Of Gods and Men
Can one be faithful to one’s vocation to the point of dying for it? Can one risk one’s own life for neighbors of another religious confession?
Liturgical Conflicts – III
As I’ve noted in earlier entries, in the late 11th century a number of popes were intent upon unifying liturgical practice across Christian Europe. In Spain that effort was opposed by Christians who had been living under Moorish rule for centuries and had developed their own Arab language rite. Loyal to what would later be dubbed the Mozarabic Rite, these […]
Liturgical Conflicts – II
In addition to the “El Juicio de Dios”, the battle between two knights, “one a Castilian and the other a Toledan”, which marked the tension over liturgical issues between Rome and the local church in 11th century Spain, there is also a story that two bulls, one named “Roma” and the other “Toledo”, were set to fight, and as with […]
What Traditional Jewish Pedagogy Can Teach Us About Viewpoint Diversity
“What better way to disabuse oneself of the contemporary untruth that “life is a battle between good people and evil people” than to heed the heavenly voice proclaiming reassuringly that in a high-stakes debate concerning the most vital issues of existence, “these and those” are equally the words of the living G-d? An intellectual culture founded on the logic and […]
Liturgical Conflicts – I
Liturgical conflicts – What’s the most appropriate way to worship God? – have been part of Christian history almost from the beginning. In Song of Toledo, part of the tension driving the plot involves that time and place’s dominant liturgical conflict. In the late 11th century, a number of popes were intent upon unifying liturgical practice across Christian Europe, and […]