Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Not long ago, I heard these statistics about New York City: New York City is in $100 billion in debt. 20% of all NYC residents are on food stamps, which cost $250 million a month. 5% of NYC population are on disability, costing $252 million a month. Other assistance costs…
1. All political power is ambivalent. Vertical violence of “the state” tends to limit horizontal and contested power between people and between tribes. “The State” brings new oppression, but also a measure of new peace and unity. 2. All political formations are ambiguous like this: a strong family conquers weaker…
Gnosticism by any other name would smell the same. But does the church have much of a theological sense of smell, these days, when it comes to the seductions of virtuality in our worshipping communities? Social isolation during a global pandemic makes good public health sense, but whether church should…
It is a remarkable thing, you know, this thing called priority. Just a few weeks ago, religious leaders were boldly asserting in their high-dollar online videos that it was too dangerous to return to worship and that we needed to listen to our political and health leaders. "They are the…
Somewhere in the city of Jerusalem on a rooftop just a few years after the ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost. . . ". . . and just when are you guys going to live up to your ‘Sons of Thunder’ reputation? Huh? A lot…
In my book, Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men ( Amazon , Kindle ) I mention that Solomon portrays wisdom as a woman. But I don’t ask (or answer!) why he did so. Solomon uses the figure of Lady Wisdom without apology or explanation: Wisdom cries aloud in the street,…
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Jacob Taubes ( The Political Theology of Paul (Cultural Memory in the Present) ) says that theology departments should install some windows so they can see across the hall and the quad to other departments. He knows the complaint goes both ways: “in Berlin you can just feel it, the…
Me genoito ! Paul says (Galatians 2:17) to the question above. But how does the issue even come up? Why would anyone begin to think Christ is a deacon of sin? The logic becomes clearer (though not crystal) when we take note of the syntax of Galatians 2:15-17. Verse 16…
Things must be used in accord with their nature, argues Karol Wojtyla in Love and Responsibility . Human persons are rational and volitional, and thus “using” them as mere means to an end “does violence to the very essence of the other” (27). But then what of employers trying to…
In an essay in The Interpretation Of Cultures (Basic Books Classics) , Geertz sorts through the problems of defining “man.” He doesn’t want to erase difference in abstract universality, nor fall into relativism. Most attempts to define man he finds unsatisfying: The effort to construct an archetype is only an…
It’s happening. The New York Times reports on the plans of the Conservative Victory Project, a group of what I called “Good Republicans” who want to root out the Bad: “The effort would put a new twist on the Republican-vs.-Republican warfare that has consumed the party’s primary races in recent…
I’ve spent the last few weeks watching the Canadian series Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection , which ran from 2003-2006. The series centers on the managers and actors at the New Burbage Shakespeare Festival. Erstwhile Hamlet and former asylum resident Geoffrey Tennant (played by Paul Gross) is creative director;…
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