Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…
1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…
Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…
The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…
This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…
In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…
Showing page 2 of 309
Showing page 21 of 43
A trolley careens out of control. If you push the fat man in front of the trolley, you can save the lives of five people, including two children, but the fat man will die. What do you do? The typical answers people give, oddly, depends on whether the question is…
I begin with two fundamental objections to R. Alan Streett’s Subversive Meals , a study of early Christian meal practices in the context of Greco-Roman banquets and the Roman empire. First, Streett takes the Roman banquet as the primary context for understanding Christian meal practices. I insist that Judaism and…
Jennings observes, as many have, that the New Testament says a great deal about God overcoming our enmity to Him ( Transforming Atonement , 127). He overstates his case, because the Bible, including the New Testament, also has much to say about the wrath of God. But his point stands,…
Reflecting on Paul’s Eucahristic teaching in 1 Corinthians 10-11, Theodore Jennings writes ( Transforming Atonement , 162): “To see the force of [Paul’s] argument, one need only ask in what ways the manner of assembling as communities of faith serves to demonstrate and exacerbate differences of wealth or prestige, of…
Scot McKnight ( A Community Called Atonement , 75-6) observes that the prophecy of Joel 2 that is fulfilled at Pentecost is a prophecy of political catastrophe. Pentecost, he concludes is both justification - “God’s act of justifying and making His judgment clear” by the gift of the Spirit that…
Scot McKnight ( A Community Called Atonement ) sums up the atonement as “identification for incorporation” (107). Jesus identifies with us even to death so that He may incorporate us “in his destruction of death and the devil,” and into the perichoretic fellowship of the Triune God. That formulation enables…
Showing page 608 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
