Category: Mere Fidelity
Mere Fidelity: Cultural Presuppositions and the Practices that Embody Them
In this discussion, Alastair, Derek and I take up the interaction between cultural presuppositions and particular actions which might embed them. While it starts from in-vitro fertilization, the conversation moves outward from there. This is the bit from O’Donovan that started...
Mere Fidelity: Made for More, with Hannah Anderson
Hannah Anderson’s Made for More is a book I heartily endorsed. She joins us in this latest episode of Mere Fidelity to talk about the doctrine of the image of God, women, and their role in the church. Follow Hannah here, and give her...
Mere Fidelity: And who is a person?
We take up, once again, Oliver O’Donovan’s Begotten or Made? We start from the below and carry on: “The embryo is of interest to us because it is human; it is ‘ourselves’. On the other hand, it is considered a suitable...
Mere Fidelity: What’s Wrong (and Right) with “Relatability”
To appreciate “King Lear”—or even “The Catcher in the Rye” or “The Fault in Our Stars”—only to the extent that the work functions as one’s mirror would make for a hopelessly reductive experience. But to reject any work because we...
Mere Fidelity: What Adoption Is and Isn’t
Today, the folks of Mere Fidelity tackle adoption. We’re drawing on the following text from Oliver O’Donovan’s Begotten or Made: Adoption is not procreation, and does not fulfil the procreative good of marriage. It is a charitable vocation indicated to childless copules...
Mere Fidelity: On Divine Accommodation
How does God accommodate himself to us? How do we know when he has accommodated himself to us, or when we are projecting ourselves back on him? In this episode, we take up what has traditionally been called the doctrine...
Mere Fidelity: On Marriage and Donated Gametes
This week’s conversation continues through our reading of Oliver O’Donovan’s Begotten or Made? with a conversation about the ways in which the possibility of gamete-donation by third parties to married couples has reshaped our understanding of marriage and its goods. We take...
NT Wright and his Reformed Critics
This week’s show follows up on the conversation about NT Wright and locates him among his Reformed critics. Who’s right, who’s wrong, and are there paths between that can learn from both? Various links from topics that came up during...
Mere Fidelity: The Transgender Question
This week’s conversation continues through our reading of Oliver O’Donovan’s Begotten or Made? with a discussion of the questions that have come to the fore in recent weeks about transgender people. We take the following excerpt from O’Donovan as our way in...
Mere Fidelity: Surprised by NT Wright
This week, we take up the subject of…N.T. Wright. Widely regarded as one of the most influential and best New Testament theologians of our day, we consider how best to read him and his impact on Christianity in the English...