Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
One common trope which is regularly invoked in current debates about the defensibility versus the danger of Christian engagement with critical theories (or, species of Critical Theory) is the idea of “ eating the meat but spitting out the bones .” Usually not far behind is a nod to the…
I am writing about the book of Proverbs in the Bible and “Eschatology.” I don’t refer only to the end of time, or “last things” that will happen in history before it ends as we know it. I am referring to all times of God’s judgment wherein He ends an…
“Unity” is the word of the day. In his inaugural address, Joe Biden invoked St. Augustine to inspire Americans to come together around certain shared values. As others have recently argued, Biden misreads Augustine in important ways. My argument here is that if we seek political unity and civic health…
This is part two of a series which began here ( The Half Shekel Temple Tax ) in which I answer back, hoping not to rebut but to glorify, some observations Peter Leithart made in a thought-provoking piece about the Temple Tax as atonement ( Atonement Money ). Adding economic…
It is now commonplace to characterize Wokeness (or “ Wokeism ”) as a religion , or at least religion-like . What I would like to explore is an elaboration on this emergent consensus, supplementing it with some theological analysis. Wokeness, I propose, is a form of post-Protestant neopaganism. It resembles…
Science Fiction movies often retell old stories and myths with greater impact for modern people. A being from another world or a technologically advanced human can embody an ancient god or demon and viewers are suddenly unwittingly enthralled by Ur tales that emerged from hundreds of years of human experience.…
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Mbiti’s vision of the impact of the gospel on culture justifies Philip Jenkins’s description of Southern Hemisphere Christianity as “the next Christendom.” For Mbiti, Christianity is “a total way of life, a world view, a religious ideology (if one may phrase it that way), an existence and a commitment -…
John Mbiti, a Kenyan African theologian, describes the impact of a vernacular translation of the Bible: “When the translation is first published, especially that of the New Testament and more so of the whole Bible, the church in that particular language areas experiences its own Pentecost. The church is born…
As Caputo explains it, the Cartesian description of God as causa sui entails an important re-definition of cause. The sort of redefinition is important. Modernity prides itself on its embrace of movement and dynamism, and portrays the pre-modern world as insufferably static. The change in the meaning of cause tells…
Jean-Luc Marion sees a fateful change in theology proper when Descartes describes God as “causa sui” rather than as “uncaused cause” (which was the scholastic description). What’s the deal? Marion says that talking about a self-caused God makes no sense. As John Caputo summarizes the point: “It makes no sense…
It’s nearly midnight, and nineteen-year-old Mari Asai sits reading a thick book in a lonely Denny’s in central Tokyo. Tall, lanky, long-haired Takahashi enters the restaurant carrying a trombone case, walks by her table, recognizes her, and introduces himself as a friend of Mari’s sister, the beautiful teen model Eri…
The history of conversos , Jews forced to convert to Christianity, is filled with horrific tragedy and irony. In 1506 in Lisbon, Christians played Simeon and Levi to “Shechemite” Jews (cf. Genesis 34) as mobs slaughtered a couple of thousand conversos . One would have thought that baptism might provide…
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