Managing Editor for mbird.com. Phd in New Testament and Early Christianity from Durham University, England. On Twitter @toddbrewer_
About Todd Brewer
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Another Week Ends: Jim Carrey’s Revelation, COVID Judgment, a New PZ Interview, Political Idolatry, the Curated Authenticity of Rachel Hollis, and the Great Awokening in Fiction
1. If you’ve ever seen an interview with Jim Carrey, you quickly realize that he is incredibly weird and awkwardly introspective. At times he seems to either be the lunatic of The Mask or a shaman-mystic, or both at the same time. Carrey is always fascinating, and judging from this LA Times article, his upcoming […]
The Emotional Plausibility of Faith vs. Doubt
When many think about Christian doubt, they tend to imagine it as a kind of midpoint between faith and unbelief, existing in hues of grey. Matters of faith in a transcendent God are rarely so black and white, it is said, and the stance of faithful doubt is perhaps the appropriate stance all Christians should […]
Another Week Ends: Martin Luther on COVID-19, Tara Isabella Burton, Christ and Calamity, Generational Sin, and Faithful Doubt
1. Mere Orthodoxy has published an excerpt from an excellent book, Christ and Calamity: Grace and Gratitude in the Darkest Valley, by Harold Senkbeil. I’ve noted some highlights below and if you like what you read, the e-book is free this month: Just what does it mean to deny yourself and take up your cross? […]
Comfort to Afflicted Saints
Trading the Manageable To-Do List for Revolutionary Paradox: Blessed are the Broken
Good News That Never Goes Out of Style
When the Gospel Becomes Quotidian, Still the Spiritual Fire Smolders
Human Maturity Between Sin and Righteousness
An oldie-but-goodie from Paul Zahl’s “Grace in Practice” (p. 123):
My status from God’s side is unassailable and indefectible. My substance from my side, from the analysis of anyone who knows me, is good and bad at the same time, or rather, mostly the same old, same old that I have always been, though now covered over by the thin red line, the imputing blood of Christ. We could say that this position of the simul-iustus-et-peccator self [at the same time righteous and a sinner] is the last word in what the world calls ‘maturity’. That is, the simul-iustus-et-peccator self is secure in the love of another, and at the same time cognizant of its limitations, faults, and insufficiencies – its sins, in other words […]
This is the place where Christianity becomes a matchless definition of human maturity. It is the key to living, because it lives in hope and belovedness (iustus), while at the same time accepting the limitations of a fallen, tripped-up character (peccator). This is integration. Simul iustus et peccator integrates the human object. It combines imputation, the fact that God brings everything to the table as far as my identity is concerned, and the fact that I bring nothing to the table whatsoever. The No pronounced on my sin, which I shall carry in my body and person for the rest of my life, is united with the Yes pronounced upon that sin. Imputation makes it all right for me to live as I am and also in light of what I ought and want to be.
And for more info on PZ’s most recent book click here!
Another Week Ends: Kierkegaard, Resurrection Sufferings, Pandemic Deadly Sins, Strategic Inefficiency, Cathartic Humor, and our Groundhog Days
1. Over at Marginalia Thomas Millay reviews what looks to be a fantastic book on Søren Kierkegaard, by Sylvia Walsh. She provocatively contends that Kierkegaard believed humans were incapable of actually becoming virtuous. The virtues, for him, are the means to measure failure. The Christian life is not the progressive accumulation of successes, but continual […]
Another Week Ends: Werner Herzog, the Annunciation, Pandemic Dating, Hope, Loneliness, and Humor
1. I’ll get to articles on our coronavirus life soon enough, but first I wanted to feature this amazing NY Times interview with filmmaker Werner Herzog. It’s everything you don’t need right now and more: a wide-ranging, thoughtful, and disarmingly funny back-and-forth with perhaps the most interesting person in the world. And that story of […]
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