Who Do You Say I Am

"WHAT ARE THEY saying about me? What do you think about me?" Everybody has asked these questions but when Jesus of Nazareth posed them to his friends at Caesarea-Philippi, an ancient Roman cosmopolitan city on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, he started a discussion that continues to baffle, enrage and inspire people two millennia later. I have always wondered if these were real or trick questions. Was Jesus cornering Peter into giving the right dogmatic answer, later to be included in sacred writings, or was this an open question addressed to all people? I don't want

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Monsters at the Margin

VIRTUE IS FOUND at the margins of society more often than at its centre. If this is so, Mary Shelley's Monster is a real find! Her creature is an isolate of great sensitivity, kindness, and insight. Contrary to James Whale's 1931 film of the Creature as a lumbering dolt, Mary Shelley's Monster was modeled on Rousseau's notion of humanity as the "noble savage." The nobility of the Creature is evident as he unveils his chronicle to Victor Frankenstein upon the icy crags of Mount Blanc. Meet Frankenstein's Creature

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Resurrection: Beyond Ghosts and Ghouls

MORE THAN A fact or doctrine, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth embodies personal and historical hope. While reading a variety of viewpoints on the resurrection, I have been alternatively confused, comforted, restored and unexpectedly devastated by this theme. Internally and subjectively the resurrection is an encounter with the epicenter of meaning and significance. Without a living encounter and reliance on the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, spirituality amounts to little more than armchair speculation. This strikes at the root of my fears because my intellect hesitates to believe that a person whose bodily functions had ceased, whose tether to

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Ralph Waldo Emerson's Harvard Divinity Address

The average temperature in Boston during the summer of 1838 was a stifling 90 degrees Fahrenheit - hot enough to cause the six graduates and a select group of esteemed guests to loosen their starched collars as they crowded into the tiny side chapel at Harvard Divinity School for the graduation address. Neither diminutive numbers nor heat would dampen the refreshing gust of thought and inspiration that Ralph Waldo Emerson brought that day. No matter how claustrophobic the physical space or the minds of his listeners, Emerson's reflections opened onto vistas of spirit that

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The Gold-Bug

Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold-Bug emphasizes the chasm between our perceptions and reality. Poe's ghoulish tone is not merely horror for the "gross out", as Stephen King calls it. The gothic elements in Poe serve the higher purpose of transforming our consciousness. One of the tell-tale signs of a Poe story is that truth is not easily accessible. When we confront reality it does not conform to our expectations. A metamorphosis, in the normal way of seeing things, takes place when we learn to question not only our general perceptions of subject but our own cherished convictions. Poe's horror supplies

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Weakness Made Strong A Lost Anatolian Letter (a fictional account)

Our short but well-preserved letter from Thyatira isn't a find of the Nag's notability but it does contribute to understanding what some members of the community in Thyatira felt about John's jolting letter of admonition. This recently discovered response to Elder John was found by Ian Hodder, a lucky and meticulous Anotolian archeologist, to the now cold forge in the ruins of the Thyatiran Bronzeworker's Association in 2006. Along with the copy was Decius Gallio Gallipor's request to be excused from the upcoming Minerva's Guild Festival on March 15 for religious reasons. Decius

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