Susanna Wesley's (1669-1742) claim to fame is that her boys John and Charles grew up to lead a world-changing international revival movement. Her complete works have been published in a single volume. She was a full-time home-schooling mom, and didn't write very much by scholarly standards. But what she put on paper is ample evidence that she had a lively intellect and a m...
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That's not fair! When you live in a house with children you come to realize that the concept of fair/unfair is the lens through which they view most of the world. For example, when there is only one piece of chocolate cake in the house and two children you have a problem. Some parents have one child cut the cake into two pieces, and have the other child pick the slice they w...
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Imagine what it must have been like to be the mother of John and Charles Wesley. Susanna Wesley (1669-1742) managed the task somehow, but I'm not sure how. Charles was such a busy fellow that, having decided to be a hymn-writer, he produced over 5,000 hymns. And as for John, he was driven for years to find the most rigorous and all-encompassing standards of holiness availa...
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Bottom Line: Christians have spent too much time arguing about the "culture of life" at the expense of other issues which would make Christians more attractive to the right people at colleges and universities at which we would like to work.
Here at L.O.S.E. we argue that the best way to be pro-life is to be pro-choice in a new pro-life way which eschews black and white thin...
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Next month, a book of Mother Teresa’s personal letters will be released. Almost nobody’s read it, but everybody’s talking about it anyway, especially the fact that Mother Teresa (1910-1997) was long racked with doubt and a sense that God had withdrawn from her life. According to a surprisingly good article in Time, the book apparently provides extensive documentation ...
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Bottom Line: The intellect cannot be divorced from feelings or emotion. The highest intellectual activity will be motivated by the highest emotions to see God, but cannot find God without His revealing Himself. Religion without revelation cannot see God. Knowing is sterile unless God gives it meaning and passion.
Commentary:
Dead, but sane?
Passionate, but crazy?
...
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How did Aeschylus do it? His plays are so powerful and engaging that he will never lose his place in the front ranks of dramatists. We only have seven of his plays extant --a tenth of what he produced-- but even if we had only one, we would recognize in it the hand of a master. When you stoop to examine his workmanship to see how he constructed these plays, you can hardly ...
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Newspapers printed a story about a book on Mother Teresa and her religious faith near the second anniversary of her death.
It is obvious in reading the story that secular culture cannot understand deep religious experience. They have forgotten (if they ever heard) the great saint's stories of the "dark night of the soul" and of the difficulties of walking in the Way.
If...
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Featured Essay
On June 23 of this year, Pope Benedict XVI addressed a number of professors and rectors of European universities. In his address, the pope reminded those present that “Europe is presently experiencing a certain social instability and diffidence in the face of traditional values, yet her distinguished history and her established academic institutions have much to contribute to...
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Many things in the Iliad come in twos. Looking at the duality in the text is an excellent way to begin to unlock the deeper meaning of these great poems.
The duality begins in the first line as we are presented with the two-fold man, son of a goddess and a man, Achilles. He is introduced to us with a divine rage, but described first as the son of a human father. The "goddes...
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This term we have a rare chance for those with an undergraduate degree! Ever wish you could read a Fred Sander's post and know the books to which he was referring? Ever wish that you had paid more attention to your own general education?
This is your shining moment! Like Diomedes on a good day in front of Troy, this can be your day of glory.
Here is the official announcem...
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In 1877, renowned poet Robert Browning published a translation of the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus. Or perhaps "translation" is not quite the right word for it --on the title page, Browning claimed credit not for translating, but transcribing. Since the transcription crossed the language barrier from Greek to English, though, we have to call it a translation --but what kind...
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