"when he dies he will carry nothing away" Psalm 49 preaches about the vanity and futility and wealth, and in making this assessment it sounds a lot like Ecclesiastes. For example: For he sees that even the wise die; the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others. And also: Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him. For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed —and though you get praise when you do well for yourself— his soul will go to the ..read more

"One is not commanded to be on the winning side, but to be in the right place when the Lord returns." This is a quote from Daniel Berrigan, priest, poet, author, and activist. The quote struck me because it concisely encapsulates my political vision. As regular readers know, I agree with Tolkien that history is "a long defeat." I'm a political pessimist. As a student of the book of Revelation I don't think history is heading anywhere good.  That said, politics matters, it makes a difference. And those who take stands against injustice gleam like jewels on black velvet, stars of righteo ..read more

Following upon the last two posts, a final point I want to make in this series concerns how the problem of evil plays out in soft versus hard magical worlds. A great deal of intellectual effort is spent on the theological project we call "theodicy," attempts to explain why a good and all-powerful God allows evil, pain, and suffering in the world. And I think it's safe to say that, in the end, all these efforts fail in some way. None of these answers are wholly satisfactory. And I think one of the reasons for this is that theodicy attempts to address the problem of evil by creating a hard magi ..read more

What I've been suggesting in this series is that the contrast between "hard" and "soft" magic, inspired by the novelist Brandon Sanderson, helps us recover some apophatic distance when we speak of God's actions in the world. Christian enchantment is a "soft" magical world rather than a "hard" magical world. By this we mean that our world is filled with supernatural wonder and awe. Life is miraculous.  And yet, this enchantment is soft because we don't know how God "works" in the world. The "mechanism" of the enchantment is not available to us. Christian enchantment embraces the mystery o ..read more

In the last post I shared that the Christian experience of enchantment is soft rather than hard magic. Our world is charged with the grandeur of God, full of wonder and awe, suffused with the miraculous. And yet, as I go on to say, this "magic" is not at our disposal. Christian enchantment is not pagan enchantment. God is not at our beck and call. God is not an energy, force, or potency in creation that we can control, direct, or manipulate. Christianity is enchanted, but it isn't a hard magical system. However, as I also observed in the last post, many Christians are tempted to turn the sof ..read more

"Mount Zion is glad" Out at the prison, my co-teacher is leading a study on the book of Judges. Judges is an a odd book. The are heroic deeds and adventures, but as the book progresses things get grimmer and grimmer, ultimately culminating in one of the darkest stories in the whole of the Bible. The book of Judges ends with this plaintive assessment:  In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And yet, when the kings do eventually show up, life doesn't get any better. Just like with Judges, as we go further into 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chro ..read more

Having set out Brandon Sanderson's contrast between hard and soft magic, how might such an idea be of use in pondering Christianity? Let's start by noting how sociologists of religion have struggled to offer clear definitions of magic and religion given the diversity of religious and magical practices across time and cultures and the often complicated ways they overlap. One common attempt to make a contrast between religion and magic has been to describe magic as a metaphysical technology, a means via a hex, spell or ritual to harness some natural or spiritual power/force in order to achieve ..read more

In one of the new chapters of the paperback edition of Hunting Magic Eels, "Hexing the Taliban," I use the idea of hard and soft magic to draw some contrasts between witchcraft and faith. You can check out that new chapter if you want to explore that discussion.  Having used the contrast between hard and soft magic in the paperback edition, I've kept exploring this idea and pondering its application to different questions of faith. So, here's a series of some experimental theology, exploring how the notion of magical systems might apply to Christian theology. To start, what do we mean by ..read more

So, our study of Revelation out at the prison kicked off last night.  In starting the series, I surveyed four common ways people read the book. These are, as summarized by ChatGPT and edited by me: 1. Preterist: The preterist view holds that the events described in the Book of Revelation were largely fulfilled in the past, specifically in the first century, during the time of the Roman Empire. Preterists argue that most of the prophecies in Revelation refer to first century events such as the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD or the Roman persecution of Christians under Nero and Domitian. 2 ..read more

In Brian K. Blount's commentary on the book of Revelation he offers a twist on how I've typically read the social setting of the book.  Specifically, as described in the last post, I've read the social setting as being one of acute persecution. Revelation was written, therefore, to give the persecuted community hope. The theme of vindicated martyrs along with associated judgment upon the persecutors features large in Revelation. Blount gives this setting a bit of twist. Yes, the church was being persecuted, but Christians were not being actively hunted down. As long as the Christian ..read more