An Article on The Sandman over at Pop Culture and Theology!
And A Somehow Unannounced One on Nondualism
Perennialists and Digressers All,
Just to let you know, I have a new article over at Pop Culture and Theology on Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. If you have not seen the show, it is worth your time, and if you have, you may get something out of this piece.
Separately, I also somehow failed to alert you to a piece on nondualism published over the summer in Jacob’s Well, an Orthodox magazine printing in hard copy in the Northeast and boasting an online version. Please find the link to that piece here.
There are a few articles coming down the pipeline for September, on God, universalism, Latin and Greek, autumn, and the passage of the Queen. As ever, fatherhood and my teaching schedule slow down the flow of content here considerably, especially during the school year, so which of these make it to publication and when really depends on a combination of my own fancy and freedom. I have also been dealing with a major family hospitalization: my father had a stroke in August, which is about as fun and conducive to creativity (or even just normative patterns of thought and functionality) as it sounds. There are two unscheduled but tentative interviews for the season, one with the ever-generous David Bentley Hart and the other with the eminent Anantanand Rambachan, on Christology and Hindu-Christian dialogue, respectively. My deepest apologies to those plugged for interviews in the spring or summer with whom such did not materialize; these factors I describe more or less coalesced to tank some of the more serious plans I had for this time. Hopefully, if I have not burnt any goodwill too thoroughly, we might try again some other time.
Finally: the reader may begin to notice that some of the articles published here, more than normal (which is none), go up behind paywalls. This is not a marketing gimmick. The teaching world is a bit of a volatile place just now, and as my family depends on the income my job provides, some limits on my public presence is probably prudent. Paywalls for articles that might strike some as disagreeable make their circulation somewhat more difficult or unlikely. Lector comprehendat.
Pax vobiscum.
Hey David,
It seems the Christian fear of asserting a monism is either theological (proper) in the sense of feeling the need to maintain a creator-creation distinction (that’s probably wider* than it needs to be, with a few related but not essential qualifiers in there), or also a kind of personal one, in the sense of wanting to avoid a dissolution of the self.
But, if I’m following correctly, asserting a (Christian) monism actually preserves the latter concern: the self (which is not defined principally as something independent of the One/All) is wholly instantiated and manifested (in the sense of its true, eternally created [ktisis] self) only in its perfected synergistic unity with the One.
Eg In Galatians, Paul speaks of (egō) no longer living but Christ living in him, and of Christ being born in us, etc. but the whole epistle still shows all the idiosyncrasies of Paul himself: his passion, his words, his reasoning, his relationships, etc. - which is the Paul whom Christ is.
This kind of monism still allows the “I-Thou” relationship that Ware speaks of (though qualified in the way you describe)?
Cheer!
*PS loved the Luke 16 reference at the end of the article.. hell as experiencing the deception of dualism.
Hello David,
I enjoyed your non-dualism piece. I'm curious if you've read McGuckin's article on the self: Classical and Byzantine Christian Notions of the Self and Their Significance Today.
If so any thoughts?