Category: Uncategorized

So in my readers i find saddleback all over the place: from rick warren’s list of how not to be sexually tempted (via the revealer) to a mash up over at fast company, comparing the purpose driven church and tribal knowledge. interesting, no?

I will be over at C&P (the church and postmodern culture conversation). We are beginning our engagement with james k.a. smith’s new “who’s afriad of postmodernism?“ So I won’t be posting much for a little bit. but come join us. It should be interesting.

I’ll just jump right into Oneself as Another to explain R.’s reading of Levinas, and an approach to pragmatism and political versions of phychoanalysis. The basic thesis, explored through the many detours of ‘sematics,’ ‘action theory,’ ‘narrative temporality of the self,’ and ‘moral/ethical obligations,’ is that “the selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such an […]

(back to Levinas. The 3rd party must wait for meaningless philosophy!) The reasion I am (dis)interested in Levinas is because of many contrasting themes and approaches to other philosophers I’ve been reading (of which I’ve already noted from Badiou and Zizek), all of which have political/ethical ramifications. Briefly, concerning Lacan, I note: 1) the similarity […]

(Let’s take a break from philosophy) Senator Lieberman has lost his bit for re-election in the primary for Connecticut, but has decided to run as an independent candidate. Now many in the EC and beyond are talking about what it means for the church to be political (does the Church have its own politic, if […]

(I posted this over at churchandpomo.org, but I thought since it also rings true for this blog, that I might as well…) Many of you have probably heard of the slow food movment (against the fast food industry), and perhaps even a slow life city (heralding a slow pace, slow education, slow industry, and slow […]

(More on the in-breaking of the Infinite from Levinas) So far my theme from Levinas has been the infinite, not to the neglect of the Other, a persistent theme of L.’s, but rather as a way of understanding how, beyond the phenomenological horizon, the Other break in from a height, from an elevation of transcendence, […]

Recently I’ve been working through Badiou’s and Zizek’s complaints with Levinas, so I thought that perhaps I ought to work through Levinas himself. So here are some quotes/thoughts from his Basic Philosophical Writings (all paginations from this text). The themes which interest me (and I know Levinas hates the ‘thematic’) are ‘subjectivity’, the Infinite, and […]

reflection on Psalm 15. Psalm 15 A psalm of David. 1 LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? 2 He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart 3 and has no slander on his tongue, who does his […]

The idea of “community” is like the sun. The more we stare at it the less we see. Or rather, community is like Happiness, which if pursued outright always escapes us, leaving a narcissistic void (much like most discusions of worship seem to miss the essence). Rather than a direct apprehesion or formation of community, […]