Mathetes explains to his interlocutor that Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body. They are dispersed throughout the world, and their presence of love towards the world is to its benefit, even if the world hates Christians and wars against them like the passions of the flesh war against the soul. Such martial language connotes a paradox. Christians must simultaneously engage the world around them (an invasion) and be aloof from it (a retreat). A believer plants one foot in Paradise and the other in the here-and-now. This is an attitude…
The God of the Scriptures is a very specific sort of deity. He is the architect who created and fashioned all things in a logical and orderly sequence. While he does not permanently expel chaos from the cosmos, he makes clear that disorder is not good but a distortion of goodness and a movement towards non-being. God then places man in the midst of his creation and asks him to share in his work of establishing order by tending and keeping the garden. Together with Zoe, Adam is tasked with subduing chaos and filling the void…
The origin of the American fixation with conspiracy theories is hard to trace through history. Perhaps the very fact that our nation emerged from a revolution against its motherland has something to do with this proclivity. Some historians point to the role of secret societies like the Freemasons in the plot leading up to American independence. But it is probably true that our founding fathers spent more time meeting in pubs over pints than they did gathering under the cloak of darkness at a masonic lodge. And although some American religious groups forbade membership in secret…
