Features
That demon love: Unchecked devotion
Affection is the most instinctive, in that sense the most animal, of the loves; its jealousy is proportionately fierce. It snarls and bares its teeth like a dog whose food has been snatched away.” Thus writes C. S. Lewis in that modern classic, The Four Loves.
Womb-love: The practice and theology of adoption
Father Ron meant well. He would never have intentionally excluded some children from his sermon. It was Wednesday mass, and the congregation was primarily children—kindergartners through eighth-graders—with a sprinkling of teachers, administrators and parents. The text was Colossians 1:15: Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
God’s diversity: A trinitarian view of religious pluralism
Christians believe in a complex God, three coeternal persons living a single enduring communion. The divine life has varied dimensions and allows human interaction with the triune God to take different forms. God’s channels are open on many frequencies. Christian belief in the Trinity originates in the conviction that only such a complex view of God can account for the relation with God that takes place in Christ, the incarnate Word—a relation that does not replace that of creature to creator, for instance, but adds to it.
Voices
Miroslav Volf
Freed from selfhood
As I was browsing through a used bookstore, I chanced upon a small treasure, an early English translation of a book whose author we don’t know (identified only by place of residence as “the Frankfurter”). I could only guess at the date of composition (probably toward the end of the 14th century). The nondescript title—Theologia Germanica—was chosen by someone other than the author.