Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Stranger: Do you have to use so many cuss words? The Dude: What the f*ck you talking about? - The Big Lebowski There was a man I knew, an elder at his church, who, whenever he was called upon to announce a pregnancy, preferred the euphemism “with child” because…
I know what you’re thinking. Organ: funeral, ball game, grand dusty cathedral. Why should modern Christians of such a technological age revisit a thousand year-old instrument? Don’t worry, I will not be trying to punch another hole in my Weird Music Preferences and Opinions card here. The truth is, our…
Do things have natures? As I am posing the question, it is not simply a question of whether there are particular kinds of things in the world that have characteristic features, patterns of behavior, trajectories of growth and development. If that is what the word means, then the answer is…
We are excited to announce our 2016 Nevin Lectures featuring Father John Behr. Fr. John is the Dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary and Professor of Patristics, as well as the author of multiple works. He will be delivering three lectures over the course of two days dealing with "What Protestants…
New Year's Day makes one reflective, at least about the past year, perhaps about life, perhaps, more broadly, about time itself. Many view time as a curse. Some see it as a curse because of missed chances. As one day or year moves on to the next, all we can…
It seems a truism to say that we live in the world: that the world is outside of us. In reality the world is very much inside of us too. In fact the world passes through us as much as we pass through it. We breathe in its air, using…
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“Scholars today (though in practice it is more the custom of the popularizers and media exponents) can afford to be snide or patronizing about the missionary movement,” writes Andrew Walls in The Cross-Cultural Process of Christian History . “But many branches of Western learning now exist because of it.” He…
After several chapters of polemic against nomos , Paul finally has a kind word for law, commending the “law of Christ” in Galatians 6:2. Some have suggested that the phrase refers to a set of teachings of Jesus, the sermon on the Mount perhaps as a kind of Christianized Torah.…
Scott Sunquist ( Understanding Christian Mission , 127-8) asks why African Christianity so often developed into independent churches rather than as mission plants from Western churches. He enumerates a number of causes, all of them revealing. One, unsurprisingly, was the “authoritarianism” of Western missionaries: “There were many well-educated and strong…
In a brief review of recent Asian Church history ( From Every Tribe and Nation ), Mark Noll makes the arresting comment that “Mao Zedong counts as one of the most significant figures in modern church history.” Noll hastens to add this was not Mao's intention; rather, it is “because…
I n an essay on “Christianity in the Non-Western World” found in The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History , Andrew Walls observes that “With relatively few (though admittedly important) exceptions, the areas and peoples that accepted Islam have remained Islamic ever since: Arabia seems now so immutably Islamic that it…
At the end of Galatians (6:11-16), Paul picks up on themes from the first part of the letter. In the opening greeting, Paul summarized his gospel as the Son’s self-giving to deliver us from the present evil age. At the end, he says that his participation in the cross means…
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