Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In my last essay, we saw how consumer culture has gutted the familial category necessary to understand the church. When a consumer visits a church, he expects another service-provider, such as a hospital or a restaurant. He doesn’t understand the role of men in ministry, and thus, not the role…
First time visitors to our church sometimes express their surprise that children, even the youngest, participate with their parents in the entire worship service. Many congregations created an expectation for the parents (and children) of Sunday School or Child Care being available during the entire worship service or during the…
Quantifying the Love of God “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” ~ John 3:16 This most beloved verse in all the Bible was spoken by the Savior himself to Nicodemus. As…
While The Lord’s Prayer enjoys wide recognition throughout the Church, its richness and depth may be unrealized due to a lesser familiarity with, what I will argue is, its primary inspiration: the Tabernacle. There, Christ’s intent can rightly be discerned. The Prayer’s methodological correction to the Jews and Gentiles wasn’t…
The Consumption of the Covenant Idea of the Church Last time we saw consumerism, having canalized its attitudes in our culture, shapes what the consumer sees when he or she steps into a church. Here, we’ll see how it has eviscerated the covenant and familial ideas necessary to understand the…
The ignoble Jayber Crow can stir your appetite for the noble. It’s the simplicity of a good ol’ Port William boy that builds the charm of the book. In fact, the elitists in Port William receive the harshest blows and severest outcomes, as they should. But before delving into the…
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We instinctively think that what’s most real or true is what has always been the case. Timeless truth means truth that was already true at the dawn of time. That’s a big problem. It means that nothing that emerges in time is fully real or true. It’s true, only in…
Obama’s achievement is truly a milestone in American history, and should be celebrated as such. He is an impressive man in many ways. But he will not be elected President. The reason is not race, as Noemie Emery argues in the June 23 issue of the Weekly Standard . (Emery,…
PROVERBS 22:3 Like many Proverbs, this one treats wisdom and prudence as a matter of foresight. The imagery is of a pathway along which the prudent and the foolish are walking. The prudent sees trouble/evil ahead, and avoids it, while the naïve simpleton keeps going, stumbles right into trouble, and…
Mead thinks that each emerging moment changes the past. It’s difficult to see how it could be otherwise. This doesn’t mean that the directionality of the past is an illusion or reversible. Things done cannot be undone. But what those things are and mean changes as time moves along. The…
Abstract time is (Anthony Giddens says) “pure duration, as disconnected from the materiality of experience.” This comes to be seen as “real, ‘objective’ time” because “it is expressed in a universal and public mode.” This is helpful. 2 PM Pacific Time, June 18, 2008 means millions of specific things to…
“Abstract” time often has reference to durations of time, particularly in relation to economic activity. If I work a 40-hour week for a set wage, I get paid the same no matter what I do or don’t accomplish in that time. In the account books, there’s just the number of…
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