Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
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In the preface to Receptive Ecumenism , Paul Murray describes the three “voices” of the collection of essays in these terms: “(1) the dreaming of dreams; (2) the testing of such dreams for their viability; and (3) the discerning together of what might either hinder or promote their embodied ecclesial…
In a series of studies, Michael Tomasello and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology have attempted to isolate what makes human cognition different from that of higher primates. Through a series of studies, they concluded that the key difference is what they call “shared intentionality,” the “we”…
After the two witnesses, the seventh angel blows the seventh trumpet, and loud voices of praise break out in heaven (Revelation 11:15). We’re back in heaven, and the twenty-four elders prostrate themselves before the Lord, the pantokrator , and praise Him because the kingdom of this world ( tou kosmou…
Solomon’s throne had six steps (1 Kings 10), with two lions flanking each step. That means 12 lions. Twelve lions are twelve tribes. But not all the tribes are leonine. Look back at Genesis 49, and you’ll find a donkey tribe (Issachar), a serpent tribe (Dan), a doe tribe (Naphtali),…
Richard Ayoade’s 2013 The Double , based on a Dostoevsky novella, is a dark comedy in every sense of the word. It takes place in a shrouded world, where all trains run underground, all lights are dim or flickering, where the few outdoor scenes occur at night. The comedy comes…
Building on John Paul II’s theology of the body, Adam Cooper’s Holy Eros sketches out a “liturgical theology of the body.” He aims to show “how the liturgy bodily enacts the truth of our Christian faith, and how that truth in turn is expressed in the structure and bodily actions…
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