Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This was a newspaper column that I wrote for the Minco Millennium back in January of 2000 when I had first moved to Minco, Oklahoma to pastor First Reformed Presbyterian Church. I wasn’t able to catch the recent performance of the musical, Godspell , in Oklahoma City. However, my dad…
Awhile back, there was a big debate among Evangelicals as to whether one had to trust Jesus “as Lord” as well as “as savior. Some claimed that one could be saved by Jesus through a faith that did not involve submission to him as Lord. Others claimed that one must…
I originally wrote this a few weeks ago in April 2002 as a column in the local newspaper, The Minco Millennium under the title “Faith & Follow-Through.” Several passages in the book of Hebrews are difficult for Protestants to swallow. The author affirms the once-and-for-all work of Christ and yet…
N. T. Wright’s commentary on Romans is destined to be a classic. The introduction alone is worth the hefty price of the book — but the exegesis itself is, well, priceless. I will not attempt a full review — these are just miscellaneous thoughts and random reflections — but I…
At an inn in the town of Lystra three men sat around a corner table. All three were well-known disciples of Joshua Messiah, members of what the town called a new cult, the Way. The short gray-haired man with the enormous beard was clearly restless. “This is taking too long,”…
Recently there has been some surprising debate in some circles over where Paul summarizes his Gospel. I say “surprising” because many Evangelical Bible scholars have held, for quite some time, that Paul’s Gospel is encapsulated in Romans chapter 1, verse 3 and 4. Here is the passage in context: Paul,…
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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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