Author: chrisbryan

Another Ash Wednesday arrives.  Another beginning to Lent.  Again we receive the ashes on our foreheads and begin to sing the Lenten hymns.  Again we are called to fasting, penance, and self-examination.  What shall we find?  Very probably the same sins as last year, unless,...

28 March, 2014

The Meaning of Christmas What is the meaning of Christmas in the year of Our Lord 2013? How do we explain it? I am suspicious of theologians or biblical scholars who purport to answer those questions. Saint Paul does not tell us what Christmas means, nor does he try...

18 December, 2013

The following was originally published in the Sewanee Theological Review for September, 2011.  It remains the copyright of the author and The University of the South. It is ten years since the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, the attack on the Pentagon,...

11 September, 2011

The following is based in part on an article on C. S. Lewis’s attitude to biblical scholarship that I wrote for A Sewanee Companion to “The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis.”[i] It remains the © of The University of the South and the author.   C. S....

05 February, 2009

“Left Behind and All That” is owned by the author and the University of the South, which originally published a version of it in the Sewanee Theological Review. “Left Behind and All That” may not be reproduced without the permission of the copyright holders, except...

10 October, 2007

A version of this note was originally published in the Sewanee Theological Review: it remains the copyright 2003 © of the author and The University of the South

  The publication of the fifth of J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books is perhaps a suitable moment for a glance at them in the Sewanee Theological Review, since they have, as a series, caused a degree of fluttering in some theological dovecotes. In case there is anyone left in the western world who does not know who Harry Potter is, let me begin by saying that he is a boy who discovers that he has magical powers, and who is therefore able to attend Hogwarts, a school for boys and girls who, like himself, have magical powers. The five books so far published describe the life and adventures of Potter and his friends and enemies at the school.
01 January, 2003