Dresden today

When I arrived in Dresden, I had a sense of urgency, both due to a mental tic by which I was under the impression that Tristan and Isolde was to be performed that very night (whereas it proved to be the next night, so I really had plenty of time, but didn’t know it), and due to the usual WC need: all of which caused me to think I lost my parking ticket, and on top of that it was snowing, and there were no typical tourist signs pointing things out, so I went jigging around in the snow, fretting about the parking ticket, freezing, and not knowing north from left. Continue reading

Conspiracy Theories

Like a few recent commentators, I too believe that there is a good deal more to history than what the court historians report. Like the poor, conspirators will always be with us. Augustine reminds us that history is to understood as a battle between two cities. One uses the power of the Word and Spirit to advance its kingdom, the other is apt to cheat, steal, rape, kill and blunder. But the City of Man’s main method of warfare is not force, but dissimulation and secrecy. Christendom seems to have forgotten that our enemy is the deceiver of the nations. Continue reading

Köthen

palaceThe town of Köthen (sometimes spelled with a C) is southwest of Dessau and due north from Halle. It doesn’t even show up on the Google map until you zoom in pretty far; but as so often with German towns, it turns out to be quite substantial once you get there. (Pix is of the palace complex: it is quite modest, though there is a bit more to it than meets the eye here.)

The founder of German pietism, Johann Continue reading

Book: Zahn. The Influence of the Reformed Church on Prussia’s Greatness

This is a pamphlet I discovered at the WTS library containing a speech by one Adolf Zahn to the evangelical faculty of the Royal and Imperial University in Vienna in around 1871. It is interesting for two reasons.

First, it is fascinating to discover an intellectually vigorous Reformed movement Continue reading

The Bill of Rights, RIP

With the current Republican pedophile scandal and cover-up dominating the headlines, you may have missed what happened last week. On Thursday, September 28, Congress passed a law that effectively destroyed the Bill of Rights. The name of the bill that killed it sounds benign enough, “The Military Commissions Act of 2006.” But with its passage the last vestiges of our constitutional republic disappeared. Continue reading