"Death is a sort of lens, though I used to think of it as a wall or a shut door. It changes things and makes them clear, Maybe it is the truest way of knowing this dream, this brief and timeless life."

--Hannah Coulter in Hannah Coulter

Who said death has no implications for political life? Not Wendell Berry. Berry points us to the truth that death, insofar as it serves as a frame for life and leads to an afterlife that is truer than this life, is foundational for an understanding of politics. Granted that death has implications for political life today, what would the absence of death have implied for the pre-fall world? How did social/political relationships differ in pre-lapsarian Eden?

Is the Stool Steady?

What is the nature of the Anglican communion? Really, is it too closely tied to the idea of the social contract if to be released, one must simply assert his will? Is there nothing ontological in play? Are there no indelible marks upon the soul? Is the split in the Episcopal Church a legimate resolution of the problem, or does it only deepen it? Church-state questions seem to be at the heart of this issue, for geographical ties are being made and broken. It seems that Hooker's criteria of reason, scripture and tradition as a workable system are being questioned and tested.