Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John 18:1-11 appears on the surface to be a straightforward, if somewhat unusual, narrative of Jesus’ arrest by officers of the chief priests and Pharisees accompanied by an apparently large group of Roman soldiers, all of them led by the betrayer, Judas. But there is much more here than what…
Why is the US embroiled in the Middle East? There are two primary answers: Oil and Israel. Both are fairly intractable problems, the latter in significant part because of the unique convergence of theology and politics that has forged American policy in the region. Dispensationalists insist that we must bless…
There’s a common theme that arises in the study of theologians James B. Jordan and Peter Leithart. It is this: Context matters. Details matter. This is God’s Word. The details are not arbitrary “filler” hiding the kernel of truth in the husk of the text. The husk and the kernel…
Perhaps the most fearful of all possibilities in the world is the possibility of betrayal on the part of someone who is in a “position of trust.” This, unfortunately, is the first block in what ought to be the foundation of every marriage in the world. Every woman has a…
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The way we talk about the world matters. Our doctrine of creation tells us that words do not simply reflect reality. They also shape it and the way we inhabit it. Among the world’s many language groups, the Church is distinct. She is called to name things with Scriptural language,…
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John (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3) and Jesus (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15) come preaching repentance. Over time, though, it becomes clear that the Jews are not repenting, and Jesus begins to denounce the cities that don't respond to His message of repentance (Matthew 11:20-21; 12:41; Luke 10:13; 11:32). Jesus' lurid predictions…
It was not uncommon in the early 19th century for blacks and whites to worship together. As Niebuhr observes, they “did not enjoy complete fellowship” and there was certainly not equality between them, yet “they participated in the same services and were members of the same denominations. . . .…
“Denominational pluralism, on the American plan,” wrote Will Herberg, “means thoroughgoing secularization” (36). By “secularization,” Herberg meant a gap between “conventional” and “operational” religion. Conventional religion is that practiced by religious adherents - Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists. Operational religion is the set of beliefs, rituals, and values that shapes…
After the third angel turns the rivers and springs to blood by pouring the passion of God into them, the “angel of the waters” praises the righteous judgment of God (Revelation 16:5-7). His speech of praise is chiastically arranged, with a modification: A. I heard the angel of waters saying…
Timothy L. Smith offers a vivid portrait of the “loneliness and danger,” as well as the fragmentation of traditional social networks, that the earliest American settlers had to face (contribution to Denominationalism , 50-1): “Gone was the material heritage of the European village - the cottages and garden plots, the…
H. Richard Niebuhr is altogether too much the sociologist. He displays the habit of peering past theological debates to the “roots” of conflict and division in the church, roots that always turn out to be fundamentally social roots. As Milbank stressed, this sort of sociology turns “society” into an explanatory…
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