Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When God created Adam, He gave him both a vision and a responsibility. The big vision was the Dominion Mandate. The more specific calling was to cultivate and guard the Garden. God also told Adam about the gold of Havilah, which was good and beautiful (that is how the Hebrew…
After the death of Jan Hus (1369–1415), his successors, the Hussites, began to develop his thoughts on the theology and practice of the Church, particularly on= the question of the lay chalice. This time, however, it was not a question of whether this should be permitted at all—after all, this…
Imagine a friend of yours got involved in a commune, one of the really crunchy ones that does their own farming and such along with poetry nights and music and art. They’re pretty good at all this, actually. They’re using some really interesting permaculture practices at the communal farm, the…
Genesis 22, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, is one of the more well-known typologically dissected passages in the Bible. But just for the sake of dotting “i”s, here is a quick rundown: The promised son’s appearing was awaited a very long time (Genesis 12:4; 15:2–3; 16:16; 17:17; 21:1–5;…
A Narrative Sermon on Luke 22:24-46 As Luke walked through the rain toward the corner house he was apprehensive. That surprised him. He knew all along that this was the climax of the process—that he would have to present his work to these men before it could be copied and…
In 2004, an article by Slavoj Žižek appeared in Psychoanalytic Review entitled, ‘What Can Psychoanalysis Tell Us About Cyberspace?’ One of the answers that Žižek offers is that cyberspace creates an environment within which the consumer gets to play in a world where there is no God. In his use…
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Dale Dykema of Covenant Home Curriculum writes: “I have just finished reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali Moslem woman converted to Dutch Humanism. Her efforts to expose the violence of Islam, especially its oppression of women is noteworthy. Of particular interest to me was how this woman discovered…
The liberal state is a free state, but it’s clear from Spinoza that freedom in a liberal state is limited to unlimited freedom of thought and speech. Action is controlled by the state, including religious action: “God has no special kingdom among men except in so far as He reigns…
The genealogy is pretty clear: Pietist-leaning Collegiants, with affinities to the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, influence the theological and political view of Spinoza, leading him to write a treatise where he defends two central Anabaptist/Pietist clams: a) he attacks the tyranny of the letter and b) he argues for…
Another from Hatzfeld: “The Saturday after the [President’s] plan crash was the usual choir rehearsal day at the church in Kibungo. We sang hymns in good feeling with our Tutsi compatriots, our voices still blending in chorus. On Sunday morning we returned at the appointed hour for mass; they did…
In his harrowing book on the Rwandan killers of 1994, Jean Hatzfeld quotes one young man: “Suddenly Hutus of every kind were patriotic brothers without any partisan discord. We were through playing around with political words. We were no longer in our each-to-his-won mood. We were doing a job to…
According to Emmanuel Kolini and Peter Holmes ( Christ Walks Where Evil Reigned ), the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda were originally ethnically indistinguishable. Prior to colonialization, the difference was “vocational,” social and economic. Tutsis were cattle herders, Hutus farmers; Tutsis were Abel, Hutus Cain. When the Belgians took over,…
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