When I first watched Nevsky, I was most struck by its campiness.
Whereas the medievals associated the “combined object of scent” with the capacity for rational discernment—which implies a kind of restraint—Tony Kushner links it to a sense of excess via sexuality.
Is it possible that the usual (understandable) insistence that atheism is simply a product of experience or reason in some “pure” sense has led to a neglect of the shape of atheism as a tradition?
It is not a unique experience to sit or stand in the presence of a pet or a house plant, or a favorite tree, and to feel that one is not entirely alone.
In Search of St. Paul’s Scales
I’m sure it will surprise no one if I say that St. Paul’s scales are not the only literary detail in the Bible which is passed over with very little explanation.
Death is by no means as “hidden” as we might pretend, nor is it the abstract “universal” that is often spoken of in both secular and theological discourse.
Demons appear when there is nothing else left.
What emerges in the warped virgin birth from the chest of Officer Kane is not an incarnation of a benevolent Godhead, but Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
Waiting for the End of the World
In Durham, where Leave gained 57.5% of the referendum vote, one could see a man walking around the city center, bearing a sign that read, “LEAVE THE EU – RETURN TO YOUR GOD.”
The encounter with the other in street cats gestures beyond itself towards the true Other of the Divine.