Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World As I mentioned above, the history of Israel involved several centuries as a church-without-a-culture, and then several centuries as a culture-without-a-city. To be sure, there was an informal culture around the church of the Patriarchs, but the civilization of free farmers…
In the Reformation Tradition we baptize both professing believers and their children. In the case of infants it is now commonly insisted that this is done because the children are already in covenant with God. Baptism is a sign and seal of a previously existing reality. Despite the popularity of…
Concerning Sex & the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the mumbo-jumbo and — presto! — the sacraments confer…
In 27.2, the Westminster Confession says that because of the “spiritual relation” between sacraments and the things they represent, “the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.” Applied to baptism, this means that when the Bible says that we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6), it…
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Jonathan Franzen begins his NYTBR review of Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation by describing Turkle’s unique place among commentators on technical culture: “She’s a skeptic who was once a believer, a clinical psychologist among the industry shills and the literary hand-wringers, an empiricist among the cherry-picking anecdotalists, a moderate among the…
Sex is supposed to keep everyone so busy that they don’t have time to fight. Make love not war has been the implicit slogan of nearly every utopian project in the modern age. Augusto del Noce ( Crisis of Modernity , 182-4) shows why this is not the case: “One…
Leave aside the question of illegal immigrants for a moment. Legal immigration is itself a political and cultural challenge. And one of the central questions is whether or not the newest immigrants - coming from Latin America, Africa, and Asia rather than from Europe - can assimilate to American life.…
Kings gather at a place called “Har-Magedon” for the war of the great day of God pantokrator (Revelation 16:12-16). If we put aside our assumptions about this scene and follow the threads indicated by the text, what can we say about this battle? One clue lies in the identification of…
According to John Allen Jr., writing in Crux , the next Christendom in Africa bears some resemblance to the last one – particularly with regard to the role of the Catholic church. African Catholicism has exploded, growing over 6700% during the twentieth century. The largest Catholic seminary in the world…
“The differences between these two major types of Christianity, at the present time, involve contradictions,” wrote Avery Dulles in The Catholicity of the Church . “Full unity cannot be achieved by convergence alone but only by conversion.” Dulles believed that the necessary conversion could only take place if each church…
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