Christianity and me

Some may ask what credentials I possess for commenting on religion. After all I was brought up in a decidedly secular home, as my parents adhered to a far-left political sect. When I opened the Bible for the first time at the age of twenty, I was struck by how many quotations it contained, from "giants in the earth" to "turning the other cheek."

Yet I did not long remain in this state of bemused perplexity. Grad school (art history) gave me a new purchase on these matters.

When in the early sixties I commenced work on the illuminated Stavelot Bible (with copies of the diss. still bouncing around here and there), I only partially understood how to proceed. I knew that the MS was a product, art historically speaking, of the Mosan Romanesque. Obviously, there was a major theological background. I understood that the Libri Carolini were still authoritative in 1097, offering a bulwark against the rigors of iconoclasm.

So far so good. In addition, a flyleaf in the Bible contained a catalogue of the abbey library at Stavelot, featuring major works by Augustine, Ambrose, and Gregory the Great (who turned out to be most relevant for my research). I also boned up on modern critical research on the text of the Bible, as well as on such theologians as Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. The latter pair are old hat now, but they remain formidable intellects. Thus while I was not a fan of Benedict 16, I recognized that he had a deep knowledge of contemporary theology, especially in the so-called Resourcement trend.