John March

Category: Philosophy

  • Happy Families Are all Alike

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    “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina This, the opening line to Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina, is packed full of meaning, and the rest of the book expounds in story form what he means.   We read of one miserable family owing its…

  • Kierkegaard on Doubt (of the Ascension)

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    “So some have doubted.  But then in turn there were some who sought to refute doubt with reasons.  As a matter of fact, the connection was actually this: first of all they tried to demonstrate the truth of Christianity with reasons or by advancing reasons in relations to Christianity.  And the reasons fostered doubt and…

  • Why Power Prevents the Prophetic

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    Willimon on the problem of power if one is on top, well fixed, secure, then one can afford to be sanguine about sin.  We people in power always think of ourselves as basically good people living in a well-ordered world.  Why not? It is our world.  To such folk, “prophetic ministry” means mostly minor tinkering…

  • Collins the Christian (and Scientist)

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    An excellent assessment by John Stackhouse of the cultural response to Collins’ appointment to NIH.  Money quote: Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project, has been named by President Obama to head the National Institutes of Health. What makes this news is the breathtaking idea that someone could be both a scientist and…

  • N.T. Wright on Post-modernity and the Church

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    In this video Wright contrasts the narrative of modernity, which he argues reached its climax in the 18th century, with the narrative of Christianity, which reached its climax in the resurrection of Jesus. Money qoute: Postmodernity is about announcing the doctrine of the fall to arrogant modernity. That was necessary, but the doctrine of the…

  • Emerging Church Perspectives

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    I’ve heard a friend say that defining the emerging church is like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall.  It doesn’t have any formal institution or maintain a set of doctrines or membership requirements.  It is, when defined by its adherents something of a conversation that is categorized more by ethos than doctrine.  The people who are a part…

  • Young Reformers and Emergent on Certainty

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    Tony Jones and Colin Hansen are having a blogging style dialog over at CT (here).  At the end of the first post, Tony asks the question: “Where we probably differ is not so much on theology, but on epistemology….I wonder, do you think that some people are just more inclined to look for sure answers,…

  • Heaven 2: Shadows?

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    For those of us who have ever worked on a difficult project with other people, we know that often times the key to success is compromise.  When making decisions about how to move from the project vision to the practical details, everyone on the team needs to be willing to come together to find the…