The White Devil

The act of commenting on written works is not limited to written commentary. In his engraving series Illustrations of the Book of Job, William Blake visually implements his varied interpretations of the Book of Job. He links the story to the greater Christian Biblical canon by adding verses from St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians. In doing so, he condemns the Job’s comforters as blatantly evil rather than mislead. Additionally, he depicts Elihu as an ignored and inessential in order to…

church every Sunday morning. We all ate dinner at and table together as a family and prayed before we ate. I did not fully understand the concept of my faith when I was a child. I knew there was a heaven where God was, and then there was hell where the devil resided. The good people went to heaven when they died and the bad when to hell. As I got older I understood my faith and beliefs a little more, and I did my best to be a good and honest person. My faith and beliefs did get shaken when I…

Title Rae Spoon’s song “God Was on Your Shoulders” is a cohesive narrative illustrating the major parental relationships in the narrator’s life. Specifically, the effect religion had on shaping said relationships. Throughout the narrator’s life, the persons that are supposed to love and support them abuse and neglect them under the banner of religious righteousness. Though seeming rather personal “God Was on Your Shoulders” directly reflects on religion as a personal justification for abusive…

The book of Job starts with a scene in heaven where Satan comes and challenges God that if he is given permission to inflict pain and punish Job, that Job will turn against God and curse him¬. Satan believes that Job serves God only because he protects him and keeps him safe, that is why he wants God’s permission to punish him and prove that Job will turn against God. From here we can see that the story is going to include a major turn of events because God agrees with Satan, given he doesn’t…

Paradise lost reviews its inner beauty with the guidance of confinement, man's first disobedience, sin, and revenge. Confinement: To keep or restrict someone or something within certain limits of (space, scope, quantity, or time). Confinement ties to Satan’s perspective of the Garden of Eden because he feels as if he does not belong. The book portrays jealousy from Satan since Adam and Eve live royally in Paradise. Because Adam and Eve live like kings/queens, sin rises to make a strike within…

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno has a hell and a God that are in many ways difficult to process. Dante’s God can be seen as either a cruel God that encourages torture or a God with divine justice. He proposes a lot of possibilities that do not necessarily sit well with people. One major argument against his reasoning is that he submits people straight to hell just for not believing God. However, he places them in Circle one where their punishment is to have a near wonderful afterlife with the…

What do you think of this controversial ordeal? Is it immoral, unethical, unfortunate, or just plain inevitable as a “family curse”? The Rocking horse winner is a well-articulated story, it sets the theme as a typical family household with a bizarre twist. When I was introduced to Paul there were some missed interpretations with the characters. Paul was the father of Paul which through me off because he is never labeled as a junior. At this point I’m thinking to myself why this grown man is…

Continuing, “If I Were The Devil” was one of the chapters that hit home in my heart. It really revealed to me how serious I take missions, and awaken a deeper understanding of God’s heart for His mission. This chapter specifically showed me the devil’s tactics, to stop me from following through with God’s command. One area of awakening I needed was to take missions out of the margins of life. For some reason I noticed myself drift away from missional living. I became to complacent. “I would…

Eru Iluvatar is the God of Middle-Earth; he creates the Ainur so he doesn’t feel so isolated. The Ainur are like Christianities’ angels. The Ainur are split into two groups; the Valar, are the guardians of the world. And the Maiar, wizard or the Istari. The Istari are low-angels; including Gandalf, Sauroman, Radagast, and the two blue wizards. The Istari’s main mission is to protect the people of the world from evil. Melkor is the reason for such evil in the world. When Eru Iluvatar and his…

After reading both letters by Ten Haggard and John Piper, what stood out to me is that both men, maybe for the first time in a long-while, were being genuinely honest with their congregations. What breaks my heart most for any church leader who has experienced a great moral failure, is the long journey of living in darkness before they were exposed. I do not believe that most moral failures that disqualify a spiritual leader (permanently or temporarily) happens in one, rash moment of weakness,…