I was happy that I could attend the conference on “The Future of Christian Thinking.” Here are some primary reflections:
There were many good papers, including those by Kerr, Gonzales, Wolfe, and Schindler. I knew I would enjoy Hart, Williams and Milbank but I was really surprised by encountering Desmond and O’Regan. I’m sure I’ll return to their thinking regularly.
I was positively struck by the hospitality and generosity at the conference.
We all know that the current University system is broken. This is not unique for academic institutions, many of our modern social institutions are fundamentally broken. However, if “Uni” is the place where learning goes to die, where will we learn how to live again?
Learning how to live well involves at least two components: knowing where we came from, and knowing how to navigate the future. Specifically:
(a) a solid grounding in the philosophical and spiritual classics of our culture and
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
(By Wendell Berry)
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is that we are not just living in a time of change, but actually in a change of times or eras. This was already going on for a while, look at waves of protests in the US and the Yellow Vests in France. The “old” structures of society and government no longer fit, no matter what some say about going “back to normal.
Classics for the People On May 31, I saw yet another article about a Classics department dropping their language requirement.
Since Classics departments are dropping language requirements I have decided that I will learn Greek and Latin. Where do I begin?
— Jelle Huisman (@jellehsmn) May 31, 2021 This tweet touched a nerve, it was liked and shared by a few hundred people (thank you!)
Something clicked for me: if those Classics depts can’t do their job, I will teach myself, thank you very much!
Review: F R A C T U R E ( * * * * . ) “Nice, chaotic”, “what is this?” https://www.fracturemag.co.uk/ £12.00 Fracture is a magazine unlike any others, filled was articles about politics, culture, travel, food and more. Contents When Byzantine Ambassador (@byzantinepower on Twitter) announced that he was going to publish a magazine I was curious, so I ordered it as soon as it became available.
I never met Prince Philip, but I have lived in countries ruled by his wife. (England 2007-2010, Canada 2010-2012) I felt sad when I heard about his death and I noticed that many obituaries spoke about something deeper than just sadness. A sense of loss, the end of a time, the passing of an age.
John Milbank wrote: Prince Philip took more pride in the roles he had accidentally inherited than in the personal gifts which he was never able fully to develop.
image: Johann Sebastian Bach, Goldberg Variations - Aria (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Songs of innocence I grew up believing that all good music was written before 1750. My dad has a great collection of records with “Early Music” played by Leonhardt, Brüggen, etc. He would also regularly take us to the Saturday Afternoon Music in the Dom church in Utrecht.
I heard a lot of the ‘great’ works live before I got them on CD or on the internet.
