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…
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Sarah Beckwith ( Shakespeare and the Grammar of Forgiveness ), further exploring the disruption of language in the aftermath of the Reformation, notes that two paths forward opened up. The first was magic, which the Reformers detected in the hocus pocus of the mass. This evaded the problem by bypassing…
Shakespeare’s plays are are a response to the crisis of authority and sacramental efficacy induced by the English Reformation, argues Sarah Beckwith in Shakespeare and the Grammar of Forgiveness . She writes of “an unprecedented, astonishing revolution in the forms and conventions of speaking, hence of modes of human relating.…
Rupert Shortt offers some thoughts on the Pope’s resignation : “Even John Paul II, renowned for the doggedness with which he pursued his ministry in the face of chronic ill health, is said to have entrusted his private secretary with a resignation letter to be published if he reached a…
Last year I tweeted through Lent, and compiled my thoughts here .
Those who doubt that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare,” writes Garry Wills in Verdi’s Shakespeare: Men of the Theater , “are working, usually from a false and modern premise.” They think of Shakespeare as something like a modern playwright who writes a play, shops it around, and finds a producer to put…
With Peter Leithart at the helm, the newly established Trinity House instills confidence. A careful reader of Scripture, a lover of liturgical worship, and an excellent theologian, Leithart is not afraid to pursue the truth—a quality we’re in serious need of in our often confusing ecclesial and theological landscape. As…
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