Alastair Roberts
54 articles
Welcoming the Stranger: A Final Immigration Response
I have greatly appreciated the thoughtful engagement my article on immigration that opened this conversation has received from my three respondents. It is impossible to neatly tie up the many threads of discussion that have been raised to this point in this concluding piece, but I wanted to comment upon…
True Hospitality and the Immigration Debate
In Genesis 15, after Abram has gathered a set of animals together and divided them, God places Abram into a deep sleep, in which God reveals to him that his descendants ‘will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them…
The Rite of Circumcision: A Response to Dru Johnson
Dr Dru Johnson has written a wonderful and perceptive essay on the connection between ethics and ritual knowing. Although I find myself in fundamental agreement with his perspective, I thought that it might be helpful to investigate his approach from the vantage point of the particular case of circumcision, seeing…
The Reopened Wounds of Jacob
In A Voyage Around the World , George Anson recounts the effects of scurvy upon an unfortunate man: But a most extraordinary circumstance, and what would be scarcely credible upon any single evidence, is, that the scars of wounds which had been for many years healed, were forced open again…
The Invisibility of the Church
Dr Leithart, in his recent article, ‘The One City of God’ , presents a case for reconsidering the doctrine of the invisible Church. Within this response, I want to bring Dr Leithart’s case into dialogue with the Westminster Confession. I will argue that the Confession avoids most of his criticisms…
Learning Wisdom From the Serpents
‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?’ The investigation of the mystery of the human heart is a quest in which psychologists and Christians may often discover themselves to be fellow travellers, who may have something to gain from attending to each other’s…
Boat Stories
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
Yoram Hazony and the Deception of Isaac
Perhaps one of the most stimulating sections of Yoram Hazony’s The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture addresses the question of how we are to discern the meaning of biblical narratives, especially how biblical narratives might present arguments of a more general nature. Hazony quotes John Barton’s remarks about the difficulty of…
Why We Should Jettison the “Strong Female Character,” Part III
Click HERE for part 1 of this series, and HERE for part 2. The recurring characterization problems with such Strong Female Characters arise in no small measure from the struggle to show that men and women are interchangeable and can compete and cooperate with each other on the same terms.…
Why We Should Jettison the “Strong Female Character," (Part 2)
The Rise of the Action Heroine Click HERE for part 1 of this series. Partly as a result of this everywoman heroine trend, partly in order to be more inclusive in traditionally male dominated genres, partly in order to push back against stereotypes, partly in order to legitimate eye candy…
Why We Should Jettison the “Strong Female Character”: (Part 1)
The trailer for the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , was released last week. Following the success of the revival of the franchise in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens , anticipation is unsurprisingly at a fever pitch. As in the case of The…
What Pastors Could Learn From Jordan Peterson
Last night, along with a few online friends, I watched this debate on the meaning of life between William Lane Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, and Jordan Peterson, hosted by Wycliffe College. While watching it, and reflecting upon Peterson’s work more generally (about which I’ve written in the past ), I was…
Showing page 3 of 5