For this joyful day of celebration, we feature a contemporary Easter poem by ESN author and scholar of early modern literature David Parry. We're honored to be the first publication to share it. … [Read more...] about A New Easter Poem
Open-Handed Communication: The Rhetoric of Christian Persuasion
In Os Guinness's recent apologetics book Fool's Talk, what role does rhetoric play? Literary scholar David Parry draws on his knowledge of classical and Christian rhetorical traditions to unpack one strand of Guinness's ideas about apologetics. To read David's other work for ESN, click here. “Do you know how you can act or speak about rhetoric so as to please God best?” (Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus)[1] The epigraph above is selected from the five pages of thought-provoking quotations that open Os … [Read more...] about Open-Handed Communication: The Rhetoric of Christian Persuasion
Communication for Communion, Part 4 (Scholar’s Call)
David Parry wraps up his Scholar's Call series on Communication for Communion. Find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here. Part 4: Communication and Communion It is a mistake to see language as purely instrumental in the sense of being just to convey information or to get things done. Some aspects of verbal communication don't have any particular conceptual content to them – rather they are there to form or to maintain a connection between persons. For instance, “How are you?” is not primarily a request for … [Read more...] about Communication for Communion, Part 4 (Scholar’s Call)
Communication for Communion, Part 3: Babel and Pentecost (Scholar’s Call)
Last week's post discussed the quest for the Adamic language in the early modern period, understood as a language in which words correspond exactly to the things they represent. This post is Part 3 of a series. See Part 2 here and Part 1 here. But was there ever a language in which the totality of a thing in its essence was communicated fully in words? James K.A. Smith, a Christian philosopher at Calvin College, says no. In his book The Fall of Interpretation, Smith argues that human beings were never intended to … [Read more...] about Communication for Communion, Part 3: Babel and Pentecost (Scholar’s Call)
Communication for Communion, Part 2: The Quest for the Adamic Language (Scholar’s Call)
David Parry continues his Scholar's Call series on communication and language. See Part 1 here. Post 2: The quest for the Adamic language So what language did Adam and Eve speak in the Garden of Eden? This was a question of significant interest in the early modern period (around the 16th and 17th centuries).1 The majority scholarly opinion, following Augustine, went with Hebrew.2 However, other options were available. For instance, Jan van Gorp argued in his 1569 work Origines Antwerpianae that the original language … [Read more...] about Communication for Communion, Part 2: The Quest for the Adamic Language (Scholar’s Call)