Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Several months ago, I wrote a First Things essay on the life and ministry of Pastor Tom Clark of Tri-City Covenant Church in Somersworth, New Hampshire. Tom died shortly after that essay appeared, but during his last days we were able to spend a couple of days listening to Tom's…
Scene 1 Mr Faust sitting in a big chair, with Little Faust on his lap, reading. Mrs Faust sitting in another chair, knitting or something. Mr Faust : And I heard him exclaim As he drove out of sight Merry Christmas to all And to all a good night. (Closing…
Sadly, most Christians in the United States, when it comes to recognizing the dangers to their civil and religious liberties, sleep the sleep of ignorance that the disciples slept at Gethsemane before the arrest of Jesus. It ought to be obvious by now how “sexual orientation” laws and “gay marriage”…
From an early period in church history, Christians have confessed belief in a God who created “out of nothing.” God doesn’t need pre-existent matter to work with like a human artisan does; rather, God both calls into existence the material substrate he intends to work with, and he fashions whatever…
January 1 is the start date for a New Year's resolution. December is the month to start making plans for those resolutions. Perhaps the most common resolution Christians make is to read through the Bible in a year. But that resolution runs into a big challenge near the outset: Leviticus.…
BIRMINGHAM, AL – The ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability) announced today the accreditation of Theopolis Institute of Birmingham, AL. ECFA accreditation is based on the ECFA Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship™ , including financial accountability, transparency, sound board governance and ethical fundraising. Theopolis Institute joins a growing number of…
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A remarkable statement of Calvin’s, from Institutes 4.14.18: speaking of the tree of knowledge and of the rainbow, Calvin says that these are given new being by the word of God that designates them as signs or testimonies. Then this Et antea quidem arbor erat arbor, arcus arcus; ubi inscripta…
In Nussbaum’s treatment, “tragic” and “Aristotelian” conceptions of moral luck and the fragility of the good life are at one. In excluding poets, Plato not only kept certain forms of literature at bay, but was protecting against the tragic potential of life. For Plato, “the best and most valuable things…
Nussbaum’s problematic of moral luck is quite intriguing: A good man is like a tree, she says at the beginning, quoting Pindar. But that means that the good man is dependent for his flourishing on all kinds of things beyond his control ?Erainfall, winds, sun, and so on and on.…
Should theology agree with the sophist critique of nomos ? It would seem so, as Thomas would say: The institutions of society are the product of human construction, and the claim that they are rooted in “nature” is a rhetorical device. It is human all the way down. If it…
Years ago, I read David Landes’s Prometheus Unbound for a class in economic history, and I can still remember the fascination I experienced at his descriptions of the steel industry (though details are sadly forgotten). In his recent Wealth and Poverty of Nations , Landes, among many other things, spends…
There is further evidence concerning the meaning of nomos in Greek culture, coming from Martha Nussbaum’s Fragility of Goodness . In a discussion of Euripides’s Hecuba , Nussbaum points out that Polyxena, Hecuba’s daughter who is offered as a human sacrifice by the Greeks to appease the shade of Achilles,…
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