Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The god of Israel was not just any god. Two thousand years of Christian history, with it’s besetting philosophical temptations, and full-blown deist and transcendentalist and universalist problems, have obscured the fact that, in itself, the identity of the true god (or gods) cannot be predetermined, any more than the…
Jacob and Solomon God gave wealth and possessions to Jacob, and then threatened to take them all away at Peniel. Jacob wrestled with God, and through prayer Jacob saw through the crisis by faith and was made victor (Hosea 12:4). The Kingdom period in Israel concerns the same themes. We…
In our study of the historical impact and unfolding of the Ten Words of God, we now arrive at the Third Word. The Third Word prohibits hypocrisy, and when we realize this, we can see right away that disobeying the Third Word is closely tied to the situation of Israel…
Abraham and Joshua In our previous two essays, we considered aspects of the lives of Abraham and Jacob, as these display how God works with men in history. These two men carry in themselves all the future of Israel, so to speak, and their lives at the individual level correspond…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World (continued) Physical Training Though it is seldom recognized any more, the fact is that no liberal arts and no science is possible apart from peace, and peace is only possible if there is a strong military presence that protects a nation.…
Last month, in our essay " Patriarchal Dominion ," we observed the flow from Abraham to Jacob to Joseph. Our concern here is to advance our understanding of that narrative flow. I should mention that I am assuming much that is found in my book Primeval Saints: Studies in the…
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How can we live together when we disagree in the midst of our deepest differences? asked Os Guinness in his 2008 The Case for Civility . In a month that has seen violent clashes across the US, his question is more relevant now than when he wrote the book. The…
"What is a place ?" asks Massimo Cacciari in his contribution to The Intelligence of Place . To answer, he turns to Aristotle, who claimed that "all suppose that things which exist are somewhere." Fair enough, but what does that mean? Aristotle has some difficulty: "Entities are characterized by their…
The Paris Review published an excerpt from Jeff Nagy's forthcoming book on Degas and His Model . Written by one Alice Michel, and purportedly based on a first-person account from one of the painter's models, named Pauline, the account was first published in 1919 in Mercure de France. Nagy thinks…
David Nelson and Chad Raith (both friends of mine) offer a concise, lucid guide for those perplexed by Ecumenism . After an opening chapter defining ecumenism, the book traces the history of the ecumenical movement from its origins in the early twentieth century through the epochal shifts of the 1960s…
A report published in Social Forces examines the ripple effects of divorce. Instead of individualistically tracking the effects of divorce on the divorced couple, examining the costs and benefits of divorce, or, at most on the rest of the family, the study summarizes a social network analysis of divorce: What…
In discussing the rise of "mysteriological liturgical piety" in the fourth century, Alexander Schmemann ( Introduction to Liturgical Theology ) emphasizes the increasing pomp and ceremony of the liturgy. Orthodox liturgist though he is, Schmemann doesn't approve the development, as it emphasizes "exterior" rather than "interior" solemnity. "Exterior solemnity," he…
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