Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This essay is adapted from my articles in Theopolis’s In Medias Res as a series of Holy Week meditations. Like many celebrities such as Kanye or Beyoncé or Adele, Josquin des Prez (d. 1521) was often known only by his first name, in his own time as now. “Josquin” is…
Sight is a major theme in the scriptures. The church has long identified sight’s relationship to the future fulfillment of the eschaton. As Paul says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” (1 Cor 13.12). Sight is associated with…
What is the chief end of man? —yes, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But how ought man–and all creation–so glorify him? I propose a Theopolitan addition to the catechism, question and answer number 1.5, begun in the last question and answered as follows: Earth’s inhabitants were created to…
Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words. Genesis 49:21 Frederick Buechner once said, “We move into the extraordinary by way of the ordinary.” In poetry, this happens by way of a compressed code of analogs; often, two or more very ordinary things begin to reveal something that…
The evangelical milieu of America has often lost a vision of the fruit of repentance. We tend to simplify repentance by asking for forgiveness. After all, Jesus tells Peter to forgive 70 times 7. This verse must be paired with Paul’s scoffing at the question: why not sin more so…
I. The hemorrhaging woman. En route to Jairus’ house, Jesus is touched by a woman with a hemorrhage of blood (Matt 9:18–26; Mk 5:21–34; Lk 8:40–48). The story is one that many of us know very well. She has been yoked to her illness for twelve years, all of her…
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I’ve summarized some of David W. Noble’s analysis of Moby Dick ( The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden ) in the past, but the notes below highlight Noble’s take on the religio-political themes of Melville’s novel. Ishmael, he notes, begins the novel looking for redemption in the sea.…
Tertullian ( Against Marcion , 4.16) offers an interesting explanation of the consistency of Jesus’ teaching with that of the lex talionis : “He who counselled that an injury should be forgotten, was still more likely to counsel the patient endurance of it. But then, when He said. ‘Vengeance is…
Catherine Pickstock, describing view of modern Catholic liturgical reformers, writes, “The mediaeval Latin liturgy seemed to consist in disorienting ambiguous overlappings between the stages of advance toward the altar of God, and a lack of clarity in the identification of the worshipers and the priest. Its repeated rites of purification…
The name “Mass” comes from the final dismissal: Ite, missa est: Go, it is a dismissal. Jungmann explains: “it is puzzling indeed that, as a matter of fact, it has been designated by a separating , a going apart . Such, however, appears to be the case in regard to…
In his recent Worship as a Revelation , Laurence Hemming rightly says that the early church took its liturgical cues from the temple (citing Margaret Barker’s books). But then he adds: Not only because of persecution, but also because “what was so sacred was not to be publicly spoken of…
New Testament metaphors of the church-as-temple are often confusing because they envision a growing building, a building that acts a lot like an organic body: “growing into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21); “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5). The conflation of organic and architectural imagery has an Old…
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