Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The translation and theology of the Hebrew term kapporet have long been puzzling to scholars. On the translation of the term, I have nothing new to offer. I wish instead to concentrate on the theological symbolism of the kapporet . The kapporet was the solid gold slab that laid "above"…
“Three lines are enough” -Rabindranath Tagore My second favorite((I frequently use the “my second favorite” as a figure of speech meaning: “here’s a good one” and to also prompt the question, “What’s your first favorite?”)) haiku was written by some internet wag: Haikus are easy But sometimes they don’t make…
The history of the Reformation couldn’t adequately be recounted without discussing the remarkable role played by the relatively recent innovations and developments in book production and printing. The printing press facilitated the rapid production and dissemination of multiple copies of pamphlets and books, which enabled the Reformers to circulate their…
As evangelicals, we’re convinced that Christ’s work is finished, complete, and utterly sufficient. For many evangelicals, this is the gospel: Nothing can take away from Christ’s work, and surely nothing can be added to it by my works or my penance, by self-denial or sacraments or sacrifice. Nothing is lacking…
Evangelicalism needs a return to formal and Biblical worship. Worship is a public act, performed on the surface of God's true altar, the world, before His throne. Man's chief end is to glorify and enjoy God, and worship is done for God's pleasure. It is man's highest privilege to dance…
The evidence of sin and its death ruling in the world is clear. Paul describes the situation vividly in the opening section of his letter to the Romans. No matter who you are, Jew or Gentile, you have the same problem: you are “under sin” (Romans 3:9). Being under sin…
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In a 1983 article in Past & Present , Lawrence Stone presented evidence that showed a precipitous drop in the homicide rate in England from the 14th to the 20th century. Why? Stone thinks that Elias’s Civilizing Process had something to do with it: “Yves Castan has shown with great…
Critchley ( Philosophy and the Return of Violence: Studies from this Widening Gyre , 64- 8) gives a lucid analysis of Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence” (in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings ), organized around Benjamin’s distinctions between law-making and law-preserving violence, between political and the general strike, and between…
In his essay in Philosophy and the Return of Violence: Studies from this Widening Gyre , Simon Critchley describes Zizek’s Barlebyan politics in Shakespearean terms: “Zizek is, I think, a Slovenian Hamlet.” He “dreams of a divine violence, a cataclysmic, purifying violence of the sovereign ethical deed,” but is left…
At the end of his massively documented The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade , Andrew Feinstein notes the blurring of lines between formal and informal arms markets, the black and the white markets that merge into gray: “While the large defence contractors like BAE and Lockheed Martin -…
Back in 1944, Walter Oakes predicted Marxianly that late capitalism would naturally develop a “permanent war economy.” Defining a war economy as one where “the government’s expenditures for war . . . become a legitimate and significant end-purpose of economic activity.” Capitalism, Oakes claimed, seeks equilibrium that reduces unemployment and…
Some political theorists have thought that we can live like bees - sociable without command, law, speech, punishments. Hobbes demurs ( Hobbes: Leviathan , II.17). And not because we are superior to bees. We can’t live like bees because we are “continually in competition for honour and Dignity” and thus…
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