Urban Filling and Urban Judgment

12 01 2012

by Brian Walsh

A meditation on Isaiah 2.5-22

Culture is not optional.

I’m pretty sure that my former colleague, Calvin Seerveld, coined that phrase.

Culture is not optional because there is no such thing as human life together that is not at heart a culture-forming enterprise. Human language, family structures, gender relations, economies, agriculture and creative expression is all culturally founded and culturally formative.

And for ancient Israel, culture making is at the very foundation of human identity. We are mandated to be fruitful, to multiply and to “fill” the earth. Read the rest of this entry »





Targum :: Romans 1.16-32 (take two)

22 09 2009

by Brian Walsh

Some months ago I posted a targum on Romans 1.1-25 that received a fair bit of attention. That piece was also criticized at another site because I somehow didn’t have the “courage” to continue my expansion on Romans 1 beyond verse 25 and deal with the thorny verses supposedly about homosexuality. This morning I expanded that earlier targum, only picking it up at verse 16 and then running with it until the end of the chapter. I didn’t expand this targum to reply to a critic but to minister to the Wine Before Breakfast community at the University of Toronto.

I post it here for broader reflection and response.








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