Robert Farrar Capon Against the Food Prigs

Robert Capon cannot write much about theology without talking about cooking, and he can’t write much about cooking without talking about theology.  While reading a book of his on preaching, I found this great piece:

One of my many odd callings has been to be a food writer who also happens to do most of the shopping, prepping, cooking, and garbage-hauling in my own home… As a household cook, for example, I’m an apostate from the religions of food and diet that now plague this once-great nation. (I’m not talking about fast food: I happen to think Big Macs and Egg McMuffins are fine.) What bothers me is the late-twentieth-century’s penchant for doctrinaire pronouncements on the subject of cooking and eating.

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“Sacramentalizing” and “r2k” are Two Sides to the Same Coin

I’ve managed to come to this odd position where I could be construed as critiquing both certain strands of neo-Calvinism and Radical Orthodoxy (a more left-wing variant of the same concepts) on the one hand and the so-called “two kingdoms” school (called “radical 2k” by their critics) on the other hand.  A surface approach would think that one should line up with one of these groups to attack the other.  This is not the case, however, because both share the same basic problem of not being able to allow nature and grace to dwell together happily.

Robert Farrar Capon and the Goodness of Stuff

Robert Farrar Capon, in his excellent The Supper of the Lamb, writes this spot-on description of the modern “problem” with nature:

Ah mischief.  Man is not always content to take reality at such width and depths.  He cuts the wine of paradox with the water of consistency: The mystery of God and things is tamed to the simplicity of God or things; he builds himself a duller, skimpier world.

Why is “Catholic” a Gloss for “Creation”? (or why “sacramental” needs a moratorium)

This is from a comment response to a post here (with slight editing so as to make my writing look better than it is).

The divide is not between some generic “catholic” Church (which oddly includes magisterial Protestants) versus the more modern “Baptist”, but rather the older one of nature and grace. Modern evangelicalism looks a lot more like medieval Romanism in this regard than many would care to admit. The classic Protestant position admits that nature is already a reflection of the divine and possesses its own integrity. This is also why it is no surprise to find great works of techne among even the non-believers and pagans (see for instance, the sons of Cain in Gen. 4:20-22).

Thoughts on Reading Baxter’s Reformed Pastor

It has been a while since I have blogged anything substantial, and to be honest, I just still don’t feel up for a theological treatise.  I’ve still got all the same interests and passions, but right now I’m just in a different mood.  I’ve been reading a good bit of “pastoral” literature (Peterson, Herbert, Lewis), and now I’m into Richard Baxter.  It has been quite interesting to say the least.

First of all, The Reformed Pastor is intense.