Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Where do we go from here? Depending on one’s perspective, the American story can plausibly be interpreted in different ways. Looked at from past to present , we can see a great deal of continuity from medieval Christendom and the Reformation to America’s founding. The War for Independence, after all,…
Click HERE for Part 1 Civic Religion: American or Christian? We have already traced out the basic contours of the shift in America from an ecclesiocentric, theocratic social order to a secular one. Building on Locke and Hobbes, the Enlightenment accomplished an astonishing coup of Christendom. That victory for the…
Author’s Introductory Note: Engaging in broad historical interpretation as I am about to do is always risky. Necessarily, one “stylizes” history by simplifying, over generalizing, and stereotyping. But the narrative qualities of history are not simply due to the imposition of human rationality upon brute facts; rather history is always…
A. Repentance to life involves endeavoring to believe real hard that you’re saved. reject infant baptism. stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. B. What is necessary so that no sinner may expect to be forgiven unless he does it? Only…
The machine works mechanically and it is flawless. Slander/libel a group of Presbyterian ministers as “Romanist” because robes and James 2 are no worse than praying to Mary or relying on purgatory to pay for unconfessed sins. Drive off anyone who disagrees. Of that number, there may be a tiny…
If we take as a starting point the Tribal / Monarchical / Empire model, we can then add to it the Late Empire Phase. The particular ‘marker sin’ of Empire is false intermarriage, which signifies pluralism and syncretism. Empires by definition are “cosmopolitan” dominated by cities, high culture, many cultures,…
Showing page 212 of 309
Showing page 11 of 43
A fter sharing a breakfast of fish at the shore of Tiberius with his disciples, Jesus speaks directly to Peter (John 21). Peter had denied Jesus three times; now Jesus confirms his love three times. Peter denied Jesus at a charcoal fire in the high priest's court; now he's restored…
I n the closing chapter of Heaven on Earth , Richard Landes considers the import of the two major apocalyptic threats of the early twenty-first century—anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and global jihad warming (GJW). Both seem to portend TEOTWAWKI, the end of the world as we know it. What we…
I n his study of The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature , Keith Booker observes that “much of the history of recent utopian thought can be read as a gradual shift from utopian to dystopian emphases, while utopian thought itself has come more and more to be seen as escapist…
W e are apt to think of a deeply religious person as a ‘true believer,' writes Howard Wettstein in The Significance of Religious Experience . In the Hebrew Bible, though, “there is no expression . . . that corresponds to our term, ‘believer.' The phrase that comes closest is ‘…
R ichard Landes's Heaven on Earth is a study of millennial apocalyptic movements, that is, movements that share a belief in “ a millennial vision of the world transformed, and an apocalyptic belief in that transformation’s imminence ” (22). Though the movement he explores share a belief in the transformation…
According to Richard Landes ( Heaven on Earth ), traditional societies are organized by a “prime divider,” a boundary between elites and commoners. He follows Ernest Gellner in called these “agro-literate” societies, since that phrase names two key technologies that mark the division. More generally, “Elites construct prime dividers along…
Showing page 285 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
