it was such a gift to worship and preach in Trinity College's Chapel this past Sunday!

Had a great time attending (for the first time), learning from others, and presenting an adapted version of this paper at #SST2023. I'm grateful for the opportunity to present it (and very grateful to Prof David Clough @dlclough.bsky.social for convening and graciously running a PowerPoint presentation too!)

Reminiscing fondly about last week in St Andrews for the 6th annual meeting of #EuARe2023 European Academy of Religion St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Grateful to have presented papers there and at the Christoph Schwöbel conference hosted by School of Divinity, University of St Andrews - especially in such a beautiful place & with such good people!

Looking forward to attending #AARSBL2023 and excited to present on Augustinian memory, use, and pilgrimage as potential resources for Christian ecotheologies on Monday!

Excited to attend this wonderful conference and for the chance to present on something that's *not* about Augustine. I'll present a paper on Murdochian fantasy, in conversation with contemporary accounts of self-deception in analytic philosophy.

Tomáš Halík: A Cambridge Conference. December 12th - 13th, 2024. Call for short papers by Monday, 19 August 2024; Submissions for papers, from any discipline, that engage with the work, life, and research interests of Tomáš Halík. See details here: divinity.cam.ac.uk/about-us/confs…

This promises to be an exciting conference. Please consider submitting an abstract and joining us!

OK, our final -and biggest- Loeb give-away for the summer: 31 of them by the looks of it! Sophocles, Euripides, Cicero, Sallust, Suetonius, and the dirtiest poet of all, Martial in 3 vols. Draw 10pm Thurs BST: just RT and follow us before then! And vote below for 1 or 2 winners!

Coming soon

Very glad to see that my article on the moral significance of interiority in the thought of Augustine and Iris Murdoch has been published (open access) in Studies in Christian Ethics today. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09…

Looking forward to presenting some new work on the importance of memory and remorse for religious ethics at #AARSBL2024

A belated post, but I'm looking forward to presenting some research for a future project on conscience and public reasoning at AAR and SBL this November.