Elaine R.S.’s Reviews > The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death > Status Update
Elaine R.S.
is on page 105 of 186
Read most of the subsection on the economy of God, and the role of death in it, in two senses which Behr decouples: the "metaphorical" sense of death as a force that shackles, and literal bodily death. I think this decoupling is dubious, and Behr doesn't really justify it much besides doing it and then adding "metaphorical" to all the instances he wants to talk about "metaphorical" death. Seems to be "fear of death"?
— Nov 11, 2026 06:28PM
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Elaine R.S.’s Previous Updates
Elaine R.S.
is on page 86 of 186
An interesting critique of "the Fall" as some "event", somehow different from creation, alongside a re-evaluation of the oft-repeated idea of death as unnatural wholesale... Behr takes aim here at not just the Western conception of the fall of man, but the naive Eastern reformulation as well. he sets this up, pointing at how, for St. Paul, the introduction of such a concept is driven by Christ as hypothesis.
— Aug 01, 2026 07:37PM
Elaine R.S.
is on page 73 of 186
I liked this chapter much more. It is a very honest reflection at the idea of tradition, of doing theology, and whether "orthodoxy" can be reclaimed as a valid category in spite of the sobering reality.
Where to turn than to its founding champion, St. Irenaeus?
Some compelling evocations, some stretches of the imagination, and yet, genuine.
— Jul 18, 2026 06:54AM
Where to turn than to its founding champion, St. Irenaeus?
Some compelling evocations, some stretches of the imagination, and yet, genuine.
Elaine R.S.
is on page 44 of 186
I get what this first chapter was going for, but, despite being so central to the book's thesis, it remains surprisingly weak in its attempt to centralize the Cross. Specifically, there remains no reason given to not conceptually separate the Cross and the Resurrection, bar an aphorism that "by His death Christ conquers death- no other way". Which only ever gets you as far as "there are inseparable"... a truism.
— Jul 13, 2026 07:50PM
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Nov 11, 2026 06:40PM
the part of the section on resurrection, and tying together of salvation and God's ordinance for death to swallow up, via the typology of Jonah, was very convincing and made me appreciate Jonah, and Jonah 2 particularly, much much more. Behr veers into sketchy territory when he then pivots to trying to find utility in death as a means of cessation and curbing of sin, as if a containment protocol for some virus epidemic. He quickly quotes some Gregory of Nyssa which sobers the picture: such utility for death is merited insofar it is followed by Resurrection. Even if Behr didn't make this explicit, I think it undercuts his previous point that to a Christian, death is "always a catastrophe", if this implicit aspect of the argument isn't hammered in immediately.
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The unqualified version, and honestly maybe even this conditional one, can lead to some very ugly ideas, ones routinely used to justify mass slaughter, in the Old Testament or elsewhere.