The Cosmic Waters: The Annual Ritz Lectures (2010)
In October, I delivered a lecture at the annual Ritz Lectures at Winebrenner Theological Seminary. The text for that lecture, “The Cosmic Waters: An Historian’s Perspective of Christian Ecumenical Discussions,” appears at my author blog (brandonwithrow.com).
As Bertram Cooper says to Don Draper on the AMC show Mad Men, “You’re going to need a stronger stomach if you’re going to be back in the kitchen seeing how the sausage is made.” When we examine the history of the church, we find compromises, threats, and fearmongering that is not entirely unlike that which fills our television screens on the nightly news. Perhaps the real peacemakers in Christian history made their way to the monasteries, raising crops and brewing beer for the locals. Yet, even then, the politics of a monastery could be fairly brutal for the one who wanted to remain abbot or abbess. To paraphrase Firefly’s Captain Malcolm Reynolds, “no one ever had a statue made after him who wasn’t some kind of jerk.” Read the entire post at Brandonwithrow.com.
About Author
Brandon G. Withrow
I’m an author, a blogger at The Huffington Post and Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity and Religious Studies. You can find me at BrandonWithrow.com, Twitter, and Google+. Full Bio
