Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The corona virus hit Western society like a Biblical plague — almost. Biblical plagues were actually much more devastating. Still, as Peter Leithart describes the present situation, it is a judgment from God, because the disease itself together with our political solutions brought about a social situation that fits Deuteronomy’s…
“The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?” - Richard Dawkins One cannot be a Christian college president or seminary trustee (your essayist is both) without wondering if Richard Dawkins’s notorious take-down of theology…
Nearly every church that I am aware of has adopted differing practices since the recent virus scare began. Some churches continued to meet during the state lock downs, and other churches left their building empty, meeting online through various video conference technologies. Some churches have gone back to life as…
Fear is an inseparable companion of human life. We are afraid of illness and death, poverty and cataclysms, rejection and betrayal, failure and shame. We are afraid of the unknown, so in a sense we are afraid of the future and life itself. Unless we live in the illusory belief…
In the title above, I put the word “heresies” in quotation marks because I would prefer that the word “heresy” be confined to erroneous beliefs about the Trinity and the Person of Christ, rather than be used broadly to describe any view that might be considered an error. 1 At…
I’ve been trying to work out why I’m feeling existentially disconnected from CoV-19-related fears. I’m taking it seriously, but it’s not registering in any deeply personal way. Partly it’s that my routines are largely undisrupted. But as I reflect on people’s reactions I think there’s more, because a lot of…
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Mike Allen and Scott Swain summarize John Owen’s account of the “spiritual habit of grace” ( Reformed Catholicity , 39-40): “According to Owen, in regenerating fallen human beings, the Holy Spirit plants a new spiritual habit within them, replacing the old sinful habit inherited from Adam and purged by the…
Robin Parry’s The Biblical Cosmos is packed with good things. His opening discussion of the “living cosmos” of the Bible is wonderful - emphasizing the fact that God speaks to and commands animals, plants, stars, mountains, and the sea, and that these “inanimate” objects speak about God, and are even…
Many modern theologians have argued that sacrifice is no longer a meaningful category with which to discuss the atonement. Frances Young ( Sacrifice and the Death of Christ ) begs to differ, and lays out a fine summary of the advantages of sacrificial accounts: “For the early church, sacrifice was…
Someone needs to write a monograph, at least an article, about justification in Job. Perhaps someone already has. Job would shed some important light on the subject. The term “justify” is used a number of times in the book. Elihu joins the fray because he’s angry that Job “justified himself…
Dallas Denery’s The Devil Wins is a “history of lying from the garden of Eden to the Enlightenment.” Denery’s leading question is, Is is ever acceptable to life? and he looks at answers to this question from several angles. The book explores theologians’ treatments of the deceptions of the devil,…
E veryone is talking about blasphemy since the murders last week in Paris. Many on every side of the political spectrum are saying that, much as they abhor blasphemy, everyone should have the right to blaspheme. The right to blaspheme is the cornerstone of liberty. This is the liberal response,…
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