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1 week ago | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
As the oldest of nine children in a close family that lost our mother too soon to breast cancer, I have traveled the most far afield theologically from the conservative American Presbyterianism in which we were most lovingly raised by wise and caring parents. Specifically, my wife, three children and I all joined the Orthodox church on Sunday, November 26, 2017. I lost my mother a year later on Wednesday, November 21, 2018.
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1 month ago | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
As part of my work with Classical Academic Press, I will be participating on a panel for a live webinar entitled “Animals, Arts, & Archenland” on April 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM (Eastern time).
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1 month ago | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
Two announcements here, my dear readers:I contributed “Chapter 4: God’s Sparrows and Our Resurrection: Animals in the Restoration of All Things” to this book that has just gone on sale today. My chapter engages with the thought of the Apostle Paul, church fathers, C. S. Lewis and many others on the topic of animals in the kingdom of God. I was invited by The Russell Kirk Center to review Andrew Kern’s book Unless the Lord Builds the House: Shared Foundations for Christian Education.
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Mar 9, 2025 | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
Dear readers, you remain remarkably active in the archives when I’m slow to update here from time to time. While these lively comments and shares on a day to day basis are great to see, I do owe you all some fresh content.
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Jan 28, 2025 | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
Our default today is to think of theism in terms of either deism or supernaturalism. God is thought of as either a God who intervenes and makes occasional exceptions to the laws of nature or a God who does not. As Bulgakov reiterates in a hundred ways throughout The Bride of the Lamb, however, both of these concepts are confused perversions of theism and Christianity.
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Jan 28, 2025 | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
I’m delighted to have had the chance to chat today with author and retired parish priest Addison Hodges Hart (more here and here) along with Wheaton College art history professor Matthew Milliner (more here and here) about the concept of a meta-historical human fall. As would certainly be expected (and as will be fairly apparent), we do not all share the same ideas.
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Jan 28, 2025 | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
It was wonderful to catch up on this “Against Christian Civilization” lecture by Paul Kingsnorth. It is no credit to my skepticism, but I was surprised by his candor while addressing a First Things audience for their 2024 Erasmus Lecture. He criticized Jordan Peterson and Christian nationalism by name while defending the claim that Christ’s teachings call us to let go of Christian civilization as an idol that is twisting our Christianity.
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Jan 28, 2025 | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
Daniel, yes, David Bentley Hart was a visiting professor at Providence College not far from you for a little while where he held the Robert J. Randall Chair in Christian Culture. Your incisive comment over a month ago (October 17) on one of my social media posts brought me much joy and has been on my mind a great deal. I’ve started to write a reply many times now with some of these attempts reaching astonishing lengths.
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Jan 28, 2025 | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
What gives rise to the Big Bang is, preeminently, Christ’s voluntary offering of himself upon the cross so that God might be united to the death of our fallen world. However, Christ’s voluntary sacrifice of kenotic love is not the only cause that works from outside of the Big Bang at the same time as showing up inside of the Big Bang. There is also the contingent cause of our collective resistance to the creation of our world.
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Jan 28, 2025 | 
copiousflowers.substack.com | Jesse Hake
[Note: this was migrated here from a post elsewhere on June 4, 2022.]These two authors (one the student of the other) had a remarkable conversation on September 17, 2021 as part of the Luminous: Conversations On Sacred Arts podcast in an episode entitled "Rowan Williams: the Holy Arts and Holy Folly." I have recently posted reviews of books by each of them (How to Be a Sinner by Bouteneff and Looking East in Winter by Williams).