Oh happy fault that merited so great a redeemer!
That fraught apple + Church Blogmatics March Madness Final Four
Note: supporting subscribers can access a bonus image download near the bottom of this post.
Here’s an amazing summer opportunity at Nashotah House: take a course with Christina Bieber Lake on “The Incarnational Imagination: Growing in Faith, Hope, and Love through the Power of Literature.”
Church Blogmatics March Madness!
We’re down to the final four in our “amazing books by women in contemporary theology” bracket.
By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine by Ellen T. Charry
The Kindness of God: Metaphor, Gender, and Religious Language by Janet Martin Soskice
God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay 'On The Trinity' by Sarah Coakley
Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible, and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society by Dorothy L. Sayers
Vote for your favorites to get into the championship round!
Gentle reader,
I’m haunted by the image of an apple, usually in Eve’s hand, as a symbol—not so much of sin—but of woman as danger, as seductress, as at fault and to be kept down.
A large part of me doesn’t want to share the image just below, but it—or something like it—is pretty deep in our collective consciousness.
Adam and Eve (ca. 1920), Franz von Stuck, public domain US
He is largely safe from our eyes; she is so exposed. She, proffering that apple; he, drawn to sin by her body. That snake, pornographic.
This is an image, with all it has meant for women, that Jesus rejects and redeems. What follows is a theology of sin and redemption in liturgy and images.
The words are quoted from traditional liturgy used for the Easter vigil.
May you find witness, here, to the Lord who makes all things beautiful in their time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). May you find witness to redemption and resurrection.
felix culpa
(oh, happy fault!)
…the triumph of salvation sings aloud, glory floods the earth, he paid our debt, poured out his blood, he is our Passover lamb, may his blood mark our doorposts, he broke the prison of death and rose in victory, o fortunate fall that merited so great a redeemer, dazzling is the night. He dispels wickedness, washes fault away, restores innocence and joy, drives out hatred, brings down the mighty…
…you led Israel’s children through the Red Sea…
…an end to gloom and darkness…
…lift up your hearts…
…o happy fault that merited so great a redeemer…
…O certe necessárium Adam peccátum, quod Christi morte delétum est! O felix culpa, quæ talem ac tantum méruit habére Redemptórem!…
(O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault, that merited so great a redeemer!)
…mea culpa…
(my fault)
…exultet…
(Rejoice)
…mea maxima culpa…
(my most grievous fault)
…the things of heaven are wed to those of earth…
“There are no apples here, Mary and Eve, a digital collage” by Beth Felker Jones.
Feel free to use and share these images. I prompted some elements in these collages using Canva AI. If you’d like high resolution prints without the watermarks, visit my Redbubble store.
BONUS for supporting subscribers. You can access a hi-res version, without the watermark, of the collage below by clicking here. Thanks so much for your material support, which helps me keep up my work here at Church Blogmatics!
Church Blogmatics will be on break Easter Monday, April 1st. You can expect it back in your inbox on Thursday April 4th. May you have a blessed Easter weekend.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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