Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Where do we go from here? Depending on one’s perspective, the American story can plausibly be interpreted in different ways. Looked at from past to present , we can see a great deal of continuity from medieval Christendom and the Reformation to America’s founding. The War for Independence, after all,…
Click HERE for Part 1 Civic Religion: American or Christian? We have already traced out the basic contours of the shift in America from an ecclesiocentric, theocratic social order to a secular one. Building on Locke and Hobbes, the Enlightenment accomplished an astonishing coup of Christendom. That victory for the…
Author’s Introductory Note: Engaging in broad historical interpretation as I am about to do is always risky. Necessarily, one “stylizes” history by simplifying, over generalizing, and stereotyping. But the narrative qualities of history are not simply due to the imposition of human rationality upon brute facts; rather history is always…
A. Repentance to life involves endeavoring to believe real hard that you’re saved. reject infant baptism. stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. B. What is necessary so that no sinner may expect to be forgiven unless he does it? Only…
The machine works mechanically and it is flawless. Slander/libel a group of Presbyterian ministers as “Romanist” because robes and James 2 are no worse than praying to Mary or relying on purgatory to pay for unconfessed sins. Drive off anyone who disagrees. Of that number, there may be a tiny…
If we take as a starting point the Tribal / Monarchical / Empire model, we can then add to it the Late Empire Phase. The particular ‘marker sin’ of Empire is false intermarriage, which signifies pluralism and syncretism. Empires by definition are “cosmopolitan” dominated by cities, high culture, many cultures,…
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I n a 2009 piece in The Weekly Standard , Sam Schulman argues that gay marriage replicates “a very limited, very modern, and very culture-bound version of marriage. Gay advocates have chosen wisely in this. They are replicating what we might call the ‘romantic marriage,' a kind of marriage that…
It's not clear how much rethinking Gordon Wenham has done to produce his Rethinking Genesis 1-11 . After all, Wenham has been writing illuminating commentary about the early chapters of Genesis for a long time. Re-thought or not, his new little book contains some treasures. He observes the inversion of…
R onald Byars knows that mainline churches are in trouble, and in Finding Our Balance , he lays out a program for renewal. Much depends on restoring a positive notion of authority and a bounded orthodoxy, since “every community, including the ecumenical church, needs boundaries” (46). Doctrinal renewal is not…
Rowan Greer's One Path for All is a study of Gregory of Nyssa's writings on the Christian life. It includes a dozen selections from Gregory's works, and then a series of essays on the pathway of pilgrimage and battle that every baptized person must, along with all the baptized, walk.…
Lisa Deam's A World Transformed is an engaging, meditative study of what she calls the “spirituality of medieval maps.” Maps, she argues, are never neutral. They “show what their users want and need to believe about the world. They allow us to daydream, to plot and scheme, to envision our…
Our very existence is gift. That means that our very existence involves participation in the life of the giver. Paul Griffiths (Decreation, 200) puts it this way: “the fact that you are is sheer unmerited gift, and what you are is a participant in the LORD.” Sin is the rejection…
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