Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The resurrection stories in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are among the strangest stories in all of the literature of the world, even among the strangest stories in the Bible. That is true of each Gospel’s accounts individually, but even more of the collection as a whole. On the one…
As a pastor, I’m interested in discipleship. Christians are called to be disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Discipleship has everything to do with the disciplines we walk by in our lives. Things like Bible reading, prayer, and fasting are hallmarks of standard Christian discipleship. The basic thrust is that…
Psalm 1 is justly famous among biblical texts. It opens the Psalter, it’s a paean to the life-giving power of the Law, and it beautifully describes righteous life as a stable, fruitful tree. It subtly weaves the contrasting threads of wickedness and righteousness into a succinct summary of biblical wisdom:…
No book is more quoted in Hebrews than the Psalter: there are quotations and allusions to psalms on virtually every page. And many of the quotations are not passing references but closely considered and repeatedly cited as the author of Hebrews develops his central arguments. Much of Hebrews is exposition…
Howard Bloom is a beautiful hypocrite. The author of books in as different subjects as Mohammed, scientific theory, and the cultural upheaval of the 1960s, he professes to be a “stone cold atheist.” Yet in spite of that profession, Bloom obviously writes as a Jew; that is, he writes with…
There may be some debate about who deserves the title “the King of American literature,” but, at least to my mind, there should be no debate over who deserves to be “the Queen” – let’s give the crown to Flannery O’Connor. She is, however, a very unlikely queen. Unlikely, not…
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A few fragments from another project. On October 16, 1869, Charles W. Eliot gave his inaugural address as he took over the post of President of Harvard. It was “one of the greatest addresses in modern educational history, delivered with precise diction and in a deep mellow voice that lent…
These are notes for a talk I gave to college-bound junior and senior high school students. I want to begin with something like a quiz. For the first part of the quiz, I’ve had help from my own teenaged kids, who have given me some help identifying the right kinds…
Heath and Potter find Thorstein Veblen’s critique of consumerism much more persuasive, “far more penetrating than any of the theories developed in the 20th century.” Veblen argued that while poor societies devote every increase in production to meeting basic needs, richer societies can devote increases in production to “honorific” goods:…
In their book, Nation of Rebels , Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter explain why the Marxian critique of the consumer society as a product of “generalized overproduction” doesn’t work: “There is no such thing as generalized overproduction. Never was, never has been.” More fully, “The problem with Marx’s theory is…
The folks at First Things have posted a Pentecost meditation of mine on their web site: http://www.firstthings.com.
An article by Orthodox theology George Florovsky summarizes some of the history of the discussion of the motive of the incarnation in Western theology: “Rupert of Deutz (d. 1135) seems to be the first among the medieval theologians who formally raised the question of the motive of the Incarnation, and…
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