Inhabiting a Strange New World
How might we make use of spiritual exegesis and the “fourfold sense” in our proclamation of the Bible’s strange new world?
Interpreting a Strange New World
Rather than acting as a signpost to the strange new world of Scripture, the sermon all-too-often obstructs our view of the Bible’s terrain. We have lost sight of the strange; our pews remain fixed in the familiar.
Use, Enjoyment, and the Order of Things
The recognition that God is the supreme object of our enjoyment fills us with wonder at creation’s transparency to the love and goodness of God.
Attending to Creation’s Wonder
St Basil: “I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring to you the clear remembrance of the Creator.”
St. Anselm and Prayerful Theology
St. Anselm can only be understood in light of his aim: the joy-filled experience of the beatific vision.
The ‘fitness’ of Scripture: Richard Chenevix Trench
Trench took the whole of Scripture and attempted to hold it together at once in his mind in order to step back and examine it in its allness, and to say something about its character.
The Oxford Movement’s sacramental interpretation of Scripture
For the Oxford Movement, the interpretation of the Bible is inextricably bound up with the doctrine of the Incarnation and the sacraments, so that to neglect a sacramental or allegorical interpretation is in some way to fail to appreciate, or even to deny, these doctrines.
Wrestling with our past: Cranmer, primitivism, and tradition
It’s not uncommon to slip into primitivism. A timeline often appears. A pure moment is imagined, a “golden age” with its simple, saintly figures.