Holloway Quarterly

Turning on the Hinge

2011-10-29T07:32:00.001-05:00

Have you noticed how films now turn on one hinge? They either portray protagonists as ironic pastiches of former protagonists or they make the protagonist full of human flaws. A hero is now to be revealed in all his messy humanness or he is not to be taken seriously. Bond must show his emotional dark side, his history; Superman and all his superhero friends must make their strength a result of

Fear and the Gospel by Sarah Holloway

2011-10-19T15:18:00.000-05:00

We are all familiar with might be considered the scare tactics of a sermon about hell. There might be a good number of Christians who have embraced the good news out of fear of eternal damnation. And yes, there is no lack of good reasons to be afraid of hell. It is probably the most “distasteful” aspect of the Christian message; even more than the worries of earthly suffering, the thought of

2011-09-15T09:32:00.000-05:00

A great answer to an age old question given by D A Carson. How do I know God exists? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

Speaking of Terror - Part VII

2011-09-04T07:51:00.000-05:00

Answers to the questions raised in response to 9/11 are not easy. Many are yet to be answered and more yet to be asked. But for the past six posts (I, II, III, IV, V, VI) I have argued that Christianity is uniquely equipped with the presuppositions—linguistically, metaphysically, epistemologically and ethically—which make the questions meaningful in the first place. The Christian is uniquely

Speaking of Terror - Part VI

2011-08-28T09:13:00.001-05:00

Christian ideas imply a view of the origin of creation entirely under the sovereign rule of God. In discussions of morality, the Christian must point backwards, to creation and to the fall. There are many, however, who see the past as irrelevant. They see progress aligned with improved morals and religion, always tied to the past, with getting in the way. Martin Amis, for example, argues that

Speaking of Terror - Part V

2011-08-21T07:54:00.005-05:00

Much of what was written after 9/11 and in the build up to war in Afghanistan and Iraq was about morality. A common theme posed by the secularist was the problem of moral equivalence. Moral Equivalence is a phrase used in political debate to describe those who deny any moral hierarchy in a conflict,1 it is the “100 percent and 360 degree inability to pass judgment on any ethnicity other than our

Speaking of Terror - Part IV

2011-08-15T06:10:00.002-05:00

How can we know what is real? In the wake of 9/11 many philosophers offered interpretations of the event from their own perspective of reality. Marxist philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, claimed that 9/11 was an event which woke America up. America, he wrote, has been awakened, like Neo in The Matrix to, using the phrase Morpheus used, “the desert of the real.” Americans, Žižek argued, were, before 9/11,

Speaking of Terror - Part III

2011-08-08T07:44:00.001-05:00

If language is given to refer to what is real, to what reality do we refer? Let us consider an idea put forward by American, Don DeLillo, in his novel, Falling Man. He provides multiple perspectives on 9/11, all of which attempt to make sense of the event. They ask: what kind of reality is it into which 9/11 is a part? Listen to DeLillo’s imaginary conversation between two of the terrorists who

Speaking of Terror - Part II

2011-07-31T09:34:00.002-05:00

Let us begin speaking about 9/11 with speaking about speaking itself – what can we say about 9/11? Is man to be left speechless in the face of such an event? Postmodern philosopher, Jacques Derrida, argues that 9/11 cannot be adequately spoken of, that it is beyond conceptual reach. Derrida argues that the events of 9/11 offer opportunities for deconstructive discourse. Deconstructivism sets out

Speaking of Terror - Part I

2011-07-27T08:07:00.002-05:00

It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night... The roar was still in the air, the buckling rumble of the fall. This was the world now. Smoke and ash came rolling down streets and turning corners, bursting around corners, seismic tides of smoke, with office paper flashing past, standard sheets with cutting edge, skimming, whipping past, otherworldly

Why a Person is a Person

2011-07-16T08:13:00.002-05:00

Roger Scruton once wrote: “The most important task for philosophy in the modern world is to resurrect the human person, to rescue it from trivializing science, and to replace the sarcasm which knows that we are merely animals, with the irony which sees that we are not.”1 If, as most western educated children are baptized into believing, the human species arose through natural evolutionary

Student Virtue

2011-07-13T14:00:00.001-05:00

Many see study as preparation for their life's work. I saw my life's work as a preparation for study. At 34 I began my bachelors degree. So, allow me, at least for a minute or two, to reminisce over the past four years before I return to writing about the real world. No, wait; that's not right. I never left the real world. That is another wrongheaded idea – that school is somehow not part of the

Why We Don't Change Our Minds

2011-07-01T12:17:00.002-05:00

In his short story, “Bulletproof,” T.C Boyle illustrates the impasse between those who see things as the creation and those who see the same things as a result of chance and matter. The point of the story is that two different people might see exactly the same thing, but interpret it in very different ways. The culmination of the story is the meeting of the two main characters—one atheist, one

Brain in the Dock

2011-06-25T07:42:00.001-05:00

Much public debate, especially in the area of ethics, is being fueled by new work in neuroscience. Scientists are now able to analyze the “lighting storm” which occurs in our brains whenever we move an arm, react to an event or feel the urge to eat. One part of this research suggests that many decisions are taken due to unconscious reasons. A criminal might, for example, be responding to an urge

Which Freedom? Whose Maturity?

2011-06-11T20:21:00.002-05:00

A.C Grayling, founder of The New College of the Humanities, says the enlightenment is the conviction that "the unfettered exercise of reason can save humanity by ending the ignorance and superstition that impedes progress and keeps tyrants in power" (The Mystery of Things A.C Grayling p. 91). Immanuel Kant's short essay, "What is the Enlightenment?" gives a good synopsis of the impulse that

What is the Meaning of Death?

2011-06-04T10:21:00.003-05:00

Sharlotte Hydorn, 91, California resident and purveyor of do-it-yourself suicide kits is in trouble with the Law. Apparently she has been selling plastic bags that plug into helium canisters, the kind used at children's parties for blowing up balloons. Place bag over head, switch gas on and off you go. According to one reporter at the L.A Times she has a "neighborly demeanor that is disarming"

Bad Thesis - The Universal Singularity of Alain Badiou

2011-05-30T11:23:00.001-05:00

Alain Badiou is a French philosopher. He is also a lefty. He proposes that we reject objective truth, but that we retain truth as being subjective but universally binding. He suggests that to do this we must reject differentiation in the subject. In its place we should see ourselves as one political subject led by the revolutionaries who have “seen the truth” in the event. Along with other

Going Gaga

2011-01-06T06:39:00.001-06:00

Celebrity is the condition of being famous - people talk about you. Martin Amis predicted our contemporary obsession with it when he said "It's not the case that in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. In the future everyone will be famous all the time - but only in their own minds. It is lookalike fame, karaoke fame." We have been obsessed with celebrity for as long as I can

Countdown to Extinction

2010-12-31T08:58:00.002-06:00

On the wall of my school dormitory was a picture of a golden retriever in mid air about to land in a lake. The caption read: “I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going.” To live in the west during the late twentieth century was to live like the dog. We were not concerned with the destination as much as we were with the motion; steering the ship was secondary to getting it out of the harbor.

Crossbow Cannibal: A Living Void

2010-12-23T09:43:00.001-06:00

When he was asked why he killed three women, Steven Griffiths, the 'crossbow cannibal,' said, "I don't know. Sometimes you kill someone to kill yourself, or part of yourself... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm misanthropic. I don't have time for the human race."1 Steven Griffiths was told by the judge that he would never be released. But Griffiths knew the judge would say that

Artistic Collapse

2010-12-16T14:56:00.011-06:00

David Wojnarowicz's, "A Fire in my Belly," was recently pulled from an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery not because it was poor art, but because it was found to be offensive. Blake Gopnik (Washington Post) thinks art should make us think. And to do that it may have to cause a "little offense."Eric Felten (WSJ) points out that art which is designed to shock, like the piece

Living by the Script

2009-08-16T19:26:00.004-05:00

!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -- People often wonder why Christians have an obsession with the bible. They can see why being a church together is important—for fellowship etc—and they can see why we might conduct certain rituals as part of worship or perhaps to appease our deity. So why the obsession with words written in a book?We will return to the book

Happy Snobbery

2009-08-11T08:10:00.007-05:00

We have bred our new elite. Happy people. As our culture has embraced happiness as its highest ideal, our new elite are those who have become superlatively happy. They can maintain months, if not years of uninterrupted happiness. The rest of us look up to them as perfect examples of humanity. They appear on Oprah and have ministries passing out advice on how to get God to make you happy. They

The Tyranny of Suspicion

2009-08-07T08:54:00.003-05:00

There is a mood of suspicion in the west at this time. It is demonstrated by our mistrust of politicians with their hidden motives and big-business backers. It is also reflected in the way in which we reject opinions due to the cultural context from which they appear, rather than the content of the idea being proposed. In part, our reason for suspicion is due to an obsession with the social

Sacred Texts and Public Policy - Bedfellows or Archenemies?

2009-07-27T17:21:00.005-05:00

Separation of Church and State does not mean that those who hold to positions on stem cell research, abortion, foreign policy and alike should find non-religious reasons for those positions. So argues Oliver Thomas, who wrote an article in USA Today entitled, “Would God back universal health care?” He wrote, “Mixing church and state might be inexcusable, but the influence of religion on our

A Happy Hen is a Tasty Hen

2009-07-14T08:51:00.003-05:00

I was brought up by a muesli-mother. She grew, milked and bred most of what was placed before us at meal times and what she couldn't produce herself, she ordered from a whole food delivery company from where she obtained her muesli by the sack load. My childhood memories are filled with food production. I remember the sight of jam being made in the kitchen. Mum poured stewed fruit into a

Christ - Myth, Metaphor or Metaphysic

2009-07-07T17:03:00.009-05:00

The Christian story—that found in the bible—is neither a myth nor a metaphor, but a reality. Myths are narratives which cultures adopt in order to make sense of the world. They are not judged by their truth or reliability, but by their impact upon the cultures in which they dwell. The Archbishop of Canterbury recently described the Christian story as a myth. Commenting on Philip Pullman, the

When a King is not a King (a Fiction)

2009-06-26T08:05:00.002-05:00

“I'm scared,” Mike confessed as Pete opened the door for him. Both men walked into the simple office.“You should be a little scared,” Mike offered.Pete was brief and to the point. “It says here that people knew you as the king.”“Yes, I am the king,” replied Mike.Pete looked at him for a moment as if he was trying to decide something. “Okay, I'm going to do something I don't usually do.” Pete got

The Doorbell Rang

2009-06-11T14:24:00.001-05:00

The doorbell rang. I got up to answer and found two young girls sitting in the hot, mid-day sun on the wall outside the church where my office was located. The one sitting nearest to me asked if there was a priest inside the Church. I explained that no priests were here today and asked if I could help. She asked for a bible. I told her that we had quite a few in my office. “I want the real one!”

Diaper Delusion

2009-06-06T09:06:00.004-05:00

!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> The moment I experienced fatherhood, I was quite sure that there is nothing which could measure preparedness for caring for people so small, infuriating, lovable and demanding. What qualifies a person for being a parent? Perhaps nothing, perhaps far too much for a mere mortal. It is hard to say. However, many in our

Murder or Martyrdom

2009-05-30T14:04:00.001-05:00

!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> Martyrdom, at least the modern strap-on-bombs-and-blow-yourself-up-in-public-place version of it is not martyrdom at all. It is murder. Martyrdom is not the expression of angry young men with an obsession with vengeance and virgins, it is the culmination of persistent persecution. Perpetua, a valiant young

Ozymandias

2009-04-29T09:49:00.008-05:00

Headlines ring with fear today as a global flu pandemic threatens to wipe out substantial portions of human populace. Suddenly we feel a little frail. Whether or not our fears are realized, disease, unlike falling stock markets, forces us to face our fragility. Ozymandias, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818, portrays the temporal nature of man and his achievements: I met a traveler from

Love Matters

2009-04-19T09:31:00.001-05:00

!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> Columnist, literary critic and long time atheist, Christopher Hitchens, was asked a very good question recently. During a live discussion on Moody Radio, Associate professor of Theology at Moody Bible Institute, Bryan O'Neal, asked Hitchens whether or not he loved his wife.After a short pause, which may have

Holy Week

2009-04-10T08:33:00.002-05:00

I met a homeless girl once. She was fifteen and had been beaten by her father and thrown out of her house. It turned out that she had witnessed her brother hanging himself and her family was falling apart. She asked me to help her find somewhere to stay. It was Sunday night so I took her to church while we called the social services to find out what to do. She refused to go into the sanctuary so

Supersized Grace

2009-04-06T10:22:00.002-05:00

According to the Chicago Tribune, you will shortly be able to purchase an ice cream sundae for just shy of a hundred bucks. It will be double the size of the present offering at Margie's Candies which is made with 25 scoops of ice cream topped with bananas, nuts, whipped cream and chocolate. Their new serving of this lavish dessert is sure to flummox any daring sweet-tooth and leave even the most

Barbie - The Object of Desire

2009-04-02T14:23:00.005-05:00

A mother, who had always prevented her daughter from owning a Barbie Doll on the grounds that it was demeaning to women was recently persuaded to capitulate to her daughter's demands. “A friend pointed out that if I denied her what she wanted, then what was I saying about her desire?” the mother recounted.I have no qualifications to comment on the morality of owning a Barbie. My experience of

Killer

2009-03-28T09:26:00.002-05:00

Jessie Rankins was released from prison earlier this month. Although he was in prison for stealing a dog, that was not the reason his story made the front page of the Chicago Tribune last week. In 1994, Rankins and his friend, Tykeece Johnson, dropped five-year-old Eric Morse from a 14th floor window. Rankins was sent to prison and released in 2004. In 2006 went back for stealing the dog.

The Real Me

2009-03-09T15:31:00.003-05:00

Recently beleaguered Illinois Senator Roland Burris defended himself from accusations of impropriety by stating, "Stop the rush to judgment. You know the real Roland. I have done nothing wrong and I have absolutely nothing to hide." Whether or not Senator Burris has anything to hide—something to be decided by officials and not bloggers—his defense reveals a common view of our human nature – that

The Gagging of the Christian

2009-03-02T15:30:00.007-06:00

On account of a penchant for ice cream and a distinct hatred of the toothbrush, I was forced to visit the dentist. It was with fear and trembling I opened my mouth and placed my gnashers in the control of an armed stranger. Sure enough, cavities abounded and various contraptions of torture were produced and laid out on a table ready to be put to use.Whilst I lay there, a conversation between the

Steak on the Plate

2009-02-27T10:41:00.005-06:00

According to John Cottingham, the Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, meaning in life comes down to two considerations. What is good and what happens when things don't go according to plan. The search for something good takes on a multitude of expressions. For most, it is framed in moral terms—perhaps virtue, avoidance of bad behavior or living for something of higher

If you don't Like the Music, Turn Down the Lights

2009-02-24T07:51:00.003-06:00

There is a reason that there is no saxophone solo in Deep Purple's song Child in Time. My guitar teacher at The Musician's Institute told me why. The men from Purple invited then up-and-coming sax player David Sanborn to play on the track. Sanborn obliged and turned up ready for work at the studio. The band sat in the control room and Sanborn stood with his sax the other side of the glass in the

Shame – an Indication of our need for Grace

2009-02-23T10:03:00.004-06:00

Adam Serwer and Megan McArdle disagree over the benefits of shame in society. Serwer believes that shame is detrimental and McArdle argues that it has the positive effect of producing social cohesion.Adam Serwer, who blogs for The American Prospect writes that the benefits of shame in society have been overestimated by conservatives. “Shame,” writes Serwer, “provokes response in the form of

Making an Idol out of Unity

2009-02-19T11:53:00.003-06:00

Writing in 1938, Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned about pursuing a purely human ideal of unity. According to Bonhoeffer, visions of unity which have no reference to God are like “rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream,” and are a “hindrance... and must be banished.” He goes on to say that the distinguishing feature of a human vision of unity is idolatry:“Human love makes

The Consistency of Dr House

2009-02-18T09:26:00.006-06:00

At first viewing the TV show, House seems to be a formulaic doctor show about solving difficult medical problems. It is, on the surface, a combination of ER and CSI or Columbo and General Hospital, but in the characters lurks a far more compelling theme, which I think is what brings viewers coming back for more. More than a scientific mystery show, House depicts a war of worldviews. It portrays

The Perfect Storm and the Peril of the West

2009-02-16T18:56:00.002-06:00

Former Chief Council to President Nixon, Charles Colson spoke to a Christian gathering in Chicago recently. In his speech he outlined the “perfect storm” which places the West “very much in peril.” Colson, one of Nixon's cabinet jailed for his involvement in Watergate who later converted to Christianity, listed four conditions for western civilization's precarious predicament:Economic collapse (

Why We Should Not Introduce Population Control Policies - An Open Letter to Jonathan Porritt

2009-02-15T19:58:00.006-06:00

Dear Mr Porritt, I heard you on the BBC the other day, and you had some interesting things to say about population control. I understand that you are the chair of the UK government's Sustainable Development Commission and so your ideas are not without consequence. Your argument was thus: people use the

Get a Life!

2009-02-12T19:58:00.006-06:00

Life. What is it? And how do I know when I am living it? Am I alive or is that only what I describe myself as being? How do I measure life? Is it to be measured by accomplishments, pleasure or by mechanics?When someone says “get a life!” they imply that certain kinds of lives are not really lived; they

Temple Merits

2009-02-11T09:11:00.002-06:00

On what terms can a religious activity be defended in a community if there is opposition from residents in close proximity to the religious center? One answer presented by the Abbot of a Thai Buddhist temple in Berkley California, is that it earns spiritual merit. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Wat

Election Day 2009

2008-11-04T09:03:00.002-06:00

I am several blocks away from where Barack Obama will take the stage in downtown Chicago for an election rally. I am too estranged from polls and political forecasts to give my opinion as to whom the winner might be on this historic day, but I can tell you my impressions of the country’s mood at this time.The last months have seen a rapid fire series of crises. It seems an age has passed since

Three Passions I have Lived for

2007-09-12T05:34:00.001-05:00

I was ten years old when I became a Christian. At school, I talked openly about Jesus to my friends, and told them how they could become Christians. I even stood on a desk and preached to a whole class until the teacher arrived.I had discovered the first and foremost passion in my life – to declare the good news about Jesus to anyone who will listen. At school, some listened, some ignored me, but

Speaking Biblically

2007-07-27T03:19:00.001-05:00

It is not often that a twelve year old takes an interest in the bible, so when one sat in our office and began to leaf through the Old Testament I was pleasantly surprised. Even more surprising was that he was quizzing the youth workers on its contents. I have to admit that this particular version of the Holy Writ was in fact an illustrated, comic-style bible. This did not diminish the fact that