Understanding Emotions

I have read a number of books that touches on emotions, but this is the first one that focuses specifically on the subject. Although the book does discuss what emotions are, its quite light on theology of emotions per se. For example, the authors do not sufficiently wrestle with the falleness of the human condition. Instead of discussion emotions in terms of sinfful and non-signiful emotions, they opt for positive and negative. This is because fundamentally they see emotions as not sinful in of themselves. The problem is that the Bible does speak of "evil desire".

The whole questions of what emotions really are is not discussed in depth, which is surprising. I have read books which are not about emotions give an indepth treatment to this question. The weak theological foundation aside, I think the book is immensely helpful to every Christian in terms of how to engage with emotions. I particularly found section 3 on enganging the hardest emotions helpful. It is definitely a book worth having in your collection.

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An Empty Page

I am nothing without you I am not ashamed to say But sometimes still I doubt you along my way I am nothing without you An eagle with no wings If I forget about you, I lose everything My heart is an empty stage O let your play begin My life is an empty page for you to colour me with your love It’s such a common feeling to be misunderstood But from you there’s no concealing You know my bad and good So I am not pretending my story never fails But I have already read the ending And your love prevails My heart is an empty stage Let your play begin My life is an empty page for you to colour me with your love The words are from Jonathan Veira’s song Empty Page. One of the tracks off ‘ Rhythms of the Heart’ album. I like his music, and especially this song. Sadly, I couldn’t find the lyrics online, so I had to write them down word for word. I have had this song for many years and it has always spoken me at many lev...

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Incarnation and Modernity

[The Bible] resituate modernity's prejudices within a wider context from which they were originally wrenched, showing them to be reductive heresies of a more complex biblical reality. So whereas modernity privileges an unchanging a-historicity, in the incarnation God enters history at a particular moment to gather a people to be with him not in a Greck eternity of unchanging timelessness, but in a biblical eternity of never-ending and ever-renewed intimacy and relational richness. Whereas modernity subordinates the particular to the universal, the Bible perfectly marries the universal "image of the invisible God" together with a particular first-century Palestinian Jewish man. Whereas modernity seeks the abstract over the material and finds itself painfully akimbo between the twin idols of materialism and immaterialism, in the same gesture the incarnate Christ validates material reality and prevents his followers from ever worshipping it. Finally, whereas modernity secks ...

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Social limits of markets

Kelvin Albertson has an interesting article where he argues that neoliberalism focus on self interest (expansion of economic freedoms) inevitably leads to increasing surveillance (reduction in social freedoms). In other words although society may be becoming economically freer it comes at the expense of less social freedoms. It turns out the free market actually imprisons : The need for self-interested but free individuals to be constantly regulating each other to promote social good explains the seeming paradox that, as the state withdraws from the economy in line with neoliberal theory, its role in criminal justice expands . Where the actions of some have adverse social consequences, the state must attempt to disincentivise them through regulation and punishment. And this, of course, requires rigorous detection and monitoring.

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