Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When a certain Samaritan village refused Jesus’ attempt to visit, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven upon it. The allusion to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is evident, but, as the story shows, James’ and John’s thinking was entirely warped. Jesus rebuked…
In the first part of this essay, I considered paideia (formation)and mimesis (imitation) in the context of Aristotle’s virtue ethics and that of the New Testament. The overall concern is to realize how relevant is Aristotle’s ethics both to diagnosing our current malaise and to enculturing our children, though we…
In these posts I am inviting you into my philosophical reflection about integration , the absence of which we feel palpably in our fragmented world. My hope is for us to understand it more deeply, and to be ourselves reintegrated in the process. At this point in this extended inquiry…
It’s hard to imagine someone, centuries from now, mistaking our culture for a moral highpoint in the history of the West. Increasingly the news is dominated by school shootings, abusive policing, sexploitation of women, and increasing rates of suicide, addiction, and divorce. In response, the Left calls for regulations, surveillance,…
“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” (Ps. 34:17-18) God is listening. He is listening when we ask Him for financial provision,…
The allusions to Mt. Sinai in the transfiguration story point to Jesus as a new Moses and even more as Yahweh, the God who met Moses and Elijah on the mountain. The fact that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah spoke of Jesus’ “exodus” suggests that the mountain of transfiguration was intended…
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Simon Gathercole’s Where Is Boasting has some stimulating insights into the argument of Romans 2, and some important objections to the NPP. The following notes are based on Gathercole: 1) It is clear that in Romans 2, Paul considers this Jew to be unrepentant and an apostate from Judaism. It…
Seen on a pair of socks at the recent Atlanta AAR/SBL convention: “Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders” (“Here I stand. I can do no other.”)
Graham Ward begins his book True Religion with a discussion of the use of the word “religion” in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , and then compares two film versions to explore how the religious theme of the play is handled. The two film versions are Franco Zeffirelli’s and Baz Luhrmann’s.…
Doug Jones read Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back” at our weekly disputatio today. What a wonderful story! It includes a burning bush and theophany; a baptismal vigil that ends with the main character, O.E. Parker, bearing a tattooed picture of Jesus on his back; a temple-cleansing, when O.E. gets into…
Doug Jones read Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back” at our weekly disputatio today. What a wonderful story! It includes a burning bush and theophany; a baptismal vigil that ends with the main character, O.E. Parker, bearing a tattooed picture of Jesus on his back; a temple-cleansing, when O.E. gets into…
I have long thought of the two parallel sections of Jonah as basically retellings of the same story, but now I’m thinking that they are consecutive thematically as well as chronologically. Here’s the typology: Jonah/Israel is called to witness to the nations, and refuses. Yahweh forces him into exile in…
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