Theology Update for the Week of July 6

Dear friends in Christ

This week—Sunday, July 6 and Thursday, July 10—the Bible study will be on the 10th chapter of 2 Corinthians. Paul here begins a spirited defense of his service as an apostle of Jesus Christ. For those of you looking ahead, I anticipate this study to conclude at the end of July. In August, I plan to start a study of the Song of Songs.

This Bible study meets on Sundays at 10 a.m. on the 5th floor, and is repeated on Thursdays as 12:40 p.m. on the 2nd floor. Each class is about 40 or 45 minutes long, and we have coffee and tea, sometimes iced tea, in the room. Visitors are welcome every week.

Hell is nigh: The seminar on the first half of Dante’s Inferno (cantos 1-17) is but two weeks away. Anyone who reads the text is welcome to the conversation on Monday, July 21, from 6:15 to 7:45 p.m. in Andrew Hall. Please remember to give your primary attention to the text. It is OK to skip or skim the notes. Also, it is OK to have any translation (although I hope no one comes with Dan Brown’s superficial re-write of the Inferno as a key to a bioterrorist plot; “an astonishingly bad novel” was the verdict in the New York Review of Books).

This week I am announcing a fall course, on what faith is and isn’t.On selected Tuesdays beginning September 16, I will offer a reading class on Aquinas on faith. As always, the good doctor has many insights into what will always remain a fundamental mystery. More details to come.

Peace