POSTS
TheArchive.
A chronological record of essays, thinking tools, and interventions.
-
COVID-19 reading list: Let’s read Albert Camus’s La Peste (The Plague) together
In view of the COVID-19 information, misinformation and toilet roll hysteria currently gripping the world, over coming weeks I will be channelling my quarantine curiosity into re-reading Albert Camus’s La Peste (The Plague), a story of an epidemic sweeping through the Algerian city of Oran. The novel examines the way in which living in an epidemic
-
Why Deleuze’s philosophy fits its historical and cultural moment. Extract from my forthcoming book on Deleuze and theology
This is the second of a series of extracts from my forthcoming book on Deleuze (to be published in the same P&R ‘Great Thinkers’ series as the Derrida and Foucault volumes). It argues why Deleuze’s thought was appropriate for its historical and cultural moment, and offers some reflections on how to engage with a body
-
Tim Keller shows how overwork and underwork are symptoms of the same disease, and Francis Schaeffer helps us find the right balance between optimism and pessimism
In this brief interview between Tim Keller and Matt Smethurst about Keller’s book Every Good Endeavour: Connecting your Work to God’s Work, the point that I found particularly helpful was Keller’s diagnosis of how “the counternarrative of the gospel addresses our propensity to idolize or demonize, to overwork or underwork”. This repeats a characteristic move of Keller’s, showing
-
Video talk on Foucault, sexuality and the Bible
Here is a recording of a lunchtime talk I gave at Biola University in February 2020. I discuss the later Foucault, specifically the first volume of his History of Sexuality, and bring it into conversation with biblical notions of identity and alterity. For further reflections on Foucault and the Bible you might want to check
-
Four reasons why Christians should bother with Deleuze. Extract from my forthcoming book on Deleuze and theology
This is the first of a series of extracts from my forthcoming book on Deleuze (to be published in the same P&R ‘Great Thinkers’ series as the Derrida and Foucault volumes). It comes from the first section of the Introduction, in which I give four reasons why Christians should pay attention to Deleuze’s thought, and
-
Christian Academics: Is your understanding of your faith three thousand miles wide and half an inch deep?
In a previous post I talked about the difference between intensive and extensive reading, and the importance of finding a balance between the two. The same terms can be applied to our faith. It is easy to live an exclusively extensive Christianity today: our coverage may be wide, but we don’t let God’s word sink
-
Bible and culture 4: The Multiperspectival Bible
The transcultural nature of the Bible (see the previous post in this series) is reflected and instantiated in the biblical documents themselves in at least four ways. Each of these ways shows how the Bible crosses multiple perspectives in a way that neither homogenises them into undifferentiated unity nor fragments them into irreconcilable incoherence. First
-
Review of my book on Derrida over at Mike Bird’s blog
On Mike Bird’s blog over at Patheos, Andrew Judd (lecturer in theology at Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia) recently posted a review of my book on Derrida in the P&R ‘Great Thinkers’ series. The full text of the review is available on Patheos, and is also pasted below. A Christian Review of Jacques Derrida FEBRUARY
-
Temptations of the academic life (5): Seeking novelty for its own sake, and over-correcting imbalances
In this short video from Biola University’s Centre for Christian thought, James Houston succinctly sketches two temptations of the academic life: to seek after novelty for its own sake, and to address a problem by over-correcting its errors. The temptation to over-correct is often born of a desire to differentiate ourselves sufficiently from those who
-
Video talk: Thinking Through Redemption
How does the incarnation provide a fresh way of looking at some of the most divisive political and social divisions of our age? What are its implications for the dignity of matter, history and the human body? Why is the Christian “grace narrative” a subversive force undercutting the drivers of social fracture and division? This
