Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Part 1 We do not understand the role of women in ministry because we do not understand the role of men in ministry. We do not understand the role of men in ministry because we do not understand the church. We do not understand the church because the consumer culture…
1. One structure The Creation account (G1:1-2:4) conspicuously conveys meaning using the literary shape of the text. The narrative is told with formulaic patterns, repetitions, and parallelism. The Garden account is different. It is viewed as a separate text, with its own author, employing its own structure. This second account’s…
I was reading James Jordan’s Creation in Six Days while also preparing for Trinity Sunday in which the gospel reading is John 3:1-15. As providence would have it Jordan dropped an easter egg for me along the lines of baptism. In chapter 5 he points out, “ On the second…
It's true. There is no verse in the New Testament that commands or records an infant baptism. This poses a problem for some Christians. Those who only look for explicit commands, or those whose theology is limited to the New Testament, will conclude that infant baptism is not biblical and…
1. Goal This paper’s goal is to identify and describe a literary strategy employed by scripture, namely using two episodes that cover similar territory or themes using details drawn from opposite ends of a number of spectrums. Once described the reader may recognize numerous other instances of this strategy in…
Numbers 14 records the tragic story of Israel’s decision to rebel against Yahweh and Moses. Twelve spies had been sent into the land to bring back a report to Israel. All twelve spies agreed: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey”…
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Cavadini suggests that Augustine’s theory of the inner word is a theory of cultural production, formation, and transformation. First, Augustine’s theory opens space for the person’s transcendence of culture, a space that allows for critique and transformation. But this transcendence of culture does not mean removal from culture. The inner…
Colin Gunton has cited Augustine’s doctrine of the “inner word” as a sign of his preference for abstract over the material/concrete. John Cavadini (Theological Studies 1997) responds: “Augustine’s distinctions, between the presignified and the signified, are evidence unobserved and unaccounted for by Gunton, who sees a distinction only between the…
In his 1969 book on self-deception, Herbert Fingarette pointed out that self-deception could only work if the self was divisible, and suggested that the self is not a unit but a community of “subselves.” Fingarette traced this theme to Plato, and saw it intensified by the New Testament polarity of…
John D. Cox points out in his recent Baylor Press book on Shakespeare that ancient skepticism was not a-religious in the Renaissance and Reformation, but often served the purposes of reform. Erasmus, for instance, deployed skeptical arguments in challenging traditional, but corrupt, practices in the Catholic church. Like More, he…
Why 15-Love? “Love” is a corruption of the French “l’oeuf,” “the egg,” as in “the big goose egg.”
Tacitus records in Germania , 7, concerning the Germans in warfare: “They therefore carry with them when going to fight, certain images and figures taken out of their holy groves. What proves the principal incentive to their valour is, that it is not at random nor by the fortuitous conflux…
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