Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The doctrine of justification is precious among Protestants. And it should be. The fact that God has declared our sins forgiven and that we have a righteous standing in the sight of God united to Christ is comforting and brings great joy. Unfortunately, the biblical teaching on justification is, many…
The Old Testament priests were given a number of seemingly disparate duties. As everyone knows, the priests led the sacrificial worship of Israel; only the priests could sprinkle blood on the altar or within the tabernacle, and only they could approach the altar to turn sacrificial animals into smoke. But…
M issional ecclesiology is all the rage these days, but for many being “missional” means downplaying or even eliminating concern for the “internal” life of the church, particularly its liturgical life. Missional and liturgical, mission and communio , are locked in zero-sum combat. That cannot be right. The liturgy is…
An old friend of mine, now passed into Heaven, started to say this in relationship to his sometimes troubled family, in the last quarter of his life, "I just had to take responsibility for the whole thing..." That was the seed for a new reading of the Gospel for me,…
She departed the port, dressed in her best ceremonial regalia, with tassels and flags fluttering from her mast and rigging. She stood tall, robed in mist, crowned in white, and backlit by the rising sun. There she sat, shimmering and spotless; with a perfect ragtop, and a full tank of…
John the Baptist is presented in the gospels as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise that God would send His messenger to prepare the way for the coming of the glory of the Lord (Is. 40), and the promise to send Elijah before Him to turn the people to…
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John Cuddihy ( No Offense , 31-43) gives an illuminating and damning analysis of Reinhold Niebuhr's transformation from the son of a Missouri Lutheran pastor to the famous urbane public theologian. For Cuddihy, the interest of the account is not merely in Niebuhr's own transformation but in the way his…
Stephen Warner argues that in analyzing American religion and culture, we need to go beyond the contrast of assimilation v. multiculturalism, and beyond the simple opposition of the “culture war.” He suggests that the category of mestizaje , mixing, is more fruitful. In particular, he briefly explores the historical reasons…
The first gift promised to faithful members of the seven Asian churches is access to the tree of life in Paradise (Revelation 2:7). that is one of the last things mentioned in John's vision of new Jerusalem (22:1-2, 14). The first thing promised is the last delivered. That inversion continues…
Robert Wuthnow ( Rough Country ) observes that “symbolic boundaries having to do with religion do in fact include differences in patterns of social relationships. Homophily appears in social networks to some extend such that Catholics are more likely to include fellow Catholics among their networks of close friends than…
In his classic 1978 study of civil religion, No Offense , the late John Cuddihy affirms Talcott Parsons's view that civil society or civic culture isn't post-Christian but intensely Christianized. It is “a genuine, progressive stage in the further institutionalization of Christian values into the social structures and institutions (political,…
Ross Douthat comments on why so many of his fellow journalists are turning away from the outrageous organ trade of Planned Parenthood: “it’s precisely a fetus’s humanity that makes its organs valuable, and the experience of recognizing one’s own children, on the ultrasound monitor and after, as something more than…
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