Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Place names become fraught with meaning by association with people and events. The name “Wittenberg” calls to mind Luther and the Reformation for Protestants and Catholics alike. Geneva has a wider range of associations, but the Reformation Wall, with its four main statues of William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza,…
“…a mystery without a solution, a horror story without savagery, a nightmare in which all the watches stop at noonday…” The Bestial Gardens of Men Then they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” (Luke 23:30) The following lines by Edgar Allan Poe,…
2 Samuel 11-12, which record David’s sin with Bathsheba and its aftermath, is structured chiastically: This arrangement highlights several things about the episode. It reinforces what is obvious from even a casual reading, that the transition in the story occurs with Nathan’s confrontation of David’s sin and David’s confession. Up…
Medieval bestiaries are packed with quaintly inaccurate information about animals, birds, and other created things. Foxes and snakes are devilish critters; stags, pelicans and elephants are Christlike in their various ways. Of course, the medievals picked this up from the Bible, where bestiary observations are fairly common. “Go to the…
What do Reformational Catholicism and craft beer have in common? The question seems to beg for a punchline. Better yet, it would be pretty good clickbait for an article on Katharina von Bora’s “spirited” contribution that helped spark the Protestant Reformation. Well, this is no joke and I am certainly…
Suffering Defined Suffering happens. We witness it all around us and experience it in our lives. It often comes from forces beyond our control. Suffering is inscrutable; it strikes unexpectedly, on a bright summer day or a cold winter night. We lament and are bewildered by suffering. But we are…
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David Cheal ( The Gift Economy ) offers a deft critique of Mauss’s and C.A. Gregory’s theories of gift. The central rebuttal is to point to the fairly obvious fact that giving continues to occupy a large place in modern societies. Gift-giving is big business, as that pile of Christmas…
When it first appeared, Tarkovsky’s Stalker: A Film by Andrei Tarkovsky was seen as a parable of totalitarian ruin. Since the curtain came down, it has a more universal reach. David Thomson ( “Have You Seen . . . ?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films , 822) sees in…
What sets Western economies apart, Hernando de Soto argued in The Mystery of Capital , is not sheer physical stuff. One can have a lot of stuff without having capital. What makes it productive as capital are two “non-economic” factors. The first is imagination: “Capital, like energy, is a dormant…
A couple of vignettes from Paul Johnson’s Darwin: Portrait of a Genius , which is vintage Johnson. Darwin’s paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who died several years before Charles was born was a well-known physician who filled his off hours with studies of poetry and science. His off hours included the…
I have been reading James Jordan and Peter Leithart since I was a wide-eyed Baptist seminary student in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I never cease to benefit from Leithart’s and Jordan’s writings and lectures. While as a Baptist I land differently on certain issues, I always know it…
Absolute religious freedom is impossible, argues Winnifred Fallers Sullivan in her 2007 The Impossibility of Religious Freedom , an analysis of Warner v. Boca Raton , which led to the banning of interreligious religious symbols from a cemetery in the Florida town. Religious freedom always founders on the issue of…
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