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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In an article on Taming of the Shrew , Carol Rutter points out that most shrew plays end with the shrew silenced. Shakespeare’s play moves in the opposite direction. Kate speaks a lot early, but her conversation lacks poetry and wit. Her final speech, though, is elegant and wise. In…
In Natural Supernaturalism , M. H. Abrams notes the influence of the Bible on Romanticism: “A conspicuous Romantic tendency, after the rationalism and decorum of the Enlightenment, was a reversion to the stark drama and suprarational mysteries of the Christian story and doctrines and to the violent conflicts and abrupt…
All the English Romantics were admirers of Milton. Blake wrote a quasi-epic poem in which Milton was the title character. Wordsworth took up Milton’s prophetic mantle, and was regarded by Coleridge as the Milton of his day. Keats conceived his own poetic mission as one of surpassing Milton, and the…
Sayyid Qutb was one of the architects of jihadist Islam, and his stern opposition to the West was forged during a visit to the United States in 1949. Attending a church social in Greeley Colorado, he found, in the words of Lawrence Wright, “The room convulzed with the feverish music…
Weigel again, quoting a 2002 study of Arab development: “the Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth of the number that Greece translates. The accumulative total of translated books [into Arabic] since [the ninth century] is about 100,000.’ More books are translated into Spanish in an average decade or…
Following Bernard Lewis, Weigel suggests that European expansion in the early modern period was part of “a great flanking movement in response to Islamic advances into the continent of Europe.” Lewis writes, “When Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut he explained that he had come ‘in search of Christians and…
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