It was 1998 in a very turbulent South Africa. As I opened the front door and shouted to our dog, Mandy, to keep quiet as she had been barking incessantly, a man grabbed me from behind and held a knife to my throat. As he swung me round I just remember pointing a finger in…
Many popular slogans instruct us to be authentic by refusing to imitate others: Be yourself, everyone else is taken; You were born an original, don’t die a copy. etc. What these sayings incorrectly imply is that the less influence one allows others to have on oneself, the more authentic one will be. It assumes that…
“… my life is divided into two parts—before my encounter with René Girard, and after.” Jean-Michel Oughourlian (1) I remember reading this about a year ago and thinking: that is a huge statement to make of any person. Its the kind of thing people would say about the day they met Jesus – a conversion…
The problem of interpretation is nothing new. It was as important to the first believers as it is today. The road to Emmaus is a brilliant piece of literature in which Luke gives us a profound insight into the art of interpreting scripture. But I must begin this article with an acknowledgement. Luke 24 has…
In the 1999 film ‘Fight Club’, Edward Norton’s character has an epiphany. Sobbing into Meat Loaf’s weirdly ample bosom, he confesses ‘I let go… I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom’. Watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtIEquOkDpo I have had a similar experience dawn on me. I didn’t mean to find it. I was pretty…
… I am not convinced by the objection that the performance of a musical work of art is interpretation in a different sense from, say, reaching understanding in reading a poem or looking at a painting. All performance is primarily interpretation and seeks, as such, to be correct. In this sense it, too, is “understanding.”(1)…
We should really forget the popular distinction of spirituality and religion, it is anthropology which is making the difference. What does that mean? It means that the basic way humans relate to their world shapes their core understanding of God. But the God of the Hebrew and Christian bible is remaking the human way of…
What does the end of the world and Biblical inspiration have to do with one another? Let me put it in context: This article is part of a series regarding the scriptures. Today we’ll look specifically at the claim of inspiration found in Timothy. What does that have to do with the end of the…
After Deconstruction The last years have seen a grand deconstruction of Scripture reading and interpretation—some would say of Scripture itself. Of course, this has been an ongoing centuries-long project, but two unique elements dominate the past decade: first, the ‘New Atheists’ are actually reading the Bible—carefully and, unlike liberal scholars, they have read it literally…
Why are we secretly afraid of people who are different – whether it’s their culture, race or language? Yes, differences might make us uncomfortable, unsure how to speak or act in their company … but I think what scares us most is not their difference, but the possibility that they might be more like us…