William Empson’s book Milton’s God is an account of Paradise Lost that associates God with a Stalinist tyrant (146). The primary association for this understanding is located in Empson’s critique of Milton’s God as a “neurotic parent” (116) who exposes his children to certain temptation, and ultimately orchestrates their Fall. For this author, it appears […]
Category Archives: Religion
Divine Synecdoche
As a Cultural Studies student, my first encounter with Sallie McFague’s article was jarring: her eco-feminist metaphorical approach to theology is somewhat unexpected to those unfamiliar with Religious Studies. Yet I suppose I have misjudged much of this field of study by unfairly coming to expect either wholly traditional or wholly radical claims. McFague’s approach, however, seems relatively moderate and reasonable in all its assertions, and its neo-Derridian deconstruction had my inner cultural analyst bursting with excitement. Aching to break away from the patriarchical tyranny of classical Christian theology, she is committed to a drastic reconstruction of traditional Christian dogma.
Levinas vis-à-vis the Other
Philosophy, arising from its Greek tradition of a “love of wisdom”, seeks to critically examine those questions most fundamental to humankind; it is concerned with essential concepts (or rather, questions) of being (metaphysics), rightness and goodness, knowledge, truth and beauty. As a branch of metaphysics, ontology seeks, in particular, to understand the nature of being […]
A National House of Prayer for All People
On a recent visit to the nation’s capitol, Washington D.C. , however, I discovered that the country also hosts an engrained, if unconscious, religious tradition, as embodied at the Washington National Cathedral