When his eyes soften, you can see his childlike spirit. Of course, the intellectual bravado and unparalleled rhetorical brilliance is something to behold also...but on another level of importance.
I consider the greatest threat to the Church Universal today is that far too many Christians treat, and read, our 'scriptures' (whatever that word means beyond 'writings') more like the most devout of Muslims. They hold to a deeply unhealthy view of scripture: tending to worship and adore 'scripture', rather than the Creator God of Israel all those countless authors and redactors, writing and arranging over thousands of years, hoped the texts might help to reveal. Just look at how easily most Christians speak of the 'word of God', in a manner in which they might as well use the plural: "words of God". This is Islam: it is not Judaism or Christianity. What I enjoy about Dr Hart's translations and writings is that he is not frightened to abandon 'academic manners', and call a spade a spade. If our 'scriptural literalism' leads us to cruelty and psychosis, he tells us!
please invite Cyril O'Regan as well. more than Milbank and Hart, he has been the one who has paid attention to apocalyptic thought and perhaps better placed to comment on the current situation. His first volume on Balthasar and Hegel, hopefully to be followed soon by the appearance of the next two volumes, is perhaps the most enlightening in reading the current situation...
