This week I was invited to give the homily in the Coram Deo chapel service at Indiana Wesleyan University, which I post below. ____________________ Is There Room for Martyrs in our Church? James K.A. Smith Coram Deo Chapel | Indiana Wesleyan University | 18 October 2009 Introduction I recently had opportunity to enjoy a kind…
Near the end of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Richard Rorty suggests a distinction betwee the philosopher as “epistemologist” and the “hermeneutic” philosopher. (Later this becomes a Kuhnian distinction between philosophers who play at “normal science” and those engaged in “abnormal” discourse.) The philosopher-as-epistemologist plays the role of cultural overseer and arbiter of…
Smoke [1918] By Carl Sandburg I sit in a chair and read the newspapers. Millions of men go to war, acres of them are buried, guns and ships broken, cities burned, villages sent up in smoke, and children where cows are killed off amid hoarse barbecues vanish like finer-rings of smoke in a north wind….
As I’ve just noted over at The Church and Postmodern Culture, a Korean edition of Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? has just appeared from Sallim Books. Follow the link to access the new Preface for this edition. A Korean translation of Introducing Radical Orthodoxy is also in the works.
I find myself stuck home today, ill, and unable to go into the office. But today was designated for grading a set of papers on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations–my copy of which is in my library at the office. But lo and behold, a quick search turned up a treasure: the entire, definitive German-English edition of…
How is it that cheese could contain an entire world? Splaying Old English white cheddar on a sandwich at lunchtime is, for me, a routine and ritual that is charged with an entire way of life. The cheese is enchanted, charmed with a sense of place. Like Proust’s madeleines, its scent and texture is a…