The Arrow's Path

Last week, I got involved in discussing some of the logic and theology of Richard Hooker. Some of the feedback I have gotten from readers is that I may have gotten too technical for 90+ percent of my readership. That was not my intent, but I felt it was necessary because Hooker is so often taken completely out of context by modern theologians and Church history wonks. My pedagogical method in teaching is to have high expectations and to err on the side of potentially presenting too much information as opposed to "dumbing things down." (I can't tell you how many lectures and sermons I've heard in my life that ultimately said absolutely nothing of substance.) Modern American culture often prides itself in being a culture of idiots, imbeciles, and nitwits, where the less you know the better. I mean, is there really anything intellectually stimulating in reality TV or most modern American 24-hour news rants casts? I firmly believe most Americans aren't actually that ...

I enjoy reading the Patristic fathers, but sometimes it is a draining task to attempt to explain to other people, particularly to those of extremely Post-modern thinking, about why I am so enthusiastic about "dead white guys in togas" and why I believe they have so much to speak to modern culture. I am more than happy to engage in that conversation with people, but I have to warn them in advance that it is going to be a long conversation because I have to give them a crash course in classic logic, rhetoric, and debate. Most people who grew up in the age of instant gratification, political attack ads, and the five second sound byte cannot get past the truly mind blowing notion that emotional invective in rant form is not, in fact, persuasive logic, debate, or rhetoric. (For the record, more than one Patristic father was in fact not what modern people would consider white. Tertuillian was African. In fact, the entire Cappadocian clan would probably be assumed to be of Middle ...

I was asked by Father Tim to be a contributor to his blog's Facebook discussion page concerning things of value in Anglicanism, or as he puts it, Anglican Treasure. As such, I wrote a series on Bishop Whipple a few weeks ago and have been working this week on Richard Hooker, whose Feast day on our calendar is November 3rd. In my first two entries on the subject, I talked a little about the time period in which Hooker lived  and how that affected his political ideology . Most Church history buffs jump right to Hooker's theology, or perceived theology, and seldom if ever touch on his political views, which I am sure Hooker would have found baffling because he spoke over and over again about how the two cannot be separated.  John Locke often gets all the credit in political science circles as being the father of Western modern political thought. Most civics teachers and professors are usually lax in giving the Anglican priest, Richard Hooker, any credit, even though his i...