Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When a certain Samaritan village refused Jesus’ attempt to visit, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven upon it. The allusion to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is evident, but, as the story shows, James’ and John’s thinking was entirely warped. Jesus rebuked…
In the first part of this essay, I considered paideia (formation)and mimesis (imitation) in the context of Aristotle’s virtue ethics and that of the New Testament. The overall concern is to realize how relevant is Aristotle’s ethics both to diagnosing our current malaise and to enculturing our children, though we…
In these posts I am inviting you into my philosophical reflection about integration , the absence of which we feel palpably in our fragmented world. My hope is for us to understand it more deeply, and to be ourselves reintegrated in the process. At this point in this extended inquiry…
It’s hard to imagine someone, centuries from now, mistaking our culture for a moral highpoint in the history of the West. Increasingly the news is dominated by school shootings, abusive policing, sexploitation of women, and increasing rates of suicide, addiction, and divorce. In response, the Left calls for regulations, surveillance,…
“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” (Ps. 34:17-18) God is listening. He is listening when we ask Him for financial provision,…
The allusions to Mt. Sinai in the transfiguration story point to Jesus as a new Moses and even more as Yahweh, the God who met Moses and Elijah on the mountain. The fact that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah spoke of Jesus’ “exodus” suggests that the mountain of transfiguration was intended…
Showing page 86 of 309
Showing page 22 of 43
T he “second Reformation” introduced Reformed liturgy and teaching into Lutheran Germany. This was seen by some as a continuation of the Reformation and a purgation of Catholic remnants. The effort to carry on “further reformation” led to disputes with Lutherans. As Bodo Nischan has put it, the hottest debate…
T he late William J. Stuntz spent his life studying the American criminal justice system. In a 2001 article on our “pathological politics of criminal law,” he lays out the institutional barriers to the fundamental reform that we need. Most descriptions and prescriptions for criminal justice reform assume that criminal…
I n her “new history” of The Reformation , Lee Palmer Wandel offers a stark, sobering summary of the shattering effects of the Reformation. “By 1600, Europe was no longer ‘Christian.’ Some places were Lutheran, some, Catholic, some Reformed. Even if we recognize them all as Christian, they did not.…
A t the American Interest , James S. Henry examines Trump's Russian connections. It's an unnerving read. Whatever his relationship with Putin, Trump “has certainly managed to accumulate direct and indirect connections with a far-flung private Russian/former Soviet Union (FSU) network of outright mobsters, oligarchs, fraudsters, and kleptocrats. Any one…
T wo hundred years ago this month, Jane Austen put aside her pen for the last time, dating an unfinished novel that has come to be known as Sanditon . Anthony Lane thinks the novel shows that, despite her physical decay, Austen had lost none of her powers: “Although—or precisely…
S ummarizing the argument of Walter Scheidel's The Great Leveler , the Economist reports: “inequality within countries is almost always either high or rising, thanks to the ways that political and economic power buttress each other and both pass down generations. It does not, as some have suggested, carry within…
Showing page 192 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
